FAITH continued . . .

You're both.

 

Aaron stands in greater affinity with the Apostle than you do DHK. I know from experience in dealing with you.

And you are supposed to be a mod?

How can you question his definition of faith and then turn around and ask if he has one?

Make sure you that you don't question his faith -- not just the definition of faith.

 

How old are you again?

 

Old enough to realize that you can't teach an old webdog to behave.

 

You are quick to suggest personal attacks are being made without carefully reading the conversation. You assume one's beliefs because "I know from my experience in dealing with you." You experiential knowledge is an appeal to nothing more than arrogance or gnosticism. Which one?

Here is what Aaron said:

Notice that nothing was said about one's personal faith. But you have taken the opportunity to jump in and make personal attacks anyway.

We both agree: "the carnal mind is at enmity with God."
What I have demonstrated is that the believer can be at enmity with God, for the believer is often a carnal Christian, a Christian who more often than not is a friend of the world rather than a friend of God. I have pointed to Scripture to demonstrate this, which has not yet been refuted.

3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? (James 4:3-5)

By context the Scripture refers to believers. Verse 3 speaks of prayer. Verse 5 speaks of the Holy Spirit that dwells within US, including James. He is addressing believers, and those in verse four are worldly, carnal believers, whom James says are at enmity with God, and therefore the enemy of God.

What Aaron has not done is define faith.
I have defined faith in a previous post; perhaps it would be well if both you and he go back and read it. What is faith. Does God give faith to an condemned sinner. No, God does not give spiritual gifts, even the gifts of the Spirit to the unsaved. The Calvinists disagree. Aaron says he sides with Paul, but that is not what Paul teaches.

Paul teaches that FAITH comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. He does not say that God gives faith to the unsaved. Where do you or Aaron get that from?

However, let Aaron stand on his own two feet. What is faith? Does he know? Do you know? Basic definitions are imperative for an intelligent discussion.

 

Neither. False choices there DHK. I know from my many prior experiences in dealing with you on the BB.

And if you would read more carefully you would notice that I said :"Make sure you don't question his faith -- not just the definition of faith." I was cautioning you. In other words, it's fine to ask him his definition of faith (although you said you disagreed with it -- it's hard to disagree with something that wasn't said) but don't let it lead to the point of questioning his faith.

You can't have it both ways. You have said you disagreed with his definition of faith. Then,you say he has not defined it. LOL

I'm very aware of your opinion especially from the old thread :God Got The Memo. You don't think God gives faith. You think faith is self-generated. He may have been aware but He wasn't really part of the process. Due to your discernment and superior reasoning powers you came to faith.

 

Jesus likened the kingdom of God to the faith of a child.
When my children were just one and two years old they had implicit faith in me. They would stand on a platform six to seven feet high and jump into my arms without questioning me. They trusted me implicitly. They put their confidence in me. Faith is confidence.

My child did not have superior reasoning powers in order to place his faith in me.
It is obvious that you have a complete lack of knowledge of what faith is.
Faith is confidence in the word of another.
Biblical faith is confidence in the Word of God.

God does not give faith to the unsaved. It comes from the Word (the gospel)
Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God.

I have given you Scripture; you have given me opinion and some sarcasm. I will take God over you.

 

I have not read the entire thread so forgive me if this has been said, but I am an adherent to the main ideas of the doctrines of grace, and at this point I would word the arguement like this. Man does have the ability to trust Christ (have faith), but is not able to apart from God because of the depths of sin indwelling him. This means that he can trust Christ (it is possible) but never does. Faith is built by seeing, understanding, and trust God and what He has revealed to us (the gospel). It is a result of conviction of our sins and some sense of understanding of life (wisdom from above). We must connect the general foundations such as we are sinners at heart, we have sinned against God the Creator and Judge, God is merciful and has provided a way to be justified, and we must naturally, upon seeing, flee to Christ willingly. That is faith, to trust in Christ and rely upon Him not only for salvation but for life. That is all a result of the Spirit. This is why I say it is possible to trust and believe in whatever we want, but to trust and believe in God requires that God must perform that miracle. if you think about the impossibility of salvation and its intricacies, it is nothing less than a miracle of God within us.

 

I would like to try to show you where faith comes from, Bro. Aaron!!

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Eph. 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Now, I have shown you(I know you know where faith comes from, BTW) in these verses where faith comes from. Now what is faith?

Heb. 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Now, who gets this faith?

Rom. 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

Why do some people's faith grow, and other's do not?

2 Pet. 1:5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to *patience godliness;
(*Luke 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.: )
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

Now, lets break it down to its simplest form. Faith is a gift of God, correct? Once the gift has been given to them, its theirs, correct? Now, the reason why those who die lost died in their dead state of sin is because they never added to their faith!! Once God granted me "faith", I had to put it to use. I added to my faith by seeking after Him and His mercy. I added to my faith by listening to God anointed, God called preachers telling me what I must do to be saved!!

Once God revealed to me that I was lost and needed to be saved by Him, that was His faith given to me. Now this faith was/is mine now. It was His gift to me. Now if I had sat there and did nothing about it, and died without doing something about(asking for His mercy, going to church and listening to what the preachers had to say, seeking after Him, etc.), I would have went to hell. But over time, I added to my faith by doing what was required of me. Repent, believe and be baptized(Holy Ghost inward baptism). Please do not take this as a "me" conversion, and that I saved myself. I did not, and could not, save myself. But when God called me, I did have to respond.

i am I AM's!!

Willis

 

Willis, I liked what you said there, but I disagee on one point. In Eph 2:8 when it says, "it is the gift of God:", this phrase or clause cannot be refering to the word faith. This is shown by the very next verse that says, "Not of works, lest any man should boast". This cannot be modifying the word faith, because works are contrasted to faith in the scriptures. The gift that is not of works must be refering to the word saved.
This was discussed in another thread, this is an adverbial clause and cannot modify a noun (faith), but modifies the verb (saved). An adverb clause will always answer How?, When?, or Where?. "it is the gift of God: Not of works" tells HOW we are saved, and cannot modify the noun faith.
But I agree that God has given a measure of faith to all men, and we are responsible to use it.
Mark 4:24 And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. 25 For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
If we have faith and believe God's word, we shall be given more. But to those who do not hear and believe God's word, that little faith they have shall be taken away.
This is also shown when Jesus described faith as a mustard seed which is tiny. But if this tiny amount of faith is used, if it is planted, it will grow into a large herb. But a seed not utilized, not planted cannot grow.

 

James said that those who are friends of the world are the enemies of God.
He said that friendship of the world is "enmity with God." He also was speaking of the carnal mind and his remarks was addressed to believers. But you refuse to look at the totality of Scripture. In order for your Calvinistic view of Scripture to stand you must carefully cherry pick your verses and take them out of context.

 

First, James is speaking to believers. Second, he is not speaking about faith. This verse you have taken out of context.

The subject of the passage is salvation. Salvation is the gift of God.
For by grace are you saved.
Through faith are you saved.
Salvation is the gift of God. The gift of God does not define faith, but rather the subject of the verse--salvation. Please learn your grammar.

You have only shown me how you have the ability to take Scripture out of context.

This is a description of faith, not a definition.

You ignore the context again! Faith here is speaking of spiritual gifts given to believers. It has nothing to do with unbelievers. God does not give faith to condemned unsaved individuals.

Again, you are off topic now. The subject is: Where does the faith come from that an unbeliever needs to be saved. The answer is: It does not come from God. It is innate. Faith is confidence that one has to put his trust in someone or something. Often a person puts that confidence in a false god, rather than the true and living God, but it is faith nevertheless.

All of these things refer to the believer. We have no quarrel that a believer's faith will grow as he develops a relationship with the Lord. After all faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It should be obvious to all that no unbeliever has the fruit of the Spirit.

NO!! Totally uncorrect! God does not give spiritual gifts to the unsaved.

NO! False premise leads to false conclusions.

Another false conclusion drawn from a false premise. They are lost because they never put THEIR faith in Christ. They had the choice that God gave them to believe on His Son.

Preachers told you what to do. You heard the gospel. Your "faith" came from hearing what those preachers said, i.e., the Word of God.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
That is where your faith came from--being convinced of the message of Bible, that it was reasonable, an intellectual and logical message of Christ dying for your sins and based in historical fact demonstrated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It was not some nebulous existential gibberish which did not make sense. It was real and appealed to your senses in a well thought out manner. In addition to that the Holy Spirit was convicting you of your sinfulness. But God did not give you the faith to believe.

 

Proverbs 24:6 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.

 

So, we get faith on our own, or it conjurs itself up all by itself?? We can not understand one thing on our own, unless the Lord gives us this enlightenment. I didn't even realize my lost condition and the consequences of dying lost until He showed me how vile I really was. Faith comes before salvation, and not before. God shows us our lost condition and draws us(faith beginning). Now, once He shows us our lost state, we must BELIEVE(faith in action) that He will save us, if we will only humble ourself under His mighty hand. You don't walk into a math class and automatically know all the equations. The teacher(God) has to teach us each of the different equations. That is the way of salvation. He shows us our dead state, and we must then begin to draw to Him after He draws us.

Faith is a gift of God, wheter you accept this or not.

i am I AM's!!

Willis

 

And horses are oxen whether you like it or not.
You can make all the assertions you like but that doesn't make it true.
You did not back your statement up with a single verse of Scripture.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Your faith came by hearing the Word of God, not by some existential, inner working, nebulous, gnostic-like feeling. That is hogwash Calvinistic error. Stick with the Scripture. You would not have faith unless you had heard the Word of God.

Again what does the Scripture say:
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23)

We are born again by the Word of God.
--There is not a single verse in the Bible that says an unsaved person is born again by faith that God gives him. That is totally unbiblical. God did not give you faith. God does not give any condemned person faith. He does not give spiritual gifts to the unsaved. Demonstrate that through Scripture before making wild and unfounded biased claims.

 

The reason why I didn't show you anything with scripture, Brother, is because I know you will say that I have ripped them out of context, when the fact remains that I did not....but I digress.

I did not say that faith does not come by hearing the word of God, but a person can hear the Word preached in power, and unless God enlightens their mind, they will not understand much of what is being preached. It takes God to give us the understanding of His Word, and not man.

Rom. 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?

17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

I am using the Romans 10 passage to prove a point. You can go to church and not really go to church. What do I mean? I went to church many times before I was saved, but serving God was something I did not want to do at that time(I did this at times just to make someone happy). Sure, I heard the message preached, but I was hearing it with my "natural ears", and not the "spiritual ears" that my "inner man" has. Now, when God began drawing me, I went to church then. I wanted to know what I must do to be saved!! My "inner ears" were attentative to what the preacher was preaching, and God would show me some things along the way.

Here is something to ponder, Brother DHK:

Heb. 4:1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

Here we can see a "us" and "them". "Us" heard the Word with faith, and will enter into His rest. "Them" heard the Word, but not being mixed with faith, it profitted them nothing.

You can hear the Word all your life, but until you believe in God, it will not happen. You can not have faith until God gives it to you, as a gift from Him to you.

Rom. 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

1 Cor. 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

If we get any understanding whatsoever concerning His Word, it comes from Him, including faith.

i am I AM's!!

Willis