His Elect !

Here is what I would like to know;

How would me believing in TULIP enhance my walk with God?

 

Actually, everything should be about the unity of God's children. I believe God would rather have His children walking in harmony with each other towards the common goal of fulfilling the Great Commission.

Don't get me wrong, I once loved debating these issues and had done so for the past fifteen years. OSAS, TULIP, Rapture, Tribulation, etc. And you know what I have learned? You will see your selected scriptures your way and I will see my selected scriptures my way. So what are we left with? Answer....Each other. So it is about you and me, or at least it should be. You are my brother in Christ, is Christ divided?

Bottom line is that believing in TULIP or not believing in TULIP will not hasten the day of the Lord, adding souls to the Kingdom, however, will.

It makes for good fellowship debate, these topics, but it can consume our time too much and I am sure that makes our enemy happy to see we get all tied up bickering over such things.

I have spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours on these topics and after all of the thousands of post I dont think I changed one persons mind that I know of and I know no one has ever changed mine. And if someone did, so what?

As I asked, How would believing in TULIP enhance my walk with God? Because when it all boils down to it, the scriptures were given to us to enhance our relationship with God, they were not meant to divide the church.

If you can show me how believing in TULIP can enhance my walk with God then I will certainly give it another look. I certainly have alot of room to grow in Christ.

 

Amen! Just as the name Jesus Christ means something unscriptural to the Mormons who believe Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers, as well as Jesus Christ meaning something unscriptural to the JW's who say Jesus is a created being.

 

Say I believe your TULIP is correct, how will my walk with God be enhanced?

 

Steaver,

I am certainly not an advocate of SBG's type of soteriology as he is ecentric, extreme in his views and wrong in many.

However, I understand your question and it is a very good question. I for one opposed TULIP for many years and strongly opposed it. However, the Lord opened up the scriptures to me so that I could clearly see it. When he opened my understanding I stopped fighting it and became a learner.

Here is how it has helped me in many areas. It has made me more patient with lost folks because I understand they have no ability to want to be saved and will not until God opens their eyes. Therefore it has changed my prayer life in regard to my lost family members and friends. It has also changed my witnessing methods. I no longer think that a person's salvation depends upon how well I can sell the program. I simply share the gospel in complete confidence as best as I can knowing the Lord will use it either on judgement day or part of the process of planting the seed that someone else may water. It has made me appreciate my own salvation in a much greater way. It has made me more sensitive to God's work in those I am witnessing to and more acceptive of the adverse circumstances around me. It has changed my preaching and made me see that pressure evangelistic tactics are wrong and many times drive people away from the gospel. I could go on listing many other things that embracing the doctrine of grace has impacted my personal walk.

 

>Muslims and Jews apply all their terms for "god" to something other than the God revealed in Scriptures.

Then there is no such thing as the "Judeo-Christian" religion. The OT God is not the NT God?

 

You are confusing muslims and MODERN Jews with Old Testament Judaism. Conservative Christianity has its roots in both the New Testament and Old Testament Judaism.

 

Thanks for the reply brother Walter.

My testimony is a bit different. I do not strongly oppose TULIP. I clearly understand why those who embrace it have done so according to the sriptures that they choose to focus on. Same goes for those who believe one can lose their salvation, I understand why they would believe this way because of the scriptures they choose to zero in on.

Now when you say "the Lord opened up the scriptures to me so that I could clearly see it", then I guess the Lord has chosen to keep me blinded to it because I have prayed for clear understanding concerneing all of the doctrinal issues that have divided the church. In fact, this is why I spent so much time in debate threads, to learn and understand. I am not closed minded, I pray and I question. Many people don't like my questions and many times it is because they cannot answer.

I am not fighting it, for it matters not to me if TULIP is correct or not. It would not change my love for God nor my heart for the lost. Nor do I believe that I had anything to do with my salvation and the grace of God bestowed upon me. I simply said "I do". I could not have said "I do" without God first giving me the ability to do so. Were we differ is that you would say God selects some to be able and selects some to not. I say God allows all the ability and thus the lost have no excuse.

I feel the same way and also understand God must open their eyes. I just don't see the "irresistable grace" in operation, I have seen the grace shake people yet they reject, indicating to me that their eyes had been opened.

I totally agree! It's not about how well we can deliver the message. We plant and water, it is up to God to give the increase.

If TULIP is correct and faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, then the Elect could not be driven away from the gospel, unless the evangelist did not preach the gospel at all.

Thanks for sharing your testimony brother. May God bless you in His service! :thumbsup:

 

I completely understand your position as that was my former position. However, you have the same point of misunderstanding that I did. God does not have to select anyone to be disabled or to be lost or to be non-elect. Adam made that selection for the race as their representative. This is the argument presented by Paul in Romans 5:12-19 - "all have sinned.....by one man's disobedience many were made sinners..."

when man is individualized by human birth they are already predisposed by their own fallen nature to resist and reject God.

Furthermore, as Jesus clearly stated they are "condemned already" and predisposed to unbeleif.

Election is "TO salvation" rather than to damnation. God does not have to choose any to be damned as they themselves made that choice in Adam and in their own experience.

What you have seen is merely external as you have never looked into the human heart or mind. God's Word is much more dependable guide to the matters of the heart (1 Jn. 2:19).

"Irresistable grace" is an unfortunate expression and cannot be found in the Scriptures. Instead of filling this page with scriptures, please permit me to just state it in simplified terms. We are born with a heart of flesh. The New birth is God giving a new heart (Ezek 36:26-27) and a new spirit within us and working in us causing us to walk in his ways (Philp. 2:13). Faith is the expression of the heart (Rom. 10:10) as "with the heart man believeth" but it is not the expression of the "heart of flesh" but rather the new heart given by God and thus faith is a gift of God inseparable from the new heart given to us by God. Before you react take a look at the following texts:

Deut. 5:29 O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!

Consider this is stated just after giving Israel the ten commandments and after they respond they will keep them. God is saying they don't have the necessary "heart in them" to do this.

Now, at the end of the book of Deuternomy the Lord says:

De 29:4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

Notice carefully, that they do not possess a heart to respond to God properly (Deut. 5:29) and this heart must first be given by God IN ORDER FOR THEM to have the ABILITIES that are prerequisite for repenting and beleiving in Him. In other words, the heart they obtain at birth is incapable of perceiving, seeing and hearing. Repentance and faith is impossible without these abilites and yet this heart must be GIVEN by God BEFORE they are capable of these things - "with the heart man beleiveth."

This giving of a new heart is the new birth as described in Ezekiel 36:26-27 that provides ABILITY to respond to God appropriately:

Ezek 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

The new heart does not precede faith but is contemporaneous with faith as the "new" heart is a BELIVING HEART - A SEEING HEART - A PERCEVING HEART - A HEARING HEART.

It is given to the elect in connection with the preaching of the gospel WHEN God empowers the gospel as his CREATIVE word that brings this new heart into existence within the elect:

1 Thes. 1:4 Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.
5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance;

Who are the elect and how can they know they are God's elect? Paul tells them in verse 3 they can know if they are God's elect. This knowledge is based upon HOW the gospel came to them and what it DID within them versus HOW it did not come to them.

The gospel comes to many in "word only" but not so with the elect. It comes "in power" and "in the Holy Ghost" and "in much assurance." In other words faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the "Rhema" - the WORD OF COMMAND or EMPOWERED WORD.

Paul likens this power to the creative power exercised by God in the creation of light in Genesis 1:3 in connection with the preaching of the gospel:

2 Cor. 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.


This description of metaphorical light or "knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is eternal life or as Jesus said the same thing like this:

Jn. 17:2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Paul explained this empowering of metaphorical light as spiritual life when he described the state of the unregnerate in the following terms:

Eph. 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

Regeneration/quickening/spiritual life is this knowledge of God through Jesus Christ in the heart and it is given by the command of God -"by his own will he begat us by the word of truth" in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel to his elect.

Please reread these scriptures carefully and you will see there is a logical order (not necessarily a chronological order) where God first gives a new heart and new spirit - that is a hearing and beleiving heart - in direct relationship to the preaching of the gospel. As the gospel is being shared with God's elect, God empowers it and commands into existence a new heart and new spirit that makes itself manifest in repentance from sin and faith in Christ.

 

Greetings brother Walter, I appreceate you taking the time to post all of those scriptures. You don't really know me that well so I have to tell you that I have been through all of the scriptures back and forth in debates and totally understand your pov and why you hold it.

I'm not sure the point above is a point of misunderstanding as you explained it. I agree with everything you said above.

Here is a sticking point for me, maybe you can help me over this hurdle.....

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen [doth gather] her brood under [her] wings, and ye would not!"

It pains God that Israel will not repent, but TULIP declares it is impossible for them to repent unless God causes them to repent.

It would be like me telling my son who has fallen down a well to grab hold of the rope so I can pull you up and save you....but I do not give him the rope. I plead with my son to just grab hold of the rope....but I give him no rope to grab. Please, please, please grab the rope son!! But he sees no rope to grab. :tear:

Does this really sound like the God we love and serve?

 

Note the words "and ye would not." What prevents them from coming to Christ? Is it God's love that prevents them or is it their own irreversable enmity to God (Rom. 8:7 "and neither indeed can be").

Is the nature of their inability really the consequence of their enmity toward God? Is it they "would not" because they are at "enmity" with God? In other words they have no "heart" for God but rather have hatred.

For example, the proper analogy would not be your son in a well, but your worst enemy in the well. You throw him the rope and tell him to trust in you, his worst enemy, to pull him up out of the well. What hast to be changed within the enemy before he will trust you? Moreover, does he want to change his hatred toward you? Is he willing to change his hated toward you? Romans 8:7 answers that question by no and Jesus answers that question by "and ye would not."

Hence, God's love won't change the hearts of enemies, only giving them a new heart or disposition can do that.

If that is the case then that leaves God to make a decision whether to save all mankind by granting all mankind a new heart/disposition to want to grab the rope OR to justly condemn all mankind for their hatred, in addition to not grabing the rope OR for justly condemning some while soverignly choosing others due to no merit of their own to be granted a new disposition/heart of willingness to trust Him and grab the rope. Thus glorified by both His justice in some and his mercy in others.

Now, does justice demand God grant all sinners a new dispositon of willingness to love and come to him? No, God's justice only demands his wrath. So, is God just by carrying out wrath upon sinners? Yes.

Now, does justice deny that God can grant SOME sinners a new dispostion of willingness and not others? Only if the just penalty of that "some" is not satisfied. They can claim no merit in any case.

God's love is always resisted by His enemies but it is his grace and mercy that changes enemies into willing and loving children.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That is John 3:16. However, did you go on to read John 3:17-19. Sinners are condemned already and justly because they are unwilling to come to Christ and because they LOVE darkness MORE than light. It is not God's love that saves sinners from their hatred it is his power to perform a transforming work in them that changes their hatred into love - give them a new heart.

The exercise of His power is stated to be a sovereign perogative of God to have mercy upon whom he will have mercy, so that it is not him that willeth or him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy.

It is his unconditional choice to save whom he will and to justly condemn whom he will because none merit salvation and all justly deserve damnation. God is glorified in his wrath as well as in his grace and justice only demands wrath but never grace.

God has a benevolent love for all his creation but he has a special redemptive love for the elect. That elective love is not determined by merit or by justice as none justly deserve it, but according to the good pleasure of God's own purpose hidden in eternity.

The person in the well is a hater of the person letting down the rope and no amount of persuasion will change that hatred into trust.

 

It just doesn't pass a common sense interpretation. I gave just one scripture example, but there are many where God commands or pleads with sinners to repent. TULIP and I agree that no one can repent without God. However, we disagree how that draw is administered to the lost.

But this plays off the pov that God must first create a new heart without man's choice, I don't see the scriptures this way. I believe God must first convict a person's heart of the truth via the working of the Holy Spirit, but the new heart is not done until the person says "I do".

"Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God," (eternal life) "and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink;" (Son of God) "thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water". (Holy Spirit rebirth, John 7:39)

Ask and receive.

This is another point of disagreement between TULIP and myself. I believe God's justice provides a just answer to the curse. The curse is unavoidable by all mankind, it is from conception in the womb. Therefore, true jutice would demand the cure must be available to all of mankind for all of mankind had no choice in the curse.

Cursing all of mankind for Adam's sin may sound unfair and harsh, and it would, except there be a fair solution or cure for the unavoidable curse ordered by the curse giver, God. No one can lay any charge against God because God provided a cure for the curse and thus mankind is without excuse and without a charge to lay against God.

If all justly deserve damnation, and this is true because of a curse ordered by God through no fault of their own, then all justly deserve a cure be made availalbe, that is true justice. Then will no man be without excuse, Jesus Christ will be glorified, and God will be viewed as just and fair by all creation.

It is not justice to condemn a man for another's sin. The attonement is the cure for the original sin and the original curse, it is not "limited". Thus the attonement is finished and what is left to be judged is belief.

Gotta go brother, thank you for all your time and post. I have no illusions that my argument will change your mind or any others, but it need not. Whether we agree on this matter will make no difference to those awaiting to hear the gospel of peace. Preach on brother! God Bless!

 

Why don't you just toss hermeneutics into the garbage can because you arbritrarily just make any text of scipture mean anything you want it to me regardless of its context, its grammatical relationship to verses before or after. You have no respect for God's Word but twist it any way you want to make it fit anything you want.

 

Your analogy was wrong. The person in the pit is not the child of the man throwing down the rope. It is his avowed enemy calling upon him to repent (change his mind about him) and put their trust in him. The response will always be "is there someone else up there."

The natural man always resists the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51) and any conviction process apart from transformation always results in a different kind of repentance - "worldly repentance" (2 Cor. 7:10).

In regard to the elect the gospel comes to them "not in word only but IN power and in the Holy Spirit and" finally "in much assurance" - 1 Thes. 1:4-5. This kind of conviction by the Holy Spirit always ends in "repentance unto salvation" - 2 Cor. 7:10.

2 Cor. 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

The sorrow of the world is where natural conviction under the Word of God begins prior to regeneration and Judas is a good example of this in his false profession and later in his repentance concerning betraying Christ. Conviction was present in both cases. However, the conviction in both cases was not that which resulted in a transformation of nature or "to salvation not to be repented of" but was ultimately was the type that "worketh death" and he went out an hanged himself due to a deep sense of conviction of his sin but not "godly sorrow" for his sin. In the elect worldly sorrow is at work upon until God makes the gospel His creative word by which transformation occurs and the manistation of that power is repentance and faith in Christ. That is when the gospel comes NOT in "word only" but "IN" power and "IN" the Holy Spirit and "IN" much assurance to ONLY the elect - 1 Thes. 1:4-5.

Jesus is addressing one of his elect and the consequences proved she was one of God's elect. However, note what he said, "if thou knewest" the gift and the person talking to her she would. In John 17:2-3 it is the knowledge that is not given to all people but only "to as many as thou hast given me"

Jn. 17:2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Take note of the word "all" in verse 2 but then the denial that eternal life will be given to "all" but only "to as many as" the Father hath "given me" - meaning, God did not give "all flesh" to the Son for Him to give eternal life unto.
Note what he says eternal life is in verse 3 - the same thing he told the woman.

Your reasoning here is that man is a victim rather than the perpetrator of the curse. Romans 5:12-19 demonstrates that the whole human race acted in the fall through Adam (v. 12). Hence, they are not victims of Adam's sin but they are perpetrators with Adam in that sin and therefore death is their just consequence. Hence, justice does not demand salvation of any but only condemnation and that is precisely how Christ understood it in John 3:18

Jn. 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already,

Jesus did not view sinners as victims of the fall but as justly condemned "already" so that the wrath of God justly hovers over them (Jn. 3:36 - John the Baptists words).

As long as you take this position and view Adam's children as victims then of course your logic is correct. However, the scriptures do not view them as victims but rather that the whole race acted in Adam when Adam sinned and thus it is perfectly just that the consequences of that sin be applied to the whole race because "by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin FOR ALL SINNED" when Adam sinned.

Again, the victim mentality is your ground for the argument of fairness. However, the Bible does not see sinners as victims in the fall but as willful participants as one human nature acting in one person. Hence, what is fair is condemnation of the whole race and justice calls only for wrath and nothing more.

Not only do you view sinners as victims but you place God in a position guilt unless he justifies himself by a certain action. As long as you take these very reverse views of the scriptures then your conclusion is logical.

Note the contradiction between your first and second phrases. You talk about "justly deserve" in the first phrase but then contradict that in the second phrase by "no fault of their own" placing the actual guilt on God for their sins and they are mere victims of an evil God who must justify himself to be cleared from guilt.

1. God is not the author of sin. God merely produced the mechanisms necessary to choose between good and evil without making man choose either.

2. It is not God that sinned but mankind as a race in Adam and so mankind justly deserves condemnation and wrath as they participated in that sin in Adam, just as Levi participated in Abraham when he paid a tithe to Melchezadek.


Your whole logical foundation makes God the real sinner and man the helpless victim and therefore God cannot clear himself of guilt unless he at leasts provides a cure for the victims and then it is up to them if they want the cure or not.

Again, you make God the sinner and mankind the victims rather than participants in and with Adam in his sin and thus the only way God can clear Himself from being unjust is to provide a cure for all without exception.

According to this kind of logic no human should be held accountable for any sin they do because they are mere victims of the fallen nature which was no fault of their own but Adam's fault which ultimately was God's fault.

However, the Bible does not take any aspect of that view. It views all men as guilty and worthy of condemnation and under condemnation and wrath even before they hear the gospel. Moreover, those who never hear the gospel but simply reject the light given them in creation, in conscience is suffient to condemn them to hell (Rm. 1:18-2:15).

If ignorance of the gospel means they could not be condemned justly for their sins then the best thing for you and me to do is keep the gospel a secret so that all mankind will go to heaven. However, the fact that the gospel is necessary for salvation necessarily implies they are under just condemnation "already" and are not victims but are participants even before they were individually born into this world as infants die.

Again, you take the clear position that mankind are victims rather than co-participants of sin in Adam -- Paul repudiates that view in Romans 1:18-3:23 and Romans 5:12-19. However, as long as that is your foundational logical starting point your conclusion will be exactly as it is in this post.