Once a Son Always a Son?

Nay, my argument doesn't carry any conclusion that God is the author of evil. God permitted sin, He did not invent it. He knew that Satan would sin, He knew that Satan would tempt Adam and Eve to sin, yet He did not stop it. If He didn't want it to happen, it wouldn't have. God was indeed sovereign over that.

God is sovereign over everything including sin, meaning that no one will sin more than God allows. That's why every person on the earth isn't like Hitler, or Stalin, or anybody like that, or even worse. Adam and Eve had free choice. God said that they could eat of every tree but one. They were tempted and chose to eat of the very one God said not to eat of. They were responsible for what they did. God didn't make them do it, they did it of thier own free will. Because of that, all man has the same tendency. When Adam sinned, we all sinned. We all have that sinful nature. We are responsible for it.

It's simple really, God can be sovereign and man still be responsible.


Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

Amen!

No one will understand "All Jesus + Zero mankind = salvation" unless they understand "born of God".

Keep contending for the faith once delivered unto the saints brother!

God Bless!:wavey:

 

The once a son always a son thing probably comes from the teaching concerning the prodigal son. It goes without saying that when he went out into lousy living he never became someone elses son. The son of Bob Smith can never, under any circumstances, become the son of Bill Jones. He will always be the son of Bob Smith, no matter how he behaves.

In like manner we become children of God...sons and daughters of God...when we are born again. We do not become employees to be fired for poor service. We become Gods children.

The truth regarding the complete and eternal security of the believer is simply thundered from the scriptures.

For the scriptural support start by prayerfully reading Galatians, Ephesians and Romans. Once you get a good grasp on this wonderful truth you will begin to wonder how you could have ever believed otherwise.

God bless,

Mike

 

It is really simple -- stay with the truth.

The truth is that you NEVER see any instruction given TO the saints of the form "MAKE God So Love the World so HE WILL give His Son" - because as it turns out -- God So Loving the World is "ALL of God" and "NONE of man".

You NEVER see the scripture charge the saints with something like "MAKE God be JUST and the Justifier of those that have faith in him" -- because as it turns out -- God's Justice is ALL OF GOD and NONE of man.

You NEVER see the scripture urge the saints with something like "MAKE God be TRUE to HIS Word. Failure to do this will be very bad for you" because as it turns out God's choice to be TRUE to His Word is ALL OF GOD and NONE of man!

Get it?

In other words - you have to say things that are true and can be SEEN to be true IN scripture. Once you do - the "obvious" is in fact glaringly obvious.

The pure nonsense that says scripture DOES charge humanity - the saints - the people of God with OWNERSHIP or the COMMAND to DO something that has NOTHING to do with them at all - is pure foolishness. When God TELLS you to do something - you can not turn a blind eye to His Word and say "sorry God - I have nothing to do with that - talk to someone else".

In Christ,

Bob

 

No, God wouldn't have wanted us to do something He told us not to do.

James 1:13-14 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God:for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Now why did God allow sin? Well, I am not too sure about that. I can't really give an educated guess other than He allowed it for His own purposes. That's a very deep question, and I think, unsearchable really. Any answer I could figure wouldn't give it the glory and reverence it deserves.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

What I was getting at was that the righteousness we have is not ours but is Christ's. God said "Be holy, as I am holy." We can't do that, but Christ did, and what He did is ours by the gift of faith, not anything in and of ourselves. I would further say that ,yes, a command to be holy, has everything to do with us, but if we cannot be holy then how will God call us holy? By Christ and His perfect holiness, which is ours by the gift of faith.

The Gospel itself is a lot more than just a list of things to do to get to heaven. I see a lot of people that make lists outlining how one is saved. I saw on a Church of Christ webpage a segment declaring the 26 (27 maybe) saviors of the Bible. It was a list of things to do. Like anyone could go to that website, check off things that they do, and get closer to heaven. No, that's not the Gospel, the Gospel is way bigger than that. It's not a checklist of morals. It's Christ on the cross dying and rising from the dead so that sinners would be reconciled with God who created them.

One should not go the way of the hyper-Calvinist, and say that man has no responsibility. One should not go the way of the Pelagian or the semi-Pelagian, and say that God just made a way, and we do the rest. Salvation is all of God and none of us, and we are responsible for what we do in this life. That's the simple facts. I cannot be any clearer than that. That's what the Scriptures say. We are commanded to be holy, but we cannot be holy apart from Christ and His perfect righteousness, which is ours by faith.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

Dustin I'm curious have you always gone to a Presbyterian church and believed in Calvinism or is it something new to you? Thanks in advance for your time.

 

No, I was raised in a SBC and a few Pentecostal ones. In fact, when I was 5 or 6 I thought every church in the world was a baptist church. I had never heard of John Calvin or Arminius or Pelagius or Augustine until about a little over a year ago. I was familiar with the Reformation though and Martin Luther.

Louisiana is largely Roman Catholic, we don't have counties, we have parishes. They used to show people praying the rosary on Saturday morning before all the cartoons came on. So I had zero Presbyterian or Reformed influence at all until I started going to a Presbyterian church.

That and there are only 3 or 4 Presbyterian churches in the city. On the road I live on, there is one huge baptist church with thousands of memebers, a United Methodist church, a small SDA congregation, and a Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod). I go "out of the way" to go to Bethel, and now that I think about it there is right next door to us the Lake Charles Bible Church. All the big churches here are Baptist or Pentecostal. Bethel has no more than 50 or so people.

I did a lot of praying and reading on Calvinism. Because of people like Fred Phelps who butcher it and the Wesleyans whose sole purpose is hating it. I've gone over all kinds of doctrines of all kinds of denominations, read Wesley, Calvin, Augustine, Arminius, MacArthur, Cairns, Spurgeon, Paisley, Sproul, Corner, Whitefield, and the list goes on and on. What I have found is, no system of theology is as close to the Bible as so called 5 point Calvinism. As far as salvific doctrines, correctly weighing God's soveriegnty and man's resonsibility, I don't find anything closer. Believe me I have checked it out. In largely secular Europe, the most evangelistic churches are the Free Presbyterians, and Independent Fundamental Baptists (and the majority of IFB's there are Calvinists too).

So, yes, it IS pretty new to me, but I'm convinced of it. Systematic theology (Calvinism, Arminianism, the creeds and confessions) isn't what saves you, I just want to get that out of the way. It's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. But what it does do is show you why you believe that it's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone throughout the whole Bible. I say, read your Bible, and when you read other teachers or theologians, test them by the Scriptures.Let us all be like the Bereans.

I'm still learning a whole lot, still searching, still reading, still refining. I'd also suggest to read the classical creeds and confessions and because you'd be suprised how many people purposfully leave things out or twist things to make thier view seem right. It's not a sin, as some think, to look back at the Church in the past and accept those things too. It's very important to know what was going on back then that led them to the conclusions they came to. It's not a sin to be knowledgeable about our common faith. The Bible is our sole authority, but we can look back on the Reformers and the Puritans, and still get great helps from them also.

May the Lord bless all your studies.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

Thanks Dustin.

 

RE:Once a Son always a Son??

I would have to say yes to this. It say that you will love the things you once hated and hate the things you once loved. If you fall away and revert to you old lifestyle, wouldn't it make this null and void? John 3:16 :1_grouphug:

 

How can free will be overrated? It is only good at doing evil? God gives each and every one of us the ability to choose who we serve. If any of us dies and goes to the lake of fire, it was us, not God who made that choice. If we turn from our sins, who made that choice? Granted, God will work with us to make Him our Lord and Master, but he will not make us serve him. If we go to heaven, it was because we chose that good part that Mary chose, that good part that won't be taken from us. So we have free will before we are converted! Jesus died on the cross at Calvary for ALL of our sins that we MAY have a right to the TREE OF LIFE. It is up to us to make the decision. If we reject it, we die...if we accept it, we LIVE!! May God Bless!! John 3:16 :1_grouphug:

 

RE:Once a Son, always a Son?

On my previous post I stated that God will work withus to make him our Lord and Master, but it's up to us to make the decision. What I meant was he will work with us by telling us we need to go to church, little subtile things...you know, the small still voice. He won't make us do anything. I just wanted to clarify my earlier post. Dustin, I am in no way try to belittle you, I just think that if you take free will out, it kinda sounds like the Primitive Baptist's belief on predestination. I have heard they have went as far as to believe if you are predestined for the lake of fire, if you died as a baby, you are still going there. Therefore, no free will. See what I am say. May God Bless!! John 3:16 :1_grouphug:

 

Are you talking about Calvin the Pope of Geneve? Oh dear!

Read this:

His ash cries out against Calvin.

http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/ashes.htm

 

Yeah, yeah, I read that load of skubalon many times. Dan Corner is trying to demonize a system of theology by demonizing the one whose name it bears. Ad hominem as usual. He's reading some seriously biased history and taking things out of context and twisting it to make Calvinists look bad, which he is known to do.

You would do good to read what actually happened (Servetus's heresies, his constant refusal to recant), and remember the time that they lived in (the laws in Geneva against such behavior), then maybe you would understand why the heretic Servetus died the way he did. It doesn't matter anyway what Calvin did or did not do, that doesn't make the actual theology wrong. It's what the Bible teaches. Dan can't change that, so he makes Calvin out to be some kind of murderer.

I'm not going to lay it all out for you here, maybe another thread or something. I just think it's a sad thing that one such as Corner would hate some things so much that they would deliberatly distort the real history just to justify his own faulty position.

What a shame.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

P.S. I'm pretty sure that Calvin hated the Pope.

 

Oi, I'm not looking forward to go through all this once more(at least, not yet).

Read the rest of my posts on the thread, maybe I explained it there.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

Convicted1,

Thank you for being pleasent, and please know that it's not my intention to belittle you either. I've been saying this a lot lately, but I go to Presbyterian church, and I hold to those distintives...Calvinism, Reformed theology, etc. I do believe predestination is true, but you and I probably have a different understanding of what the doctrine of predestination is. The same with free will.

I really really really don't want to go back all over it again, it's so fresh on my mind plus I've been sick a lot lately, and it's tiring to go over it every few weeks or days or whatnot. Just read all my posts on the thread and if you have any questions, PM me, or messege me on my Instant Messenger name.

Just understand that a lot of debate on this board has to do with this very thing. More likely than not another thread will pop up shortly and we'll all be at it again. So don't fret, you'll find out sooner or later.

Grace and Peace be with you.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

In Ephesians, "The Letter to the Church"

Ephesians 1:13. In whom ye also trusted, after hearing that Word which is Truth, the Good News of your salvation, in which you believed, being authentically sealed with the Holy Spirit, just as promised.

Ephesians 2:4-10. God, rich in mercy, loves us! We were dead; he made us alive, raising us up with Him, seated with Him in Heaven! (For what purpose?) So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus!


Romans 10:8-13.


What conditions?
What deception?
What change?

 

Well, you profess to be a Christian, so I'll just label that pure, utter heresy. If you weren't a Christian, it would be blasphemy. You need to spend a lot of time in 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, especially verse 14. You're still basking in the glow of the natural man. Study that for a couple of years, then come back. We'll celebrate the new you.