Perserverance

Still we have a Brother who descriptively refutes the Calvinist / Reformed Believer because he faults God on the matter of election itself. As Reformed Believers, we fervently & sincerely are convinced that God does operate in this way....Doctrines of Grace. In other words, this brother is Refuting our very belief system. What are we to say about that? Are we then not Christian Believers? Im very confused by this.

 

He has never refuted a thing. I take it you refer to winman. He has not refuted one thing. Disdained it? Yes. Misrepresented it? Yes. Put words in others mouths? Certainly. Uses unfounded alleged "many reformed theologians say this" and has no proof to his fabrications and can't document it because it is nowhere to be found? Yup.

He isn't refuting our belief. He can't. He attacks things with falsified statements, and his self-fabricated "quotes" "from" alleged reformed theologians, then runs off when called to give an account of these things he makes up and can never prove.

 

So explain away this comment for me Pastor

Your God does not love everyone and has no desire to save the vast majority of men.

 

Brother, you said he refuted us. That is to disprove a thing.

Are you saying he disproved us?

That is my point. He has not refuted a thing. He cannot do it.

He has rather misrepresented and fabricated mistruths and uses alleged sayings of reformed theologians that are untrue to try to "prove" his point. This is his way.

You give credit unknowingly by saying he has "refuted." He cannot refute the testimony of Scripture concerning God, though try as he may.

 

Ann,
I agree with your first sentence. The second sentence has the people determining the size of the gate. This does not make sense to me. These commentators express the idea of effort better than I, but effort or difficulty is expressed in this text.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Enter ye in at the strait gate - Christ here compares the way to life to an entrance through a gate. The words "straight" and "strait" have very different meanings. The former means "not crooked;" the latter, "pent up, narrow, difficult to be entered." This is the word used here, and it means that the way to heaven is "pent up, narrow, close," and not obviously entered. The way to death is open, broad, and thronged. The Saviour here referred probably to ancient cities. They were surrounded with walls and entered through gates. Some of those, connected with the great avenues to the city, were broad and admitted a throng; others, for more private purposes, were narrow, and few would be seen entering them. So, says Christ, is the path to heaven. It is narrow. It is not "the great highway" that people tread. Few go there. Here and there one may be seen - traveling in solitude and singularity. The way to death, on the other hand, is broad. Multitudes are in it. It is the great highway in which people go. They fall into it easily and without effort, and go without thought. If they wish to leave that and go by a narrow gate to the city, it would require effort and thought. So, says Christ, "diligence" is needed to enter life. See Luke 13:24. None go of course. All must strive, to obtain it; and so narrow, unfrequented, and solitary is it, that few find it. This sentiment has been beautifully versified by Watts:

"Broad is the road that leads to death,

And thousands walk together there;

But wisdom shows a narrower path,

With here and there a traveler."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Mt 7:13-29. Conclusion and Effect of the Sermon on the Mount.

We have here the application of the whole preceding discourse.

Conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 7:13-27). "The righteousness of the kingdom," so amply described, both in principle and in detail, would be seen to involve self-sacrifice at every step. Multitudes would never face this. But it must be faced, else the consequences will be fatal. This would divide all within the sound of these truths into two classes: the many, who will follow the path of ease and self-indulgence-end where it might; and the few, who, bent on eternal safety above everything else, take the way that leads to it-at whatever cost. This gives occasion to the two opening verses of this application.

13. Enter ye in at the strait gate-as if hardly wide enough to admit one at all. This expresses the difficulty of the first right step in religion, involving, as it does, a triumph over all our natural inclinations. Hence the still stronger expression in Luke (Lu 13:24), "Strive to enter in at the strait gate."

for wide is the gate-easily entered.

and broad is the way-easily trodden.

that leadeth to destruction, and-thus lured "many there be which go in thereat."

 

1st do we all agree with the premise that all human beings deserve hell, not heaven?

 

Scriptures, please, about the elect's being elect only because his election is IN CHRIST.
I know the Scriptures say that the sinner is "accepted in the beloved", but what I see is everytime Paul speaks of the elect he speaks of them as a distinct body of God's children.

Romans 8:33 - Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect

Colossians 3:12 -
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved , bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

2Timothy 2:10 - Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory

Titus 1:1 - Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;

PETER:

1 Peter 1:1-2 - 1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied

 

It's obvious you are not interested in an honest debate but just your usual anti-calvinst garbage. I have give my position as have others but you continue to purposefully misrepresent our doctrine. And I say purposefully because you claim to know what we believe. It's not a matter of ignorance on your part but malice.

 

I think the subject is relevant.....Is God Just?

 

What's an arminest?

You got to love it when people contradict them selves. It's the Fathers election of the sheep given to the Son.

 

Good Point Brother

 

I have long ago determined this and so put the guy in my "ignore" list.

 

Of course. God didn't elect us because of something we did or believed. We have nothing to boast about.
---he is elect--only because of Jesus being THE ELECT of God----and is receiving the election of Jesus Christ---IOW---he is elect, not because God elected him--but he is elect because God elected Jesus Christ and he(both the calvin & armenian believer) is receiving that said election(the election whereby God elects Jesus Christ)[/QUOTE]

And what do people from Armenia believer? (armenian)

Ephesians 1 isn't about election of Christ.(christ is elect in christ?) John 6, is the father giving the son to the son?

and as pinoybaptist said...

 

No Calvinist believes that there are people that will believe, but because God didn't elect them, the will not have eternal life.