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.
Perserverance
Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by Winman, Jan 13, 2011.
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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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. -
Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Your God does not love everyone and has no desire to save the vast majority of men. -
But you are still several hours ahead of me. -
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. -
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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." -
How can a person have faith in that?
If you are not one of the elect, no amount of pleading and begging Jesus for salvation will help you, nor could help you, as Jesus did not die for you.
Just because you go to church every Sunday, read your Bible and do other good works is no guarantee that you were elected before the foundation of the world.
And you can't even claim you have saving faith, because if you happen to be unregenerate you are incapable of understanding what saving faith is. In your depraved mind you may believe yourself one of the elect, and you may believe you have saving faith, and all the while be self-deceived. -
Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
1st do we all agree with the premise that all human beings deserve hell, not heaven?
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pinoybaptist Active MemberSite Supporter
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 -
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Is God just to punish a man for what he cannot do? I mean, if man is able to obey God's commands but willfully disobeys, then God is perfectly just to punish that man.
But if a man is born a sinner by God's decree and cannot possibly obey God, is God just to punish that man for failing to do that which God caused him to be unable to do?
If I cut off your legs, and then commanded you to jump up and down, promising to punish you if you fail to obey my command, would I be just? -
pinoybaptist Active MemberSite Supporter
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---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...
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Everything is quite different for the non-Cal. We believe that all men have the God given ability to believe or disbelieve. That doesn't save us, because no man could believe on Christ unless God had revealed him to us.
Let me say that again. Just because I have the ability to believe does not save me or anyone else. You can't just believe any old thing, you have to believe the gospel that Jesus is the Son of God who died for your sins and rose again. And you could not possibly have this knowledge of the gospel unless God had revealed it to us through his Word. So he gets all the credit.
We also believe that God loves 100% of sinners and that Jesus died for 100% of sinners. When Jesus calls me I can know for a certainty that he really desires to save me, because all men are included in this invitation. That is something you can have faith in.
But if Jesus only died for a few select persons, it cannot be helped that a person would worry and question if he were one of those fortunate few. This cannot produce faith, but worry and doubt. -
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