Featured The Elect are Manifested in Repentance and Faith and Good works.

I suppose you are asking me is faith necessary for Salvation ? It depends on what you mean by Salvation. Do you mean Justification before God wherein the person Christ died for is forgiven of their sins and declared righteous before God ?

 

I see you did not offer an alternate interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 2:13, only saying there is nothing you can say.
By the numbers:

1) Note the lost are able to effectively and affirmatively respond to the gospel of Christ. You seem to deny this.

2) The OP's false premise is that repentance, faith and good works are the result of election, rather than the cause. You seem to hold this bogus view. This claim is partly right, our good works are the result of election for salvation, because as a new creation, we are then created for good works.

3) Repentance and faith reflect our belief in Christ "before" our individual election for salvation through "faith in the truth" 2 Thessalonians 2:13. You see to think there is some rational interpretation of the verse other than we are chosen through faith in the truth. But none was offered.

 

I did not see where you tried to support this obviously bogus claim from scripture. And you did not seem to acknowledge we must be chosen and placed into Christ in order to be "together with Christ" thus chosen before regeneration.
And how are we chosen for salvation? Through faith in the truth. Thus we can have faith in the truth before we are chosen. It is a lock.

 

van

Paul disagrees with you and so do I, because Paul wrote that the Gospel is hid to them that are LOST, which results in unbelief, so their response will be unbelief because while lost its hid from them 2 Cor 4:3-4

3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Also a lost person is dead to God !

 

All men died in Adam, we be dead Rom 5:15

But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

So fellow until made alive by the Grace of God, man is dead !

 

Being "dead" in sin does not mean being unable to seek God and trust in Christ, otherwise the people of Matthew 23:13 would not have been "entering" the kingdom.

 

Here is the what I see as the biblical position: the lost are able to effectively and affirmatively respond to the gospel of Christ.

Does Paul disagree? No!
2 Corinthians 4:3 NASB as footnoted:
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing,

Thus the verse supports that the gospel might be veiled from some of the lost, those who have been led astray by demonic teaching.

As Matthew 23:13 teaches, some of the lost have sufficient spiritual ability to be "entering the kingdom." No rebuttal or acknowledgement has been forthcoming.

 

There is nothing I can say that will help you. That verse clearly indicates election, a choosing by God, a separation out by the Holy Spirit, and faith as an instrument of this calling out. You don't see it that way but I do.

Yes I do. I don't think it's bogus but you do.

I don't how you get that out of the verse but since I have offered the explanation above did it change anything?

 

Since faith is utilized in our election, we have faith before being chosen for salvation. Game, set and match

 

Yes it does mean that, otherwise being dead, men dont even seek God, have no desire for Him, dont understand the True God, just idols Rom 3:11

11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

 

I see that the Gospel is hid to the Lost, and they believe not. See while lost their minds are blinded, plus they dead in sin

 

Faith is not utilized in our election. The reformers felt this was important enough to devote a whole letter of the TULIP, the "U" to show that election was not based on anything found in us but only in God's will and providence. You are free to reject their explanation but you can't come up with your own explanation of what they meant when they defined it so carefully.

 

Based on what? 2 Peter 1:5-10 suggests otherwise.

 

Well that's what this whole thread is talking about. 2 Peter 1:10 talks about making your calling and election sure. You have to figure out what election is and how or if you can determine if you are elect. If election is unconditional as the Calvinists say then is there any point in worrying about it? The OP, and Owen, say yes, and by looking for faith, repentance and so on you can figure out the state of yourself spiritually and do something about it. But if it is unconditional then how can we do something about it? Can these things be resolved?

 

There is no such thing Biblically as unconditional election. The saved are the elect. 1 John 5:13, 2 Corinthians 5:8. Technically the term, elect are not used in those two references. Jesus defines His sheep as the ones who hear Him, John 10:27. The argument becomes whether they hear because they are sheep or sheep because they hear. To me it is the same.

 

1 John 4: 7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Brother Glen

 

@DaveXR650,
An order is given in Romans 10:13-15 also in Ephesians 1:10-14. Again neither uses the terminology of elect or election.

 

I think scripture tends to support unconditional election but I don't want to get roped into being the big defender of it on here. The TULIP is not what attracted me to Calvinism. I was impressed by the experiential way the Puritans viewed the Christian life and the seriousness with which they took all scripture. I do think it is true - to the point the reformers were trying to make at least but as long as you don't think there was something especially good about yourself that induced God to save you I would say reject it if you don't feel comfortable with it.

 

You will never understand Calvinism if you miss the fact that all the great Calvinists believed that "Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" means exactly what it says without any modification or explanation. The Westminster Confession of Faith is careful to specifically state that the will of the creature is not violated when God sovereignly saves. And Ephesians 1: 10-14 has some pretty deterministic language in it, by the way.

 

I defined what I meant by “salvation”. Salvation is having a right relationship with God. The person moves from being in a condition of condemnation before God into a condition of being justified (declared not guilty) before God.

Is faith necessary for salvation? Since you believe regeneration is salvation, perhaps the question should be is faith necessary for regeneration?

Peace to you