GIT,
Romans 1
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
all of us know God exists and that we should give him glory. all of us know we need forgiveness for our sins but most of us refuse to aknoweldge God or ask him for forgiveness.
this combined with the drawing of the Father and the conviction of sins from the holy spirit is more than enough to bring a man to repentence.
All of us do know God exists and that we should give Him glory. However, the text you gave shows that ALL people reject God, exchange Him and His glory for other things. The essence of sin is trading and exchanging that which is infinitely valuable (Christ) for the deceitful and fleeting pleasures of this world. I would have to say all of us would continue to refuse God if it was not for the Spirit.
However, what do you mean by “combined�? I would say we would NOT have this sorrow for sin and even acknowledge our sin if it wasn’t for the work of the Spirit. When this is brought to our attention by the Father’s drawing and the Spirit’s conviction, then we become aware of our sinful state, which is why the glory of Christ in the Gospel looks absolutely irresistible: it is that which we have been searching for our entire lives, so why would we ever reject it now that we have found it? That would be foolishness and absurd…
the hostile mind must first be softened before it can repent. that's the whole point of the drawing of the fater and the convicting of the holy spirit! that's their job! to make it easier for us to see that we are guilty and need forgivness. but even after that, the choice to accept the sacrifice of Christ is still their own to make.
godly grief is what one experiences when they see Christ and his sacrifice with joy and beauty. but does it always produce repentence? not necessarily.
So you admit that there must be a gracious work of the Spirit BEFORE we can ever come to repentance…This does NOT just make it easier; it ENABLES us to see our sinfulness and the beauty of Christ. It IS still the sinner’s choice to repent and believe, but as I said above, it would be foolishness and absurd to think that we would reject the gift we have been searching for our whole lives, especially when we see our sinful state and that the Gospel can save us and enable us to know and love Christ, the One for whom we were made.
I agree totally that “godly grief is what one experiences when they see Christ and his sacrifice with joy and beauty,� but I see nowhere in the text that says it does not necessarily lead to repentance. It says that it DOES, not it might not. I think it would be a presupposed inference to draw that from that text.
i see it instead as Paul's reminder to them of what all God has done for them, as a means of encouragement. he was not writing this for doctrines sake, he was writing to benefit them, by means of encouragement i believe. what purpose do you hold that Paul would write those things specifically?
I agree with you; it wasn’t for doctrine’s sake. He is not necessarily giving a treatise on salvation. He does start from eternity past until the present to show them what Christ had done for them. I see no reason to insist that we put in “He did this after we accepted the Gospel� or “This is what happened because they believed� or anything like that because the text doesn’t do that.
if you hang around someone often enough, do something long enough, even if you don't consiously desire it, you will eventually want it and desire it. thus, Peter was writing so that they would be spiritually disciplined and grow to desire it all the more.
That has absolutely nothing to do with this text:
1Pe 2:2 desire the sincere milk of the Word, as newborn babes, so that you may grow by it.
This text COMMANDS us to desire the sincere milk of the Word. As far as I know, I cannot make myself desire ANYTHING. I cannot make my self desire foods I do not like, let alone God and His Word. That alone is a work of God.
That is irrelevant. The point is that WE are commanded to do it, yet we are told in other places that GOD will be the One who circumcises our hearts.
if your thankfulness is dependent on God then yes! you must decide to not rely on the pleasures of the world on which to be thankful, but to look to Christ, the cross and the wonderful grace that was given there and on that to be thankful each and every day, in all things. once we decide to do that, we can make ourselves be thankful in all things towards God. we have to consiously decide to look to Christ for it though, not the world. then we can be thankful in all things.
Is looking to Christ and reliance on Christ of grace? Is it not of grace that we have the desire to look and rely on Christ?
it is more than an emotion i think. i'd say it's an emotion and a mind set. once you recognize the goodness of God and make your gratitude dependent on that, the emotion will naturally follow when you think of God.
Who in their sinfulness, even after salvation, would ever recognize the goodness of God? I forget and ignore the goodness of God in my Christian life a lot. You know why? Because I am sinful and blind and arrogant! If God doesn’t remind me, then I doubt I will see it.
I cannot just be sitting there and be unthankful, and suddenly make myself be thankful if I am really not. If God doesn’t open my eyes and let me see His goodness, and I not see it, and as a result, will not be thankful. Thankfulness and gratitude is an emotion that when you have it, you have it, and when you don’t, you just don’t. Whether or not it is MORE than an emotion, I could probably agree, but the principle exists.
If you were paralyzed from the neck down tomorrow, and could not do anything except sit in a wheel chair, could you MAKE yourself thank God for that?
I said:
God has the right to command of us what we OUGHT to give even if by virtue of our profound rebellion and corruption we cannot give it. The problem is with US, not the command or with God. We should give thanks whether we are able to or not, and we are responsible for doing so. Ingratitude is still sin because the very nature of ingratitude is arrogant and hateful; it matters not whether we can produce it on our own. Either way, we are still responsible.
You said:
i think i agree with this.
You agree that God can command of us what we ought to give even if by virtue of our profound rebellion and corruption we are unable to give it?
here is the NASB version:
5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
note how the last part is statd: those "controlled" by it. if someone is controlled by something it means that they are submitting themselves completely to it. they allow it to do as it pleases and they satisfy it. so it makes complete sense that those who are controlled by the sinful nature can't please God.
but it doesn't logically follow that they can't stop gratifying it. they are not helpless slaves here as you might think. it just means that they are constantly giving in to the sinful nature and pleasing it. it's controlling them and they let it do so. they still retain the power to take back control though, with God's help of course.
Your statement that “someone is controlled by something it means that they are submitting themselves completely to it� is totally false. They may submit to it, but it does not follow that this submission is voluntary and willful (Holocaust maybe?). Your entire response in this part above was based on that assumption, which I see totally false and inconsistent with reality.
You seem to ignore that we ARE slaves to sin before we are saved…
which is why we need a new one.
The heart is just as sinful as the mind…that was the point.
the will is not bonded to doing those things. it simply does so because it wills to. but the will is not "set in stone". what it wills is able to change if it desires to, especially if the father begins to draw it and the holy spirit begins to convict it.
i agree that every part of us was tainted by sin at the fall. but that doesn't mean we can't still cry out for a savior once we realize we are sinners and in need of forgiveness! being "dead" is a metaphor for our state of being apart from Christ who is the life. it doesn't mean total inability.
Your idea of the “will� is, at least to me like this: Ihave my soul and heart and mind, then over here, I have a completely different part of me which is not in association with any of the other parts of who I am. The will is not a separate part of a person, acting in complete disassociation with the other parts of who the person is. All parts work together. The will is not a separate entity with a human, working apart from the mind and heart.
you have forgot the soul of the person! the very part of every person that is made in the image of God! a person does think and does feel before acting, but the act of the person is not necessarily related to what they felt or thought! haven't you ever done something spontaneously for no reason without thinking about it or feeling it before hand? i have!
I see the intellect, emotion, and will as part of the soul, not separate from it. The soul was created in the image of God, which is the exact reason why we have intellect, emotions, and will. Once, again, the will does not act apart from these other parts of the soul…
well first off 1 Corinthians 2:14 is invalid because the context is spiritual wisdom, not the gospel.
Is the Gospel not the “wisdom of God�???
but secondly, i read those verses and i think back to Romans 1. the people who reject the cross do so because they love their wickedness and have no remorse in their hearts. they know they need salvation and forgiveness but ignore the great gift of God calling it foolishness. i also think that when they call it foolishness it's because they are not being drawn by the father or convicted by the holy spirit and i agree with you that witout these things we will not seek God.
You make out to sound like there are a bunch of terrible, sinful and corrupt people in the world, and then there are those who are ok people, and they don’t really do much bad, and they are smart enough to choose to NOT sin and choose Christ. THERE ARE NO SUCH PEOPLE! EVERYONE rejects the cross and the Gospel. It is utter foolishness and folly and a stumbling block to them. We are idiots to them! That is not just some people, that is ALL people: moral, immoral or amoral.
Yes, when the Holy Spirit convicts and the Father draws, this all changes. Hence, we see our sinfulness, the beauty and all-sufficiency of Christ, which produces godly sorrow, repentance, and faith.
what else could "NOW that you have come to be known by God" mean? are you suggesting that somehow "now being known by God" means "having always been known by God"?
No. I am simply saying that there are two aspects: a sense in which God has ALWAYS known us (foreknew), and a sense in which God comes to know us (in time and in reality).
but that's not what the verse says. it says now that you have come to be known by God. how can you come to be known if you were known all along?
The verse does equate “coming to know Him� with “being known by God.� Hence, the word “rather.� It further explains what Paul meant. We came to know God, which is to say that in a sense, God came to know us, and came to make us His people.
doesn't follow. it just means that we who weren't previously people of God are now called people of God. God had people all along, but we were not a part of them until now.
We were not a part of the people, but God always had a people and Christ came to die for that SPECIAL people, not a general unknown people.
starwman. letting them be made to God is the same as saying "present your requests before God". it says nothing of whether he knows them before or not. i can make my case known to you in court even though you are aware of it before. it just refers to a formal presenting of your requests before God. it speaks nothing of his knowledge about them. thus your statement is a strawman.
This is not in any way a strawman. Look at the verse:
Phi 4:6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
You say this does not say anything about whether or not God knows them, but I am drawing the same kind of inference you are: Let them “be made known� to God. If we are to make them known to God, then He must not know the present needs of His people. What else could “let them be made known� mean? If we must make them known, they cannot already be known!
perhaps, that's not why i hold to it. i started with my experiences about God, the basics of who he is and what i saw him doing in my life and other peoples lives and found a theology in the bible that matched up. the more i looked at that theology the more i saw it as biblically faithful, consistent internally, and the view that matched up most closely with real life. to me, if you start with scripture and then make reality match up with that, you have it backwards. i look at reality and interpret scripture accordingly which makes sense, unless you hold that the writers of scripture were outside of reality.
I did not say that is why you hold to it. It is one of the supposed benefits, which I do not think it is consistent in doing.
GIT, I thought you were smarter than that?! You judge the Bible by your experiences?! I agree that is what OVers do, but I have never seen them say it! If I start with Scripture, I have it backward??? There is something more authoritative and more sufficient than Scripture??? You seem to be getting out of the realm of orthodoxy and evangelicalism. You have the audacity to judge the Word of God by your puny and limited experience?
The OV does logically have to hold to a low view of Scripture, but it is the logical implication, not what they actually state. At least you are consistent, and at least you admit where your entire problem lies.
he didn't literally bear them, remember? the important thing is the death he paid. we all deserve death as punishment for sin (Romans 3:23) but because Jesus didn't sin at all, the death he paid took on the wrath of God for sin on behalf of us. his death becomes substitutionary for us. he stood where we should have. his death was the price we had earned and because he was without sin, it is able to be applied to us.
there is no need to think that God literally placed "sins" on Christ as if they were things. sins are wrong doings, offenses against God. the punishment is death. Jesus paid the price for that though he was innocent and as such can save us through that.
I am not talking about the sins themselves. There could be no wrath concerning these sins for Christ to bear since the sins were not yet committed. Jesus could not have took upon Himself the death I deserve because I was not yet existent and did not deserve such a death yet. There was not price for Christ to pay concerning me, for I did not exist.
um, comforting has nothing to do with logic. if something is logically incoherent or illogical then it should be discarded immediately because it's untrue. EFK and free will are illogical together. they cannot co-exist. thus, since it's clear we have free will (you have to use it to deny it, illogical), i must discard EFK.
both of those verses there i interpret as general election in regards to the body of Christ. there is no need to assume the interpretation of individual election from eternity past.
1Pe 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
1Pe 1:2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
These “elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia� are SPECIFIC people, not just a general group. Peter was writing to specific people, not just whoever happen to read. How can Christ “foreknow,� which seems to have come before predestination in Romans 8, the “body of Christ� which did not even exist?
but that's not the way it works! his death is a general death that is applicable for every human being in all of existence, past, present and future! it's not that you hadn't sinned yet, it's that before you sinned, the way of salvation had already been made. the door through wich all humans can enter salvation by had already been made.
You want to know why Christ died?
Tit 2:14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
Who is this “us�? Is this just a general people? It is a special people, a peculiar people, a people for His own possession.
Joh 17:2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
Christ died to give life to ALL THOSE GIVEN to Him by the Father?
General people? I don’t think so.
are you suggesting God can do the illogical, contradictory and absurd?
No, I am suggesting what I said: God is not like you and me. We are like Him.
for everyone! for humanity as a whole! he has become the door through which any sinner can enter into life by! he provided the means by which anyone who sinned could be saved! you keep thinking that Christ had to bear our individual sin in order to atone for it, this is not so! Christ took our death, our wrath on behalf of mankind as a whole. he became the window of salvation because he was sinless, yet he took our punishment for sin.
your view here is a strawman because of a misunderstanding about the cross.
Our sins didn’t have to be bore? Show me where that is not so…
Our death and wrath was a result of our sin! There would be no death and wrath to bear since we did not yet exist to sin. God would not have any wrath toward “us� because “us� did not exist. When Christ died, He would have had to bear on the wrath of those who lived before and those up until the time of His death. We had no “punishment� for Him to take upon Himself.
who said you were predestined to believe? cannot God do general predestination to a group of people before the people exist? of course he can, there is nothing wrong or illogical about that view.
General predestination? A group of “people� before they exist�? To predestine a “group of people� would presuppose you knew there would be a group of people that would exist. It would also presuppose a specific people, for it would have to be a “group� of people out of humanity. Why would God only predestine a “group� of people if He loved everyone?
you can't control free will, by definition. if ones' will is free, then you aren't controlling it. you are giving up control to allow them to do what they decide to do. that's what free means, uncontrolled.
if God were to ever go against our free will, or take it away, then he would not be loving for love always offers a choice. you can't force someone to love you, they must choose to love you. love is always about choice and when you take away someone's ability to make choices you show that you do not love them.
1 John 4:8
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God is love as this scripture shows. thus, God has given us choice. he wants a people for himself who truly love him back and freely do so. anything less would not be love. for this to always be true love, God must not take away this free will at any time because he would be taking away their ability to love.
some passages that show free will:
Deuteronomy 30:19
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
Joshua 24:15
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD ."
John 7:17
If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
and there are many other verses on this topic as well. in fact, anywhere you see the word "choose" in a text, this assumes free will for one can only "choose" something when one has free will.
Can you show me a couple text where it speaks of God working with us to bring about good or nothing God does contradicts our free will or a couple texts that define our will?
Those my questions, and you ran with a philosophical assumption of what free will is. I do not deny, nor do any Calvinists, that we make choices and have a will. Those verses show me nothing new. God doesn’t force us to love Him.
If God were to go against our wills, then how do you explain your comments concerning the Proverbs passages that God can work to NOT let us do something He doesn’t want to happen?
the desire and the strength to do them are produced by God.
unbelieves though are still capable of doing good things. they are not capable of living a Godly life for Christ and loving as he loved.
The desire and strength are from God? That is all Calvinists teach when they speak of irresistible grace…
it's important to remember who the command is given to. if it's given to everyone then we all have the ability. if it's just to the body of Christ then i think it's something we can do, but we need God's help to make us do.
Well, lets take the command to do “that which is pleasing in His sight.� Are ALL people not under obligation to do that? If so, then all must have the ability to do it, according to your logic. However, you said earlier that unbelievers
“are not capable of living a Godly life for Christ and loving as he loved.�
So can they all do that which is pleasing in His sight or can they not? If they cannot, then God can still command all to do something that they are totally unable to do in and of themselves. Besides, you have admitted that we are unable to repent unless God works in us first…Thus, you are being inconsistent in saying the above, namely, “if it's given to everyone then we all have the ability.�
