beloved57
Well-known member
You have to already be a believer to Call upon the name of the Lord Rom 10:14 !
Why Calvinist Cannot Defend Their Doctrine of a Limited Atonement
- Thread starter Robert Pate
- Start date
Your statement is totally unbiblical. This is why everyone thinks that you are a heretic.
"So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God" Romans 10:17.
beloved57
Well-known member
You can't call on Him that you haven't believed Rom 10:14 ! That's biblical, read it!
Nanja
Well-known member
Before a person can do anything that pleases God, they must first be made Spiritually Alive Rom. 8:7-8.
Only then can one's calling upon His name please God.
Ps. 80:18b - quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
~~~~~
We are quickened by hearing and believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament they were quickened by believing in God's promise of a savior
beloved57
Well-known member
One must be born of God to hear Gods words, or they can not hear them John 8:47!
Brother Ducky
New member
That is the problem with your anybody on the basis of their own free-will can be saved. If we were not all so depraved, you might have a point. And while you have elsewhere claimed to have disproved the doctrine of Total Depravity, you have not. But, you did not really try to disprove it, assuming that your mere saying so would make it so.
Anyhoo, not all will want to be saved. Without the direct influence in Regeneration, none would want to be saved.
So, it looks like he did indeed provide a way for salvation for his sheep, and his sheep only.
Predestination does NOT make sense.
If you were predestinated to be saved before the foundation of the world, then...
1. You don't need the hear anything.
2. You don't need to believe anything.
3. You don't need to know anything.
You have been saved by a declartion from God. You can even tell Jesus to go fly a kite because you don't need him.
You have been signed, sealed and delivered and Paul and the apostles just waisted their time.
Ask Mr. Religion
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Robert your view is in error as it ignores the means that are also included in the decree for predestination of God's chosen. e.g., the establishment of the will's ability to choose according to its greatest inclinations at the moment one so chooses (Biblical free will), the hearing of the Good News as the ordinary means of re-birth, the new heart given to the hearer such that the hearer will in fact now possess the moral ability to irrevocably believe, and more. Folks tend to think predestination is a lightning bolt that is absent all other causal events, ignoring the fact that God has also decreed the means by which one comes to the faith.
Just as prayer is a means of bringing about the ordained chain of events surrounding one's prayer, so are the above bringing about the re-birth of God's children.
An accurate summary of Holy Writ on the matter:
Spoiler
He who has ears let them hear....
AMR
That isn't what the Canons of Dort say.
"That some receive the gift of faith from God and others do not receive it, PROCEEDS FROM GOD'S ETERNAL DECREE". First Head: article #6.
You don't have to hear anything.
You don't have to believe anything.
You don't have to do anything.
Do you know what a decree is? When God decrees something that's it. There are no conditions or stipulations.
Ask Mr. Religion
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Nothing stated in Dordt disagrees with what I have posted above. The statement you quote actually makes the same point. Rather than quote mining, you should read the whole document and understand its full counsel, e.g.,
Article 14: The Way God Gives Faith
In this way, therefore, faith is a gift of God, not in the sense that it is offered by God for man to choose, but that it is in actual fact bestowed on man, breathed and infused into him. Nor is it a gift in the sense that God bestows only the potential to believe, but then awaits assent--the act of believing--from man's choice; rather, it is a gift in the sense that he who works both willing and acting and, indeed, works all things in all people produces in man both the will to believe and the belief itself.
Article 16: Regeneration's Effect
However, just as by the fall man did not cease to be man, endowed with intellect and will, and just as sin, which has spread through the whole human race, did not abolish the nature of the human race but distorted and spiritually killed it, so also this divine grace of regeneration does not act in people as if they were blocks and stones; nor does it abolish the will and its properties or coerce a reluctant will by force, but spiritually revives, heals, reforms, and--in a manner at once pleasing and powerful--bends it back. As a result, a ready and sincere obedience of the Spirit now begins to prevail where before the rebellion and resistance of the flesh were completely dominant. It is in this that the true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will consists. Thus, if the marvelous Maker of every good thing were not dealing with us, man would have no hope of getting up from his fall by his free choice, by which he plunged himself into ruin when still standing upright.
Article 17: God's Use of Means in Regeneration
Just as the almighty work of God by which he brings forth and sustains our natural life does not rule out but requires the use of means, by which God, according to his infinite wisdom and goodness, has wished to exercise his power, so also the aforementioned supernatural work of God by which he regenerates us in no way rules out or cancels the use of the gospel, which God in his great wisdom has appointed to be the seed of regeneration and the food of the soul. For this reason, the apostles and the teachers who followed them taught the people in a godly manner about this grace of God, to give him the glory and to humble all pride, and yet did not neglect meanwhile to keep the people, by means of the holy admonitions of the gospel, under the administration of the Word, the sacraments, and discipline. So even today it is out of the question that the teachers or those taught in the church should presume to test God by separating what he in his good pleasure has wished to be closely joined together. For grace is bestowed through admonitions, and the more readily we perform our duty, the more lustrous the benefit of God working in us usually is and the better his work advances. To him alone, both for the means and for their saving fruit and effectiveness, all glory is owed forever. Amen.
Er, I think it is you who needs a refresher on the matter of the decree:
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2251901#post2251901
:AMR:
AMR
that just all sounds like man-made doctrine, so far from what Paul speaks of
Faith comes by hearing and believing the Gospel.
"So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God" (the Gospel) Romans 10:17.
Regeneration is a work of the Holy Spirit.
No one has the Holy Spirit that does not believe the Gospel.
Your long laborous post is just another smoke screen.
Ask Mr. Religion
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You asked a question about the decree and made some declarations. I provided an answer to your question about the decree and to your declarations. You now make statements that I agree with as I have so posted. How exactly is that a smoke screen?
It appears the root of your disagreement is that in the "hearing" being done you assume a person possesses the ability to "hear" the Good News prior to be so enabled to posses the ability to hear by the Holy Spirit. All such discussions inevitably wind up at this point. One group sees themselves as able to choose wisely, the other group sees no one able to choose wisely until being made able by the Holy Spirit. So are you of the opinion that since only one of these groups can be correct, assuming all other essentials of the faith are not in dispute, that this means the other group is lost, hell-bound, and sin-bent?
AMR
You want to believe that God gives his only begotten Son for the sins of the world and then hides it from some so that they cannot hear, believe and be saved.
If God did that he would be unjust.
Anyone can hear believe and be saved. Some of those that had participated in the crucifixon were converted to Christ on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:36. No one was excluded. Anyone could hear, believe and be saved.
Brother Ducky
New member
Isaiah 6:9
9 He said, "Go and tell this people:
"'Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'
Matthew 13:14
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
"'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
Mark 4:12
12 so that,
"'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'"
Acts 28:26
26 "'Go to this people and say,
"You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving."
So, you think that it is God's will that people go to hell?
You just happen to be one of those that hears, but does not understand. Your just as blind as those in the scriptures listed above.
They hear but they cannot understand. Why is that?
For one thing, they have not come to Christ as repentant sinners to be saved by him, THEY DON'T HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT who reveals truth. So, like you they remain in darkness, John 3:19-20.
Brother Ducky
New member
So, for the Pope of Patism "see you at the judgement" is what passes for exegesis, hermaneutics and dialogue?
Since I am seen in Christ and have been redeemed by Christ, I think your response is more than a little presumptuous. You said you wanted Scripture in response to your posts, you get Scripture and your response is, in essence, go to Hell?
At least try to deal with posts, ideas and presented Scripture. If you are correct in your many, aberrant, positions you should have no problems dealing with those who disagree with you.
Ask Mr. Religion
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OK. Can you please answer my question contained in that to which you are responding in the above:
"It appears the root of your disagreement is that in the "hearing" being done you assume a person possesses the ability to "hear" the Good News prior to be so enabled to posses the ability to hear by the Holy Spirit. All such discussions inevitably wind up at this point. One group sees themselves as able to choose wisely, the other group sees no one able to choose wisely until being made able by the Holy Spirit. So are you of the opinion that since only one of these groups can be correct, assuming all other essentials of the faith are not in dispute, that this means the other group is lost, hell-bound, and sin-bent?"
AMR
You say that you are saved, but there is something missing in your doctrine, The "Historical Gospel" of Jesus Christ. You don't believe it.
No one is going to be saved without Faith in Christ and his Gospel.