They are trusting in things other than Christ.
Ask a Calvinist to renounce Calvinism and trust in Christ alone. They can't and won't do it. They have to have their false God who is an unjust, unmerciful, unrighteous tyrant.
The True Gospel of Jesus Christ and the False Gospel of John Calvin
- Thread starter Robert Pate
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They are trusting in things other than Christ.
Ask a Calvinist to renounce Calvinism and trust in Christ alone. They can't and won't do it. They have to have their false God who is an unjust, unmerciful, unrighteous tyrant.
Ask Mr. Religion
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The hogwash here, Robert, is your leap to read into the narrative more than it teaches, ignoring the full counsel of Scripture, e.g., Php. 1:29. The narrative describes the ordinary means of the preaching of the Gospel by which God's chosen are brought into the kingdom through the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit. Your terrible interpretation would also have baptism being salvific if you are going to import more soteriology into Acts 2:41 than is present. You are in for a penny, in for a pound, so stop cherry-picking verses here and there and spend time reconciling all of Scripture to obtain the true meaning of a passage. In my previous post it is clear that the state of the lost is such that they are not able to choose wisely, hence their very faith is but a fruit of a grant from God and God alone. You cannot make the declarations you are making while ignoring what Scripture teaches about the state of the lost that are being saved. You should be asking, "Given Scriptures teachings about the state of the lost person, how is it that any one of them can be saved?" The answer is simple: God and God alone does the saving.
See also: 2 Chronicles 30:11-12; Phil 1:29, 2 Tim 2:25, Acts 13:48, Rom 9:15-18; John 1:13; 1 John 5:1
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Daniel1769
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Calvinism is so far removed from Biblical Christianity that the two shouldn't be discussed as if they contain any similarities.
Every post of yours is another attempt to prove that God is unjust.
You always want to run to Romans 9 to make your point that God is unjust. God is not unjust. All that God does in his relationship with fallen man is done in perfect justice, mercy and righteousness.
You say nothing about the Gospel that justifies the ungodly, Romans 4:5 and reconciles us and the world unto God, 2 Corinthians 5:18, 19. The Gospel does not seem to be in your vocabulary, Maybe that is because you don't believe it.
Ask Mr. Religion
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Asked often and answered as much. Why do you continue to seek contention in this manner?
Mine:
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4202313#post4202313
Yours? :idunno:
As to your implied notions, I suspect not a few believers cannot point to a single defining moment of their re-birth. So, if you are seeking to make "a lightning bolt" experience the litmus test of true re-birth your argument is with many more than just us poor Calvinists. Such is today's widespread evangelical stress on some amazingly emotional, out-of-this-world feeling. What is clear from the Epistles in Scripture is not a teaching to seek dramatic conversion but a story of the Church's life in building up everyone - whether they are abounding or abasing. GM, would Cornelius pass your "testimony" test, after all, it pales by that of Paul's? Yet he received the same efficacious (saving) grace as did Paul. Is not re-birth as mysterious as the blowing of the wind, so that no person is able to tell when it actually takes place?
I think point in time conversion creates an impossible working environment for pastoral ministry. Hence I see that spiritual growth is for all of life. We are told to make our calling and election sure by giving diligence to add to our faith. Insofar as we do so we are being renewed or converted daily. Pastors should be very critical of the notion of people constantly trying to live in a conversion moment or re-producing that moment in which their emotions are aflame with passion. It is a seeking of experience over transformation. It is an unwillingness on some folk's part to actually seek maturity and, instead, want to recapture an emotional feeling. In fact, most of these folks do not feel like they're growing unless the emotional feelings are present. Inevitably this results in folks saying "they don't feel saved". This why the church is often full of happy-clappy nonsense, re-baptisms, "let go and let God", and so on as the faithful struggle to maintain the emotional highs of some past onetime event.
One of the major pastoral problems associated with this punctiliar conversion paradigm is its tendency to create a mindset which elevates experience over instruction. Rather than practice being made to conform to principle, it is usually the case that the "conversion" experience becomes the rule for distinguishing truth and falsehood. This seeking of fresh experiences or men that tickle itching ears from the pulpit is the difference between Christianity and Trinity Broadcasting Network.
The great strength of the linear conversion concept, as taught by the old standards, is that it is fully in keeping with everything our Lord has taught regarding the kingdom of God and its hidden but progressive nature. This leaves room for the humble practice of self-examination and self-denial as a part of true kingdom conversion. When Christians start to understand that faith is variously weak or strong depending upon the person and upon the season of their life they will stop looking for emotions as a substitute. For faith, it is, that clings to Christ ever. It is a faith that ever comes to Him as a beggar. It is a faith that is able to cry out, even when you don't feel converted, that simply says: I believe! Help though my unbelief!
Critics of Calvinism need to master the difference between assertions and arguments. These critics need to become aware of their unexamined assumptions and learn that just because something seems to be wrong to them, that creates no presumption that their perception is correct. These folks need to become cognizant of how often they beg the question and just intellectually freeload, pandering to the crowd for hi-fives, all the while expecting others to make their arguments for them.
If you, GM, have an honestly sincere question about that which I hold dear, please ask it in charity, and I will be happy to answer it to the best of my ability. I have extended you the courtesy of doing some heavy lifting here in hopes that you can see all is not as you think it is among Calvinists or other members of the faith. But when you seek, via odious one-liners, to call another's faith into question seeking ridicule of the same, they owe you nothing but a stern call to correction for breeding divisiveness.
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beloved57
Well-known member
You don't believe or understand them scriptures ! The World of 2Cor 5:19 is a Saved Justified World !
The fact that you refer to yourself as a Calvinist is the tip off that something is seriously wrong with your doctrine. It is not Jesus Christ plus your Calvinist doctrine. It is Jesus Christ plus nothing. Saving faith is not faith in some doctrine. Saving faith is faith in the work and the person of Jesus Christ, plus nothing.
In the judgment the only thing that is going to stand will be the righteousness of Christ. Everything else including your Calvinist doctrine will disappear in a puff of smoke.
You are not a Christian. You are a Calvinist of which the Bible knows nothing of.
Of which you are no part of.
beloved57
Well-known member
So why do you post scripture which you don't believe?
You have NOT been reconciled to God by Jesus Christ.
You apparently do not have faith in the finished work of Christ for your salvation.
So, you are hoping that you have been predestinated.
beloved57
Well-known member
You don't have Faith in the Work of Christ since you teach that it alone did not save them He died for!
Another false accusation.
Jesus is the savior and redeemer of the whole world, 1 John 2:2.
To NOT believe that is to believe the Jesus is NOT Lord.
To NOT believe that Jesus is Lord, means that you are eternally lost.
beloved57
Well-known member
How can you have Faith in Christ when you don't believe that Christ death saved them He died for?
By the doing and the dying of Jesus salvation has been provided for everyone.
"That he by the grace of God should taste death for EVERYONE" Hebrews 2:9.
You read but you cannot believe. You cannot believe because you are void of the Holy Spirit, who is the teacher of truth.
beloved57
Well-known member
False teaching!
Calling Paul a liar again?
I can't think of a quicker way to sentence yourself to hell than to call Paul a liar.
beloved57
Well-known member
You don't believe a word Paul wrote !
You frequently call the apostles liars, especially when what they write refutes your Calvinist doctrine.
Just like this one, "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior; who will have ALL MEN to be saved" 1 Timothy 2:3, 4.
Brother Ducky
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Interesting statement from you. You claim that ALL are reconciled. If so then B57 is by definition reconciled.
Or perhaps you do not believe that Jesus is Lord.
He has been reconciled, but he refuses to accept his reconciliation. He wants to be predestinated.