An Article on free will
- Thread starter TomL
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TibiasDad
Well-known member
While I would not go so far to assigning “evil and wicked” in my description of OSAS, I would say that it can be a dangerously deceptive doctrine that is built on a very flimsy logical premise. It can cause “real harm”, and create a false sense of security.
Doug
TibiasDad
Well-known member
Paul’s teaching is faith verses works of the law (keeping the written code of Leviticus). He is not advocating a completely passive protocol for salvation. He does not eliminate human action per se, but rather the errant idea that our actions are capable of obligating God to do something (like save us) simply because we have done certain things.
He is not anti-works because keeping the law will obligate God, but rather because it is a meaningless exercise that is completely incapable of obligating God to do anything for us, and thus is completely incapable of resulting in salvation.
We cannot merit salvation (by keeping the law) therefore salvation can only be a gracious act.
Abraham is the “father” of the righteous because he trusted God to do what he promised 430 years before the law! Faith is not a product of the law! Faith preceded the law and was counted as righteousness before God!
The purpose of the law is to expose sin for what it is. It is not meant to save us, but to show us that we are indeed sinful and worthy of death.
Doug
Dizerner
Well-known member
A doctrine that can and does send many people to hell and is against taking every single warning in the Bible seriously can be nothing less.
Please realize that lessening and watering down such serious issues is a very serious act of compromise and lukewarmness towards the truth.
I pray conviction upon the saints.
“Calvinists, who deny that salvation can ever be lost, reason on the subject in a marvelous way. They tell us, that no virgin’s lamp can go out; no promising harvest be choked with thorns; no branch in Christ can ever be cut off from unfruitfulness; no pardon can ever be forfeited, and no name blotted out of God’s book! They insist that no salt can ever lose its savor; nobody can ever ‘receive the grace of God in vain’; ‘bury his talents’; ‘neglect such great salvation’; trifle away ‘a day of grace’; ‘look back’ after putting his hand to the gospel plow. Nobody can ‘grieve the Spirit’ till He is ‘quenched,’ and strives no more, nor ‘deny the Lord that bought them’; nor ‘bring upon themselves swift destruction.’ Nobody, or body of believers, can ever get so lukewarm that Jesus will spew them out of His mouth. They use reams of paper to argue that if one ever got lost he was never found (John 17:12); that if one falls, he never stood (Rom. 11:16-22 and Heb. 6:4-6); if one was ever ‘cast forth,’ he was never in, and ‘if one ever withered,’ he was never green (John 15:1-6); and that ‘if any man draws back,’ it proves that he never had anything to draw back from (Heb. 10:38,39); that if one ever ‘falls away into spiritual darkness,’ he was never enlightened (Heb 6:4-6); that if you ‘again get entangled in the pollutions of the world,’ it shows that you never escaped (2 Pet 2:20); that if you ‘put salvation away’ you never had it to put away, and if you make shipwreck of faith, there was no ship of faith there!! In short they say: If you get it, you can’t lose it; and if you lose it you never had it. May God save us from accepting a doctrine, that must be defended by such fallacious reasoning!”
~ John Wesley
John and Charles Wesley, no doubt were children of God, yet, without very much knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. Probably much like Peter was before his conversion after his denial of Christ. The apostles had very little knowledge of the truth pre-Christ's death, much more afterwards.
One heresy leads to another heresy ~ requiring two lies! The lie of decisional regeneration needs the lie of guaranteed eternal life, regardless how one lives and what they believe, in order to comfort these reprobates.
"Once saved, always saved" is a very popular mantra of easy-believism that truly turns the grace of God into lasciviousness by promising eternal life to those ungoldy lives. It has no Biblical basis as it is commonly used. The God of heaven will not lose a single one of His elect. All He intended to save shall be saved. Not one true believer shall be cast out. They shall all be received into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the concept of “once saved, always saved,” based on decisional regeneration that obligates God rather than God’s work of grace leading to godly evidence, is wrong false. We teach and believe in "Once Loved, always loved" Which the word of God supports.
A Child of God can fall into sin and lose many blessings that he otherwise would enjoy if he had taken heed to the many warnings in the scriptures. Those who preach once saved always saved make those warning useless and not needed. The book of Hebrews are loaded with these warnings, for us to heed. Practically speaking we can lose way and end up in the congregation of the dead, being very unfruitful in our Christians walk much like Lot was.
What would be the results if we fail to heed what Paul is telling Timothy to do? Practically speaking, we would lose much that we would have had if being obedient ~ we would be useless in the service of God, we would lose our gift to see, understand and to even obey truth, if we fail to heed such exhortations as what is before us. By heeding them we saved ourselves from being a Christian in name only, one just going through the motion of serving God. Our enemies would not be able to gainsay what we teach, if we continue in the straight and narrow way that few are willing to take.
Jim, did you take time to at least glance over it? Yes, I did agree with it, but as I have said, I'm more a high Calvinist than Calvin~I like men like Samuel Richardson, and John Brine, more than Calvin, old Particular Baptist, along with Gill, etc.
Jim, John Calvin was best when teaching practical living than any man I have ever read behind, his writings are very godly in nature on practical Christianity~so sad that his name has been damaged by false prophets, people are missing so much by not reading behind him, on godly living.
I will use Trump's comments on one of Biden's statements during their debate: I don't know what you are talking about there, and I don't think you do either.
Also, where does it talk about "faith in salvation"?
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Dizerner
Well-known member
Lordship OSAS is a tiny bit better than OSAS.
Thank God for the "Blessed Inconsistency."
Greetings brightflames52 ~ I truly believe you could better serve Christ, if you would enlarge upon what you have to say, instead of one or two liners, no pun intended, trying to help you better to be useful in defending the truth.
Example would be helpful: You quoted in part:
Acts 18:27
“And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:”While I whole heartily agree that we believe because of the grace of God freely given to us through Jesus' redemption work who lived as our surety before God's law, yet the mean of faith being being seen and increasing comes through the word of God, the channel by which God has chosen and provided for his children to come unto the knowledge of truth.
Faith comes from the new man within God's elect whom the Spirit of God quickened to life and created within them a new man, that is spiritual in nature and alone has the power to believe the word of God, which comes by them hearing, reading and believing the word of God.
The power to have faith is given as a gift to us through this new man within us, that we got from being born of God that Jesus Christ secured for us.
Though the power is given freely to have faith, still it comes through the written word of God, and we must never forget this truth. That's why Paul had a strong desire to go to Spain to see how many children of God where there that needed to hear the word of God!
Romans 15:24
“Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company.”Brother, you are using the word salvation with a wide brush~But, yes faith if the fruit of the indwelling Spirit of God, which one must have before he can believe.
I pulled it up and read the first 15 or so pages. But to be honest, since Calvin wrote in protest of something Pighius, a Catholic in the 16th century, wrote, neither what Pighius wrote nor Calvin's retort is of particular interest to me. History is not my strong suit at all; I don't typically read history for history's sake. And I disagreed somewhat with what I did read in Calvin's book. And Calvin was Calvin. He was monstrously wrong in his soteriology, and Pighius, a 16th century Catholic, was as well.
You only had 165 pages to go...... Albert Pighius was much like any Armenian in our day, even more Calvinism in his understanding than most in our day.
Jim, let me ask you a question since this thread is nothing more than a salad bar where one picks and choses what they want to discuss~"Does it concern you that no one preach baptism being essential to obtaining the forgiveness of sin before around 1800 with Alexander Campbell and Baron Scott?" When the Church of Christ basically started for all practical purposes.
I have seldom ever said that baptism is essential to obtaining the forgiveness of sin. I could make a case for that but I don't. I only point out that the forgiveness of sin is, whether from John the Baptist's preaching or from Peter's preaching, obtained in baptism. It is a promise from God that He would forgive the sins of the repentant believer in baptism. Baptism is the time, the occasion, in the life of the repentant believer when he is forgiven his sins and he is given the indwelling Holy Spirit. The difference between John's baptism and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ as preached by Peter is in the additional giving of the indwelling Holy Spirit as preached by Peter.
Forgiveness of sin and receiving the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit is salvation. I know you like to invent your five (?) "senses" of salvation, but I think that is pure construct on your part; it is playing with words. Being justified, regenerated and initially sanctified is being saved. One who has been justified, regenerated and initially sanctified has become in that instant a child of God. And those all happen at the same instant in time, namely, at the occasion of the repentant believer being baptized. Could God do that at any other time in the life of someone? I wouldn't deny it. But I can't confirm from scripture that He would.
I would add here, that while I have here concentrated on Peter's teaching at Pentecost, it is all in concert with Paul's teaching. None of Paul's teaching is in contrast or contradiction to what Peter said.
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I thought I did, at least in my own way. To your question more directly, I am concerned anytime someone preaches anything I think is against God's word.
But let me add here, I am not sure your statement that "no one preach baptism being essential to obtaining the forgiveness of sin before around 1800 with Alexander Campbell and Baron Scott", is actually correct. As I noted earlier, history is not one of my strengths, so I won't bother to contest it.
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brightfame52
Well-known member
Again, your very words condemned you, face it, you are a teacher of salvation by works, by the acts of men !
brightfame52
Well-known member
brightfame52
Well-known member
@Red Baker
Hi, I believe I have enlarged on my views in previous posts and threads, you cant just dismiss that friend.
Hi, I believe I have enlarged on my views in previous posts and threads, you cant just dismiss that friend.
brightfame52
Well-known member
But see, Im not asking you sir, this was directed to an poster who seems to deny faith in salvation/conversion is a spiritual fruit of the Spirit. Explain what you mean if you like about using word salvation in a wide brush when talking about faiths role in salvation ?
Saved by grace through faith. Through faith in what?
