brightfame52
Active Member
It means you not in my equation, your personal experiences do not gauge how I understand scripture.
Irresistible Grace
- Thread starter civic
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brightfame52
Active Member
He was deceived and didnt believe in God as he thought, he admitted he was in unbelief 1 Tim 1
Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
Plus explain to us how Paul believed in God when Jesus is God ? You dont believe Jesus is God
You are ignoring the fact that Paul believed in God the Father
brightfame52
Active Member
False, the Father and Christ are One, One God Jn 1030
I and my Father are one.
Jesus is God in the flesh Jn 1:1,14
How did Paul believe in God and at the same time not believe in God
civic
Active Member
Is Jesus ?
TibiasDad
Active Member
I see you are still avoiding the question: one more time…
“Where does this say we were made to believe against our will? Nowhere in scripture does being born again precede believing: quite the opposite! Believing or not believing is the pivot point between life and death, not God making us do something against our will in order to believe.”
You see, if what you say is true- that God must first make you born again in order to be able to believe- then that is necessarily the event that must happen first. But scripture never says that we are lost because God didn’t make it possible for us to believe, it says we are saved or lost only because we do or do not believe, period!
Furthermore, if we are condemned for not believing, then the ability to believe is a necessary prerequisite for one to be culpable for not believing. For instance it would be unjust to condemn a person for not being left handed if the person was born without a left arm! Likewise, it would be unjust to condemn someone for not believing if that wasn’t possible.
But God graciously gives us the opportunity and thereby the potential for belief by giving us something in which to believe-something that we are not worthy of and something that God does not have to do- making it gracious by definition.
Thus, grace always acts first by making belief possible and a potential, from that point Grace is self-subjected to the will of man to respond to what it has done. Grace has given us the power and potential to choose how to respond to it, and that is why belief becomes the pivot point of the equation. That is why belief alone is the reason why we are saved or lost!
Doug
brightfame52
Active Member
TibiasDad
Active Member
brightfame52
Active Member
Okay I see the context of the statement, as saul he was a enemy against Christ, that was his will by nature. However when Grace changed him to a new creature, he was a willing slave for Christ Acts 9 6
6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
Grace working effectually in Power, creating him a new man with a new heart, he was willing.
See with a new heart comes a new will. The word heart is kardia:
the heart
- that organ in the animal body which is the centre of the circulation of the blood, and hence was regarded as the seat of physical life
- denotes the centre of all physical and spiritual life
- the vigour and sense of physical life
- the centre and seat of spiritual life
- the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavours
- of the understanding, the faculty and seat of the intelligence
- of the will and character
Gods Grace and Power gives a New Heart Ezk 36:26
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
And it was all Gods will that did this, it had nothing to do with sauls will.
TibiasDad
Active Member
Paul’s heart was always toward God and he was doing what he thought was right. The Damascus road event intellectually challenged that assumption and gave him new evidence as to whom he was actually persecuting, Jesus himself.
Paul’s question above is the first evidence that his mind had changed and he was acknowledging that he was wrong and submitting to what Jesus wanted him to do. This is an act of repentance in the face of his new reality. His obedience to the Lord’s instructions demonstrates his change of heart and mind about Christ.
Ananias’ actions of laying his hands on Saul/Paul and saying he had come “…that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit” was the point of Saul’s becoming a Christian (for he didn’t have the Holy Spirit yet, which is how we are born again.) Thus, Paul’s repentance and willful obedience to the Lord’s was his believing and in turn choosing the different direction the Lord was showing him. The Holy Spirit was given subsequent to his belief.
Doug
brightfame52
Active Member
No it wasnt, He was an Idlator in unbelief. How can his heart be towards God when Jesus is God whom he hated ? Now he may have thought he was right but so does every false religion in the world duh
Nonsense
Paul had a belief in the Father like many Jews had
Acts 22:3–5 (NASB 95) — 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, 5 as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.
TibiasDad
Active Member
He was a Jew of impeccable character and learning who was dedicated to the God of Israel; he was not an idolater. He didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah, until the Damascus road event, but was a fervent believer in the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. He was no idolater!
Doug
brightfame52
Active Member
Lol they thought they did, they were deceived. Now Jews like John the Baptist, his Mom and Dad they had Faith in the True God and when Christ came in the scene they immediately received Him. They were born of God and heard their Saviours voice. But jews like Saul of Tarsus who were very religous, were lost. They were jews just like these Rom 10 1-3
Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. 2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
These jews are lost and ignorant, but they are serious and zealous
brightfame52
Active Member
And lost and ignorant of God and Righteousness Rom 10:1-3
Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. 2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
Where they saved or lost ? Paul before conversion was just like them, lost and ignorant
TibiasDad
Active Member
Paul was still stuck in the past, playing by the rules of the old game of the OT. The “knowledge “ that he speaks of is personal and experiential knowledge of God. The OT was about knowing the rules; the NT is about knowing the ruler!
Doug
Sorry, but your belief in total inability is contrary to a belief they could be serious and have a zeal for God.
BTW you ignored this
Acts 22:3–5 (NASB 95) — 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, 5 as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.
The unregenerate Paul had a zeal for God.
Thus your belief in total inability is shown false.
brightfame52
Active Member
The elect will receive Grace because God does a sovereign gracious work for them and in them, thats how Grace is given then received. The source is Jesus Christ Himself from His fulness Jn 1:16
And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
This Jesus from His fulness made the Saul of tarsus into a believer, apostle, servant.
And He graces all the elect in this manner in their conversion by grace. This is irresistible sovereign Grace out from Christ.
brightfame52
Active Member
Paul was lost, he was blessed to be one of the elect Christ came to save out from the jewish remnant Matt 15 24
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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