Need a reason to believe Calvinists are who they claim to be?
- Thread starter Titus
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The condition for salvation is to believe.
Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
Luke 8:12
Believe = saved
Titus
Active Member
John 12:42-43 was quoted to show it is possible to believe only and not be saved.
We were not discussing public confession.
I'm proving with Scripture it is possible to be lost as a faith onlyist.
Since you brought up confession.
Without you realizing it you proved your own view on the plan of salvation to be false doctrine.
You now admit faith alone is not enough!!!!
One must also confess ones faith publicly.
Faith + public confession of ones faith in Christ is not belief alone + nothing = salvation.
So, we have established faith alone cannot save, John 12:42.
We have also established Faith + confession does save.
But that is not all the conditions in Jesus' gospel to receive Gods Grace.
Eternally-Grateful
Active Member
Eternally-Grateful
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Eternally-Grateful
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praise_yeshua
Active Member
You referenced a verse dealing with a lack of confession as evidence.
That verse certainly doesn't establish such.
No I didn't.
Confession isn't a work. Faith isn't really faith without confession. You're endlessly conflating. Faith is established in confession.
James didn't say a single thing about confession. You're losing the context of our discussion. You're all over the place.
Funny how James didn't say anything about it. Do you actually believe James? Doesn't appear that you do.
No you haven't established this at all. You're simply claiming victory.
Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple. Peter denied Jesus Christ openly.
Confession is to God. Not to men. You have failed to establish that open confession to man is required for salvation. I didn't confess anything to you. I didn't need to. Faith in Jesus Christ includes an open confession to God. Nothing more.
Why is it you insist upon controlling salvation in this manner?
I suppose you've meet them all while I haven't. Please list them ALL so I can provide evidence that I have meet your requirement that you claim is God's requirement.
Titus
Active Member
They were believers that hid their faith in Christ. They would not confess to others their faith.
Therefore they could not be saved by their faith alone because faith alone without confession is a dead faith.
John 12:42,
- Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Jesus but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Christ....for they loved the praise of men MORE than the praise of God
Matthew 10:32-33,
- whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father in heaven
- but whosoever shall deny Me before men him will I also deny before My Father in heaven
We have established by your own admittance that you must confess to be saved and not only believe.
praise_yeshua
Active Member
Again, you're not dealing with my responses honestly. Does that disqualify you from salvation based upon your own requirements? You're ignoring the vast majority of what I say to double down upon the same false claim you're making.
Matthew 10:32-33 doesn't help you at all. Jesus wasn't speaking to you nor was He speaking to me.... or of me. Who was Jesus speaking to and why did He say this?
I confessed to God. I didn't confess to you nor any man. You're are insisting that I confess to you Are you Catholic? My salvation doesn't depend upon you. In fact, I've already openly confessed Christ to YOU and you still insist I'm not saved. You don't even believe what Jesus said in Matthew 10:32-33.
Next time, how about include all the verses that form a requirement you demand of me. Lets get this over with.
Maybe you should listen to Paul in your judgment of me.
1Co 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
Also, how about dealing with the secret disciple I mentioned? You left the book of James and are now randomly insisting upon requirements you don't understand. How about including something mentioned instead of double down again.
Titus
Active Member
I never said this. I never said you had to confess to me personally to be saved.
Where did you get this from? Not me.
Then you have not confessed as Jesus taught.
You've invented your own private interpretation of confession.
Matthew 10:32-33,
- therefore whoever confesses Me before men him will I confess before my Father in heaven...
Jesus taught confession is before men. Therefore it is a public confession.
Praise Yeshua, you have admitted you have not done this, therefore you have not confessed Christ.
No man can invent his own interpretation of confession.
This is another gospel Paul warns about, Galatians 1:8.
John 12:42,
- Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Jesus but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him...
They hid their faith in Christ.
They would not confess their faith in Christ publicly before men.
Jesus is teaching His gospel.
Jesus baptizes Paul with the Holy Spirit.
Paul goes preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Listen to Paul preach Jesus' gospel to the church in Rome.
Romans 10:9-10,
- that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth(public confession) the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart(two conditions to be saved) that God has raised Jesus from the dead thou shalt be saved
- for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness
- and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation
Paul is speaking to you and me and everyone that has lived since Paul taught the gospel.
Paul is speaking for Jesus, Matthew 10:32-33.
Acts 8:36-37,
- and they went on their way, they came to a certain water and the Eunch said, see here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized
- and Philip said, if thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest, and he answered and said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God(public confession with the mouth)
Then all you have is a dead faith alone, James 2:20.
Not like you do.
I really have no idea what you are talking about. And I seriously believe that you don't either.
Jesus said believing is a work.
So far, only in years.
praise_yeshua
Active Member
You said that man must confess Christ before men. Are there men here? You have said that I'm not saved. You made that claim. I confessed to everyone here and you still reject me. I do it over and over again here. Openly among men.
All this adds up to your desire to exhaustively defining whether I'm saved or not. Even to the point of openly among men insisting that I'm not of the "faith". That is what Catholic's tend to do. They are not alone in this. Protestants do too. I mentioned your enemy to make you think. To make you deal with the issue. You're all basically the same. You want to control the narrative of God to others.
Dishonest nonsense. I've confessed Christ openly in this forum. You're being dishonest at so many levels and it is tiring.
I said that when I got saved, I didn't confess to anyone but God. That action is what brought salvation to me. I was saved.
You are still not dealing with the secret disciple of Jesus who begged for the body of Jesus. You know the one that wouldn't confess Jesus before man. You can't deal with this outlier to your theology and you're dishonestly ignoring it to sell your own interpretation.
Do you really think I don't know these verses and their requirements? I confess to God as detailed in Romans 10:9-10.
Faith is confirmed in confession. Confession itself isn't a secondary means of salvation. There are many seeds of faith that in our lives. Faith grows. When we with our lips/mouth confess our faith. "Faith" in salvation is "born". The seeds of faith burst forth from the "groud".
Luk 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
This dishonest rhetoric that exist between Calvinism and Arminianism is preposterous.
No one was there for in Acts 8:36-37 but one man and God. Who do you think saved this Eunch?
What about this "men" requirement you have?
Now, it is time to really deal with your confusion that you preach to others.
You're an Arminian that believes salvation is nothing more than the "smell of smoke". One minute you're saved and the next minute you're not. Thusly, you see everything you believe through this "lens" you're looking through that you've been falsely taught in your life. You are simply repeating what they say. It is their faith. It isn't your faith that you have. It isn't your belief. You got it from them.
What Jesus said as recorded in Matthew 10 is far different than what you're presenting. For example.
Faith in confession to God saves. It is not faith in confession before men that saves. However, a man that is faced with confirming or denying faith in Christ should openly confess Christ before MEN. < plural. It is a continual process. There should be a general open declaration of faith in confession to all men. However, there are exceptions to this. In fact, I've mentioned this already and you ignored it.
Also, in the context of denial that Jesus talked about.....
Peter denied Christ. By your assessment and belief that you got from lesser men, Peter should at that very moment been denied my Christ and damned. Yet, that isn't what happened.
Please pay attention to what you read....
I got saved when I expressed my faith in confession of Jesus Christ to God. Not men. To God. I've been saved ever since. Just like Peter, I have denied Jesus Christ but I didn't lose salvation. I denied Jesus Christ but I lying to MEN. Peter lied when he denied Jesus Christ. When Peter said that he didn't know Christ, he was denying his own heart and condition. He was denying his own faith. However, He wasn't denying God. Peter couldn't deny God. He was there because of his love for God Incarnate in Jesus Christ.
It is the same principle that Paul speaks about to Timothy.
2Ti 2:13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.
Peter was guilty of lying about his faith in Messiah, Jesus Christ but he wasn't guilty of abandoning his faith. Sometimes as believers, we lie to ourselves and others about the who and what we are. We are not our own. Yet, we sometimes act like. Much like you're doing now. Yet, I'm not the one claiming you're not saved. God knows. I don't.
Christ just doesn't start "denying" us before the Father when we lie about not knowing HIM. Christ knows we are lying about the realty of our faith.
You've taken these facts and ignored them to form your own biased interpretation. This allows you the do what you're doing here. It allows you to be the arbitrator of faith to humanity. I believe you enjoy that role you're claiming for yourself. I believe all Arminians do this to some degree or another.
Again. I'm not either a Calvinist or an Arminian. I rejected that nonsense a very long time ago. I only care about the Truth and I've become your enemy because I have told you the Truth.
Seabass
Active Member
Taking Possession of What God Gives: A Case Study in Salvation - Apologetics Press
Relatively few within Christendom would deny that eternal salvation is a free gift from God.
apologeticspress.org
Above is a great article on what God 'gives' and how one must take possession of what God gives. Time and again in the OT the promised land was describes as a "gift" it was free yet being a 'gift" did not mean there was no effort on part of Israel to take possession of that gift....they had cross the Jordon, prepare victuals, they had to march around Jericho yet none of this effort made the promise land something earned or merited by Israel. Even after Israel had possessed the promised land for a long time, the land is still referred to as a gift that was 'given' to them by God, Jos21:43. God even gave them as a gift manna to eat but they still had to do the work of gathering it in order to fill their hunger but their work in gathering did not make the manna something earned/merited.
God has promised a spiritual promised land to anyone that is willing to take it (Rev 22:17). To take possession of eternal life one must believe, repent of sins, confess with the mouth and be baptized which no more earns/merits the spiritual promised land than the Israelites efforts in taking possession of the promised land.
One must go to great lengths to purposefully misunderstand something so simple yet what great lengths some will go to protect a personal theological bias.
So was in like your father! Brother Jim is 18-20 years younger than my father which he would be 117 if living, but he died at a very young age of 38 with cancer in 1955.70 years ago, my FATHER was in Elementary school.
This is deep, is this all you have to offer to the discussion? You are attacking the person, and not what they preach by not using scriptures to expose what you think is their error. Calvinism, like other faiths has different view points that I do not agree with, being a high/hyper Calvinist, as called by others, but prefer just to be called what I am, a Christian/believer in the word of God, which for the most part is what I reference others as, instead of using such labels. Nevertheless, I care little what others call me, I'am more concerned about what God thinks of me and what I believe and teach, than others.
1st Corinthians 4:3
“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.”Similar threads
