The New birth comes after hearing/believing the gospel
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Cyrus
Active Member
Calvinism is Rooted in Manichean, Stoic, and Gnostic Philosophy
During the early centuries of the church, heresies began to crop up that were rooted in certain un-Christian, un-Hebraic philosophies. The church did a fabulous job warding these off through the mid-4th century until one of the most influential Christians of the time, who also happened to be a former Manichean philosopher, began using Manichean philosophy to interpret and teach the Bible.
The God of Scripture is NOT an authoritarian demagogue who overrides the free will of people OR who creates people with the very purpose of condemning them to hell. Unlike what some Calvinists believe, humanity's free will is not a demonic deception. It is a biblical and empirical fact of creation. It is reality. Suppose I do something of my own volition that God says he has never considered doing and finds abominable. In that case, I do not get to attribute my ungodly actions to God using the Calvinistic understanding of predestination.
God is not righteous apart from acting righteously at all times. His nature and his actions are not distinct or incoherent. Everything that God does is righteous because he is righteous and always acts righteously. He doesn't do evil things and then call them righteous.
Every time a person says that they were predestined to sin, they are saying that God is ultimately responsible for their ungodly actions. That is not the picture that Bible paints. This understanding of God was imported into the church when Augustine began using his Manichean background to explain God's nature in the fourth century. Before then, no Christian would have ever attributed their sinful actions to predestination.
During the early centuries of the church, heresies began to crop up that were rooted in certain un-Christian, un-Hebraic philosophies. The church did a fabulous job warding these off through the mid-4th century until one of the most influential Christians of the time, who also happened to be a former Manichean philosopher, began using Manichean philosophy to interpret and teach the Bible.
The God of Scripture is NOT an authoritarian demagogue who overrides the free will of people OR who creates people with the very purpose of condemning them to hell. Unlike what some Calvinists believe, humanity's free will is not a demonic deception. It is a biblical and empirical fact of creation. It is reality. Suppose I do something of my own volition that God says he has never considered doing and finds abominable. In that case, I do not get to attribute my ungodly actions to God using the Calvinistic understanding of predestination.
God is not righteous apart from acting righteously at all times. His nature and his actions are not distinct or incoherent. Everything that God does is righteous because he is righteous and always acts righteously. He doesn't do evil things and then call them righteous.
Every time a person says that they were predestined to sin, they are saying that God is ultimately responsible for their ungodly actions. That is not the picture that Bible paints. This understanding of God was imported into the church when Augustine began using his Manichean background to explain God's nature in the fourth century. Before then, no Christian would have ever attributed their sinful actions to predestination.
praise_yeshua
Active Member
Like I said. You believe Christ could have just "showed up" and "died" and that saved you.
That isn't the Gospel. That is a false gospel designed by your mentors to promote YOU. Not God.
No. You can't please God without faith. It is impossible.
Heb 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
So start there and tell me why you preach faith when your theology doesn't require it.
praise_yeshua
Active Member
Sad. When men blame their own choice on God.
brightfame52
Active Member
Huh I have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Christ Death redeemed them and justified them He died for and His resurrection causes them to be born again. He's a complete Savior
praise_yeshua
Active Member
brightfame52
Active Member
I don't think you know what you talking about let alone me
atpollard
Active Member
There is really only one reason to reject the Biblical truths found in Calvinism:
- Genesis 3:4-6 [ESV] But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
- Romans 1:19-21 [ESV] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
- John 3:19-20 [ESV] And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
- What do “people” (which is all unsaved men) do and not do?
- John 6:44 [ESV] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
- What does the Father do about it?
- Romans 9:15-16 [ESV] For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
- Who does it depend upon? Human will or God?
Bob Carabbio
Active Member
Which is one of the MASSIVE PROBLEMS in the church!!! BIBLICAL Faith has a VERY Specific definition (Heb 11:1), and a VERY Specific source (Rom 10:17). I'm completely aware that the word "FAITH" is applied to any number of things that have nothing to do with Biblical FAITH. A "Denomination" is not a "FAITH" it's nothing but a Religious / Theological system which may or may not have any foundation in the truth. Mental assent is not FAITH, since it's based on nothing other that how you feel at the time, and has no substance you can rely on.
Even the Biblical word rendered "Believe" is loaded and includes Hearing, Understanding, and Obeying - way past common English understanding of the word.
The new birth precedes faith.
Dead things do not choose to live.
What you should do is not necessarily what you can do. You SHOULD obey the law perfectly. But can you?
You do know don't you?
Calvinist doctrine holds man cannot believe, love or serve God
So you do not believe scripture
Deuteronomy 30:11–19 (NASB95) — 11 “For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. 12 “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ 13 “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ 14 “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. 15 “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; 16 in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. 17 “But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
Christ makes alive those who believe
John 3:16
For in this way God loved the world, so that he gave his one and only Son, in order that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life.
Eph 2:8–9
For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.
Rom 10:9–10
that if you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.
Acts 16:31
And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household!”
Mark 16:16
The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who refuses to believe will be condemned.
1 John 5:13
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.
John 5:24
Truly, truly I say to you that the one who hears my word and who believes the one who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
1 Peter 1:3–5
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 into an inheritance imperishable and undefiled and unfading, reserved in heaven for you 5 who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time,
Rom 3:22–24
that is, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,
Gal 2:16
but knowing that a person is not justified by the works of the law, if not by faith in Jesus Christ, and we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified.
John 11:25–26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die forever. Do you believe this?”
Acts 13:39
by this one everyone who believes is justified!
Rom 4:5
But to the one who does not work, but who believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness,
1 Cor 15:1–2
Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed to you, which you have also received, in which you also stand, by which you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the message I proclaimed to you, unless you believed to no purpose.
Eph 1:13–14
in whom also you, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also when you believed you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.
2 Tim 3:15
and that from childhood you have known the holy writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
John 20:31
but these things are recorded in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Acts 15:11
But we believe we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way those also are.”
John 6:47
Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life.
Romans 10:9
that if you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
John 6:40
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks at the Son and believes in him would have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Gal 3:22
But the scripture imprisoned all under sin, in order that the promise could be given by faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.
Acts 13:38–39
“Therefore let it be known to you, men and brothers, that through this one forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and from all the things from which you were not able to be justified by the law of Moses, 39 by this one everyone who believes is justified!
Acts 10:43
To this one all the prophets testify, that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.”
Acts 26:18
to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Romans 3:23–25
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God made publicly available as the mercy seat through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness, because of the passing over of previously committed sins,
Rom 5:1
D
Therefore, because we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
civic
Active Member
Never once in scripture
Correct.
How can they ignore so much scripture?
John 7:38–39 (NASB 95) — 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Galatians 3:2 (NASB 95) — 2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
Galatians 3:5 (NASB 95) — 5 So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
Galatians 3:14 (NASB 95) — 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Ephesians 3:17–19 (NASB 95) — 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
John 1:12–13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Gal 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Finally those who do not believe will not see life
John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
John 3:18 The one who believes in him is not judged, but the one who does not believe has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
Mark 16:16 The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who refuses to believe will be condemned.
John 8:24 Thus I said to you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”
1 John 5:10–13 (The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning his Son.) And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.
civic
Active Member
scripture overwhelmingly supports the new birth coming after faith. there is not a single passage they have to support the new birth coming before faith in the gospel message.
and we know 100% that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ ( the gospel ).
this should end the controversy but as we know some are stuck in man made doctrines and make void the word of Christ by their traditions.
Yes. It's absolutely incredible anyone can deny so much scripture to hold on to man made doctrine
civic
Active Member
Sometimes I just shake my head in disbelief with some of the things I read that people believe. And they never came to that on their own study but by the influence of reformed teachers, preachers , pastors, theologians. No one reading the Bible without those men would believe that nonsense.
Yup, exactly right.
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