civic
Active Member
I understand them just fine. I use to believe like you when I was deceived- I worshiped the tulip just like you do now.
Things that accompany Christ
- Thread starter brightfame52
- Start date
brightfame52
Active Member
You reject Christ definite efficacious redeeming death
civic
Active Member
no I deny your version of it and affirm the biblical one.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Both reject each other's version, and both think that the Bible supports their version.
They will end up accusing each other of making Jesus a liar, despising the Scripture, and putting in danger their salvation.
Same old, same old.
Fortunately, I am very annoying, and not the kind of guy who sits with popcorn to enjoy the wrestling match.
Why not?
Please embrace @brightfame52 as your brother in Christ. This is the right thing to do, and what the Holy Spirit whispers in your ear. He is your brother, TomL.
brightfame52
Active Member
You reject Christ definite efficacious redeeming death
civic
Active Member
Nope I affirm His atonement is for all, not just a few.
brightfame52
Active Member
No you reject it, you affirm effectual freewill of man
civic
Active Member
you as a fatalist reject the gospel, the atonement, forgiveness of sins, salvation, eternal life as described by Jesus and the Apostles.
brightfame52
Active Member
Friend you affirm effectual freewill of man
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
No, because @civic believes it was in God's plan that only those who accepted Christ would be saved.
So, the sacrifice of Christ is 100% efficacious for the intended population.
- For you, the intended population is those elected for no reason since the foundation of the world.
- For civic (and for me) the intended population is those who accept the gospel.
In both cases, Christ sacrifice is 100% efficacious for the intended population.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
If @civic comes to accept that free will is ALSO a gift from God, and limited within God's sovereignty, then you will both agree in essence.
I don't see why civic would not accept that, if he accepts that his nose is a gift from God.
Free will exists, but as any other human feature or capability, it is limited.
Man can't run 100 meters in 7 seconds. That doesn't mean that "running" is inexistent.
Who, among the Arminians in this Forum, thinks that their free will is absolute, immune to any bias, disinformation, to any external or internal influence?
The only way for man to have absolute free will would be to be All-Knowing and All-Mighty.
Only God has absolute Free Will.
Did Saul (Paul) have a choice when he met Jesus in the way to Damascus? Yes, but the chances to say "No" to Christ were perhaps 1%.
God is the one who sets the times, the places, the circumstances, in which he calls people. And his call can be perceived as "irresistible" because it is highly efficacious. If Saul had said "No" to Christ (that 1% of probabilities) God would have called him in a different way, even as harsh as he called Jonah when Jonah was trying to escape from God's call.
Saul could have hidden in the belly of a whale in the middle of the most remote ocean... and God would still have called him from that place to serve Him.
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civic
Active Member
Everything is by Gods grace. But we can reject His grace by our own wills. God and His love is a two way street just like in your marriage unless it was pre-arranged and you were forced to marry someone you did not love.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Very clearly explained.
Now, what @brightfame52 can say is that our free will always leads us to take the wrong decisions. Never the good ones. God has to intervene to make us choose the right things.
He is right to a great extent.
You educate your kids so that they learn to take good decisions. If you didn't give them a Christian education, they would take wrong choices in several oportunities. So you, as a father, influence the future choices of your kids. Do we agree on this?
If we can do this as human, imperfect fathers, just imagine what God can do!
God can influence our mind so that we are inclined to choose the right things. This is what Calvinists refer to as the regeneration (I call it renewal). Our "nature" is changed little by little, day after day, so that we naturally learn to hate the stink of sin and love the aroma of holiness.
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civic
Active Member
I can lead my family, not force my wife, children or grandchildren to listen to my guidance/advice. I have some children following the Lord and 1 that has rejected his faith. I have hope he will return but thats between him and God. I keep my relationship with him open and don't force my beliefs on him as it would just push him further away. I can pray for him and hopefully he will come to his senses on his own just like the prodigal son did and return. Notice the father ( God ) in the story never sought him or pursued him and let him come to his own decision and return. This is a picture of how God works through circumstances in a loving way not forcing Himself on others.
brightfame52
Active Member
Bearing false witness
civic
Active Member
projecting
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
For the sake of all our readers, please present your argument on why @civic does not believe that the sacrifice of Christ is 100% efficacious for the population that in his view God intended to save.
If you don't, I gently ask you to retract your statement about "Bearing false witness".
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Thanks for sharing your experience, my brother.
Yes, I have similar experiences and I guess we are not alone in the Forum in that regard.
Now, what I say is that we provide them education knowing that we can indeed influence their choices, without violating their free will.
Otherwise, we would never educate them. That influence is limited because we are imperfect fathers, and professors are imperfect professors, and even the best among our kid's friends are imperfect friends... and certainly, because they have not faced the horrible circumstances in which they will realize they made a bad choice.
God's infinite love and wisdom makes his "educational methods" perfect. Since they are perfect, they do not violate free will. He just does what He knows is best... and succeeds.
“I taught Ephraim to walk,
Taking them by their arms;
But they did not know that I healed them.
I drew them with gentle cords,
With bands of love,
And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck.
I stooped and fed them."
(Hoseah 11:3,4)
The parable of the prodigal son is an excellent example.
Certainly, that son made his bad choices and the father never ever forced him.
But the remembrance of love an dignity he had enjoyed with the Father, coupled with the absolute loss of love and dignity he was experiencing penyless, alone, and feeding the pigs, heavily influenced his decision.
No person in this world wants to feel pennyless, loveless, abandoned, naked, sick, and in equality to pigs. Nobody wants to feel in hell.
To me, that's the purpose of hell. Faced with such situation, we are inclined to remember (or imagine) how things will be in the House of the Father. Is the decision to stand up and go to the Father the result of our free will? Yes, but only to a certain extent.
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brightfame52
Active Member
I have presented my reasons, read my threads.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Since we have in the Bible evidence that the intended population to save are
- the elect from the foundation of the world for no reason
- those who believe in Christ's gospel
The posts of the two of you address what was first, the egg of the chicken. They don't address the fact that, in the end, we eat eggs for breakfast.
So, regardless of whether God first regenerates the person to believe, or God regenerates the person who has chosen to believe, the result is the same: Jesus sacrifice is efficacious for 100% of the intended population.
Neither you nor @civic are diminishing the value of Christ's sacrifice nor the fulfillment of God's plan/will.
Please recognize this.
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