Jimmy,

Please don't be offended.  The question was put to you for others to read and learn from.  This has and will be a continuing and ongoing discussion - whether it be your interest in refuting Calvinism or my interest in issues of salvation.  If someone was to ask me that question I would be delighted to share the assurance of my salvation, the basis upon which I rest assured and the Person who I love and is the Author of my salvation.  It wasn't a "gotcha" or some other disrespectful question.  

You referred to another has having a "warm fuzzy feeling" as proof of their belief.  I sincerely wanted you to share what anchored you.

Romans 6 speaks of God's grace.  Being alive in Christ and not to sin.  But it does demonstrate the basis for our assurance.  It's found in everything that Christ has done.  Our baptism demonstrates our firm trust in all that Christ has done in His perfect obedience - an obedience which embraced a terrible suffering and death because His Father so willed.

How do I know I am saved?  Because by the power of His Spirit, my heart was changed from a heart of stone into a heart of flesh.  I trust everything that Jesus has done on my behalf.  I trust His obedience, His righteousness and His resurrection power.  Isn't our salvation assured not by what we have done in response to His love, but because of His love?  Isn't our salvation assured because He is trustworthy?  And don't we know for certain we are saved because of His Spirit that dwells within us?  



The assurance I have is not in what I have done in response to God's love for me, but what He has done because He first loved me.

In order to buy the Calvinist ideas we need to, among other things, convince ourselves that Jesus was a liar.

For example when in Mt. 6:14-15 Jesus says "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions" right there Jesus shows a cause and effect that implies free will. All the Gospels are full of sayings like that.

Another example of cause and effect that is absurd without assuming that humans have free will "Stop judging, that you may not be judged (Μὴ κρίνετε, ἵνα μὴ κριθῆτε·). 2 For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you"

and another...."Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, 10 but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

and another "on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak. 37 By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

and finally..."Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother."  Jesus did not say  whoever was predestined is my brother, and sister, and mother...He says very clearly  "whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother" Without free will Jesus is bullsh*tting us.

segell,

I apologise I'm not familiar with your views. Do you believe in free will or not?

Angelos, you must understand something.  We do not disagree on the existence of free will. we disagree on the definition of it.

Not a single Calvinist denies that men have the power of volitional free choice.   Every single Calvinist affirms in the strongest way possible that a man has the ability and freedom to choose whatever he desires to choose.  In fact, our entire theological view depends on it.

The problem is, nobody naturally desires God.  Where we differ, at the bottom line, is simply that Calvinists believe that the Bible teaches that fallen men are hostile towards God by default, and find the gospel of a crucified Christ foolishness, and therefore they willingly and freely choose to reject Him.  Nobody puts a gun to their back and forces them to reject the gospel.  God does not "prevent" anyone from doing that - people do that on their own.

Therefore, for anyone at all to be saved, a great work of God's grace must happen, within the person.  This is called regeneration and it happens through the preaching of the gospel.  It turns the heart of stone into the heart of flesh.  It makes them born again.  It spiritually resurrects them while they are dead in sins.  It disarms the hostility that is naturally present.  It grants new eyes that can see and new ears that can hear.

What would you say is the natural result of a person who experiences this?  Why, they freely and willingly choose Christ of course.  They freely and willingly believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for they no longer find it foolishness, and they are no longer hostile towards a Holy God, but full of repentance and apology.

Yes, the Bible speaks in conditional language.  How else do you suppose God should communicate to free creatures?  The Bible is full of conditional language.  If you do this, God says, I will do this in response.  Over and over again the Bible speaks this way.

The difference between us is simply that Calvinists are convinced (from scripture of course), that conditional language does not remove God from the picture. When God says "if you do this, I will respond in such-and-such way", that does not mean that God steps aside, passively, crosses his arms, and waits for it to happen.

Instead, God, being the gracious God He is, actually rolls up his sleeves and helps to bring about the very thing He has demanded.  Don't you realize that this is exactly the way the author of Hebrews describes the new covenant? God grants what He requires.  God Himself, out of kindness and mercy, fulfills the very conditions that He demands.  That's how anyone at all is saved.

You can see a perfect example of this in 2 Chro 30:6-12.


You can see here that Hezekiah's call to repentance to these people is spoken in very conditional language.  If you return to God, he will return to you. If you yield to the Lord, his anger will turn away from you.
In verse 10, people were mocking and not responding to Hezekiahs call.  

In verse 11, however, some people were responding positively.

You can clearly see in verse 12 that the people that responded positively did so because God's hand was on them to give them a heart to do it.  The key word in verse 12 is "also".  God's hand was "also" on Judah to give them a heart to respond.  This tells us that the reason Judah in verse 12 responded is also the same reason the people from verse 11 responded.

In short, the only reason any at all responded is because God was directly involved in giving people a heart that desired to respond. God Himself fulfilled the conditions.  God grants what He commands.  God directly got involved and brought about the very thing that He himself demanded. What an amazing God! If He didn't do this, then nobody at all would have responded to Hezekiah's call to repentance. If verse 12 didn't exist, then verse 11 wouldn't exist either.  It would stop a verse 10 with the fact that nobody responded but only mocked.

God commands men to have faith.  It is a condition.  Yet the Bible is clear that faith itself is a work and gift of grace from God Himself, a result of regeneration.  God grants what he demands.

So you see, rather than God asking something of sinful man and then stepping back, crossing his arms waiting for it to happen, God asks something of sinful man, then Himself comes in and works to make it happen.  Otherwise it never would. And nobody would be saved.

Angelos, my salvation depends entirely on God.  Not only do I throw myself at the mercy of God's grace to keep me in the faith now that I am a believer so that I do not fall away and be lost, but I also understand that it was God's grace that initially brought about my faith to begin with. My salvation from first till last is all of God's doing.

Skala,

I'm quoting Jesus and as usual instead of responding you're quoting, out of context, OT. Any Christian knows that wherever the OT seemingly contradicts the Gospels, the Gospels prevail. That's the whole point of Jesus coming to save us. Stop quoting OT out of context, anyone can do that to "prove" crazy stuff, like "kill your child if he disobeys you", "stone to death a woman if she commits adultery"

Even Jews (using their oral tradition - Talmud), come closer to Jesus in interpreting the OT than you, the way you interpret the OT.

Then you define "free will" as "free" to do all the evil we want!!!LOL. I have nothing to say to that other than feel sorry for such "clear" logic. Under a court of law if someone is only capable of doing evil is not considered "responsible for his actions". God is not less merciful than men.

Skala and Segell

Can you find anything that JESUS CHRIST said to support your theories?? If not, maybe you should just admit that your theories are not really christian

segell,

I will make one comment on the commentary you suggested on Romans 7.  It begins with

"It comes as no surprise that sinners have no love for law, especially the Law of God. All men are born sinners, dead in their trespasses and sins"

I believe that to be one of the more insidious concepts and the basis upon which so much erroneous reformed theology is based.  As such it isn't worth my time to read beyond that.  I know what is coming.

The interesting aspect of that is that if you simply read Paul for what he says, it seems clear enough to me that he directly contracts the concept of being born a sinner.  He says specifically that he was once alive but then he died.  It only remains to determine when that happened. There is nothing to indicate any sort of metaphorical language there.

But I don't expect that you will change your views about any of this.  The more I participate in forums such as this the more I am convinced that almost no one studies the Bible objectively.  And in all honesty that probably includes me as well.  With that I will leave this topic where it is and consider any further interchange on it a waste of my time.  And being retired I do have a fair amount whcih I suppose indicates how big a waste it really is.

God bless.