ECT Grace is unconditional but not universal
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Nang
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Sonnet
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Indeed. You didn't answer the question.
Nang
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Amongst believers (in the visible church) my testimony accords with that specific language, but when testifying in general, I also consider the gospel message correct to say that Christ died for those the Father gave Him to save, and all these will believe in Him, and will not perish (quoting John 3:16) and He will no ways cast them out (John 6:37).
Do you feel there is good reason to limit the gospel message to just one verse of scripture?
Bradley D
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God's hand of Grace is always there. Realization of sin drives one to repent, hope in a forgiving God caused me to reach for forgiveness.
"Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God" (Psalm 43:5).
Nang
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Amen . . All I am saying, is that it is the Holy Spirit that first reveals our sins to us, and He, as promised, changes our hearts to believe and repent. IMO, such a miracle of change defines the saving grace of God!
Sonnet
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If you preach it among believers but not among unbelievers then you have a different gospel for them. You said: "I proclaim the same Gospel Paul proclaimed, and I do so indiscriminately to all around me."
Paul said:
As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
I'm not suggesting a limit on the gospel, but such is the essence of the gospel - so words to that effect would suffice. However, 'Christ died only for certain persons and not for all,' is materially different.
Sonnet
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As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
Is the Gospel you preach to believers different to that which you preach to unbelievers?
Yes or no?
Accepting the free gift is not a condition
Nang
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But if a person does not accept this supposed offer of the gift, then they do not receive life and God's grace?
Sounds totally conditional to me . . .
Nang
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No. There is only one Gospel.
Nang
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PneumaPsucheSoma
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This entire thread will be a perpetual ping pong match because no one understands Greek articular and anarthrous nouns and how that determines Hamartiology instead of concepts about sin as a verb instead of a noun in those forms.
"By whom also we have access BY FAITH INTO THIS GRACE wherein we stand..." Romans 5:2
"Therefore it is OF FAITH THAT IT MIGHT BE BY GRACE..." Romans 4:16
Arminians, Dispensationalists, and Open Theists will have the most difficult time ever understanding the truth because of their respective heresies. Calvinists also have some of the same challenges, though.
"By whom also we have access BY FAITH INTO THIS GRACE wherein we stand..." Romans 5:2
"Therefore it is OF FAITH THAT IT MIGHT BE BY GRACE..." Romans 4:16
Arminians, Dispensationalists, and Open Theists will have the most difficult time ever understanding the truth because of their respective heresies. Calvinists also have some of the same challenges, though.
I suspect that getting through to you is hopeless - you assert the same misreading of Calvinist ideas into those same passages the Calvinist does.
But I'll give it a shot - I have decided to.
Your notion of a condition is the only condition man is capable of meeting - deciding to believe despite his nature not to.
As blind as you have rendered yourself by your having decided to believe in a teaching contrary to the obvious as to what faith actually is, the fact of the matter is that all faith is, is a decision to believe a thing or in a thing.
You log on here in your belief you have a right to, and so on.
At times you may have attempted to log on with a password you believed you were typing in right, only to find you had believed incorrectly.
That is what faith is - deciding to believe the chair you are about to sit on is going to hold you.
Romans 4:16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, 4:17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. 4:18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. 4:19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: 4:20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. 4:22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 4:23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 4:25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
Abraham decided to believe God against the evidence of his body to the contrary.
Acts 16:30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what MUST I DO to be saved?
Acts 16:31 And they said, BELIEVE ON the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
Romans 6:17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have OBEYED FROM THE HEART that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 6:18 Being THEN made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Romans 16:26 But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience OF FAITH:
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 11:2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Faith is simply DECIDING TO take God at HIS Word.
Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE WENT 11:9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 11:18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 11:19 ACCOUNTING THAT GOD WAS ABLE TO raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
We each DECIDE TO believe, OR NOT, all sorts of things all the time.
The greatest of these decisions being obvious.
Nang
TOL Subscriber
"Deciding to believe" the Gospel message is an action.
I believe faith is first and foremost, a capacity.
A new capacity of spirit, given to sinners by God the Holy Spirit.
The capacity to believe the Gospel requires a new heart (affection, love) for God, that is not inherent in the unbelieving hearts of any sinner. And the capacity to believe the Gospel requires a new mind; new ears to hear; new eyes to see . . all of which change comes from without the sinner.
The capacity of faith is gifted to sinners by the grace of God, when He wills, and to whom He wills to bestow it. Romans 9:15-16
This is the miracle of regeneration (John 3:1-8) that raises dead sinners to new life, enabling them to live and serve God in new accordance with the Spirit, Will, and Mind of God, as never before. This regeneration gives men the capacity to have faith in God's promises, and results in faithful actions of obedience and service to righteousness.
Placing all emphasis on human choice, robs God of His glory as manifested in His power to resurrect. Regeneration is a resurrection from death to life; from darkness to light; to enjoy the capacity of living faith that contrasts with the condemnation of unbelief and sure death.
Regeneration/resurrection precedes the acts of repentance and faithfulness.
This is the teaching of John Chapter 3 and John 15:1-8; John 16:8-15
Cross Reference
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Then it can't be unconditional, can it? And why just many? What prevents the whole of mankind from receiving the benefits of redemption?
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Yep. Faith is a noun (whether articular or anarthrous). It's distinct from the verb, which is oddly rendered as "believe/believing".
Interestingly... In Romans 10:17, hearing is also a noun. Hearing is not a verb.
Repentance (the noun, which takes action as a verb) is granted.
And epistemologically, the will is "the stretching forth of the mind (in tension) towards the object as subject". Thus "intention/s". One cannot choose without employing the mind TO choose. An unrenewed mind cannot choose what it doesn't know by oida (spiritual intuitive) knowledge.
The original creation was via Monergism. There was naught else to cooperate in the divine utterance since God alone is eternal and uncreated.
The new creation is also via Monergism; and any necessary Synergism is included in that Monergism.
Synergism, by its very definition, cannot be Monergism. We cannot and do not effect the new creation on our own behalf. Our unrenewed minds cannot exert our corrupt wills to do so. We must be born from above and resurrected unto spiritual life from within.
Synergism is merely a claim of human Monergism.
Cross Reference
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You ought rethink that a liitle because faith is the result of making the decision to trust in and rely upon Christ Jesus for not just salvation but for the very life that indwelt Him. I don't believe faith can be of the head but rather the heart of a man to be living faith. There is no other kind of faith that pleases God. Make sense?
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
And there you have it. A Hyper-Arminian insisting election cannot be unconditional. LOL.
And there you have it again. A rank heretical schismatic lobbying for Universalism. LOL.
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