Martin Luther Comments on Free Will

[Nanja]

nanja



Amen, they never were !



Yes, all of which means, the Elect by nature are just as worthy of wrath as sinners, like the non elect, they walk worthily of wrath like any other sinner is Pauls point !



Exactly, along with the fact that those Christ died for, have been reconciled to God by that Death, even while they are enemies Rom 5:10 which makes it impossible to be under God's Wrath and Reconciled to God at the same time !



Yes, God's Wrath for them has been drank dry, God's wrath is totally appeased regarding them, for Christ's Sake ! To say otherwise is total disrespect and belittlement of the Effects of Christ's Death to the Father !

Amen to all your comments,
and TY for expounding further! ☺

~~~~~

 

[Robert Pate]

I believe that The Elect of God were never under God's wrath.

They are born into this world by nature the children of wrath Eph. 2:3, in that they are naturally enslaved
to the lusts of the flesh because they are of the flesh, until such time as they are Born of the Spirit.

How can one who has been chosen In Christ Eph. 1:4-5 to have Eternal Life, one for whom
Christ was the propitiation for his sins 1 John 4:10 ever be under God's wrath? That's not possible.

Propitiation means God's Wrath has been appeased hilasmos for them!

~~~~~

All are born into sin, Psalm 51:5 and continue in sin.

Your only hope from being in sin, is to be found "In Christ" in the judgment.

To be found in Christ means to renounce your righteousness and your religion and to trust in Christ alone.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Evasion, you don't believe that Christ death propitated God's wrath ! Do you know what propitated means ? Because you are falsely teaching that those who Christ already satisfied God's law and justice for, are still born under God's wrath !

I have clearly answered your charges and your only retort is to consign me to perdition.

Again,

Have you spoken to your Pastor about your views? What was his counsel?

AMR

 

[Nanja]

All are born into sin, Psalm 51:5 and continue in sin.

Your only hope from being in sin, is to be found "In Christ" in the judgment.

To be found in Christ means to renounce your righteousness and your religion and to trust in Christ alone.

clueless

~~~~~

 

[beloved57]

I have clearly answered your charges and your only retort is to consign me to perdition.

Again,

Have you spoken to your Pastor about your views? What was his counsel?

AMR

You don't believe in the Death of Christ and what it accomplished for those He died propitiating God's wrath ! You disregard that and insist that those Christ died for are still born under God's propitated wrath ! That's unbelief on your part !

 

[Bright Raven]

You don't believe in the Death of Christ and what it accomplished for those He died propitiating God's wrath ! You disregard that and insist that those Christ died for are still born under God's propitated wrath ! That's unbelief on your part !

Have you ever sought help for your condition?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I have clearly answered your charges and your only retort is to consign me to perdition.

Again,

Have you spoken to your Pastor about your views? What was his counsel?

AMR

You don't believe in the Death of Christ and what it accomplished for those He died propitiating God's wrath ! You disregard that and insist that those Christ died for are still born under God's propitated wrath ! That's unbelief on your part !

I suspect you will not answer my question is because you are not covenanted with a local assembly and under authority of its ordained servants. Lone Rangers, receiving no instruction and spiritual care from the local church, often exhibit the unbridled and erroneous, views that you put forth here and elsewhere. Find yourself a good church that believes in the essentials. Sit there under their authority, hear the word of God from the oracles of God, partake of the ordinary means of grace in Word and Sacrament, be subject to the church's discipline when needed, and give according to your gifts to the growth of body. Your solitary "itching ears" are not serving you or the Kingdom very well, b57.

AMR

 

[beloved57]

I suspect you will not answer my question is because you are not covenanted with a local assembly and under authority of its ordained servants. Lone Rangers, receiving no instruction and spiritual care from the local church, often exhibit the unbridled and erroneous, views that you put forth here and elsewhere. Find yourself a good church that believes in the essentials. Sit there under their authority and hear the word of God from the oracles of God, partake of the ordinary means of grace in Word and Sacrament, and give according to your gifts to the growth of body. Your "itching ears" are not serving you or the Kingdom very well, b57.

AMR

You are not even a believer in Christ ! You asking me that question is like a christian scientist asking me that ! One who doesn't even believe in Christ ! Ask me that when you become a believer in Christ and propitiating death !

 

[Bright Raven]

You are not even a believer in Christ ! You asking me that question is like a christian scientist asking me that ! One who doesn't even believe in Christ ! Ask me that when you become a believer in Christ and propitiating death !

He is trying to help you by letting you know that your theology is in trouble. Why don't you take the time to see the opinion of other and come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe you are incorrect.

 

[beloved57]

He is trying to help you by letting you know that your theology is in trouble. Why don't you take the time to see the opinion of other and come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe you are incorrect.

Lol, that is funny ! One who rejects Christ death correcting one who believes in Christ and His Saving death !

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

You are not even a believer in Christ ! You asking me that question is like a christian scientist asking me that ! One who doesn't even believe in Christ ! Ask me that when you become a believer in Christ and propitiating death !

I think it best you and I ignore one another, b57.

Please refrain from inserting yourself in discussions with posts directed at me and I will do the same.

Agree?

AMR

 

[beloved57]

I think it best you and I ignore one another, b57.

Please refrain from inserting yourself in discussions with posts directed at me and I will do the same.

Agree?

AMR

Is this a public forum ?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Is this a public forum ?

Guess that is a no to my request, then.

I am only asking you not post questions or comments directly to me. If you want to talk about me, go right ahead.

Fair enough?

AMR

 

[Robert Pate]

Is this a public forum ?

Yes, this is a public Forum and you are a public nuisance. You can't even get along with your Calvinist brother.

 

[beloved57]

Yes, this is a public Forum and you are a public nuisance. You can't even get along with your Calvinist brother.

To get along with me you can't teach that those Christ appeased God's wrath for, are still born under God's wrath ! Such foolishness nullifies the Effects of Christ Death ! He is no more a believer in Christ as you are, who teaches salvation by works !

 

[Robert Pate]

To get along with me you can't teach that those Christ appeased God's wrath for, are still born under God's wrath ! Such foolishness nullifies the Effects of Christ Death ! He is no more a believer in Christ as you are, who teaches salvation by works !

We are all born sinners.

Jesus Christ is God's new Adam and humanities new representative. God now sees the whole world in his Son Jesus Christ. In the judgment you will either be found "In Christ" or you will be found in your sins.

 

[beloved57]

Unless you are one of those "eternal justification" erroneous advocates, advocating no evangelism is needed as the elect will just be converted no matter what the church does, the Apostle Paul answers this question in Eph 2:1:

1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

Even the elect are by nature children of wrath even as others. The elect are under the same condemnation until the application of Christ's person and work by virtue of the Holy Spirit's work, as per the Westminster Confession of Faith:

WCF 11:4 God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.

Until justified (fulness of time), the elect are under condemnation. In other words, there is a difference between saying that "election is salvation" and "election is unto salvation." The historic Reformed position is that election is unto salvation. God decrees to save the elect in eternity, but their salvation is accomplished and applied in time, before which time (as Eph 2 makes clear) they are "by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

See Calvin:

Spoiler

John Calvin: Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God´s sight.

Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, reprinted 1977), Book II.1.5, p. 248.

John Calvin: 10. The Elect before their call. There is no "œseed of election" The elect are gathered into Christ´s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense his grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God´s especial mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death. If you look upon them, you will see Adam´s offspring, who savor of the common corruption of the mass. The fact that they are not carried to utter and even desperate impiety is not due to any innate goodness of theirs but because the eye of God watches over their safety and his hand is outstretched to them!

For those who imagine that some sort of seed of election was sown in them from birth itself, and that by its power they have always been inclined to piety and the fear of God, are not supported by Scriptural authority and are refuted by experience itself. They put forward a few examples by which to prove that the elect even before illumination were not strangers to religion: Paul lived a blameless life as a Pharisee [Philippians 3:5-6]; Cornelius, with alms and prayers, was acceptable to God [Acts 10:2], and the like, if any. As for Paul, we grant them their point; in Cornelius, we say they are deceived. For it appears that he was then already enlightened and regenerated, so that he lacked nothing but a clear revelation of the gospel. But what will they wring out of these few examples? That all the elect are always endowed with the spirit of piety? No more than if someone"”by showing the uprightness of Aristides, Socrates, Xenocrates, Scipio, Curius, Camillus, and others"”infers from it that all who are forsaken in the darkness of idolatry were earnest seekers of holiness and purity. Indeed, Scripture openly disclaims them in more than one place.

This state before regeneration described by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians shows no grain of this seed. "œYou were dead," he says, "œthrough the trespasses and sins in which you... walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the air, who is now at work in his disobedient sons. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of the flesh and of the mind. So we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest." [Ephesians 2:1-3, abbr.] Again: "œRemember that... you were once without hope, and lacking God in the world." [Ephesians 2:12 p.] Likewise: You were once darkness but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light." [Ephesians 5:8-9.]

But they would perhaps like this to be referred to ignorance of the true God in which, as they do not deny, the elect are held before they are called. Yet this would be shameless calumny, since he draws the inference that they ought no longer to lie [Ephesians 4:25] or steal [Ephesians 4:28]. But what answer will they make to the other passages? Such as that in the letter to the Corinthians, where, after declaring that "œneither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the greedy, will inherit the Kingdom of God" [1 Corinthians 6:9-10], he immediately adds that they were guilty of those very transgressions before they knew Christ but are now washed with his blood and freed by the Spirit [1 Corinthians 9:11]. Likewise, another passage, in the letter to the Romans: "œJust as you... yielded your members as slaves to impurity and to greater iniquity upon iniquity, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness" [1 Corinthians 6:19, cf. Vg.]. "œFor what fruit did you get from those things at which you now rightly blush?" [1 Corinthians 6:21 p.].

Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 2, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, reprinted 1977), Book III.24.10, pp. 976-977.

B57, I know you are an odd duck, given to extreme hyper-Calvinism, but the Reformed tradition stands against you. I say this only to note that your vocal views, while sometimes accurate, are more often beyond the bounds of orthodoxy. Have you spoken with your Pastor about your views? What was his counsel?

AMR

Amr teaches that the work of the Spirit is what removes the condemnation of the Elect and not the Work of Christ bearing their condemnation for them ! He says that not until the Spirit works in you are you out from under God's condemnation and wrath !

 

[beloved57]

We are all born sinners.

Jesus Christ is God's new Adam and humanities new representative. God now sees the whole world in his Son Jesus Christ. In the judgment you will either be found "In Christ" or you will be found in your sins.

You teach that saved people who God sees in Christ can loose their Salvation !

 

[Robert Pate]

Amr teaches that the work of the Spirit is what removes the condemnation of the Elect and not the Work of Christ bearing their condemnation for them ! He says that not until the Spirit works in you are you out from under God's condemnation and wrath !

I don't know why you Calvinist even mention Christ.

If you believe that you were predestinated by God before the foundation of world. Why do you need Jesus Christ?

 

[beloved57]

I don't know why you Calvinist even mention Christ.

If you believe that you were predestinated by God before the foundation of world. Why do you need Jesus Christ?

Foolish and unlearned question ! Since when did you believe in Christ ?