Will Only A Few Human Beings Be Saved? No.

[JAGG]

You using things such as the promise to Abraham that he make his descendants as numerous as the stars is all that needs to be gathered from your argument to know that it is false.

Since on your lights, mere assertions suffice as arguments: Your conclusions are false.

That if you took it literal, there are far more stars and grains of sand then there are humans beings. If anything, you are just declaring 'universalism'.

I am not declaring universalism. You're quite special, not only can you judge the hearts, minds, and motives of your fellow Christians, but you can read their minds too.

There is such a thing as CONTEXT, which you flat out ignore.

♦ You flat out ignore contexts. See how easy that is. Anybody can make bald assertions. Doing that is much easier than actually refuting arguments.

♦ Besides that, you are not the Authority On Contexts here at TOL or anywhere else.

You also ignore the statements of the apostles when they say the gate is narrow and few will enter, and quote Jesus outright saying that many will call his name but he will reject many.

I do not. That is nothing more than YOUR characterization of what I write and its totally incorrect.

It IS just that simple, hombre- you are WRONG and that's that. Take your 'easy beievism' nonsense somewhere else :wave2:

You make rude discourteous posts and you engage in ad hominem attacks on your fellow Christians simply because they disagree with you on the interpretation of certain passages of Scripture.

It IS just that simple, hombre- you are WRONG and that's that. Take your 'easy beievism' nonsense somewhere else :wave2:

Its just this simple hombre, I will NOT take my ideas someplace else. And I reject "easy believism" and have already told you that.

You write rude discourteous posts to your fellow Christians who have not given you any reason to do that.

You should be ashamed of yourself for doing that.

 

[JAGG]

In the Bible Leaven is bad, corruption, no good.
I think that the message of this parable is that the Christian Church will be totally corrupted. We hope the "little flock" is preserved.

But the large numbers of saved are just a delusion of a corrupt counterfeit.

You write rude discourteous posts full of insults.

 

[Lilstu]

You write rude discourteous posts full of insults.

I think you have mistaken me for someone else.

 

[JAGG]

No, it's simply a fact.

That says you agree with the ad hominem insult delivered by Lilstu when he/she did the name calling thing and said I was a counterfeit Christian.

You must decide if it applies to you.

You decide if it applies to you.

In Matthew 24:24 Jesus said, "For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect."

I stand on 2 Timothy 3:16,17 and I hold that Genesis to Revelation is the inspired word of God and I trust the Lord Jesus as my Savior and I depend on the power of the Holy Spirit for strength to live the Christian life. I have nothing to do with false prophets . . .

. . . but I do have something to do, unfortunately, with Christians who write rude discourteous posts simply because they cannot control their emotions when they come across other Christians who hold different eschatological views than they hold.

For the elect not to be deceived they must do their homework and prove all things.

Don't you forget to do that, you can start with God's word presented in the OP and then move on to other Scriptures from God's word in post 8, argument (1) . . (2) . . (3)

 

[Nanja]

Yes, in comparison to how man human beings have lived on this earth.

During the time of noah, 8 people were saved out of possibly 750 million ! Jesus says right before His return it will be as the days of noah Matt 24:37

But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Excellent points! I agree that the Election of Grace is only a remnant of all humanity that ever existed on Earth.


Noah would have been a false preacher 2Pet. 2:5 if he would have, for instance, told those outside the world of himself and his family Gen. 6:18, that God would save them if they would only repent, or call upon His Name, offering them a false hope that God would allow them into the Ark [which was a Type of Christ] to escape God's coming destruction Gen. 6:7.


On the other hand though, if Noah in his preaching, would have mentioned who the only ones were that God said were to enter into the Ark and be Saved from the Wrath of God Gen. 6:18; 1 Pet. 3:20, he would have in fact been preaching God's Election by Discriminating Grace Gen. 6:8. For only the World of God's Elect Chosen In Union with Christ Eph. 1:4-5; 2 Tim. 1:9; Rom. 11:5 including Noah and his family, Live Spiritually In The Ark, Hand Picked by God In Christ.

But the rest of the world of humanity shall remain outside of Him and His Salvation; them which God appointed to be condemned for their sins against Him Prov. 16:4; Jude 1:4; Rom. 1:18.

~~~~

 

[jamie]

That says you agree with the ad hominem insult delivered by Lilstu when he/she did the name calling thing and said I was a counterfeit Christian.

I don't believe he was personally referring to you and neither was I.

 

[JAGG]

I think you have mistaken me for someone else.

I don't think so. You called me a counterfeit Christian simply because I disagree with you on a point of Christian eschatology. They have a name for that, its called using ad hominem against one's opponents --- insulting the person instead of critiquing the argument.

Its rude and discourteous to call a fellow Christian a "counterfeit Christian" merely because he disagrees with your interpretation of a class of texts. I accept without any reservation that the Bible ... Genesis to Revelation . . . is the inspired word of God. We just disagree on a point of Christian eschatology, but I would never call you a counterfeit Christian because of our disagreement on an eschatological point.

I have already met one poster here who announced that all Calvinists were going to Hell because they were Calvinists. That is also rude and discourteous.

Several of you seem to think that disagreement is good cause to accuse the one you disagree with of being a counterfeit Christian or a heretic, or somehow less than a good person. Where did all that come from?

Wonder how you all handle the clear disagreement between the two good solid born again Christians Paul and Barnabas?

Paul also and Barnabas continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.
36*And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.
37*And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark.
38*But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.
39*And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus;
Acts 15:36-39

It may have escaped some of you, but born again sincere Christians do NOT always agree with each other.

I don't think Paul called Barnabas any names though, do you? Its rude to do that.

And I don't think Barnabas called Paul any names either. Its rude to do that.

 

[JAGG]

I don't believe he was personally referring to you and neither was I.

Okay then no harm done. I must have misunderstood you.

 

[JAGG]

The church of God, the kingdom of God, the family of God are all one and the same.

Agreed.

 

[Lilstu]

Okay then no harm done. I must have misunderstood you.

Are you going to apologize to me also?
I have absolutely no idea what type of christian you may or may not be.
My comments never referred to you personally.

 

[jamie]

a counterfeit Christian or a heretic...

He drew a circle that shut me out--
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

- Edwin Markham

 

[JAGG]

Are you going to apologize to me also?
I have absolutely no idea what type of christian you may or may not be.
My comments never referred to you personally.

Okay then no harm done. I must have misunderstood you. I would give you a smiley face if I could find one I liked in the collection. Consider this /smile a smiley face.

Edit: I found a smiley I like:

Just for the record here is the kind of Christian I am.

♦ I am a Bible believing Baptist-type that attends a Bible believing Baptist Church.

♦ Family man: married one time to one woman, we have 2 children and not as many grandchildren as we would like to have

♦ I am very sympathetic to the Westminster Confession of Faith and consider it to be the outstanding creed of Christendom.

♦ I am orthodox in every sense of that word, that means I believe in all the major doctrines of the Christian faith: the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, His Ascension, the doctrine of Justification by Faith, the doctrine of the Inspiration and Authority of the Holy Scriptures, I believe in the Deity of Christ, and in the Holy Trinity.

♦ I have no harmony with theological (or political) liberals.

♦ I place a heavy emphasis on the Sovereignty of God.

♦ With regard to Christian Eschatology, I am a Postmillennialist. Here is what that is:

"Postmillennialism holds that the Lord Jesus Christ establishes his kingdom on earth through his preaching and redemptive work in the first century and that he equips his Church with the gospel, empowers her by the Spirit, and charges her with the Great Commission to disciple all nations. Postmillennialism expects that eventually the vast majority of men living will be saved. Increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ’s return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men and of nations. After an extensive era of such conditions the Lord will return visibly, bodily, and gloriously, to end history with the general resurrection and the final judgment after which the eternal order follows."__Kenneth L. Gentry

Before anyone drags out their ad hominem sheet, let me call your attention to the fact that the history of the Christian Church has been packed with good solid Christians who were Postmillennialists:
(Here are a few of them)

Origen
Eusebius
Athanasius
Augustine (the great Augustine)

The Wesley Brothers
Jonathan Edwards
Archibald Alexander
A.A. Hodge
Charles Hodge
Albert Barnes
Patrick Fairbairn
Robert L. Dabney
William G.T.Shedd
Augustus H. Strong (Strong's Concordance)
H. C. G. Moule
B.B. Warfield (the great B.B. Warfield)
O.T. Allis
Kenneth L. Gentry
J. Gresham Machen
John Murray
Loraine Boettner
J. Marcellus Kik
Greg L. Bahnsen
Keith L. Mathison

Source: Kenneth L. Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, page 107

 

[JAGG]

He drew a circle that shut me out--
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

- Edwin Markham

I like that. I like poetry anyway, that one was cool.

 

[JAGG]

If you fail...God does dump you out.

I think the passage below is characteristic
of God's Father/son relationship with we His
children, can we agree on this?

"The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust."

Psalm 103: 8-14

 

[jamie]

Increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ’s return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men and of nations. After an extensive era of such conditions the Lord will return visibly, bodily, and gloriously, to end history with the general resurrection and the final judgment after which the eternal order follows."__Kenneth L. Gentry

And then there is this, in Matthew 24:21-22 Jesus said, "For then there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened no flesh would be saved, but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened."

Jesus will intervene to keep humans from destroying themselves off the face of the earth.

 

[JAGG]

In the Bible Leaven is bad, corruption, no good.
I think that the message of this parable is that the Christian Church will be totally corrupted.

Consider an alternative point of view:

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven - On the nature and effects of leaven, see the note on Exodus 12:8. As the property of leaven is to change, or assimulate to its own nature, the meal or dough with which it is mixed, so the property of the grace of Christ is to change the whole soul into its own likeness; and God intends that this principle should continue in the soul till all is leavened - till the whole bear the image of the heavenly, as it before bore the image of the earthly. Both these parables [the Mustard Seed and the Yeast/Leaven] are prophetic, and were intended to show, principally, how, from very small beginnings, the Gospel of Christ should pervade all the nations of the world, and fill them with righteousness and true holiness."
Adam Clarke Commentary on Matthew 13:33
http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/matthew-13.html

Matthew Henry agrees:
"Here is the parable of the leaven, Matthew 13:33. The scope of this is much the same with that of the foregoing parable [the Mustard Seed] to show that the gospel should prevail and be successful by degrees, but silently and insensibly the preaching of the gospel is like leaven, and works like leaven in the hearts of those who receive it." __Matthew Henry
http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/mhm/matthew-13.html

 

[Crucible]

JAGG sitting here saying he doesn't hold to 'easy beievism' or universalism, but still claiming that everybody and their brother are going to be saved is why this debate isn't really a debate at all- it's just somebody refusing to admit they are perpetuating two diametrically opposed ideas.

 

[JAGG]

Jesus will intervene to keep humans from destroying themselves off the face of the earth.

I fully agree with that principle. The Sovereign God has always prevented fallen corrupted mankind from destroying both himself and the planet. My view is that humanity is so corrupted by sin, that we would never have gotten this far, were it not for the overriding Providence of God who has a victorious Plan for His human race project also known as the successful carrying out of His Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

My view is that when the Lord Jesus told His Christian Church to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, that He was not kidding. He really meant what He said. And he told them that He RIGHT NOW had ALL power both in Heaven and on Earth --- so therefore go and make disciples of all the nations.

I take that dead serious.

Jesus really meant for His Christian Church to actually carry out what He told us to do --- which was to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey the commands of the Lord Jesus.

And we are making progress. What progress? Well, Christendom started out in the 1st century with only a handful of Christians and today we have 2+ billion Christians in the world and Christianity is growing rapidly in places like Africa, South America, and China.

There is a HUGE Chinese Christian Church, some estimates as high as 80,000,000 . . . a lot of them are "underground" in "house churches."

Thank God for the growth of His Christian Church in the world.

 

[JAGG]

JAGG sitting here saying he doesn't hold to 'easy beievism' or universalism,

♦ I reject totally "easy believism."

♦ I am not a Universalist.

but still claiming that everybody and their brother are going to be saved

♦ I do NOT claim that "everybody and their brother are going to be saved. That is YOUR false characterization and YOUR false interpretation of what I write.

♦ If I used YOUR posting principles I could say about you:

Crucible is sitting here still claiming that nobody or their brother is going to be saved.

I don't use your posting principles though, so I do NOT characterize your writings as saying such as that.

is why this debate isn't really a debate at all

And you haven't helped it any either with your attitude and insults.

it's just somebody refusing to admit they are perpetuating two diametrically opposed ideas.

Are you even reading the thread?

________

Btw, did you read my post 52?

 

[Lilstu]

Okay then no harm done. I must have misunderstood you. I would give you a smiley face if I could find one I liked in the collection. Consider this /smile a smiley face.

Edit: I found a smiley I like:

Just for the record here is the kind of Christian I am.

♦ I am a Bible believing Baptist-type that attends a Bible believing Baptist Church.

♦ Family man: married one time to one woman, we have 2 children and not as many grandchildren as we would like to have

♦ I am very sympathetic to the Westminster Confession of Faith and consider it to be the outstanding creed of Christendom.

♦ I am orthodox in every sense of that word, that means I believe in all the major doctrines of the Christian faith: the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, His Ascension, the doctrine of Justification by Faith, the doctrine of the Inspiration and Authority of the Holy Scriptures, I believe in the Deity of Christ, and in the Holy Trinity.

♦ I have no harmony with theological (or political) liberals.

♦ I place a heavy emphasis on the Sovereignty of God.

♦ With regard to Christian Eschatology, I am a Postmillennialist. Here is what that is:

"Postmillennialism holds that the Lord Jesus Christ establishes his kingdom on earth through his preaching and redemptive work in the first century and that he equips his Church with the gospel, empowers her by the Spirit, and charges her with the Great Commission to disciple all nations. Postmillennialism expects that eventually the vast majority of men living will be saved. Increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ’s return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men and of nations. After an extensive era of such conditions the Lord will return visibly, bodily, and gloriously, to end history with the general resurrection and the final judgment after which the eternal order follows."__Kenneth L. Gentry

Before anyone drags out their ad hominem sheet, let me call your attention to the fact that the history of the Christian Church has been packed with good solid Christians who were Postmillennialists:
(Here are a few of them)

Origen
Eusebius
Athanasius
Augustine (the great Augustine)

The Wesley Brothers
Jonathan Edwards
Archibald Alexander
A.A. Hodge
Charles Hodge
Albert Barnes
Patrick Fairbairn
Robert L. Dabney
William G.T.Shedd
Augustus H. Strong (Strong's Concordance)
H. C. G. Moule
B.B. Warfield (the great B.B. Warfield)
O.T. Allis
Kenneth L. Gentry
J. Gresham Machen
John Murray
Loraine Boettner
J. Marcellus Kik
Greg L. Bahnsen
Keith L. Mathison

Source: Kenneth L. Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, page 107

That is a very impressive resume.
I am pleased that we can proceed with making our arguments with logic, common sense and most importantly ..Scripture.
I always prefer to not get involved with personalities.
lilstu