We grasp and possess Christ by Faith!

Humanity's only hope of escaping the curse of the Law and finding salvation lies in CHRIST. He is "grasped" through the instrument of faith.

The new birth should not be confused with sanctification. We receive the new birth (regeneration), then we believe and reach after integrity and purity of life (sanctification).

 

John 3:3
Jesus answered and said to him,"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Unless God regenerats a person that person can not see. This is what is missing from the pulpits today. YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN


mike

 

Bro Bill, the text does not say whosovever, the text says "whosover believes" and only the elect will believe. That arguement of your will not hold up. I am not trying to be rude, honestly. But if you are going to argue those grammatical text, I will also. It is only fair.

In Him,
sturgman

 

Neither does yours Sturgman. You refute yourself when you clearly state that you believe the call in Revelation 22:17 is a call for all who hear. Those who hear and come can drink from the river of life (salvation). You can't have it both ways.

And if, as I suspect you might you are claiming the Bride is "the elect", you'd be wrong there too! The bride is the spirits of all who believe in Jesus, even on his name, whether or not they are "the elect".

Besides, you haven't identified who the elect are either.

 

Yelsew you stated-
Neither does yours Sturgman. You refute yourself when you clearly state that you believe the call in Revelation 22:17 is a call for all who hear. Those who hear and come can drink from the river of life (salvation). You can't have it both ways.

First of all, when did I bring up Rev 22:17? Yelsew, you jump all around with me don't you. I will address this later, but I have a feeling they do not contradict.

Yelsew you stated-
And if, as I suspect you might you are claiming the Bride is "the elect", you'd be wrong there too! The bride is the spirits of all who believe in Jesus, even on his name, whether or not they are "the elect".

You do not believe that the bride is the elect, but you believe that thethey are the spirits of those who believe. Just in case you did not know, that is what I call the elect. All that believe. So they are one in the same. Silly Yelsew

Yelsew you stated-
Besides, you haven't identified who the elect are either.

It is not my job to identify the elect. My job is to spread the Gospel to all nations. God will call his sheep.

 

My ignorance has already been publicly announced, but I thought sanctified means 'seperated' then this would mean believers are "seperated by his Spirit."

This is what I believe. 2 Thess. 2.13

I believe also the bride is part of the elect, because the bride certainly is made up of believers; who are certainly elect, because they have been seperated to the belief of the truth. I agree with sturgman, all believers are the elect. The fact that we have a body of believers means we have an elect; I can't identify them, God did not give that gift even to the Apostles.

How do you want us to show you the elect when we show the body of believers and you say they are believers because they chose to be. They only chose when they recognized they had a choice and they had been made willing to choose, prior to this they chose darkness, as did I and all who have heard the Gospel, until the appointed time the Spirit was sent forth to open the eyes, ears, and quicken the spirit of man.

Bro. Dallas

 

WHY IS FAITH SELECTED as the channel of salvation? No doubt this inquiry is often made. “By grace are ye saved through faith” is assuredly the doctrine of Holy Scripture and the ordinance of God, but why is it so? Why is faith selected rather than hope, or love, or patience?
It becomes us to be modest in answering such a question, for God’s ways are not always to be understood; nor are we allowed presumptuously to question them. Humbly we would reply that, as far as we can tell, faith has been selected as the channel of grace because there is a natural adaptation in faith to be used as the receiver. Suppose that I am about to give a poor man an alms: I put it into his hand—why? Well, it would hardly be fitting to put it into his ear or to lay it on his foot; the hand seems made on purpose to receive. So, in our mental frame, faith is created on purpose to be a receiver. It is the hand of the man, and there is a fitness in receiving grace by its means.

Do let me put this very plainly. Faith which receives Christ is as simple an act as when your child receives an apple from you because you hold it out and promise to give him the apple if he comes for it. The belief and the receiving relate only to an apple, but they make up precisely the same act as the faith which deals with eternal salvation. What the child’s hand is to the apple, that your faith is to the perfect salvation of Christ. The child’s hand does not make the apple nor improve the apple nor deserve the apple; it only takes it; and faith is chosen by God to be the receiver of salvation because it does not pretend to create salvation nor to help in it, but it is content humbly to receive it. “Faith is the tongue that begs pardon, the hand which receives it, and the eye which sees it; but it is not the price which buys it.” Faith never makes herself her own plea; she rests all her argument upon the blood of Christ. She becomes a good servant to bring the riches of the Lord Jesus to the soul because she acknowledges whence she drew them and owns that grace alone entrusted her with them.

Spurgeon, C. H.

rufus

 

Have you ever read John Calvin's works? </font>[/QUOTE]Um....and this has to do with what? Oh, never mind, I know where you're going with this. You're going to say the Gospel of John is written by John Calvin.

 

Well, I tagged you right from the start as a major league game player. Thanks for demonstrating to others I was right.

By the way, I've already told you I've never studied Calvin, but assuming you "got" others who know their scripture but didn't recognize these Calvin quotes taken out of context, well, that's a really... impressive... victory.

 

This should ease the mind of Romanbear, to know we don't worship his imagined 'Father Calvin,'

Bro. Dallas

 

Bro. Bill

I was wondering why you were making posts that were not directly anti-calnavistic.... Thought maybe you had mellowed. Ya know, I wouldn't have recognized those post as being Calvin's writings. Even being tagged as a calvanist, I really don't know much about the man. And I am sure that I am not 100% in agreement with what he believed.

But this I do believe. That you came to this board with the hope of wiping out calvanism. And it appears that you aren't quite there yet. Must be frustrating, huh. Your initial ploy was pass your assumtions as truth, and to hold our truth as assumtions. You really got upset when most wouldn't even acknowledge your assumtions as possibly being true.

But take heart, there are still lots of people out there who will believe almost anything. There's still hope for your ideas.

 

Hmmm...deception to prove a point. I guess when one is unable to use Scripture to prove a point, these are the 'means' at his disposal to try and attain his 'ends'.

I knew right away where these quotes were from. I also noticed from reading many of your posts BroBill, that you are more concerned with WINNING an argument, even if you are wrong in doing so.

No one really argued with the quotes from Calvin. They did question certain word usage. To discuss accuracy in linguistic expression is not disagreeing witht he writer at all. But, I don't think any Calvinist would claim that Calvin's writing are infallible. Maybe that is where you are wrong...calvinist does not equal follower of John Calvin.

John Calvin can be wrong. Not only that, but his works are translated from Latin or French so some of the finer points of language may have been lost. Regardless, BroBill's attempt to throw in a curve ball was weak and did not prove what he attempted to prove.

 

Bro. Bill,

First I want to apologize for the way and times I get my dander up. My previous post was uncalled for and I was up early this morning to make amends. You have, however, come on to this board with a full frontal attack of all the doctrines that I cherish. Sovereign Grace is not something that I or John Calvin made up, and the Gospel itself is not something that I recieved easily.

Quite frankly I am grieved at the attacks that I find of it on this board. I have read most all of your posts, and find them an offence not to me but to the gospel itself.......

None the less, I am going to go back and read blind spot once more just to make sure I didn't miss something. Will see again if a responce is called for......

[ February 17, 2003, 08:43 AM: Message edited by: TomMann ]