Replies

“I believe the bible, taken on it’s WHOLE council, does not need any HELP (constructions on top of it). This is what SOLA SCRIPTURA MEANS!”

Well duh, who do you think championed the solas in the first place? The same Reformers whom you just got done accusing of being perverters of the Gospel, and millions more who all lived and died within the past few hundred years, including a 100,000 Huguenots who were murdered for their faith in the Netherlands alone. Are they all in hell because they were eeeevil Calvinists? And what do you think they were all writing about? When Luther was writing “On the Bondage of the Will,” and Calvin his Institutes of the Christian Religion, do you think they were just staring at their navels? Or do you think they were trying to understand the “whole” of scripture?

I have a surprise for you. We have entire catechisms and systematic theologies and church confessions detailing the minutia of everything we believe and why we believe it, with scripture proof.

You think you were the only one that believes in the Bible or something?

“In this way, God can know the chosen, and yet not effect the result. In other words, there is no problem with limited atonement, nor the issue of double predestination because God does not affect our destiny - we do - but he knows our destiny before we are born.”

IOW, you think the scripture is speaking in code. It’s not that hard for the inspired writers to write “Well, God did not predestinate anything, He just foresaw what we would do or believe and predestinated an already foreseen outcome, or, perhaps, our rewards.”

But read the scripture:

“But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
(Joh 6:64-65)

Where do you read, “I foreknew that you would not believe, so God did not predestinate you to be the elect”? The reason offered for their unbelief isn’t God foreknowing their disbelief; it is God foreknowing His own decision not to grant it to them to believe. Christ KNEW they would not believe, and that is why He said “that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.

” and the will of God that none should perish”

You’re referencing:

2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

But read the context. It is “toward you,” or “longsuffering to us-ward” as the KJV puts it. The previous passages separate the “you” and the “they,” the people who have been reserved for wrath:

“That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
(2Pe 3:2-7)

The promise isn’t that God is waiting patiently to save these “ungodly men” or “last day scoffers” who have judgment already reserved against them. It is to remind the faithful that the time of their suffering will eventually come to an end, but that the reason why God seems “slow” is due to His desire to save every last one of “us,” the sheep of God whom God foreknew and predestinated from before the foundation of the world.

And this “predestination” is not based on any foreknowledge of our future good works, or even future belief, but is specifically decided upon by God’s mercy:

“That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”
(Rom 9:8-16)

Note the words “Not of works... but of God who calleth.” So salvation is according to election, and not by works. To which Paul’s hypothetical opponent complains twice:

“Is there unrighteousness with God?”

And a little later:

Rom 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

If the problem that Paul’s hypothetical opponent had was merely in not understanding metaphysics, Paul could have cleared it up by simply giving your explanation. Instead, on both occasions, Paul replies by asserting the sovereign right of God to “have mercy on whom He will have mercy.”

Note also the line “Not of him that wills, nor him that runs, but God who has mercy.” Now, who believes but he who does it willingly? And what is “running” if not as another word for “works”? So if salvation is by ‘God who has mercy,’ the correct interpretation is that the whole of salvation belongs to God’s mercy, who “works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure,” reveals it to us that Christ is the Savior, and brings us infallibly to salvation, as all those whom the Father has given to the Son, do come:

Joh 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

“As far as your list of believers in Calvinism, They cannot be saved by their belief or unbelief in TULIP, the bible is quite clear on what a man must do to be saved. “

Certainly they are justified by faith, and none whom God has loved since before the foundation of the world can fail to come. Note the golden line of salvation:

Rom 8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Predestination is only one part of salvation. It is the preparation of grace, which must occur in time, infallibly, as all those “whom He did predestinate” He calls, and them He calls are justified (by faith), and all those whom He justifies He glorifies.

“God SO loved the WORLD that he gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Certainly, God loves the “World,” but what is the world? All the people already in hell when Christ arrived? Or is it for the sheep of God elected out of the world?

Joh_17:9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

“How can you reconcile the God that said “Behold, I stand at the door knocking, and any man that hears my voice and open the door, I will come to him” with John 15:16? You can’t if you believe God is limited the way mankind is. “

I reconcile it the way I reconcile everything. I point out that God often calls us to repent, or to “circumcise” our own hearts:

Deu_10:16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

And then later promises that He will do it Himself:

Deu_30:6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

Do we conclude that we do not believe, or repent, or will, and do? Or, in the other direction, do we believe that God is impotent, and does not do what He claims? No, we conclude this, Augustine’s famous prayer which aroused the hate of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians of his era:

“Oh God, grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire,”

O Mysterious God of grace! He commands us what He wills, and yet, gives to us what He commands!

A fairer explanation than the metaphysical theories of yours, which are nowhere explained in the scripture, eh? Much better than assuming that “It is not of Him that wills, nor Him that runs, but God who has mercy,” really means “It is not of God who has mercy, but man who wills and man who runs, or meets Him halfway!”

“God does not affect our destiny - we do -”

You sure?

Deu 32:39 “’See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Pro 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

Pro 16:4 The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

1Sa 2:6-8 The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and on them he has set the world.

Job 9:12 Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

Job 12:6-10 The tents of robbers are at peace, and those who provoke God are secure, who bring their god in their hand. “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

Psa 33:11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.

Psa 115:3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

Psa 135:6 Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

Isa 14:24 The LORD of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand,

Isa 45:7 I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Eph 1:11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

Does this sound like the God who lets random chance reign supreme? Or does He “work all things according to the counsel of His will”?

“How did Calvin Treat Michael Servetus?”

How did Luther treat Servetus, who said nothing different than Calvin in his books? What about Augustine? What about Charles Spurgeon? What about hundreds of thousands of others? But as for Servetus, he was wanted dead by both Catholics and Protestants alike, since he was writing and teaching the denial of the Trinity. In Calvin’s defense, after doing his best to sort Servetus out, he recommended the more merciful beheading. Though, the people who wanted him burned at the stake won the day. Not bad for a man of the 16th century, eh?