Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: Agrarian; jo kus
I will join my friend jo kus in taking a break

Thank you both for your patience and contributions; we are honored to keep this place warm for you till you are back.

4,398 posted on 04/05/2006 9:40:42 AM PDT by annalex
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4389 | View Replies ]


To: annalex; Forest Keeper; Agrarian; kosta50; Kolokotronis; HarleyD; Dr. Eckleburg; AlbionGirl
I found this today and thought it might be useful to consider for your continued discussions. There is no need to reply to me. I would like to remind everyone that Charles Spurgeon was a five-point Calvinist. Here is what He preached in a sermon on August 1, 1858, titled "Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility". It seems Pastor Spurgeon goes beyond what some of our Calvinist friends are willing to go.

"I see in one place, God presiding over all in providence; and yet I see and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions to his own will, in a great measure. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act, that there was no precedence of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to Atheism; and if, on the other hand, I declare that God so overrules all things, as that man is not free enough to be responsible, I am driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other. These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.... You ask me to reconcile the two. I answer, they do not want any reconcilement; I never tried to reconcile them to myself, because I could never see a discrepancy.... Both are true; no two truths can be inconsistent with each other; and what you have to do is to believe them both."

The Church has many such paradoxical truths. We must hold to both of them, even if we don't fully understand their interaction. The God-man. A suffering savior. Authority and Freedom, for example. Perhaps it would be good to remember Paul's famous saying after His wonderful exposition in Romans 9-11 on HIS understanding of God's ways:

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable [are] his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, [are] all things: to whom [be] glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

Regards to all, have a wonderful Easter

4,400 posted on 04/05/2006 10:07:31 AM PDT by jo kus (I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore CHOOSE life - Deut 30:19)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4398 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson