The Gospel of Reconciliation
- Thread starter Robert Pate
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The word tulip does not appear in the Bible, nor does the word Calvinism. You have really departed from the faith, making yourself a heretic. A heretic is one that has departed from the teachings of the apostles. Instead of quoting the Bible you quote other Calvinist. I think that the light has gone out on your bright frame and that you are in darkness.
Augustine, not the bible, invented the heretical concept of Total Depravity. And since Total Depravity is false, everything that follows from Total Depravity, which is the rest of TULIP, is false. Augustine began as a Manichaesitic. Manichaeism was a type of Gnosticism wherein the everything physcial in nature is inherently evil. While Augustine abandoned Manichaesim for Christianity, he carried the Gnostic concept of the inherently evil natural world. From that he invented Total Depravity. That together with the determinism inherent in the false Augustinian concept of the sovereignty of God makes God out to be the cause of all evil - another heretical doctrine.
Gods word reveals mans total depravity, its based on His word. Man has not the ability to come and believe on Christ unless the Father regenerates or draws him, because man is dead in sin Jn 6:44
If a person is predestined as a believer from birth, why does God need to regenerate or draw him?
Why not ? Thats part of the consequences of having been predestinated to the Image of Christ.
To be predestined to be conformed to His Son has no predestination of a person to be a believer. One must first become a believer, be in union with Christ before the Holy Spirit works with a believer to become like Christ. This was the whole purpose of man's creation in God's Image. It was what Adam was supposed to do with God, but instead disobeyed and suffered death.
Predestination presupposes God's separation on His Creation. The opposite is that God can work within His creation through His uncreated energies and will. According to scripture, God created man in His Image, meaning man was independent from God in both action and will. Man has no free will within the concept of predestination. God sets the world in motion and sits back to let it perform. It is fate. It is what the Deists, like Franklin and Jefferson believed.
Yes it does, Christ was a believer as a man, so the predestined will become believers
The idea that one must be regenerated before he can come and believe in Christ is absolutely false. There are several passages in the NT that describe the regeneration event, One such passage is Colossians 2:11-13:
Col 2:11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
Having been dead in trespasses and then being made alive is, without question, the description of being born again. In this passage Paul describes that event as a circumcision made without hands. He says that happened in having been buried with him in baptism and raised with Jesus. He says that happened through faith. Clearly that passage says that it is through faith, through believing in Jesus, in baptism that one is regenerated.
Another passage that describes the regeneration event is Ephesians 2: 5-6:
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Being dead in trespasses and being made alive together with Christ is, without possible argument, the description of being regenerated, being born again. And in verse 8, Paul says that happened by grace through faith. So here once again we have being regenerated, being saved, happening by grace through faith, through believing, in God, in Jesus, in the gospel message.
I could continue with passages showing that it is through faith that regeneration occurs, that it is the believer who is regenerated, i.e., born again, not vice versa as you and Calvinism would claim.
As Calvinists so often do, you cite John 6:44 without the very next verse with describes who it is that God draws. In verse 45 Jesus tells us that "Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me-- ". That flies in the face of your doctrine of Total Depravity. One must first hear and learn from the Father in order to be drawn to Him. Paul echoes that condition of hearing, learning about Christ through the word about Christ, i.e, the gospel, in his letter to the Romans in chapter 10:
Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Gods word reveals mans total depravity, its based on His word. Man has not the ability to come and believe on Christ unless the Father regenerates or draws him, because man is dead in sin Jn 6:44,45
Vs 45 is the same ones of Vs 44 who are drawn by regeneration, when regenerated the can hear and learn spiritually and believe.
All that says is that you do not understand what regeneration is. You deny outright the teaching of passages like Colossians 2, Romans 6, Ephesians 1-2, etc. Even worse, you obviously do not understand God's drawing. And in doing so you proclaim God to be the ultimate cause of all evil. And that not just by inaction, but by deliberate action.
Total Depravity has no place in God's plan of salvation, Total Depravity is not found anywhere in God's word.
Even worse, perhaps, you proclaim God incapable of even communicating with a sinner. What absolute nonsense.
You keep repeating that nonsense without ever posting any scripture that supports it.
Yes, total spiritual inability and total depravity is one and the same and both are total nonsense.
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