Well, bless YOUR heart for once again misrepresenting my view. You're excellent at that. You said the baptism of the Holy Spirit was a corporate thing on the day of Pentecost and I disagreed and never agreed with that. You saying "now you're disagreeing" is just flat out dishonest. Why do you do that? Why do you resort to being blatantly dishonest in these discussions? This is a serious question. I never changed my mind about that. I said all along that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an individual event that places people in the body of Christ, as 1 Corinthians 12:13 indicates. That was true on the day of Pentecost long ago and is still true today and that's what I've been saying all along. And, based on verses like Acts 2:38, repentance and faith precede the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which you agreed coincides with the receiving of the Holy Spirit.
Except that they don't.
The Greek word translated as "received" in that verse means accepted. They chose to accept the gospel that He was preaching and to do what he told them to do in order to receive the Holy Spirit, which was to repent (Acts 2:38).
Yes, exactly. That shows that hearing the gospel does not automatically result in accepting and believing it.
People choose to believe what they hear or not. In the case of the Israelites, most of them chose to not believe the gospel that they heard despite God reaching out to them all day long (Romans 10:21). But, some of them did believe it, of course. Including Paul himself.
It has to do with both. Look at what Paul said here...
Romans 7:25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
And here:
Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
No, that is not correct. <smile>.
That is not what it says at all. Scripture is very clear that faith and repentance precede regeneration. Verses like John 1:12 and Acts 2:38 are explicitly clear about that, as long as you understand that becoming a child of God, being born of God and receiving the Holy Spirit all refer to the same thing, or, at least, refer to things that happen at the same moment.
Your doctrine gives people an excuse for suppressing the truth in unrighteousness while refusing to glorify God and be thankful to Him, but Paul said there is no excuse for that. The excuse you give people for that is that they are unable to change their minds and believe in their hearts, but they have no excuse for not believing. Stop giving them one.
You didn't bother to look up what the word receive means in verses like Acts 2:41 and John 1:12. Why? Is it just too much trouble for you to take a little more time to dig a bit deeper on all this? You are talking as if the gift is just given without the need for someone to decide whether to accept it or not. But, the Greek word for "receive" in those verses means to accept something. The gift of God, which is eternal life and salvation (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8), is not something that is just forced upon people without them having any choice of whether to accept or reject it. It must be received/accepted. That's why salvation is portrayed as being offered to people (Matthew 22:1-13, Titus 2:11). If salvation was just given to people with people having no choice in the matter, then the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 22:1-13 would be pure nonsense.
A kick returner can choose whether to receive a kickoff or punt or not. They can choose to just let the ball go if they want or they can choose to receive it. So...great analogy to prove my point! Well done. <chuckles>
Your strawman arguments are so old and tired. Why do you make them repeatedly? I told you specifically that we don't regenerate ourselves. Did you somehow miss that? How would we regenerate ourselves exactly when it's a spiritual act done inside of us? Ridiculous. But, what I claim repeatedly is that faith and repentance precede regeneration. Regeneration is never portrayed as being necessary for faith and repentance, it is portrayed as being necessary to have the ability to become a mature, obedient Christian through the help of the Holy Spirit. As can be seen by the example of the immature Christians that Paul rebuked in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, that requires people to submit to the Holy Spirit or else they will continue to be carnal like they were before becoming Christians.
Another strawman argument. It's all you have. You have no arguments against my view. All of your arguments are against things that other people believe.
And another false claim! They never end from you. I have a problem with the word assurance as YOU were using it in terms of it coming from God. The word faith relates to having confidence and trust in God, as I already said. Read Ephesians 1:12-13. It refers to faith in terms of trusting in Christ. Why do you not take that into account when reading other verses like Hebrews 11:1? Hebrews 3:14 talks about the need to keep the beginning of our confidence in Christ stedfast until the end. So, in that verse faith is referred to as confidence that we have in Christ. There are plenty more verses than just Hebrews 11:1 that tell us what faith us, so why do you try to define it by your understanding of only one verse?
What a compliment coming from you. You don't think I'm an idiot. Just obstinate. And, of course, I think the same of you. Have you changed your mind about even one thing in our discussions or one thing because of any other discussion you've had about any topic on this forum? Well, I guess one thing, but you say it wasn't because of anything I said (of course). And that was your understanding of Judas Iscariot being saved. You changed your mind about that. Not because of anything that was said on this forum, though, I don't think. When I first started posting on forums like this, I was Premil. Not to where I believed in it strongly, but I was. And I was convinced that Amil was true because of things that were said on that forum. And I've changed my mind on some other more minor things since then, also. But, go ahead and call me obstinate as if you have any idea of what you're talking about if you want. Being as obstinate as you are, I can't change your mind about that.
Says the guy refuting scripture repeatedly. And, no, I don't refute myself. Another...yes, I'm going to say it...lie from you.
Isn't this fun? Maybe from now on, what we should do in response to our posts is just say "I say the same of you". That would save some time.
He loves everyone, though (John 3:16). So, Him loving us first does not result in people automatically loving Him. People must choose to love. Love is not something that can be forced upon someone or that someone can be forced to do. Same with faith. It's amazing that you and all others who believe as you do don't understand that simple concept.
And here's yet another straw man argument. The only kind you seem to be able to make. God, of course, initiates the process, but the Holy Spirit can be resisted (Acts 7:51). God reached out to the Israelites all day long, but most of them still refused to believe the gospel (Romans 10:21). If salvation worked the way you think it does, which involves God supernaturally giving faith to people, why would scripture describe Him as reaching out all day long to people to get them to believe the gospel (Romans 10:21)? Why did Paul spend multiple days trying to persuade people to believe if faith is just supernaturally given to people (Acts 17:1-4, Acts 18:1-4). You have no reasonable answers for questions like these with your doctrine.
So, with this in mind, why do you try to use Romans 10:17 to support your doctrine as if it supports yours, but not mine? We all believe that someone must hear the gospel before they can believe it.
To you, too. Really. And to all people. I wish grace and peace to all of the same people that God does, which is all people (Titus 2:11).
You, too. And may He open your eyes to the truth of these things that we discuss because it's important to understand these things correctly. It affects our understanding of God's character, His will and His plan
