Sounds like a route to hell.
Reject Christ. Reject the Gospel. Live like a heathen and still be saved? There is nothing in the Bible that teachs that.
Does God Create Reprobates?
- Thread starter Robert Pate
- Start date
Sounds like a route to hell.
Reject Christ. Reject the Gospel. Live like a heathen and still be saved? There is nothing in the Bible that teachs that.
beloved57
Well-known member
Christ has already endured their Hell !
Like I said before.
Your doctrine is so far out in left field, that you are no longer in the game.
beloved57
Well-known member
Those Christ lived and died for have no sins charged against them, Hell is the second death, death is the wages of sin Rom 6::23 !They can't go to Hell!
So you believe that a person can...
Reject the Bible.
Reject Christ.
Reject the Gospel.
Reject God.
Live like the devil and still be saved and go to heaven?
beloved57
Well-known member
Did you read and understand the previous post?
nikolai_42
Well-known member
Your inconsistency is showing...
First you put up statements like "Religion can't save" and talk about how anything one does is just their own works that can't save them. Then you mischaracterize a large number of people by saying they believe that you can do anything you want and still be saved - primarily because they believe that Christ does it all.
Which is it? What do people have to do? Remember, believing God is a work - even the work of God (John 6:29).
I am beginning that some people have a distaste for Reformed theology because it is consistent in its assertion that it doesn't require a man to work for his salvation where other systems say they don't require work but then come down on the sinner for failing to believe or failing to obey etc...
Reformed (and some other) people believe that there are requirements - but that they are fulfilled in us by Christ. So it is wrong to say they believe one can live like the devil and still go to heaven.
Another problem with that view is that it misses the whole point of heaven - the Lord is there. Those who are not regenerate will simply not want to be in His presence. But that's a slightly different issue.
The entrance into eternal life is through hearing and believing the Gospel.
"So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God" Romans 10:17. Which is the Gospel.
Those who hear and believe this Gospel are given the Holy Spirit, Galatians 3:2.
There is no regeneration without hearing and believing the Gospel.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict us of our sins and our need for Christ.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
All fairly general and agreeable. But think about it - you are saying that the determining factor in man's salvation is his own free, autonomous will. But John says this :
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1:11-13
It's amazing how this passage conveys two things that, on the surface, seem contradictory :
1. "To as many as received Him..." tells us there is a will of man at work here. This is not forced, pushed upon a robot who has no will. But ultimately...
2. "Which were born ...not...of the will of man..." tells us that this is God's work and His will. Admittedly there is something of an area of mystery here, but both are true. Man is not forced to believe but God's will governs.
Those who believed did so according to an agreeable will. Was it their own? Because it was freely done, man has to believe it was of him. But that is his own perspective. On the other hand we are told what the truth of it is - what is the fundamental reality of the situation - that these were born not of man's will, not of the will of the flesh but of God. This birth is spiritual and ultimately is His will being carried out. Man clearly does not carry the swing vote on the matter. This is clearly of Him. But man thinks it is of him because they (that is, those who do receive him) receive him freely and gladly.
The Holy Spirit works in the lives of people to bring them to Christ.
On the day of Pentecost when the Gospel came into the world in the power of the Holy Spirit, thousands heard and believed, Acts 2:41 also Acts 4:4.
It was a supernatural thing. Some of those who heard and believed had participated in the crucifixon of Christ, Acts 2:36.
If God chose some to hear and believe and withheld it from some, then you have an unjust God that cannot be trusted.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
Is God obligated to offer eternal life to everyone?
beloved57
Well-known member
Blaspheme against God !
beloved57
Well-known member
One cannot Hear the Words of God unless they are of God Jn 8:47
47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
fishrovmen
Active member
Absolutly, If God did not offer eternal life to all he would not be just.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
Therefore...if God isn't merciful, then He isn't being just...???
Or is it...therefore...if God doesn't offer mercy to everyone, He isn't being just...???
If God loves the world doesn't it make sense that he would provide salvation for the whole world?
nikolai_42
Well-known member
Not necessarily. You are showing that your basis for the way you interpret such scriptures as John 3:16 is your own ideas rather than questioning them. Not quite the same approach that Paul took :
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Romans 9:21-23
Paul sees God's Sovereignty as being worth preserving - even at the expense of man's autonomy :
For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)
God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?
For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.
Romans 3:3-8
And consider that mercy, in some cases, may be NOT offering that which God knows beforehand will be rejected :
And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
Luke 12:47-48
Remember...the ultimate goal here is NOT the salvation of man - but rather the culmination of all things in Christ :
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:9-11
Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Ephesians 1:9-10
Unless one asserts that all will be saved, the goal is not ultimately the salvation of men - that is only part of His work. It is His glory.
The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee.
Psalm 145:9-10
If one calls a mere offer "tender mercies", then that is a rather hollow mercy for the Almighty to be credited with. It's like an earthly father watching his earthly son destroy himself on drugs but not do anything because the son never accepts his offer of help. God's hand is much mightier than that and His purposes go well beyond our will.
Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.
Psalm 76:10
God's end here is that all things redound to His praise and glory. And if that means the damnation of some, how is that unjust? Are any righteous? And if His mercy is undeserved, does not God have the right to do with what is His?
So...short of an actual unfettered universalism...salvation of man is only a part of the plan and not the ultimate goal. It isn't about you or me.
You have swallowed the false Calvinist doctrine that men are sinners by their own free will.
The Bible teaches no such thing. Men are sinners because Adam brought sin upon humanity, Romans 5:12.
We are all born into sin. We are all sinners without works. You can no more make yourself a sinner than you can make yourself righteous.
Just as a man is a sinner without works, so is he saved without works. "For as by one man's obedience many shall be MADE righteous" Romans 5:19.
Because of the doing and the dying of Jesus God has reconciled the whole world unto himself, 2 Corinthians 5:19 so that now, "Whosoever that shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" Romans 10:13.
musterion
Well-known member
"Obliged" is needlessly philosophical and beside the point. The truth is that He has indeed offered it to all, as proven by the fact that He damns everyone who might have accepted His grace in Christ but decides not to.