Nah, it's not that. You love your false doctrine: thinking that your works of believing
and placing your faith in Christ, etc. is what will save you. But it will not Eph. 2:8-9.
~~~~~
Good one; this notion of yours that believing is a work.
Not only are you obviously reading Calvin's error into things, but in your failure to understand why faith; which is
not a work, is the only "condition" God will accept from an unregenerated person.
Because "faith" by virtue of the fact of its being "the substance of things hoped for" - "the evidence of things not seen" Heb. 11:1, places a burden on the lost they cannot fathom - the burden of believing the otherwise "foolish" notion in his mind, that the Cross of Christ alone solved for the sin problem.
Guess Who Alone the Glory of the Cross points to by this means?
By this act of a lost man hoping against hope; against his very nature?
The lost man's
natural inclination is to find the Cross "foolishness unto him."
But that is what God puts before him - this fool idea [from where the lost man looks at things] that some Jew two thousand years ago died on a Cross for him!
In my best Ricky Ricardo voice "Its jus so ridiculous!"
But the fact of this reasoning remains to this very day - Acts 26:
8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?
9. I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
1 Corinthians 1:
21. For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29. That no flesh should glory in his presence.
30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
31.
That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Why did God do this this way? This saving of men through what is to them "the foolishness of preaching"?
2 Corinthians 4:
6. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
In a
seeming contrast to that, there is this - 2 Thessalonians 2:
11. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12. That they all might be damned who believed
not the truth,
but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
13. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
14. Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15. Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
From what beginning?
1 Thessalonians 2:
13. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it
not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also
in you that believe.
In light of that rumor they had been beguiled by - that they had missed the Lord's coming and their gathering together unto them, 2:2 - the Apostle Paul is reassuring them; that such was not the case; that from the very moment in which they had believed, God had chosen them to salvation "from the wrath to come" through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth; that theirs was a done deal - in - His - Son - made - so - by- the - Spirit.
This being an aspect of the Apostle Paul's "remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things" 2:5 - is
Body truth
all the way back from 1 and 2 Thessalonians
and into Ephesians...
Ephesians 1:
13. In whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation:
in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed
with that holy Spirit of promise,
14. Which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of
his glory.
God's condition had been "believe my Son died for your sins" and I will, by My Spirit, set you apart from this wrath to come, from the very moment in which you believed.
I sincerely doubt you will see this, though. It does not fit
your need to fit your need to see things the way
you do,
into them.
You see it as robbery, I know.
