How the Gospel Refutes All Religions and Reconciles Us to God

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Robert Pate Complains About Wordy Posts, but....

Robert Pate Complains About Wordy Posts, but....

Religious people such as yourself, enjoy long wordy arguments that are usually smoke screens.

If you can't say it in under 100 words, don't say it.

The 700,000+ words in the English Bible, notwithstanding of course. I suppose God should just have not said anything. :AMR:

Then there is your affinity for others, especially Brinsmead, a man of many more than 100 words who questioned the very divinity of Our Lord:

http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...eject-Christ&p=4680887&viewfull=1#post4680887

http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...ns-John-8-24&p=4638233&viewfull=1#post4638233

http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...ns-John-8-24&p=4639250&viewfull=1#post4639250

http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...t-or-Wrinkle&p=4554843&viewfull=1#post4554843

http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...Matthew-7-14&p=4485546&viewfull=1#post4485546

http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...Matthew-7-14&p=4485311&viewfull=1#post4485311

http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...Matthew-7-14&p=4485240&viewfull=1#post4485240

You can knock off the self-righteous posture, Robert, for your own double-mindedness betrays your hypocrisy once again. Leave your obeisance to Brinsmeadism (Pateism) aside.

Beam. Eye. Remove it. :AMR:

If you can't say it in under 100 words, don't say it.

Then please do us the courtesy of deleting the many hundreds of thread opening posts you have made that exceed the 100 word limit you affirm to be as not worth saying when said limit is exceeded. After all, they must be usually smoke screens, no? :AMR: Start here:
http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...of-Calvinism&p=4835445&viewfull=1#post4835445

As I have noted, you really have nothing to say, for all that you do is muddled by your heterodoxies and mendacity. You need to be more taciturn.

AMR

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

You must receive and believe what Christ has done for you or you will perish, John 1:12.

Robert,

How is it that you received and believed, but your neighbor did not?

AMR

 

[Robert Pate]

Robert,

How is it that you received and believed, but your neighbor did not?

AMR

The same way that you embraced Calvinism and I embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We all have the ability to make choices. Some are bad like yours and some are good like mine.

 

[musterion]

I would like to know where some people are getting that its there from birth

If the capacity/ability is not innately there in all of us, but is a gift given to all at some point, then you're left with the problem of those who don't/won't believe. In that case, seems to me that it's not actually Christ they're rejecting as much as the gift of faith to believe on Christ that condemns them.

All men have the ability to know God exists and to seek after Him as He has revealed Himself if they desire to. Rom 1 shows this, as does Acts 17:27. The fact that they can choose NOT to do so proves the ability is there.

AMR continues to slander God on this point even while he believes he glorifies Him. God is not an unjust judge who will condemn unbelievers for doing the very thing He says He most desires they do - trust the Son - but which He rendered them unable to do.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

The same way that you embraced Calvinism and I embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We all have the ability to make choices.

You chose wisely, then?
Your neighbor did not?

What was it about you that differed from your neighbor's decision making abilities?

AMR

 

[beloved57]

The same way that you embraced Calvinism and I embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We all have the ability to make choices. Some are bad like yours and some are good like mine.

How have you believed the Gospel when you don't believe the death of Christ saved them He died for!

 

[musterion]

How have you believed the Gospel when you don't believe the death of Christ saved them He died for!

That's you who believes that.

 

[Robert Pate]

You chose wisely, then?
Your neighbor did not?

What was it about you that differed from your neighbor's decision making abilities?

AMR

Why did you choose Calvinism? Did you not make a choice? We all have the ability to make choices.

 

[jamie]

In the judgment you will be found in your sins...

Come on, Robert, you know better than that. A person can't be judged until after they die.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Why did you choose Calvinism? Did you not make a choice? We all have the ability to make choices.

Actually, I would have not chosen to believe had He not first quickened me from spiritual death to life. Therein is the difference between what you claim, and myself.

For you, it was but a matter of choosing wisely, given you believe you have the ability to choose. This is why I ask you once more, what was it about your ability to choose wisely that your neighbor did not possess?

AMR

 

[musterion]

Actually, I would have not chosen to believe had He not first quickened me from spiritual death to life.

Were you lost, bound for absolutely certain condemnation and wrath, just prior to all that happening?

 

[Robert Pate]

Actually, I would have not chosen to believe had He not first quickened me from spiritual death to life. Therein is the difference between what you claim, and myself.

For you, it was but a matter of choosing wisely, given you believe you have the ability to choose. This is why I ask you once more, what was it about your ability to choose wisely that your neighbor did not possess?

AMR

Everyone has the ability to chose and make choices. I make dozens of choices every day.

The Holy Spirit is only given to those that believe the Gospel, Galatians 3:2.

You claim that you were "quickened". Quickened by what? If it wasn't by hearing and believing the Gospel, then you don't have the Holy Spirit.

 

[beloved57]

Everyone has the ability to chose and make choices. I make dozens of choices every day.

The Holy Spirit is only given to those that believe the Gospel, Galatians 3:2.

You claim that you were "quickened". Quickened by what? If it wasn't by hearing and believing the Gospel, then you don't have the Holy Spirit.

False teaching, no man can chose to come to Christ ! Jn 6:44

No man can come to me, except the Father who has sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

 

[beloved57]

pate

You claim that you were "quickened". Quickened by what? If it wasn't by hearing and believing the Gospel, then you don't have the Holy Spirit.

You dont believe the Gospel, how could you ? You teach that sinners Christ died for shall still die in their sins in unbelief !

 

[musterion]

pate


You dont believe the Gospel, how could you ? You teach that sinners Christ died for shall still die in their sins in unbelief !

If a billionaire wrote you a valid million dollar check that also covered all taxes, and offered it to you for you to pay off every debt you may have AND to stay out of debt for the rest of your life...but you refuse to believe him and so you refuse to accept the check...will his check do you any good?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Were you lost, bound for absolutely certain condemnation and wrath, just prior to all that happening?

Indeed, I was, as are all before their re-birth (Eph. 2:1-5). I do know where you are headed here, and it would be more effective to just lay out your entire agenda than just resorting to playing twenty questions, as it were.

The elect are under the same condemnation until the application of Christ's person and work by virtue of the Holy Spirit's work, as shown from the summary of Scripture in the WCF:

WCF 11:4 God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, (Gal. 3:8, 1 Pet. 1:2, 19-20, Rom. 8:30) and Christ did, in the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise for their justification: (Gal. 4:4, 1 Tim. 2:6, Rom. 4:25) nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them (Col. 1:21-22, Gal. 2:16, Tit. 3:4-7).​

Much confusion by the anti-Calvinist arises on the matter of election. Until justified, the elect are under condemnation. In other words, there is a difference between saying that "election is salvation" (the anti-Calvinist's erroneous understanding) and "election is unto salvation" (the Calvinist's proper understanding). The historic Reformed position is that election is unto salvation. God decrees to save the elect in eternity, but their salvation is accomplished and applied in time, before which time (as Eph 2 makes clear) they are "by nature children of wrath, just as the others." This view stands in direct opposition to the Hyper-Calvinist's view of eternal justification.

As Calvin explains:

Spoiler

Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God´s sight.
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, reprinted 1977), Book II.1.5, p. 248.

10. The Elect before their call. There is no "seed of election." The elect are gathered into Christ´s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense his grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God´s especial mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death. If you look upon them, you will see Adam´s offspring, who savor of the common corruption of the mass. The fact that they are not carried to utter and even desperate impiety is not due to any innate goodness of theirs but because the eye of God watches over their safety and his hand is outstretched to them!

For those who imagine that some sort of seed of election was sown in them from birth itself, and that by its power they have always been inclined to piety and the fear of God, are not supported by Scriptural authority and are refuted by experience itself. They put forward a few examples by which to prove that the elect even before illumination were not strangers to religion: Paul lived a blameless life as a Pharisee [Philippians 3:5-6]; Cornelius, with alms and prayers, was acceptable to God [Acts 10:2], and the like, if any. As for Paul, we grant them their point; in Cornelius, we say they are deceived.

For it appears that he was then already enlightened and regenerated, so that he lacked nothing but a clear revelation of the gospel. But what will they wring out of these few examples? That all the elect are always endowed with the spirit of piety? No more than if someone by showing the uprightness of Aristides, Socrates, Xenocrates, Scipio, Curius, Camillus, and others infers from it that all who are forsaken in the darkness of idolatry were earnest seekers of holiness and purity. Indeed, Scripture openly disclaims them in more than one place.

This state before regeneration described by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians shows no grain of this seed. "You were dead," he says, "through the trespasses and sins in which you... walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the air, who is now at work in his disobedient sons. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of the flesh and of the mind. So we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest." [Ephesians 2:1-3, abbr.]

Again: "Remember that... you were once without hope, and lacking God in the world." [Ephesians 2:12]
Likewise: "You were once darkness but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light." [Ephesians 5:8-9.]

But they would perhaps like this to be referred to ignorance of the true God in which, as they do not deny, the elect are held before they are called. Yet this would be shameless calumny, since he draws the inference that they ought no longer to lie [Ephesians 4:25] or steal [Ephesians 4:28]. But what answer will they make to the other passages? Such as that in the letter to the Corinthians, where, after declaring that "neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the greedy, will inherit the Kingdom of God" [1 Corinthians 6:9-10], he immediately adds that they were guilty of those very transgressions before they knew Christ but are now washed with his blood and freed by the Spirit [1 Corinthians 9:11]. Likewise, another passage, in the letter to the Romans: "Just as you... yielded your members as slaves to impurity and to greater iniquity upon iniquity, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness" [1 Corinthians 6:19, cf. Vg.]. "For what fruit did you get from those things at which you now rightly blush?" [1 Corinthians 6:21 p.].
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 2, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, reprinted 1977), Book III.24.10, pp. 976-977.

The above is why Reformed theology and the doctrine of election is not a hindrance to evangelism, but rather a spur. In plain words: "you go fishin' where you know there are fish." The doctrine of election does not mean that men do not need the gospel, rather the doctrine of election is God's way of telling us that He has already paved the way for us to bring the gospel.

Also, before some objection about the impassibility of God is raised, the classic explanation is that God does not change His will, God wills the change. Accordingly, we see that God willed to change the status of elect sinners in relation to Himself; He did not change His will in relation to sinners.

It was the unchanging love of God towards the elect which appointed and provided the atonement as the means by which sinners would be reconciled to God. There is no change in God towards the elect; the elect are changed in relation to God.

When God views you "in Christ," all the Trinitarian divine love flows to you by virtue of your union with the Son. When God views you "in Adam," all the wrath of God against sin is directed toward you in rebellion, without any mitigation. The wrath of God due to his elect for their sin is poured out upon the Son in their place. Covenant and Election matter. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

However, if the atonement is universalized—as do those denying particular atonement—and made something less than definite, it is difficult to maintain the unchangeability of God. Here the atonement has come to be interpreted as something which has made sinners savable to God, and therefore the only logical conclusion from such a view is that God Himself must have undergone some kind of change as a result of this indefinite atonement.

AMR

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

If a billionaire wrote you a valid million dollar check that also covered all taxes, and offered it to you for you to pay off every debt you may have AND to stay out of debt for the rest of your life...but you refuse to believe him and so you refuse to accept the check...will his check do you any good?

The unstated premise here is that the billionaire is doing nothing actual, only something potential, wholly dependent upon the evil and recalcitrant recipient. Such a billionaire is but one who likes to hedge his bets.

More properly stated, a billionaire deposits money in a particular person's account and forever keeps the promises for removal of past, present, and future debts owed by the evil and recalcitrant recipient. It is all irrevocable, and the billionaire will take all necessary steps to ensure it is so. Further, upon the instance of the transation, the evil and recalcitrant recipient's former inability to understand the good news of this wonderful transaction is restored to an ability to not not accept the deposit and promises, for the recipient now genuinely wants to do so.

This is a billioinare who actually makes happen what he intended to happen in each and every case for which he set out to do.



AMR

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Everyone has the ability to chose and make choices. I make dozens of choices every day.

The Holy Spirit is only given to those that believe the Gospel, Galatians 3:2.

You claim that you were "quickened". Quickened by what? If it wasn't by hearing and believing the Gospel, then you don't have the Holy Spirit.

You continue to evade a simple question. What was so unique about your ability to make choices that your neighbor could not do the same? In other words, why did you choose wisely and your neighbor did not?

I was quickened by the Holy Spirit, such that I would actually have spirtual ears to hear the Good News. Prior to that quickening, how could I have actually done so (Jer. 17:9; Mark 7:21-23; Eph. 2:2; Eph. 2:4-5; Titus 3:5; John 3:19; Rom. 3:10-12; 5:6; 6:16-20; Eph. 2:1,3;1 Cor. 2:14)?

No person can be thoroughly humbled until he or she knows that their salvation is utterly beyond their own powers, devices, endeavors, will, and works, and depends entirely on the choice, will, and work of another, namely, of God alone.

AMR

 

[Samie]

As Calvin explains:
Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God´s sight.
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, reprinted 1977), Book II.1.5, p. 248.

10. The Elect before their call. There is no "seed of election." The elect are gathered into Christ´s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense his grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God´s especial mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death. If you look upon them, you will see Adam´s offspring, who savor of the common corruption of the mass....

Calvin's explanation that people are born in sin and hence born lost goes against the plain teaching of Jesus through the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, that people are NOT born lost.

1. Before the sheep got lost, it was with its shepherd.
2. Before the coin was lost, it was with its owner.
3. Before the son went lost, he was with his father.

So with us all sinners. We did not start out in life already lost. And to be NOT lost is to be in Christ. We were all born in Christ instead of born in sin. This is all because God implemented the plan of salvation He devised before the beginning of time that same day the emergency occurred: the day Adam fell into sin. An earthly father, upon seeing his child fall into the water, will do all in his power to save his child from drowning, even at the peril of his own life, will he not? If an earhtly father will, why would our heavenly Father not?

When Adam fell into sin, the Father of love (agape) could not let Adam drown in sin. He saved Adam that same day and reinstated him to his pre-fall spiritual status, an act that cost the Father His only begotten Son, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. With Adam in Christ, all his descendants are born in Christ, born parts of His Body, instead of born in sin. We start out in life NOT lost.

But like the lost sheep, we strayed from our Shepherd. We live lives NOT in accord with what the Head wants His body parts to do. Hence, the Gospel of God that Jesus preached calls people to repentance (Mark 1:14,15), the same call to repentance God issued in the Old Testament (Ezek 18:30), the same call for people to repent that God NOW commands all men everywhere to do (Acts 17:30).

Repentance is a change of mind for the better: instead of doing evil, overcome it with good (Rom 12:21). Overcomers will not be blotted out from the book of life (Rev 3:5) and will be seated with Christ in His throne as He also overcame and sat down with the Father in His throne (Rev 3:21). Sadly, for those blotted out, their portion and reward will be in the lake of fire (Rev 20:15). For those NOT blotted out, they will be ushered into the heavenly portals (Rev 21:27).

When God determines that the opportune time has come for a person to personally know Christ and Him crucified, He will send a Philip to him, just like in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch who traveled more than 5000 miles to Jerusalem just to worship God. It was not the eunuch's plan to meet with Philip, nor was it Philip's plan to meet the eunuch. It was all the workings of the Holy Spirit. The fact that prior to meeting Philip, the eunuch already WORSHIPS God, simply shows that the eunuch was already doing SOMETHING - worshipping God, and therefor already in Christ for apart from Him, the eunuch could have done NOTHING.

 

[Samie]

God's gracious saving act was manifested in the life, death, resurrection and heavenly ministry of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.