DEAR FRIENDS: WE’RE DEALING WITH THE “CALVINISTIC CONTROVERSY”.
One of statement that leads to arguments is the claim , as Luther put
it, “The bondage of the will.” Sometimes
phrased as the “sinner’s inability.”
First, for you in the
“Reformed” or “Calivinistic” camp, we are not in 1813 but 2013. When you make a claim to deny “free will” you
play right into the hands of the materialists.
On campuses there are professors who teach there is no “free will.” We are simply chemical, physiological
reactions. (Why then do these profs.
grade papers and tests if they’re just chemical reactions?)
As the great Spurgeon
put it, the lost are not bricks! So let’s see if we can come to an
understanding as well as some kind of “Bible-believing unity” about this.
Jesus tells us in John
3:19, that people are condemned because they all “love
darkness rather than light.” That
simply means that our mind is blind to Jesus’
truth (John 3:16, context), we do not like that
truth, so left to our selves how are we going to
choose?
I see a lot of
arguments against Calvinism by people quoting texts as to our
responsibility. No answer at all. If I sit down to a wonderful meal, and
someone tells me “one bite and you’’re dead. The food is poisoned!” WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM GOING TO DECIDE? Put it another way. WHY DO YOU PRAY FOR YOUR LOST LOVED ONE OR
FRIEND? You expect God to intervene and
take away the spiritual blindness and
love for darkness, so that person will respond
to the light of Christ’s salvation.
Let’s Get the
Calvinists, Free Will Baptists, Wesleyan Holiness People Together! Here’s the balance. We know that no one on his own will decide to
come to Christ unless the Holy Spirit is
working. (John 16:8-10). SO WE PRAY
FOR THE LOST. We know that they will not
decide unless they know about the gospel. SO WE WITNESS TO THEM. (Romans
10:14-15). We know they must not delay SO WE URGE THEM TO COME TO CHRIST
NOW. “Today, if
anyone hears His voice, HARDEN NOT YOUR HEART!” (Hebrews 3:7,8). Let’s
from this day expect to be used of Him in sowing,
cultivating, or reaping for the Gospel
(I Corinthians 3:6).
"Here’s the balance. We know that no one on his own will decide to come to Christ unless the Holy Spirit is working."
ReplyDeleteThat's bull crap. You're a Calvinist and don't even realize it. You've reversed the order of John 1:12 because you don't have the Semitic grammatical skills to properly understand John 1:13.
For Baptists struggling to figure out how freewill can fit with their doctrine of regeneration (I say ‘their’ because their meaning to regeneration is not the same as in other denominations):
There is a verse that explicitly places faith BEFORE regeneration. Its none other than John 1:12.
The problem is, people forget that (or never knew) that in Semitic Greek the words “merely” or “only” are often left out. “Drink no longer water but take a little wine” = “Drink no longer [only] water but [also] take a little wine”
But forgetting or not knowing that, people read “not of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God” as if the human will is not involved at all. Thus they feel the knee-jerk need to go back to verse 12 and REVERSE faith and regeneration to make it match their misinterpretation of verse 13.
But verse 13 must be read: “not [merely] of the will of man, nor [merely] of the will of the flesh, but [also] of the will of God”
No need for a Holy Spirit zapping to believe. Correct your heretical freewill denying theology, you Calvinist-lite.
It's easy enough to speak your side without full on attacking a person.
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