Eternal life, given or offered?

[makesends]

What? Use the AMP bible translation?

No, I meant don't assume that the 'translators' of the AMP (or any other paraphrase) "know what they are talking about" when they add words to scripture.

 

[Arial]

God has never said any such thing.

That is all made up. What is true is that you would not have believed any of that if God had not given His written revelation that you could hear and read. Faith doesn't come by being regenerated. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God (Christ) (Rom 10:17). Faith doesn't come by being regenerated; rather, regeneration comes by being raised up with Christ through faith in the working of God, who raised Jesus from the dead (Col 2:11-13).

He has.

John 6

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Jesus was standing right there in front of them. They both saw him and heard him and they had the testimony of the Law and Prophets, and they did not believe.

63-65 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.


John 3:3-8 Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old" Can he enter a seco0nd time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again." The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spifrit."

BTW when Jesus says truly, truly, it means, pay very close attention to this, It is very important.

1 Cor 2:14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Believe and you will be regenerated. Believe and you will be born again. Believe and your spirit dead in your trespasses and sins will be made alive again.

Col 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

That is regeneration!!!

Sorry. There is no regenerating accomplished by believing. The believing is accomplished by regeneration according to the Scripture. We already don't believe. The change has to come before we believe. And as shown above, many hear and do not believe.

There is no Scripture that says "believe and you will be regenerated." There is no Scripture that says "Believe and you will be born again. HE made you alive when you were dead in transgressions.

 

[Red Baker]

Oh Red. You are so close. You said, "Faith is the evidence that causes me to believe......". You almost get it, but alas. Faith in God is believing in God.

Rom 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Jim, thinking over your post to me, and seeing how I can answer you without very much verbiage, is indeed not easy, for most men confuse others by their over use of words where there is no profit for the readers, which our job should be to help our fellow believer's to come to the knowledge of the truth without over taxing them with much reading to get to one little point.

You said: "Faith in God is believing in God." Which I agree, and it is why I distinguish between true faith which worketh by love, to God, his word and his children begotten by him, and faith of devils, or unregenerate men.

I also agree that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God~yet, the power to have faith is the results of being first born of God, which is where you and I strongly disagree. Even the verse you quoted from Romans 10:16 taken from Isaiah 53, which said:

Isaiah 53:1​

“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?”

Which proves that God first must create a new man within a person, before they can or will believe, and even then , there are different degrees of faith among God's children. 1st John 2:12-14

I am not asking anyone to prove to me that you have been regenerated. I am asking you to prove to yourself with scripture that you have been regenerated.

Jim, I can do no better than quote Hebrews 11:1-3:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Jim, The natural man prefers a life of sense, and to believe nothing more than that which is capable of scientifical demonstration. When eternal things, yet invisible, are pressed upon him, he is full of objections against them. Those are the objections of unbelief, stirred into activity by the "fiery darts" of Satan, and naught but the shield of faith can quench them. But when the Holy Spirit renews the heart, the prevailing power of unbelief is broken; faith argues "God has said it, so it must be true." Faith so convinces the understanding that it is compelled, by force of arguments unanswerable, to believe the certainty of all God has spoken. The conviction is so powerful that the heart is influenced thereby, and the will moved to conform thereto. This it is which causes the Christian to forsake the "pleasures of sin" which are only "for a season". If this strong desire is within us, then we can take comfort that we have been born of God according to his testimony as to why we believe what we do and do what we do, so different from the folks around us. who live as though there is no God to give account to.

To unbelief, the objects which God sets before us in His Word seem unreal and unlikely, nebulous and vague. But faith visualizes the unseen, giving substantiality to the things hoped for and reality to things invisible. Faith shuts its eyes to all that is seen, and opens its ears to all God has said. Faith is a convictive power which overcomes carnal reasonings, carnal prejudices, and carnal excuses. It enlightens the judgment, moulds the heart, moves the will, and reforms the life. It takes us off earthly things and worldly vanities, and occupies us with spiritual and Divine realities. It emboldens against discouragements, laughs at difficulties, resists the Devil, and triumphs over temptations. It does so because it unites the soul to God and draws strength from Him. Thus faith is altogether a supernatural thing~and those who believe can know that it was given to them by God's grace just as he said in his word. Faith is our greatest evidence that we have been born of God.

 

[Arial]

There is nothing more disgusting to me than the ridiculous claim by too many that "Your argument is not with me, your argument is with God".

Is that what I said?

Please do not try to convince me that what you believe is from God, and what those who disagree with what you believe is not from God.

I am not telling you what I believe. I am telling you what God says.

God determined that humans would be what Adam was, not what Adam became. Those who sin become, just as Adam did, sinners.

Interesting isn't though, even just a little bit, that for some reason we all do sin. Every last one from Adam forward.

There is nothing chaotic about God's giving every living human being a spirit that is alive and well and free from the blight of another man's sin when they are born.

There kind of would be if he actually did that but who said he did? There is no such thing as a dead spirit. The phrase is spiritually dead which is not the same thing as a dead spirit. I take some aversion to the phrase spiritually dead, but at least it conveys the condition of our unwillingness and inability to comprehend and believe spiritual things.

Until the child becomes accountable, he has not committed any sin.

So sin isn't sin until the child reaches a certain age and then it is sin? Wait a sec. I thought sin was anything that misses the mark of the holiness of God. Here I was, all along thinking that God himself was the measure of what is sin and what is not sin. How can it be that when an eighteen year old lies it is breaking a commandment but when a ten year old lies, it is not?

Are you serious? Christ didn't die to substitute himself for Adam's sin only. He died to substitute himself for the sins of the world. He came to fulfill the law. The law was fulfilled when the sins of the world were paid for. That happened once for all when Jesus died on the cross.

That is universalism. Have you been a universalist all this time without saying so?

Yes indeed, one of God's attributes is perfection in all things. And that attribute would prohibit God from giving a dead spirit to anyone.

You are right about that. I am curious as to why you bring it up. Has someone said that God gives us a dead spirit?

I just don't like the way you say He does things. He does not give a spirit dead in Adam's sin to anyone. He didn't give Adam a dead spirit and He hasn't and doesn't give a dead spirit to anyone else either.

Oh! You are claiming I am the one who said God gives man (all men!) a dead spirit! Well, JIM, I never said any such thing or anything remotely like it. So what now?

That you would think that God would do such a thing is bad enough. But what is truly appalling is that anyone would build an entire theology based on God doing such a thing.

I don't think that. Never said I think that. Therefore my theology, and if by extension you are also laying the claim onto the entire Reformed community and Reformed theology, is not based on any such thing. Don't repeat it.

 

[fastfredy0]

No, I meant don't assume that the 'translators' of the AMP (or any other paraphrase) "know what they are talking about" when they add words to scripture.

True. On the other hand I find the comments helpful to a degree like I find systematic theology books helpful in organizing thoughts on a subject scattered all over the place in the bible.

 

[JIM]

Thus faith is altogether a supernatural thing~and those who believe can know that it was given to them by God's grace just as he said in his word. Faith is our greatest evidence that we have been born of God.

How is faith a supernatural thing? As you acknowledged, to have faith in God is to believe in God. It is something that you do. Do you have supernatural powers? I don't think so. I know you keep saying that it is a gift from God, but it is not. The scriptures do not say that. Salvation is a gift, certainly, but faith is not. One's faith is the basis upon which God saves, not the other way around. That is the message over and over again. Paul declared that to be so for Abraham: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom 4:3). In short, that verse declares that Abraham was saved. To be counted for righteousness is to have the righteousness of God credited to him. Righteousness was imputed to Abraham. Abraham, because he believed in God, was declared to be righteous.

The word translated "it was counted" is a very important word that stands for an even more important concept, namely imputation. The term is
λογίζομαι [logizomai]. It is used 11 times in this chapter alone. It is a term used by the Greeks at the time in the field of business or commerce. It was a technical term used to describe the procedure of entering a credit or a debit to someone's account. It is translated "to credit, to set down to one's account, to impute, to reckon, to count as, to regard as".

Here, as elsewhere, to be declared righteous is to be justified. It is to be saved. Paul ends that chapter with Rom 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. 22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Righteousness is imputed "if we believe on him. i.e., God". The supernatural act is not our believing; rather, the supernatural act is the imputing of righteousness upon the believer. Our believing in God is the basis upon which God imputes His righteousness to us. First we believe in God, and it is on that belief in Him that He imputes His righteousness to us.

I rather like what Albert Barnes says about "He that believes" in Mark 16:16. There Barnes says,

He that believeth -That is, believeth the gospel. “He who credits it to be true, and acts as if it were true.” This is the whole of faith. Man is a sinner. He should act on the belief of this truth and repent. There is a God. Man should believe it, and fear and love him, and seek his favor. The Lord Jesus died to save him. To have faith in him is to believe that this is true, and to act accordingly; that is, to trust him, to rely on him, to love him, to feel that we have no merit, and to cast our all upon him. There is a heaven and a hell. To believe this is to credit the account and act as if it were true - to seek the one and avoid the other. We are to die. To believe this is to act as if this were so; to be in readiness for it, and to expect it daily and hourly. In one word, faith is feeling and acting as if there were a God, a Saviour, a heaven, a hell; as if we were sinners and must die; as if we deserved eternal death and were in danger of it; and, in view of all, casting our eternal interests on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. To do this is to be a Christian: not to do it is to be an infidel.

I am a fan of Jordan Peterson. He has said that he is often asked if he believes in God. He said that he doesn't like that question, but he answers it by saying that he tries to live and act as if he believes in God. That is faith in God in a nutshell. If only that could be said of all of us.

 

[Arial]

How is faith a supernatural thing? As you acknowledged, to have faith in God is to believe in God. It is something that you do. Do you have supernatural powers? I don't think so. I know you keep saying that it is a gift from God, but it is not. The scriptures do not say that. Salvation is a gift, certainly, but faith is no

γὰρ gar	For	Conj
5485 [e]	χάριτί chariti	by grace	N-DFS
1510 [e]	ἐστε este	you are	V-PIA-2P
4982 [e]	σεσῳσμένοι sesōsmenoi	saved	V-RPM/P-NMP
1223 [e]	διὰ dia	through	Prep
4102 [e]	πίστεως· pisteōs

4102 pístis (from 3982/peithô, "persuade, be persuaded") – properly, persuasion (be persuaded, come to trust); faith.

Faith (4102/pistis) is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people. In short, 4102/pistis ("faith") for the believer is "God's divine persuasion" – and therefore distinct from human belief (confidence), yet involving it. The Lord continuously births faith in the yielded believer so they can know what He prefers, i.e. the persuasion of His will (1 Jn 5:4).

[4102 (pistis) in secular antiquity referred to a guarantee (warranty). In Scripture, faith is God's warranty, certifying that the revelation He inbirthed will come to pass (His way).​

Supernatural
In the Bible, ‘supernatural’ refers to anything that exists or occurs beyond or outside the natural realm and human understanding

 

[Arial]

One's faith is the basis upon which God saves, not the other way around. That is the message over and over again. Paul declared that to be so for Abraham: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom 4:3). In short, that verse declares that Abraham was saved. To be counted for righteousness is to have the righteousness of God credited to him. Righteousness was imputed to Abraham. Abraham, because he believed in God, was declared to be righteous.

Think about it from the historical view. Abraham would never have even known God had not God made himself known. Abraham lived among idol worshipers and there is nothing in Scripture that says he was not an idol worshiper himself. Hundreds of not thousands of years had passed since Adam who had personal experience of God's presence. The world had been deluged with water and all that was in it destroyed except who and what were with Noah in the ark. Then hundreds of more years in a world where none but a very few, and those for the purposes of the progressive forward movement of redemption, had no personal experience of God acting in history. There were no written accounts of creation or the movements and actions of God. That came long after Abraham. Not until during the Exodus did God give those things to Moses and they were written down.

We can know of God through the witness of the created world, but we cannot know God until he shows himself and enters into nature. and history. Abraham couldn't either until God revealed himself and spoke to him. If you put the whole Bible together as what it is, the story of redemption, instead of piece mealing it as isolated incidents, our perspective changes radically.

 

[JIM]

γὰρ gar	For	Conj
5485 [e]	χάριτί chariti	by grace	N-DFS
1510 [e]	ἐστε este	you are	V-PIA-2P
4982 [e]	σεσῳσμένοι sesōsmenoi	saved	V-RPM/P-NMP
1223 [e]	διὰ dia	through	Prep
4102 [e]	πίστεως· pisteōs

4102 pístis (from 3982/peithô, "persuade, be persuaded") – properly, persuasion (be persuaded, come to trust); faith.

Faith (4102/pistis) is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people. In short, 4102/pistis ("faith") for the believer is "God's divine persuasion" – and therefore distinct from human belief (confidence), yet involving it. The Lord continuously births faith in the yielded believer so they can know what He prefers, i.e. the persuasion of His will (1 Jn 5:4).

[4102 (pistis) in secular antiquity referred to a guarantee (warranty). In Scripture, faith is God's warranty, certifying that the revelation He inbirthed will come to pass (His way).​

Supernatural
In the Bible, ‘supernatural’ refers to anything that exists or occurs beyond or outside the natural realm and human understanding

Total and complete nonsense.

 

[Arial]

The word translated "it was counted" is a very important word that stands for an even more important concept, namely imputation. The term is
λογίζομαι [logizomai]. It is used 11 times in this chapter alone. It is a term used by the Greeks at the time in the field of business or commerce. It was a technical term used to describe the procedure of entering a credit or a debit to someone's account. It is translated "to credit, to set down to one's account, to impute, to reckon, to count as, to regard as".

Here, as elsewhere, to be declared righteous is to be justified. It is to be saved. Paul ends that chapter with Rom 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. 22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

I am well aware of all of that. Why have you changed the subject?

Righteousness is imputed "if we believe on him. i.e., God". The supernatural act is not our believing; rather, the supernatural act is the imputing of righteousness upon the believer. Our believing in God is the basis upon which God imputes His righteousness to us. First we believe in God, and it is on that belief in Him that He imputes His righteousness to us.

You have said elsewhere, that Christ's righteousness was not imputed to you and neither was Adam's sin. You are very inconsistent and contradictory in the statements you make.

This is what I have finally come to understand through all the webs you weave is your belief on imputation of Adam's sin in connection with the cross of Christ. You: Christ died to pay the sin debt that came through Adam and for all who sin. As a result, no one is born a sinner, all are born innocent, and at a certain age, if they do sin, that sin condemns them. If they then come to faith, Jesus 2000 and some years ago, paid that debt and their sins are forgiven.

This shows to me that you have not yet fully grasped precisely what Jesus suffered and died for. What that actually did. What he actually accomplished.

You would acknowledge would you not, that if something is paid for, it is paid for and the debt cannot then be collected again from the one who first owed that debt?

So what you have if my synopsis of your doctrinal belief is accurate, is something being paid for, and at great cost to the one who offers himself as a ransom; who takes upon himself the very punishment, death and the wrath of God against sin and the sinner; and does so that he might conquer any power sin and death have to condemn the person; thus imputing his perfect righteousness to them as though it were their own. And you have this applied to every baby born.

And then you say, but they sin after Christ has done this, actually laid down his life to do it, and now unless one caveat is met, one that comes from within that sinner apart from any action of God, no, Christ didn't really suffer and die and pay that debt for them. So you have him doing a real thing, paying a real debt, meaning it is paid for, and then withdrawing that payment, which is impossible for him to do; or having said he paid it when he did not really do so. Lying iow, Or you have the unbeliever paying again for what Jesus gave his own life to pay for, and for the glory of God.

 

[Arial]

Total and complete nonsense.

Are you aware that was a copy/past from biblehub? . And the definitions from Strong's? Are you more knowledgeable in Greek than the compilers of those works? It does you no good to just dismiss what you do not want to acknowledge by calling it nonsense.

 

[JIM]

We can know of God through the witness of the created world, but we cannot know God until he shows himself and enters into nature. and history.

Of course. And He has shown himself in the Bible. There is not one thing more that you need than is in God's written word.

 

[Arial]

Of course. And He has shown himself in the Bible. There is not one thing more that you need than is in God's written word.

Well---except God himself.

 

[JIM]

You have said elsewhere, that Christ's righteousness was not imputed to you and neither was Adam's sin. You are very inconsistent and contradictory in the statements you make.

I have said that Adam's sin was not imputed to anyone else other than Adam. I certainly never said that Christ's righteousness was not imputed to me. I just posted a lengthy discussion about that. Imputed righteousness is the very essence of justification. That is an integral part of being saved. I am not inconsistent and contradictory; but apparently your comprehension is.

 

[JIM]

Thus faith is altogether a supernatural thing~and those who believe can know that it was given to them by God's grace just as he said in his word. Faith is our greatest evidence that we have been born of God.

Red, please read my post #146. That was supposed to be a response to you. I am not sure how I ended up labeling it to Arial.

 

[Arial]

I have said that Adam's sin was not imputed to anyone else other than Adam. I certainly never said that Christ's righteousness was not imputed to me. I just posted a lengthy discussion about that. Imputed righteousness is the very essence of justification. That is an integral part of being saved. I am not inconsistent and contradictory; but apparently your comprehension is.

You avoided addressing the majority of what was said in my post. Here it is again:

This is what I have finally come to understand through all the webs you weave is your belief on imputation of Adam's sin in connection with the cross of Christ. You: Christ died to pay the sin debt that came through Adam and for all who sin. As a result, no one is born a sinner, all are born innocent, and at a certain age, if they do sin, that sin condemns them. If they then come to faith, Jesus 2000 and some years ago, paid that debt and their sins are forgiven.

This shows to me that you have not yet fully grasped precisely what Jesus suffered and died for. What that actually did. What he actually accomplished.

You would acknowledge would you not, that if something is paid for, it is paid for and the debt cannot then be collected again from the one who first owed that debt?

So what you have if my synopsis of your doctrinal belief is accurate, is something being paid for, and at great cost to the one who offers himself as a ransom; who takes upon himself the very punishment, death and the wrath of God against sin and the sinner; and does so that he might conquer any power sin and death have to condemn the person; thus imputing his perfect righteousness to them as though it were their own. And you have this applied to every baby born.

And then you say, but they sin after Christ has done this, actually laid down his life to do it, and now unless one caveat is met, one that comes from within that sinner apart from any action of God, no, Christ didn't really suffer and die and pay that debt for them. So you have him doing a real thing, paying a real debt, meaning it is paid for, and then withdrawing that payment, which is impossible for him to do; or having said he paid it when he did not really do so. Lying iow, Or you have the unbeliever paying again for what Jesus gave his own life to pay for, and for the glory of God.

It is post #150 so you can deal with it line by line. Does your doctrine arrive at something other than the natural outcome of what I gave above, and if so---explain? It is disingenuous in a conversation, to just put forth your views and condemn the other views without actually dealing with what they are. If you are unable to do so, just say so.

 

[Arial]

Red, please read my post #146. That was supposed to be a response to you. I am not sure how I ended up labeling it to Arial.

If you click on up arrow by my name it will go to my pose #144. I do not know why it quoted Red's post instead. I took it to be my post for I too had said that the faith that saves is a supernatural faith, only in a different post. So I presume you have not read 144 and will await your response.

 

[JIM]

If you click on up arrow by my name it will go to my pose #144. I do not know why it quoted Red's post instead. I took it to be my post for I too had said that the faith that saves is a supernatural faith, only in a different post. So I presume you have not read 144 and will await your response.

I gave my response to Red in Post #146. If there is something there you disagree with, feel free to respond.

 

[JIM]

Are you aware that was a copy/past from biblehub? . And the definitions from Strong's? Are you more knowledgeable in Greek than the compilers of those works? It does you no good to just dismiss what you do not want to acknowledge by calling it nonsense.

But nothing you posted there said anything about faith being a gift. In Ephesians 2:8 faith cannot be the gift being referred to since the Greek noun πίστεως meaning "faith" is in the feminine gender and the Greek pronoun τοῦτο meaning "that" is in the neuter gender. The "that" must be referencing the action described by the phrase "by grace you have been saved through faith". In other words, the gift is really salvation.

 

[Arial]

But nothing you posted there said anything about faith being a gift. In Ephesians 2:8 faith cannot be the gift being referred to since the Greek noun πίστεως meaning "faith" is in the feminine gender and the Greek pronoun τοῦτο meaning "that" is in the neuter gender. The "that" must be referencing the action described by the phrase "by grace you have been saved through faith". In other words, the gift is really salvation.

You can feminine and neuter all you want.It makes no difference whatsoever. It says what it says and it means what it says. Salvation is by grace. No one earns it, no one deserves it. God owes no man on single thing. Anything he does for mankind is by grace. Entering into our world to covenant with us and establish with us a personal covenantal relationship---is by grace. Sending Christ to redeem us through his own perfect obedience and death, is by grace. Grace: undeserved love, undeserved kindness, undeserved anything from the hand of God. Grace.

And this grace saves us through faith, which, as has been shown, God also provides. Both salvation and faith are gifts since you cannot have one without the other.

I will say no more about it. We are told in the Bible what to do when people refuse to hear. I can easily recognize when someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes by pretending they know what they are talking about when they really have no idea. They quite often copy things from others and present as their own and are not able to discern that what they copied from makes no sense. It reads like a desperate excuse.