FOR or BECAUSE OF the forgiveness of your sins, (Acts 2:38)

[BillyBob65]

This is not engaging with what I posted. It is nothing but an accusation, an implicit claim that you do believe all the words of Christ and I don't because I disagree with you. I explained---and from Scripture---what your assertion of interpretation of that passage and all the others you used out of category context was an incorrect interpretation. If you disagree that what I posted does not successfully do that, then don't just claim your rightness---show it.

That would require you to dismantle what I said, stone by stone, with no presuppositional bias involved. Utterly neutral.

The discussions on theology and doctrine are vital to our understanding it is imperative that we do it right.

Show that your interpretation in all of them was NOT a collapse of category which made your doctrinal conclusion invalid. If you need me to define terms in order to do that---ask me to and I will.

Start with "a collapse of category" what are you talking about

 

[BillyBob65]

The command does not imply the ability to obey. Does God command, "be ye holy"? Yet, none can do it, but Christ Jesus. Man is unable because of his will--that is true. But thus, unable. He is corrupt to the core, and so, unwilling. The commands are not meaningless. They establish the standard. And so they point to our inability and our need for Christ.

Take the viewpoint that says that God's foreknowledge is based on what he sees, 'down the corridors of time' (to which I don't subscribe, but I use it here to demonstrate that even the proponents of THAT claim, should admit to the logic. If God knew that we all would disobey, yet created anyway, he intended that we disobey. (I'm not saying that he likes it, but that it is a means to an end--redemption.) If he knows that we will all disobey, then how is the command any more invalid than if it was given to autonomous creatures capable of holiness?

By the way, in your references and points, you are mixing categories, again:

There is the command to everyone, which is not salvific. 'Obedience' to that is surface, in those who are at enmity with God--it is not submission. Those are unable to submit, per Romans 8:7,8.

There is the command to everyone, which is salvific. Repent Seek Believe Choose are all impossible to do salvifically, while at enmity with God. As we have already established, they WILL not, and according to Romans 8:7,8, they cannot submit, nor please God. (Note here, too, a caveat. For those elect, these commands are salvific only in that they are in keeping with Christ's righteousness, already applied. It is not their by the will of the redeemed that they are saved.)

There is the command to the born again, to those justified by (through, from) faith. These are finally enabled to obey, yet even they will not obey perfectly, except by Christ's righteousness.

You have included all three categories under one general statement, which is, apparently, to you, axiomatic, but which falls apart under scrutiny. (And no, I don't claim that a person has to know all this correctly in order to be saved. In fact, I thank God for the ignorance of some of those upon whom he has shown mercy and are born again (Romans 9). Their hearts and even their minds (Romans 8) know him, because of the Spirit of God within them (Ephesians 2; 1 Corinthians 2:14).)

There is the command to everyone, which is salvific. Repent Seek Believe Choose are all impossible to do salvifically, while at enmity with God.

That is the most craziest thing I have heard. If they are impossible to do then why would God insist that we do. Do you read your own words?

That is the essence of the gospel call that we respond to it accordingly. God interacts with his people not have them stranged up with puppet strings.

 

[makesends]

There is the command to everyone, which is salvific. Repent Seek Believe Choose are all impossible to do salvifically, while at enmity with God.

That is the most craziest thing I have heard. If they are impossible to do then why would God insist that we do. Do you read your own words?

That is the essence of the gospel call that we respond to it accordingly. God interacts with his people not have them stranged up with puppet strings.

Answer the question. Can you be holy as your God is holy?

And I completely reject the notion that "God [has] his people....stranged up with puppet strings." I would really like to see you try to prove your thesis, besides by scorn and consternation.

Your premise, by the way, is based on a mindset that assumes we are independent moral agents, the same way God is. No doubt you will disagree with that, but in the end, it is so. Your thesis assumes that we are indeed independently able to do whatever is necessary to match what God made us to be. That mindset exalts man's status to Godhood, or lowers God's sovereignty to the level of creaturehood. That worldview is found in scripture only by misreading that assumes it, or in several cases, by way of God rebuking those who think that way.

God did not make us to be perfect in this temporal life, except in Christ. We are not yet the completed creation that he spoke into existence.

 

[makesends]

That is the most craziest thing I have heard. If they are impossible to do then why would God insist that we do. Do you read your own words?

Leaving aside for now the Rules violation here, God's demand is by way of his utter purity. If you need to equate his utter purity to our ability, you have introduced a notion that, if taken to its logical end, implies that there is no such thing as sin. After all, why would he create creatures capable of sinning against him, who by force of will can exalt themselves above creaturehood into his realm?

I don't have the skills to illustrate this graphically. But God is not like us. His purity, his existence and sentience, and our best --even Adam's before he fell-- are not on the same level nor of the same kind of thing. The only time we will be pure, is, at present, 'in Christ', and in Heaven, glorified. We are not capable of reaching his level in and of ourselves.

 

[BillyBob65]

God created us with a mind to reason. He knew that we would chose many errors in our life and made a way to deal with that fact. No we will never be as perfect as God and thankfully He does not demand that but has provided the escape. Never does God say we can not understand his words but that we might reject his words. Yes we are a rebellious people but we are capable of seeing the light and searching to seek God. The bible is clear that God created us with a mind to understand. To many scriptures state that if we believe. It is up to us to believe because we are capable we can't lay our unbelief on God that is our part. The whole of the bible is asking us to believe. We are capable.

 

[Arial]

Start with "a collapse of category" what are you talking about

Thanks for asking for the clarification. A collapse of category is when you have two distinct categories are improperly merged. When that is done, and a doctrine is formed from doing that, the doctrinal statement is going to be incorrect.

So, let's look at it with the example we already have of deducing that people have the ability to choose to believe unto salvation by referring back to:

Acts 17:30 – “God now commandeth all men every where to repent.”

If repentance were impossible, the command would be unjust.

Joshua 24:15 – “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.”

Joshua tells Israel to choose, not because they cannot, but because they must.

The doctrine of an innate "ability to choose" is derived by collapsing two distinct biblical categories. These two categories are:

• A NT command to repent
• An OT command to obey covenant stipulations---specifically Israels obligation to worship Yahweh alone

Here is why that is a category collapse:

Josha 24:15 addresses:

• a redeemed covenant people
• already brought out of Egypt
• being warned against idolatry.

The choice is:

• which god to serve, not
• how one becomes spiritually alive

This is a covenant-loyalty category.

The NT category (Acts) addresses

• the universal obligation of sinners,
• in light of Christ's resurrection and coming judgement

The command establishes: accountability---not natural ability to produce repentance.

This is a gospel-summons category.

This is how the collapse happens. The argument moves like this:

• OT: Israel is commanded to choose whom to serve
• NT: All people are commanded to repent
• Conclusion: Therefore, all people possess the innate ability to choose saving faith

The problem with that is each step answers a different question.

OT: Who will you worship"
NT: What are you commanded to do"
Doctrine inferred: What are you able to do by nature?

In summary: Your argument commits a category collapse by treating covenantal commands and gospel summons as though they were statements about human spiritual ability. It also reverses biblical causality by making repentance the cause of spiritual life rather than its result.

 

[BillyBob65]

Okay I think that is grasping at straws. The NT is full of obey commands and the results if you don't obey. That was not good at dismissing the fact that I am incapable to obey the command of God to repent. That is something God requires of me and if I refuse I pay the consequences of it. Are you trying to tell me I don't have to repent?

I am sorry but I have no ideal what your summary means you might want to try again. What is this suppose to mean?
"It also reverses biblical causality by making repentance the cause of spiritual life rather than its result."

 

[Arial]

That is the essence of the gospel call that we respond to it accordingly. God interacts with his people not have them stranged up with puppet strings.

I get sick of this false equivalency as thought here are only two options. Either we have free will and ability to choose to accept or reject the gospel or else we are "stranged" up like puppets.

Here is another option. God chose who to give to his Son as his inheritance, and he sends his Spirit to regenerate them so that they are both willing and able to believe the gospel. And the essence of the gospel call is not "respond accordingly" (according to what?). The essence of the gospel call is the gospel.

 

[BillyBob65]

I get sick of this false equivalency as thought here are only two options. Either we have free will and ability to choose to accept or reject the gospel or else we are "stranged" up like puppets.

Here is another option. God chose who to give to his Son as his inheritance, and he sends his Spirit to regenerate them so that they are both willing and able to believe the gospel. And the essence of the gospel call is not "respond accordingly" (according to what?). The essence of the gospel call is the gospel.

That view contradicts 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God wants ALL to come to repentance. See ALL remember God is no respecter of person He wants ALL not just a few but ALL the gospel call is for ALL Acts 2:39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. ALL . The bible could not be more clear it is for All not just a select few that God hand picks. That is mans doctrine not from God because God says ALL.