The Gospel Is For Christians

[Carbon]

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be trust as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

– B. B. Warfield

 

[Deleted member 6]

I love B. B. Warfield! He was postmill, too!

 

[Deleted member 6]

I was listening to a W. Robert Godfrey sermon on Sermon Audio the other day when he said something so profound. This is not ver batim, but pert near. He said when he was in college as an undergraduate, another evangelical student, who was well-meaning, told another student (who was not saved) that Jesus loved him. The student then looked at him and see then it is well with him. That evangelical just stood there with nothing to say.

How do those who are anti-Reformed confront that? They cannot turn around and say, "Well, He loves you but will cast you into the lake of fire if you don't repent and believe in the gospel", as that cannot mean that Jesus loves them.

 

[Carbon]

I love B. B. Warfield! He was postmill, too!

The lion of Princeton!

 

[CrazyCalvinistUncle]

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be trust as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

– B. B. Warfield

Here here.

The Spurgeon Library | The Gospel’s Power in a Christian’s Life

www.spurgeon.org

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

 

[Carbon]

I love B. B. Warfield! He was postmill, too!

That may have been his only fault.

 

[Deleted member 5]

I was listening to a W. Robert Godfrey sermon on Sermon Audio the other day when he said something so profound. This is not ver batim, but pert near. He said when he was in college as an undergraduate, another evangelical student, who was well-meaning, told another student (who was not saved) that Jesus loved him. The student then looked at him and see then it is well with him. That evangelical just stood there with nothing to say.

How do those who are anti-Reformed confront that? They cannot turn around and say, "Well, He loves you but will cast you into the lake of fire if you don't repent and believe in the gospel", as that cannot mean that Jesus loves them.

I'm not sure what you mean here;

The student then looked at him and see then it is well with him.

 

[Deleted member 5]

That may have been his only fault.

That and carrying around a signed C I Scofield bible.

 

[Deleted member 6]

I'm not sure what you mean here;

If he said Jesus loves him and then he said it is well with him, then how can he confront the guy with his sin? If he says that Jesus will punish him if he doesn’t repent and believe in the gospel makes it hard for him to say “no He doesn’t if you die in your sins.”

 

[Deleted member 5]

If he said Jesus loves him and then he said it is well with him, then how can he confront the guy with his sin? If he says that Jesus will punish him if he doesn’t repent and believe in the gospel makes it hard for him to say “no He doesn’t if you die in your sins.”

Gotcha. Agreed.

 

[ChristB4us]

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be trust as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

– B. B. Warfield

@preacher4truth & @SovereignGrace & @CrazyCalvinistUncle

I agree but....

From the Forum's Statement of Faith;

7) We believe that all who repent of sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ, which is by grace alone, through faith alone, are born of the Holy Spirit and thereby become the children of God and shall not come into condemnation and that the Lord Jesus Christ gives them everlasting life.
(John 1:12-13; 3:16-18,36; 5:24-29; 10:27-29; Acts 4:12; Rom 8:1, 9-12.15-17, 10:9-11;Gal 4:24-29; Eph 1:5; 1John 5:12-13)

I believe it should be read as "repent from unbelief by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ are born again of the Spirit".

How can it be of grace if the sinner repent of sin as something he did in order to be saved?

A woman I used to work with had said that she believed she had to clean up her life first before coming to & believing in Jesus Christ. I told her that Jesus died to save sinners from their sins and not just give eternal life so she can come to Him as she is. She did not believe me. The next day, some one must had confirmed the word to her as she was full of joy that day.

Sinners are slaves to sin and they may have tried to stop religiously on their own and find that it is impossible and so they believe they cannot come to & believe in Jesus Christ yet to be saved when that altar calls them to repent of sin first. We need Jesus Christ in us so we can run that race, looking to the author & finisher of our faith to help us lay aside every weight & sin daily in walking in the light in fellowship with the Father & the Son.

So that altar call to repent from sin or all sins is the opposite of grace when it is on the sinner to repent from all sins before they can be saved.

Anyway, if any oppose to what I had just shared, then how can you align the words of B. B. Warfield's to that section of the forum's Statement of Faith?

 

[Deleted member 5]

@preacher4truth & @SovereignGrace & @CrazyCalvinistUncle

I agree but....

From the Forum's Statement of Faith;

7) We believe that all who repent of sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ, which is by grace alone, through faith alone, are born of the Holy Spirit and thereby become the children of God and shall not come into condemnation and that the Lord Jesus Christ gives them everlasting life.
(John 1:12-13; 3:16-18,36; 5:24-29; 10:27-29; Acts 4:12; Rom 8:1, 9-12.15-17, 10:9-11;Gal 4:24-29; Eph 1:5; 1John 5:12-13)

I believe it should be read as "repent from unbelief by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ are born again of the Spirit".

How can it be of grace if the sinner repent of sin as something he did in order to be saved?

A woman I used to work with had said that she believed she had to clean up her life first before coming to & believing in Jesus Christ. I told her that Jesus died to save sinners from their sins and not just give eternal life so she can come to Him as she is. She did not believe me. The next day, some one must had confirmed the word to her as she was full of joy that day.

Sinners are slaves to sin and they may have tried to stop religiously on their own and find that it is impossible and so they believe they cannot come to & believe in Jesus Christ yet to be saved when that altar calls them to repent of sin first. We need Jesus Christ in us so we can run that race, looking to the author & finisher of our faith to help us lay aside every weight & sin daily in walking in the light in fellowship with the Father & the Son.

So that altar call to repent from sin or all sins is the opposite of grace when it is on the sinner to repent from all sins before they can be saved.

Anyway, if any oppose to what I had just shared, then how can you align the words of B. B. Warfield's to that section of the forum's Statement of Faith?

Yes, I saw that post. With all due respect you're reading meaning into the SoF that isn't there and fighting a straw man.

 

[ChristB4us]

Yes, I saw that post. With all due respect you're reading meaning into the SoF that isn't there and fighting a straw man.

Words have meaning. I do not see how anyone can get around that call to "repent from sins" which precedes a sinner's salvation when that is not being saved by grace.

Sinners walk away from Jesus thinking they need to clean up their lives first and it takes calls like that as well as that one Billy Graham made after preaching this gospel "it is not going to church every Sunday that is going to save you. It is not keeping the Ten commandments that is going to save you. It is all those who call upon the name of the Lord." And so after that gospel, Billy Graham gives this apostate altar call; "if you are not sure you are saved.... come forward and make a commitment to follow Christ."

Why didn't he say "if you called upon the name of the Lord to save you, believe you are saved!!!"?

No one is going to gain any assurance of salvation by how they keep that commitment. Billy Graham even doubted that Jesus would receive him. think about all that entails to keep a commitment like that to follow Him to gain that assurance of salvation. Keeping His commandments are higher than the works of the law and going to church every Sunday too.

Tony Snow Interviews Billy Graham from the link are these quotes below;

"SNOW: When you get to Heaven, who's going to speak first, you or God?

GRAHAM: When I get there, I'm sure that Jesus is going to say that he
will welcome me. But I think that he's going to say: Well done, our good
and faithful servant. Or he may say: You're in the wrong place.

SNOW: You really worry that you may be told you're in the wrong place?

GRAHAM: Yes, because I have not -- I'm not a righteous man. People put
me up on a pedestal that I don't belong in my personal life. And they
think that I'm better than I am. I'm not the good man that people think
I am. Newspapers and magazines and television have made me out to be a
saint. I'm not. I'm not a Mother Teresa. And I feel that very much." ~~~ end of quotes

So why would he say that unless by that commitment is the knowledge of sin and why he did not have any assurance that Jesus would receive him when he is saved simply for believing in the Lord Jesus Christ & that God has raised him from the dead? That is akin to laboring in unbelief like a Catholic would do in the works of Catholicism.

Just pointing out how Jesus warned how bad it will be in the latter days and how a line there and a line here is how believers err and fall from the faith in Jesus Christ & come short of their rest in Him. Granted, they are still saved but it does not look good for them to be resurrected at the rapture event as vessels unto honor in His House, vessels of gold & silver, when works that deny Him are on that foundation will have them denied by Him ( titis 1:16 & 1 Corinthians 3:10-17 ), but they will be resurrected after the great tribulation as vessels unto dishonor in His House as vessels of wood and earth to serve the King of kings on earth ( 2 Timothy 2:19-21 & 2 Corinthians 5:7-11 & Revelation 6:9-11 & 7:9-17 ).

Words matter. Repenting from sins for a sinner to do before salvation turns them away but believing in Jesus Christ for eternal life AND that He will deliver them from their bondage to sin is why sinners would come to Him not just for salvation, but for being able to run that race with Him afterwards in living that reconciled relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

May God cause the increase.

 

[David1701]

I was listening to a W. Robert Godfrey sermon on Sermon Audio the other day when he said something so profound. This is not ver batim, but pert near. He said when he was in college as an undergraduate, another evangelical student, who was well-meaning, told another student (who was not saved) that Jesus loved him. The student then looked at him and see then it is well with him. That evangelical just stood there with nothing to say.

How do those who are anti-Reformed confront that? They cannot turn around and say, "Well, He loves you but will cast you into the lake of fire if you don't repent and believe in the gospel", as that cannot mean that Jesus loves them.

Actually, that is what they tend to say (from my experience). Their view of God is that he's sitting there, helplessly wringing his hands, wishing that people would use their "free" will to believe in him, so that he doesn't have to send them to hell. It's a horrible caricature of the Lord.

 

[Carbon]

I love B. B. Warfield! He was postmill, too!

Well no one has everything right

 

[ChristB4us]

I was listening to a W. Robert Godfrey sermon on Sermon Audio the other day when he said something so profound. This is not ver batim, but pert near. He said when he was in college as an undergraduate, another evangelical student, who was well-meaning, told another student (who was not saved) that Jesus loved him. The student then looked at him and see then it is well with him. That evangelical just stood there with nothing to say.

How do those who are anti-Reformed confront that? They cannot turn around and say, "Well, He loves you but will cast you into the lake of fire if you don't repent and believe in the gospel", as that cannot mean that Jesus loves them.

That undergraduate evangelical student should have said how & why Jesus loved him by dying on the cross for our sins to reconcile us to the Father rather than just say Jesus loved him.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

2 Corinthians 5:15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. .....17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

 

[ChristB4us]

Actually, that is what they tend to say (from my experience). Their view of God is that he's sitting there, helplessly wringing his hands, wishing that people would use their "free" will to believe in him, so that he doesn't have to send them to hell. It's a horrible caricature of the Lord.

True.

No man can come to the Son unless the Father draws him per John 6:44.

It is the Father that hides the truth from the wise & yet reveal His Son to even the babes for how any sinner can believe in Him. Matthew 11;25-27

So the Father knows who will receive Him from those that would not because they love their evil deeds rather than come to the light to be reproved of them. John 3:18-21

So all those that seek, shall find as it, is a promise from God as they can only be seeking by the Father drawing them.

Matthew 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

We see evidence of this by how they were led by the Holy Spirit not to preach the gospel in some places and yet led to go to Macedonia instead as per the Father's will as the Father was drawing sinners down in Macedonia to seek Him.

Acts 16:6 Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, 7 After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. 8 And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. 10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.

We can rest assured that no one in hell can say to God that if only they had known the gospel, they would have believed. He knows otherwise.

 

[ChristB4us]

Well no one has everything right

Which is why we are to trust Jesus Christ in being our personal Good Shepherd in proving everything with Him by the scriptures as kept in the KJV.

 

[David1701]

Which is why we are to trust Jesus Christ in being our personal Good Shepherd in proving everything with Him by the scriptures as kept in the KJV.

The KJV is not perfect; no translation is.

 

[ChristB4us]

The KJV is not perfect; no translation is.

I know the KJV is not perfect.

Just testifying that I rely on the meat in the KJV as scripture cannot go against scripture whereas the changed messages in the modern Bibles has been changed to sow doubts in God's words for why it is hard to correct anyone one that has gone astray by modern Bibles.

Even if one succeeds by His grace & by His help in getting those deceived to use only the KJV, only Jesus can help them see the truth in His words because they could still be seeing the message learned from modern bibles by reading it in the KJV even though that is not what the KJV says.