From: "carm.org (carmstuff@yahoo.com)" <carmstuff@yahoo.com>

Quote Originally Posted by CARM
Troy

I have a few questions for you.
If Jesus was to atone for the WHOLE worlds sin and since we KNOW that not all are saved....doesn't this make Christs COMPLETED work on the cross a failure?

Would God subject His Son to a brutal and humiliating death on a cross for the sole purpose of only "offering" salvation to all mankind just to have Him humiliated all over again at the hands of rejecting men?
Is our God a feeble God who sits around twitteling His thumbs after Calvary waiting on the decisions of His CREATION?
Is our God even sovereign?
Does Eph 2:8-10 include the cooperation of men?
Is Romans Chapter 3 just one big lie?
Does the core definitions of Predestination and Election validate YOUR view?
If God is sovereign then is it not arrogant to ASSUME that His CREATION has more power than the CREATOR to completely change the nature that was GIVEN him?
If a man is totally depraved in nature....how can he grasp that which he runs from?
How do you reconcile the first chapter in Ephesians with your view?

I could go on and on showing that your view produces more questions than answers but I will leave you with this....
God does not require anything of us for salvation because there is nothing in us worth requiring! The whole notion that man has a "free-will" is true in this way: man is totally and completely free to make decisions according to the nature that was GIVEN him. That nature is corrupt and so is our choices. That is why even OUR righteousness is but "filthy rags" in the sight of God. Our "good" choices and "good"acts are good according to whose standards? MAN! There is nothing good in us...our heart is desperately wicked! Man does take freely of the water of life.....when it is offered to him, who wouldn't? The reason that he does EVERY time is due to him understanding what is offered to him seen through the eyes of a regenerated heart! Man CANNOT regenerate his own heart. A dead man is dead! If you didn't have anything to do with your natural birth then how can you possibly have anything to do with you spiritual re-birth? You cant! Once a mans heart has been opened to understand the things of the spirit (this done by God) then man has no choice but to see himself for what he is....a lost soul deserving hell and this MAKES a man run to the cross! All of which is orchestrated by God for His own purpose! Period! To say otherwise is to glorify man. God is the author of our salvation.

May we all grow in Grace and remember, it is NEVER about us, it is ALWAYS about Him!
Wolf
Why is His work a failure by effecting salvation to anyone who wants His love and giving people the choice by what He did on the cross? This is way He wants it. Why is God humiliated because many refuse His saving grace? I can offer you love, but I am not humiliated if you reject it. If anything, you are humiliated for rejecting love.

God is relational, therefore to have a true relationship He can't force salvation on someone. God is fully in control. He is in control of all things. He knows all our choices. He is not sitting around. Why accuse Him and His children? (Rev. 12.10) His great plan of salvation is fully in His design.

Ephesians 2.8-10 includes the cooperation of men. Your heart is cold so it denies this. Your heart is expressing your coldness through Calvinism. You're in a cult as helper or worker at CARM. Ephesians 2.8-10 is expressing you can't plan your salvation to be saved nor can you get all emotionally passionate about it to make it happen. But this is not mutually exclusive of the of the enabling grace God has given you to have the choice. Ephesians 2 is a looking back upon our salvation for those of us who are truly regenerated. In no way does it suggest irresistible regeneration and robots.

Think of the power you usurp in assuming you were irresistibly selected. Pride is killing you! I feel ugly inside even at the thought of such self-exaltation. God wants you to have the same conscience. Pride refuses to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. Man is not Totally depraved, for God provides us all without exception with sufficient grace. How can God's image in which we all remain be Totally depraved? It would be accusing God Himself of His image. To have God-consciousness and then alter our core nature as being made in His image? My God doesn't allow such alteration. Even when you go to Hell you will still be made in God's image except your choice is to be eternally separated from God through Calvinism and Satan since you prefer to be with Him deep down inside.

You say God requires nothing of us, yet you of yourself assumed you were regenerated. This is doubletalk. God requires our choice; you have chosen to refuse God. God has given you sufficient grace to be able to respond, but your god hasn't. So God of the Bible trumps your god. The Bible says you may and can take of the water of life freely; you say you can't. You're lying to yourself so you don't give up control of yourself for God's control of your life.

In salvation you don't regenerate your own heart, but God does the regenerating just as you did not create yourself. He does it. The difference between the old and the new is the new requires your choice. The old was freely given to you to exist and you were born into sin, an inescapable consequence of the fall of the first Adam.

A dead man can't refuse God either, so you would not be Totally depraved. Dead means lost communication not Total inability, for always remember, God provides sufficient grace to all men as He died on the cross for the sins of the whole world and gave us the Total ability to respond to His mercy and love. Amen.

Re: http://biblocality.com/forums/showth...=7322#post7322