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Darthmiller
Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 27
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 Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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I believe human beings are sinful in nature and it is a nature only one man ever and will ever overcome and that man was Jesus.
Our sinful nature means that we commit sins even when we are not aware of them, but I believe Jesus was the most self aware anyone can be and therefore was able to reign in that weakness and put it under God.
Ultimately I am not really sure, all I can be sure of is I am a sinner and I have only ever met one sinless man and his name was Jesus Christ, that is all I really need to know, and as for babies and children, we if they are born with the sin of Adam on them and they do not get baptised as BELIEVERS, I believe in a merciful God and I put them in his hands
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Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car. |
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slim
Joined: 06 Nov 2007
Posts: 1
Location: stoke
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| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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i have read all of your post with intrest
of course as a methodist church one would expect a defense of the armenian way, i myself have leaned towards calvin, in that i believe what august said to be true, Lord give us what thou commandest and comand what thou wilt,
if you believe in original sin then Logicaly you have to follow the 5 points of calvin however limited attonement is not easy to swallow,
we recently as a church studdied this subject and the problem comes with this is when we forget that we are reading a very jewish book, that does not go in with conjunction with our greco roman thinking.
the hebrew mind can and does hold to contentious thoughts as truth, this seems illogical to us, but as the psalmist wrote, there is silence in your presence and the heavens are filled with your praise, contention an opposite.
Man is fallen and incapable of saving himself it is a work of God and yet man must also take responsibility and respond to his sinful state so as to be saved.
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Study to show thy self approved |
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Eli
Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 29
Location: Firmly in the Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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| slim wrote: | i have read all of your post with intrest
of course as a methodist church one would expect a defense of the armenian way, i myself have leaned towards calvin, in that i believe what august said to be true, Lord give us what thou commandest and comand what thou wilt,
-- snip --
we recently as a church studdied this subject and the problem comes with this is when we forget that we are reading a very jewish book, that does not go in with conjunction with our greco roman thinking.
the hebrew mind can and does hold to contentious thoughts as truth, this seems illogical to us, but as the psalmist wrote, there is silence in your presence and the heavens are filled with your praise, contention an opposite.
Man is fallen and incapable of saving himself it is a work of God and yet man must also take responsibility and respond to his sinful state so as to be saved. |
This is a long post. Apologies but some definition needs to be given over the predestination to election/damnation discussion...
I think you meant Arminian rather than Armenian, didn't you? And by your last statement, you're at loggerheads with a lot of Calvinists that I know.
Also, you're not reading a "very Jewish" book at all. You're reading God's book, written through the centuries by a wide variety of people. This is God's Word and whilst God's people, the Jews, have been influenced by the book, the book was not influenced by them - right? To relegate the lively oracles of God to a mere collection of Jewish literature is nothing less than warmed over rabbinicism - the scourge of modern church life. You would have to say that the Jews are biblical rather than the Bible is Jewish.
On the Arminian/Calvinist thing, which I'm surprised hasn't reared its ugly head here before, I'll lay my cards on the table. I'm a Christian. 
The five points, for those who aren't familiar, can be summed up in the acronym TULIP.
TOTAL DEPRAVITY OR INABILITY (= "T" of TULIP)
The first point asserts that the entire or TOTAL human being--body and soul, intellect and will, etc.--is fallen and that everyone is born spiritually dead, helpless, and passive; indeed, everyone is worse than volitionally dead or unable to desire spiritual good but is actually enslaved to sin, positively and actively hostile to the things of the Spirit (Calvinists cite, e.g., John. 1:13; 8:43, 47; 10:26; 12:37-40; 18:37; Romans. 7:18; 8:5-8; 1 Corinthians. 2:9-14).
UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION (= "U" of TULIP)
The second point inescapably follows from the first: since one is born totally depraved and enslaved to sin, one's ELECTION cannot be dependent or CONTINGENT on any spiritually worthy actions one commits. According to this point, God predestines or chooses to soften the hard, sin-enslaved hearts of certain fallen individuals and liberate them from their death not because of any merit they have but despite their demerits--i.e., He ELECTS to change their hearts (and thereby join them to Christ and His saving work) DESPITE the fact that they hate God and oppose Him and have hard hearts, not soft hearts, and have sin-enslaved wills, not free wills. Thus, believers have no reason to boast about themselves or their own actions: the only thing that differentiates them from Judas, Esau, or others who never respond in faith is that God gave them grace that He withheld from such reprobates (Calvinists cite, e.g., Ezek. 11:19-20; 36:26-27; Rom. 9:11-18; 1 Cor. 4:7; Eph. 2:8-10; cf. Jn. 1:13; 15:16; Acts 13:48; 16:14; 18:27; Phil. 2:13).
LIMITED ATONEMENT or Particular Redemption (= "L" of TULIP)
This point says that while Christ's blood--indeed, His entire life, death, and resurrection--is infinitely INTENSIVE in saving power and thus unlimited in one sense, it is not infinitely EXTENSIVE and is thus limited, not universal, in the extent of its application; for while everyone CONDITIONALLY or "provisionally" shares in Christ's life, death, and resurrection (thus, if everyone believed, everyone would be joined or married to Christ), only members of Christ's body or bride or flock (ELECT believers) actually share in His blood (Calvinists cite, e.g., Jn. 10:11, 15, 26; 17:9; cf. 6:37, 39; 17:2, 6, 24).
IRRESISTIBLE (SUFFICIENT) GRACE (= "I" of TULIP)
This is virtually a synonym for Luther's slogan "grace alone" (sola gratia) and is logically implied by points "T" and "U" above. It teaches that God's INWARD CALL is perfectly EFFECTUAL or SUFFICIENT--a hard, fleshly, sinful heart need not add anything to God's grace, such as "co-operation," for this special call or grace is invincible, overpowering all hatred and melting all opposition (Calvinists cite, e.g., Jn. 3:6- . Here Calvinists distinguish God's inward, effectual call--i.e., IRRESISTIBLE GRACE or sufficient, effective grace--from His outward call, which is simply His commandments written on tablets of stone. The latter is eminently resistible, insufficient, and ineffective to give life to a dead soul or liberate a sin-enslaved heart (e.g., Acts 7:51; 13:39; Rom. 8:3).
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS or Eternal Security (= "P" of TULIP)
This is not the idea that no matter what a believer does he or she cannot lose his or her salvation but the idea that " . . . He who began a good work in you will perfect it . . " (Phil. 1:6 [NASB]; cf., e.g., Jn. 6:37, 39; 10:28-29; Rom. 8:31-39)--i.e., the idea that whenever God creates faith in our hearts and thereby joins us to Christ and His saving work, He will sustain that faith, that saving relationship with Christ, causing us, by His grace, to persevere in faith.
Whilst the Calvinists cite all these scriptures to justify their position. Arminians are fond of quoting John Wesley, (of all people):
# All need to be saved - "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) - Sin is a deep-seated self-seeking from which no-one is immune.
# All can be saved - We can be saved from the consequences of our sin through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. This is a Gospel ('good news') for everyone - "God sent the Son into the world... that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17)
# All may know themselves to be saved - through the promises in scripture, the intense conviction of God's graciousness to us individually, and a different outlook on life leading to a changed quality of living - "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord', and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)
# All may be saved to the uttermost - there can be no limits on what God can do in our lives, as we are continually becoming more perfect in love for God and our fellow humans
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