Jon, Thank you again for your response. Please know that I take your response seriously. The Bible speaks of man's responsibility to believe, in the sense that believing the gospel is a condition to justification. [John 8:24] The Bible speaks of sinners fully responsible for their unbelief and rejection of the gospel, for which they will justly be punished in eternal hell. [Hebrews 3:19] If a person believes, it is because that person chooses to believe the gospel. If a person refuses to believe, it is because that person chooses not to believe. At the same time, there is another dimension the Bible talks about: the behind-the-scene invisible workings of God to bring about an individual human coming to justification in a moment of time in history, the effect of which inevitably appears on the dimension of the human stage.
The Bible says that man in all his humanity, including his will, is totally engulfed in sinful, spiritually dead, hopeless condition. The Bible says one is either against God (unbelievers), or for God (believers). Either one is dead in sin, or is alive in Christ. And the reason why anybody is for God is due to God's freeing their human will from slavery to sin. There is no middle ground. [Luke 11:23] The Bible does indeed speak of human will that is free, but only in the sense of the will that can only operate according to the nature of the person [Romans 6:20]. An unregenerate (i.e. an unbeliever, a spiritually dead person, not given spiritual life by the Holy Spirit) person will only choose evil, and cannot choose good. 1. God commands all sinners to believe. 2. God does not command a sinner to do what the sinner has no ability to do. 3. A sinner has both the ability to believe, and the ability to refuse to believe, at the same time. The Bible affirms the first statement. [Acts 17:30] The Bible does not affirm the second statement. God commands sinners to do the impossible [Matthew 5:48; Luke 18:26,27; John 6:65; and John 11:43] The idea of neutral attitude, intended by the third statement, toward the gospel is not a reality the Bible defends. A sinner, if left to himself, possesses no ability to believe. He will refuse to believe, unless God saves him. Not everyone believes, because God does not give to everyone the ability to believe. When God gives the ability, the person will certainly believe. The Bible's testimony of the condition of a sinner is that he cannot come to God in faith, because his will, by virtue of His evil nature, is stubbornly set against coming to Him in faith, unless the sinner's nature is acted upon by God, so as to transform into a new nature. Only when transformed, he can believe, and he will believe; he cannot refuse to believe, and he will not refuse to believe. Romans 10:9-10 The necessity of faith, and of submission to Jesus as Lord for salvation is revealed. This text does not contradict what the Bible says about the universal condition of every child of Adam born under sin [Romans 3:9]. Romans 10:17 The necessity of hearing the gospel message in order to have faith in the message is revealed. This is in harmony with the truth that God works through divinely empowered, human means of preaching in order to give the gracious gift of faith to a sinner [1 Corinthians 1:21; Philippians 1:29]. This does not contradict the biblical truth that a sinner has no ability to believe, without God's enabling. [John 6:65] Sincerely, Sam P.S. These are what I believe to be the correct understanding of these texts. Acts 7:51 In the context of Acts 6:10, and Acts 7:52, Stephen indicts them of resisting the Holy Spirit by rejecting God's Word through His messengers. 1 Timothy 2:4 In the reading of the Greek word translated "will" in KJV, and in harmony with Luke 13:34 where the same Greek word is used, God's desire for none to perish but for all to find forgiveness and salvation is expressed. 2 Peter 3:9 In the context of the epistle, "you" refers to a plurality of the souls "beloved" by God. For these "beloved," God is settled in His determination (a different Greek word from 1 Timothy 2:4 translated "willing" in KJV) to bring their repentance to pass. John 1:11-13 God gives birth to His children, and the human desire played no part in the births. At the same time, those who believe become God's children. About sodomites and Romans 1: Romans 1:18-32 speaks of a kind of God's wrath which is the wrath of abandonment. It speaks of God's attitude toward an entire society that forsakes the truth about God as Creator and Benefactor, and worships the creature, and what happens to that society as God takes off His restraint. God abandons the society to pursue sexual immorality; and then God gives the society over to homosexual lust; and then God gives the society over to a mind that cannot operate properly. When a society is characterized by the kinds of wickedness delineated in Romans 1, it is an indicator that the society is let go by God, so that it pursues its freedom to express its true condition. However, this does not mean God does not choose to save individuals within the society. [1 Corinthians 6:9-11] God does save homosexuals, just as He saves other kinds of sinners.
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CategoriesAll Discourse Doctrines Gospel Humour NT Commentaries OT Commentaries Tactical Life Date
August 2023
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