Calvinists: The Just Shall Live BEFORE Having Faith

[Depleted]

Do you think thats why Jonah tried to run away? Because He knew that Nineveh will repent and God will not destroy them?

Definitely! Also why he was pouting after the Lord did exactly what he planned on doing.

How would you react if the Lord told you to go tell ISIS that he would destroy them? I mean, if God's plan really was to destroy them, he'd just destroy them. So, if he wanted one of his people to go to them to tell them they're going to be destroyed, wouldn't you get he was doing something big here? And, truthfully, I'm more into destroying the terrorists right now then I am wanting them to come to the Lord.

I suspect, if the Lord told me to go to ISIS there would be a trip in a fish stomach involved for me too.

 

[Stunnedbygrace]

Yes Paul says faith is a gift when speaking of spiritual gifts. So it would be something over and above saving faith. But according to Scripture it is the joint action of the Gospel (the Word of God) and the Holy Spirit on the hearts and minds of people that generates faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17). And only those who believe are born again (John 1:12,13).

If saving faith is a gift of God, and God desires the salvation of all humanity, then everyone would receive this "gift". But because the Gospel generates faith, the command is to go and preach the Gospel to every creature (Mk 16:15,16).

The Gospel is called "the seed" which produces the New Birth (1 Pet 1:23-25) so it is quite clear that when the Gospel is preached the Holy Spirit convicts and convinces sinners and thus saving faith is generated in human hearts.

You are speaking of faith being generated. I think I can be okay with that...
The only reason I have issue with the thought that it is not from God but is rather a decision that comes from within man is that I know the struggles I have gone through to trust fully and if I hadn't come to see that I needed to ASK for what I lacked still in faith (trust), I would still be stuck in a half trust instead of that unabandoned final leap that brought me such rest and peace from my constantly spinning brain.

 

[Depleted]

I understand Calvinism better than you because you missed saying that Calvinism believes regeneration occures before faith in their Order of Salvation.

It does!

How can you do anything before you live? Do you have any concept what "regeneration" means?

You're asking Frankenstein's monster to do something even before he's alive. You're asking an egg and sperm to have faith. You're asking a dead man to have faith.

They can't!

 

[Stunnedbygrace]

Definitely! Also why he was pouting after the Lord did exactly what he planned on doing.

How would you react if the Lord told you to go tell ISIS that he would destroy them? I mean, if God's plan really was to destroy them, he'd just destroy them. So, if he wanted one of his people to go to them to tell them they're going to be destroyed, wouldn't you get he was doing something big here? And, truthfully, I'm more into destroying the terrorists right now then I am wanting them to come to the Lord.

I suspect, if the Lord told me to go to ISIS there would be a trip in a fish stomach involved for me too.

Oh, you have undone me with laughter lynn! Your last sentence!

 

[Depleted]

I am not lying. Calvinists believe an atheist, someone who doesn't believe in God, is born again BEFORE they even believe that God exists.

Same Order of Salvation, Dude!

Read it. There is "calling" first. So, by the time God saves the person who used to be an atheist, the person, at best, is no longer an atheist. The knowledge that God exists is given to them first.

That's why your charges are utter nonsense. No atheist is coming to God. By the time the person is regenerated, they aren't "atheist" anymore.

Selective reading much?

 

[Depleted]

No, not in Calvinism's order of salvation. Regeneration precedes faith.

Actually, she's right in that you think faith is something YOU manufactured. You didn't.

And from what I'm seeing here, you haven't.

God is the faith and gives the faith. Faith, too, is a gift.

 

[Stunnedbygrace]

Oh I can't STOP this ridiculous laughing!
The next thing we will hear from lynn is that she is going to the middle east...after she takes a shower...

 

[valiant]

Originally Posted by DevotiontoBible

No, not in Calvinism's order of salvation. Regeneration precedes faith

According to Calvinism Faith occurs AT Regeneration. You are wholly in error.

 

[notuptome]

God changing His mind is not God making a mistake. See Jeremiah 18 for a look into the heart and mind of God. Praise the Lord He changed His mind about me. I was once an object of His wrath, a child of disobedience. But upon hearing the gospel, I believed upon Jesus Christ and was saved. I am no more an object of God's wrath through Jesus Christ. Amen!

God did not change His mind about you. God changed you by His grace. Yea God transformed you from a child of wrath to a child of God. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

2 Cor 5 reveals what God does through grace received by faith. Faith comes by hearing the word of God.

Those who hear and reject are condemned. Those who hear and respond are changed, are made alive in Christ.

Those who claim they have never heard are confronted by the revelation that God is in all of creation. This renders all men without excuse. Romans 1:19-23

For the cause of Christ
Roger

 

[Depleted]

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word...but isn't there an if clause in there just like in Jeremiah 18.

That "if" you shall confess with your mouth and believe in you heart.

Anytime I see the word "if" then to me it means that you are given a choice or option to do something or not to do something...

Romans 10
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

Also verse 13: For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

The rest of the chapter goes on to say that yes, Israel heard...but they did not obey...so in their disobedience unto God, in not putting their faith in him and calling upon him, they were not saved.

Now this is my understanding of it, anyhow...

First, what is that word? Is it just the words in the book we now call the Bible? It can't be that, because Hebrews was written before that book called the Bible was finished. So what is that word? John 1:1 word for Word? The Word? Jesus?

In which case faith and hearing come through Jesus, not pages in a book, or things that come out of our mouth on a good day.

Second, If isn't always a choice. I was my husband's decision maker when he was heavily sedated in the ICU. I was the one who gave approval for his procedures, operations, and everything else they wanted to do for him. And yet, here are the Ifs I kept hearing.

"If he survives," "If he makes it through the night, "If the white blood cell count goes down," "If his kidneys start working again," "If he makes it through the night," "If he stabilizes," "If an abscess from his teeth dislodges and travels to his heart," "If he can breathe when we take the ventilator out," "If he can breathes for more than an hour, two hours, six hours, 18 hours," and the Ifs kept coming.

There are Ifs with choice. There are more Ifs without choice. And, quite frankly, God is sovereign over all Ifs.

Someone Iffed God in the Bible. Satan. "If Job..." And sure enough, God granted his Ifs with one condition.

Third, Jesus did say who would and who wouldn't call upon the Lord in John 3:16-21. Cut down to the chase, none of us would unless the Father wroughts/carries out. We made our choice. Our choice was to hide in the darkness to keep our sins. That is everyone's choice, until the Father wroughts!

 

[Depleted]

You are changing the Bible to read: "the just shall live BEFORE faith." That is what!

Who are the just though? Yeesh!

Do you think anyone is truly just without God doing something to them first?

Here is our justice:
Romans 3:10 [FONT=&quot]as it is written:[/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[/FONT]
[/FONT]

 

[Depleted]

Not according to Calvinism's order of salvation which has regeneration preceeding faith.

Sure, but you're busy thinking this all takes place in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years. Nope. Some of that Order of Salvation takes place in nanoseconds.

A baby is born and then breathes. We are born again and breath in faith. HIS faith!

 

[PennEd]

There was no if you do not repent or if you repent in Jonah's message, rather, "Yet forty days and Nineveh SHALL be overthrown.

Good observation. But their own hearts condemned them! GOD IS GREATER THAN OUR HEARTS!! They BELIEVED Jonah. They didn't scorn him and say get lost. They cried out to God, AND acted on their belief. It is precisely what we MUST do.

We are all condemned. Some harden their heart to that fact, and do not believe they even need a Savior. Some are convicted in their heart, agree that our condemnation is just, and cry out to God for a Savior. It is us who do that which then can receive
Jesus after hearing the Gospel.


It is God that gives us the Grace to fear in both Nineveh's and our case. That is the drawing He does. Praise Him!

 

[DevotiontoBible]

Yes! But as I said way back toward the beginning of the thread, the argument is not over whether one must have faith to be saved - that is a given. God saves through faith.

The nexus of the argument when it is stripped to it's seed is whether that faith comes from within the man or from without.

We have our answer here: saved by His kindness through faith, and even that faith not of ourselves so no man can boast!

You aren't reading that right. It doesn't say faith is not of ourselves. That is referring to Salvation in the Greek grammar not to faith. This is how we are to read that passage:

God saved you through faith as an act of kindness. You had nothing to do with it. Being saved is a gift from God.
Ephesians 2:8 GW
https://bible.com/bible/70/eph.2.8.GW

 

[Depleted]

You need to study Calvinism's order of salvation. I see most defenders of Calvinism don't know its order of salvation.

You're going under the asinine assumption that everyone refuting you is Calvinist. Truth be known, you already charge one person who is as anti-Calvinist as you are with being a Calvinist. Stunned is probably a Calvinist, but she hasn't bothered studying it enough yet to even know if she is or isn't. I am Calvinist, and yet have never read more than two sentences of Calvin, don't really get who most of the Calvinist teachers are, and can't even explain the 5 Solas yet.

I'm a Calvinist, simply because I knew I was too lazy to do the research to understand the times and customs of the Bible to reference it for those times and customs, so, viola! I decided to use commentators, because at least those guys studied enough to comment on that book. And, viola again! It seems the vast majority of people who do bother taking a lot of time to study the book end up being reformed, so... they convinced me enough to believe it. (And, they did have to convince me, because I do not buy crap on someone's simple say-so. Prove it first!)

I'm just getting to that point of learning what in the world are Calvinists now, and I've been a Calvinist since the late 1980s to early 1990s.

It's really not about being Calvinist, as you seem intent on believing. We're studying the Bible in it's vastness, and when we do that it makes sense. And, it just happens to be the opposite way you're doing it, when you demanded, in your other thread, that everyone takes one verse to prove a chapter. So you're idea is to piecemeal scripture, while ours is to believe it as a whole.

Which, BTW, is why you are making absolutely no sense even when you argue your points. And it's bad enough that even non-Calvinists can see what you're getting wrong.

So don't go blaming any of this on Calvinism. Blame it on you picking out phrases out of context and hurling them as if it meant anything to anyone.

 

[DevotiontoBible]

According to Calvinism Faith occurs AT Regeneration. You are wholly in error.

No, it doesn't. Calvinism says regeneration precedes faith.

 

[Depleted]

BTW, Devot. Just so you start seeing the difference.
Trof = not-a-Calvinist. (yet. lol)

What verse are you talking about? If in Habakuk, I already responded how it is in my Bible.

"But the just shall live by my faith". Hab 2:14

Many people think this is about Christ and His resurrection, btw. Because there are these verses later:

"...and he, like death not being satisfied, will also gather to himself all nations and will welcome to himself all people."
(Hab 2:5)

So, what I am changing?

 

[DevotiontoBible]

You're going under the asinine assumption that everyone refuting you is Calvinist. Truth be known, you already charge one person who is as anti-Calvinist as you are with being a Calvinist. Stunned is probably a Calvinist, but she hasn't bothered studying it enough yet to even know if she is or isn't. I am Calvinist, and yet have never read more than two sentences of Calvin, don't really get who most of the Calvinist teachers are, and can't even explain the 5 Solas yet.

I'm a Calvinist, simply because I knew I was too lazy to do the research to understand the times and customs of the Bible to reference it for those times and customs, so, viola! I decided to use commentators, because at least those guys studied enough to comment on that book. And, viola again! It seems the vast majority of people who do bother taking a lot of time to study the book end up being reformed, so... they convinced me enough to believe it. (And, they did have to convince me, because I do not buy crap on someone's simple say-so. Prove it first!)

I'm just getting to that point of learning what in the world are Calvinists now, and I've been a Calvinist since the late 1980s to early 1990s.

It's really not about being Calvinist, as you seem intent on believing. We're studying the Bible in it's vastness, and when we do that it makes sense. And, it just happens to be the opposite way you're doing it, when you demanded, in your other thread, that everyone takes one verse to prove a chapter. So you're idea is to piecemeal scripture, while ours is to believe it as a whole.

Which, BTW, is why you are making absolutely no sense even when you argue your points. And it's bad enough that even non-Calvinists can see what you're getting wrong.

So don't go blaming any of this on Calvinism. Blame it on you picking out phrases out of context and hurling them as if it meant anything to anyone.

I am absolutely correct. Calvinism has regeneration occur prior to faith in its order of salvation.

 

[Depleted]

Not just logical order but chronological because you Calvinists, as Spurgeon was quoted earlier, say faith is the result of the new birth. And if you want to play that "in only logical order" game then logically you are changing the Bible to read, " the just shall live BEFORE faith."

Nah, not really. This is all about you assuming God stands out of the way until someone becomes interested. This scripture is a phrase of a larger sentence, and has already been proven that you took it out of context. So, again, this is you piecemealing something you can agree to and then calling it "God."

 

[Depleted]

• • 
    [*=left]
    • 
      [*=left]The Order of Salvation

“And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified” (v. 30).
- Romans 8:29-30

In theology, we speak of the ordo salutis and the historia salutis. The historia salutis is the history of salvation, and most of the Bible is concerned with it. When we do theology from the perspective of the historia salutis, we consider what Christ our Head has done and what He has been given, and then we consider what we as members of Him participate in. He suffered and was glorified, and in union with Him so have we. He was raised, ascended to heaven, and sits enthroned; in union with Him we have these privileges in essence now, and look forward to their fulness in the world to come. He judges all men, and we in union with Him will also judge the world. This is the way theology is done in terms of the historia salutis.

The ordo salutis is the order of salvation. This focuses on the acts of God and the response of the individual in salvation. God calls us, produces regeneration in us, so that we respond with repentance, faith, and obedience. Behind the divine call is God’s electing decree. Theordo salutis is not concerned with a temporal sequence of events, but with a logical order.

Paul provides a condensed form of the ordo salutis in Romans 8:29–30. He tells us that God foreknew certain people and predestinated them to be conformed to the image of His Son. Since God exists in eternity, foreknowledge and predestination are not sequential actions on His part, but logical aspects of His decree. Romans 8:30 says that God called these people to His kingdom, and that those who are called are justified. Since we are justified by faith, we can insert faith between calling and justification. In fact, God’s inward call produces regeneration in us, which causes us to cry out in repentance and faith, so that we are justified.

There is no time sequence in this, as if we could be called for a while before we are regenerated, and then live regenerated without having repented, and then we could repent but not turn to Christ, and then finally come to justifying faith. No, they are all logical steps in the same event. When God calls us we are immediately regenerated, and we turn from sin to God in one action, which justifies us. And those who are justified are immediately glorified in the sense of being adopted as children of God.

Coram Deo

The value of ordo salutis theology is that it enables us to see clearly that it is God who saves, freeing us from the sinful tendency to take some credit for our own salvation. We do not proclaim, “I found it,” but, “He found me.” Rejoice that it is God who is the author and finisher of your faith.

Passages for Further Study

1 Corinthians 4:7
Ephesians 1:3–11; 2:8–10
2 Thessalonians 2:13



https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/order-salvation/

Much easier to figure out which way people want to take their order of salvation from wiki. At least, we're all on the same page, and denote there is disagreement and where. (Also helps Devot realize he preaching Catholicism.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_salutis#Different_schemes