Calvinism is Gospel !
- Thread starter brightfame52
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
- Status
No, your ideology continually ignores John 3:16, which is addressed to all sinners.
1Cor. was addressed to those who had converted per John 3:16.
In 1Cor. 2 Paul urges Christians to cooperate with the HS rather than revert to the natural mind,
which is what you apparently are prone to do.
Eternal life in the New Testament is not primarily a present‑tense spiritual quality but a future‑age reality rooted in the biblical hope of the aiōn—the coming age when God renews all things. Jesus and Paul consistently frame zōē aiōnios as life belonging to that future age, the life characteristic of God’s restored world. In that sense, “eternal life” means Ionian life—the kind of existence humans will experience in the Ion itself: resurrection life, Spirit‑saturated life, life free from sin, death, and corruption. Believers taste this life now through the Spirit, but its full meaning is anchored in the age to come. The New Testament’s point is that salvation places a person on the trajectory toward that future reality, granting them a share in the life that will define God’s new creation.
I would say that being let out of prison by the Holy Spirit is a pretty rare occasion. Was it equal opportunity that led to the jailer's conversion? The passage sure reads like a special occasion to me. Think of it. God sent the Jailer the greatest preacher, evangelist, and teacher in all of Christianity. And by some miracle, all the doors were opened. And by an even greater miracle, Paul and his men didn't leave. Just sayin'
I work on tulip in the Resolving Problematic Interpretations of Scripture thread, because most folks on this thread do not seem to be interested in a systematic study with the dialectical goal of harmonizing all Scripture on the subject.
(Yes, I just told you where to go :^)
Its primarily both, its definitely a present tense possession as Per Jn 6:54
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
The Grammatical Argument (The Present Tense)
In the original Greek text, the word translated as "hath" is echei (ἔχει).
- Present Active Indicative: This is the present tense form of the verb echō (to have or possess).
- Current Possession: It means the person is actively possessing eternal life at this very moment. Jesus does not say they will have it (future tense), but that they currently have it as a present reality
I like your choice of parables. It tells the whole story. The general call goes out and some respond while others don't. And yet, even among those who responded to the call, some were not worthy to sit at the table.
In Scripture, “putting on” clothing is not only about moral transformation; it is a metaphor for publicly assuming a role, allegiance, or commitment. Clothing signals what you have *taken on yourself*. In the wedding‑feast parable, the invited guest who shows up without wedding garments is someone who accepts the invitation but refuses the commitment that the invitation entails. He wants the benefits of the kingdom without embracing the identity required by the king. Throughout the New Testament, to “put on” something—whether Christ, the new self, or the armor of God—means adopting a way of life, pledging loyalty, and stepping into the responsibilities of that calling. So in the parable, the improperly dressed guest represents the person who wants to be counted among God’s people but refuses the commitments that define God’s people. The king’s judgment reveals that the invitation is free, but participation in the kingdom demands a life that matches the calling.
To have something, present tense, doesn't necessarily indicate that one has taken possession of it. The New Testament teaches that Eternal life is an inheritance. We have an inheritance, even though we have not yet taken possession of it.
Yes it does, thats what the word have means. The word is echo:
- to have, i.e. to hold
- to have (hold) in the hand, in the sense of wearing, to have (hold) possession of the mind (refers to alarm, agitating emotions, etc.), to hold fast keep, to have or comprise or involve, to regard or consider or hold as
- to have i.e. own, possess
John’s Gospel makes 2192 central to soteriology. “Everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The present-tense “have” underscores eternal life as a present possession, not merely a future hope (John 3:36; John 6:47). 1 John echoes: “Whoever has the Son has life” (1 John 5:12). https://biblehub.com/greek/2192.htm
Once we understand what Eternal life is really going to be like, there is no way we would agree that we have it now.
Yet Jesus said:
(Joh 6:47 NKJV) Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
Granted, we don't have it now in the fulness with which we shall have it in glory, when we shall see Him as He is.
First off, saying a passage "doesn't read like" a certain doctrine, isn't an actual critique. That’s just a subjective feeling, not a real analysis of the text. We don't figure out biblical truth based on what a verse "feels like" to us—we look at what the words grammatically and literally say. When you swap out Paul's explicit terms for your own words, you're just forcing your own assumptions onto the text instead of letting it speak for itself.
Second, your whole point relies on assumptions you've read into the text, not what the verses actually state. You assume that because sinners make real choices to sin, they must also have the ability to choose God. Paul never says that, nor implies it. In fact, in verse 2, he says the exact opposite—that they are walking according to the prince of the power of the air, "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." The text explicitly says an outside, demonic spirit is actively working within them. They aren't exercising free will; they are completely under the power of a spiritual master.
To make your theory work, you had to use words Paul never used. He said 'dead", but you changed it to "misaligned." he said children of wrath, but you changed it to "misled." He said, "walking in trespasses", but you changed it to "walking in a haze." Show me the verse where Paul says they have the capacity to respond. Show me where Paul says they are just "misaligned." Show me where Paul says they are just "disabled" instead of dead. You won't be able to because that originates only from you, not Paul.
This is exactly why your bird analogy falls completely flat - Scripture isn't describing a healthy bird that's just refusing to fly; it's describing a carcass. A dead bird doesn't have a "will," an ability, or a capacity to respond to anything until and unless it is given life.
Third, your new argument completely shatters what you said before. You're trying to claim now that sinners are just "misled" and walking in a "haze" that blocks their vision. But in a prior reply, you explicitly stated that before rebirth, a person "simply could not perceive" spiritual reality and was in a state "where there is only spiritual deadness." By using the word "only," you ruled out any other possibility but deadness. You can't argue "only deadness" and then claim it's a "healthy bird with a stubborn will".
Lastly, when you interpret the scriptural text by what it seems to mean to you instead of what it explicitly states, you undermine what God is communicating through Paul—and by that, you completely invalidate any doctrinal conclusions you try to draw from it. From that, I think it's clear that when God uses the word "dead" in the spiritual sense, He means "dead" in the purest sense of the word. To say anything else just changes His clear intent based upon your subjective feelings, not Scripture.
Eternal life is knowing God and Jesus...John 17:3. That it comes with greater degree and blessing in glory doesn't negate its reality in the here and now.
On pages 1-10 in the Resolving Problematic Interpretations of Scripture thread.
Which age is that?
As I stated it the "ainios" carries the deeper meaning of quality, richness and depth of life which is a present reality as well.
Aionion life is the intimate experience of knowing God's love in the here and now.
So once again you are reading into the text anything about hell.
Well, this is why understanding the age/times Jesus was speaking in and the age to come shortly according to Jesus is so important.
I am quite sure this is not about the selection of some for salvation imo.
It is a present possession for believers.
In the gospel of John (10:28), Jesus says, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” This verse also doesn’t imply an afterlife location. The aionion life is speaking of a life with abundance or greatness as Jesus says in this previous verse, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (10:10).
I am as well. There were many here back in the day, they were amazing, I learned a lot from them, but the Calvies back then, made their time here very miserable so they left.
It is awesome...it in knowing the TRUE God, it is the best!!
- Status