Salvation is for the Whole World

  • 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.

ForestGreenCook

Well-known member
Jul 8, 2018
8,355
1,191
113
Let's leave Calvinism out of it and just go with the doctrine of some on this discussion board.

I am talking in practical realities.

To many here, God selects, man cannot choose, yet we have a direct correlation between conversions and where the Gospel is preached in the real world.

Does that not tell us something about the ability of a person to respond to the Gospel message?

So we either have a situation where God is constrained in His selection process by where the Gospel is preached

OR

people are in REALITY are responding to the Gospel because they have the ability to believe and this happens in areas where the Gospel is being preached.

John 10:26 references the natural man, void of the new birth.

John 10:27-29 references those who have been born again.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
56,064
26,168
113
I take it, by your reply, that you understand the difference in the new birth, and conversion, is that right?
I think we disagree on these terms, since you say a person is born again even
before they have any faith in the shed righteous blood of Jesus Christ. I find it
difficult to accept that a person can be born again devoid of faith in the shed
righteous blood of Christ, and belief in the One True God and His plan of salvation
for the saving of our souls... since when a person is born again, they are sealed with
the Holy Spirit of God.
Ephesians 1:13 “When you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”

I am under the impression that our hearts are circumcised before any of that can happen,
though we can still experience God as He draws us before we are born again and sealed.


The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting
love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you."
He does the same to this day.
 

Sipsey

Well-known member
Sep 27, 2018
1,365
652
113
I think we disagree on these terms, since you say a person is born again even
before they have any faith in the shed righteous blood of Jesus Christ. I find it
difficult to accept that a person can be born again devoid of faith in the shed
righteous blood of Christ, and belief in the One True God and His plan of salvation
for the saving of our souls... since when a person is born again, they are sealed with
the Holy Spirit of God.
Ephesians 1:13 “When you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”

I am under the impression that our hearts are circumcised before any of that can happen,
though we can still experience God as He draws us before we are born again and sealed.


The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting
love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you."
He does the same to this day.
Could it also be related to how the terms indwelt and filled by the Spirit are defined.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
56,064
26,168
113
Could it also be related to how the terms indwelt and filled by the Spirit are defined.
How do you define them? Could you please clarify?

Some people say such things as nobody can experience God unless they are already
born again, but it is the Holy Spirit of God that convicts the lost world of their sin.


The experience of being convicted of our sinful state before God and believing in God can be separated by years of unbelief.

Those who say we are born again when we experience God seem to conflate His drawing us with being born again.
 

ForestGreenCook

Well-known member
Jul 8, 2018
8,355
1,191
113
Which is the question I just asked. Why preach if no one can respond?

The backsliding people of spiritual Israel, who still retain the promise of an eternal inheritance, can respond by repenting, when they are pricked in their hearts from hearing the gospel preached. The natural man, before he has been quickened to the new spiritual life, cannot respond to the things of the Spirit.

Preaching the gospel can deliver those who are born again from their disobedience as they live here on earth, but preaching the gospel is not the cause of anybodies eternal deliverance. That is accomplished by God's sovereign grace, without the help of mankind.
 

ForestGreenCook

Well-known member
Jul 8, 2018
8,355
1,191
113
I did too!! But lately I've been wondering... (that's always a bad sign :LOL:)

I'm going through an Ephesians teaching thing, and the guy pointed out that we are a tri-unity being - body, soul spirit- but that we are "dead" spiritually and go through life living according to the desires of the body (flesh) and soul (mind/emotions):

Eph. 2:1-3
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

So, furthermore, he contends that the "prince of the power of the air" is also active in our lives... him being the dominant spiritual force in our lives? IDK

So, is that the spirituality that I was considering way back then?

If a person thinks on spiritual things, it is evidence that he has already been born again to the new spiritual life.

Satan does not teach anyone about spiritual things.
 

ForestGreenCook

Well-known member
Jul 8, 2018
8,355
1,191
113
So you just ignored out of hand when I broke down faith vs works using verses to prove the point that faith, that comes by hearing the Word, is what saves,not works.

The scriptures teach that hearing the word, and faith, can deliver (save) a born again child of God, from their ignorance, as they sojourns here on earth, but they are not the cause of your eternal deliverance. Only God's sovereign grace, without the help of mankind, can deliver a person eternally.
 

Sipsey

Well-known member
Sep 27, 2018
1,365
652
113
How do you define them? Could you please clarify?

Some people say such things as nobody can experience God unless they are already
born again, but it is the Holy Spirit of God that convicts the lost world of their sin.


The experience of being convicted of our sinful state before God and believing in God can be separated by years of unbelief.

Those who say we are born again when we experience God seem to conflate His drawing us with being born again.
Romans 8:9
However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

Several verses speak to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, while many others speak to the Filling of the Spirit. In a previous study I found that many of the verses that speak of being filled were commanded, according to the Greek. However, the indwelling was never a command.

I believe we are indwelt at our new birth, and filled when we are in fellowship. It is possible to lose that fellowship through unconfessed sin. We are told not to grieve or quench the Holy Spirit by sinning.
 

Cameron143

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2022
14,798
5,335
113
62
If a person thinks on spiritual things, it is evidence that he has already been born again to the new spiritual life.

Satan does not teach anyone about spiritual things.
But man does. And eternity has been placed within the heart of man. His conscious also bears witness, as does creation. Anthropologists have never encountered a civilization void of some expression of religion.
I would venture that most, if not all people, have some consideration of the eternal at some point in their lives. Interest may or may not be evidence.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
56,064
26,168
113
But man does. And eternity has been placed within the heart of man. His conscious also bears witness,
as does creation. Anthropologists have never encountered a civilization void of some expression of religion.

I would venture that most, if not all people, have some consideration of the
eternal at some point in their lives. Interest may or may not be evidence.
The fact that so many are drawn into the occult is evidence that spiritual things interest the unregenerate.

The occult, eastern mysticism, new age this and that...

And people are curious.
 

Paran

Active member
Feb 25, 2023
119
53
28
1 John 2:2 KJV..
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

John 3:16. "for God so loved the WORLD......that's all of us.......that He GAVE His SON on the CROSS.

OR as Jesus says....."if i be Lifted UP.....on The Cross = .I wil draw ALL people to me"...


""""""""""but Calvin says that God only gave the Cross for the elect, and they didnt choose Jesus, God forced them to believe".::::::::

= Well, "Calvin" is a heretic, a liar, a deceiver, and the last time i checked..... there is no "Epistle by Calvin" in the Bible.

A lot of people who worship Calvin, would tell you that J. Calvin wrote the bible.
 
Jun 20, 2022
6,460
1,331
113
But man does. And eternity has been placed within the heart of man. His conscious also bears witness, as does creation. Anthropologists have never encountered a civilization void of some expression of religion.
I would venture that most, if not all people, have some consideration of the eternal at some point in their lives. Interest may or may not be evidence.
I agree in every person's life at some point in time their mind wandered and they entertained the idea what I see is clear evidence of a God.

Does that mean I should believe God is real?

^
That is why God is justified on the Judgment Day when He gives out judgements. People already had a idea about God and made a decision if He's real or not. They flat out rejected Him.
 

ThereRoseaLamb

Well-known member
Jan 17, 2023
3,290
1,381
113
The scriptures teach that hearing the word, and faith, can deliver (save) a born again child of God,

Nope. A born again child of God doesn't need to be saved. "When Jesus heard it, He said unto them, “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
 

Cameron143

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2022
14,798
5,335
113
62
I agree in every person's life at some point in time their mind wandered and they entertained the idea what I see is clear evidence of a God.

Does that mean I should believe God is real?

^
That is why God is justified on the Judgment Day when He gives out judgements. People already had a idea about God and made a decision if He's real or not. They flat out rejected Him.
I would nuance the argument some but in general I agree.
 

ForestGreenCook

Well-known member
Jul 8, 2018
8,355
1,191
113
Because both sides of the argument believe salvation is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect life securing our righteousness and substitutionary death satisfying God's wrath against us, all are saved. At least all who trust in that alone because that is all that is necessary for salvation
A person that references all of the salvation scriptures to eternal salvation, is a very confused person, that has to figure out ways that their good works are necessary to achieve eternal salvation.

Salvation=deliverance, saved=delivered, and save=deliver, according to Strong's concordance.

Those children that are going through the process of being adopted as God's children are only delivered one time, eternally, but are delivered many times as they sojourn here on earth, by their good works, in following his commandments

If you ascribe all of the deliverance scriptures to mean eternal deliverance, they will tend to teach eternal deliverance is accomplished by one's good works.
 

ForestGreenCook

Well-known member
Jul 8, 2018
8,355
1,191
113
Iyam, I think it has to do with Hypengyophobia, which may be rooted in the fear of failure. Yet, putting faith, or confidence, in a (most assuredly) (solid; immovable; rock) sure thing, has never, nor will ever, fail.


Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.- 1Timothy 2:4 (KJB)

Saved=delivered, according to Strong's concordance. When a babe in Christ matures enough to com unto a knowledge of the truth he is delivered from his ignorance.