Mike Winger's "Why I think Calvinism is Unbiblical"

Please read John 10 where Christ declares He lays down His life for His sheep and then confirms that some were not His sheep.

Everyone limits Christs atonement. The Scriptures limit it in scope but it seems like you limit in sufficiency.

The Scriptures declare that Christ gave His life as a ransom for all but Christ Himself said that He gave His life as a ransom for many. Logically, all can not mean every single person without exception because many does not mean all and therefore it can only be concluded that Christ gave His life as a ransom for all of the many which are His elect.

1Ti_2:6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,

Mat_20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
Mar_10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Therefore, people should not be asked if they have chosen God but whether God has chosen them for it is the doctrine of predestination which limits salvation to those He has chosen that most humbles man and puts the fear of God into him.

Those who die in their sin will know for all eternity that God never chose them and instead eternally and justly hated them.

you are right, God uses the foolishness of Gospel preaching to grant saving faith to His people who humbly recognise that the faith given to them through which they are saved is a gift of God's grace and not something in which they can boast.

It should be the desire of every Christian to love all and therefore also desire for all to be saved but the Scriptures reveal this is not the will of God who alone knows all He loves and has chosen to save. Christians do not know who God has chosen and therefore are called to reflect the love shown to them even while they were enemies of God to all even those who are their enemies.

Grace is particular only to those who are saved and is not to be confused with God's good providence to all which only serves to make the wicked more accountable unto their greater judgement.

You fail to realise that the good news includes that God is perfectly good in His holy justice which is the foundation of the cross and not mercy which is only given because justice is satisfied in Christ who laid down His life for His sheep and not the goats.

Christ's sacrifice is sufficient and efficient only for those He draws unto Himself by grace alone through faith alone. His sheep come from all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues throughout the whole world without distinction and not every person without exception as you seem to assume.

It was only at the cross where Christ propitiated the sins of His people and rose form the dead for their justification but the reason He is coming again includes His good judgement against the rest of the sins of this world which were not paid for at the cross which is what Paul preached to the Athenians.

Act 17:30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
Act 17:31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."

The good news of the Gospel involves lovingly telling people that salvation has been secured in Christ for those He has chosen and warning them of the repercussions of dying in their sin without His indescribable gift as did John the Baptist below.

Joh 3:36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

Then according to you, Christ failed and was unable to save those who are now in Hell.

What did Christ mean when He said "It is finished"?

Then according to you, Christ failed and was unable to save those who are now in Hell.

What did Christ mean when He said "It is finished"?

Why do you feel so sure the tribulation didn't take place already?

If a person sys that

salvation belongs to Hi and

it is hard to take what you say seriously when you can not even spell correctly.

I am beyond myself in reason to understand this concept that "if man has ((free will)) he is able to thwart God and His plan."

Satan, who is more powerful than any man had free will and the Fallen Angels and they could never and still cannot thwart God from His Plan. If Satan, an Angel, more powerful than every human being that ever lived combined cannot stop God, then how can a single person stop God and His Will?

The stupid "is real" with some people.

I do know what you mean and yet because God does desire everyone to repent and come to a knowledge of the truth, with man's will being naturally bent away from God it does mean that some will refuse to submit, and yet the other side of that is that all along it has been God's plan to destroy those who do not acknowledge who He is. So God's will is not thwarted after all regardless of the final income of each and every individual.

the book of Romans is the greatest exposition of the Gospel in which the righteousness of God is revealed against the evil of sinful man for the salvation of those God loves in Christ who are circumcised of heart and not of the flesh.

I don't remember hearing about huge wars with demon armies anywhere in Jewish recorded history.

And of course, everybody knows that this did not occur either:

Rev 9:5
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Rev 9:6
And in those days [THOSE FIVE MONTHS] shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

God suspends death for five months (while they are in torments of pain - this occurring BEFORE the mark of the beast is imposed) as a MERCY to the earth dwellers. Why? So that they recognize the dire implications of this:

Rev 14:9
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:11
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Eternal torment in the lake of fire. The five months where death is suspended is a FORETASTE of existence in the lake of fire.
These five months are a dire warning by God Who can suspend death itself as He desires.

And yes, I take this literally......because I actually understand the book of Revelation, what is going on, when and WHY.

I see, but then do you think I've been saved?

@maxamir : And if not, then how do I become saved?

This is what I object to

You quote the scripture and then you quote the workings out of these scriptures by scholarly men and hold both up as the received truth of equal value

Human logic is not an adequate interpreter of scripture, this is just the fault I find with Calvin.
Logically he would seem to be correct.

But all this is based upon a false assumption that Predestination and [especially] Election concerns salvation per se. It does not [imo] it applies to being the elect [chosenj] people or family of God in the earth. It excludes nobody from being saved.

Abraham was chosen but Lot also was saved.

So then you were saved by your humility, not only so but you were very wise and prudent to recognise that salvation is by faith.

there ya go again

first the scripture then the scholarly workings out by human logic which you hold as equal truth.

See, when I read Paul "I would oh Agrippa that all men were as me apart from these chains" I see no limitation on God's part but see only Agrippa held back in bondage.

We haven't even begun to think about Federal Headship whereby God holds some men [leaders] more accountable than others.

The great misfortune with any falseness of doctrine is you get snagged upon it, it acts like a lasso that throws you and pins you down and you can't move on to greater light.

You are stuck as though in a groove, you spend your whole life on this one point of doctrine, trying to prove it. It's just like the sacramentalists spending their whole life trying to prove the efficacy of sacraments.

You are in that groove because God wants you to learn it. Then you can move on.

You don't ever think of the Rapture or the 1, 000 year reign of Christ on earth with His saints ... if you did you would know that the sheep and goats of Matt. 25. are neither of them the church.