Calvinism is Gospel !
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A. I know what Luther wrote in his book The Bondage of the Will. He believed that, due to Adam's Original Sin in paradise God IMPUTED Adam's GUILT to every one of his descendents (except Jesus). As I have tried to explain before, this idea came from the speculative musings of Augustine of Hippo who was searching for a scriptural justification for the practice of INFANT BAPTISM.
He reasoned that since Baptism in adults was aimed at the removal of sin so it was in infants. His only problem was that infants were had always been considered to be innocent since they lacked the capacity to sin. Augustine had to come up with some species of sin that was not personal and voluntary but which still applied to an infant.
B. Luther looked to Augustine as his teacher who had lived in the Fifth Century. Augustine had attempted to understand Romans 5:12 through the distorted lens of Augustine who, because of his ignorance of Greek had depended on corrupted Latin versions to interpret Romans 5:12. The corrupted Latin translation, Augustine was reading from said:
Wherefore as by one man [Adam] sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men,
IN WHOM [i.e., in Adam] ALL HAVE SINNED
However, in the original Greek text of Paul this phrase was
εφ ω παντες ημαρτον or on the basis of whom or BECAUSE of WHOM (because of Adam) all sin
Had Paul written this verse as IN WHOM [in Adam] all sinned, then mankind would indeed have been declared just as guilty of Adam's sin as Adam himself. However, Paul's original Greek verse explains that all men sin BECAUSE [or as a consequence of] Adam did.
Augustine should have finished his Greek studies instead of behaving as a petulant child and quitting because he did not like his Greek tutor. Of course, had Augustine not been so proud, he might have sought help in interpreting the verse from John Chrysostom on the other side of the Mediterranean. Chrysostom was a contemporary whose native language was the same Koine Greek in which the Apostles spoke and wrote.
Jonathan Edwards was an intellectual Calvinist tried to explain man's total depravity in a way that exactly follows what I learned when I studied modern (Materialistic-Naturalistic) Behaviorism. On this point, Jonathan Edwards and John B. Watson were in perfect agreement. Both believed that man has no moral agency.
Humans are simply biological machines whose every decision and action is the result of Classical and Operant Conditioning. It was indeed, mechanistic. Jonathan Edwards, the theologian, reasoned that since man was bound to follow the sum total of his desires and drives, God intervenes by unilaterally imposing NEW DESIRES in him. However, this is simply another kind of determinism just as dehumanizing, in its own way, as Watson's materialistic Behaviorism.
2 Pet. 1 is speaking to Christians who are already saved and are currently being sanctified. Just by throwing any response does not make it an answer. My question is for you to provide me a biblical reference which states that regeneration happens before the preaching of the gospel.
"Your frantic lecture on church history, infant baptism, and Latin translations is an elaborate smoke screen designed to mask a massive failure in basic Greek grammar. You accuse Augustine of failing his Greek studies, but your own manufactured translation of Romans 5:12 completely violates the rules of Koine Greek syntax.
Let’s look at exactly where your linguistic and historical arguments completely self-destruct:
1. Your Severe Greek Grammar Blunder in Romans 5:12
You confidently assert that the Greek phrase ἐφ᾽ ᾧ (eph hō) means 'because of whom' or 'on the basis of whom,' trying to force the pronoun to refer directly back to the person of Adam. You have completely botched the grammar.
In Koine Greek, ᾧ (hō) is a neuter singular relative pronoun. If the Apostle Paul had intended this phrase to refer back to the masculine noun 'man' (Adam, henos anthrōpou), syntax requires that he use the masculine relative pronoun: ἐφ᾽ οὗ (eph hou).
Because Paul used the neuter, it is grammatically impossible for the phrase to refer to the person of Adam. In New Testament Greek, the idiomatic phrase ἐφ᾽ ᾧ uniformly means 'because,' 'in view of the fact that,' or 'in that.'
Therefore, Paul’s original Greek text literally reads: '...and so death passed upon all men, because all sinned.'
This leaves you in an inescapable logical trap: When did every single human being sin to cause death to pass upon them? You claim infants are born completely pure and only sin later in life. But Paul explicitly states in Romans 5:14 that death reigned over infants who had not personally or voluntarily sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.
Think through the courtroom law: Death is the penal wages of sin (Rom 6:23). If an infant dies, they are enduring the legal penalty of sin. If they are enduring the penalty, they must legally possess the guilt. Since they haven't committed voluntary sins yet, their guilt can only be the imputed guilt of their Federal Head, Adam. They sinned in him when he fell, exactly as the text demands.
2. Your Historical Claim About John Chrysostom is Factually False
You smugly tell me to look at John Chrysostom to prove that native Greek speakers rejected imputed guilt. You are counting on me not checking your sources.
Let’s actually read John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Romans (Homily 10), where he comments directly on Paul's Greek text in Romans 5:
Chrysostom explicitly teaches that the entire human race was legally bound, altered, and condemned to mortality by the single disobedience of Adam. Your historical revisionism is completely exposed.
3. Your Theology Makes God Arbitrary and Unjust
You claim that Adam could not pass down his personal guilt, but you admit that humanity is born with a ruined sin nature because of Adam.
Think through the horrific implications of your own system: You are arguing that God forces billions of innocent babies to be born with a corrupted, diseased nature that guarantees they will sin and face damnation, purely as a 'consequence' of a garden event they had no part in. In your view, God inflicts a penal curse (a ruined nature) without any legal cause.
In High Calvinism, God is perfectly just. Adam was our Federal Head. When he stood in the garden, he stood as the legal representative for the entire human race. When he broke the covenant, the entire race legally broke it in him.
By denying Imputed Guilt, you completely destroy the Gospel. If the first Adam could not legally represent his seed so that his guilt was imputed to them, then the Second Adam (Jesus Christ) cannot legally represent His spiritual seed so that His everlasting righteousness is imputed to them (2 Cor 5:21). You have torn down the legal mechanism of Substitutionary Justification just to protect the imaginary free will of a fallen race. You are fighting against the text, against grammar, and against the very cross of Christ."
Your attempt to dismiss 2 Peter 1:1 by claiming it only applies to people who are 'already saved' is a total logical collapse. Look at how Peter defines the origin of their faith: “...to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God...”
The inspired Greek word for 'obtained' is λαγχάνω (lanchanō), which means to receive by divine lot or sovereign allocation. Peter is explicitly telling these Christians that their faith was not a product of their own unregenerate free-will choices; they possess it because it was sovereignly allotted and given to them as a gift by God!
It's the word of God and your response is "No."
All scripture is true, not only the parts we may like or that agree with what we want to be true
I am not saying no to scripture, you are; I am saying no to you and to your interpretation of the gospel. You do not want to accept the predominant and most fundamental/foundational tenet of the gospel - that Christ alone is the Savior. Explain then how you perceive the role of Jesus Christ as Savior, and as being the Savior, what His contribution is to someone becoming saved. If you do not believe that He alone is the Savior, then say so. In the verses you quoted you confused having faith with it being the cause of salvation. But those verses were only demonstrating faith as a barometer to indicate someone who has been saved but not saved because of their faith -faith is a byproduct of salvation, not its cause. Otherwise, scripture would be wrong when it claims that Jesus is THE (singular) Savior. There is simply no way nor wiggle room for you to get around this scriptural truth.
[Jhn 14:6 KJV] 6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
"through the righteousness of God" means "because God was righteous", he made us partakers of this faith. But it still does not answer my question where I am asking you to give me a biblical reference where it explicitly says that regeneration occurs before the preaching of the gospel.
I hate to repeat myself, but if we are Satan's slaves, then we are not slaves of sin. It can't be both.
Secondly, the bible doesn't teach that Satan obtained legal ownership of humanity.
Really? I believe Edwards taught that human freedom was bounded by personal motives,
The Ironclad Word Order of Acts 13:48: Ordination Precedes Faith
The Word of God declares a definitive, unalterable rule regarding the origin of saving faith: Only those who have been sovereignly ordained, appointed, and predestined by God to eternal life will ever believe the Gospel. Look at the absolute finality of the text across multiple authoritative translations:
The text uses the periphrastic pluperfect passive participle τεταγμένοι (tetagmenoi), from the root verb τάσσω (tassō). Standard, authoritative Greek lexicons define this word as to arrange, assign, or dispose to a certain position or lot, or to decree. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon explicitly states that Acts 13:48 means: “as many as were appointed (by God) to obtain eternal life, or to whom God had decreed eternal life.”
Linguistically, the participle underlines that faith itself is not a human initiative; rather, saving faith springs entirely from God's prior arrangement. This perfectly harmonizes with Ephesians 1:4-5, anchoring our assurance in His immutable, eternal purpose.
The subject of the sentence is a specific, finite group: 'as many as' (hosoi) were appointed. Not a single soul who was passed over in that decree believed, and not a single soul who was ordained to life failed to believe. The prior divine appointment is the absolute cause, and the personal act of believing is the infallible effect. Man does not take the initiative to make himself a candidate for life; the Sovereign Potter designates His elect sheep, and His irresistible grace ensures they will believe '+ nothing'. 50
The Word of God declares a definitive, unalterable rule regarding the origin of saving faith: Only those who have been sovereignly ordained, appointed, and predestined by God to eternal life will ever believe the Gospel. Look at the absolute finality of the text across multiple authoritative translations:
- KJV: “...and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”
- NKJV: “...And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
- NABR: “...All who were destined for eternal life came to believe.”
The text uses the periphrastic pluperfect passive participle τεταγμένοι (tetagmenoi), from the root verb τάσσω (tassō). Standard, authoritative Greek lexicons define this word as to arrange, assign, or dispose to a certain position or lot, or to decree. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon explicitly states that Acts 13:48 means: “as many as were appointed (by God) to obtain eternal life, or to whom God had decreed eternal life.”
Linguistically, the participle underlines that faith itself is not a human initiative; rather, saving faith springs entirely from God's prior arrangement. This perfectly harmonizes with Ephesians 1:4-5, anchoring our assurance in His immutable, eternal purpose.
The subject of the sentence is a specific, finite group: 'as many as' (hosoi) were appointed. Not a single soul who was passed over in that decree believed, and not a single soul who was ordained to life failed to believe. The prior divine appointment is the absolute cause, and the personal act of believing is the infallible effect. Man does not take the initiative to make himself a candidate for life; the Sovereign Potter designates His elect sheep, and His irresistible grace ensures they will believe '+ nothing'. 50
Those verses demonstrate exactly that, so you are either unable or unwilling to see it in the text. You are trying to change the subject to be the timing of preaching, but 2 Peter 1 is explicitly about the source of faith. Peter identifies Christ as their Savior and as the prior cause of their faith. Because Christ is already their Savior (per the verses), they obtain their faith through His righteousness, not their own power. So, salvation came first, and faith flowed from it as a direct result. But I'll throw in a bonus verse as corroboration
[Jhn 14:6 KJV] 6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
To put it in plain English, 2 Pet 1:1 simply says that we are in this faith because of the righteousness of Jesus. What does it have to do with my question, "Where does the Bible explicitly say that a person is regenerated before he hears the preaching of the gospel?"
We have been waiting years for one verse articulating free will of the natural man, but
we know it does not exist. The hypocrisy of free willers seems to escape their attention.
If God as Saviour made one partaker of Faith, then evidently man by nature doesnt have it. 2 thess 3:2
2 And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.
And Faith is the fruit of the Spirit according to Gal 5:22 so when the Spirit gives life [regeneration] He gives Faith
Probably, you were asking all the wrong people who do not believe in free will. Rom. 10:13-15 clearly states how a person is saved. It is through the preaching of the gospel. When the gospel is preached, faith is built up within the person who hears the gospel, and this is when the person exercises his free will to choose Christ.
According to Rom. 10:17, faith is built up as the person hears the Word of God. As you know very well that faith is a gift of God. Faith cannot be produced by a person. It comes from God. Acts 2:37 tells us the process of how faith works in a person. That verse says,
"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
Here the phrase, "pricked in their heart" signifies conviction in their heart. Their response was, "what shall we do?" This is free-will.
"Your demand for an 'explicit verse' that spells out a chronological timestamp is a standard, worn-out debate tactic used to avoid actual systematic exegesis. Biblical truth is established by matching Scripture with Scripture to reveal the unbending laws of God's covenant. [1]
You claim that an unregenerate sinner must hear the Gospel and choose to believe it while they are still in their lost state in order to get born again. I can show you from the explicit text of Scripture that your timeline is a logical and spiritual impossibility. [1, 2]
Look at the absolute forensic condition of a lost person in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4: [1]
Think through the unbending legal and physical mechanics of this text: Paul explicitly declares that while a person is lost, the Gospel is completely hidden from them, and their minds are completely blinded. [1, 2]
If a sinner's mind is spiritually blind, and the light of the Gospel is completely hidden from them while they are lost, how can they possibly see it, understand it, and choose to believe it to escape being lost?
According to your synergistic theology, a blind man must look at the light of the Gospel while he is still blind to trigger God to open his eyes. It is an absolute absurdity. The Holy Spirit explicitly states that they believe not because they are blind. [1]
Therefore, unless a person is sovereignly regenerated and given spiritual sight by the immediate power of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel remains permanently hidden from them, resulting in inescapable unbelief. God must move first to remove the blindness through the New Birth so that the soul can look to Christ and believe '+ nothing.' Is that explicit enough for you, or are you going to keep fighting against the plain mechanics of the text?" [1, 2]
You guys are making me forget what my question was. Can I call this strawman? I totally agree that faith is both a gift of God and the fruit of the HS. No person can generate faith on his own. I totally get that. But you had said earlier that Cornelius was regenerated even before he heard the gospel from Peter, I had asked you this question, "Where does the Bible explicitly say that a person is regenerated before he hears the gospel". Now you are telling me about faith. Faith is not the answer to my question. How and when does faith come? Faith comes only as we hear the gospel, and not before that. This is clearly mentioned in Rom. 10:17 So, your answer does not fit my question.
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