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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Is hearing necessary for salvation? | Rom 10:17 | disciplerami | 77631 | ||
Greetings John Reformed, I will grant that you see our sides fairly clearly. I do think the Gospel is a lifepreserver that God has tossed out to all men. However, the analogy isn't exact because what is the other alternative for the drowning person? The way you have depicted it, everyone would be pulling on the preserver. But everyone doesn't take it because there is an alternative. The man who is drowning in sin thinks something else looks pretty good and rejects God's help. If there were no alternatives, everyone would take the God's salvation. When Paul talks about the war in his own body, the war between body and soul, he speaks of the challenge that we each face (Romans 7). The bad news for man is that he is in a body that needs but also wants. He needs food, but he wants too much. Paul said, "who will set me free...?" Romans 8 gives the answer. God has done through Christ what the Law could not do. The righteous requirement of the Law was perfection and God through faith [the kind of faith demonstrated in Paul's words of chapter 7, 'the thing I do, I hate; that which I want to do, I do not do'] is able to make sinful men perfect. He goes on to say that the mind set on the flesh is death, the mind set on the spirit is life. Here is where we can't agree. HOW is the mind set on the flesh or on the things of the Spirit? You see the total depraved nature of man and insist it is God who does the ‘setting'; I see God appealing to man with ample evidence so that even the most hardened can be made soft. Both ways get people saved, but which way is right? Both ways get people saved by the grace of God, but which way jives with the rest of the Scripture? Why does the Holy Spirit fill Scripture with the conditional statements; why the imperatives: the 'thou shalts', the must, the demands; why the warnings of hell and hopes of heaven; why the vocative laments: the hopes and wishes and desires. Why does God speak to man at all in Scripture if the facts can't phase the hardened sinner? From your perspective/belief, you must grant that no one would ever be saved, no one would ever grab the 'preserver', no one would ever 'set his mind on the Spirit' unless God personally put it in their hand and plucked them to safety. Nothing, not the truth of Scripture, not the glories of heaven get even a spark from the depraved man. In my way of thinking, these are very powerful messages, ones that can overcome the fog of error and lies that surround the sinner. I see the difficulty you have in accepting a Gospel that is made available to all, but assured only to those smart enough to take it. It's a risk. But God takes risk. When God made a Garden with choice, God took a risk. It was an experiment, if you will, to see if man would choose good over evil. Man with freewill chose to disobey God: that was part of the nature given him. When God flooded the earth, it was a risk. He didn't make or spark or place desire in Noah to obey and build the ark. That was Noah; he was righteous and blameless. God found the only eight people on earth who still loved Him and so God provided them a way of salvation. The sovereignty of God provided that if Noah built an ark, man would be saved. Noah didn't build the ark because of an ALL CONTROLLING SOVEREIGN GOD put it in him. Think about it, we don't marvel at the faith of Noah because God made Noah build the ark, we marvel because WHAT a FAITH he had! continued... |
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2 | Is hearing necessary for salvation? | Rom 10:17 | John Reformed | 77643 | ||
Dear Discilerami, As I am at work, I must be brief and, for now, can address your first Q only. You asked:I do think the Gospel is a lifepreserver that God has tossed out to all men. However, the analogy isn't exact because what is the other alternative for the drowning person?" The greatest flaw in my analogy was the depiction of all of mankind struggling in the sea. To present a truly scriptural analogy, I need to present an entirely new scenario: Rather than struggling on the surface of the sea, mankind (dead in trespasses and sins) are stone cold dead and are lying on the ocean floor. God, for no other reason but His good pleasure, sends a diver (the Holy Spirit) to raise these spiritual corpses to life. Once ressurrected from their watery grave, they reach the surface and struggle towards the the Life Saviour, Jesus Christ. They come willingly, realizing that it was the mercy and love of God which saved them. As for the ones God has left at the bottom, they would'nt have it anyother way! They love the muck and mud. But God has shown mercy on those to whom He will have mercy and He hardens those who He will harden. Afterall, He is the Potter and we are the clay. Clay has no rights or claims over it's Creator. This is a hard doctrine to accept. I wrestle with it even as I write these lines. Nevertheless, it is what the Bible teaches and my duty is to subordinate my imperfect reason to His perfect Word. I rest in the knowledge that everything He does is just, and I know that, when in Glory, His justice will be revealed to the saints, and we will rejoice in all that He has done. God Bless, John R. |
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