ALL PEOPLE ARE TOTALLY DEPRAVED
"Calvinists believe that since all persons are spiritually dead they cannot repent and respond to God. They hold that a person must first be born again then they can respond to God in faith and repent.
Most Baptists agree no one can save him or her self. They believe salvation is all by God’s grace through faith in Christ. Repentance and faith are held by them not to contribute to salvation but are the means whereby the all sufficient grace of God is received. There is no merit in receiving grace. All merit is in grace being given by God."
Our comment: Yet these people who are spiritually dead nevertheless have, according to Dr. Price's theology, the free will to be able to choose God. Unbelieveable. What Dr. Price has not said openly is this: that according to his theology faith and repentance are acts of man. We prefer the Biblical theology of Joseph Hart:
True belief and true repentance
Are Thy gifts, O God of grace.
Read the second chapter of Ephesians. After the description of man's lost condition we read 'by grace are ye saved, though faith; and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God'. The free-willer will quickly respond that the Greek construction is such that the 'gift of God' cannot be faith only. We are in agreement, it is not jut faith. It is all of salvation. NONE of it is my work, there is not one part of my salvation of which I can say 'this is mine.' God has done it all, and that is why we are saved completely.
GOD’S GRACE IS IRRESISTIBLE
"Calvinists believe God’s grace cannot be resisted by those chosen by God to be saved. Calvinists believe that if this is not true God is not sovereign.
Southern Baptists in general believe that God’s grace can be resisted and this results in a person not being saved. They also believe in the sovereignty of God and that He sovereignly gave man a free will with which to respond or not respond. They believe that for God to give such freedom and then respect it does not constitute a diminishment of the sovereignty of God but a recognition of the way in which the sovereign God has chosen to relate to human beings."
Our Comment: There is equivocation and probably a lack of understanding here. Calvinists believe that God's SAVING grace is irresistible (John 6), not that His common grace is. The Free-willer will point to Stephen's words to the unbelieving Jews that 'Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost'. Yes, but where in the text are we informed that these are the SAVING operations of the Holy Spirit? No-where. In fact in context it makes much more sense to relate Stephen's words to their resisting the words spoken by the Holy Spirit to the Jews of old by the Prophets. Now this is the great Free-willer prooftext. It is easily shown to be nothing of the kind. On the other hand, we have yet to find a compelling argument against the Calvinistic understanding of John 6, Romans 9, and a host of other passages.
The Arminian arguments constitute mere denials that grace can be irresistible, along with a loud affirmation of their extra-Biblical doctrine of man's autonomous and libertarian free will. In other words, and this MUST be heard, they have first to prove their doctrine of free-will from the Bible before it can be a true argument against the Calvinist position. This they have not done and will not be able to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment