First
John 1:12-13 See Piper, Five Points, 35f http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/documents/e-books/pdfs/five-points-1388566999.pdf
Why were the people in verse 11 not given the right to be adopted? Was it because they had not been regenerated? No, it was because they did not receive Christ. In verse 12 John gives God's condition for adoption: receiving Christ and believing in His name. The obvious flow of the passage is (1) Receiving Christ and believing in His name. (2) God's granting the right to become His children and being born of God. Faith, then regeneration and adoption.
John 3:3-8
John 5:21
John 6:37
Calvinists argue that this passages teaches irresistible grace. The individual cannot refuse God's choice, therefore all those given to Christ will respond.
Arminians reply that "those given to me" in 37 are the same as those who "believe in him" in vs. 40. In other words, when God foresees that some will believe, he gives them to Christ. See that in vs. 45, those who "have heard and learned from the father" are the ones who "come to me."
See Olson, How Does God save, under “God’s calling to salvation is efficacious but not irresistible” – more in Olson, chapter 9?
Acts 5:31; 11:18
Acts 13:48
http://www.faithalone.org/magazine/y2004/04C1.html
Acts 16:14 See Piper, Five Points, 34f http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/documents/e-books/pdfs/five-points-1388566999.pdf
See Lopez article on is faith a gift? 264
Romans 8:30
Romans 9:16
1 Corinthians 3:6-7; 4:7
Ephesians 2:1, 5, 8-9
Philippians 1:29; 2:12-13
Colossians 2:13
Titus 3:5
The Last Word
My view – Olson, chapter 8, 9
If God’s grace is truly intended for all sinners, and if all sinners are not in the end saved, it must be (there is no other possibility) that the grace of God … is resistible.0
No, of course not!
“There is no such thing as a irresistible gift.” Vance, 516-17?
The doctrine of the irresistibility of grace is a theological fiction.0
Acts 7:51
See Shank, 131-133
Perseverance of the Saints in Light of Scripture
Differentiate between preservation of the Saints and perseverance. I can agree with Preservation. I believe that eternal life cannot be lost.
Guts of Grace, Hawley, 161
Boyd and Eddy, Across the Spectrum, 145f, 183f
perseverance is not an issue of human good works, but divine good works, sovereignly performed in the true believer. This is why good works prove who believers are. Not because true believers persevere, but b/c God sovereignly reveals who his children are by causing them to perform good works. THIS IS THE REAL ISSUE.
5 views on sanctification, 224
Numerous supporting texts: John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47; 10:27-30; Rom 5:8-10; 8:29-30; 35-39; Eph 1:13-14; 4:30; Col 3:3-4;
In Their Words
First
See quotes from my article: http://www.faithalone.org/journal/2003ii/myers.pdf
Given the fact that S. Lewis Johnson calls the Westminster Confession
the “standard of reference that evangelicals as a whole will accept in
the main,”9 this document is a good place to start.
Although hypocrites, and other unregenerate men, may vainly
deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions:
9 S. Lewis Johnson, “How Faith Works,” Christianity Today (September
1989): 21.
The Gospel Under Siege 45
of being in the favor of God and estate of salvation; which
hope of theirs shall perish: yet such as truly believe in the
Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in
all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly
assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in the
hope of the glory of God: which hope shall never make them
ashamed.10
Thus, the Confession states that only those who truly believe, love God
in sincerity, and endeavor to walk in all good conscience before him,
may be assured that they will make it to heaven.
James Montgomery Boice concurs:
…this is not only a matter of our demonstrating a genuinely
changed behavior and thus doing good works if we are justified.
It must also be that our good works exceed the good
works of others…When Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the
law…,” he meant, “Unless you who call yourselves Christians,
who profess to be justified by faith alone and therefore confess
that you have nothing whatever to contribute to your own justification—
unless you nevertheless conduct yourselves in a
way which is utterly superior to the conduct of the very best
people who are hoping to save themselves by their own good
works, you will not enter God’s kingdom because you are not
a Christian in the first place.11
R.C. Sproul sums this view up by stating, “In the Reformed view
works are a necessary fruit of justification.”12
Charles Hodge, the famous Reformed theologian writes:
False security of salvation commonly rests on the ground of
our belonging to a privileged body, the church, or to a privileged
class, the elect. Both are equally fallacious. Neither the
members of the church nor the elect can be saved unless they
persevere in holiness. And they cannot persevere in holiness
without continual watchfulness and effort.13
10 See www.reformed.org/documents/westminster_conf_of_ faith.html.
11 J. Montgomery Boice, Amazing Grace (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1993), 73-74.
12 R. C. Sproul, Faith Alone (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995), 156.
13 Charles Hodge, A Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians (Edinburgh: Banner
of Truth Trust, 1974), 181, emphasis added.
46 Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society Autumn 2003
In a small booklet by John Piper, in which he discusses Perseverance
of the Saints, he writes, “Election is unconditional, but glorification is
not. There are many warnings in Scripture that those who do not hold
fast to Christ can be lost in the end.”14
Arthur W. Pink makes the following “line in the sand” statement:
“Readers, if there is a reserve in your obedience, you are on your way to
hell.”15 He elaborates elsewhere by saying:
There is a deadly and damnable heresy being widely propagated
today to the effect that, if a sinner truly accepts Christ as
his personal Savior, no matter how he lives afterwards, he
cannot perish. That is a satanic lie, for it is at direct variance
with the teaching of the Word of truth. Something more than
believing in Christ is necessary to ensure the soul’s reaching
heaven.16
Again, Pink writes:
…all faith does not save; yea, all faith in Christ does not save.
Multitudes are deceived upon this vital matter. Thousands of
those who sincerely believe that they have received Christ as
their personal Savior and are resting on His finished work, are
building upon a foundation of sand.17
From the essential truth that no sinner in himself can merit salvation, the antinomian draws the erroneous conclusion that good works need not accompany faith in the saint. The question is not whether good works are necessary to salvation, but in what way they are necessary. As the inevitable outworking of saving faith, they are necessary for salvation. … Thus good works may be said to be a condition for obtaining salvation in that they inevitably accompany genuine faith. John Gerstner, Wrongly Divine the Word of Truth, 210
We mean that the saints will and must persevere in faith and the obedience which comes from faith. Election is unconditional, but glorification is not. There are many warnings in Scripture that those who do not hold fast to Christ can be lost in the end.0
“Paul foresees the possibility that some professing believers—in the judgment of charity he calls them brothers, may go to hell… Your works confirm that you are saved.” John Piper or Bethlehem Baptist Church. “We Will All Stand Before the Judgment of God (Romans 14:10-13)”; October 30, 2005.
“Getting to heaven in the New Testament involves the use of means… Your perseverance in faith is a means of attaining heaven; it is necessary… Mutual exhortation is a means by which we preserve each other, strengthen each other, sustain each other, help each other persevere to heaven. It is not automatic… Prove that Christ died for your brother by extending the means that Christ bought to get him to heaven. Prove that… If you go the other direction you may show that not only is his soul in peril… but your lovelessness may be testifying you’ve never tasted of grace either, and you are not in Christ, and His blood has not covered you effectually…” John Piper “Do Not Destroy the Work of God (Romans 14:14-23); November 6, 2005.
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