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Zion Seeker,

I have taken the past few minutes to quickly go back over this whole thread and, other than one quote from Calvin and links to some reformed articles, I did not see Pilgrim appealing to the reformers to make his case. What I did see was careful, Biblical exegesis and a great deal of interaction with the original language.

Please don't let YOUR need to defend YOUR doctrine cause you to mischaracterize either the nature of this discussion or, especially, Pilgrim's integrity. It is very unbecoming.


Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love and the future to God's providence." - St. Augustine
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Zion seeker, this is stock Calvinistic jibberish.

Calvinists do some very odd things. They will demand that "circumcision of the heart" IS regeneration but deny that anything else is regeneration that does not suit them. The capitalize on the fact that the new birth is actually only mentioned explicitly a few times in the Bible. They then decide for themselves to define whichever other references in Scripture are references to the new birth or not by keeping one eye on their creed.

The work of defining words however they like is also standard fare for Calvinism. Hence, "eternal life" and "world" mean whatever they want those words to mean at John 3:16. This is very common in Calvinism as I am sure you have noticed.

Of course, they will all say the "context" and "hermeneutics" determines these things. But if you watch the it is plain to see that TULIP is giving all the orders.

If you think about it, if they can define the words however they like, they can pretty much say or believe anything they like.

Let them. It's their funeral.

Passion Player

Last edited by PassionPlayer; Sat Mar 27, 2004 7:55 PM.
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Please don't let YOUR need to defend YOUR doctrine cause you to mischaracterize either the nature of this discussion or, especially, Pilgrim's integrity. It is very unbecoming.


And what is MY DOCTRINE? The belief, which you people just cannot seem to grasp, that we have life through believing in the Lord, as the scripture says? You people can't even understand a simple verse and you puff yourselves up as though you were great theologians. What a joke you all are. You call Pilgrim's utter misrepresentation of the Greek and of the text "careful." oh how very funny. I suppose you believe in two new births also, if it gets your theology out of a jam. I don't suppose you found Pilgrim's slur about only having taken one semester "unbecoming"? I suppose behaviour is only unbecoming if it comes from a non calvinist.
ZionSeeker

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you're right...it's their funeral. I thought people might actually love the bible and believe it. silly me. i have wasted my time.

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Zion Seeker,
I was wondering what your thoughts are regarding these verses.
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1 Corinthians 2 v.10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. [3]

14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
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Zion Seeker said: Right, the [Ephesians] passage says they were dead. But it does not say that therefore they were unable to believe. It says dead in trespasses and sins. I believe that this means that without Christ man cannot experience the life of God through Jesus Christ, or know sins forgiven. I do not believe that this means that the person cannot believe. The passage never actually says that a dead man cannot believe, for they are dead in trespasses and sins. It doesn't say that they are incapable of believing the gospel. Faith does not come from man's dead sinful nature. It comes from God, it is a gift of God, and to be saved one has to believe from the heart the message of the gospel. We must "come to Christ that we might have life."
How does man get this new nature?
We agree that a natural man cannot have faith.
We agree that faith is a gift from God.
We agree we must have faith to believe.
We agree that after we believe, we are saved.
How does the natural man become a spiritual man?
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Romans 8 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
A natural man cannot have faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. So, we must be changed before we can believe so that the spiritual things are not folly to us. God must give us ears to hear and eyes to see, and hearts that can believe or else we are dead to God.
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John 5: 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

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ZS,

I don't like your tone. Flaming will not be tolerated.
I suggest you keep it civil or your days here are numbered.
To suggest that Reformed people don't love the Word of God is absurd.
Besides, if you feel you are wasteing your time, why are you here?


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I suggest you keep it civil or your days here are numbered.

Yes, and I suppose the tone of your friends has been very saintly? Hypocricy!
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Besides, if you feel you are wasteing your time, why are you here?

It was my mistake....I thought I was in a Christian chatroom where people would actually believe the scripture, not fight it with their puffed up carnal reasonings. my mistake.

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Susan, I appreciate your structured argument. When I have time, and if i have not been booted off, I will answer you point for point later.
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ZS,

I have one very simple question:
Does your response suggest that you do not intend to be civil? If you could answer that for me then I would know whether there would be any reason for you to stick around.

Susan would like to read your response to her query, let’s see if that can be done without inflammatory statements

Hypocrisy is defined as: “The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.” So, I don’t see how your statement regarding my friends applies. I am quite sure they hold to what they profess. I am very sure they love The Lord, and give him the glory. Based on that, I would say that this IS a Christian forum and your original impression was indeed correct.


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I have one very simple question:
Does your response suggest that you do not intend to be civil? If you could answer that for me then I would know whether there would be any reason for you to stick around.

Sure, I will be civil to everybody who engages in discussion, and actually answers questions and objections rather than resorting to not so subtle ad hominem attacks, as your friends have constantly done. Of course all of them had to hide behind generalisations or else the shallowness of the charges would be evident. When faced with this kind of behaviour I reserve the right to respond to such as their conduct deserves. If that means being thrown off then fine. Yes, I will cordially reply to Susan, but I do not expect ANY MORE ad hominen attacks - this is no substitute for actual discussion. I don't want to hear how stupid I am (Mensa mebership notwithstanding), how I cannot understand these things because I haven't done enough hermeneutics courses, that my beliefs are dangerous and will lead people to destruction, that I don't understand what I am saying, etc ad nauseum. If your friends can stick to the scripture so can I.

One thing I will add though - I wish to apologise to Pilgrim for saying he relies on the Protestant Reformation. All he said was that I cannot understand what the Reformers said because I haven't had enough college, which in itself deserves an apology to me (which of course will not be forthcoming).


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Hypocrisy is defined as: “The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.”

The essence of it is to pretend to something. You say you don't like my tone, but you have no problem with the tone of others, and have no word of correction for them. It seems to me, and forgive me if I am wrong, that you pretend to be offended at the tone, when in reality you are offended because it is a non calvinist using the tone, not because of the tone itself.

ZionSeeker

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Forgive me if I missed something, but, in reading over this very long thread, I attempted to find out where the ad hominem began. If I have read correctly, I first noticed that you indicated Pilgrim made a "booboo" (your word), an error which he admitted and then further explained his position. Following that post was when the first personal (ad hominem) attack was hurled.....by you. Somthing about Pilgrim's ability to read greek unaided. So I guess if responding in kind is okay for you to do, you can't blame others, you might call that hypocracy by your definition.


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Forgive me if I missed something, but, in reading over this very long thread, I attempted to find out where the ad hominem began.

I'm impressed that you went to that trouble.

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If I have read correctly, I first noticed that you indicated Pilgrim made a "booboo" (your word), an error which he admitted and then further explained his position. Following that post was when the first personal (ad hominem) attack was hurled.....by you. Somthing about Pilgrim's ability to read greek unaided. So I guess if responding in kind is okay for you to do, you can't blame others, you might call that hypocracy by your definition.

Yes I used the word "booboo" because it was the most charitable word I could find to indicate what was a terrible blunder which should not have been made by anyone with any ability to read Greek. If you think that was ad hominem than I think that is really funny!! no offence. Now then, I was also confronted with OTHER blunders in the Greek, such as calling hoi a relative clause (it is translated in English this way but the Greek means "These ones," defining an aorist as though it had to be pluperfect, when by definition an aorist is undefined, plus getting the word wrong. When confronted with all these by someone who claims to read Greek, I naturally asked, "no offence, but can you actually read Greek unaided, because i am having a hard time believing that?"

Do you consider this an ad hominem?

Pilgrim was offended by my question, no doubt about it. He wrote,

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Let me only say in regard to your ad hominem slur, that if you are asking if I need a walker to read Greek, the answer is no. Doubtless, I have forgotten more from my many years of Greek study than you have learned in your one semester study.

I was taken aback by this, since it had simply been my intention to gauge his level of knolwedge - i had never actually heard from Pilgrim as to whether he can read the Greek fluently. His arguments strongly suggested to me that he couldn't, and so I asked.

In reply to try to diffuse the situation somewhat I wrote,

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Congragulations on you advanced Greek study. My comment was far from being a slur. I have had people before claim Greek when it was obvious they had no clue. I have been honest about my lack of Greek (one semester completed, grade a). You are quoting from the Greek as though you know what you are talking about...whilst making some blunders. I accept that blunders can be made, but calling gennesthai an aorist, at least i think warrants me asking about your abilities in the language without you taking it as a personal attack (ad hominem). Don't you think? so don't get worked up because i dared to ask. i accept that you are well trained in greek.

Do you still accuse me of starting this?

Pilgrim in his defence quoted from a book on grammar which said that the aorist CAN (though most of the time isn't) used in a way in which it is best to use the English pluperfect. I checked the book and found that this is only in rare cases, and only in narrative passages. My suspicisions were again aroused, and so I took all what Pilgrim had said to a friend who has a masters degree in Greek language and philosophy, who also reads Hebrew, Chaldee, and Latin, and is fluent in half a dozen European languages. He was stunned by Pilgrim's claims, and basically said that many of these seminary "advanced" courses are not worth the paper they are written on. I now am personally convinced that pilgrim tried pulling a fast one on me, and I don't appreciate it. Dogmatically stating that an aorist means "had been" without an iota of self doubt, when he had memorised a grammar which says the complete opposite, left me unimpressed by his integrity. But still, you will find no attacks from me at this point. I simply carried on asking some pointed questions about the Greek and quoted the grammar he used.

I then continued to press the fact that he was reinterpreting the quickening in different passages to avoid the conclusion that it was through faith. His reply contained a clear slur:

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Perhaps you are having difficult comprehending these things which the Protestant churches everywhere which came out of the Protestant Reformation have understood, believed and taught for centuries, because you have only had one semester of hermeneutics too?

At this point I realised that discussion is impossible. I replied

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Underneath all the talk about the "Bible," your true authority is revealed to be the Reformers. To these everybody must bow down and give place, even if it means we are born again, then believe, then as a result of believing are born again again children of God. Faced with the impossibility of justifying such nonsense you are forced to appeal to your true authority. I am disappointed in you, I thought you were better than this. But now I know.
The anabaptists were the true people of God at the Reformation, and they would have none of such nonsense as two being born agains, two quickennings to suit preconceived ideas depending in what context your philosophy has to be defended, two accounts of having your heart purified, uhhh it goes on and on, this double vision.

All for what? so you can maintain a theological system which enables you to feel superior and more learned than everybody else. What a tragedy and a waste. Jesus said the day will come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and hearing will live. I suppose the Calvinists of the day were saying "hang on, you can't hear if you are dead, you have to be made alive first."

Well, obviously you have appealled to Calvin, so to Calvin I leave you.

Of course what is a self evident truth here may be considered as ad hominem. So you finally have one to nail on me!!! However, as I said before, faced with such nonsense, I will speak the truth and expose the carnal mentality of those who resist the truth. I will speak the truth in the hope that the wise will turn from their foolishness and unChristian behaviour. I won't speek lies and slanders and false accusations as you people have done though. If that means I have to be booted off of here, so be it. It's a waste of time anyway <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> (though I am working on Susan's reply and it would be shame to not be able to post it, I admit that.)

So there it is. I trust this post will enable you to take another look, and that you may reconsider your false accusation that I was the one who started these ad hominems. Let's see how much integrity YOU have.

ZS

Last edited by ZionSeeker; Sun Mar 28, 2004 10:53 PM.
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"1 Cor. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him." 10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For "who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Only the spiritual man, the man (or woman) with new life, one who is a new creation in Christ, can experience the things of God and know the things God has prepared, and understand the deep things of God.

We cannot understand the things of God any other way than through and by our spirits, and by having the spirit of wisdom and revelation. College degrees, intelligence, etc, cannot give us spiritual revelation and understanding.

The word "natural" here comes from the Greek word translated "soul." Hence it means "soulish," if such were an English word. The soulish man cannot see the things of the spiritual realm. The aspects of the soul, like the intellect, cannot enter in the mysteries of the Kingdom. These things have to be revealed spiritually.
The spiritual man is alive to God in spirit, soul, and body. The natural man is dead to God spiritually. He cannot know God, because his spirit is dead. Eternal life is to know God, and his Son.

These things are to be taught, NOT in words which man's wisdom teaches ("total depravity," "active obedience," "trinity," etc) but are to be taught using words which the Holy Spirit teaches - the form of sound words.

But the Word can convict and awaken a lost soul, and because the Word carries faith, they can throw themselves at Christ and receive new life. They can look unto him and be saved. How does this work. I don't know. I only that this is the way the bible says it.

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How does man get this new nature?

The scripture answers that we become a spiritual man when we receive spiritual life:

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11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

The new nature is to put off the flesh and be raised again in Christ through the faith of the operation of God.

This comes by believing and receiving the gospel:
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22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,

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We agree that a natural man cannot have faith.
We agree that faith is a gift from God.

Yes, we agree that faith is not of the soulish part of man. Faith is the gift of God. It is carried by the Word.

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We agree we must have faith to believe.
We agree that after we believe, we are saved.

Did you mean "to be saved"? Than yes we agree.

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How does the natural man become a spiritual man?

By being born again. How? "To as many as RECEIVED him, to them he gave the right to be BORN children of God." John 1:10.

By coming to Christ and receiving life:

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40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:40


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But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John 14:14




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Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. John 6:53


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Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: John 11:25

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But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. John 20:31

A natural, soulish man, can receive the Word, and believe it. Christ is still the true light which lights everyman that comes into the world, even in man's fallen condition. The grace of God which brings salvation has appeared to ALL men.

The passage in Corinthians is not speaking of how a person comes to Christ. The scripture is clear that we must come IN ORDER TO HAVE life.

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And ye will not come to me, THAT YE MIGHT HAVE life. John 5:40

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So, we must be changed before we can believe so that the spiritual things are not folly to us. God must give us ears to hear and eyes to see, and hearts that can believe or else we are dead to God.


How can a dead man hear? how can they hear the voice of the Son of God and be made alive? I don't know, but that is how it is:

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"The hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear WILL live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself. John 5:24-26

See that? Hearing first, then living. How? Don't know! Is it so? well, yes.

Hope that helps you to at least see where I am coming from even if you still think i am a stubborn heretic. Regards.
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Fred, is that your way of saying that no one dies with Christ in their conversion events?


(Fred) No, it is my way of saying that our dying has nothing to do with our own, personal faith. We die due to what Christ has done on the cross. My partaking in the merits of Christ's death was realized when God called me from my sinful existence, regenerated my spiritually dead heart, granted to me the gifts of His grace with saving faith and true repentance, and then I arose, went forth and followed Him. In other words, Christians are not, in and of themselves, the initiators of their "conversion event;" God is.

Fred


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The scripture answers that we become a spiritual man when we receive spiritual life:

By being born again. How? "To as many as RECEIVED him, to them he gave the right to be BORN children of God." John 1:10.

Your posts are fraught with many of these kinds of inconsistencies. Men need God to become spiritual men, on the one hand, then on the other, they can understand the spiritual things because they are soulish creatures(see below). With all the hysterics and accusasations you sling towards your detractors, you have yet to really give us a scriptural defense of faith begetting regeneration. All of what the Bible teaches about regeneration, new life, etc, always preceeds faith. You seem to suggest this idea of prevenient grace, but have yet to give a defense of it. All that you keep repeating is "the plain reading of scripture says thus and so."

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A natural, soulish man, can receive the Word, and believe it. Christ is still the true light which lights everyman that comes into the world, even in man's fallen condition. The grace of God which brings salvation has appeared to ALL men.

(Fred) Actually, psychie is a translation of the Hebrew nephes, meaning natural man, man in his natural state. You are taking the word beyond its intended meaning by claiming that soulish men can receive spiritual truth by reading the notion of prevenient grace into the text. Moreover, Paul qualifies the ability of this soulish man when he says that he cannot discern the things of the spirit. Cannot is translated from ou dunamous (I am doing this from memory, so please forgive the mangled Greek transliterations). The phrase essentially means no ability, or powerless. All natural men are powerless to understand spiritual things apart from God's work first. That is Paul's main point. You seem to argue that you believe this, but your theology breaks down with your notion that Christ has illumined all men everywhere with some sort of prevenient grace, or pre-regenerating grace as some Free-will Baptists call it.

Fred


"Ah, sitting - the great leveler of men. From the mightest of pharaohs to the lowest of peasants, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" M. Burns
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