The Bible never describes faith as a work.

For all the labor that Calvinists invest in pointing out any sign of "works by faith," one would think that Paul would warn the Christian about it. But no, in contrast, he expresses faith to be the antithesis of works. It's either faith or works, not, as the Calvinist would suggest, a faith work.

rogerant wrote:
We are not saying that the word "world" always means the elect. What we are saying is that it does not always mean every single person on the earth, which you appear to do.

2. I do not believe that "world" means all of humankind in every single instance. But the most common meaning of the word is not going to be changed simply because I have a theological preference. Especially if the definition I use is one that does not exist anywhere in the world except in the figment of the Calvinist's imagination.

The real question is if you have any linguistical, contextual, or etymological reason to ignore the plain meaning of the word "world."

The answer: no

The fact is that "world" never means "elect." The only place it means "elect" is in the figment of the Calvinist's imagination. John the apostle is not an idiot, if he wanted to say elect, he could have easily said it.

The Bible is not so perplexing that it needs a Calvinist to decipher the meaning.

Besides for all your perverted arguments about "us" in other passages of scripture, one would think that this would open your eyes a little. John is contrasting "us" (believers) to the world (the rest of people). If you should force "world" to mean "elect" you are essentially stating that John is contrasting believers with themselves: "He not only saved the elect, but he also saved the elect."

Rogerant, you have nothing to lose but everything to gain when you allow the Scriptures to be sovereign over your humanistic rationalizations.

rogerant wrote:
Do you know what the word propitiation means???

I believe that your hangup is that you believe that the beneficiary has no choice but to accept the gift that has been offered. Unfortunately, the Bible gives no such characterization. You will be hard pressed to find a verse that states any such thing. In contrast like any other gift, propitiation can be accepted or rejected.

So it's not a matter of God being paid twice, Mr. Strawman, it is a matter of whether or not a sinner will accept Jesus's death as payment or not.

Now this is where my house of cards becomes a massive fortress. Jesus has propitiated the sins of the whole world. While the Calvinist would say that he is the propitiation for our sins ONLY...

I john 2:2 wrote:
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

David wrote:
Then, did Christ's death actually save anyone or just make all men savable?

David wrote:
Did He actually satisfy His Father's wrath for sin or did God punish His Son for our sin, and us as well if we don't "let Jesus come in to our hearts."?

David wrote:
Does that then make God unjust for now he punishes two men for the crime of one?

But the fact remains that we DO NOT believe that everyone will be saved but rather that God makes salvation available to everyone. Big difference.

Joseph wrote:
Romans 5:18 represents two groups:
1. All men who are in Adam and condemned.
2. All men who are called in Christ unto justification of life.

Paul then wrote that when the law entered sin abounded, but grace did much more abound (Romans 5:19-21), but only to those who were given the free gift of grace and justified unto life and he addresses the “beloved of God, called to be saints” through the entire epistle to the Romans.
Romans 1:7
“To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

1. Your consistent use of eisogesis. Romans five speaks nothing of election, the called, or the like. So for you to insert "who are called" into the text may be convenient to your theological position, but it simply is nothing more than wishful thinking.

2. Simply because the book is written to Cristians does not mean that everything spoken is spoken of the Christian. There are parts in Romans that speak of hell, but I doubt that just because Romans was written to Christians that he is stating that Christians are going to hell.

DJC49 wrote:
Both Joseph and Yamil ... er ... "Daddy" ... are missing the glorious point of Romans 6:12-21
Paul goes through great pains to show the similarities and dissimilarities in the 2 federal heads of mankind -- the 2 "Adams" -- Adam and Christ.

One cannot have all mean one thing in a verse and something completely different in another verse.

Especially when the Bible states otherwise:

Romans 5:18 wrote:
"Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

If you are going to do damage to Paul's parallelism by insisting that many means few, then if you will be consistent in your parallelism then you would have to conclude that only some are sinners not all.

So that if "many shall be righteous"= only a few will be saved

then

"many were made sinners" have to also = only a few are sinners.

That's of course if you would be consistent. But I would not be surprised if you should try to have two different meanings for "many" in the same verse.

But if one will accept Paul's meaning of "many" then just like he states that in Adam all are made sinners, then in Christ all can be made righteous.

This is derived simply from the context. In one instance Paul states:

"death passed upon all men" (v.12)

in another instance he states the same truth but differently:

"many be dead" (v.15)

So unless you believe that not all are sinners, you have a huge problem with your hermeneutic. One cannot simply pick and choose when "many" means all and when it does not solely on one's theological preference.

What you are saying in fact is that death has not affected all of mankind. Paul is using Adam and Christ as representative heads of humankind. You can't state that Adam is the representative head of humankind that brought death but Christ is not. Paul clearly makes that connection between Adam and Christ. One cannot simply pick and choose which parts to accept and which parts to reject in the parallelism that Paul makes.

Besides, you betray yourself. You state that verse 18 is the conclusion. I agree. But if verse 18 is the conclusion then verse 18 gives the explanantion of verse 16 NOT the other way around. Otherwise verse 18 is no conclusion at all.

To add further injury verse 16 is sandwitched between two ideas. Verse twelve makes reference to "all" and verse 18 makes reference to "all." So it is quite obvious to the naked eye that "many" is subjected to the same idea.

If you are going to maintain that "many" means that salvation is offered to a few, then you will have to explain how "many were made sinners" does not mean that only a few are sinners.

Icon O'Clast wrote:
You got more room in your woodshed? Let me know cos I got scores more where these came from....

I perceive that you are still in the humanistic "logical deduction" rut.

Would to God that you would care more for what God's word actually states.

While you hide behind the "whole of Scripture" fallacy while not showing one passage that clearly states what you believe, allow me to demonstrate to you how simple it is to allow God's word to speak for itself:

I believe that God offers the gift of salvation to everyone. Below is a verse that clearly states that

Romans 5:18 wrote:
18Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

But one would have to care about what the Bible actually states.

Isaiah 5:22 wrote:
"Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink."

But then again, one has to really care what the Bible actually states.

Sorry, your untruth has just been taken to the woodshed.

Also, you might want to refrain from calling me a liar. Just because we disagree, does not constitute a lie. SA policy:

Personal attacks or insults directed at other users will be censored.

Apples and oranges.

Dichotomy where a dichotomy does not exist.

Pious pontifications.

As I stated before, we already know that the WCF had to include the "logically deduced" clause to give Calvinism a fighting chance. But you must understand that in an age where people do not have to fear state-run religions they simply want God's word on it.

Evolution can be logically deduced.
Polygamy can be logically deduced.
Homosexuality can be logically deduced.
Virtually any perverted fancy that occurs to any single depraved heart can be logically deduced from the Bible.

I encourage you to get pass your humanistic rut.

Tell me when you will actually show us where in the Bible does it state that God has preordained simpll an elect few unto salvation.

The problem that you have is that you preffer something that can be logically deduced over what the Scripture clearly states.

Icon O'Clast wrote:
The argument used against drinking is always that there is the possibility of over-indulging or causing others to over-indulge. In all these things there is both legal and illegal usage. Sex is legal - between a married man and woman. According to the argument of some I must abstain from sex with my wife because it could lead someone else astray and make them a rapist.

The liberating truth is that there is no such thing in the Bible as legal alcoholic beverages.

The liberating truth is that God never ever condones alcoholic beverages.

It is an undisputable fact that, wine in the scripture (and for the longest time in the English language)makes reference to both alcoholic and non alcoholic grapejuice. The context will tell us every time to which drink it speaks if we have the slightest care to what it actually states.

In every instance where the context is undoubtedly refering to alcoholic beverages, it is spoken of in a negative light.