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Salvation is "the gift of God". Accepting a gift makes one the receiver of the gift. Rejecting a gift makes one to not be a receiver of a gift. In either case, the person to whom the gift is being given is not a "co-giver" of the gift.
God's gift to us is salvation. Since He is the gift-giver, He is the savior. Those who choose to accept the gift receive salvation, those who choose to reject it do not receive salvation. In either case, the person is not a "co-savior".
The Bible says that 'whoever believes shall be saved'. Belief is a choice made by a person. The Bible is clear that every person is given a choice between believing and not believing. What's more, every person is afforded that choice until his dying breath.
So, no, making a choice to believe in and accept Christ does not make one a "co-savior", because belief and acceptance are PASSIVE, not pro-active actions.
But the carnal mind doesn't receive the things of God. If we are carnal then we won't receive it. See this is where you need to understand. If the carnal mind wont receive the things of God then we must be given a new mind, one that can receive the things of God. See Co-savior theology is flawed.
I work and earn money.
My paycheck is owed to me, it's my money that I receive in return for the work I did.
A gift is something that i receive for no work of mine.
Salvation is a gift.
I dont earn my salvation, I just receive it as a gift.
Just because i receive it into my heart does not make me a co-giver.
There is one who gives and one who receives...
If anyone can claim they have a part in their own salvation (and that includes taking credit for receiving Christ) then they are robbing Christ and remain in an unsaved state.
I agree but I would not charactarize it as being a puppet. God's nature is part of who God is. A puppet is controlled by something on the outiside. Do you believe God can still make choices between doing good and doing evil even though you think God is a puppet to His nature?
I don’t believe God can do anything contrary to His nature and Evil is not in His nature.
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I agree that God can not do anything that is evil. Eternally tomenting is evil. Making man in His image is not evil. If the existence of evil is necessary to make man in His image then God has good reason to use evil.
Well that is what this whole things is about Bob, I don’t believe evil is necessary for God to make man in His image and likeness. You seem to believe God could not make man in His image and likeness without man first being disobedient and nothing in scripture shows disobedience leads to life.
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You said Adam had to be capable of eating the TOL to make a real choice about it. Similarly, Adam had to be capable of not eating the TOL else no free will choice would exist. After all, if all Adam could do was eat the TOL where is the free will choice? Right? Same goes for the TOKOGE. So according to all this, Adam had to be potentially capable of eating or not eating either tree to have a real choice.
Right, but you don’t believe Adam could have eaten from the tree of life even though God told him he could.
Mayest or could are not even in the Hebrew Bob.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thoumayest freely eat:
Thou mayest freely eat: is ONE WORD, it actually reads of every tree of the garden eat.
Therefore Adam could eat from the tree, therefore he had the strength to eat even though you don’t believe he did.
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Yes, if Adam was created a Son of God (in the spiritual sense) but I don't believe he was.
No you believe he was only the offspring of God, but son and offspring come from two different Greek words. So I’ll believe what the scripture says Adam was a son of God.
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I believe people can make freewill choices, but I do not believe in free will (at least under typical definitions). Look at the Jewish encyclopedia for a definition of a freewill offering. The distinction is between required offerings and offerings made because people just wanted to. The distinction is not between free choices and puppeted choices.
I have looked it up brother and gave 20 or so scriptures that show the freewill offering is done by our freewill. Not one of you guys who disbelieve in freewill have even bothered to reply to them.
myQuote: I have never said the potter is a puppet to the clay, I have said and will continue to say the potter responds to the movement of the clay.
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You said "any potter will tell you that they HAVE TO respond to the movement of the clay"
Bob you are really picking on words, “have to†does not mean one is a puppet it just means if one wants to make a vessel one has to respond to the movement of the clay or the clay that makes the vessel will not be whole.
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Not at all Scott. God makes the clay a certain way, with certain weaknesses and limitations. But clay does whatever it chooses to do and wants to do.
Again your words here do not match up with your belief that the clay could not choose to eat from the tree of life.
You say there is a choice but if one cannot make a choice because God planned it otherwise than no choice is really given. One than just becomes a puppet in the hands of God.
And I don’t really understand how you and others cannot see this.
I have asked you a couple of time if Adam could have eaten from the tree of life, you said NO.
So how is it that Adam than had the choice between the two trees?
What you say here and what you believe are contrary to each other brother.
myQuote: I see the potter responding to everything the clay does and molding it after the manner that pleases Him, which is in righteousness, not in disobedience, sin and death.
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That's what I would think too. But that's not what I see in scripture.
Obviously that is not what you see in scripture brother; however, I do see it in scripture so it is not just what I think as you seemed to indicate here.
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No man can eat of the TOL until the Father draws him and until he is taught of God.
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
What do you think the Father was doing when He took Adam and placed him in the garden if not drawing him to Himself?
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It also says that every man that has heard and learned of the Father comes to Christ. Yet Adam did not eat the TOL. So I conclude that Adam had not yet learned of the Father, did not have God's law written on his heart yet.
The reason Adam did not eat from the tree of LIFE/CHRIST is not because the Father did not draw him, it because he did NOT LISTEN to the Father when the Father said eat freely from the tree of life and do not eat from the tree of KOGE.
Adam LISTENED to Eve and Eve LISTENED to the serpent. Adam did not LISTEN (he was not obedient) therefore Adam did not learn of the Father and eat from the tree of life.
That’s the difference between obedience and disobedience, if one listens to the Father they will learn of Him and come to Christ, if one is disobedient and does not listen they reap what they have sown.
Just like us Bob the law was being written in Adams heart, and just like us even though it is being written in our heart if we are disobedient we reap what we sow, which is death.
myQuote: And to put something to eat within reach of someone, tell them they can freely eat it, but not to give them the strength to be able to just teasing the one you offered the food to.
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Just because "teasing" is the only reason you can think of, doesn't make it the reason.
I also said
Brother our assurance of being able to perform all that God tells us to perform is because He does not tell us to perform something unless He has given us the strength to be able to perform it.
If I follow your reasoning, God told Adam to do something but did not give him the strength to do what God told him to do.
Do you believe God tells us to do something but not give us the strength to be able to do what He tells us to do?
myQuote: Well what I would find funny than Bob is that a heart that walked daily with God in the Holy Place and had the breath of life within it is not capable of eating from the tree of life.
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So did Israel under the OC, yet the law was not yet written on their hearts, they had not yet been taught of God.
Nonsense, if I follow that reasoning than Moses, David, Elijah, Enoch were not taught of God either. Yet Enoch did not die because he pleased God, how did he please God? Obedience.
Enoch is a perfect example of one who chose life, and entered into life without being disobedient and entering into death.
There is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Bob that scripture has a twofold meaning, I have already said many a time that it shows Gods way is not death because Gods way is not mans way. But it also pertain very much to this discussion, what you see as Gods way through disobedience, sin and death is the ways that seemeth right unto a man.
In other words, what seems right to you (disobedience, sin and death) is not but the ways of man, which is not Gods ways.
myQuote: So what your saying is God planned for man to be disobedient all along, placed him in the garden, told him he could eat freely but did not give him the strength to do what He (God) told him he could do.
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No because you changed "mayest" to "could".
As I said earlier, mayest and could are not even in the Hebrew it is just EAT.
So I’ll rephrase
So what your saying is God planned for man to be disobedient all along, placed him in the garden, told him he to eat freely but did not give him the strength to do what He (God) told him he could do.
myQuote: The reason Jesus had to be sacrificed was not because God planned out mans disobedience, sin and death Bob, it was because MAN sinned and the potter responded to the clay.
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Then given the right reason you believe God can make a good plan that involves death. So do I. I just believe God had a different reason and planned it sooner.
Responding to the clay is not a plan Bob, it is a response to something already done.
God knew Christ would be sacrificed because of the evil in men’s hearts but that does not mean He planned Christ’s sacrifice.
myQuote: Show me any scripture that says God predestinated some to disobey.
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ESV - Act 4:28 - “to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
NASB - Act 4:28 - to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.
RSV - Act 4:28 - to do whatever thy hand and thy plan had predestined to take place.
ASV - Act 4:28 - to do whatsoever thy hand and thy council foreordained to come to pass.
YNG - Act 4:28 - to do whatever Thy hand and Thy counsel did determine before to come to pass.
DBY - Act 4:28 - to do whatever thy hand and thy counsel had determined before should come to pass.
WEB - Act 4:28 - To do whatever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.
HNV - Act 4:28 - to do whatever your hand and your council foreordained to happen
KJV Acts 4:28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done
NKJV - Act 4:28 - to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.
NLT - Act 4:28 - In fact, everything they did occurred according to your eternal will and plan.
NIV - Act 4:28 - They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
Same word used for predesintation to be children of God.
As I have tried to explain before, that scripture does not say what you think it says, the predestination is not talking about what those men did, but talking about Christ.
As I do not have the words to express this properly I'll give you what Adam Clark says about that those verses and it is what I have been trying to say but he says it much better then I.
Adam Clark
Verse 26. Against the Lord and against his Christ.] kata tou cristou autou should be translated, against his ANOINTED, because it particularly agrees with on ecrisav, whom thou hast ANOINTED, in the succeeding verse. Verse 27. There is a parenthesis in this verse that is not sufficiently noticed: it should be read in connection with chap. iv. 28, thus: For of a truth against thy holy childJesus, whom thou hast anointed, (for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done,) both Herod and PontiusPilate, with the Gentiles and people of Israel, were gathered together.
It is evident that what God's hand and counsel determined before to be done was not that which Herod, PontiusPilate, the Gentiles, (Romans,) and the people of Israel had done and were doing; for, then, their rage and vaincounsel would be such as God himself had determined should take place, which is both impious and absurd; but these gathered together to hinder what God had before determined that his Christ or Anointed should perform; and thus the passage is undoubtedly to be understood.
Bob if you read verse 31 it explains what Herod and the boys were trying to stop.
God through Christ was healing the broken hearted, doing many signs and wonders unheard of before, and for Jealousy of these thing Jesus was given up to Herod and the boys in order to stop Jesus from doing what God had foreordained that He should do.
Which was
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
This was done because many were believing in Him because of the signs and wonders and this the Jews would not allow.
Bob your arguments with Pneuma are teaching pneuma that to get the GOOD information all you have to do is continue in disagreement.
Paul
Whatever, you can continue to beleive evil, disobedience, sin and death come from God if you like, but scripture tells me that is the way that seemth right unto a man;therefore, it should be eveident to all that what seems right to man is NOT Gods way.
So you go ahead and beleive what seems right to you and I'll beleive Gods ways are not the same as what seemeth right to you.
But what I find disturbing is that Gods own children today much like Israel of old beleive God can produce things that are contrary to His nature and what Jesus told us of the Father.
Tossing a man into the sea is not really helping the thirsty in their need for a sip...
Interesting response. Never heard that before.
Paul
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