7367	Forums / Theology Forum / Anointing Of The Sick.	on: June 04, 2007, 08:26:53 PM
We have these analogies of faith throughout the new testament. Our life in Christ is compared to being identified with Him in His death and being raised with Him to newness of life. We are not physically present with Him in His death and resurrection even tho those terms are employed to describe our salvation. In another place Paul says that he wants all men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer. Another analogy to mean that that describes saints coming together corporately to pray , a historically accurate exegesis of that text in Timothy. The holy hands simply are stating another way to describe saints. The same thing with the blood of Jesus, or His stripes, or The holes in His hands. All analogies to the death of Jesus as a substitute for us. And then we have here the anointing of oil, but then the text makes no reference to that being the thing that gets forgiveness, but rather the prayer. So that its another analogy of special prayer for the one who is struggling with illness, or sin or some other malady. Its our great Shepherds love for us that is expressed through our shepherds in prayer that intercedes on our behalf in a priestly sense that is part of our saving process. The Holy Spirits presence in the Shepherds prayers is the healing balm for the saints.
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7368  Forums / Main Forum / In A Rut on: June 04, 2007, 07:46:40 PM History is procrastination is progress. I mean everyone is a procrastinator. You got the pharisee procrastinator. He is very disciplined in the little things but procrastinates about his heart fixed on Christ. The Martha problem. He spends all his time thinking about the moral implications of his actions and has no mercy or love. And then you got the average Joe who procrastinates when hes got to pay something, but when he receives it for free he is rite on time. Did i leave any one out?   Reply Quote Notify

7369  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: June 04, 2007, 07:19:05 PM You say everything that has been doen cannot be contingent because now is the unavoidable result of what has been, and I agree. And here we dive into Augustine. Augustine said that because (cause/effect) man is enslaved to sin, Jer 17:9, he no longer has liberty though he still has volition. Consider that carefully then read on. Very good point. I agree with you. Man does have a free will but not to choose any spiritual good. Man in his natural condition is dead to spiritual things. Yet he does choose moral good and the various likes and dislikes of this world. But Calvin gives very little attention to this kind of freedom. Because really it means nothing in comparison to the bondage of the will in a spiritual sense. Since a man cannot ever choose to be saved, though he may be acted upon by the revelation of God which Romans 1 clearly indicates that all men are and thus all men are guilty, a man's actions will be determined by his own heart. A man chooses his own way. A man's volitional decisions determine his direction, and in this we self-determine the outcomes of decisions and events in our lives. I agree that it depends upon the condition of the heart. The cause of mans action is the mind choosing what is most pleasing at the time of choice. If we dig a little deeper into the area of freedom or liberty, we do not mean that choice is not in the equaliberium state of arminian self determinism. In other words moral liberty equals the will being without cohersion of a cause that determines the choice prior to choosing. What we are saying that the will is determined by the strongest desire that comes from what the mind is most pleased with as to the objects of choice. If a person had two equal objects of choice with the will not leaning either way then that is not liberty of will but no will at all. Choosing is desiring one object over another. Or choosing according to what the person wants for themselves. That is using the subject and the verb properly. When we say that the choice is the mind choosing we are not saying that choosing is strictly in a rational paradigm. The minds view of the object is determined by what kind of understanding a person has by the pleasure one has about the object. In other words moral ability is more than rational understanding, we know what is rite, we do not always do what we know to do. So when we are talking about moral ability, we are talking about the understanding of an object of choice by what pleases us most about the object or what our strongest desire about the object by our forming  a view of the object in our understanding by our rational process and a spiritual process. We call this spiritual affections. So we believe that the forming of what we are pleased with most in our understanding comes as a result of divine knowledge , or from a supernatural source. So what i am saying it is not just the supernatural change in the soul that determines the choice, but it is the divine knowledge applied to the mind that is of a supernatural process that makes the desire strongest so that we understand the view of the object of choice to be most pleasing to us. Its our spiritual affections that are part of our rational process that affect our understanding of the object of choice that deterimines our view of the object so that our desire for that object is greater to choose the good over the evil. A mouth full but think about that .   Reply Quote Notify

7370  Forums / Main Forum / In A Rut on: June 04, 2007, 01:02:00 PM When i begin to think that life is passing me by, becoming numb toward in my disposition then i am not obedient to the demands of Christ in discipleship and not rejoicing that He is a work in the universe and in every detail of my life. I have cut myself off from the vine. The reason we do this is because we fail to see that we are so unaware of our spiritual condition that we fail to grieve over our sin which causes us to be distant from God. We learn to neglect personal time in self examination and meditation so that we shun Gods presence by running from our self righteous state in sin. We are always to give God glory in all of our lives , rejoicing in His presence, longing for His smile, grieving over the hardness of our hearts, and battling in prayer for God to mend our brokenness and make rite our broken lives. Our sastisfaction is in Gods goodness being worked out in our lives so that we see the work of his hands in the circumstances of our lives. We want His favor, His grace to fall upon us through His Spirit so that  we know we belong to a loving Heavenly Father, that we are special to Him. The special presence of God comes as a result of His favor resting upon us like rain falling on us. It is when we long for His favor and go to His throne and sue for it that we are going to experience His special presence. It does not matter who is in our lives or the circumstances that we are in. Our performance has nothing to do with being bored. Its learning how to rest in Him, and knowing Him in all circumstances that cause us to be above our circumstances rather than our circumstances   driving us.     Reply Quote Notify

7371	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: June 03, 2007, 08:31:53 AM
The old add age that you can't change the past since those things that exist cannot not exist. And when we are talking about divine foreknowledge we are saying that those things that exist are necessary and not contingent. In other words there is no way that they could not exist since they already happened. And because we cannot change past actions, we see that we don't have the liberty of making them contingent. As i am writing the things that i do are in the past. So that the reality of what i do is necessary. Otherwise i could change it. And the things that i do are connected in a series of events in whose connection is necessary. If they were not necessary they would not exist. If i was looking back and  saying that there were things in my life that were contingent then there would be no necessary connection to the present and the future and i would really be denying the existence of that past choice. As i am writing the connection to my past writing is necessary to achieve the rest of the post so that all the things that i do are from a cause outside of myself being known by God who is the cause or the reason for my doing what i am doing. Otherwise there would be no reason since my past actions would be without necessity subject to change, which is a denial of Gods necessary infallible foreknowledge since i cant change what is past. 7373  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: June 02, 2007, 05:10:13 PM Quote If God does not decree all acts of men or passively decree all sin in man  then either we are immutable or He is immutable. God is not subject to frustration, or change, or being knowledgeable about any thing. Either God is frustrated or we are frustrated, either God changes or we change, either God is omniscient or we know more about our own plans. If God is subject to change according to mans choices then He repents of His actions. If man can dictate then God can be frustrated. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscience, so that He causes all things to work , so that all events are decreed , even the sin and evil that He decrees passively. We naturally have an independent disposition from birth. We do not seek God , we do not understand who God is so that we are corrupted in all the areas of our being. We are darkened in our minds so that we worship dead idols. These idols cannot speak, they have no mouths, they cannot hear, they have no ears, they cannot see, they have no eyes, and they cannot touch , they have no hands. We make dead idols our gods and then we become just like them. Every idol we set up in our minds comes in a package with a set of rules. Because the idol is not alive we get we must open the rule book in order to work that thing we purchase by the sweat of our brows so that we learn to love our things by how we run them by the rules. We naturally enjoy using our idols in that prescribed manner. It gives us a sense of control over our lives. So we spend all our time , thinking in the i -it dimension. The more things we possess the more we pride ourselves in that kind of idol worship with the rules. We are blinded by our own sin and pride. We actually replace a Sovereign ruler of the universe who has made us to worship Him alone with dead idols. God has designed us to worship Him alone and to cast down imaginations that set themselves up against knowing Him. The i - Thou dimension. We are made to communicate directly with Him. For He is present everywhere so that in Him we live and move and have our being. We are present because God was always present. Our very lives are under His sovereign decrees so that we are receiving life from His life. He holds all things together. When we recognize that He is all powerful, then we will realize that we are not able to do anything good unless He teaches us. And His teaching us is determined by how much we know Him in His word. We are not only to look into the word to begin to be taught , but  we are dependent upon Him moment by moment in the communication of Himself through His word, by His hand being directly involved in all that we experience. When we are regenerated, we receive the Spirit who is the Spirit of supplication. Our new longings are evidence that we have new life, the very life of the Spirit dwelling in us. Now we communicate with our Father, because we now understand by a spiritual sense that He has ears to hear us, eyes that see us, and that His ear is always ready to act by our supplicating. Our natural response to being in Christ is to go to the Father. The more we know of His power, unfailing love, sovereign will, and compassionate disposition the more we will know Him. The more our hearts are drawn out of our selves by prayer and meditation the more     we will gain an understanding of His essence as God and the more we will depend on Him even for our very breath. We are most pleased when God is most exalted so that we are most aware of who we are when we recognize that His pleasure is being worked out in His working in us to will and to do. All of Gods glorious workings in us are from His  design to work in us the good so that He is pleased with His goodness in us. When we bow down to Him and acknowledge His rite to rule in us and through us then we will learn to rejoice in Him in a supernatural way. Our heavenly mindedness will keep us from thinking that we are good enough to be good on our own. Why would we substitute a thing for this reciprocal communication of His glorious attributes. We must learn how to rejoice in Him.       Reply Quote Notify 7374  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: June 02, 2007, 04:05:12 PM If God does not decree all acts of men or passively decree all sin in man  then either we are immutable or He is immutable. God is not subject to frustration, or change, or being knowledgeable about any thing. Either God is frustrated or we are frustrated, either God changes or we change, either God is omniscient or we know more about our own plans. If God is subject to change according to mans choices then He repents of His actions. If man can dictate then God can be frustrated. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscience, so that He causes all things to work , so that all events are decreed , even the sin and evil that He decrees passively.   7395  Forums / Main Forum / Grace And Faith on: May 30, 2007, 07:00:46 PM Quote Howdy, I'm new to the forum, and I've been struggling with a question.  In 1 Cor. 10:13.  Paul talks about being tempted and God providing a way out of that.  I know the standard answer that God will provide an alternative to the temptation so we will not sin, but my query is this, does this "way out" also refer to us that when we do sin, having not walked away from it, that we should have faith in Christ, and His atoning sacrifice for our sin, as our "way out".  I hope that makes sense.  Of course, I'm not looking for an excuse to sin, not that I need one. Yes, there are trials that we must go through in this life. And there are provisions for us when we go through them. I do not think that the apostle is talking about taking one step at a time or the rite step. God orders our trials for a purpose. It is not mainly for a moral purpose. It is to try our faith. He does this so that we will learn to trust in His word, trust in His unfailing love, and our object any trial is to become like Christ. If we just went through this life being blessed, we would become self confident. We would be like the wicked man who says in his heart, i will hunt down the oppressed, and no God will not see, nor will He repay me. So God makes all of His children go through trials so that they will call out to Him for deliverance, because God delivers on the day of trouble when the wicked are most severe in their arrogant plans. God waits for the last minute because He wants us to go from trusting in His word , to seeing His hand in a really clear way. He does not want us trusting in man. He does not want us trusting in a plan. He wants us to trust that His rite hand is directly involved in our deliverance. His rite hand is the place of authority , because Christ has all authority over every thing by right. So we get  ready for the day of evil,or the trial that is determined by God to test our faith. We know that when He seems far away, that our trial will be for our good. It will in the end teach us to walk in a path of righteousness by us learning to trust in Christ righteousness. We will learn that grace is really free. And in going through the trial we will learn that there is nothing we can do except trust in Him. We will begin to learn that we were not as strong as we once thought. We will learn that our strength really causes us the most pain. Because in a trial God deals with our self confidence. If we are going to learn about His power then we are going to need to shed our power. In crying to Him night and day we are learning to depend on His power, because we are single minded, that is we are asking that He lead us down the rite path   which in a trial we are less aware of that path being smooth since our anxiety level causes us to feel some of the pit falls on our way. In learning to go down His path , we must trust in HIs word alone. For His word is the application of our trusting in Him to lead us down the straight path. When we trust in our own understanding, we will be less able to go His way. So we turn from our own understanding and trust in His word alone.   7396  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: May 30, 2007, 06:14:17 PM I believe God does possess an intimate knowledge of our hearts and thoughts, I do not believe though that it nessecary to assert that God orders our every thought word and deed. Yes God has given us a will of our own. We are free to choose what we are most pleased with. But God also has orders every situation so that the prophecies of scriptures are are fulfilled to the exact time and detail. The situations come about by mans moral decisions. \"God works all things for our good and His glory.\" He does what ever pleases Him. Who can resist His will? God knows the number of our hairs, but our sins outnumber even our hair. And God knows our sin better than we do. Because God sees our souls. He knows us better than we know ourselves. We cannot see spirits, but God can. So that most all of His knowledge of us is unknowable to us. He made us and He knows us individually. Because He made us we are dependent for every breath we take. God knows the number of breaths we take, and He orders them. He turns us back to dust by His word so that He orders the length of our lives to the minute. He made us finite so that the knowledge of His will can only be understood according to what we are able to know. By limiting our ability He determined our circumstances that formed our moral limits. We did not choose to be born. We do not choose to die. In between our birth and death our choices are determined by the ability He gave us to along with our weaknesses and strengths that He made us with.So that even tho we have personal responsibility in our moral choices, yet our choosing is cause by our desires, which are determined by Gods giving us the ability to think a certain way and not another way. Our spiritual ability comes from the Spirit and from Christ righteousness so that we are totally dependent on Him for all are good works. Our works are only good because we have have Christ righteousness. The corrupted part comes from us. So in this way God determines our moral choices even tho we are free to choose.   Reply Quote Notify 7397  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: May 29, 2007, 07:42:11 AM Heres my problem. You and i are on the same page basically. But if i am readying you rite, you are saying that you agree that the will can be  coerced [ie sin] and be at liberty, but yet in order for the will  to be at liberty it must not be coerced by the intimate knowledge of God, or it cannot be free? Reply Quote Notify 7398  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: May 28, 2007, 10:28:08 PM Because of this God does not have to foreordain that some will be lost and others saved, but rather God only has to leave humanity alone and we are as doomed as if there were no salvation to turn toward. Heres my problem with your thinking. Obviously there are always consequences for the kind of language we use. I mean if i told you that you did not want to do a certain sin but you did it anyway then really i am giving you an excuse or an out. And i know you are not trying to say this here but that is why i like Edwards. Because every time there is a proposition stated then we must examine the intent or the direction of that proposition. There really is a negative side to saying that a will not expressed is a will. Because when we think in these terms we are really opening the door for the seeds of pragmatism. And really you are using this argument here and trying to argue that mans free will is in the equilibrium state by not willing absolutely. I mean if God is able to not will in order to get the purpose of mans destiny without God being in that purpose, it is the same thing to say that man is able to thwart Gods will by purposing his own destiny or end. Here to me language is everything, because i believe you are introducing the idea that God is not sovereign by not willing what actually happens. Which is the definition of pragmatism. If man is unable to choose, and God allows man to be unable then God wills man to be unable to choose. So that God is expressing His will in purposing man to be unable to choose so that man inability is within the purpose of God since God is the beginning and end of all things. God either wills man to be saved or He wills man to not be saved or there is no will at all.   Reply Quote Notify 7399  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: May 28, 2007, 09:38:10 PM Quote It's remarkable how some theology portrays holiness in such an incredibly extreme way that holiness and evil become indiscernable from each other. Hi ML, Wow you responded to me. Anyway, are you saying that Gods divine retribution is the same thing as the evil people do to others? Reply Quote Notify 7400  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: May 28, 2007, 08:59:57 PM Quote In Romans when Paul is talking about the holiness of God and His eternal righteousness, he says that it is revealed by nature itself and men suppress the truth in unrighteousness by ignoring that there is Creator and in doing so declare their enmity to God. The problem that I have with the double-predestination model is that, while it has a neat bow on everything, it does away with Paul's assertion that God is revealed in creation. God is storing wrath against men, Paul says, not because of their sins, although that fact would be obvious from elsewhere in the Bible, but because they ignore God and refuse to woship Him as God. Paul is saying that all men are called in a general way. MBG, I don't know where you stand on double predestination so this is not really meant at you but reading your post brought it to mind because I think this a radical departure of Calvinists from Calvin, Luther and Augustine where these ideas were first given doctrinal shape. Because there is a general call, which men ignore, God must in  some way reach men so He quickens them, says Paul, but it is in men's free will that the battleground is fought. I didn't in past times think this way, but study has changed my mind somewhat. While Paul says that faith is gift from God and we are quickened by God, nowhere does the text say God compels us to believe. The Bible says Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, but it does not say that Jesus interrupts free will to save us, but it does say that once we hear His voice and acknowledge Him as Lord He will never lose us or forsake us. If DP is correct, and God controls every thought word and deed, then it is illogical to assume that anyone should be found guilty for their sins because sinning would be an action predetermined by God's foreknowledge and therefore inescapable and thus unpunishable. There is also the problem of prayer. If God has already made up His mind about who will and will not be saved then why should we pray? It makes no sense. We should just as well pray to the idols of stone and wood for all the good it would do us were God absolutely unchangable. I know the Calvinit will say, "Well we pray according to God's foreknowledge," but upon what is that foreknowledge based. Augustine said that while we have free will, our every desire is for evil, which the Bible confirms, and therefore we, being evil and children of wrath by nature, through our free will are self-determined beings. It is because of this self-determination that it is unnessecary to assert that God has a perfect and controlling knowledge of the future. Rather, if we are completely predictable because of our nature, there is no need for God to bend and shape us according to His plan for our lives because we will, through natural revelation (the creation), and general revelation (the hearing of the word) walk ourselves into the place where we will experiance specific revelation (the stirring of the heart by the Holy Spirit). I think the notion that God has decided before hand who will and will not be saved is not true because it adds a level of orthodoxy which is unnessecary given the free will of men and the nature of revelation. In the end, those who will not hear the call will have doomed themselves without any help from God at all. But what about Paul, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, didn't God interfere in their lives and cause them to do things according to His plan? Well, yes, but remember as surely as we are free will beings so God is also a free will Being, but His will supercedes ours because He is the Potter and we are the clay, so if God chooses to use His omnipotence to jump into human history from time to time it is His prerogative, after all He's God. All the reformed confessions are from the double predestination side. If God is sovereign then He must will whatever comes to pass. No will can thwart His divine decrees. If you would read my Edwards thread, this is about the most thorough going over of the difference between the arminist view of the self determined will and the choosing according to the strongest desire theology. The basic difference is that the arminist believe that in order for the will to be free, there must be no coheres ion. There must not be any thing that precedes the choice, but the will is in a perfect equilibrium. But to will is to choose an object. For no will can be unless there is an action done. To say that the will is alive in a state of equilibrium is to say that there is no will at all. If you have two equal objects with the will in between those objects you have no act at all . If you divide the life of a person in a line of choices, and you say that the will determines the choices, what you are saying is that the pryor act or will determines the next act or will. Because there is no will unless there is a choice of one object over another. But then you count the choices back to the first choice , the question would be what caused the first choice. In the model , a person who moves a body part is an act of the choice. And so if there is no movement then we say that the person last choice is to not move. So that to choose is to move toward the most desired object. Placing one foot in front of another. Self determination in the arminist veiw places the will as the initial response faculty of the soul. But we know that there are pryor faculties that are in use before the will responds. The mind and the understanding of which is the center of desire. The mind does not just take in facts and then make a choice, but the mind is the center of pleasure, or the spiritual sight, touch , feeling in which the divine knowledge transforms so that we could say that choice is the mind choosing by what it is pleased with most. So that we could say that desire precedes choice, which is the will under cohesion from the mind or desire. We could say that free will, is the ability to choose what one desires the most for oneself.   Reply Quote Notify 7401  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: May 28, 2007, 05:00:25 PM Men are incapable of meeting God eternal standard of righteousness. Since the fall men have been alienated from God, not just emotionally addicted to a disease or physiologically diseased. There are only three states of being that men are in. In the domination of sin, men are in an eternal state of judgment.  They are not just in a lost state but they are in a state of enmity against God.They are at odds with everything about God. They hate God. Men begin life scemeing against the knowlege of God.  They are without the knowledge of God. Men are in complete spiritual darkness. The hate everything about God, they hate every one who names the name of Christ. Men have a natural aversion to any place, person, or thing that represents the name of God. Men like themselves more than they love God. Men never have a thought that is out of divine love. Their thoughts are without natural affection. Men are not only in sin, but they are dead in sin, and in a continuous state of death, under the condemning power of God, and are under the eternal decree of the judgment of God. Mans sin is not just an affront to Gods holiness, but it is an eternal affront to an eternal standard of Gods holiness. Men do not understand the nature of their sin, nor do they understand the eternal judgment that the sin brings to them. If God were to judge men by that standard without mercy, men would be eternally punished from the garden without the least bit of ability to change that state. God is eternally holy , so that He does not change. Where ever God is present, His eternal presence demands an eternal holiness. Men do not only commit sin which is an affront to His holiness, but men cannot even reach the standard of His righteous demands. Men cannot even understand the nature of His anger, nor can they fear God enough any moment of their existence. Any man who thinks that he is able to please God will meet the crushing blow of Gods eternal wrath. He will crush himself against the rock. And who can drink the full wrath of God? Who can fathom that kind of drink? What man can stand up against the eternal demands of Gods law. God is so holy that anyone who has ever encountered His presence has been devastated by His holiness. The more a man senses the presence of God , the more confounded he becomes about his own righteousness. Any man who has met God, has found himself confounded. Gods holiness is crushing. God stoops to a low men to go through this life receiving discipline for sin without being completly swallowed up in Gods eternal wrath, for even the smallest inability to be able to do one righteous act or to meet even the condescending nature of Gods revelation of Himself. Men are never able to understand the full nature of Gods eternal standard of His righteousness nor are they ever judged by that standard , it would destroy the most righteous man. God will pour out His eternal wrath on man one day, it is because God is eternal that He must meet the requirements of His judgment for sin, by and eternal punishment. Men will drink the full cup of His wrath. Men live in the eternal eminent judgment of God. That judgment is not far away. Because Gods wrath is manifested where ever sin is not atoned for. So that men are without remedy. Gods wrath is eternally present in the working out of all things in this world. Men are just blind the the depth, and the nature of its presence. God is pouring out His wrath on men, one by one, as men die every day. God will be vindicated and His holiness will be upheld. No one can escape the judgment of God. Even believers are receiving the judgment of sin. There is sorrow upon sorrow, for sin. We are mixed with sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure. We morn inwardly to wait for our full regeneration of all things. But our sorrow is mixed with joy. We are not without hope. We are in Christ so that we do not need to feel the full effects of sin, but we are receiving grace upon grace.   Reply Quote Notify 7402  Forums / Theology Forum / Paid Forgiveness? on: May 27, 2007, 06:23:19 AM I can understand that the vigorous and noisy bursting of ballons is disconcerting, but I note also that your limited response to my understanding of the Passover did not address the issue of whether or not the blood of the firstborn of Egypt, Ethiopia and Seba was a ransom to the devil whose dominion included those territories. Nor did you address the fact that God would have had to pay this ransom to Himself if that is your concept of ransom as it is used throughout the OT -- and I maintain -- in the NT as well. If i recall correctly, it was Gods death angel they were trying to avoid.