Quote from: billbennett on November 06, 2008, 04:56:14 PM

Tom,

How does the concept of total depravity (which I agree with) fit with instances where God recognized a sense of righteousness even in an unsaved person. An example is Cornelius as seen in Acts 10. In verse 35, the statement is made:

[But in every nation whoever fears Him, and works righteousness is accepted by Him.]

Is there a preliminary work of the Spirit in a person's life even before the actual calling to faith by the gospel?

There are other examples that come to mind: the Ethiopian eunich, the Roman Centurion.

Just kind of thinking out loud, but would value your thoughts.

Bill

Good examples Bill. With the example of Cornelius within the context of the narrative the point of bringing this out was to show that the message of the new covenant gospel of repentance through Jesus Christ was going to be extended the the uttermost parts of the earth. So that Cornelius was the nexus of this beginning to happen in this point of the narrative. He was a gentile convert.
Its amazing non the less to think that his prayers as an regenerate man would be brought out as a point of profiting Him in regards to his salvation. Now we know that we cannot trust in taking our doctrines from the narratives in scripture. Since we need to compare scripture with scripture then we are going to get a proper understanding of salvation. Since salvation does not change from the beginning of man in bondage to sin. But what is interesting here to me is that within the paradigm of the Spirits actual sovereign work on the heart we have a verity of was that He does His work in His time. There is a direct reference to the Spirits regenerating this man at a point and time. There s no mystery in this.But the Spirit is like the wind that you cannot see, and it blows according to Gods design rather than under the control of man. And so there is a sense in which the Spirit works on men s hearts in a variety of different ways. So that when we go to different references of other narratives we see that some men are brought into this world with the Spirit already regenerating them, and it is the time of consent that they show there being saved. And even in the gospels it shows that Gods design in salvation is toward the individual rather than everyone being grouped in the same time frames. And in this way the Spirit is working beyond the understanding of men.

Because men are given to the temptation of putting God in a box. And i guess that if we are to allow that God has a right to choose men in His time and on His time table of preparation then we are actually arguing for divine sovereignty rather than thinking in terms of his prayers being the reason that he came to Christ. For there is no one who seeks God on their own.

 And if you go to Ephesians the apostle is talking about his former life under Judaism, prior to his being saved so that he distinguished the pre salvation elect from the rest of the unregenerate. In other words there is a work on the heart of the elect prior to being saved that is called legal conviction. Legal conviction is a work of the Spirit through the word. But we cannot put a time limit on how the Spirit works in this way. Because just as it would end up being a folly if a man were at one point and time assured that he was saved to talk himself into being in a state of legal conviction so that he lives in a constant state of turmoil, at the same time it would be folly to presuppose on the sovereignty of God as doing a work in His way. Whether Cornelius was saved prior to his praying or he was in an unregenerate state when the Holy Spirit came upon him, it was the narrative that the Holy Spirit did a work on his heart that was a converting work. In other words as in all the narratives of Acts the Holy Spirits work is sovereign.

 As far as assurance , i think a person is to be trusted by his word. And as far as being assured that one is saved, we all go through ups and downs, but if there was a time that we remember that we turned to Christ and we experienced having a new set of spiritual desires, i mean that we were drawn into finding all of our hope and rest in Christ work, then we must take the focus off of ourselves and onto the security we have in Christ. And  if we presently preach to ourselves His word then we shall find the One who was already seeking us.  

 I just saw your response Poe, i will answer.

5940	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: November 03, 2008, 09:15:46 PM
I think there are two things here about sickness to think about. There is a temptation to have a sense of spiritual distress because of the relationship between the physical and the spiritual. Well , on a level of how we measure the effects of sin, that is the mysterious reasons beyond the eye, we are always in a state of groaning. So in a sense we are experiencing a level of spiritual warfare within these different paradigms. This mirrors our broader view of who God is, because it brings about the awareness that we acknowledge that God has the power and the ability bringing into time a remedy to meet that level of declining health. If we worship God with all of our might, then His working to will and to do involves the working within this relationship between the physical and the spiritual to effect a remedy. So in this sense we are always concerned as much to remedy the physical sickness. Health in general does have an effect upon our ability to meet the spiritual demands as a normal function in the christian context. The motives have this mixture in which God communicates to us His care for us. So that in a sense we receive grace that not just involves the spiritual strength dimension. But as well as the remedy that we become aware that God has performed in the willing to do, we do experience a certain mystery in all of this. And since we are always tempted to react to the outward manifestation, this treatment of one another must involve this understanding in what motivates us to a trust that is very practical.

5944	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: October 31, 2008, 10:38:51 AM
Yes pardon my saying things that are difficult. On a conscious level then there are these different paradigms of these distinctions between the imagination of truth and a living in the reality of being under the spirit of a truth as we have an understanding of that nature in its central focus. God reveals truth as He is present in the immensity of that illumination. In your light we see light. So that Gods natural way is a comparison of the insincerity of the paradigm of His willing into existence the nature of His unfeigned desire to will only what is pure truth in meeting our conscious need toward the simplicity of the most basic paradigm of assurance. The nature of that assurance is all we have as what is true in our present believing. Whatever illusions we in our illumination of the truth stand as giving us a sense of being under that illusion of the sincerity of the immense nature of the assured power of the illumination. Thats why there is this spiritual paradigm in drawing this parallel in our experience of a resistant lack of spiritual sense in understanding this unfeigned power. 5951  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: October 29, 2008, 07:14:26 PM I certainly do not want to take sides against everything you have said. Cause that is a misrepresentation of my view. I believe that every thought of our heart is corrupted. God looks down on the thoughts of men and He concludes that they do not understand His always being the teacher on every part of our existence. Who taught God? Do you think that if He judges nations that he will not judge the Pharisee? Who has taught God? No one. And we are not taught by His word as if it came from the words themselves. But we are taught by God through His word. And the only thing that we know is true is revealed to us by God Himself through His word. Because God has spoken and whatever He speaks is eternal. How can we understand the full nature of the application of HIs word in all of its working in our souls? How can we describe the length and the depth of that miraculous work in us? How do we describe the result of the joy unspeakable and full of glory. We are mere vessels being fill to overflowing in a reality that is beyond words. For who can know the depth and the height and the length of Gods love? And if we cannot know it, then we have an experience of it without understanding it. We are made to dwell in wonder and amazement. In this sense we are depending on God to apply that word to us in a verity of ways. There is a mystery to His working in each individual. And even tho all real knowledge is revealed knowledge, yet how it works out is very mysterious. Ok, there may be a contentment that is beyond words as we draw strength from Him in knowing HIm. There is a joy from the contentment that cannot be described as a continual source to us that comes upon us or from us that we are experiencing this application of Himself in having life flow out of us in this pleasure. We cannot explain it. Then there is this confidence that we have in our thinking that has a design to fill us with a mysterious assurance that Christ is taking us by the hand and that He is so big that He is all around us, behind us, before us, and at our side and yet we have no way of putting that into a corporal understanding. And then how we are led along in this world through all of the danger, threats, and workings that we do not know, and yet we are led along as if there was this mysterious shielding from all of these dangers. How do we have such a confidence that there is this other reality and yet describe how it is applied to us? I mean we feel the Spirit in some form of power over our souls to keep us from dwelling on some of the paradigms that would eat away at our security in Him. And we know that He is dealing with us a Shepperd who leads us through the valley of death. But here is this perfect transaction to our understanding of this spiritual paradigm and yet we dwell in these bodies that are so very weak in power to receive this kind of electrical current. How are we able to have personal infusions of this spiritual current and yet not be consumed by the over flow to us? There is nothing to describe His life flowing through us. 5953  Forums / Key Life Forum / Re: The intruder of my mind when I pray is..... on: October 29, 2008, 02:15:04 PM Life is about what is not directly related to how we live with a holistically view of the world. If we are to know truth we are to know it as the children of God, that is we are all Sons of God who deals with us as sinners who have no hope of living with a consistent standard of behavior. If God should mark our sin, then who could stand, or who could live with assurance of being righteous. Who could have a disposition that is without guilt? So that there is a pride in all of us that makes us live as if we were able to challenge ourselves to live with an ability to measure ourselves as if we could handle the repercussions of our bad behavior and feel a certain satisfaction with our good behavior. We live in the world of living by the law in order to measure up to the law. But then there is a super naturalism that breaks through in which we become what we are, in spite of what we are confronted with on a daily basis with reward and punishment. We live as if we were already completely holy. Because we were made to love those things that were accomplished by Someone else on our behalf. So than we live in a world that transcends the order of the world around us. If we are to understand the motives and the incorporeal nature of the reality we are to enjoy, then we are to find true liberty in His revelation as being this other component. What is absolutely necessary becomes what we are to become. We are to have our minds transformed by this view of a necessary reality that we live in as being provided by Someone other than us making our own reality. We live with the view of a prior transcendent necessity outside of time as the reason for the existence and sustaining of all things. Otherwise, there would be no reason for us to do the things we do if we live in the reality of a chance choice. That is if we cause our own existence. If then we began at a point in time then our beginning was purposed before we existed. The reason for our existence was given to us from God. So then how could we believe that prior to our existence there was no necessary meaning for us to be brought into existence? And how could we be purposed to exist without that purpose being fulfilled in our existence? If we are brought into existence by a will that is not ours, then it is necessary that we existed prior to our existence. And if we are made with that necessity then how we exist was purposed prior to our existence. This is why God was outside of time and has purposed all things to be as they are before they are brought into time. So that we draw our reality from out dependence on God who has willed the beginning from the end. Everything that exist is only necessary as it was willed prior to our experiencing it in time. Otherwise it would be a choice by chance. Reply Quote Notify 5954  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: October 28, 2008, 08:03:11 PM When we get our focus off of the mark then we get fooled. Life is living in reality by understanding the origins of all things and how they are sustained. So that the important things are the focal point of our world view. We all have a description of who we are. That mirrored image we think about. And we have been made to admire the moral good in others and in ourselves. So we start from an image of what we think is the most honored image we could think of. So that everything is tied to our image of the real Man. We were made in the image of God. We are not just like bots accumulating facts about how to do something, or how to get along in this world. But we view things in this world as if we were longing to be in the presence of the most beautiful circumstance and we were someone better than we view ourselves. We long for something that is transcendent. We have thoughts and images that are inanimate. So we have a world developed with these different longings and views in our understanding. Since we are created by God then, we are made to give Him glory by having our understanding in line with how He views us and the world around us. Because unless we find God we will be restless. Since then our understanding of the image of God is the most important understanding that we could ever have then that would be our focus. Because if our image of God is wrong then our image of ourselves is wrong and we are imagining a reality that is not real. Wow, now setting up images in our minds for the sake of convenience is extremely self destructive. Because we were made to long for those things that are real. And we were made to understand the world by how we understand the image of who we are by reality. This is why Christ was in God before the foundation of the world, and He created everything that exist. So that we were made to know Christ the image of God so that we might spend our days having our understanding in a real world of knowing that image. Christ has revealed Himself in salvation. From the time of the fall He has appeared and yet not completely in all of His glory.But He has given us enough to understand the image of God. So that in the old testament He was revealed to the saints as the coming redeemer. They longed for the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So that we know Him to be our friend by His presence in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit searches all things and He reveals the reality of the image of God to us in the face of Jesus. What we understand of His image will determine what we long for in reality. Reply Quote Notify 5955  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Is this guy serious? on: October 27, 2008, 08:17:56 PM Quote from: toadbat on October 27, 2008, 08:06:24 PM Quote from: The G Man on October 12, 2008, 04:23:46 PM That sorta got my blood pressure up. If we should stop expecting christians to practice what they preach, then why should christians expect others to practice what they preach?? Now I think I see where the confusion is coming from; it is the way you have this worded. G, it sounds as if you are saying here that if Christians go around saying things that are inconsistent with their actions, then why should they object when a non-Christian does says something that is inconsistent with his or her actions. In other words, If I am a Christian who's railing against drinking alcohol and yet is a closet drunkard, how can I take exception to a hindu who rails against eating meat, and yet I saw him at McDonald's twice last week having a Big Mac. If this is what you mean, then I suppose that you have a point. However, what I am beginning to suspect that you meant is that how can any Christian rail against the sins of others when he or she is practicing those very same sins? (Something that does not come through in the original wording). It was a case of equivocation; the sense of the word "they" got shifted in the original (read it) and therefore caused the confusion. I dont want to sound trite about sin, but it is not just that man looks at the outward that defines the looks of sin. I find that an unbeliever is more interested in trying to get a christian to be good apart from grace. Ok, if there is a sin that is pointed out, then how can a person still witness even tho he has done something to remedy the situation? What i find in the world is that sin is always put forth as the reason a person does not like a righteous person. I do not see how living a life that looks like we have no struggles with sin will bring a person one step closer to grace. Since grace is for sinners. And i do not think that encouraging someone to be religious because it helped stopped someone from being a drunkard is a good reason for witnessing. I know that its better in the long run , since we try to develop relationships with the unbeliever to be consistent in being a friend and having concern. Being understanding and doing things without expecting to receive. But even this kind of understanding is not going to bring a person to Christ. Only the Spirit with the word can do that. It would seem to me also that if the focus is on Joes behavior of bringing someone to church , then as long as Joe puts on that front then the church witness is important. But as soon as Joe has a problem, then the cards start to tumble so to speak.