Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
So you define away what it actually says.
That Jesus is in us provides us with the empowerment to do as you say. But it does not force it to be that way. You are assuming that getting the power will result in doing. If that is the case, then Peter would not need to remind his readers that they have all they need for godliness. Must be that some were not living as if it was true.
You seem to argue that it has to look true in a person's life or they are not really saved. If that were true, then there is no reason for admonishment. There is no reason for excommunication of the one sinning among them. They were admonished to treat them as (not call them) a heathen. And then welcome them back in when they had repented. Welcome back in suggests that they were in to begin with.
Too many evidences of the frailty of man continuing until the end to declare that we are either empowered and doing or going to hell. You have not exactly said that, but if you would stop and link all of your separate pieces together, you would see that it is the only conclusion that can be gathered from it. Yet you say that is not what you are saying. So you must be misrepresenting the scriptures that your are relying on because they are not that black and white on this matter.
|
Ezekiel 36:26-27
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules
I believe God's grace will meet us at our will to obey him. By our flesh alone we are unable to even if we have the desire or will. Peter resolved in himself not to deny Jesus but he ultimately failed because he hadn't received the Holy Spirit yet.
The Holy Spirit empowers us to obey God's commands. If we live according to the Spirit we'll be abiding in Christ and be under no condemnation. The Spirit will lead us to forgive and to repent. However, if we exercise our free will to live according to our flesh then as Paul says in his epistles, we'll be in trouble.
Galatians 6:7-8
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Calvinists believe God's grace will cause his elect to live according to the Spirit, abiding in Christ and his words until the end of the Christian race.
Arminians believe man has to exercise his free will to do the same until the end, and God choses man based on foreknowledge who will persevere until the end.
Which one is correct is unclear to me because as you mentioned, many scripture tells us to perfect holiness with holy fear (2 Cor 7:1), and to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12), these seem to emphasize man's free will rather than God's sovereignty. However if we're born again and abiding in God's word this should compel us by God's grace to exercise our free will to obey Jesus' commands because we love and fear him and he told us to in places like John 15.