If your argument against a Bible verse is that "there are other verses that say the opposite", you are fundamentally misunderstanding and mishandling the Scriptures. All Scripture is cohesive and correct within it's context (2 Tim 2:15)
Well said. But Calvin and the primary person he followed had the idea that current prominence was more important than what God used the apostles to write. In that, they end up creating contradictions and by necessity of holding to their conflicting views must reject the validity of Scripture. I've not been able to take a Calvinist through Heb 10 - _without them repeatedly having to insert words and try to reverse the clear meanings_ that are repeated back to back to back. ... If a mechanic pulled apart your transmission to see how it worked, then declared, *"I've put it together right, ... this gear just doesn't fit"* - you'd rightly call their assembly skills in to question. *You don't even have to know how to put a transmission together yourself - to know that it was all assembled together before that mechanic came along throwing out pieces.*
@@MaintDocs Agreed. Good luck reading Romans 9-11 with a Calvinist also. The entirety of all of those chapters are expressly to "Israelites" which Paul makes clear in the first four verses of Ch.9. But somehow Calvinist will try and convince you that these chapters (that look backward at the Old Testament) all about Israel's stubbornness and God's faithfulness somehow are the best chapters in the New Testament to build Christian doctrine upon.
It's never permissible to explain away a text by attempting to trump it with another one. Both texts must be explained separately and then harmonized together. Failure to do so leaves the expositor with a contradiction in scripture for which he or she has no explanation.
Jesus didn't say to Nicodemus, "the kingdom of God." He said, "Kingdom of Heaven." BIG DIFFERENCE! Typical of how Calvinists try to prove their unbiblical doctrines, BY MISQUOTING SCRIPTURE!!
@@glennlanham6309 It is to pharisaical Jews, but not to Matthew for he uses God where Mark uses a circumlocution, Matthew 26:63; Mark 14:61. If Matthew would be consistent with this theory of said circumlocution, he would have used “Son of the Blessed One” aswell, or even instead of Mark.
“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also AFTER THAT YE BELIEVED, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,” Ephesians 1:13 KJV
Correct. How about also, Romans 10:17 "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Faith comes by hearing...NOT regeneration. Hearing what? The Word of God...the Gospel. Why do Calvinists confuse this?
what came before they believed in that passage? Hearing the gospel. Of course someone must hear the gospel before they can believe it. That does not prove Calvinism. Also, posting this passage does not answer the Colossians passage
Next debate just ask a Calvinist what they’re saved from, if they say he’ll ask if hell was actually ever their destination, because it couldn’t be if you were elected to go to heaven before anything ever. At no point was hell your actual destination therefore you were never saved from hell
Isaiah 46:9 explains God determined the end from the beginning, the crucifixion of His Christ, the Apostles whom Christ said don't think you chose Me for I have chosen you, He chose Isreal to reveal Himself through and also the elect as it was explained in Ephesians 1:4-5. If it wasn't for His grace and mercy we would be hopelessly going to hell. Yet the gift is to all but John 3:19 explains men luv darkness rather than light. All salvation was determined from the beginning and the preaching of the Gospel is that instrument used as a means to gather His sheep.
@@godsson491 But I thought the decision to elect some and reprobate others was made UNCONDITIONALLY in eternity past, before the foundation of the earth, BEFORE anyone had done anything good or bad?
@@losnfjslefn8857 It's called mercy and no man can earn his way to heaven. He called and transformed those HE predestined, yet the gift of salvation is open to all men but men love darkness rather than light as it says in John 3:19. John 6:44 Christ said no one may come to Him unless the Father draw him...so it's man's fault because they will choose darkness rather than light...
Ah yes. The fine hermeneutical method of ignoring the obvious literal text in favor of an obscure and highly debatable idiosyncratic interpretation of another text. Good job, Wheddon.
@@jeffallanday that is Ttue. However, He is consistent with his Hermeneutics, unlike the man who's entire ministry is attempts to prove one things Wrong; We Know a tree by It's Fruit.
For 30 years I have been raised and taught to believe the Bible is God's *_inerrant_* Word. And for 20 of those years I have been a Calvinist. I no longer hold to the doctrine of Inerrancy after an ongoing and in-depth study of Biblical contradictions. With that I am no longer a Calvinist as of 8 weeks ago. The Biblical writers each held to their own theological views. Every theological system has its own proof texts along with "challenging" texts because the individual authors held to their own views. Now that I've stopped trying so very hard to harmonize all passages it is absolutely plain as day that the Bible contains many differing and diverse views. For some reason Christian tradition won't allow us to read the Bible and let the individual inspired authors speak for themselves without [re]defining their terms and filling in their gaps from other authors. I know that is a hermeneutic principal but it needs to be done in respect to the author's message and intentions. I do still believe Paul taught a Calvinistic leaning Gospel. I think James actually was arguing against what he saw were the dangers of Paul's Gospel. I no longer see why James and Paul should be harmonized and agree with each other. They both make very good points. To force them to agree you have to either change Paul's meaning or James' meaning. Maybe Christians shouldn't apply extra-Biblical rules to the Bible and just read it in all its variety of views and testimonies of God and His plan for Salvation. Christians today argue theology with each other because the Bible argues with itself.
Romans 10:17 "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Faith comes by hearing...NOT regeneration. Hearing what? The Word of God...the Gospel. FAITH regenerates (makes us alive Spiritualy) us. Why do Calvinists confuse this?
Probably because of their A Priori assumption that we were all dead in sin = literal corpselike inability to respond positively to even the Father's life-giving offer of The Son via the Holy Spirit - breathed Gospel. They sure have a low view of God's power to save!
It’s even better if you include verse 13. Together they prove Calvinism is false. Read both verses together carefully: “you were also RAISED WITH HIM **THROUGH** **FAITH** in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And when you were DEAD in your wrongdoings and the **uncircumcision** of your flesh, He MADE YOU ALIVE together with Him,” Colossians 2:12-13 These verses say 4 things: 1 FAITH precedes being raised to LIFE from the dead 2 This happens while we are DEAD in our sins and when we are ungodly. 3 This happens before God spiritually circumcises us and frees us from our bondage to the flesh and sin. 4 This says/means: ungodly humans - who are spiritually dead in their sins - and who are uncircumcised and are thus still in bondage to their flesh/sin CAN HAVE FAITH. People dead in their sins HAVE THE ABILITY TO HAVE FAITH. ----- After this debate Joel Webbon went to Dr. James White and asked him how to refute Colossians 2:12. White tried to refute it by saying the circumcision in verse 11 is Calvinistic regeneration - **BUT** - it can’t be because verse 13 explicitly states we are made alive while we are dead in our sins and UNcircumcised - that means BEFORE we are circumcised. So White’s weak attempt to get around verse 12 fails.
@ Hello friend, That’s a good and essential question. The answer is: no. Here’s a long explanation why: The only baptism which is required to be saved is the supernatural baptism in the Spirit - and only Jesus ever performs that baptism. There are at least 5 different types of baptisms in the New Testament. The word ‘baptism’ means ‘immersion.’ I will talk about just 2 here: Baptism with water (done by human hands) is different from: Baptism with the Holy Spirit (only ever done by Jesus) The New Testament repeatedly differentiates between the two: ““As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Matthew 3:11 “I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”” Mark 1:8 “John responded to them all, saying, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but He is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the straps of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Luke 3:16 “so that He would be revealed to Israel, I came baptizing in water.” And John testified, saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. And I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’” John 1:31-33 Jesus Himself made the same distinction as John the Baptist: “for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”” Acts 1:5 And again: “I remembered the word of the Lord, how He *USED* *TO* say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ “ Acts 11:16 “USED TO” means Jesus REPEATEDLY said that. Also, in the book of Acts: “Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, arrived at Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted ONLY WITH THE BAPTISM OF JOHN; and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.” Acts 18:24-26 - Acts 2 says the type of baptism we need is the type where one receives the gift of the Spirit. “And Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38 - The following 3 scriptures state that we receive the spirit through faith: 1 “you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-having also BELIEVED, you were sealed **IN** Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first instalment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession,” Ephesians 1:13-14 2 “This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain-if indeed it was in vain? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?” Galatians 3:2-5 3 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Galatians 3:13-14 You receive the Spirit by hearing with faith. And we also know that Acts 10 and 11 show that Cornelius received the gift of the Spirit BEFORE he was water baptised. Also: In Romans 6 it talks about a ‘baptism INTO Jesus’. How does one get INTO Jesus? Please read the following carefully: “you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-having also BELIEVED, you were sealed **IN** Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first instalment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession,” Ephesians 1:13-14 That means receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit happens when we are put INTO Jesus - i.e. the baptism with the Spirit is the same as baptism into Jesus. Also: Jesus Himself taught that it’s the supernatural baptism/IMMERSION **IN** HIM which saves. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides **IN** Me, and I in him.” John 6:56 But what does ‘eat my flesh’ and ‘drink my blood’ mean? Jesus already explained that a few verses earlier: “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; the one who COMES TO ME will not be HUNGRY, and the one who BELIEVES IN ME will never be THIRSTY.” John 6:35 Read that carefully. Come to Jesus = eat Believe in Jesus = drink (See also Isaiah 55:1-3 which says the same thing snd explains that ‘eat’ means ‘come and listen.’) Believe in Jesus = the way to abide **IN** Jesus. Believe in Jesus = the way to be supernaturally baptized/IMMERSED **IN** Jesus. -- Also: “For you are all sons and daughters of God THROUGH FAITH in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized INTO Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:26-27 CLOTHED WITH CHRIST = IN Him It doesn’t mention water baptism. It says through FAITH. ---- Also, I want to explain another way the Scriptures show that we are immersed into Jesus through faith - but first I have to show you something: please notice that the following 3 scriptures all say: Jesus = the LIFE. “ **IN** Him was LIFE, and the life was the Light of mankind.” John 1:4 Jesus said: “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and *THE* *LIFE* ; the one who **BELIEVES** in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and **BELIEVES** in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”” John 11:25-26 “this life is IN His Son. The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” 1 John 5:11-12 Ok, now I can show you another way the Scriptures say we enter/get immersed IN Jesus: Jesus said: “TRULY, TRULY, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and **BELIEVES** Him who sent Me, **HAS** **ETERNAL** **LIFE** , and does not come into judgement, but has PASSED out of death INTO LIFE.” John 5:24 Notice - the new life: that’s being born again into a new life - and it’s explicitly clear: hear + believe = passed into life. Jesus = life. So when it says ‘passed into life’ it means ‘passed INTO Jesus.’ Also, look at this with maybe fresh eyes: “so that everyone who BELIEVES will have eternal LIFE IN HIM.” John 3:15 --- And: “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” Mark 16:16 That says one is baptised by believing. That’s the only way to interpret Mark 16:16, otherwise the following verses (which don’t mention water baptism are incorrect: “‘And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Acts 2:21 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”” Romans 10:9-13 --- Romans says the Baptism into Jesus is when someone is born again: “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:3-4 And the Bible is repeatedly clear that people are born again when they BELIEVE: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who **BELIEVE** in His name, who were BORN, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but OF GOD.” John 1:12-13 “Everyone who **BELIEVES** that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,” 1 John 5:1 All of this together means people are born again when they are baptized INTO Jesus - and the Bible says both those things happen when someone BELIEVES. It doesn’t mention water baptism. And it’s too late for water baptism because it happens after hearing the gospel with faith. That happens way before a person is water baptised.
I’m totally a Calvinist. But Joel Webbon really underwhelmingly represented our side. Totally give props to Leighton for being so gracious with such a poor answer.
“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.” Colossians 2:11-12 ESV If faith is the instrumental cause of our justification, it is implied that this instrument is wielded by the cause of our justification which is made without hands (another term for our own human power). That would leave God as the efficient cause of our justification, which is more clearly repeated at the end of this passage which seems to name faith as the powerful working of God. If we are justified by OUR faith IN the powerful working of God it makes us the efficient cause of our salvation which we cannot accept and still hold to salvation by grace alone. The work of justification is accomplished at regeneration through faith. The works are simultaneous and perhaps even identical in a sense. What precedes both concepts though is the efficiency of God’s power to accomplish His purpose. This also seems clear in the context of Colossians generally where the Apostle says in the first chapter: “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together…. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” Colossians 1:17, 21-23 ESV Here the instrumental cause in our reconciliation (ie justification) is Christ’s death and we are presented blameless given THAT WE CONTINUE in the faith. It seems to be discontinuous to assert that we are passive in our reconciliation but then responsible for our preservation especially given the statement that in Christ all things hold together. This text seems to indicate that Christ, who is before all things, exercised His power to effect reconciliation through His death and resurrection, preserving us through the Holy Spirit’s working of faith, and this concept is revisited/expanded upon in the following chapter. Also note from chapter 1 where Paul says this: “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,”Colossians 1:12-13 ESV. Here we see that we have been qualified by the Father, again pointing to our passivity in our transferring from the domain of darkness. This again seems to indicate that it is God who supplies the necessary condition for qualification. No need to go all over the Bible to find counter-proof texts. I believe this demonstrates that, if we accept regeneration as the efficient working of God’s power by removing a heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh, regeneration indeed does precede faith logically, even if we know that in time they are simultaneous. Shalom brothers and sisters
Exactly, no baby ever circumcised themself. I would ask, how much input did anyone get in their first birth? Being born of water? Yet when you are born again, born of the Spirit, your input is now a requirement? The Spirit, like the wind, goes where it wishes. "So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Doesn’t matter what verses you give ,calvinists will always “do” Calvin….calvinists can only convert Christian’s…unbelievers can’t receive it nor understand it… but an unbeliever can understand the gospel and simply ask in Faith for salvation…steer clear of the so called deep wisdom of Calvin…. It’s a dead end road that leads to no assurance of Gods love … and no assurance of salvation… no one can ever know if they are the elect since God has to save you before you even reach out in faith…. Run from Calvinism into simple childlike faith then grow in grace
1:50 JW: "Yeah but you see other texts contradict that understanding here" LF: "Which other texts?" JW: "the one that says you can't enter the kingdom before being born again." LF: 🤨
He specifically emphasises the “see” the kingdom of God if you fancy being charitable. You have to hang a lot on a specific interpretation of “see” and superimpose that on other clear texts.
Yeah as I commented above, Leighton does a really good job of not focusing on context because verse 11 and the beginning of 12 says that we were circumcised with a circumcision mad without hands (referring to a spiritual act of the Father cutting us off from our old self) having been buried with him in baptism (being out to death to our old selfs which Paul’s theology is that that is an act of the Father in Christ) having been raised with him through faith (faith is a response of the sinner who has been cut off from their sinful life and this sinful world because they have been made alive by Christ. Ephesians 2:1-8)
Both men clearly misunderstand the process. Regeneration begins with being BORN AGAIN as a Child of God by the Spirit. Colossians 2:12 doesn’t speak of being “born again”. It speaks of being RAISED TO NEW LIFE. Being RAISED TO NEW LIFE is the end of regeneration. 1. Born again by the Spirit (see John 3). 2. Faith in Christ (because you can now see He is Lord and King… ie see the Kingdom of Heaven… see John 3). 3. Baptism… in which you confess that Christ will raise you with Him and by which God seals you (see Colossians 2:12). 4. The indwelling is the Spirit by which God causes you to bear fruit and sanctifies you throughout your life… and by which you are empowered for ministry. Although this sanctification is always limited by this “body of death” that we inhabit in this life. 5. Death, by which you are released from your body of death. 6. Resurrection & Glorification by which you are raised from death and given a new Spiritual body that is incorruptible (see 1 Corinthians 15). Both men clearly misunderstand this process and that is why they don’t get Paul’s language in Colossians 2.
Why did Lydia need her heart opened by God before she heard? Acts 16:14 (LSB): 14 And a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening, whose heart the Lord opened to pay attention to the things spoken by Paul.
Did He even know that Passage is in the Bible? No offense, but I find Calvinism inconsistent intepretation of the passages that deal with election and predesgination quite disturbing!
So he'll read things into another verse, but ignore the clarity of Colossians 2:12, claiming it's contradicted elsewhere. How bizarre to hold onto a false teaching that strongly. Thank you, Dr. Flowers for your continual illumination on soteriology.
Not to mention that when he went to John 3 to give a very clear answer to support that regeneration supersedes faith and that this would be the big passage that proves there’s a contradiction. Just to find out that John 3 is literally not stating what he would call a complete contradiction I mean John 3 doesn’t even come close to teaching that regeneration supersedes faith. 🤦
@@samuelaguilar9668 Oh yeah I know the Calvinist passage of Ephesians 2:2 Pacifically where it says he made us alive who were dead in trespasses and sins yeah that scripture just does not support the Calvinistic view of what they are trying to portray what is dead It just doesn’t cut my friend you can’t take that passage and make it look like a person is completely dead as in dead in the ground can’t breathe can’t see can’t smell can’t touch can’t do anything can’t cry out for help can’t move can’t hear yeah Paul is not portraying a dead body as in physical Death and to actually think that that’s what he is portraying you are adding to the text you are trying to make the text say something that it is not. But just to help you out here’s the key to understand Paul is not talking about In a physical death as in you can’t move you can’t breathe you can’t touch you can’t smell because you are completely dead and buried in the ground as a dead man here’s the key to understand that he’s not referring to that type of death Ephesians 2:2: in which you once walked according to the course of this world, well Paul is referring to the time that you guys called this person a dead man who is in the grave and cannot move and smell and touch or anything because he’s dead but yet he says in which you once walked according to the course of this world 🤔 sounds to me and pretty clear this person is not dead in the way the Calvinist make him out to be dead sounds like he’s walking and he’s alive and if he’s walking and alive then he can also be called except and receive what God wants from him. 🤷♂️ sorry but these two passages the one in John which by no means illustrates regeneration supersede in faith or does the passage in Ephesians illustrate anything to do with the Calvinistic View that a dead man is completely dead as in a physical death like you guys always make this passage try to say which Paul is not illustrating as i just proved to you A dead man cannot walk either 🤷♂️ so why don’t you guys read the Scriptures a little better before you add on your doctrine which is not correct.
That's exactly what those trapped in cults do. A Mormon must see everything through the lenses of Joseph Smith and likewise, a Calvinist must see everything through the eyes of John Calvin. Both are strongholds that produce cognitive dissonance. Both are idolatrous.
@@godsstruggler8783 wrong. Leighton Flowers did not do exegesis. He failed to do exegesis in his debate with Dr. White that's why he lost the debate. Watch it. These videos clearly show that Dr. Flowers cannot do exegesis th-cam.com/video/XBX0Dh47T3U/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/NWFKwrfEFT8/w-d-xo.html
The verb "circumcise" is passive, a spiritual "cutting away" of that which alienated men from God in Christ (thus why it is done without hands), done upon the Colossians, not something the Colossian believers did themselves. "Having been baptized" is an aorist, passive participle, connected to the finite verb "circumcised," and therefore is not water baptism, but is baptism done upon the Christian, having been buried spiritually by God, killing the old man's influence effectively; this is the act of regeneration, being "born again" by God and not of man. The following και in verse 12 introduces another aorist passive finite verb, "raised together" through faith, the raising together being linked to the actual moment of salvation (which is NOT the same thing as the moment of regeneration), which indeed does take place through faith, but the earlier circumcision and attendant baptism must take place first. Once this has taken place, then the individual is raised to newness of life and enabled to exercise faith in the God who powerfully worked to raise Christ from the dead. Therefore, reading "raising to life" as the same thing as "regeneration" is a misstep, but one that I can see someone making from the text. In other words, the answer by Leighton Flowers to Joel Webbon, although a very good point, is not as open and shut as he would like to suppose.
All the things Paul describes, the circumcision, burial, raising etc, are passive, but they all happened through faith. It all happens together once you believe. Paul isn't trynna explain the step by step timing, but that it happened through their faith. The fact that it's passive doesn't change the fact that it happened through faith, not faith through it.
@@lonelyguyofficial8335 I understand what you are saying and, believe me, active faith is most definitely the means by which the sinner receives the salvation offered to him by Almighty God (and so a real act of the will takes place). My point is that the only way the will is made, well, willing, is through this prior act of God "circumcising" and "baptizing" in order to believe, for as you can see, the verb πιστευω ("to trust/exercise faith") isn't anywhere in this passage and must be supplied therefore by implication, and I would argue, an implication due to one's prior theological commitment, not solely from exegesis of the text. But I do agree that Paul is not trying to give a "step-by-step" for sure. Thanks for the response!
@@lonelyguyofficial8335 Good point in regard to this; however, I do believe that one can still hold the idea that this faith is gifted to one by God (and in harmony with the rest of Scripture) and not be in contradiction of Colossians. Sorry again for the quick response but not thorough reading!
This is why we shouldn’t depend on one verse at a time, verse 11 says that in Christ we were circumcised with a circumcision without hands by putting off the body of flesh through the circumcision of Christ. The text starts with an act of Christ cutting us off from our sinful flesh which is the act by which we can have our faith, you have to read things in context which is something Leighton doesn’t do
Maybe Leighton doesn’t do that right here in this clip, but if you think this is something he DOESN’T DO EVER, then you just really haven’t watched his TH-cam page or listened to his podcasts where he does that very thing over and over until it becomes almost monotonous. Agree or disagree with his theology, one thing you can’t say about LF is that he hasn’t done exhaustive hermeneutical and exegetical research to back up his position. Just sayin.
@Skyler Garrison So Leighton accuses Calvinists a lot of the time of simply not understanding his view, but the reality is is that I actually do try to listen to Flowers on a regular basis, I’ve listened to his debate with James White on Romans 9 countless times and his attempted defense of his view on Romans 9, but also looking at other passages he’s looked at, and it’s silly on your part to think that he does consistent exegesis of the text. Flowers while accusing Calvinists of not being good at context is himself really bad at context But I’m just curious, do you agree with my point that Colossians 2 begins with the concept that God performs a spiritual act on the persons spirit before they have faith? Are you agreeing with what I said about that? You didn’t really address the point I made about Colossians 2
@@andrewdavidson8167 If you had never been taught Reformed theology, and you read Colossians 2 :11-12 would you really see any one of the 5 points of Calvinism there?
@Skyler Garrison So a couple of things 1. I asked you a specific question at the end of my last comment, you haven’t answered that question, you can’t just answer with a question that has nothing to do with my question 2. I’m going to correct an error on your part. It’s the assumption of many like Flowers and Craig that different doctrines are treated as philosophies and theologies that are not directly derived from the text but just consistent with it. When you say “if I’ve never been taught reformed theology,” assumes that reformed theology is not biblical, and is just another mere philosophy. This is an error because I once believed in all of the things like universal atonement and free will and prevenient grace and all of those things, it wasn’t till I really started studying the Bible that I saw what it truly teaches which is none of the things I mentioned just now. And reformed theology is much broader then the five points, it puts its primary emphasis on the scripture and it’s clear teaching and how that impacts our lives. Reformed theology is biblical theology for the simple reason that the reformers wanted to get back to what the scriptures say, not what tradition or the pope says, what does the Bible say 3. I’ve already quoted what the text of Colossians 2 says, it begins with Paul saying that in Christ the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and in Him we have been filled, having been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands (a spiritual cutting off from the flesh by the Father in the Son) having been buried with him in Baptism (a spiritual putting to death of the old self which is always an act of the Spirit working within us, it’s His work that makes us new) and having been raised with him through faith to newness of life (John Calvin believed that faith was a gift from God because of our former dead state, but that faith was truly a response of the person who has had the light of the gospel illumine their minds) I would also point out that Colossians can’t mean what Leighton says it does because further in the text you have a discussion about the sin debt being cancelled because it was nailed to the cross with Christ, if that’s true then universal atonement cannot be a thing because that means everyone has already been forgiven of their sins, making either the work of Christ not truly efficacious, or it means that sinners pay for their sins twice which means the cross isn’t all that powerful God is free in His decision to save who he wants because he is the only being with true libertarian free will. When I first started studying theology I would read Romans 8-9 and Colossians and John and Hebrews and without even hearing the terms reformed theology or Calvinism, my conclusions were pretty darn similar to what they had been saying for hundreds of years. I guess one last question, if you haven’t been taught the things you were taught, would you see universal atonement or regeneration after faith in Colossians 2?
@@andrewdavidson8167 Wow. Thanks for the insults. You’re really smart and I’m dumb. I guess anybody who isn’t “Calvinist” is believing “unbiblical” doctrines……even though there are incredibly brilliant scholars who disagree. I’m sorry to have even entered a discussion that will involve nothing but insults and circular reasoning. Have a nice day.
I mean, how can you see a kingdom that you did not enter? LOL. I agree, separation between C and enter is quite a stretch. Then again Calvinists tend to be quite limber in their hermeneutics.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
@@scottthong9274 Sorry, it seemed obvious to me. Webbon and Flowers both are so focused on seeing/entering the kingdom of God in John 3 that they miss the explanation that Jesus gives to Nicodemus on how one actually becomes born again: through the Spirit who goes where He wants to and we don't understand it.
@@jdoe97 I've always been puzzled why so many equate 'Seeing the kingdom' with salvation or understanding the offer of salvation. What's the basis they use?
@scottthong9274 I don't mean to intrude but this debate really bothers me (having close family and friends that disagree with me) mostly because of the absolutely elusive definitions at play. I'm a Calvinist and I find that if you avoid all the buzzwords, you can get most to agree with the doctrines of grace. All that aside, Jesus' (and any other NT writer's) vocabulary should be understood in light of the Old Testament. In this situation it's very beneficial to bring in the OT prophets. I think they build a vocabulary that is obviously invoked by NT authors. Hence the connection between 'seeing the kingdom' and salvation. Light and darkness, sight and blindness. Really, 'seeing the kingdom' is a useless term out of its cultural and historical context.
It’s not ‘your faith’ - it’s the energies (works of God) Col. 2:12 the NiV is a bad translation. Plus it’s seems Baptism is the instrument here not faith alone.
Verse 12 says we are “raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him [Christ] from the dead.” First of all, if someone is raised up “through” something, then they must already have that something. In Calvinism, though, Calvinism’s elect are given faith right then, as “the working of God,” in which the operation of God is the operation of the gift of faith. However, the context shows that the real “working of God” is all of the spiritual blessings mentioned of the believer being made complete, circumcised by Christ, raised up, made alive and forgiven of sins. The passage isn’t discussing an effectual gift of faith. It’s discussing what God accomplishes for those who believe in Him, in which faith is the instrumental means through which God chooses to bestow these gifts. So, to make the “working of God” into a code word for effectual faith is reading into the text while ignoring the context.
@@foreleftproductions756 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through FAITH-and this is not from yourselves, IT is the gift of God." Ro reject faith as the gift of God is to espouse Pelagianism, a heresy...
I'm sure Joel Webbon would concour that Christ is the firstborn of the Children of God, and that no Re-birth or Regeneration preceded his resurrection. Why does the Christ tell the woman after her discharge is healed: "Your faith has healed you." And he says of the Samaritan woman "No greater faith have I seen, no not in all Israel." By Jesus's own testimony, faith existed long before there was any regeneration. Faith by itself is not a work, it's an expectation of God's mercy and righteousness. God says something, or does something, and a person simply believes what is said or done. The glory goes solely to God, not the person who simply believes.
Why couldn't regeneration precede the Resurrection? Resurrection and regeneration aren't really related that way. Paul talks about regenerate and unregenerate Jews wandering the wilderness. Would you classify David as unregenerate?
Those that hear are his sheep. They believe because they are his sheep. They’re not his sheep because they believe. They believe because they are his sheep.
@@bibledoctor7623 Jesus said his sheep hear his voice. That means you gotta be his sheep in order to hear. He said you don’t believe because you’re not my sheep. That means in order to believe you have to be his sheep.
"For by grace you have been saved, THROUGH FAITH..." Eph 2:8 When it continues with, "that not of yourselves..." it is referring to the "grace" that you received. But you received the grace THROUGH YOUR FAITH, calvanist friends. This is why Jesus said, "FOLLOW ME." He did NOT say, follow John Calvin.
The difficulty of this is that it also says, "not a result of works..." in the same sentence. If you propose that the "gift" refers to the grace of God received, then the result is the "faith" (which is not a gift of God) becomes a work. This is so because the "not a result of works" refers to the exact same antecedent as the "not of your own doing" which you say is the grace of God and not faith. It also seems odd that Paul felt the need to teach that the grace of God is not of ourselves according to your explanation. Who believes that it is?
@@bradevers8718 God bless you, friend I used to be a calvanist, but praise God for freeing me from that lie! I'm going to do my best to untangle you from that wicked web of deception and strawman arguments that is the doctrine of Calvanism and try to get you on track to follow Christ-- not Calvin. Especially since Jesus said, "the blind lead the blind and they both fall into a ditch. Jesus is the only One who rose from the dead. Follow Him. Or you can follow John Calvin who is still in the grave-- the choice is yours. The man you follow, RC Sproul, was a smart man, who was more interested in winning an argument, than actually teaching the bible. First off, "works" as described in the bible, is a remarkable action performed by a man/woman whether good or evil. It is not, however, used to describe an unremarkable act, such as taking a breath, lifting a finger, stepping forward, having a thought, etc. Calvanists want you to believe faith is a work, because otherwise their doctrine becomes the doo-doo that it actually is. But think about it this way: If I've murdered 6 people and I'm standing before a judge who has every right to destroy me, but his favorite color happens to be blue and I happen to be wearing a blue button up shirt in his courtroom. So he offers me a pardon. Was it my blue button up that freed me or the judge who decided to pardon me, who, by the way, could have just as well thrown the gavel at me despite my blue shirt?? C'mon friend. We cannot boast over faith. Faith doesn't make me any less a piece of crap than I was before I had it. At the end of the day, I'm a murderer. But GOD -- IN HIS MERCY -- gave us grace through that condition alone: our faith. To your second point or rather your strawman, once again, NO. Grace is NOT of ourselves. And I'm clearly stating that it isn't. Does God have no choice but to give me (a murderer) grace on account of my faith?? He is not required to provide us an "out" for our crimes, but HE has chosen to do so in HIS (not mine) SOVEREIGN MERCY. And His SOVEREIGN choice of an "out" for us is through faith in His Son. We don't get any other choice than what HE SOVEREIGNLY provided. Think, friend. PRAY. Seek God with ALL of your heart (Jeremiah 17:9). If God wanted you to be a robot, why would He not just do so from the beginning and avoid all the thousands of years of suffering? He already knew the end from the beginning! C'mon man, think! Is it not significantly more consistent with the bible's account that God gave man free will (freedom to choose) so that love would be real? That even though He knew mankind would not choose Him first, he created us anyway, preparing to offer for us the greatest display of love imaginable: forgiveness by way of ULTIMATE sacrifice of His own Son even as we were wicked?! And yet even though He did this, many will STILL FREELY choose to reject Him and therefore, will suffer for it. God made you far too intelligent to play a game with Him. You know that calvanist doctrine makes you a robot who's just playing pretend with God's bible because ultimately God does everything and we do nothing at all. Why even have a bible?? C'mon dude. Come out of that wicked web of deception and lies and stand in ACTUAL awe (not pretend) of the God Who had the most perfect plan to have an AUTHENTIC love relationship with His creation for those who would repent and believe and forsake ALL that they see for what they cannot see. I know these calvanist teachers are wordsmiths, but that is why we must follow Jesus, not man. Jesus said, the Helper will teach you all things (John 14:26); and again, the Spirit of truth will guide you (John 16:13); and again, "you will hear in your ear a voice from behind you say, 'this is the way, walk in it when you turn to the right hand and to the left (Is 30:21).
@@quinnjenkins7897 we’re qualified for salvation by accepting the calling that he puts on every single person in the world everybody receives the calling of Christ then we accept that calling we don’t choose it or make a choice for it, but we except the calling when the Holy Spirit works on convicting us of unbelief
@@quinnjenkins7897 One cannot make the saving faith decision for Christ until they are regenerated by God and given the faith by grace to believe in Him. Dead men are dead. Lazarus did not come out of the tomb to be alive. Lazarus was made alive so that he could come out of the tomb. Eternal difference.
@@Gablesman888 explain this: “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, 👉🏻choose 👈🏻you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15 KJV “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore 👉🏻choose life👈🏻, that both thou and thy seed may live:” Deuteronomy 30:19 KJV Jesus died for the sins of the whole world: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 👉🏻world.” John 1:29 KJV “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the 👉🏻whole world.” 1 John 2:2 KJV He came for the lost.. “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save 👉🏻that which was lost.” Luke 19:10 KJV Believe in Jesus
And also know the principle that scripture interprets scripture. Arminians are quite adept at finding "contradictions" in the Bible. They are better at it than even atheists.
Why so you ingore the complete verse, the reference ro " being raised" is raised from the waters of baptism, having faith in the "working of God". God is the one acting when we by faith submit to baptisim.
The guy with no glasses is Leighton Flowers, he represents the traditional (non-Calvinist) position that says people are able to and must accept Christ by faith in order to be saved and given new life. The one with glasses is Joel Webbon, he represents Calvinism which says God must give people new life first so that they will be able to accept Christ by faith.
I'm really not sure Col 2:12 can be used to say faith comes before regeneration, not if you read the surrounding verses; vs 12 does not exist in a vacuum. Vs 13 says, "When you were DEAD in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, GOD made you alive with Christ." Just as in Ezekiel 37:4-6: ‘[God says] Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”’ In both cases God is the initiator. It's God who breathed life into the dry bones; you'll not get a single response from these bones unless God does something first - that's the whole point. Similarly, Col 2:13 clearly says we were as dead as these dry bones, but it was GOD who made us alive with Christ. We could only have responded with faith after God made us alive in him first. Just think about it. If you've just had a massive heart attack, your heart has stopped, so has your breathing. How can you do or respond to anything unless you are first defibrillated? You can't defibrillate yourself. That's why it says, it's GOD who made you alive. I fear Col 2:12 has been taken out of its context.
Just for the record...you don’t defibrillate a heart that has stopped. You defibrillate a heart that has an abnormal or irregular heart beat. You use chest compressions to get a a heart beating again. Carry on!
We were spiritually dead and cut off from God. Faith comes from hearing the message about Jesus, then if you choose to bury your old self with him in baptism, you are raised up (born again) with him through YOUR faith in God. Why would you need to respond if God already made you alive? Col 2:13 is clearly a result of what happened in the previous 2 verses.
@@foreleftproductions756 Thanks for the dialogue. I’m not sure it negates anything I’ve written, though. Dead, dry bones just do not do anything, except that God breathes spirit into them and make them come alive. We were dead, and it was GOD who made us alive, not ourselves. Perhaps I can put it another way. John 3:8 tells us, “The wind blows wherever IT pleases … you cannot tell where IT comes from or where IT is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Let just say you’re right. You confess faith, therefore you have to be born of the Spirit. The Spirit MUST come to you, right there and then. Yet unbeknown to the Spirit, someone across the other side of town, out of the goodness of his own heart, confesses faith in Christ. So now the Spirit has to dart all the way across town, so that this other person can be born again too. Oh no, but 5 other people, in 5 other different states, decide at that very moment they want to confess faith too. So now the Spirit is tearing His hair out. And who knows who, out of the goodness of their dead and sinful hearts, will decide to confess faith next, in this country or across the globe! It’s an absolute nightmare! No, no, no. The Spirit blows where IT wills. Just as with the dry bones, they don’t dictate where the Spirit will blow. The Spirit is not dragged and torn here, there and everywhere at OUR whim. He does not dance at our beck and call. No, HE gives life. HE decides to go where HE wants to go.
Its funny how Leighton wants Colossians 2:12 to mean what he wants it to mean but scriptures such as Ephesians 2 :8 "For by grace are ye saved *THROUGH FAITH*; and *THAT* (FAITH) *NOT OF YOURSELVES* *it is the gift of God* ..........not so much! Even though scriptures make clear that even the faith we exercise IS a gift from God. "For to you it *HAS BEEN GRANTED* on behalf of Christ, *NOT ONLY TO BELIEVE* in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, -Philippians 1:29 Or 2 Peter 1:1 "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that *HAVE OBTAINED A LIKE PRECIOUS FAITH* with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Obtained - Lagchano To receive by Divine Allotment. Yes, Leighton, Faith IS "the instrumental means by which we are raised with Christ." And THE LORD places HIS Law in our hearts and minds. The LORD makes us alive by HIS Spirit. The LORD "takes away our heart of stone and GIVES US a heart of flesh." The LORD "Enables" us to "come to" (believe) in Christ! The LORD GIVES US faith in order that we may "be raised with Christ." Those who don't understand this need to understand: 1. The entire reason why a new covenant was needed is because in the OC "God found fault WITH THE PEOPLE." (Hebrews 8) They "Turned away from" HIM. Their "Part" was TO OBEY. But they did not because they COULD NOT and therefore 'GOD' S ARM had work salvation for Him." GOD had to save "some" (Ezekiel 6). A Remnant that HE saved by grace even though they were just as guilty as the rest. This is why in the New Covenant *GOD GAURANTEES* that His people WILL come to Him AND WILL NEVER TUR AWAY! READ: Jeremiah 32:40, Hebrews 8 and 10, Ezekiel 36. The work of salvation is 100% ALL of God and NONE of us! Read all of the "I WILL" statements that GOD DOES of HIS "Free Will" to save those whom HE chooses and who HE WORKS IN THEM "to WILL and to DO" according to HIS pleasure. 2. Salvation is NOT about people and our "free will" which is the myopic focus of people like Flowers who, whether intentionally or unintentionally make man the focus of salvation. Salvation is about a COVENANT that GOD MADE TO HIS SON "DAVID" (Christ) The "Sure Mercies of David" and NOTHING will keep God from fulfilling His covenant promise, not even sinful creatures who ALL DESERVE nothing but God's wrath!
it is *not* faith that is the gift. It is salvation... according to many who understand the Greek in that passage. In fact, according to pretty much everyone who is not a calvinist that needs to read it the way you did.
That's not even remotely the case. One side is reading the English or what it says while the other is denying it. This isn't an issue of translation; reading the same concept except in greed would result in the Calvinists performing the same mental gymnastics in a different language.
First of all Joel got stomped on Colossians 2:12 and when he recognized that he did he said well there are other passages that would clearly State this and when asked to give his best passage he went to John 3 and John three does not make any type of statement to prove his doctrine that you are regenerated first before you believe 🤷♂️ John three is simply stating that you must be born again before you enter the kingdom of heaven it says nothing about being regenerated first before you can even have faith 🤦
@@samuelaguilar9668 there’s nothing to study that I have not already know where, in either passage, do you see you must be born again first before you can have faith to actually believe in Christ what a ridiculous teaching 🤦
@@will195 That's ridiculous for you. But you don't know what the Bible Truly says. Ephesians 2:1-3 2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. How can you believe if you are spiritually dead? You must be born again in order to believe! John 3:8 New International Version 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." Regeneration precedes Faith.
@@samuelaguilar9668 dude I was a Calvinist I know every view the Calvinist hold to, and how they hold to it so don’t tell me what I don’t understand about the Calvinistic view because I left Calvinist because of studying the word, and realizing that they were pushing their own interpretation into the Scriptures every passage that the Calvinist go to I see it through forward knowledge of God through free will of man that’s the problem with Calvinist. They only look through the eye of a single lens. They don’t realize that every passage they go to to support their doctrine there is a free will stance on that same passage, but they don’t wanna recognize or look at it that way that’s why I love Mr flowers he really knows how to come against the Calvinist view by showing every passage they go to in a free will stance 🤷♂️
The good old redirect Calvi's love so much. They never really try to dig in to a text that doesn't go along with their soteriological position but instead just redirect to a different verse. Systematics is the cart before the horse for Calvis. Precisely the thing to avoid when I did some time at college - exegesis to biblical theology to systematics. Not the other way around.
Faith IS the means by which we are raised (to justification).. it’s just not the means by which we are regenerated. Justification and regeneration are not the same thing
Correct. Regeneration precedes faith logically. In other words, one is born again in order to be able to receive the faith that is the gift of God. And regeneration can also precede faith in time unless it is contemporaneous to faith. Possible example of this is the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus.
Yeah I think Colossians 2:13 supports this as well. When Pastor Joel read the whole thing in context, my thought was “how does 2:12 necessarily support Flower’s position of faith preceding regeneration?” It just doesn’t make sense logically. Praise God for His goodness and mercy toward us.
No it doesn’t say what flowers quoted. Flowers quoted an incorrect translation and he only quoted part of it. Regeneration was in the verse here quoted but he left it out. Flowers is a ConMan.
@@aletheia8054 If TR text type says so it says so. "[…] ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God […]" How are you going to say he read from a corrupt translation when every translation is corrupt save the byzantine family?? 😭 Lol
@@Isaiah_Cochran The man has a doctors degree in theology. He knows better than to not check the Greek. And he knows better than to quote part of a sentence. Especially when the first part of the sentence refutes his own belief.
@@aletheia8054 I think me and you will just have to agree to disagree on a higher-education percipient actually wanting to NOT go to the greek, first chance they get lol…
With all due respect to Leighton, he is confused here and mixing the categories. The raised through the faith here does not represent the regeneration here, else buried with Christ would represent our spiritual death which is not true. What does it mean? Christ as a representative of the new humanity of elects dies as a righteous judgement and God raises Him up. The people of God are buried with Jesus’ death in His punishment. And in the resurrection of Christ, through our faith, while Paul using perfect tense here, it is a future hope.
Would agree with most of your points.... But love jokingly ask Eph 2:8->10, Is it grace we get the faith to believe because it by grace you have been saved through faith... So do we get grace to receive the faith, or was it our faith God extend and give us grace? Which is it. Is it really a "Chicken and Egg" issue? Is there anything in the Bible that might help add clarity? Absolutely! As we read in: Rom 12:3 ) For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. So faith is not of one's own ability but an allotment from God, or to really drive the point home :) As we read in Rom 9, it is God who decided how to make some for honor and others for dishonor....? But wait there is more :) Is our salvation worth anything? Is it something we get or is it something we have always had...? My point is consider: 1 Cor 4:7) For who considers you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? So the if eternal life, faith, grace, our salvation or any other thing worth rejoice and praising God for... Is it something we had or something we received as we are dead, blind, and wretched sinners? THANK YOU JESUS for Your grace. I am only in Christ because the Father gave me or the elect to the Son. I've never seen a verse to say anyone can come to God on there own... I've heard many assert and make assumption (we all know why one shouldn't assume...) but the argue from what they say is solid logical reasoning kind of like if "A" then "B' follows which then we can assume "C" and so one... But my point they do so simply by man's wizDUMB and reasoning, and i think "God's ways are not our ways". Anyway Sakthivel, not trying to say you are asserting anything, an if we talked in person bet we would agree on all this too... Anyway God bless you. Cheers!
I think one thing that helped me see the issue clearer, that I actually learned from Dr. Flowers is that sovereignty often means determinism for the Calvinist. Just substitute the words basically. Or sovereignty means control. Where as his belief is that sovereignty means due ownership or rightful ruling. Just something that helped me see it more clearly. Thought I should pass it on.
Regeneration and Conversion are like two sides of a coin and they happen simultaneously. We can however speak of a logical order as we distinguish God as eternal and not bound by time and the creature to whom God (Father, Son, and Spirit) apply salvation in time and space. In other words. Regeneration and faith are instantaneous and simultaneous as the spiritually dead sinner is supernaturally brought to new life and given a new nature by God. Small explanation of "regeneration" and "conversion". *Regeneration* is a monergistic act of God by which he changes the nature of the dead sinner and in doing so gives them new life. God tells us in his word that he takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh and the heart of flesh that he gives us causes us to walk in accordance with his law as opposed to the way we naturally walked while an enemy of God and hating him and his law. *Conversion* is the result of God's monergistic work of regeneration. We experience these two sides of the coin in an instantaneous and simultaneous manner as creatures who are time and space bound. As we turn away from one direction we necessarily turn to a different direction. That is to say as God gives the gift of faith IN regeneration (they are simultaneous) we necessarily desire and love God and we continue in repentance according to his powerful grace which he works in us and by which he keeps us till the end through that faith. It's not a temporal order. It's that the very act of regeneration is God supernaturally giving us the gift of faith. We do not grant ourselves repentance, God does that. And we do not give ourselves the gift of faith, God gives us that gift. Moreover, we do not participate in giving ourselves the gift of faith. God does a monergistic work of regeneration and perhaps we can say it's a regenerating work of conversion (faith and repentance). God and the human are both acting. But God is acting in a monergistic way called regeneration and the human is acting in a receiving way called conversion.
@@aletheia8054 No it doesn't. He mentions grace and faith here, and then says IT (singular) is a gift from God. Being able to access God's grace by putting our faith in Jesus is the gift my friend.
@@RustyShackleford-1689 I could easily answer that. But then, you also could easily do a quick Google search. Not being Flowers' keeper, enjoy your sleuthing with my commendations since you value truth so highly 💪
It's basically saying that we are buried with Him, as in putting away our sinful self. And being raised with Him through faith. Both are baptisms, one is the baptism of death, and Jesus spoke about this to His disciples. Matthew 20:22 NKJV But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to Him, "We are able." the baptism referred to here is His death. The other baptism is being raised to life, just as The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the Dead giving life, He Himself being life, was raised on the third day, we are similarly baptised and risen to life, as we were dead before, and now raised to life by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
But we have been buried with him in baptism first. So? How are we buried with Him? There must've been something happening before faith even according to Colossians 3:12. I agree with Joel Webbon
I think faith is key here! We get saved through faith, Romans 10:10, Romans 5:1. But I also think that the emphasis of Colossians 2:12 is that, our circumcision or baptism is nothing but ordinary without faith in God.
Leighton Flowers got it wrong. 1. The Greek verb is a collective passive marked by the prefix συν meaning “with” it means the the agent raising people there is God, but He is also raising Jesus, so if this is regeneration, then Jeuss is being regenerated. It means that every time someone believe Jesus has to be regenerated along with the sinners. Additional, the means faith modified the very same verb “to be raised together by God”. So it means Jesus had to believe as well, but how if he is dead? Do you see the problems. Paul is not talking about regeneration here, the same happens in verse 13, in which the verb give live or cause to live is also prefixed by συν (with). So if these is regeneration we have to wait until all who are going to believe, believe, and Jesus is raising every time each believes, that is too problematic. That happens when we don’t analyze the text from Greek syntax. In top of all of these, the verb “to be raised” is not used for the initial stage of awakening, but raising up as the down stage or step, and even more, there is a several genitives with which we have to deal. If translated correctly in one of 5 possibility FAITH IN THE POWER, power is the object of the faith, not Jesus, not His resurrection, and that is another theological problem because faith cannot have an object that is abstract for salvation or justification. So it it better to understand the word “faith” as faithful as being an attributed genitive, describing the power as faithful.
As someone who is soteriologically a Calvinist, i don’t see regeneration without Pentecost. While saving faith is also a gift from God (as for OT), it seems to me this is different from the Holy Spirit indwelling and new regenerate heart
"I believe that there are multiple other texts that say just the opposite". Translation: I believe the Bible contradicts itself... Calvinism: Using the word of God to discredit the Word of God 🤔
@@jakeabbatacola5092 I would just like to point out that many history scholars including Calvinists admit that nobody in early church found Calvinistic doctrines in the Bible until Augustine in the 400sAD. To namedrop a few: Herman Bavinck, Loraine Boettner, Robert Peterson and Michael Williams, Louis Berkhof.
I don't think it's fair to say Joel was stumped by the question (video title). You may think he's wrong but he wasn't stuck without an answer. Contextually I'm not sure if he had a chance to prepare for the question, but I'm not a huge fan of deciding doctrine on the basis of an answer that wasn't thought out beforehand. (BTW I'm not a calvanist myself)
He could have prepared better, as that passage has been raised before by Flowers such as on at least one article about faith preceding regeneration on the Soteriology101 website. 'Problem passages' should be prepared for by everyone TBH, so that we ourselves are confident of our beliefs.
I don’t understand why the insistence on a temporal order. It seems clear to me that regeneration and faith are a “simultaneous” event, if you will. It seems clear from the Scriptures that there is a causal order, but much like how water hitting a sponge immediately expands the sponge, the water hitting the sponge and the expansion of the sponge happen simultaneously, (especially when you look at it from a molecular level). But there is definitely a causal order: unless the water makes contact with the sponge, the sponge will remain dry, shriveled, and unpliable. But beyond that, Joel did not defend well, but Flowers’ point is not conceded in this text. In fact this text isn’t talking about what Flowers is trying to get it to talk about. Sorry, it’s just not. It can’t carry the freight Flowers wants to place on it. It’s the same sleight-of-hand that evangelical feminists do with Galatians 3:28. That text cannot be used to support an egalitarian position because that text has nothing whatsoever to do with that argument, no matter how badly we may want it to. Eisegesis is a bitch. But back to the text in question. Look at verse 13. Who made us alive when we were dead in our transgressions and the uncircumcision of our flesh? God did. We didn’t make ourselves alive. In fact we didn’t fill ourselves (v. 10) We didn’t circumcise ourselves (v. 11) We didn’t bury ourselves (v. 12) We didn’t baptize ourselves either (v. 12) We didn’t raise ourselves (v. 12) We didn’t make ourselves alive (v. 13) We didn’t forgive ourselves (v. 13) We didn’t destroy the record of debt (v. 14) We didn’t set that record aside (v. 14) We didn’t nail that record to the cross (v. 14) We didn’t disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to shame (v. 14) This text has nothing to do with some misconstrued and misunderstood temporal order of regeneration and faith. The entire thrust of this text seems to be: 1. All of these amazing things have been done 2. God did all of them Therefore…verse 16 Paul wants us to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we had nothing to do with any of the mechanisms at work that resulted in our being made alive in Christ. And this is a really good thing. All those man made restrictions and rules others want to put on us in order to control us? Those are from man. Ignore them, they’re useless in promoting holiness. Instead of worrying about being accepted by these people, participating in their ridiculous outward forms of religion and virtue-signaling, seek and set your minds on the things that are from above, where Christ is…
2 Timothy 2:14,18 KJVS Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. [18] Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
Are you citing Ephesians 2:8-9? Because plenty other commentors here have mentioned that already, and I keep pointing out to them how the Greek has 'saved by grace through faith' as the gift of God - not 'faith' itself.
What Calvinist don't understand is that the father does call us and he does bring us all the way to the point of faith. The father has called all mankind to repent and believe, not just some. He has given us all a conscience and a sense of right and wrong. And the law. But it is up to us whether we want to believe the good news or not. Unfortunately most "Christians"believe God's word with the bad news, but they can't believe God's word on his good news.
Or...it's a matter of perspective. "Raised through faith" does not necessarily negate regeneration preceding faith, which is alluded to in John 6:63, Titus 3:5, etc. There is no denying a tension in the Calvinist belief between the Spirit's regenerating work and man's responsibility to believe. As far as which comes first, men who are dead in their trespasses and sins and are only capable of pursuing their own way are incapable of exercising saving faith without the Spirit first giving us a heart of flesh to replace our heart of stone.
Just to note that Ezekiel 18:31 has God asking the listener to make themselves a new heart. Rather than contradicting Jeremiah 36:26 where it is God who gives a new heart, both passages can be true together if God expects us to seek Him and He will do what we cannot accomplish on our own.
Only through faith would we first be willing to be buried together with Christ... and its that same faith that then allows us to be raised with Him. We know that the Father does not change, which also means we can rest assured that everyone who has ever been saved has been saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). For example, when we apply this to Noah we can clearly see that the Father’s grace are His Instructions which were given to Noah warning him of the impending destruction of the world and how to escape it. This is the same gospel that was proclaimed to us, but the message the people heard was of no value to them because they didn’t share in the faith of Noah (Hebrews 4:2). Noah believed the Father and his faith was able to overcome what he believed in order to place his faith and trust in the Father’s Instructions by doing everything just as He was commanded (Genesis 6:22). Noah didn't add to, or take away from, anything the Father Commanded him and as a result he and his family were saved. May you be blessed in your pursuit of truth!
Joel isn’t redirecting .. he’s stunned that on a single verse this guy builds huge doctrinal point.. This text isn’t explaining the chronological events, it’s rather pointing to Christ and his power of His resurrection, and we partake of it thru faith. And Joel is right to say that there are plethora of passages that point to God working in us prior to us having the ability to respond to Him.
And there are a plethora of passages (as listed in several articles on Soteriology 101's website) reiterating that faith precedes regeneration. Col 2:12 is just one of those passages raised in the full debate.
@@scottthong9274 sure, if you want to rely on your act of faith rather on Holy Spirit making alive to have faith in the first place, go right ahead.. I’ll trust on the work of the Holy Spirit not my own “choosing” to believe
@@dontrushtohate It's not about what I want, but what Scripture states. And with regard to faith preceding regeneration, Scripture states it very plainly - repeatedly. Adress the actual argument, if you can. And on the side, if the Holy Spirit alone chooses whom to save or not, the flip side is that He might choose NOT to save some, and there is nothing anyone can do about it - as Derek Webb sadly believes of himself. This can ALSO apply to you and me, see John Calvin's Evanescent Grace.
i think john 3:20,21 give clear explanation how God grants saving faith. men love darkness(suppress the truth) therefore they have the truth (general faith). vs 21 say he who comes to the truth(does not suppress it) comes to the light and God grants saving faith to the individual(wrought by God). john 3:16-21 Jesus tells Nicodemus u must be born again and in vs 20,21 Jesus tells Nicodemus exactly how to be born again
When is Faith ever called the truth? Hebrews 11:1, Now Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see. Also, Romans 10:17 , Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. (You hear the Gospel message and believe it's true, then you put your faith in it. )
@@foreleftproductions756 hello brother I think we're on the same page ..you said someone hears the gospel and believes it is true then you put you faith in it. what if someone hears the gospel and they don't believe (recieve) the truth? God doesn't grant saving faith to those who suppress the truth.. look at 2 thessalonians 2::12 that they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.. That harmonizes perfectly with what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 20,21
@@gwine2nine52 Yea I’ve just never read the phrase “granted saving faith”. The Bible says we’re saved by grace. We access said grace when we choose to put our faith the death, burial and resurrection after hearing & believing the message. We repent and are baptized for the forgiveness of our sins, and receive the Holy Spirit. Read acts 2:14-41. The first gospel sermon. Why would Peter be pleading with them to save themselves if God just made them do it?
@@foreleftproductions756 correct. we are saved by grace thru faith but will God grant someone repentance if they suppress the truth? God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. We can't save ourselves. Salvation is of the lord but if man resists so does God. humbling yourself is not contributing to your salvation its an expression of seeking God's mercy
@@gwine2nine52 Nobody would repent without believing, right? I agree that we can’t save ourselves, 100%. But did you read Peters sermon? The people who accepted his message were baptized and were added to the number/church. There was definitely a response from the people. I wouldn’t call it humbling their selves, they were cut to the heart by what they heard. Do you agree with Peters sermon?
For me the most simple and clear cut way to determine if reformed theology is true is consider the OT pattern of Israel. 1) Israel is in bondage 2) God miraculously brought them out of bondage through no ability or works of their own, but because He loved them 3) God gives them compelling evidence He is THE Almighty and there is no other 4) He leaves Israel with 1 simple part to play: CHOOSE YE THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE. That paradigm proves that God does all the saving, regardless of works. He called His people without any particular merit (besides Abrahams faith). Therefore God gets the glory for saving, HOWEVER it is contingent upon “choose ye this day” which is the same paradigm for Christ. To believe on Him is to choose Him. So we have to respond to the salvation God has performed and offered to us, and therefore, reformed theology cannot stand. 1) His grace is absolutely resistible proven by Israel who saw works that would’ve cause tyre and Sidon to repent 2) He made it so we, humans, are the differentiation between God saving us or leaving us (unlimited atonement, but not all are saved, conditional saving) 3) we must continue to believe and choose Christ (see book of judges) it doesn’t just happen 4) our depravity was confronted when Christ came and broke the power of sin, enabling us to choose Him
Amen brother, one of the dumbest memes I keep seeing is "God chose Israel, Apostles etc... but not you, you chose God" - forgetting that much of Israel ran after foreign gods, and among the Apostles was Judas who betrayed Christ!
@@michaal105 No it does not. The Bible teaches the opposite. You must be born of the spirit to do anything of the spirit. Regeneration, grace through faith (which comes from God, not yourself), then justification. Key word picture he’s using here is baptism.
@@jakeabbatacola5092 And using insults like "man-centered theology" or "Come on buddy worship God not yourself" is mature and wise. Okay, QED I don't need to argue my case any further, you do it much better.
That just shows Joel was underprepared, all these arguments and counter arguments have been up on Soteriology 101 website, TH-cam and FB for years - including 'faith is a gift of God'. It's not hard to look up what Dr Flowers has said about this topic.
Faith comes by hearing... When God sends, gives, conveys, etc., a message to a person about a truth, for instance the Gospel, one has what one needs to make a decision about it, one believes it or does not. Paul gives an example of God giving a truth to Abraham and Paul says that Abraham believed God. He explains that Abraham never wavered in unbelief. Faith is generated, in other words, when the message is given. The problem with Calvinism is the Calvinistic foundational 3 points of 9 points, not the 5 called TULIP, TULIP and 4 others. 1) Their definition of Sovereign, which claims that man cannot choose to FOLLOW God's will or RUN CONTRARY to it. Jeremiah 7:31 (see also, 19:5, and 32:35- Jews doing something that was not commanded and never entered God's mind), Jeremiah 18 (not doing what he "planned"); and 1 Samuel 23 (David inquiring of God about the town and Saul, self explanatory. These passages and hundreds of others, at least, irrefutably disprove Calvinisms definition of Sovereign as well as point 2 and 3: Miticulous Determinism, which teaches that God determines EVERY thought, word and action that every person will think, say, and do. And 3, a SECRET WILL OF GOD to try and remove God from actually being the "only" actual sinner as these first 2 points certainly do. Calvinism disintegrates if its definition of Sovereign is refuted and it is refuted from Genesis to Revelation.
Everybody teaches that especially Mr Flowers, Flowers has always said faith is a gift that God has given man the ability to have and use as is free will, and God has determined that man can choose to do good or bad, believe or not believe in him, without determining their choice. I don't know of a single pastor that does not preach faith is a gift, like life, hope, the ability to do anything. Mr Leighton teaches our faith is meritless, it does not merit our salvation, only the blood of Jesus does that,. God still does not have to save us, but in his amazing grace, he has decreed those that believe would be saved, he gets all the glory, we get none, for humbling ourselves, and admitting we are sinners, need a savior, and cannot save ourselves. The faith allows us to believe in the only one that can . And God gets all the glory, as it is all Christ centered, not mancentered like Calvinism, which has God respecting a certain group of people before they are born, for salvation, and all others for hell. That makes God a respecter of person's, that are picked, we are never told why, before they are born, for salvation, or hell.
Here's the way I heard it explained once that helped me understand: "There is a Door that says, "Whosoever will may come." Once you go through the Door the other side says, "Chosen." Revelation 22:17 "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Ephesians 1:4 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:" Isaiah 55:9: “For the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” John 10:9: "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."
The chosen are those that had faith, under both options when salvation is the topic. Not to be saved, but to believe in the one that can save, because mankind cannot.
@@scottthong9274 Joel’s reasoning for bringing up the verse was that our regeneration is not an outcome of our faith. Jesus says it blows like the wind; who knows where it blows? It does not depend on man’s faith to be regenerated.
@@ShepherdMinistry I don't see the link from "The wind blows where it chooses" and "Therefore regeneration precedes faith". We're not disagreeing that the wind (God's Spirit) does whatever He wants, we're disagreeing on WHAT He wants. I say that from other passages, it's clear that He wants a response by faith before He will give new life.
@@ShepherdMinistry Recently someone pointed out that the comparison to the wind is for "those born of the Spirit", not the Holy Spirit itself. If correct then that would make our discussion on the Holy Spirit being compared to the wind moot.
Both men clearly misunderstand the process. Regeneration begins with being BORN AGAIN as a Child of God by the Spirit. Colossians 2:12 doesn’t speak of being “born again”. It speaks of being RAISED TO NEW LIFE. Being RAISED TO NEW LIFE is the end of regeneration. The process of regeneration is as follows: 1. Born again by the Spirit (see John 3). 2. Faith in Christ (because you can now see He is Lord and King… ie see the Kingdom of Heaven… see John 3). 3. Baptism… in which you confess that Christ will raise you with Him and by which God seals you (see Colossians 2:12). 4. The indwelling is the Spirit by which God causes you to bear fruit and sanctifies you throughout your life… and by which you are empowered for ministry. Although this sanctification is always limited by this “body of death” that we inhabit in this life. 5. Death, by which you are released from your body of death. 6. Resurrection & Glorification by which you are raised from death and given a new Spiritual body that is incorruptible (see 1 Corinthians 15). Both men clearly misunderstand this process and that is why they don’t get Paul’s language in Colossians 2.
Col. 2:12 does speak of born again. It says “the baptism”. That’s not water. That’s the baptism of the heart. That’s a new heart. Same as a new birth. And it says all of it is a work of God not yourself. Flowers tried to con that man.
@@aletheia8054 - Colossians 2:12 is not about “baptism of the heart”. It is about water baptism which signifies our ultimate resurrection with Christ… it is the seal of that event… our guarantee that it will take place. Resurrection and being born again are two related but different things. Being born again is the START of the process of regeneration… where our heart (ie inner man) is made alive and turned towards God by the power of the Spirit. Resurrection is the END of the process where the whole is renewed as we are delivered from this “body of death” (see Romans 7) and receive our Spiritual bodies (see 1 Corinthians 15:42-49).
Watching Calvinists struggle through such simple verses is quite painful. Every single verse, without exception, used as a Calvinist proof-text gets completely destroyed when simply looking at the context in which that verse is written. For example, Eph 2:8-9. they say that "faith" is the gift and not simply "grace" is the gift, failing to see that the whole point of this passage is to contrast "faith" with "works" in that salvation/grace can't be earned so that one can boast, rather salvation is by grace as a gift only. They do so soo stubbornly that they end up turning a passage that unambiguously says 'faith isn't a work' into somehow saying 'faith is a work'....unbelievable reasoning.
Col2:12 Raises up with him trough faith IN THE WORKING OF GOD NOT IN THE WORKING TROUGH MEN WILL (work salvation) . This verse prove we are saves BY GOD ALONE not by our personal commitment or free will. We have to be crucified with Christ before the beginning for to be buried (die) with him (at the cross) we have to be baptized in Jesus death this is about '' we have to be clean in Jesus BLOOD BAPTISM'' first than we can resurrect with Him.Nothing impure can enter into God kingdom . Only the elects are CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST ( clean with Christ blood) nobody can crucify itself with Christ, we have been predestined to this being crucified with him before the beginning by having our names written in is book of life.
This is where being too literal completely obscures what Christ does through and for believers! God STILL gives supernatural faith to those who don't deserve it to carry out His purposes!
We have to get this right or we will "save" ourselves, and that is much of the problem here. Arminians have a self righteous view of themselves prior to salvation. They just will not accept original sin and its effects upon mankind. They believe the dead have all of this self righteousness enabling them though dead to somehow know that the truth of God and His salvation is the truth of God and His salvation. Add to that they tend to choke on and just will not accept a God who is so in control of His universe that He and only He takes the prerogative to choose who is to be saved. Who does such a God think He is? God? LOL.
@@scottthong9274 Having been an Arminian (did I make myself clear on that?) I most definitely do remember that though lip service is certainly given on the doctrine of total depravity, nonetheless I believed and the thousands of Baptists I knew all believed that mankind possesses this little island of virtue totally capable of cooperating with the Gospel to the extent that they "choose" Christ, they "accept" Jesus. Like Jesus has self esteem problems and needs you or I to "accept" Him so He will feel better. What blasphemy. No, God chooses us, just like God told Moses. Arminian/Provisionists just hate it when Augustinians quote the OT to validate the doctrines of grace. But after all, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
@@Gablesman888 What you don't seem to make clear is why so many alleged self-identified Arminians including yourself don't/didn't seem to actually know the tenets of proper Arminianism, such as that Total Depravity is a serious problem which requires God giving miraculous Prevenient Grace to overcome. I was never an Arminian and I know at least that much. Tell me more about how you and thousands were actual Arminians.
How did Joel not school Flowers here.. I mean it says "your faith by the working of God" God caused the faith.. Hello people ... Flowers is rather cunning in his wording.. noticed he stopped prior to saying "the working of God" A few verses earlier it says don't let any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. The flower's argument was weak and shady. No hate.. all love here, just staying facts
If Joel had such a good response as you claim, why do most observers think Joel fumbled? Why does Joel's demeanor seem to reflect the opposite of success? Why did Joel then go on James White's show to talk about this point and neither Joel nor White used the point you just made, nor did White give any other meaningful solution? IMHO, the simplest answer to that is Joel did not give a good response. What you think is a schooling answer is not in fact a valid one.
@@scottthong9274 woah homie.. I never said Joel gave a good response. I asked... how did he not? I've never listened to white talk about the passage or at least I don't remember. Either way I would say that he could've given a solid response and I'm shocked he didn't.
@@jamestiffany3531 Oh, my misunderstanding. You have what you think is an easy response and were therefore surprised Joel didn't use it. I would still maintain however, that your solution is not as clear cut as you think. If Flowers' usage of Col 2:12 is weak, why do so many people use it to show how Faith Precedes Regeneration? Why do so few Calvinists rebutt his usage, including the way you do? Why did James White not give any actual response when he had Joel on specifically to discuss this point?
@@scottthong9274 honestly, I have no idea. I would say that one person such as James White doesn't know everything and on top of that, perhaps it is the wording used by flowers that throws people off. He has a very eloquent way of speaking and in some ways it can be hard to try to comprehend the meaning of what he says and then have a decent answer in response to the question. It wasn't even that loaded of a question but it is unique. Regardless, I would suggest that the text itself provides the adequate answer needed from a Calvinist perspective. I'm not a professing Calvinist myself, but I hold to the tenets of the tulip. Or at least I would say I agree with the tulip doctrine.
@@jamestiffany3531 Good on you, I too hold my own views based on my own conclusions... regardless of what other people may agree or disagree about my conclusions. In fact, I think everyone does it too whether they realize it or not.
So many debates can be solved with the word BOTH. Does God call us, does God choose us, does God seek us first? Of course he does. It's throughout scripture. Does man need to respond, to receive, to accept? Well of course he does, it's all throughout scripture. So much confusion in having to choose one or the other. How can Jesus be 100% man and 100% God? It's BOTH. Who lives your Christian life? Your or God? Paul explained it perfectly in Galatians chapter 2. "I, yet not I, but Christ.."
@@garyg7549 I suppose it's sort of the middle, but the basic two claims of Mere Molinism is that: 1) God has Middle Knowlege hence knows the future; and 2) Humans have libertarian free will. Some systems will pit one against the other and say that God knowing the future means human choices are already determined, or else human choices are free because God doesn't know the future.
@@scottthong9274 ok gotcha. It's crazy how most are "either/or" in their thinking. God is so much more than we can figure out in our mind. Thanks for writing, appreciate your time.
@@garyg7549 It even extends to the Old Testament. Is the Angel of YHWH the same as YHWH, or distinct from YHWH? As Dr Michael Heiser likes to say: "And the answer to that is... Yes."
Im amazed he went to John 3, where Jesus says you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. So in his logic, youre born again, then you have faith and can see the kingdom of God. But in Johns later epistle, he puts it the other way around... 1 John 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God
Indeed, he wrongly equivocated 'see the kingdom of God' with believing the basic Gospel message. In my experience examining a slew of alleged prooftexts for TULIP, I found that such jumping to unjustified conclusions happens in almost every case. For example, a passage mentioning the evil of people is extrapolated to mean evil people cannot even accept God's first seeking them out for reconciliation (which is what Total Depravity actually requires).
DID CALVIN TEACH REGENERATION PROCEEDING FAITH? Not according to John Calvin's own Institutes. In Book III, chapter 3, Neither does scripture. we find the following opening text that makes it very clear that regeneration follows from faith. After presenting this, I will show from the same text that Calvin equated "regeneration" with repentance.. (see Calvin in John. 1:13). For since pardon and forgiveness are offered by the preaching of the Gospel, in order that the sinner, delivered from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of iniquity, may pass into the kingdom of God, it is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the Gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path, and making it his whole study to practice repentance. Those who think that repentance precedes faith instead of flowing from, or being produced by it, as the fruit by the tree, have never understood its nature, and are moved to adopt that view on very insufficient grounds. This seems clear enough so we proceed now to Calvin's treatment of regeneration. By repentance I understand regeneration (spiritual regeneration) , the only aim of which is to form in us anew the image of God, which was sullied, and all but effaced by the transgression of Adam. So the Apostle teaches when he says, "We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Again, "Be renewed in the spirit of your minds" and "put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Again, "Put ye on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Accordingly through the blessing of Christ we are renewed by that regeneration into the righteousness of God from which we had fallen through Adam, the Lord being pleased in this manner to restore the integrity of all whom he appoints to the inheritance of life. God assigns repentance as the goal towards which they must keep running during the whole course of their lives. I strongly recommend that interested persons actually attend to Calvin's writings rather than assume they know what he taught. Justification is a work of God the Father and the Holy Spirit in us and without us. Justification and faith do not have a sequence in time but in order Faith- Justification but are simultaneously in time. Sanctification is a work of The Holy Spirit in us but not without us. Justification and SANCTIFICATION cannot be separated. There is no sanctification without justification or justification without sanctification, this even when sanctification is just a begin of regeneration through all our life. Faith is by Grace and the free gift of God. The Bible teaches us the Justification of the UNGODLY. [Made/ declared Righteous] God The Father the Judge does not say: not guilty He says GUILTY But then point to Christ Not a believer is justified nor one that chooses justification. This does not leave any room for salvation other than by the Conviction of the Holy Spirit of our lost state without Christ as being the first in Salvation of men. It is true what was said of old: “ Who Works First We Know Last.” There is a general working of the Holy Spirit in the hearing of the Word that convicts and precedes faith but not always leads to salvation. See the parable of the sower. This is how Calvin preached the Gospel FREE OFFER OF THE GOSPEL (Calvin's Wisdom p119-120) He calls all men to himself, without a single exception, and gives Christ to all, that we may be illumined by him. When we pray, we ought, according to the rule of charity, to include all. God invites all indiscriminately to salvation through the Gospel, BUT THE INGRATITUDE OF THE WORLD IS THE REASON why this grace, which is equally offered to all, is enjoyed by few.
“But to all who RECEIVED Him, who BELIEVED in His name, He gave the power (or authority) to BECOME children of God” John -:12. The people whom Jesus healed, for example, in the 1st century, first RECEIVED Him. This is what Jesus is referring to when He says,” Your faith has made you well”. THAT “faith”. brings us TO Jesus who then gives us the Holy Spirit apart from which we CANNOT have saving faith.
Yes! Because it was never really about the Bible to begin with. They use the Bible as a means to expand their ego, or promote their church or ministry, or whatever theological hobby horse they feel like riding. Their mind is made up, don't confuse them with the facts! Preconceived ideas are one of the most dangerous things in the world when it comes to spiritual matters. Well said!
, Ecclesiastes 3:15: “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.” The “natural man” cannot grasp that, for to him reality is based only on the evidence of the senses. The man of reason could justify the verse’s end, saying if it has any meaning then the writer must mean recurrence. The sun comes every day and the moon completes its cycle and the seasons come and go. If we took a picture of the universe today, the scientists can compute how long it will take to return to this point in the picture. So the intellectual man could justify the verse; but that is not what is meant, for it is addressed not to the man of reason or the man of sense, but to the man of Imagination. What is it all about? “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away.”
Lotta people confused here by Leighton's incorrect framing of God as the grammatical object of the sentence, when he appears to be the subject. In other words, in these verses Paul is talking about God's faith and works in raising us together with Christ. He's not talking about how by grance through faith we are saved. The clue is that Paul is talking directly about the power behind the resurrection, and only indirectly about how we come to be saved. In addition, the ordo salutis is logical, not temporal. Even if God was the grammatical object of the sentence, Leighton is framing the question in a way that implies a temporal issue, and muddies the debate waters, making it difficult for Joel to unpick both Leighton's logical riddle-knot and exegete the verses when put on the spot. And, without meaning to insult Joel, he has never struck me as quick-witted on his feet, so rather than him seeming stumped, he absolutely did the right thing by carefully reading the verse in context, and considering it amongst the wider biblical landscape, even if he was unable to provide a solid response within that time frame.
Apostle Saint Paul basically described a scenario in which a CateChumen is immersed into the Baptismal waters and rises as 1 of the FaithFul [Romans 5:9-12; 6:3-4; 1 Corinthians 12:2-3; Ephesians 2:8-10; Colossians 2:11-12; Titus 3:5] then is Sealed by the Holy Ghost [Ephesians 1:13-14].
If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. - 1 Timothy 6:3-5
It's a useless dispute of words whether faith precedes generation or is caused by it. John 3 is key on regeneration. The golden chain of salvation is another passage that is useful here, Rom 8:29-30. If justified by faith the call precedes faith, and one cannot hear unless he is regenerate. Matthew 13 "he who has ears to hear let him hear." Which means that those unregenerate cannot hear the call to faith. John 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them." Faith is a gift and a means of grasping on to salvation.
With John 3 I assume you mean being born again to see the kingdom? Seeing the kingdom is not a synonym for believing and accepting by faith. Romans 8:29-30 doesn't state that we are predestined to be saved, it doesn't mention HOW or WHY someone starts onto that golden chain. Also, what would your explanation be for Paul suddenly switching to past tense for just that section? When everything else earlier in the chapter is future, including 'glorification' which is also always future in other Letters. Matthew 13 also states that the crowd had closed their own eyes. They became hardened, not were born blind & deaf. Also, why would Jesus need to speak in parables if Total Depravity is true? The crowd wouldn't accept Him even if He spoke plainly. Why does the parallel in Luke 8:12 state that the devil snatches away the word SO THAT they can't believe and be saved? If Total Depravity is true, the devil is wasting his time since the Reprobate can't ever be saved in the first place. John's comparison of people to sheep does not entail that one is born a sheep or not a sheep. Besides, actual sheep in real life are not born already knowing the shepherd's voice - they have to LEARN to recognize it! Eph 2:8-9 actually states that "salvation by grace through faith" is the gift, not faith per se effectually given. I have mentioned this multiple times in response to various commentors bringing up that passage in the comments here. Now, I can agree that all this is kind of ivory tower, in-house debate over theology. Except that some people actually live out their beliefs, e.g. Derek Murrell who told Pinecreek and the audience that they can't do anything to accept the Gospel... Or Derek Webb who won't repent and return to the faith because he's "Dead like Lazarus in the grave, God will call me out if God wants me, nothing I can do"... Or Megan Phelps, Edwin Curley and others who apostatized because they can't stomach the Calvinist view of a God who creates people specifically for damnation. But if you feel that all this is 'a useless dispute of words' then why did you spend the time to argue for your point of view that faith is caused by regeneration?
Notice my last statement. Faith is both a tool to grasp onto Christ and a gift of God that allows one to grasp onto God. It is not one or the other only. It's bigger than this dispute allows. And yes, debating words like faith, justification, Scriptura often devolves into a dispute about words, but is also necessary in moderation.
"So you think seeing the Kingdom of God is equivalent to accepting Christ?" "Yes" Brother needs a little Christology in his life after that quick response. That really discredits any theological clout he would ever have.
@@edwinrivera5377 If that's your view, then you should answer your own question: In your view, what causes a soil to be good or bad according to the parable itself?
@@edwinrivera5377 I agree, God made humans good (Ecc 7:29) but some refuse to love the truth and resist God's will to save them (Matt 23:37, Luke 7:30, Acts 7:51).
@@bryanpratt5850 Same way the dead Prodigal Son came to his senses & returned to the father in Luke 15, the dead awake & arise in Eph 5:14 & Rev 3:1-2... Deadness is metaphor for separation, not literal corpselike inability to respond.
Ephesians 2:8-9 clearly states that we are saved by grace through faith. Not by God's grace unto faith. Through the free will, yielding to God and HIs gospel He saved us whilst drawing us with the Holy Spirit. It's simple in explanation but obviously and rich spiritual power working. After all, this is God's power unto salvation and not a mere average happening! You can also not lose your salvation so you may all want to understand God's grace and study Galatians 5 to understand the liberty found in Christ dispels all notion that what we do after we are born again has any bearing on our eternal salvation.
Pauls gospel is in two parts, the first part is future tense, part 2 is 2nd Corinthians it is read in real time. When the mystery occurs certain verses beginning at 1:9,10 We had the sentence of death, so before they were raised from so great a death they had the sentence of death, if you notice many times its read that way as it happens. So the harvest begins, 2nd Corinthians Paul is in tribulation dealing with those whom make shipwreck the faith. He warns the Corinthians if he comes again he will not spare. Paul and Timothy are the two witnesses prophesied in 1st Timothy 1:18, and 1st Corinthians 16. The names of the cities Paul wrote too also shows the progression, if there be no reserection of the dead, then Christ didn't rise, and the saints in light would not shine the glorious light. The first born among many breathern..
Dead people can't breathe. The Valley of Dry Bones demonstrates salvation... you were spiritually dead, you heard the Gospel and the command to Believe... you instantaneously were brought to life and breathing / believing... the command of the Gospel is to breathe / be believing and to keep breathing / believing... There is no "ORDER" which is Flowers error and the Calvinist heretic rejects the explicit and real command to be believing in the Blood of Jesus and replaces the blood with a Doctrine of Sovereignty as the thing to be believed...
Ephesians 2:8-9 New International Version (NIV) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. So there you can see God gives you faith first through with you believe in Jesus and are then saved.
Thanks, but this must be the tenth time someone has quoted something along the lines of 'faith is a gift from God'. It is commonly accepted that the Greek says 'salvation by grace through faith' is what is the gift of God, not faith effectually given per se.
@@scottthong9274 I feel like we are splitting hairs here. Since all things are from God then salvation, Grace, and our faith are all gifts given. Because it says there is none good, no not one, they’ve all turned aside. There’s none that seek after God. Not of themselves anyway.
@@ericcarver1341 I'd agree it's hair splitting, because at the practical level it is still the human who turns to God by faith or rebels - whether it is God who effectually caused the belief and repentance, or God who put the responsibility on humans to do so. But where it is no longer theoretical is when such theology affects the salvation of people. For example Edwin Curley, Megan Phelps apostatized because of they assumed that the Calvinistic view of God (who creates billions just for the purpose of damming them to hell, refusing to give them Irresistible Grace that they should be saved) is the only valid view of God. Or Derek Webb who apostatized and uses the excuse that only God chooses whether or not to regenerate a corpselike dead sinner to life & faith, so he'll just lie there waiting instead of repenting. As for your quote of Romans 3, that is hyperbole and poetic language - check out Psalm 14 Paul is quoting from, where there ARE righteous people.
Joel Webbon is not the best person to have this debate. A better answer rooted is in the text: 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses... Colossians 2:12-13 (ESV). The verb - "You were" and "raised with" (GK synergeiro) is in the passive form, meaning, the action is being done to the individual and "faith" (pistis) is the instrument from which this is occurring. How? "In the powerful working of God." This is confirmed by the active tense - "God made alive." Taken together, the subject (God) is performing the action of the verb - "made alive." Whether we understand how exactly this fits in a chronological sequence or not, the text is clear. Unfortunately, Mr. Webbon's understanding is limited on this subject.
@@scottthong9274 The Greek says "through the pistis of the working of God". This is probably one of the times that the Greek word pistis should be translated as faithfulness rather than faith (as it is in Romans 3:3). This translation goes along much better with the rest of what Paul is saying in verses 11-15. Notice that everything in the passage is something God did in the past tense. Thus "you were raised with him through the faithfulness of the working of God." I'll leave it to you to decide if Flowers argument bears any weight in that case.
It’s easy as all things in that passage God did. So he does in the faith that regenerates you just like that which raised Christ from the dead. I think most people in this comments section have a severe confirmation bias. I don’t think Joel even saw this as an affront or a problem
Does 'most people in this comments section' include yourself, good sir? We always need to watch our own selves for biases, even as we spot them in others.
Joel should have used John 6:44-45. God "draw him" ("him" being a person) because no one understand or seeks God (Romans 3:11). If we accept the Romans passage, God MUST step in. For a person to be saved, He - or she - must be given faith of God to believe. Faith PRECEEDS belief - faith given from God.
What happens is that one is lighted on Credit, so to speak, when one hears the Gospel and when they accept it that light becomes theirs and they are born again. This is why 2 Cor 3 says the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Notice that the spirit of the Lord is the mirror image of Lord is that spirit (actual write Lord is that spirit and hold it at angle against your bathroom mirror). This is also why that though Moses, as type and shadow, is veiled with spiritual death, he has the light on his face and when he turns to the Lord the veil is taken away (see ex 34 for context). John 10 says the same thing in a little different way. Jesus says if by me any man enter in he shall go in and out. Why say "in" twice? Because when you are in the presence of Jesus, through the Gospel, you have entered IN, on credit, so to speak, and when you accept the Gospel you then go IN to life and OUT of death. This is why Jesus is the door. Psalm 36 says in his light we shall see light so one is illuminated with new life to accept life with. Jesus, in dying and rising for you, has the authority, as light, to walk up to you, who are darkness, and say "hi". And in His light we accept light and become light. It is in this sense Jesus says in john 3 that unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom. And you cannot get born again unless you see the kingdom. Receiving His light, on credit, through the gospel, solves for this. Also eph 2:8 says it is by grace through faith but even this faith is a gift of God (a grace). This is so because you are lighted with Christ (on credit not actual regeneration) to accept Christ with (actual regeneration). Both these guys are half right and half wrong on this.
Thanks for the polite comment, just to note that as has been said many times (because Eph 2:8 has been raised many times by other commentors here), the Greek has "salvation by grace through faith" as the gift of God. So it's more that the method by which we're freely saved is the gift, not so much the faith is an effectually given gift.
@@scottthong9274 Hey, thanks for YOUR polite comment, i appreciate it. Scripture must be understood as a whole image where each verse is but a brushstroke contributing to the overall image. And this lighted to accept light with is everywhere in scripture. The parable of the sower says it well. When we hear the word we have the choice to agree to it and proceed on with God or deny it and be hardened in the judgment already on the fallen world. The choice is ours but the faith is still a gift. I know these things like the back of my hand not just because I mediiate the word in its overall image but I pray much in tongues. Not sure if that disappoints you but when you pray mysteries God does answer them with revelation knowledge. 1 Cor 12:28 says diversities of tongues, as in plural, as in more than one kind of tongue..And the tongue for personal edification is one of those diversities. God has made us the steward of it (1 Cor 4). I would appreciate further replies concerning all of this but if not..Thanks again! I love you, brother.
@@michaelchurchmcm If you were fully Calvinist I'd be slightly surprised at your speaking in tongues, but I've actually attended a Presbyterian service where they did just that! I'd mostly agree with you that God is the one who enables every person to respond by shining His light on us. It sounds like a form of Prevenient Grace.
@@scottthong9274 The problem with all these doctrines is that they are half true..Which is a dangerous place to be. And I am by no means calvinist though I appreciate them greatly. So is there redemption prior to faith, no. But there is light to see light with which makes calvinists half right. As for tongues my heart breaks that this gift has been taken from the church by those who say the perfect bible has come so it (tongues) has passed away. That is complete error. 1 Cor 13 saying tongues shall cease means as the Holy Spirit, by tongues for personal edification, brings you to and transforms you to love then tongues on that level ceases and works in you toward the next level of glory. And finally when we die and go to heaven or Jesus comes back tongues will cease totally. We all like to talk about how the Holy Spirit seals us unto the day of redemption but if that was automatic wouldn't we all be teaching the same thing? As for tongues for personal edification, Paul says he who speaks in tongues edifies himself so he is obviously is not taking about the tongue for interpretation or the tongue that is another earthly language you don't know in and of yourself. Finally, we are born again spirits inside natural bodies still from Adam. The only way God can really get you alone with Him, to talk to you, without your natural mind filtering it wrong, is through tongues. Then, when you are edified enough He will tell you plainly what you were praying about and you will make your stand in faith keeping your natural mind from interpreting it wrong. Do you pray in tongues?
If your argument against a Bible verse is that "there are other verses that say the opposite", you are fundamentally misunderstanding and mishandling the Scriptures. All Scripture is cohesive and correct within it's context (2 Tim 2:15)
Well said.
But Calvin and the primary person he followed had the idea that current prominence was more important than what God used the apostles to write. In that, they end up creating contradictions and by necessity of holding to their conflicting views must reject the validity of Scripture.
I've not been able to take a Calvinist through Heb 10 - _without them repeatedly having to insert words and try to reverse the clear meanings_ that are repeated back to back to back.
...
If a mechanic pulled apart your transmission to see how it worked, then declared, *"I've put it together right, ... this gear just doesn't fit"* - you'd rightly call their assembly skills in to question. *You don't even have to know how to put a transmission together yourself - to know that it was all assembled together before that mechanic came along throwing out pieces.*
@@MaintDocs Agreed. Good luck reading Romans 9-11 with a Calvinist also. The entirety of all of those chapters are expressly to "Israelites" which Paul makes clear in the first four verses of Ch.9. But somehow Calvinist will try and convince you that these chapters (that look backward at the Old Testament) all about Israel's stubbornness and God's faithfulness somehow are the best chapters in the New Testament to build Christian doctrine upon.
Amen!!
It's never permissible to explain away a text by attempting to trump it with another one. Both texts must be explained separately and then harmonized together. Failure to do so leaves the expositor with a contradiction in scripture for which he or she has no explanation.
Jesus didn't say to Nicodemus, "the kingdom of God." He said, "Kingdom of Heaven." BIG DIFFERENCE! Typical of how Calvinists try to prove their unbiblical doctrines, BY MISQUOTING SCRIPTURE!!
Which translation are you using?
I use several but always refer to the original Greek.
Heaven is a Euphemism for God for ancient Jews
@@glennlanham6309 It is to pharisaical Jews, but not to Matthew for he uses God where Mark uses a circumlocution, Matthew 26:63; Mark 14:61. If Matthew would be consistent with this theory of said circumlocution, he would have used “Son of the Blessed One” aswell, or even instead of Mark.
“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also AFTER THAT YE BELIEVED, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,”
Ephesians 1:13 KJV
Thank you so much for posting this!
You should look into this passage in greek, and what aorist tense is.
AMEN!!!! Well done
Correct. How about also, Romans 10:17 "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Faith comes by hearing...NOT regeneration. Hearing what? The Word of God...the Gospel. Why do Calvinists confuse this?
what came before they believed in that passage? Hearing the gospel. Of course someone must hear the gospel before they can believe it. That does not prove Calvinism. Also, posting this passage does not answer the Colossians passage
Next debate just ask a Calvinist what they’re saved from, if they say he’ll ask if hell was actually ever their destination, because it couldn’t be if you were elected to go to heaven before anything ever. At no point was hell your actual destination therefore you were never saved from hell
Isaiah 46:9 explains God determined the end from the beginning, the crucifixion of His Christ, the Apostles whom Christ said don't think you chose Me for I have chosen you, He chose Isreal to reveal Himself through and also the elect as it was explained in Ephesians 1:4-5. If it wasn't for His grace and mercy we would be hopelessly going to hell. Yet the gift is to all but John 3:19 explains men luv darkness rather than light. All salvation was determined from the beginning and the preaching of the Gospel is that instrument used as a means to gather His sheep.
@@godsson491 "we would be hopelessly going to hell."
Going to hell... For what, though?
@@losnfjslefn8857 For transgression of God's divine law...
@@godsson491 But I thought the decision to elect some and reprobate others was made UNCONDITIONALLY in eternity past, before the foundation of the earth, BEFORE anyone had done anything good or bad?
@@losnfjslefn8857 It's called mercy and no man can earn his way to heaven. He called and transformed those HE predestined, yet the gift of salvation is open to all men but men love darkness rather than light as it says in John 3:19. John 6:44 Christ said no one may come to Him unless the Father draw him...so it's man's fault because they will choose darkness rather than light...
Ah yes. The fine hermeneutical method of ignoring the obvious literal text in favor of an obscure and highly debatable idiosyncratic interpretation of another text. Good job, Wheddon.
Yes this was where Whedden was over his head.
@@jeffallanday that is Ttue. However, He is consistent with his Hermeneutics, unlike the man who's entire ministry is attempts to prove one things Wrong; We Know a tree by It's Fruit.
@@Chirhopher what do you mean? Isn't soteriology very important?
@@Chirhopher this isn’t is whole ministry, not by a country mile.
For 30 years I have been raised and taught to believe the Bible is God's *_inerrant_* Word. And for 20 of those years I have been a Calvinist. I no longer hold to the doctrine of Inerrancy after an ongoing and in-depth study of Biblical contradictions. With that I am no longer a Calvinist as of 8 weeks ago.
The Biblical writers each held to their own theological views. Every theological system has its own proof texts along with "challenging" texts because the individual authors held to their own views.
Now that I've stopped trying so very hard to harmonize all passages it is absolutely plain as day that the Bible contains many differing and diverse views. For some reason Christian tradition won't allow us to read the Bible and let the individual inspired authors speak for themselves without [re]defining their terms and filling in their gaps from other authors. I know that is a hermeneutic principal but it needs to be done in respect to the author's message and intentions.
I do still believe Paul taught a Calvinistic leaning Gospel. I think James actually was arguing against what he saw were the dangers of Paul's Gospel. I no longer see why James and Paul should be harmonized and agree with each other. They both make very good points. To force them to agree you have to either change Paul's meaning or James' meaning.
Maybe Christians shouldn't apply extra-Biblical rules to the Bible and just read it in all its variety of views and testimonies of God and His plan for Salvation. Christians today argue theology with each other because the Bible argues with itself.
Romans 10:17 "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Faith comes by hearing...NOT regeneration. Hearing what? The Word of God...the Gospel. FAITH regenerates (makes us alive Spiritualy) us. Why do Calvinists confuse this?
Probably because of their A Priori assumption that we were all dead in sin = literal corpselike inability to respond positively to even the Father's life-giving offer of The Son via the Holy Spirit - breathed Gospel. They sure have a low view of God's power to save!
I'd stay away from Christians who follow Calvin, Luther, The pope. We are not called to follow the doctrines of men but the doctrines of God.
Because they don't understand basic English.
@@bradwhitt6768can you please elaborate because your claim seems to be a doctrine in and of itself. “Solo bradwhitt6768”
It’s even better if you include verse 13.
Together they prove Calvinism is false.
Read both verses together carefully:
“you were also RAISED WITH HIM **THROUGH** **FAITH** in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And when you were DEAD in your wrongdoings and the **uncircumcision** of your flesh, He MADE YOU ALIVE together with Him,”
Colossians 2:12-13
These verses say 4 things:
1
FAITH precedes being raised to LIFE from the dead
2
This happens while we are DEAD in our sins and when we are ungodly.
3
This happens before God spiritually circumcises us and frees us from our bondage to the flesh and sin.
4
This says/means: ungodly humans - who are spiritually dead in their sins - and who are uncircumcised and are thus still in bondage to their flesh/sin CAN HAVE FAITH. People dead in their sins HAVE THE ABILITY TO HAVE FAITH.
-----
After this debate Joel Webbon went to Dr. James White and asked him how to refute Colossians 2:12.
White tried to refute it by saying the circumcision in verse 11 is Calvinistic regeneration - **BUT** - it can’t be because verse 13 explicitly states we are made alive while we are dead in our sins and UNcircumcised - that means BEFORE we are circumcised.
So White’s weak attempt to get around verse 12 fails.
Wouldn’t your interpretation be proving baptismal regeneration?
@ Hello friend,
That’s a good and essential question. The answer is: no.
Here’s a long explanation why:
The only baptism which is required to be saved is the supernatural baptism in the Spirit - and only Jesus ever performs that baptism.
There are at least 5 different types of baptisms in the New Testament.
The word ‘baptism’ means ‘immersion.’
I will talk about just 2 here:
Baptism with water (done by human hands)
is different from:
Baptism with the Holy Spirit (only ever done by Jesus)
The New Testament repeatedly differentiates between the two:
““As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Matthew 3:11
“I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.””
Mark 1:8
“John responded to them all, saying, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but He is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the straps of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Luke 3:16
“so that He would be revealed to Israel, I came baptizing in water.” And John testified, saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. And I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’”
John 1:31-33
Jesus Himself made the same distinction as John the Baptist:
“for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.””
Acts 1:5
And again:
“I remembered the word of the Lord, how He *USED* *TO* say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ “
Acts 11:16
“USED TO” means Jesus REPEATEDLY said that.
Also, in the book of Acts:
“Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, arrived at Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted ONLY WITH THE BAPTISM OF JOHN; and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”
Acts 18:24-26
-
Acts 2 says the type of baptism we need is the type where one receives the gift of the Spirit.
“And Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 2:38
-
The following 3 scriptures state that we receive the spirit through faith:
1
“you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-having also BELIEVED, you were sealed **IN** Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first instalment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession,”
Ephesians 1:13-14
2
“This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain-if indeed it was in vain? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?”
Galatians 3:2-5
3
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Galatians 3:13-14
You receive the Spirit by hearing with faith.
And we also know that Acts 10 and 11 show that Cornelius received the gift of the Spirit BEFORE he was water baptised.
Also:
In Romans 6 it talks about a ‘baptism INTO Jesus’.
How does one get INTO Jesus?
Please read the following carefully:
“you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-having also BELIEVED, you were sealed **IN** Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first instalment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession,”
Ephesians 1:13-14
That means receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit happens when we are put INTO Jesus - i.e. the baptism with the Spirit is the same as baptism into Jesus.
Also:
Jesus Himself taught that it’s the supernatural baptism/IMMERSION **IN** HIM which saves.
“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides **IN** Me, and I in him.”
John 6:56
But what does ‘eat my flesh’ and ‘drink my blood’ mean?
Jesus already explained that a few verses earlier:
“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
the one who COMES TO ME will not be HUNGRY,
and the one who BELIEVES IN ME will never be THIRSTY.”
John 6:35
Read that carefully.
Come to Jesus = eat
Believe in Jesus = drink
(See also Isaiah 55:1-3 which says the same thing snd explains that ‘eat’ means ‘come and listen.’)
Believe in Jesus = the way to abide **IN** Jesus.
Believe in Jesus = the way to be supernaturally baptized/IMMERSED **IN** Jesus.
--
Also:
“For you are all sons and daughters of God THROUGH FAITH in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized INTO Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
Galatians 3:26-27
CLOTHED WITH CHRIST = IN Him
It doesn’t mention water baptism. It says through FAITH.
----
Also, I want to explain another way the Scriptures show that we are immersed into Jesus through faith - but first I have to show you something: please notice that the following 3 scriptures all say: Jesus = the LIFE.
“ **IN** Him was LIFE, and the life was the Light of mankind.”
John 1:4
Jesus said:
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and *THE* *LIFE* ; the one who **BELIEVES** in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and **BELIEVES** in Me will never die. Do you believe this?””
John 11:25-26
“this life is IN His Son. The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.”
1 John 5:11-12
Ok, now I can show you another way the Scriptures say we enter/get immersed IN Jesus:
Jesus said:
“TRULY, TRULY, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and **BELIEVES** Him who sent Me, **HAS** **ETERNAL** **LIFE** , and does not come into judgement, but has PASSED out of death INTO LIFE.”
John 5:24
Notice - the new life: that’s being born again into a new life - and it’s explicitly clear: hear + believe = passed into life. Jesus = life. So when it says ‘passed into life’ it means ‘passed INTO Jesus.’
Also, look at this with maybe fresh eyes:
“so that everyone who BELIEVES will have eternal LIFE IN HIM.”
John 3:15
---
And:
“He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”
Mark 16:16
That says one is baptised by believing.
That’s the only way to interpret Mark 16:16, otherwise the following verses (which don’t mention water baptism are incorrect:
“‘And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
Acts 2:21
“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””
Romans 10:9-13
---
Romans says the Baptism into Jesus is when someone is born again:
“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:3-4
And the Bible is repeatedly clear that people are born again when they BELIEVE:
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who **BELIEVE** in His name, who were BORN, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but OF GOD.”
John 1:12-13
“Everyone who **BELIEVES** that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,”
1 John 5:1
All of this together means people are born again when they are baptized INTO Jesus - and the Bible says both those things happen when someone BELIEVES. It doesn’t mention
water baptism. And it’s too late for water baptism because it happens after hearing the gospel with faith. That happens way before a person is water baptised.
I’m totally a Calvinist. But Joel Webbon really underwhelmingly represented our side. Totally give props to Leighton for being so gracious with such a poor answer.
IIRC Joel appeared on James White's show to discuss how to address that passage. I forget how it went.
Joel does not represent faithful teaching.
“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
Colossians 2:11-12 ESV
If faith is the instrumental cause of our justification, it is implied that this instrument is wielded by the cause of our justification which is made without hands (another term for our own human power). That would leave God as the efficient cause of our justification, which is more clearly repeated at the end of this passage which seems to name faith as the powerful working of God. If we are justified by OUR faith IN the powerful working of God it makes us the efficient cause of our salvation which we cannot accept and still hold to salvation by grace alone.
The work of justification is accomplished at regeneration through faith. The works are simultaneous and perhaps even identical in a sense. What precedes both concepts though is the efficiency of God’s power to accomplish His purpose. This also seems clear in the context of Colossians generally where the Apostle says in the first chapter:
“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together…. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
Colossians 1:17, 21-23 ESV
Here the instrumental cause in our reconciliation (ie justification) is Christ’s death and we are presented blameless given THAT WE CONTINUE in the faith. It seems to be discontinuous to assert that we are passive in our reconciliation but then responsible for our preservation especially given the statement that in Christ all things hold together. This text seems to indicate that Christ, who is before all things, exercised His power to effect reconciliation through His death and resurrection, preserving us through the Holy Spirit’s working of faith, and this concept is revisited/expanded upon in the following chapter. Also note from chapter 1 where Paul says this: “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,”Colossians 1:12-13 ESV. Here we see that we have been qualified by the Father, again pointing to our passivity in our transferring from the domain of darkness. This again seems to indicate that it is God who supplies the necessary condition for qualification. No need to go all over the Bible to find counter-proof texts.
I believe this demonstrates that, if we accept regeneration as the efficient working of God’s power by removing a heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh, regeneration indeed does precede faith logically, even if we know that in time they are simultaneous. Shalom brothers and sisters
Thank you!
Amen! I said the same thing bro
Exactly, no baby ever circumcised themself.
I would ask, how much input did anyone get in their first birth? Being born of water?
Yet when you are born again, born of the Spirit, your input is now a requirement? The Spirit, like the wind, goes where it wishes.
"So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
I like this way to look at it “baptism is not a work opposed to faith; it is an act of obedient faith”.
Doesn’t matter what verses you give ,calvinists will always “do” Calvin….calvinists can only convert Christian’s…unbelievers can’t receive it nor understand it… but an unbeliever can understand the gospel and simply ask in Faith for salvation…steer clear of the so called deep wisdom of Calvin…. It’s a dead end road that leads to no assurance of Gods love … and no assurance of salvation… no one can ever know if they are the elect since God has to save you before you even reach out in faith…. Run from Calvinism into simple childlike faith then grow in grace
1:50 JW: "Yeah but you see other texts contradict that understanding here"
LF: "Which other texts?"
JW: "the one that says you can't enter the kingdom before being born again."
LF: 🤨
He specifically emphasises the “see” the kingdom of God if you fancy being charitable. You have to hang a lot on a specific interpretation of “see” and superimpose that on other clear texts.
Doesn't say "again".
Yeah as I commented above, Leighton does a really good job of not focusing on context because verse 11 and the beginning of 12 says that we were circumcised with a circumcision mad without hands (referring to a spiritual act of the Father cutting us off from our old self) having been buried with him in baptism (being out to death to our old selfs which Paul’s theology is that that is an act of the Father in Christ) having been raised with him through faith (faith is a response of the sinner who has been cut off from their sinful life and this sinful world because they have been made alive by Christ. Ephesians 2:1-8)
Both men clearly misunderstand the process. Regeneration begins with being BORN AGAIN as a Child of God by the Spirit. Colossians 2:12 doesn’t speak of being “born again”. It speaks of being RAISED TO NEW LIFE. Being RAISED TO NEW LIFE is the end of regeneration.
1. Born again by the Spirit (see John 3).
2. Faith in Christ (because you can now see He is Lord and King… ie see the Kingdom of Heaven… see John 3).
3. Baptism… in which you confess that Christ will raise you with Him and by which God seals you (see Colossians 2:12).
4. The indwelling is the Spirit by which God causes you to bear fruit and sanctifies you throughout your life… and by which you are empowered for ministry. Although this sanctification is always limited by this “body of death” that we inhabit in this life.
5. Death, by which you are released from your body of death.
6. Resurrection & Glorification by which you are raised from death and given a new Spiritual body that is incorruptible (see 1 Corinthians 15).
Both men clearly misunderstand this process and that is why they don’t get Paul’s language in Colossians 2.
@@brentonstanfield5198 being raised to new life is perfectly equivalent to '' being born from Heaven''
Faith comes by hearing, not regeneration. Paul is pretty clear in Romans 10.
Yes and regeneration is what unstops the ears so that they might hear
Paul being a chosen vessel never had faith before regeneration even after hearing Stephen preach
He was out to destroy
The early church!
Why did Lydia need her heart opened by God before she heard?
Acts 16:14 (LSB): 14 And a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening, whose heart the Lord opened to pay attention to the things spoken by Paul.
@@MyWerttrew parable of the sower!
Yet they never had complete bibles
In those days
This reminds me of what Jesus told the Pharisees
“All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” Mark 7:9
Did He even know that Passage is in the Bible?
No offense, but I find Calvinism inconsistent intepretation of the passages that deal with election and predesgination quite disturbing!
I mean, just watch any of Leighton's debates with James White to see how easily Leighton was exposed.
So he'll read things into another verse, but ignore the clarity of Colossians 2:12, claiming it's contradicted elsewhere. How bizarre to hold onto a false teaching that strongly. Thank you, Dr. Flowers for your continual illumination on soteriology.
Not to mention that when he went to John 3 to give a very clear answer to support that regeneration supersedes faith and that this would be the big passage that proves there’s a contradiction. Just to find out that John 3 is literally not stating what he would call a complete contradiction I mean John 3 doesn’t even come close to teaching that regeneration supersedes faith. 🤦
Then you must also Read John 3 and Ephesians 2. It is clear that Regeneration precedes Faith.
@@samuelaguilar9668 Oh yeah I know the Calvinist passage of Ephesians 2:2 Pacifically where it says he made us alive who were dead in trespasses and sins yeah that scripture just does not support the Calvinistic view of what they are trying to portray what is dead
It just doesn’t cut my friend you can’t take that passage and make it look like a person is completely dead as in dead in the ground can’t breathe can’t see can’t smell can’t touch can’t do anything can’t cry out for help can’t move can’t hear yeah Paul is not portraying a dead body as in physical Death and to actually think that that’s what he is portraying you are adding to the text you are trying to make the text say something that it is not. But just to help you out here’s the key to understand Paul is not talking about In a physical death as in you can’t move you can’t breathe you can’t touch you can’t smell because you are completely dead and buried in the ground as a dead man here’s the key to understand that he’s not referring to that type of death Ephesians 2:2: in which you once walked according to the course of this world, well Paul is referring to the time that you guys called this person a dead man who is in the grave and cannot move and smell and touch or anything because he’s dead but yet he says in which you once walked according to the course of this world 🤔 sounds to me and pretty clear this person is not dead in the way the Calvinist make him out to be dead sounds like he’s walking and he’s alive and if he’s walking and alive then he can also be called except and receive what God wants from him. 🤷♂️ sorry but these two passages the one in John which by no means illustrates regeneration supersede in faith or does the passage in Ephesians illustrate anything to do with the Calvinistic View that a dead man is completely dead as in a physical death like you guys always make this passage try to say which Paul is not illustrating as i just proved to you A dead man cannot walk either 🤷♂️ so why don’t you guys read the Scriptures a little better before you add on your doctrine which is not correct.
That's exactly what those trapped in cults do. A Mormon must see everything through the lenses of Joseph Smith and likewise, a Calvinist must see everything through the eyes of John Calvin. Both are strongholds that produce cognitive dissonance. Both are idolatrous.
@@godsstruggler8783 wrong. Leighton Flowers did not do exegesis. He failed to do exegesis in his debate with Dr. White that's why he lost the debate. Watch it.
These videos clearly show that Dr. Flowers cannot do exegesis
th-cam.com/video/XBX0Dh47T3U/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/NWFKwrfEFT8/w-d-xo.html
The verb "circumcise" is passive, a spiritual "cutting away" of that which alienated men from God in Christ (thus why it is done without hands), done upon the Colossians, not something the Colossian believers did themselves. "Having been baptized" is an aorist, passive participle, connected to the finite verb "circumcised," and therefore is not water baptism, but is baptism done upon the Christian, having been buried spiritually by God, killing the old man's influence effectively; this is the act of regeneration, being "born again" by God and not of man. The following και in verse 12 introduces another aorist passive finite verb, "raised together" through faith, the raising together being linked to the actual moment of salvation (which is NOT the same thing as the moment of regeneration), which indeed does take place through faith, but the earlier circumcision and attendant baptism must take place first. Once this has taken place, then the individual is raised to newness of life and enabled to exercise faith in the God who powerfully worked to raise Christ from the dead. Therefore, reading "raising to life" as the same thing as "regeneration" is a misstep, but one that I can see someone making from the text. In other words, the answer by Leighton Flowers to Joel Webbon, although a very good point, is not as open and shut as he would like to suppose.
All the things Paul describes, the circumcision, burial, raising etc, are passive, but they all happened through faith. It all happens together once you believe. Paul isn't trynna explain the step by step timing, but that it happened through their faith. The fact that it's passive doesn't change the fact that it happened through faith, not faith through it.
@@lonelyguyofficial8335 I understand what you are saying and, believe me, active faith is most definitely the means by which the sinner receives the salvation offered to him by Almighty God (and so a real act of the will takes place). My point is that the only way the will is made, well, willing, is through this prior act of God "circumcising" and "baptizing" in order to believe, for as you can see, the verb πιστευω ("to trust/exercise faith") isn't anywhere in this passage and must be supplied therefore by implication, and I would argue, an implication due to one's prior theological commitment, not solely from exegesis of the text. But I do agree that Paul is not trying to give a "step-by-step" for sure. Thanks for the response!
@@lonelyguyofficial8335 Oh wait, my bad, I do see the through faith, LOL, good job on me not reading more carefully! Sorry bro!
@@lonelyguyofficial8335 Good point in regard to this; however, I do believe that one can still hold the idea that this faith is gifted to one by God (and in harmony with the rest of Scripture) and not be in contradiction of Colossians. Sorry again for the quick response but not thorough reading!
This is why we shouldn’t depend on one verse at a time, verse 11 says that in Christ we were circumcised with a circumcision without hands by putting off the body of flesh through the circumcision of Christ. The text starts with an act of Christ cutting us off from our sinful flesh which is the act by which we can have our faith, you have to read things in context which is something Leighton doesn’t do
Maybe Leighton doesn’t do that right here in this clip, but if you think this is something he DOESN’T DO EVER, then you just really haven’t watched his TH-cam page or listened to his podcasts where he does that very thing over and over until it becomes almost monotonous. Agree or disagree with his theology, one thing you can’t say about LF is that he hasn’t done exhaustive hermeneutical and exegetical research to back up his position. Just sayin.
@Skyler Garrison
So Leighton accuses Calvinists a lot of the time of simply not understanding his view, but the reality is is that I actually do try to listen to Flowers on a regular basis, I’ve listened to his debate with James White on Romans 9 countless times and his attempted defense of his view on Romans 9, but also looking at other passages he’s looked at, and it’s silly on your part to think that he does consistent exegesis of the text. Flowers while accusing Calvinists of not being good at context is himself really bad at context
But I’m just curious, do you agree with my point that Colossians 2 begins with the concept that God performs a spiritual act on the persons spirit before they have faith? Are you agreeing with what I said about that? You didn’t really address the point I made about Colossians 2
@@andrewdavidson8167 If you had never been taught Reformed theology, and you read Colossians 2 :11-12 would you really see any one of the 5 points of Calvinism there?
@Skyler Garrison
So a couple of things
1. I asked you a specific question at the end of my last comment, you haven’t answered that question, you can’t just answer with a question that has nothing to do with my question
2. I’m going to correct an error on your part. It’s the assumption of many like Flowers and Craig that different doctrines are treated as philosophies and theologies that are not directly derived from the text but just consistent with it. When you say “if I’ve never been taught reformed theology,” assumes that reformed theology is not biblical, and is just another mere philosophy. This is an error because I once believed in all of the things like universal atonement and free will and prevenient grace and all of those things, it wasn’t till I really started studying the Bible that I saw what it truly teaches which is none of the things I mentioned just now. And reformed theology is much broader then the five points, it puts its primary emphasis on the scripture and it’s clear teaching and how that impacts our lives. Reformed theology is biblical theology for the simple reason that the reformers wanted to get back to what the scriptures say, not what tradition or the pope says, what does the Bible say
3. I’ve already quoted what the text of Colossians 2 says, it begins with Paul saying that in Christ the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and in Him we have been filled, having been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands (a spiritual cutting off from the flesh by the Father in the Son) having been buried with him in Baptism (a spiritual putting to death of the old self which is always an act of the Spirit working within us, it’s His work that makes us new) and having been raised with him through faith to newness of life (John Calvin believed that faith was a gift from God because of our former dead state, but that faith was truly a response of the person who has had the light of the gospel illumine their minds) I would also point out that Colossians can’t mean what Leighton says it does because further in the text you have a discussion about the sin debt being cancelled because it was nailed to the cross with Christ, if that’s true then universal atonement cannot be a thing because that means everyone has already been forgiven of their sins, making either the work of Christ not truly efficacious, or it means that sinners pay for their sins twice which means the cross isn’t all that powerful
God is free in His decision to save who he wants because he is the only being with true libertarian free will. When I first started studying theology I would read Romans 8-9 and Colossians and John and Hebrews and without even hearing the terms reformed theology or Calvinism, my conclusions were pretty darn similar to what they had been saying for hundreds of years.
I guess one last question, if you haven’t been taught the things you were taught, would you see universal atonement or regeneration after faith in Colossians 2?
@@andrewdavidson8167 Wow. Thanks for the insults. You’re really smart and I’m dumb. I guess anybody who isn’t “Calvinist” is believing “unbiblical” doctrines……even though there are incredibly brilliant scholars who disagree. I’m sorry to have even entered a discussion that will involve nothing but insults and circular reasoning. Have a nice day.
The use of see and enter as distinct in john 3 is a reach, especially when you’re trying to recover from being beaten on the Colossians passage
I mean, how can you see a kingdom that you did not enter? LOL. I agree, separation between C and enter is quite a stretch. Then again Calvinists tend to be quite limber in their hermeneutics.
@@SeanWinters It's amazing how people who give God ALL the glory for their faith - are somehow deemed evil by the Leighton Flowers of the world.
Have you seen this hit piece about Joel Webbon? th-cam.com/video/wvee3eYJpWE/w-d-xo.html
What has the verse to do with
The controversy!
@@angloaust1575 What controversy sorry, this is a rather old video
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
Thanks for quoting a Bible passage, without any attempt at interpretation and explanation, you have my like react
@@scottthong9274
Sorry, it seemed obvious to me. Webbon and Flowers both are so focused on seeing/entering the kingdom of God in John 3 that they miss the explanation that Jesus gives to Nicodemus on how one actually becomes born again: through the Spirit who goes where He wants to and we don't understand it.
@@jdoe97 I've always been puzzled why so many equate 'Seeing the kingdom' with salvation or understanding the offer of salvation. What's the basis they use?
@scottthong9274 I don't mean to intrude but this debate really bothers me (having close family and friends that disagree with me) mostly because of the absolutely elusive definitions at play. I'm a Calvinist and I find that if you avoid all the buzzwords, you can get most to agree with the doctrines of grace. All that aside, Jesus' (and any other NT writer's) vocabulary should be understood in light of the Old Testament. In this situation it's very beneficial to bring in the OT prophets. I think they build a vocabulary that is obviously invoked by NT authors. Hence the connection between 'seeing the kingdom' and salvation. Light and darkness, sight and blindness. Really, 'seeing the kingdom' is a useless term out of its cultural and historical context.
It’s not ‘your faith’ - it’s the energies (works of God) Col. 2:12 the NiV is a bad translation. Plus it’s seems Baptism is the instrument here not faith alone.
Verse 12 says we are “raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him [Christ] from the dead.” First of all, if someone is raised up “through” something, then they must already have that something. In Calvinism, though, Calvinism’s elect are given faith right then, as “the working of God,” in which the operation of God is the operation of the gift of faith. However, the context shows that the real “working of God” is all of the spiritual blessings mentioned of the believer being made complete, circumcised by Christ, raised up, made alive and forgiven of sins. The passage isn’t discussing an effectual gift of faith. It’s discussing what God accomplishes for those who believe in Him, in which faith is the instrumental means through which God chooses to bestow these gifts. So, to make the “working of God” into a code word for effectual faith is reading into the text while ignoring the context.
Can you please share the scriptures that say faith is a gift or that faith is "given" at all?
Even Armininius accepted that faith is the gift of God.
@@robertmackey5680 I’ll take that as a no… It’s not in there my friend. Now grace, absolutely a gift from God.
@@foreleftproductions756 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through FAITH-and this is not from yourselves, IT is the gift of God."
Ro reject faith as the gift of God is to espouse Pelagianism, a heresy...
To*
I'm sure Joel Webbon would concour that Christ is the firstborn of the Children of God, and that no Re-birth or Regeneration preceded his resurrection.
Why does the Christ tell the woman after her discharge is healed: "Your faith has healed you." And he says of the Samaritan woman "No greater faith have I seen, no not in all Israel."
By Jesus's own testimony, faith existed long before there was any regeneration.
Faith by itself is not a work, it's an expectation of God's mercy and righteousness. God says something, or does something, and a person simply believes what is said or done. The glory goes solely to God, not the person who simply believes.
Why couldn't regeneration precede the Resurrection? Resurrection and regeneration aren't really related that way. Paul talks about regenerate and unregenerate Jews wandering the wilderness. Would you classify David as unregenerate?
Joel is drowning in his own confusion.
I think he gave a great explanation with the John 3 verse. “The wind blows where IT wishes”, not where man wishes.
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. -Rom. 10:17.
Those that hear are his sheep. They believe because they are his sheep. They’re not his sheep because they believe. They believe because they are his sheep.
@@aletheia8054 According to Scripture which comes FIRST...believing or hearing???
@@bibledoctor7623 According to scripture being his sheep comes first
His sheep hear. You have to be his sheep to hear.
@@aletheia8054 Is that what Rom. 10:17 says???
@@bibledoctor7623 Jesus said his sheep hear his voice. That means you gotta be his sheep in order to hear.
He said you don’t believe because you’re not my sheep. That means in order to believe you have to be his sheep.
Calvinists can never prove rheir silly presuppositions. Lol at calvies always using John 3:3 and it says SEE AND ENTER clearly meaning salvation.
Correct.
"For by grace you have been saved, THROUGH FAITH..." Eph 2:8
When it continues with, "that not of yourselves..." it is referring to the "grace" that you received. But you received the grace THROUGH YOUR FAITH, calvanist friends.
This is why Jesus said, "FOLLOW ME." He did NOT say, follow John Calvin.
The difficulty of this is that it also says, "not a result of works..." in the same sentence. If you propose that the "gift" refers to the grace of God received, then the result is the "faith" (which is not a gift of God) becomes a work. This is so because the "not a result of works" refers to the exact same antecedent as the "not of your own doing" which you say is the grace of God and not faith.
It also seems odd that Paul felt the need to teach that the grace of God is not of ourselves according to your explanation. Who believes that it is?
@@bradevers8718 God bless you, friend
I used to be a calvanist, but praise God for freeing me from that lie!
I'm going to do my best to untangle you from that wicked web of deception and strawman arguments that is the doctrine of Calvanism and try to get you on track to follow Christ-- not Calvin. Especially since Jesus said, "the blind lead the blind and they both fall into a ditch.
Jesus is the only One who rose from the dead. Follow Him. Or you can follow John Calvin who is still in the grave-- the choice is yours.
The man you follow, RC Sproul, was a smart man, who was more interested in winning an argument, than actually teaching the bible.
First off, "works" as described in the bible, is a remarkable action performed by a man/woman whether good or evil. It is not, however, used to describe an unremarkable act, such as taking a breath, lifting a finger, stepping forward, having a thought, etc.
Calvanists want you to believe faith is a work, because otherwise their doctrine becomes the doo-doo that it actually is. But think about it this way:
If I've murdered 6 people and I'm standing before a judge who has every right to destroy me, but his favorite color happens to be blue and I happen to be wearing a blue button up shirt in his courtroom. So he offers me a pardon.
Was it my blue button up that freed me or the judge who decided to pardon me, who, by the way, could have just as well thrown the gavel at me despite my blue shirt?? C'mon friend. We cannot boast over faith.
Faith doesn't make me any less a piece of crap than I was before I had it. At the end of the day, I'm a murderer. But GOD -- IN HIS MERCY -- gave us grace through that condition alone: our faith.
To your second point or rather your strawman, once again, NO.
Grace is NOT of ourselves. And I'm clearly stating that it isn't.
Does God have no choice but to give me (a murderer) grace on account of my faith??
He is not required to provide us an "out" for our crimes, but HE has chosen to do so in HIS (not mine) SOVEREIGN MERCY. And His SOVEREIGN choice of an "out" for us is through faith in His Son. We don't get any other choice than what HE SOVEREIGNLY provided.
Think, friend. PRAY. Seek God with ALL of your heart (Jeremiah 17:9).
If God wanted you to be a robot, why would He not just do so from the beginning and avoid all the thousands of years of suffering? He already knew the end from the beginning! C'mon man, think!
Is it not significantly more consistent with the bible's account that God gave man free will (freedom to choose) so that love would be real? That even though He knew mankind would not choose Him first, he created us anyway, preparing to offer for us the greatest display of love imaginable: forgiveness by way of ULTIMATE sacrifice of His own Son even as we were wicked?! And yet even though He did this, many will STILL FREELY choose to reject Him and therefore, will suffer for it.
God made you far too intelligent to play a game with Him. You know that calvanist doctrine makes you a robot who's just playing pretend with God's bible because ultimately God does everything and we do nothing at all. Why even have a bible??
C'mon dude. Come out of that wicked web of deception and lies and stand in ACTUAL awe (not pretend) of the God Who had the most perfect plan to have an AUTHENTIC love relationship with His creation for those who would repent and believe and forsake ALL that they see for what they cannot see.
I know these calvanist teachers are wordsmiths, but that is why we must follow Jesus, not man.
Jesus said, the Helper will teach you all things (John 14:26); and again, the Spirit of truth will guide you (John 16:13); and again, "you will hear in your ear a voice from behind you say, 'this is the way, walk in it when you turn to the right hand and to the left (Is 30:21).
You must be born again to enter the kingdom. Correct. You are born again, ie saved, therefore you are now qualified to enter and see the kingdom.
Are you qualified by your decision to follow Christ, or does Christ Himself christ qualify you?
does Christ Himself qualify you?*
@@quinnjenkins7897 we’re qualified for salvation by accepting the calling that he puts on every single person in the world everybody receives the calling of Christ then we accept that calling we don’t choose it or make a choice for it, but we except the calling when the Holy Spirit works on convicting us of unbelief
@@quinnjenkins7897 One cannot make the saving faith decision for Christ until they are regenerated by God and given the faith by grace to believe in Him. Dead men are dead.
Lazarus did not come out of the tomb to be alive. Lazarus was made alive so that he could come out of the tomb. Eternal difference.
@@Gablesman888 explain this:
“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, 👉🏻choose 👈🏻you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15 KJV
“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore 👉🏻choose life👈🏻, that both thou and thy seed may live:”
Deuteronomy 30:19 KJV
Jesus died for the sins of the whole world:
“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 👉🏻world.”
John 1:29 KJV
“And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the 👉🏻whole world.”
1 John 2:2 KJV
He came for the lost..
“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save 👉🏻that which was lost.”
Luke 19:10 KJV
Believe in Jesus
Romans 12:3?
Deal with the text that’s before you!
And also know the principle that scripture interprets scripture. Arminians are quite adept at finding "contradictions" in the Bible. They are better at it than even atheists.
@@Gablesman888 They are only contradictions if we force Calvinist lenses onto the text.
He can't. That's why he ducked and ran.
Why ?
Flowers never does
Why so you ingore the complete verse, the reference ro " being raised" is raised from the waters of baptism, having faith in the "working of God". God is the one acting when we by faith submit to baptisim.
@@jamesstacy3228 Works for me, God responds to our faith by cleansing us & giving us new birth
Stay away from calvinism.
Stay away from fanaticism of men.
Follow Jesus, become a Christian.
I’m new here. Who is who in this clip?
The guy with no glasses is Leighton Flowers, he represents the traditional (non-Calvinist) position that says people are able to and must accept Christ by faith in order to be saved and given new life. The one with glasses is Joel Webbon, he represents Calvinism which says God must give people new life first so that they will be able to accept Christ by faith.
I'm really not sure Col 2:12 can be used to say faith comes before regeneration, not if you read the surrounding verses; vs 12 does not exist in a vacuum. Vs 13 says, "When you were DEAD in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, GOD made you alive with Christ." Just as in Ezekiel 37:4-6: ‘[God says] Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”’
In both cases God is the initiator. It's God who breathed life into the dry bones; you'll not get a single response from these bones unless God does something first - that's the whole point. Similarly, Col 2:13 clearly says we were as dead as these dry bones, but it was GOD who made us alive with Christ. We could only have responded with faith after God made us alive in him first.
Just think about it. If you've just had a massive heart attack, your heart has stopped, so has your breathing. How can you do or respond to anything unless you are first defibrillated? You can't defibrillate yourself. That's why it says, it's GOD who made you alive. I fear Col 2:12 has been taken out of its context.
Now, now, don't confuse Leighton by giving him facts; it totally ruins his narrative.
Just for the record...you don’t defibrillate a heart that has stopped. You defibrillate a heart that has an abnormal or irregular heart beat. You use chest compressions to get a a heart beating again.
Carry on!
@@swoosh1mil Thanks, that might make the analogy even better! A dead man doing his own doing his own chest compression!
We were spiritually dead and cut off from God. Faith comes from hearing the message about Jesus, then if you choose to bury your old self with him in baptism, you are raised up (born again) with him through YOUR faith in God. Why would you need to respond if God already made you alive? Col 2:13 is clearly a result of what happened in the previous 2 verses.
@@foreleftproductions756 Thanks for the dialogue. I’m not sure it negates anything I’ve written, though. Dead, dry bones just do not do anything, except that God breathes spirit into them and make them come alive. We were dead, and it was GOD who made us alive, not ourselves.
Perhaps I can put it another way.
John 3:8 tells us, “The wind blows wherever IT pleases … you cannot tell where IT comes from or where IT is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Let just say you’re right. You confess faith, therefore you have to be born of the Spirit. The Spirit MUST come to you, right there and then. Yet unbeknown to the Spirit, someone across the other side of town, out of the goodness of his own heart, confesses faith in Christ. So now the Spirit has to dart all the way across town, so that this other person can be born again too. Oh no, but 5 other people, in 5 other different states, decide at that very moment they want to confess faith too. So now the Spirit is tearing His hair out. And who knows who, out of the goodness of their dead and sinful hearts, will decide to confess faith next, in this country or across the globe! It’s an absolute nightmare!
No, no, no. The Spirit blows where IT wills. Just as with the dry bones, they don’t dictate where the Spirit will blow. The Spirit is not dragged and torn here, there and everywhere at OUR whim. He does not dance at our beck and call. No, HE gives life. HE decides to go where HE wants to go.
Its funny how Leighton wants Colossians 2:12 to mean what he wants it to mean but scriptures such as Ephesians 2 :8 "For by grace are ye saved *THROUGH FAITH*; and *THAT* (FAITH) *NOT OF YOURSELVES* *it is the gift of God* ..........not so much!
Even though scriptures make clear that even the faith we exercise IS a gift from God.
"For to you it *HAS BEEN GRANTED* on behalf of Christ, *NOT ONLY TO BELIEVE* in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, -Philippians 1:29
Or 2 Peter 1:1
"Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that *HAVE OBTAINED A LIKE PRECIOUS FAITH* with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
Obtained - Lagchano
To receive by Divine Allotment.
Yes, Leighton, Faith IS "the instrumental means by which we are raised with Christ." And THE LORD places HIS Law in our hearts and minds. The LORD makes us alive by HIS Spirit. The LORD "takes away our heart of stone and GIVES US a heart of flesh." The LORD "Enables" us to "come to" (believe) in Christ! The LORD GIVES US faith in order that we may "be raised with Christ."
Those who don't understand this need to understand:
1. The entire reason why a new covenant was needed is because in the OC "God found fault WITH THE PEOPLE." (Hebrews 8) They "Turned away from" HIM.
Their "Part" was TO OBEY. But they did not because they COULD NOT and therefore 'GOD' S ARM had work salvation for Him." GOD had to save "some" (Ezekiel 6). A Remnant that HE saved by grace even though they were just as guilty as the rest.
This is why in the New Covenant *GOD GAURANTEES* that His people WILL come to Him AND WILL NEVER TUR AWAY!
READ:
Jeremiah 32:40, Hebrews 8 and 10, Ezekiel 36.
The work of salvation is 100% ALL of God and NONE of us!
Read all of the "I WILL" statements that GOD DOES of HIS "Free Will" to save those whom HE chooses and who HE WORKS IN THEM "to WILL and to DO" according to HIS pleasure.
2. Salvation is NOT about people and our "free will" which is the myopic focus of people like Flowers who, whether intentionally or unintentionally make man the focus of salvation.
Salvation is about a COVENANT that GOD MADE TO HIS SON "DAVID" (Christ) The "Sure Mercies of David" and NOTHING will keep God from fulfilling His covenant promise, not even sinful creatures who ALL DESERVE nothing but God's wrath!
So why are we told to believe when according to scripture when we can’t?
@@nazinas21
Why are you commanded to be perfect as the Father when Jesus knows that this is impossible?
@@lawrencestanley8989 Ask Him hahaha
@@nazinas21
So I think you answered your own question then.
it is *not* faith that is the gift. It is salvation... according to many who understand the Greek in that passage. In fact, according to pretty much everyone who is not a calvinist that needs to read it the way you did.
Both sides are literally making an argument based on an English word. Go to the Greek and find its meaning.
Tell us then o scholar if koine Greek, what does it mean? I'm not a calvinist, but you can't make a claim like that and then step back.
That's not even remotely the case. One side is reading the English or what it says while the other is denying it. This isn't an issue of translation; reading the same concept except in greed would result in the Calvinists performing the same mental gymnastics in a different language.
First of all Joel got stomped on Colossians 2:12 and when he recognized that he did he said well there are other passages that would clearly State this and when asked to give his best passage he went to John 3 and John three does not make any type of statement to prove his doctrine that you are regenerated first before you believe 🤷♂️ John three is simply stating that you must be born again before you enter the kingdom of heaven it says nothing about being regenerated first before you can even have faith 🤦
False. Read and Study it again. John 3 and Ephesians 2
@@samuelaguilar9668 there’s nothing to study that I have not already know where, in either passage, do you see you must be born again first before you can have faith to actually believe in Christ what a ridiculous teaching 🤦
@@will195 That's ridiculous for you. But you don't know what the Bible Truly says.
Ephesians 2:1-3
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
How can you believe if you are spiritually dead?
You must be born again in order to believe!
John 3:8
New International Version
8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
Regeneration precedes Faith.
@@will195 You keep on saying things but you cannot exegete. I think that's your problem. Study Hermeneutics and Exegesis. It would be good for you.
@@samuelaguilar9668 dude I was a Calvinist I know every view the Calvinist hold to, and how they hold to it so don’t tell me what I don’t understand about the Calvinistic view because I left Calvinist because of studying the word, and realizing that they were pushing their own interpretation into the Scriptures every passage that the Calvinist go to I see it through forward knowledge of God through free will of man that’s the problem with Calvinist. They only look through the eye of a single lens. They don’t realize that every passage they go to to support their doctrine there is a free will stance on that same passage, but they don’t wanna recognize or look at it that way that’s why I love Mr flowers he really knows how to come against the Calvinist view by showing every passage they go to in a free will stance 🤷♂️
The good old redirect Calvi's love so much. They never really try to dig in to a text that doesn't go along with their soteriological position but instead just redirect to a different verse. Systematics is the cart before the horse for Calvis. Precisely the thing to avoid when I did some time at college - exegesis to biblical theology to systematics. Not the other way around.
Faith IS the means by which we are raised (to justification).. it’s just not the means by which we are regenerated. Justification and regeneration are not the same thing
Correct. Regeneration precedes faith logically. In other words, one is born again in order to be able to receive the faith that is the gift of God. And regeneration can also precede faith in time unless it is contemporaneous to faith. Possible example of this is the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus.
Yeah I think Colossians 2:13 supports this as well. When Pastor Joel read the whole thing in context, my thought was “how does 2:12 necessarily support Flower’s position of faith preceding regeneration?” It just doesn’t make sense logically.
Praise God for His goodness and mercy toward us.
🤡
@@gianthebaptist 👍
@@Gablesman888 sounds like we have to be saved so we can be saved.
Only that’s not biblical.
"So you believe that-" Yeah no, that's just what it says Joel…
No it doesn’t say what flowers quoted. Flowers quoted an incorrect translation and he only quoted part of it. Regeneration was in the verse here quoted but he left it out.
Flowers is a ConMan.
@@aletheia8054 Just checked the Greek texts. You are incorrect.
@@aletheia8054 If TR text type says so it says so.
"[…] ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God […]"
How are you going to say he read from a corrupt translation when every translation is corrupt save the byzantine family?? 😭 Lol
@@Isaiah_Cochran The man has a doctors degree in theology. He knows better than to not check the Greek. And he knows better than to quote part of a sentence. Especially when the first part of the sentence refutes his own belief.
@@aletheia8054 I think me and you will just have to agree to disagree on a higher-education percipient actually wanting to NOT go to the greek, first chance they get lol…
With all due respect to Leighton, he is confused here and mixing the categories. The raised through the faith here does not represent the regeneration here, else buried with Christ would represent our spiritual death which is not true.
What does it mean? Christ as a representative of the new humanity of elects dies as a righteous judgement and God raises Him up. The people of God are buried with Jesus’ death in His punishment. And in the resurrection of Christ, through our faith, while Paul using perfect tense here, it is a future hope.
Would agree with most of your points.... But love jokingly ask Eph 2:8->10, Is it grace we get the faith to believe because it by grace you have been saved through faith... So do we get grace to receive the faith, or was it our faith God extend and give us grace? Which is it. Is it really a "Chicken and Egg" issue? Is there anything in the Bible that might help add clarity? Absolutely! As we read in:
Rom 12:3 ) For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
So faith is not of one's own ability but an allotment from God, or to really drive the point home :) As we read in Rom 9, it is God who decided how to make some for honor and others for dishonor....?
But wait there is more :) Is our salvation worth anything? Is it something we get or is it something we have always had...? My point is consider:
1 Cor 4:7) For who considers you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
So the if eternal life, faith, grace, our salvation or any other thing worth rejoice and praising God for... Is it something we had or something we received as we are dead, blind, and wretched sinners? THANK YOU JESUS for Your grace. I am only in Christ because the Father gave me or the elect to the Son. I've never seen a verse to say anyone can come to God on there own... I've heard many assert and make assumption (we all know why one shouldn't assume...) but the argue from what they say is solid logical reasoning kind of like if "A" then "B' follows which then we can assume "C" and so one... But my point they do so simply by man's wizDUMB and reasoning, and i think "God's ways are not our ways". Anyway Sakthivel, not trying to say you are asserting anything, an if we talked in person bet we would agree on all this too... Anyway God bless you. Cheers!
…. the new humanity of elects…….. purely asinine
We should send a team of Calvinists to the next Olympics. They would guarantee us gold medals in gymnastics.
Oof, ISWYDT 👍
Just because you choose to follow Jesus, doesn’t make god not sovereign. Calvanists use the word sovereign to cover up flaws in their theology.
One of my favorite CS Lewis quotes is that one of the most sovereign things God could do was to give people free will.
I think one thing that helped me see the issue clearer, that I actually learned from Dr. Flowers is that sovereignty often means determinism for the Calvinist. Just substitute the words basically. Or sovereignty means control. Where as his belief is that sovereignty means due ownership or rightful ruling. Just something that helped me see it more clearly. Thought I should pass it on.
Regeneration and Conversion are like two sides of a coin and they happen simultaneously. We can however speak of a logical order as we distinguish God as eternal and not bound by time and the creature to whom God (Father, Son, and Spirit) apply salvation in time and space.
In other words. Regeneration and faith are instantaneous and simultaneous as the spiritually dead sinner is supernaturally brought to new life and given a new nature by God.
Small explanation of "regeneration" and "conversion".
*Regeneration* is a monergistic act of God by which he changes the nature of the dead sinner and in doing so gives them new life.
God tells us in his word that he takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh and the heart of flesh that he gives us causes us to walk in accordance with his law as opposed to the way we naturally walked while an enemy of God and hating him and his law.
*Conversion* is the result of God's monergistic work of regeneration. We experience these two sides of the coin in an instantaneous and simultaneous manner as creatures who are time and space bound.
As we turn away from one direction we necessarily turn to a different direction. That is to say as God gives the gift of faith IN regeneration (they are simultaneous) we necessarily desire and love God and we continue in repentance according to his powerful grace which he works in us and by which he keeps us till the end through that faith.
It's not a temporal order. It's that the very act of regeneration is God supernaturally giving us the gift of faith.
We do not grant ourselves repentance, God does that. And we do not give ourselves the gift of faith, God gives us that gift.
Moreover, we do not participate in giving ourselves the gift of faith. God does a monergistic work of regeneration and perhaps we can say it's a regenerating work of conversion (faith and repentance). God and the human are both acting. But God is acting in a monergistic way called regeneration and the human is acting in a receiving way called conversion.
Can you please share the scriptures that say faith is a gift or that faith is "given" at all?
@@foreleftproductions756
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
@@aletheia8054 I agree that grace is a gift from God, which is what this verse says. Read it again slowly...
@@foreleftproductions756 You asked where it was.
It says saved through faith is a gift
@@aletheia8054 No it doesn't. He mentions grace and faith here, and then says IT (singular) is a gift from God. Being able to access God's grace by putting our faith in Jesus is the gift my friend.
Does Flowers Pastor, preach, or teach or does he just talk about Calvinists 24/7?
@@RustyShackleford-1689 I could easily answer that. But then, you also could easily do a quick Google search. Not being Flowers' keeper, enjoy your sleuthing with my commendations since you value truth so highly 💪
It's basically saying that we are buried with Him, as in putting away our sinful self. And being raised with Him through faith. Both are baptisms, one is the baptism of death, and Jesus spoke about this to His disciples. Matthew 20:22 NKJV
But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to Him, "We are able." the baptism referred to here is His death. The other baptism is being raised to life, just as The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the Dead giving life, He Himself being life, was raised on the third day, we are similarly baptised and risen to life, as we were dead before, and now raised to life by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Agape Kia phileo
But we have been buried with him in baptism first. So? How are we buried with Him? There must've been something happening before faith even according to Colossians 3:12.
I agree with Joel Webbon
I think faith is key here! We get saved through faith, Romans 10:10, Romans 5:1. But I also think that the emphasis of Colossians 2:12 is that, our circumcision or baptism is nothing but ordinary without faith in God.
Have you seen this hit piece about Joel Webbon? th-cam.com/video/wvee3eYJpWE/w-d-xo.html
Leighton Flowers got it wrong. 1. The Greek verb is a collective passive marked by the prefix συν meaning “with” it means the the agent raising people there is God, but He is also raising Jesus, so if this is regeneration, then Jeuss is being regenerated. It means that every time someone believe Jesus has to be regenerated along with the sinners. Additional, the means faith modified the very same verb “to be raised together by God”. So it means Jesus had to believe as well, but how if he is dead? Do you see the problems. Paul is not talking about regeneration here, the same happens in verse 13, in which the verb give live or cause to live is also prefixed by συν (with). So if these is regeneration we have to wait until all who are going to believe, believe, and Jesus is raising every time each believes, that is too problematic. That happens when we don’t analyze the text from Greek syntax. In top of all of these, the verb “to be raised” is not used for the initial stage of awakening, but raising up as the down stage or step, and even more, there is a several genitives with which we have to deal. If translated correctly in one of 5 possibility FAITH IN THE POWER, power is the object of the faith, not Jesus, not His resurrection, and that is another theological problem because faith cannot have an object that is abstract for salvation or justification. So it it better to understand the word “faith” as faithful as being an attributed genitive, describing the power as faithful.
As someone who is soteriologically a Calvinist, i don’t see regeneration without Pentecost.
While saving faith is also a gift from God (as for OT), it seems to me this is different from the Holy Spirit indwelling and new regenerate heart
If only Webbon knew that eternal life and regeneration are distinct things. To be fair, Leighton is a tough opponent.
"I believe that there are multiple other texts that say just the opposite".
Translation: I believe the Bible contradicts itself...
Calvinism: Using the word of God to discredit the Word of God 🤔
It’s like a circus.
He didn’t do a good job defending his position, but the doctrines of Calvinism are purely biblical and in no way came from John Calvin.
@@jakeabbatacola5092 sure bud
@@jhonayo4887 Just read your Bible. Believe in God, not man. It’s better.
@@jakeabbatacola5092 I would just like to point out that many history scholars including Calvinists admit that nobody in early church found Calvinistic doctrines in the Bible until Augustine in the 400sAD. To namedrop a few: Herman Bavinck, Loraine Boettner, Robert Peterson and Michael Williams, Louis Berkhof.
I don't think it's fair to say Joel was stumped by the question (video title). You may think he's wrong but he wasn't stuck without an answer. Contextually I'm not sure if he had a chance to prepare for the question, but I'm not a huge fan of deciding doctrine on the basis of an answer that wasn't thought out beforehand. (BTW I'm not a calvanist myself)
He could have prepared better, as that passage has been raised before by Flowers such as on at least one article about faith preceding regeneration on the Soteriology101 website.
'Problem passages' should be prepared for by everyone TBH, so that we ourselves are confident of our beliefs.
This is an example of “changing the subject”
Certainly! He didn't have an answer. Or a Bible.
I don’t understand why the insistence on a temporal order. It seems clear to me that regeneration and faith are a “simultaneous” event, if you will.
It seems clear from the Scriptures that there is a causal order, but much like how water hitting a sponge immediately expands the sponge, the water hitting the sponge and the expansion of the sponge happen simultaneously, (especially when you look at it from a molecular level). But there is definitely a causal order: unless the water makes contact with the sponge, the sponge will remain dry, shriveled, and unpliable.
But beyond that, Joel did not defend well, but Flowers’ point is not conceded in this text. In fact this text isn’t talking about what Flowers is trying to get it to talk about. Sorry, it’s just not. It can’t carry the freight Flowers wants to place on it. It’s the same sleight-of-hand that evangelical feminists do with Galatians 3:28. That text cannot be used to support an egalitarian position because that text has nothing whatsoever to do with that argument, no matter how badly we may want it to. Eisegesis is a bitch.
But back to the text in question. Look at verse 13. Who made us alive when we were dead in our transgressions and the uncircumcision of our flesh? God did. We didn’t make ourselves alive.
In fact we didn’t fill ourselves (v. 10)
We didn’t circumcise ourselves (v. 11)
We didn’t bury ourselves (v. 12)
We didn’t baptize ourselves either (v. 12)
We didn’t raise ourselves (v. 12)
We didn’t make ourselves alive (v. 13)
We didn’t forgive ourselves (v. 13)
We didn’t destroy the record of debt (v. 14)
We didn’t set that record aside (v. 14)
We didn’t nail that record to the cross (v. 14)
We didn’t disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to shame (v. 14)
This text has nothing to do with some misconstrued and misunderstood temporal order of regeneration and faith. The entire thrust of this text seems to be:
1. All of these amazing things have been done
2. God did all of them
Therefore…verse 16
Paul wants us to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we had nothing to do with any of the mechanisms at work that resulted in our being made alive in Christ. And this is a really good thing. All those man made restrictions and rules others want to put on us in order to control us? Those are from man. Ignore them, they’re useless in promoting holiness.
Instead of worrying about being accepted by these people, participating in their ridiculous outward forms of religion and virtue-signaling, seek and set your minds on the things that are from above, where Christ is…
Well said brother
@@KevinKake_ thanks. God bless you!
2 Timothy 2:14,18 KJVS
Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. [18] Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
Regardless or whether faith precedes regeneration or regeneration precedes faith, scripture playing they tells us that faith is a gift from God.
Are you citing Ephesians 2:8-9? Because plenty other commentors here have mentioned that already, and I keep pointing out to them how the Greek has 'saved by grace through faith' as the gift of God - not 'faith' itself.
What Calvinist don't understand is that the father does call us and he does bring us all the way to the point of faith. The father has called all mankind to repent and believe, not just some. He has given us all a conscience and a sense of right and wrong. And the law. But it is up to us whether we want to believe the good news or not. Unfortunately most "Christians"believe God's word with the bad news, but they can't believe God's word on his good news.
Or...it's a matter of perspective. "Raised through faith" does not necessarily negate regeneration preceding faith, which is alluded to in John 6:63, Titus 3:5, etc. There is no denying a tension in the Calvinist belief between the Spirit's regenerating work and man's responsibility to believe. As far as which comes first, men who are dead in their trespasses and sins and are only capable of pursuing their own way are incapable of exercising saving faith without the Spirit first giving us a heart of flesh to replace our heart of stone.
Just to note that Ezekiel 18:31 has God asking the listener to make themselves a new heart. Rather than contradicting Jeremiah 36:26 where it is God who gives a new heart, both passages can be true together if God expects us to seek Him and He will do what we cannot accomplish on our own.
@@scottthong9274 To be fair the Calvinist God is no stranger to ordering people to do what he predetermined would be impossible.
Only through faith would we first be willing to be buried together with Christ... and its that same faith that then allows us to be raised with Him. We know that the Father does not change, which also means we can rest assured that everyone who has ever been saved has been saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). For example, when we apply this to Noah we can clearly see that the Father’s grace are His Instructions which were given to Noah warning him of the impending destruction of the world and how to escape it. This is the same gospel that was proclaimed to us, but the message the people heard was of no value to them because they didn’t share in the faith of Noah (Hebrews 4:2). Noah believed the Father and his faith was able to overcome what he believed in order to place his faith and trust in the Father’s Instructions by doing everything just as He was commanded (Genesis 6:22). Noah didn't add to, or take away from, anything the Father Commanded him and as a result he and his family were saved. May you be blessed in your pursuit of truth!
Joel isn’t redirecting .. he’s stunned that on a single verse this guy builds huge doctrinal point..
This text isn’t explaining the chronological events, it’s rather pointing to Christ and his power of His resurrection, and we partake of it thru faith. And Joel is right to say that there are plethora of passages that point to God working in us prior to us having the ability to respond to Him.
And there are a plethora of passages (as listed in several articles on Soteriology 101's website) reiterating that faith precedes regeneration. Col 2:12 is just one of those passages raised in the full debate.
@@scottthong9274 sure, if you want to rely on your act of faith rather on Holy Spirit making alive to have faith in the first place, go right ahead.. I’ll trust on the work of the Holy Spirit not my own “choosing” to believe
@@dontrushtohate It's not about what I want, but what Scripture states. And with regard to faith preceding regeneration, Scripture states it very plainly - repeatedly. Adress the actual argument, if you can.
And on the side, if the Holy Spirit alone chooses whom to save or not, the flip side is that He might choose NOT to save some, and there is nothing anyone can do about it - as Derek Webb sadly believes of himself. This can ALSO apply to you and me, see John Calvin's Evanescent Grace.
i think john 3:20,21 give clear explanation how God grants saving faith. men love darkness(suppress the truth) therefore they have the truth (general faith). vs 21 say he who comes to the truth(does not suppress it) comes to the light and God grants saving faith to the individual(wrought by God).
john 3:16-21 Jesus tells Nicodemus u must be born again and in vs 20,21 Jesus tells Nicodemus exactly how to be born again
When is Faith ever called the truth? Hebrews 11:1, Now Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see. Also, Romans 10:17 , Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. (You hear the Gospel message and believe it's true, then you put your faith in it. )
@@foreleftproductions756 hello brother I think we're on the same page ..you said
someone hears the gospel and believes it is true then you put you faith in it.
what if someone hears the gospel and they don't believe (recieve) the truth? God doesn't grant saving faith to those who suppress the truth.. look at 2 thessalonians 2::12 that they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness..
That harmonizes perfectly with what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 20,21
@@gwine2nine52 Yea I’ve just never read the phrase “granted saving faith”. The Bible says we’re saved by grace. We access said grace when we choose to put our faith the death, burial and resurrection after hearing & believing the message. We repent and are baptized for the forgiveness of our sins, and receive the Holy Spirit. Read acts 2:14-41. The first gospel sermon. Why would Peter be pleading with them to save themselves if God just made them do it?
@@foreleftproductions756 correct. we are saved by grace thru faith but will God grant someone repentance if they suppress the truth? God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. We can't save ourselves. Salvation is of the lord but if man resists so does God.
humbling yourself is not contributing to your salvation its an expression of seeking God's mercy
@@gwine2nine52 Nobody would repent without believing, right? I agree that we can’t save ourselves, 100%. But did you read Peters sermon? The people who accepted his message were baptized and were added to the number/church. There was definitely a response from the people. I wouldn’t call it humbling their selves, they were cut to the heart by what they heard. Do you agree with Peters sermon?
For me the most simple and clear cut way to determine if reformed theology is true is consider the OT pattern of Israel.
1) Israel is in bondage
2) God miraculously brought them out of bondage through no ability or works of their own, but because He loved them
3) God gives them compelling evidence He is THE Almighty and there is no other
4) He leaves Israel with 1 simple part to play: CHOOSE YE THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE.
That paradigm proves that God does all the saving, regardless of works. He called His people without any particular merit (besides Abrahams faith). Therefore God gets the glory for saving, HOWEVER it is contingent upon “choose ye this day” which is the same paradigm for Christ. To believe on Him is to choose Him. So we have to respond to the salvation God has performed and offered to us, and therefore, reformed theology cannot stand.
1) His grace is absolutely resistible proven by Israel who saw works that would’ve cause tyre and Sidon to repent
2) He made it so we, humans, are the differentiation between God saving us or leaving us (unlimited atonement, but not all are saved, conditional saving)
3) we must continue to believe and choose Christ (see book of judges) it doesn’t just happen
4) our depravity was confronted when Christ came and broke the power of sin, enabling us to choose Him
Amen brother, one of the dumbest memes I keep seeing is "God chose Israel, Apostles etc... but not you, you chose God" - forgetting that much of Israel ran after foreign gods, and among the Apostles was Judas who betrayed Christ!
Faith is provided by God. Anti-Calvinists cling soooo tightly to man-centered theology. Come on buddy worship God not yourself.
The Bible says that faith precedes regeneration. This verse is one example.
@@michaal105 No it does not. The Bible teaches the opposite. You must be born of the spirit to do anything of the spirit. Regeneration, grace through faith (which comes from God, not yourself), then justification. Key word picture he’s using here is baptism.
Bruh you came all this way just to talk exactly like how I portray cage-stagers mocking non-Calvinists in my memes?
@@scottthong9274 Not sure what you mean. But I’m pretty sure I stayed right where I was. I also know people who use “bruh” are immature idiots.
@@jakeabbatacola5092 And using insults like "man-centered theology" or "Come on buddy worship God not yourself" is mature and wise. Okay, QED I don't need to argue my case any further, you do it much better.
Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. Including Manichean Gnostic traditions from Augustine.
Joel should have stated that the Bible teaches that even faith is a gift of God, therefore, "through" faith still means by God, not man. Case closed.
That just shows Joel was underprepared, all these arguments and counter arguments have been up on Soteriology 101 website, TH-cam and FB for years - including 'faith is a gift of God'. It's not hard to look up what Dr Flowers has said about this topic.
Faith comes by hearing... When God sends, gives, conveys, etc., a message to a person about a truth, for instance the Gospel, one has what one needs to make a decision about it, one believes it or does not. Paul gives an example of God giving a truth to Abraham and Paul says that Abraham believed God. He explains that Abraham never wavered in unbelief. Faith is generated, in other words, when the message is given. The problem with Calvinism is the Calvinistic foundational 3 points of 9 points, not the 5 called TULIP, TULIP and 4 others.
1) Their definition of Sovereign, which claims that man cannot choose to FOLLOW God's will or RUN CONTRARY to it. Jeremiah 7:31 (see also, 19:5, and 32:35- Jews doing something that was not commanded and never entered God's mind), Jeremiah 18 (not doing what he "planned"); and 1 Samuel 23 (David inquiring of God about the town and Saul, self explanatory. These passages and hundreds of others, at least, irrefutably disprove Calvinisms definition of Sovereign as well as point 2 and 3: Miticulous Determinism, which teaches that God determines EVERY thought, word and action that every person will think, say, and do. And 3, a SECRET WILL OF GOD to try and remove God from actually being the "only" actual sinner as these first 2 points certainly do.
Calvinism disintegrates if its definition of Sovereign is refuted and it is refuted from Genesis to Revelation.
even if I presuppose that faith is an effectual gift, that doesn't change the fact that faith comes first and then regeneration (being raised).
Case is NOT closed! Ephesians 2:8+9 states that SALVATION is the gift spoken of. Case closed!
Everybody teaches that especially Mr Flowers, Flowers has always said faith is a gift that God has given man the ability to have and use as is free will, and God has determined that man can choose to do good or bad, believe or not believe in him, without determining their choice.
I don't know of a single pastor that does not preach faith is a gift, like life, hope, the ability to do anything.
Mr Leighton teaches our faith is meritless, it does not merit our salvation, only the blood of Jesus does that,.
God still does not have to save us, but in his amazing grace, he has decreed those that believe would be saved, he gets all the glory, we get none, for humbling ourselves, and admitting we are sinners, need a savior, and cannot save ourselves.
The faith allows us to believe in the only one that can .
And God gets all the glory, as it is all Christ centered, not mancentered like Calvinism, which has God respecting a certain group of people before they are born, for salvation, and all others for hell.
That makes God a respecter of person's, that are picked, we are never told why, before they are born, for salvation, or hell.
He did not even know the Scripture LF was referring to.
Here's the way I heard it explained once that helped me understand: "There is a Door that says, "Whosoever will may come." Once you go through the Door the other side says, "Chosen."
Revelation 22:17 "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."
Ephesians 1:4 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:"
Isaiah 55:9: “For the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
John 10:9: "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."
Dr Flowers once shared a meme whereby the door says 'Pull' - but under Calvinism, there is no door handle! Under Provisionism, there is.
The chosen are those that had faith, under both options when salvation is the topic.
Not to be saved, but to believe in the one that can save, because mankind cannot.
To support Joel’s case, it says the wind blows where it wishes. Not where man wishes.
Not sure if that was the point if the comparison but okay
@@scottthong9274 Joel’s reasoning for bringing up the verse was that our regeneration is not an outcome of our faith. Jesus says it blows like the wind; who knows where it blows? It does not depend on man’s faith to be regenerated.
@@ShepherdMinistry I don't see the link from "The wind blows where it chooses" and "Therefore regeneration precedes faith". We're not disagreeing that the wind (God's Spirit) does whatever He wants, we're disagreeing on WHAT He wants. I say that from other passages, it's clear that He wants a response by faith before He will give new life.
@@scottthong9274If the Spirit is directed depending on man, then how is it a mystery?
@@ShepherdMinistry Recently someone pointed out that the comparison to the wind is for "those born of the Spirit", not the Holy Spirit itself. If correct then that would make our discussion on the Holy Spirit being compared to the wind moot.
Both men clearly misunderstand the process. Regeneration begins with being BORN AGAIN as a Child of God by the Spirit. Colossians 2:12 doesn’t speak of being “born again”. It speaks of being RAISED TO NEW LIFE. Being RAISED TO NEW LIFE is the end of regeneration. The process of regeneration is as follows:
1. Born again by the Spirit (see John 3).
2. Faith in Christ (because you can now see He is Lord and King… ie see the Kingdom of Heaven… see John 3).
3. Baptism… in which you confess that Christ will raise you with Him and by which God seals you (see Colossians 2:12).
4. The indwelling is the Spirit by which God causes you to bear fruit and sanctifies you throughout your life… and by which you are empowered for ministry. Although this sanctification is always limited by this “body of death” that we inhabit in this life.
5. Death, by which you are released from your body of death.
6. Resurrection & Glorification by which you are raised from death and given a new Spiritual body that is incorruptible (see 1 Corinthians 15).
Both men clearly misunderstand this process and that is why they don’t get Paul’s language in Colossians 2.
No. Death and raised is daily. That’s daily cross.
Aletheia, no, you are taking this as SUBJECTIVE. It is OBJECTIVE. Yours is a common Christian mistake.
@@jaggedlines2257 Jesus says in order to follow him one must die daily. I don’t make it up.
Col. 2:12 does speak of born again. It says “the baptism”. That’s not water. That’s the baptism of the heart. That’s a new heart. Same as a new birth.
And it says all of it is a work of God not yourself. Flowers tried to con that man.
@@aletheia8054 - Colossians 2:12 is not about “baptism of the heart”. It is about water baptism which signifies our ultimate resurrection with Christ… it is the seal of that event… our guarantee that it will take place. Resurrection and being born again are two related but different things. Being born again is the START of the process of regeneration… where our heart (ie inner man) is made alive and turned towards God by the power of the Spirit. Resurrection is the END of the process where the whole is renewed as we are delivered from this “body of death” (see Romans 7) and receive our Spiritual bodies (see 1 Corinthians 15:42-49).
Watching Calvinists struggle through such simple verses is quite painful. Every single verse, without exception, used as a Calvinist proof-text gets completely destroyed when simply looking at the context in which that verse is written. For example, Eph 2:8-9. they say that "faith" is the gift and not simply "grace" is the gift, failing to see that the whole point of this passage is to contrast "faith" with "works" in that salvation/grace can't be earned so that one can boast, rather salvation is by grace as a gift only. They do so soo stubbornly that they end up turning a passage that unambiguously says 'faith isn't a work' into somehow saying 'faith is a work'....unbelievable reasoning.
Tell me about it, just browse the other comments here and count how many times a Calvinist just drops "Faith is a gift" as a response!
Col2:12 Raises up with him trough faith IN THE WORKING OF GOD NOT IN THE WORKING TROUGH MEN WILL (work salvation) . This verse prove we are saves BY GOD ALONE not by our personal commitment or free will. We have to be crucified with Christ before the beginning for to be buried (die) with him (at the cross) we have to be baptized in Jesus death this is about '' we have to be clean in Jesus BLOOD BAPTISM'' first than we can resurrect with Him.Nothing impure can enter into God kingdom . Only the elects are CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST ( clean with Christ blood) nobody can crucify itself with Christ, we have been predestined to this being crucified with him before the beginning by having our names written in is book of life.
Your caps lock is broken
You make faith a work.
@@christophersnedeker2065 ???? Grace and Faith are God work and gift for is elects, to chose are men work
@@michelhaineault6654 So faith is a work? I thought protestants believe in faith apart from works.
This is where being too literal completely obscures what Christ does through and for believers! God STILL gives supernatural faith to those who don't deserve it to carry out His purposes!
We have to get this right or we will "save" ourselves, and that is much of the problem here. Arminians have a self righteous view of themselves prior to salvation. They just will not accept original sin and its effects upon mankind. They believe the dead have all of this self righteousness enabling them though dead to somehow know that the truth of God and His salvation is the truth of God and His salvation.
Add to that they tend to choke on and just will not accept a God who is so in control of His universe that He and only He takes the prerogative to choose who is to be saved.
Who does such a God think He is? God? LOL.
@@Gablesman888 I think you're misrepresenting Arminianism here. It does affirm Total Depravity.
@@scottthong9274 Having been an Arminian (did I make myself clear on that?) I most definitely do remember that though lip service is certainly given on the doctrine of total depravity, nonetheless I believed and the thousands of Baptists I knew all believed that mankind possesses this little island of virtue totally capable of cooperating with the Gospel to the extent that they "choose" Christ, they "accept" Jesus. Like Jesus has self esteem problems and needs you or I to "accept" Him so He will feel better. What blasphemy.
No, God chooses us, just like God told Moses. Arminian/Provisionists just hate it when Augustinians quote the OT to validate the doctrines of grace. But after all, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
@@Gablesman888 What you don't seem to make clear is why so many alleged self-identified Arminians including yourself don't/didn't seem to actually know the tenets of proper Arminianism, such as that Total Depravity is a serious problem which requires God giving miraculous Prevenient Grace to overcome.
I was never an Arminian and I know at least that much. Tell me more about how you and thousands were actual Arminians.
How did Joel not school Flowers here..
I mean it says "your faith by the working of God"
God caused the faith..
Hello people ...
Flowers is rather cunning in his wording.. noticed he stopped prior to saying "the working of God"
A few verses earlier it says don't let any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.
The flower's argument was weak and shady.
No hate.. all love here, just staying facts
If Joel had such a good response as you claim, why do most observers think Joel fumbled? Why does Joel's demeanor seem to reflect the opposite of success? Why did Joel then go on James White's show to talk about this point and neither Joel nor White used the point you just made, nor did White give any other meaningful solution?
IMHO, the simplest answer to that is Joel did not give a good response. What you think is a schooling answer is not in fact a valid one.
@@scottthong9274 woah homie.. I never said Joel gave a good response.
I asked... how did he not?
I've never listened to white talk about the passage or at least I don't remember.
Either way I would say that he could've given a solid response and I'm shocked he didn't.
@@jamestiffany3531 Oh, my misunderstanding. You have what you think is an easy response and were therefore surprised Joel didn't use it.
I would still maintain however, that your solution is not as clear cut as you think. If Flowers' usage of Col 2:12 is weak, why do so many people use it to show how Faith Precedes Regeneration? Why do so few Calvinists rebutt his usage, including the way you do? Why did James White not give any actual response when he had Joel on specifically to discuss this point?
@@scottthong9274 honestly, I have no idea.
I would say that one person such as James White doesn't know everything and on top of that, perhaps it is the wording used by flowers that throws people off.
He has a very eloquent way of speaking and in some ways it can be hard to try to comprehend the meaning of what he says and then have a decent answer in response to the question.
It wasn't even that loaded of a question but it is unique.
Regardless, I would suggest that the text itself provides the adequate answer needed from a Calvinist perspective.
I'm not a professing Calvinist myself, but I hold to the tenets of the tulip.
Or at least I would say I agree with the tulip doctrine.
@@jamestiffany3531 Good on you, I too hold my own views based on my own conclusions... regardless of what other people may agree or disagree about my conclusions. In fact, I think everyone does it too whether they realize it or not.
So many debates can be solved with the word BOTH. Does God call us, does God choose us, does God seek us first? Of course he does. It's throughout scripture.
Does man need to respond, to receive, to accept? Well of course he does, it's all throughout scripture.
So much confusion in having to choose one or the other. How can Jesus be 100% man and 100% God? It's BOTH. Who lives your Christian life? Your or God?
Paul explained it perfectly in Galatians chapter 2.
"I, yet not I, but Christ.."
Indeed, I used the BOTH-AND reason in my video for why I support Molinism
@@scottthong9274 not sure I like molinism though. That's the middle. Rather than BOTH. Am I understanding it correctly?
@@garyg7549 I suppose it's sort of the middle, but the basic two claims of Mere Molinism is that: 1) God has Middle Knowlege hence knows the future; and 2) Humans have libertarian free will. Some systems will pit one against the other and say that God knowing the future means human choices are already determined, or else human choices are free because God doesn't know the future.
@@scottthong9274 ok gotcha. It's crazy how most are "either/or" in their thinking. God is so much more than we can figure out in our mind.
Thanks for writing, appreciate your time.
@@garyg7549 It even extends to the Old Testament. Is the Angel of YHWH the same as YHWH, or distinct from YHWH? As Dr Michael Heiser likes to say: "And the answer to that is... Yes."
Im amazed he went to John 3, where Jesus says you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God.
So in his logic, youre born again, then you have faith and can see the kingdom of God.
But in Johns later epistle, he puts it the other way around...
1 John 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God
Indeed, he wrongly equivocated 'see the kingdom of God' with believing the basic Gospel message.
In my experience examining a slew of alleged prooftexts for TULIP, I found that such jumping to unjustified conclusions happens in almost every case. For example, a passage mentioning the evil of people is extrapolated to mean evil people cannot even accept God's first seeking them out for reconciliation (which is what Total Depravity actually requires).
@@scottthong9274 even a totally depraved person knows a good plea deal when they hear one
DID CALVIN TEACH REGENERATION PROCEEDING FAITH? Not according to John Calvin's own Institutes. In Book III, chapter 3, Neither does scripture. we find the following opening text that makes it very clear that regeneration follows from faith. After presenting this, I will show from the same text that Calvin equated "regeneration" with repentance..
(see Calvin in John. 1:13). For since pardon and forgiveness are offered by the preaching of the Gospel, in order that the sinner, delivered from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of iniquity, may pass into the kingdom of God, it is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the Gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path, and making it his whole study to practice repentance. Those who think that repentance precedes faith instead of flowing from, or being produced by it, as the fruit by the tree, have never understood its nature, and are moved to adopt that view on very insufficient grounds.
This seems clear enough so we proceed now to Calvin's treatment of regeneration.
By repentance I understand regeneration (spiritual regeneration) , the only aim of which is to form in us anew the image of God, which was sullied, and all but effaced by the transgression of Adam. So the Apostle teaches when he says, "We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Again, "Be renewed in the spirit of your minds" and "put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Again, "Put ye on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Accordingly through the blessing of Christ we are renewed by that regeneration into the righteousness of God from which we had fallen through Adam, the Lord being pleased in this manner to restore the integrity of all whom he appoints to the inheritance of life. God assigns repentance as the goal towards which they must keep running during the whole course of their lives.
I strongly recommend that interested persons actually attend to Calvin's writings rather than assume they know what he taught.
Justification is a work of God the Father and the Holy Spirit in us and without us. Justification and faith do not have a sequence in time but in order Faith- Justification but are simultaneously in time. Sanctification is a work of The Holy Spirit in us but not without us. Justification and SANCTIFICATION cannot be separated. There is no sanctification without justification or justification without sanctification, this even when sanctification is just a begin of regeneration through all our life. Faith is by Grace and the free gift of God. The Bible teaches us the Justification of the UNGODLY. [Made/ declared Righteous] God The Father the Judge does not say: not guilty He says GUILTY But then point to Christ Not a believer is justified nor one that chooses justification.
This does not leave any room for salvation other than by the Conviction of the Holy Spirit of our lost state without Christ as being the first in Salvation of men. It is true what was said of old: “ Who Works First We Know Last.”
There is a general working of the Holy Spirit in the hearing of the Word that convicts and precedes faith but not always leads to salvation. See the parable of the sower.
This is how Calvin preached the Gospel
FREE OFFER OF THE GOSPEL (Calvin's Wisdom p119-120)
He calls all men to himself, without a single exception, and gives Christ to all, that we may be illumined by him. When we pray, we ought, according to the rule of charity, to include all. God invites all indiscriminately to salvation through the Gospel, BUT THE INGRATITUDE OF THE WORLD IS THE REASON why this grace, which is equally offered to all, is enjoyed by few.
“But to all who RECEIVED Him, who BELIEVED in His name, He gave the power (or authority) to BECOME children of God” John -:12. The people whom Jesus healed, for example, in the 1st century, first RECEIVED Him. This is what Jesus is referring to when He says,” Your faith has made you well”. THAT “faith”. brings us TO Jesus who then gives us the Holy Spirit apart from which we CANNOT have saving faith.
It's amazes me not only with calvinist, that when people confronted with their mistakes, how can still hold on to their truth!
Yes! Because it was never really about the Bible to begin with. They use the Bible as a means to expand their ego, or promote their church or ministry, or whatever theological hobby horse they feel like riding. Their mind is made up, don't confuse them with the facts! Preconceived ideas are one of the most dangerous things in the world when it comes to spiritual matters. Well said!
, Ecclesiastes 3:15: “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.” The “natural man” cannot grasp that, for to him reality is based only on the evidence of the senses. The man of reason could justify the verse’s end, saying if it has any meaning then the writer must mean recurrence. The sun comes every day and the moon completes its cycle and the seasons come and go. If we took a picture of the universe today, the scientists can compute how long it will take to return to this point in the picture. So the intellectual man could justify the verse; but that is not what is meant, for it is addressed not to the man of reason or the man of sense, but to the man of Imagination. What is it all about? “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away.”
And Leighton ignores the plain teaching regarding baptism in this verse. So these guys suffer from the same problem interpreting scripture.
Lotta people confused here by Leighton's incorrect framing of God as the grammatical object of the sentence, when he appears to be the subject. In other words, in these verses Paul is talking about God's faith and works in raising us together with Christ. He's not talking about how by grance through faith we are saved.
The clue is that Paul is talking directly about the power behind the resurrection, and only indirectly about how we come to be saved.
In addition, the ordo salutis is logical, not temporal. Even if God was the grammatical object of the sentence, Leighton is framing the question in a way that implies a temporal issue, and muddies the debate waters, making it difficult for Joel to unpick both Leighton's logical riddle-knot and exegete the verses when put on the spot. And, without meaning to insult Joel, he has never struck me as quick-witted on his feet, so rather than him seeming stumped, he absolutely did the right thing by carefully reading the verse in context, and considering it amongst the wider biblical landscape, even if he was unable to provide a solid response within that time frame.
Apostle Saint Paul basically described a scenario in which a CateChumen is immersed into the Baptismal waters and rises as 1 of the FaithFul [Romans 5:9-12; 6:3-4; 1 Corinthians 12:2-3; Ephesians 2:8-10; Colossians 2:11-12; Titus 3:5] then is Sealed by the Holy Ghost [Ephesians 1:13-14].
If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
- 1 Timothy 6:3-5
It's a useless dispute of words whether faith precedes generation or is caused by it. John 3 is key on regeneration. The golden chain of salvation is another passage that is useful here, Rom 8:29-30. If justified by faith the call precedes faith, and one cannot hear unless he is regenerate. Matthew 13 "he who has ears to hear let him hear." Which means that those unregenerate cannot hear the call to faith. John 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them." Faith is a gift and a means of grasping on to salvation.
With John 3 I assume you mean being born again to see the kingdom? Seeing the kingdom is not a synonym for believing and accepting by faith.
Romans 8:29-30 doesn't state that we are predestined to be saved, it doesn't mention HOW or WHY someone starts onto that golden chain. Also, what would your explanation be for Paul suddenly switching to past tense for just that section? When everything else earlier in the chapter is future, including 'glorification' which is also always future in other Letters.
Matthew 13 also states that the crowd had closed their own eyes. They became hardened, not were born blind & deaf. Also, why would Jesus need to speak in parables if Total Depravity is true? The crowd wouldn't accept Him even if He spoke plainly. Why does the parallel in Luke 8:12 state that the devil snatches away the word SO THAT they can't believe and be saved? If Total Depravity is true, the devil is wasting his time since the Reprobate can't ever be saved in the first place.
John's comparison of people to sheep does not entail that one is born a sheep or not a sheep. Besides, actual sheep in real life are not born already knowing the shepherd's voice - they have to LEARN to recognize it!
Eph 2:8-9 actually states that "salvation by grace through faith" is the gift, not faith per se effectually given. I have mentioned this multiple times in response to various commentors bringing up that passage in the comments here.
Now, I can agree that all this is kind of ivory tower, in-house debate over theology. Except that some people actually live out their beliefs, e.g. Derek Murrell who told Pinecreek and the audience that they can't do anything to accept the Gospel... Or Derek Webb who won't repent and return to the faith because he's "Dead like Lazarus in the grave, God will call me out if God wants me, nothing I can do"... Or Megan Phelps, Edwin Curley and others who apostatized because they can't stomach the Calvinist view of a God who creates people specifically for damnation.
But if you feel that all this is 'a useless dispute of words' then why did you spend the time to argue for your point of view that faith is caused by regeneration?
Notice my last statement. Faith is both a tool to grasp onto Christ and a gift of God that allows one to grasp onto God. It is not one or the other only. It's bigger than this dispute allows. And yes, debating words like faith, justification, Scriptura often devolves into a dispute about words, but is also necessary in moderation.
"So you think seeing the Kingdom of God is equivalent to accepting Christ?"
"Yes"
Brother needs a little Christology in his life after that quick response. That really discredits any theological clout he would ever have.
Lol it was kind of a yes or no question.
Before one is born again how is he or she Good soil ?
Does good soil equate 1:1 to being saved though
After reading the parable in mark 4
I would say yes
@@edwinrivera5377 If that's your view, then you should answer your own question: In your view, what causes a soil to be good or bad according to the parable itself?
God
@@edwinrivera5377 I agree, God made humans good (Ecc 7:29) but some refuse to love the truth and resist God's will to save them (Matt 23:37, Luke 7:30, Acts 7:51).
Calvinists see faith as a work but it is merely the acceptance of the work of Christ. Faith doesn't earn salvation but it accesses it.
How does a dead person have faith so they can be born again?
@@bryanpratt5850 Same way the dead Prodigal Son came to his senses & returned to the father in Luke 15, the dead awake & arise in Eph 5:14 & Rev 3:1-2... Deadness is metaphor for separation, not literal corpselike inability to respond.
@ so, using the metaphor of death for separation, what you’re saying is that we have the ability to raise ourselves from the dead?
@bryanpratt5850 You still don't seem to understand how metaphor is used.
"I am the gate", so does Jesus have hinges?
@ you didn’t answer the question.
@ I’ll answer yours. Yes, and He’s the only One with Hinges because He’s the only Door/Gate.
Ephesians 2:8-9 clearly states that we are saved by grace through faith. Not by God's grace unto faith. Through the free will, yielding to God and HIs gospel He saved us whilst drawing us with the Holy Spirit. It's simple in explanation but obviously and rich spiritual power working. After all, this is God's power unto salvation and not a mere average happening! You can also not lose your salvation so you may all want to understand God's grace and study Galatians 5 to understand the liberty found in Christ dispels all notion that what we do after we are born again has any bearing on our eternal salvation.
Pauls gospel is in two parts, the first part is future tense, part 2 is 2nd Corinthians it is read in real time. When the mystery occurs certain verses beginning at 1:9,10
We had the sentence of death, so before they were raised from so great a death they had the sentence of death, if you notice many times its read that way as it happens. So the harvest begins, 2nd Corinthians Paul is in tribulation dealing with those whom make shipwreck the faith. He warns the Corinthians if he comes again he will not spare. Paul and Timothy are the two witnesses prophesied in 1st Timothy 1:18, and 1st Corinthians 16.
The names of the cities Paul wrote too also shows the progression, if there be no reserection of the dead, then Christ didn't rise, and the saints in light would not shine the glorious light.
The first born among many breathern..
Dead people can't breathe.
The Valley of Dry Bones demonstrates salvation... you were spiritually dead, you heard the Gospel and the command to Believe... you instantaneously were brought to life and breathing / believing... the command of the Gospel is to breathe / be believing and to keep breathing / believing...
There is no "ORDER" which is Flowers error and the Calvinist heretic rejects the explicit and real command to be believing in the Blood of Jesus and replaces the blood with a Doctrine of Sovereignty as the thing to be believed...
Ephesians 2:8-9 New International Version (NIV)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.
So there you can see God gives you faith first through with you believe in Jesus and are then saved.
Thanks, but this must be the tenth time someone has quoted something along the lines of 'faith is a gift from God'. It is commonly accepted that the Greek says 'salvation by grace through faith' is what is the gift of God, not faith effectually given per se.
@@scottthong9274 I feel like we are splitting hairs here. Since all things are from God then salvation, Grace, and our faith are all gifts given. Because it says there is none good, no not one, they’ve all turned aside. There’s none that seek after God. Not of themselves anyway.
@@ericcarver1341 I'd agree it's hair splitting, because at the practical level it is still the human who turns to God by faith or rebels - whether it is God who effectually caused the belief and repentance, or God who put the responsibility on humans to do so.
But where it is no longer theoretical is when such theology affects the salvation of people. For example Edwin Curley, Megan Phelps apostatized because of they assumed that the Calvinistic view of God (who creates billions just for the purpose of damming them to hell, refusing to give them Irresistible Grace that they should be saved) is the only valid view of God. Or Derek Webb who apostatized and uses the excuse that only God chooses whether or not to regenerate a corpselike dead sinner to life & faith, so he'll just lie there waiting instead of repenting.
As for your quote of Romans 3, that is hyperbole and poetic language - check out Psalm 14 Paul is quoting from, where there ARE righteous people.
"the working of God" mean anything?
He totally left that part out didn’t he?
This L.Flower is always contouring the truth
Joel Webbon is not the best person to have this debate. A better answer rooted is in the text: 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses... Colossians 2:12-13 (ESV). The verb - "You were" and "raised with" (GK synergeiro) is in the passive form, meaning, the action is being done to the individual and "faith" (pistis) is the instrument from which this is occurring. How? "In the powerful working of God." This is confirmed by the active tense - "God made alive." Taken together, the subject (God) is performing the action of the verb - "made alive." Whether we understand how exactly this fits in a chronological sequence or not, the text is clear. Unfortunately, Mr. Webbon's understanding is limited on this subject.
Thanks for the insights. Does the Greek explain where or how the faith arises from?
@@scottthong9274
The Greek says "through the pistis of the working of God". This is probably one of the times that the Greek word pistis should be translated as faithfulness rather than faith (as it is in Romans 3:3). This translation goes along much better with the rest of what Paul is saying in verses 11-15. Notice that everything in the passage is something God did in the past tense. Thus "you were raised with him through the faithfulness of the working of God." I'll leave it to you to decide if Flowers argument bears any weight in that case.
Joel didn’t sound “stumped” to me.
To each their own subjective opinion, but to me he seemed genuinely surprised by Colossians 2:12
It’s easy as all things in that passage God did. So he does in the faith that regenerates you just like that which raised Christ from the dead. I think most people in this comments section have a severe confirmation bias. I don’t think Joel even saw this as an affront or a problem
Does 'most people in this comments section' include yourself, good sir? We always need to watch our own selves for biases, even as we spot them in others.
Joel should have used John 6:44-45. God "draw him" ("him" being a person) because no one understand or seeks God (Romans 3:11). If we accept the Romans passage, God MUST step in. For a person to be saved, He - or she - must be given faith of God to believe. Faith PRECEEDS belief - faith given from God.
Flowers and White just had a debate on that one
What happens is that one is lighted on Credit, so to speak, when one hears the Gospel and when they accept it that light becomes theirs and they are born again. This is why 2 Cor 3 says the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Notice that the spirit of the Lord is the mirror image of Lord is that spirit (actual write Lord is that spirit and hold it at angle against your bathroom mirror). This is also why that though Moses, as type and shadow, is veiled with spiritual death, he has the light on his face and when he turns to the Lord the veil is taken away (see ex 34 for context).
John 10 says the same thing in a little different way. Jesus says if by me any man enter in he shall go in and out. Why say "in" twice? Because when you are in the presence of Jesus, through the Gospel, you have entered IN, on credit, so to speak, and when you accept the Gospel you then go IN to life and OUT of death. This is why Jesus is the door. Psalm 36 says in his light we shall see light so one is illuminated with new life to accept life with. Jesus, in dying and rising for you, has the authority, as light, to walk up to you, who are darkness, and say "hi". And in His light we accept light and become light. It is in this sense Jesus says in john 3 that unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom. And you cannot get born again unless you see the kingdom. Receiving His light, on credit, through the gospel, solves for this. Also eph 2:8 says it is by grace through faith but even this faith is a gift of God (a grace). This is so because you are lighted with Christ (on credit not actual regeneration) to accept Christ with (actual regeneration).
Both these guys are half right and half wrong on this.
Thanks for the polite comment, just to note that as has been said many times (because Eph 2:8 has been raised many times by other commentors here), the Greek has "salvation by grace through faith" as the gift of God. So it's more that the method by which we're freely saved is the gift, not so much the faith is an effectually given gift.
@@scottthong9274 Hey, thanks for YOUR polite comment, i appreciate it.
Scripture must be understood as a whole image where each verse is but a brushstroke contributing to the overall image. And this lighted to accept light with is everywhere in scripture.
The parable of the sower says it well. When we hear the word we have the choice to agree to it and proceed on with God or deny it and be hardened in the judgment already on the fallen world. The choice is ours but the faith is still a gift.
I know these things like the back of my hand not just because I mediiate the word in its overall image but I pray much in tongues. Not sure if that disappoints you but when you pray mysteries God does answer them with revelation knowledge.
1 Cor 12:28 says diversities of tongues, as in plural, as in more than one kind of tongue..And the tongue for personal edification is one of those diversities. God has made us the steward of it (1 Cor 4).
I would appreciate further replies concerning all of this but if not..Thanks again! I love you, brother.
@@michaelchurchmcm If you were fully Calvinist I'd be slightly surprised at your speaking in tongues, but I've actually attended a Presbyterian service where they did just that!
I'd mostly agree with you that God is the one who enables every person to respond by shining His light on us. It sounds like a form of Prevenient Grace.
@@scottthong9274 The problem with all these doctrines is that they are half true..Which is a dangerous place to be. And I am by no means calvinist though I appreciate them greatly. So is there redemption prior to faith, no. But there is light to see light with which makes calvinists half right.
As for tongues my heart breaks that this gift has been taken from the church by those who say the perfect bible has come so it (tongues) has passed away. That is complete error. 1 Cor 13 saying tongues shall cease means as the Holy Spirit, by tongues for personal edification, brings you to and transforms you to love then tongues on that level ceases and works in you toward the next level of glory. And finally when we die and go to heaven or Jesus comes back tongues will cease totally.
We all like to talk about how the Holy Spirit seals us unto the day of redemption but if that was automatic wouldn't we all be teaching the same thing?
As for tongues for personal edification, Paul says he who speaks in tongues edifies himself so he is obviously is not taking about the tongue for interpretation or the tongue that is another earthly language you don't know in and of yourself.
Finally, we are born again spirits inside natural bodies still from Adam. The only way God can really get you alone with Him, to talk to you, without your natural mind filtering it wrong, is through tongues. Then, when you are edified enough He will tell you plainly what you were praying about and you will make your stand in faith keeping your natural mind from interpreting it wrong. Do you pray in tongues?