God gives us free will, which allows us to make choices that effect our salvation. If we ALLOW GOD to change us into Saints, we are ultimately saved. If we DENY GOD'S Grace, we are damned. It is part of our human nature.
God is constantly trying to draw us closer to Him and the nature of our free will is essentially to push God away, this is what we are allowed to do. Of course, our conscience comes into play as this is how God "speaks" to us.
I'd like to hear how you interpret the verses I posted as well. If salvation is once for all, in what context are we "being saved" or working out our salvation?
Sure. I'll start with the verse you asked of me to speak on. I'm adding 13 as well,
Philippians 2
New International Version (NIV)
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
"Work out your salvation", work it out to the finish, is not an attempt to earn ones's salvation by works, but to the expression of ones salvation in spiritual growth. In other words, grow in what
has been given, not grow to receive it, or "work" for it first.
This dose not negate the fact that this growth is an ongoing process in which the believer is involved. It is, but not the obtaining of what is already given, rather the growth in what is already. I apply this same thought to the term, 'being saved" as to mean the same.
Free will on the other hand I have a different take on. I have expressed this today in my thread "No one actually makes choices.", but I'll spare you going there and re-post the gist of it here.
http://www.christianforums.net/showthread.php?t=43950&page=5
For many free will is the ability to choose freely, but with that most people tend to include the idea of change with the notion of choice.
It's only natural. I can chose A then I can changed my mind, and chose B. I have options and the possibilities are endless. This is to suggest that a choice made will alter the corse of a given direction in the way we choose it to be by our own will.
I know what your asking; So do you believe we have choices or not Danus?! ....... Yes. I do, but not in the way some of you might think of choices.
Choice and change are not synonymous to the will of man. They may seem to be, but the fact is, no one makes a choice they where not already inclined to make to begin with.
RC Sproul once commented about a time when he held a lecture on the topic of predestination at his church. He noticed a man there who he'd had several debates with on the topic of free will. He walked up to greet the man saying; "Hey glad you came! I am surprised to see you here." The man said to him; "well, I didn't want to come, but my wife made me." To which RC replied; "Made you? She did not make you. You chose to come because you did not want to upset your wife. This was your inclination, and by your own free will to do so, but not your choice."
Free will, to make choices does not mean we can or will, choose anything given the options of a choice, ie this or that. In fact, man does not really choose freely at all, because we are limited not by outside forces, but we are limited by our own self more than anything else.
RC Spoul put's it this way; "One of the most important limits on my freedom is myself. If we examine the workings of the will closely we run into a point of irony that is often overlooked in discussions about free will. The point is this: Not only may I choose what I want, I must choose what I want if my choice is really to be free. Choice is made according to desire. Without desire there could be no free choice—certainly no moral choice."
Think deeply about this.
In order for free will, or free choice, to be free, I must choose what I want.
Think about it; No one chooses what they don't want and calls it a free choice, by free will.
If someone tells you that you can choose Option A or option B, but you can't choose B, or you should not choose B, because that's just the wrong choice, or an end, and the only right option is A, but you want B ....that's not free will if you choose A because your afraid of what you really want.
Yet. this is pretty much the "free will argument" in Christianity among mankind. Has been for a long time. In fact, we have institutionalized this very ironic way of thinking about God, salvation, and what's best for all....for a long, long time.
" I must choose what I want if my choice is really to be free." This is absolute undeniable truth.
No one chooses what they do not desire, because if they did then they would not be choosing freely by their own will to freely choose. They would be forced, of pushed into making a choice that is not their own. In this since no one has option A or B because they already have an inclination freely to one of those. There is no choice beyond the will to choose, unless the will is changed.
If the will of man is sinful by nature he will chose according to his own will, sin. The only way he will choose righteousness is if his will is changed. If he has the power to change his will freely, then he does not need God, but is he does not have the power to change his will freely, then he does need God. The bible tells us that God is the one who initiates change.
People often think that "Calvinist" believe that there are two sets of Christians who both believe in Christ, but only one is going to haven because they are chosen elect, and the other is not.
This is not the case of Calvin, or reformed theology. All who believe are elect in Christ. But the reason I think many non-Calvinist think this is what Calvin was saying is because they fail to see the definition of free will in the way Calvin understood it, which is to say that because man's nature is sinful by nature, his desires are limited to his own self, and he will choose what he wants in order to choose freely, and because of this, he really has no choice but that which he is inclined to freely choose.
This is both liberating and disturbing. Depends on how you see your own choices in life, because if you choose God, then you chose him freely, and if you chose him freely you did so with a desire to choose him, and if you have a desire for God, it is because God has a desire for you by his choice and not our own, because a sinful nature does not choose God. A sinful nature has to first be inclined not to be what it is.
People will sometimes ask me why I refer to myself as a sinner, or a saved sinner. Easy, I could never choose God. I tried, but never could, and so I choose the only thing I was inclined to choose, just as so many others in this life do.
How liberating it was to not be shackled by rules of right and wrong when I was an atheist I never looked back. Right and wrong where what ever I said they where. But little did I know of the prison I was building my own prison.
Look around. there are plenty of people who do not choose God, and nothing you say to them will make a difference if they do not have a desire to do so. people will freely choose what they are inclined to choose.
I am not an atheist today. I follow Christ and have been for more than 20 years. This was not my choice, but because I had run out of choices on my own, God chose me. That is salvation and I now choose what I am inclined to choose. I do not choose what I do not want, but that does not mean I'm not a sinner still. I still have an old nature until I am perfected.
Romans 7:15-24
New International Version (NIV)
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
