Now, once we do accept it [Grace], it becomes effective to us. Very, very effective. That’s the point. Because God makes us alive, it’s much more effective than if we were in control of making ourselves alive.
To borrow a phrase that explains my position (which I happened to feel is the Biblical position) that explains the relationship of Grace to eternal salvation (eternal life); We are able to walk away from the offer, but not the deal.
We are able to reject God’s Grace (which is why I do not like the term Irresistible Grace) , but once we accept it we HAVE eternal life. God picks up the tab and then ensures the deal remains in effect.
Then, you DON'T believe we have free will after the "deal" has been accepted. This is the only way to read this. If not, please explain how God keeps us in "the deal" while we still retain the free will to break it. Either we retain free will or God FORCES us to remain in "the deal".
I asked you these questions in my last post:
Do you think our free will ends there [at initial justification]?
Do you think that after initial justification we have to STAY FAITHFUL by acts of our free will, in order to remain justified, or that God overrides our free will after we are saved in order to keep us "saved"?
Must we cooperate with God's Grace?
Could you please answer them?
That’s my main point and feedback to your OP. You seem to think “justified†means “savedâ€. They do not mean the same thing.
They are used interchangeably in some places, but let's assume you are right. For our discussion here what does it matter? In your opinion, can a person be saved and not justified, or justified and not saved? We are talking about either being "legally made righteous" or saved from sin. Both mean going to Heaven at death, correct? From now on I will ONLY use the word "justify", OK?
Nor does Grace mean “forcedâ€. Plainly the Bible (everywhere it uses the term Grace) speaks of it as a gift of God. Plainly as well, everywhere the Bible uses “justified†it does mean “shown…â€
No, you're mistaken. In James 2 we agree this is the meaning, but not EVERYWHERE. Here is the definition from Thayer's:
1) to render righteous or such he ought to be
2) to show, exhibit, evince, one to be righteous, such as he is and wishes himself to be considered
3) to declare, pronounce, one to be just, righteous, or such as he ought to be
There are two different definitions than to "show righteousness", in fact, the majority of the instances are "to declare" or "to render".
That’s not the same thing as “savedâ€. Grace is not the same thing as “made aliveâ€,either. Being made alive is the effect (outcome if you will) of Grace. Yet you seem to use all these terms interchangeably, as if they all mean the same thing.
I said: "If God (even while we were originally dead in our trespasses)made us alive by Christ’s grace… and you come back (in effect re-wording my statement )t
Now, both the first (initial justification) and second time around, we are"in our sins", correct? I mean, before we are justified…[/FONT][/SIZE]
I mean just think about that for a minute. “Before we are justifiedâ€. You mean like before we ever come out of the womb? As soon as we begin performing deeds (either good or bad) we start “justifyingâ€who we are. And that’s sinful fallen creatures.
Huh? We have been talking for three threads now about the word "justify" meaning "shown to be RIGHTEOUS" or "showing our TRUE FAITH". Didn't you agree with this definition of "justify" in James 2? You certainly don't think we are "showing true faith" every time we do any "deeds", BEFORE INITIAL JUSTIFICATION, do you?
And even once we are saved,we STILL have deeds that someone could use to justify us as un-saved on occasions. However, because we are God’s, we are still saved.
Now I used the term “made us alive by Christ’s graceâ€, that also is not the same thing as “initial justificationâ€. You are the one that rephrased my statement into something different that you go on to argue against with your FedEx employee example, assuming you can just replace "saved" with "justified".
You are all over the place in this post.
Can a person be justified, yes or no?
If you think this act is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than salvation, fine, let's just stick with justification.
When a person first becomes justified, what words would you use to describe this action? I use the words "initial justification". If you don't like those, choose your own. If it's NOT "made us alive", what words would you use?
My exact point can be made using your FedEx employee example. You’re right. We are justified to assume that person has FedEx training. However, we cannot extend that to knowing they are saved. After all, he could infact be an undercover 007 agent, dressed up and acting like a FedEx employee.
Again, huh? My point with the example of the Fedex guy is that OBSERVING is different from JUDGING. We can observe what's inside people without JUDGING them, just like we can OBSERVE if people HAVE TRUE FAITH without judging the state of their souls.
This is in response to your contention that James warns us AGAINST "passing judgement", therefore we can't know if someone is justified or not by their deeds, because that's "judging" them. This isn't about OSAS, but about whether our RECOGNIZING that a person is justified is the same as JUDGING him to be justified. I say "no". We can observe, by a person's actions, whether they are justified or not. This is what James is teaching. I think we agree.
James is not giving us a foolproof test for someone’s future salvation so much as he is simply saying someone that is saved, will not be sitting around doing nothing. Christians should (and will) act like Christians. James is telling us not to have dead works. Demons will act like demons,etc. But your OP argument assumes Justified means saved. It does not mean the exact same thing.
For example you say:
Excuse me, but Eph 2 never even uses the term “justifiedâ€. I still cannot figure out if you are doing this on purpose, or if you just honestly aren’t seeing there’s a difference in “justifiedâ€versus “savedâ€. But either way, that’s my basic feedback to your OP argument. You ask a couple of questions after this mischaracterization of Eph 2 and my points about it, that build upon that mischaracterization, so I feel it’s best just not to address them, since they are not my points or Eph’s points.
I know how I view salvation/justification, but I guess I've misunderstood your view. Please give me your definition of "justify", thanks.
I like your FedEx example, though. Let’s just say FedEx people looked like saved people and UPS people look like un-saved. James says you can (with the emphasis on human ability) justify that a person is saved, if they are driving a FedEx truck and you can justify people are un-saved if they are driving a brown truck. But what he’s not saying is God needs or has to look at the truck they are driving to tell if they are saved or not. God “looks†at the heart of people for their belief in Christ. Our actions are mostly sinful.
Then do you agree that either way, we are not JUDGING, but merely OBSERVING? If our actions are "mostly sinful", what does James mean by "I...will show you my faith"?
This [free-will choice in accepting God’s offer versus thwarting God’s will] seems contradictory, so could you please tell me how a person can have free will and yet not be able to “thwart God’s will�
That’s easy. It is God’s will that we choose him freely. He’s not made us as robots. But once we do accept His offer,the result IS eternal life for us. And He actually sustains that part of the deal. As Paul says, we all still continue to sin even though we are right in the middle of that deal. God’s great and able to give and sustain life, not us.
OK, then once we accept the "offer" we no longer have free will to reject the "deal"?
I asked in my last post:
"Do you think we can, by our own free will, cast ourselves out? Certainly God will never cast us out, but, in your opinion, do we have the ability, given us by God, to reject Him, even after we are justified? If you believe in free will, it seems consistent to believe that we can reject God if we choose, even after conversion."
Can you please respond to these points?
