dermdoc said:
TheGreatEscape said:
I tell people that God's love is there for them to receive if they repent and believe. And if they repent and believe, then the Holy Spirit has truly assured them and has taken out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
So then they have a choice?
If you read Jesus in Matthew 5, then you see that the New Testament, nor any of its writers, came to abolish the law but to fulfill it. All of these commands by Saint Paul were based on the Torah, prophets, and writings, for example.
The law, explicitly revealed in the New Testament, is that every single individual who has ever lived must repent and believe. They must obey the Gospel and we must as well.
The Gospel and the law work hand in hand.
There is a general call for everyone in the world and there is an effectual call in the Scriptures as well.
But we know from Ephesians 1, John 6, and Romans 8:29-30 that belief is something God does in and to an individual by his sovereign plan.
We don't know who is elected and who is not. It's not like we can lift up everyone's shirt tails to see if they are elect or
not…as C.H. Spurgeon wrote.
And after Ephesians 1, we have Ephesians 2.
Ephesians 2:8-9
"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Notice the antecedent "it"refers to grace and faith. And why is it that some Christian brothers and sisters can't accept "this is not of our own doing."