Very encouraging to see you work out these issues UD,
I am very glad to see that you have answered most of the question correctly.
Your answer on commen grace was right I would also add this would also inclued the goodness of the Lord in giving provision also as well a s the call to all to repent and believe. Matt. 5:45 in regardes to provedential provision for all like food , jobs, housing, ect..
UD asks a great question:
"but it is up to each individual's free will to decide whether to accept or reject this grace isn't it?"
Certianly all men have free will, the question is whats are the limits to that free will? Is our will bound up to our fallen sinful choices. How fallen are we since the fall? What did the fall do to mankind in respects to his ability to come to God? Are we dependent completely 100% on God's free grace? or is part us and part God in a mutial cooperation like 99% God 1% us? maybt 90%-10%? or 80%-20%? Well I will give you a frew passages on the bondage of our will to sin and our absolute complete dependance on God's Grace.
John: 1:12-13
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John: 6:44
44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 15:16
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose youand appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
Romans 3:11
11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.
We are sinners in the hands of God it is his mercy not our goodness that he saves God by his own volition gives grace he is not oblagated to give grace if God is obligated to do anything then it is to give us justice and punnish us for our sins.
Romans 9:15-18
15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion."16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs , but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
Does this make God the author of sin, NO as the following passege will show. This passage is to give great comfort to the elect to God's people that thier salvation and thier security is safely in God's hand from beginning to end. This passege freakes out the unbeiliever to no end because it is GOD who is in control of salvation and not man.
Romans 9:19-24
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy,which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Eph 1:4
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
Eph 2:1-10
1 And you He made alive , who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us , 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Dead to the things of God then by HIS love and grace made alive in him that we may glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
blessings,
jr
Edited by - clash_city_rockers on 1 October 2002 18:49:5
Edited by - clash_city_rockers on 1 October 2002 18:53:25
