An Essential Defined

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After a hard labor of months (even years) a decision has been made…
An essential for Christianity has had to be defined to clarify what is Biblical and what is not.

Both the “Sovereignty of God” and “The Free Will of Man” Doctrines are True.


“Whosoever will may come” and “God knows His own” are both defining doctrines of Christianity: Both-and, not either-or.
SO MANY are arguing over these two doctrines being exclusive that it has become a downright distraction!
So let’s be clear, to settle the matter…

AllAbleANDGodKnows
pic by Richard Gunther

Resolved

That both the doctrine of Free Will (as defined by, “whosoever will may come”) and that the Sovereignty of God (as defined by, “God knows His own”) are present in God’s written Word.

This is essential, to understand this matter is to keep from error, to keep from making God into some figment of your own imagination. You cannot define what God has not, to make up your own definitions, or make additions, to twist Scripture, as many have done to support either doctrine as separate. Charles Spurgeon saw this, as have many other leading Biblical Scholars and Pastors… this is nothing actually anything new. But what is not “new” is that we must now define this understanding as an essential for Biblical orthodoxy, finally, once and for all time. This doctrinal understanding is not “new” at all, but merely a clarification of what has been confused by many, in that you must hold to BOTH, not only to one, doctrine, for you to hold to a Biblical theology, to not be in danger of idol worship, to not be found in apostasy.

Calvary Chapel Essentials defined these doctrines, posted on Wikipedia.org at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary_Chapel#Calvinism_and_Arminianism
But what Christian Leadership fails to do is, and that includes Calvary Chapel, is to declare that this understanding, that Free Will and God’s Sovereign Knowledge are both true, that this insight is another essential in and of itself, for Biblical Christian faith. All else, any other understanding expressed, that does not acknowledge these two doctrines existing together in Scripture, is heresy and cannot be accepted as Christianity, as a result.

The arguing has shown this to be so and necessary to declare as so…

I fear for the leaders of Christianity, should they continue to straddle the fence and refuse to identify this doctrinal understanding as an essential for Orthodoxy.

So, to sum up the matter plainly, if anyone wants to know whether they are living in idolatry, one clear form of idolatry very prevalent today is to believe either of these doctrines, without the acceptance of the other. Obviously, believing neither is true makes you an unbeliever, but so does to not accept both exist in God’s Word.

Mark this well, all of you who argue this ad nauseum, this is now no longer a debate with me, I am settled; I Pray you will be as well…

Patrick Burwell
OnlyJesusSaves.org

Ray Comfort said this in reply to conversations over this subject…
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https://www.facebook.com/official.Ray.Comfort/posts/1122401537780318
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References:

http://onlyjesussaves.org/docs/books/concalvinism/ –