"Bob Felts" <wrf3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:AF546505-FEBC-72C7-6D9F-220CA5965860@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> gary <biblicist@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> >From Lenski's ST, John, p254.
>>
>>
>>
>> "From the great person who came from heaven and can testify to the
>> heavenly
>> things Jesus advances to the great salvation coming through this
person.
>> Fore he shall be far more than a witness, he is the Savior himself.
Thus
>> Jesus seeks to kindle faith in Nicodemus, faith in the divine salvation
>> offered him. 'And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
thus
>> lifted up must be the Son of man, in order that everyone believing may
in
>> him have life eternal.' "
>>
>>
>
> So what? The question isn't "what does man need in order to be saved"
> but, rather, the source of the fulfillment of that need.
The source of Faith is God.
> In other words, is "faith" "of yourselves" or "not of yourselves"?
No kind of faith that we have is "of ourselves."
"Col. 2:12 states this directly: "through the faith of the operation of
God."
One often meets careless statements such as: "Grace is God's part, faith
ours." Now the simple fact is that even in human relations faith and
confidence are produced in us by others, by what they are and what they
do;
we never produce it ourselves. Even deceivers know that they must
cunningly
make their deceptions of such a nature that they may appear true and
grand,
and that they may thus produce faith in those whom they wish to deceive.
There is no self-produced faith; faith is wrought in us. Saving faith is
wrought by the saving grace of God. Salvation is received "by means of
faith." The dogmaticians call it the (Greek, organon leptikon, I think),
(german, die Nehmehand,) by which God makes the gifts of grace our own. In
this matter of being saved by God faith is the trustful reception wrought
in
us by God, only this reception, which is distinguished from the subsequent
activity of gratitude and works of faith. On this account faith is
essential, and he who does not believe is lost because he does not by
faith
receive the salvation he ought to receive." Lenski, ST, Eph., P. 422-423.
> Is
> faith something that man brings to fruition in and of himself, or is
> even faith a gift of God given to the spiritually dead?
Faith is a gift of God, but it is not a forced gift on the unregenerate
man.
Where we differ, I believe, is that I think that faith is worked in the
unregenerate man by God. God does not first regenerate the man, and then
form faith in him.
This makes all the difference in the world as to the Love of God, the
universality of Christ's work, and the nature of man.
Gary http://www.faithalone.org/
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