Actscelerate.com

Re: On Pleading the Blood - by Hayford

Acts-celerater Posts: 651 **6/16/13 10:49 pm**

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **6/16/13 10:57 pm**

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1453 **6/17/13 8:58 am**

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **6/17/13 9:16 am**

For the soldier who repented, yes, the blood was applied and was efficacious for forgiveness of sins--when he repented. My point was they were not somehow magically cleansed just because some of his blood may have gotten spattered on them as they beat him and nailed him to the tree.

Christ's dying prayer for his executioners and mockers, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" beautifully demonstrates how willing and ready He is to forgive, certainly. His own words about "repentance for forgiveness of sins" in Luke 24 as well as the apostolic message of "repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins" make clear that actual forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance and faith, and is not somehow an automatic unilateral declaration.

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1453 **6/17/13 10:04 am**

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **6/17/13 10:12 am**

I don't believe God's hands are tied, no. I do believe repentance is necessary for forgiveness of sins, since Scripture plainly states that in many places in the Old and New Testaments. Both Calvinists and Arminians believe repentance, faith and perseverance are conditions of salvation, though of course Calvinists say God causes the elect to repent, believe and persevere.

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **6/17/13 10:22 am**

I find the New Testament reveals that all who diligently seek Him will find Him, that as Peter says in Acts 10:34, "in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." I don't believe that any who truly seek Him will fail to find Him in this life. Those who wish not to retain the knowledge of God in their minds are given by God over to a reprobate/depraved mind Even though they know the judgment of God, they willfully persist in their rebellion, and thus are damned, as Romans 1 says. God works in the hearts of all, not wishing that any should perish. His prevenient grace draws all and convicts all, but does not force any to repent and believe.

As the Apostle Paul proclaimed in his sermon on Mars Hill:

And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." (Acts 17:26-31 NASB)