Featured Is Everything Predestined?

Also, respectfully, you may believe that Jesus and the apostles preached predestination, but i dont. They never came right out and said it, it is just a doctrine based on certain men's interpretations.

Frankly, I dont see why it was needed for Jesus to come and die on the cross if God would just say "I save you, but I damn you"

If we didnt have a choice, then we wouldnt have needed the example of Jesus.

Without a choice, and a freewill, the death of Jesus was unneccessary.

John

 

Are you saying that sin is always my only option as a human?

John

 

That would be like I give you a choice between choice "A", and choice "A". Now, it's up to you which one you choose. You can only choose choice "A".


"A"= sin

 

You are the one that gave the example of finding a wallet. "A" is i can do the right thing and give it to it's rightful owner, or "B". I can choose to sin and keep it. "a" is not the only option

We all sin, lost and saved. But we all make the choice to sin every time we do it.

John

 

yes and no....

but really no.

John 8:34 "Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin."

Unregenerate people can make "good" decisions, but they will never make spiritual decisions.

 

and an unregenerate person can choose to return the wallet. No Calvinists(except maybe a few hyper hypers) would say that unregenerate man will always choose option b. Just like regenerate people could choose B

 

JBH will likely say your motive was wrong, so even though you chose to be honest you sinned. This makes God's commands meaningless. Why do good if it is sin? Why not keep the wallet and steal? You are still a sinner if you return the wallet in JBH's view.

The unregenerate can do true good, this is proved by Cornelius. Cornelius was not saved, yet his good works were recognized by God as true "righteousness" as shown by Peter.

Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
35 But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.

Peter spoke this concerning Cornelius BEFORE he preached the gospel to him, before Cornelius heard and believed and received the Spirit.

Just more false teaching from Calvinism.

 

More than an example brother.....Christ is Savior.

 

Nope.... not you!

 

Not you either....but "Folks" I did leave hints. Ahhh Fiddlesticks!

 

If a sinner's will is in bondage to sin, there is no option "B".

 

Jon, with all due respect, I really don't think you have a full grasp on predestination & that is why you struggle with it. But because your attempting to understand it, one day I'm sure you will. I will just say that I went through the same struggle with it & I even railed about it... to me it just seemed to not be fair. I had to be given that understanding (& I will claim in my own personal testimony,) that it was given to me from the Holy Spirit. Maybe deep down I wanted it badly & didn't know it, that I am uncertain of. But when the Holy spirit convicted me of the grievous "Sin of Unbelief" suddenly I understood. My relationship with my Lord & Savior was in fact a lie. I was telling people & myself that I was a Christian when all the while not loving & serving the Lord. This voice was clear brother when it said " how can you call yourself a Christian when you constantly sin "(for all sins are insults to God). That made me stop & admit that I was deluding all including myself.....and it changed me John, It totally changed me & that in a nut shell saved a miserable wretch that is me.

Thats Predestination.....the intervention of the HS in giving me that grace to understand my LACK of relationship so I could turn it around & truly love the Lord. Before that, I was destined to hell....actually running towards it with reckless abandon.

Then the question still remains ....why me Lord? And I cant answer that. Only God knows the answer to that & I am grateful.

 

There's a complete misunderstanding here on the will of man when lost. No one is saying, or at least they shouldn't be, that the only thing a lost man can do is choose sin.

As far as salvation is concerned, it is Gods enabling the believer that makes him capable of responding in faith, something one within his spiritually dead state cannot desire nor do without God.

And to John, the doctrine of predestination isn't made up by men, or by personal interpretation, it's Biblical revelation.

 

If I was to put it in a nutshell, this is what predestination is....Predestination tells us that His people will be "conformed to the image of his son." In other words, someday the elect will be LIKE Christ and WITH Christ. Isn't that beautiful?

Here is some scripture (yea I know, I said I wasnt gonna do it) but I believe that it's pointing to something bigger than mans free will.


Romans 8:29 "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestine to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren."

Ephesians 1:3-6 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved."

Ephesians 1:11-12 "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ."


So..... you cant ignore these passages, right.

 

Now here is an important point I need to stress (I have been doing it repeatedly) Predestination is always about *people* not *events*. Notice the words "we" "us" "whom" and "brethren" in the above scriptures. God did not predestine all things that transpire but He predestines all whom He foreknew. :thumbs:

Hope you got it & it is now clear..... cause I gotta go to work.

audios amigos

 

According to John Owen, the opposite would be the case:

"To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect." (Works of John Owen: volume 3 pg. 433)

Owen argues that if libertarian free will were true, and the hinge of individual salvation rests on the ability of the creature (regardless of the requirement), then the Cross itself becomes unnecessary. God "could" have simply required faith in something without the Cross, if the spiritual faith requirement is intrinsically tenable in the unregenerate creature.

Both Reformed and Arminian theologians at the time understood what substitutionary atonement actually entailed, thus the Arminians flatly rejected it. Because the Reformation and the Great Awakening implanted into the evangelical gospel the power and importance of "substitutionary atonement," those who are synergists today assent to the term, but they simply either do not understand what it implies, or try to define it in such a way that jeopardizes the truth about what atonement actually implies.

 

Who is John Owen...is he like Joel Olsteen? Was he an apostle?

If his word is so important then why doesnt he have a book in the bible?

And why havent I heard of him?

Do you follow him, or Christ?

Sounds to me like another Luther or Calvin

John

 

tell Jesus that...

John 8:34 "Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin."

As I said, "Unregenerate people can make "good" decisions, but they will never make spiritual decisions."

 

No, without sin the death of Jesus would have been unnecessary.

 

John Owen was simply a faithful pastor (unlike Joel Osteen) who had some insightful things to say and wrote some of them down.

Wise Christians have always learned from those who went before them, even while we follow Christ above every man.