Featured Election

No. We cannot ignore or deny election. It is unavoidable and should not be cheapened by the man-centered gospel that assumes we can force our will to subvert God's will.

 

Amy, You forgot to add these:

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Paul is saying God knew us, He knew the choice we would make and based on that foreknoledge He Predestinated us:
To be adopted, to be called, to be justified, to be gloriefied. According to the good pleasure of His will, His will is to save us and His foreknowledge told Him what choice we would make. Not that He determined who would be saved but He Elected us on the basis of what He knew ahead of time. He reserved our place in His family knowing we were coming. Just as the adoptive parent prepares the room in anticipation of the child coming to him.
In most cases the parent adopting that child knows when the child is coming, they know all about the child, if they are adopting and know the biological mother they know about that child. If they adopt as my Niece did they know what the sex is and what the health is of that child, but they foreknow that child in that sense. They base their decision on that what they know and they love the child before they ever see it.

 

No bricks. Just some :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

That's not what Paul said. It doesn't say whom he foreknew would come to him. And it's not what he foreknew. God knew his elect. The Bible never teaches that God looks ahead, sees who will believe, and chooses based on that. This passage and the I Peter passage have to be read into to get to that conclusion. And a passage like Ephesians would have to not mean "according to the good pleasure of his will."

 

Well to stand in for Van, he would say that us being chosen "in Him" is indicating some sort of abstract or corporate choosing of the church taking place in eternity past, only through Christ, but not with reference to specific individuals, since such "choosing" of individuals only takes place after they are alive and respond to the gospel. :BangHead:

 

Right on da money!

 

Ditto :applause:

 

There is at least one on here, probably more, that use Romans 8:29 as a proof text that the only thing God predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son.

Uh...OK.

How can that take place without salvation?

The text Amy gives shows how we are predestined to salvation, as this is the context.

Scripture interprets Scripture. And blows holes in Arminian theology that denies this truth. :wavey: :love2: :thumbsup:

 

One word for all that, transliterated: BALONEY. :thumbsup: :wavey:

Nothing but NPP heresy.

Furthermore, God chose an individual person named Jacob, and another named Saul, who later was named Paul, while he was yet in his mothers womb, for the intent of preaching the Gospel.

Corporate? Um, no.

God chooses individuals. The corporate theory is a fabricated error.

Amy also supplied us with a passage in the OP proving this.

"You mean God chose me?" :love2:

"No, honey, God chose a corporation, you don't matter!"

lol...unbelievable what some will come up with against the knowledge of the truth.

 

JBH,

You and AmyG have simply posted the truth of scripture....revmac posts a very fine verse but does not seem to see what it says...he tries to add to it...and the result is revmac does not welcome the truth of the verse as he feels that God can only know what man can do by looking into the future to see ......what man does......instead of seeing WHOM....
this is a completely wrong view of biblical foreknowledge.

 

“[L]et’s talk about Paul’s doctrine of election in Romans 9. I want to share with you a perspective on Paul’s teaching that I think you’ll find very illuminating and encouraging. Typically, as a result of Reformed theology, we have a tendency to read Paul as narrowing down the scope of God’s election to the very select few, and those not so chosen can’t complain if God in His sovereignty overlooks them. I think this is a fundamental misreading of the chapter which makes very little sense in the context of Paul’s letter.
Earlier in his letter Paul addresses the question of what advantage there is to Jewish identity if one fails to live up to the demands of the law (2. 17-3.21). He says that although being Jewish has great advantages in being the recipients of God’s revelatory oracles, nevertheless being Jewish gives you no automatic claim to God’s salvation. Instead, Paul asserts the radical and shocking claim that “He is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (2. 28-29).
Paul held that “no human being will be justified in God’s sight by works of the law” (3.20); rather “we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law” (3. 29). That includes Gentiles as well as Jews. “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one” (3. 29-30).
Do you realize what that meant to Paul’s Jewish contemporaries? Gentile “dogs” who have faith in Christ may actually be more Jewish than ethnic Jews and go into the Kingdom while God’s chosen people are shut out! Unthinkable! Scandalous!
Paul goes on to support his view by appeal to the example of none less than Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation. Abraham, Paul explains, was pronounced righteous by God before he received circumcision. “The purpose,” says Paul, “was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised [i.e., the Gentiles] and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised [note the qualification!] but also follow the example of faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised” (4.11-12).
This is explosive teaching. Paul begins chapter 9 by expressing his profound sorrow that ethnic Jews have missed God’s salvation by rejecting their Messiah [= Christ]. But he says it’s not as though God’s word had failed. Rather, as we have already seen, “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants” (9. 6-7). Being ethnically Jewish is not enough; rather one must be a child of the promise—and that, as we’ve seen, may include Gentiles and exclude Jews.
The problematic, then, with which Paul is wrestling is how God’s chosen people the Jews could fail to obtain the promise of salvation while Gentiles, who were regarded by Jews as unclean and execrable, could find salvation instead. Paul’s answer is that God is sovereign: He can save whomever He wants, and no one can gainsay God. He has the freedom to have mercy upon whomever He wills, even upon execrable Gentiles, and no one can complain of injustice on God’s part.
So—and this is the crucial point—who is it that God has chosen to save? The answer is: those who have faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul writes in Galatians (which is a sort of abbreviated Romans), “So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Gal. 3. 7). Jew or Gentile, it doesn’t matter: God has sovereignly chosen to save all those who trust in Christ Jesus for salvation.
That’s why Paul can go on in Romans 10 to say, “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. For ‘everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved’” (10. 12-13). Reformed theology can make no sense at all of this wonderful, universal call to salvation. Whosoever will may come.
Paul’s burden, then, in Romans 9 is not to narrow the scope of God’s election but to broaden it. He wants to take in all who have faith in Christ Jesus regardless of their ethnicity. Election, then, is first and foremost a corporate notion: God has chosen for Himself a people, a corporate entity, and it is up to us by our response of faith whether or not we choose to be members of that corporate group destined to salvation.”

William Lane Craig.

PS, whether or not you agree with Dr. Craig, he certainly, without doubt is a preeminent and widely repected christian scholar, apologist, philosopher and thinker.

 

Amy, I'm curious. Is his a recent mind-change, or is it something you dealt with over a period of time? And what nailed it down for you?

 

I rather enjoy reading on the topic of NPP. Those who "poo poo" it carte blanche simply showcase their lack of intellectual maturity.

 

God elects individuals....they are given to the Elect Servant before the world was....they were given as fallen sinners in need of redemtion.....
In love...the Elect servant comes to save them,,,,,all of them.

These individual elect persons...when saved are grafted into the corporate assembly...as living stones...built up together a ;
21In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
22In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

 

Both Cals and non-Cals accept God's foreknowledge with regard to individual election. The difference is that that Cals relate God's foreknowledge to his decrees. That is, God knows because that's what he decided.

Non-Cals relate foreknowledge to one's choice. That is God knows who will choose Him, so He chooses them.

The second view begs the question: God elected me based my foreseen faith, didn't I basically elect myself?

 

Even further...

If God chose me based on my future decision, and God cannot be wrong, and therefore it could not happen any other way; then even God's pre-knowledge of my decision is a determined part of God's plan.

The only way around this is an open view of God, which I contend is part of where Open Theism came from (non-calvies who take their view of foreknowledge to its logical end).

 

God talks about a strong relationship to be adopted as a son or a daughter adopted,how many reject their own parents. We can't reject God, but they do. We see by nature people reject their own parents. Through out scripture it teaches us to remain in Christ because Jesus will finish what He started in us.

It is painful to face up to, but a relationship takes two.

It is God who saves us, but we are responsible as children to remain with the only one who can save us.

1 John 2:
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.[Some manuscripts and you know all things] 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
God’s Children and Sin
28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

John 15
The Vine and the Branches
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.