Featured Defend Steve Tassi? James White?

Mr. Tassi showed his ignorance many times...not saying stupid ignorance...but not knowledgeable ignorance. He claimed that Romans 9:21-23 taught equal ultimacy. As Dr. White asked Mr. Tassi, where was the calling of the reprobate if that passage refers to equal ultimacy? Mr. Tassi was totally unarmed in this debate.

 

LOL, Dr. White referred to the Golden Chain of Romans 8 and the "willing" man of Romans 9.

 

"Proegno" the form of G4267 found in Romans 8:29 means to know beforehand. If I made a plan last week to invite whoever sits next to me on the bus, and then today I invite the person sitting next to me, I could say I invited the person I knew beforehand based on his or her seating choice.

In our verse, God knew beforehand that He would choose individuals that believed fully in Christ,

 

No, IT you seem to be describing the actions of others. Why are you addressing me, rather than the topic?

The follow refutes Dr. White's assertion that the "Golden Chain" indicates individuals are predestined to be saved.

Lets backup to Romans 8 and the "Golden Chain."
1) God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and were called according to His purpose.
2) Now those who He foreknew, or knew beforehand, refers to His corporate election of those His Redeemer would redeem, the target group of His redemption plan. So the Golden Chain actually refers to God rolling out His redemption plan according to His foreknowledge or pre-established plan.
3) What was the predestination? To be chosen by God? Nope. Once chosen, to be conformed to the image of His Son. Right. Thus as siblings of Christ, we would be children of God.
4) Now these (those to be redeemed by Christ) He also called. Here Paul is using "called" to refer to those "called out" and thus refers to individuals God relocated. Called out of darkness and into His light.
5) Now those He relocated spiritually into Christ, He also justified.
6) And those He justified,those that underwent the washing of regeneration, He glorified spiritually. We were made blameless, perfect and the righteousness of God.​

The following demonstrates Dr. White's bogus assertion that God chooses individuals for salvation unconditionally.

Turning now to Romans 9, lets focus in on verse 16. "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." (NASB)

According to Reformed doctrine, no one would be "willing" to be chosen for salvation. Yet scripture tells us a person can be willing and even do his or her best to get selected through works (run) but to no avail. So according to scripture from Romans 9, total spiritual inability is bogus.

Sometimes God elects people for a particular purpose based on the characteristics of the individual. The younger baby was selected over the older baby. or Pharaoh was selected and raised up to demonstrate God's power. Judas was selected to be the betrayer, and he was well suited, known from the beginning to not really believe.

Paul's point is that God has the creator's right to choose people for whatever reason He has, whether it is based on faith in the truth, or before the person has done anything good or bad. You cannot override 2 Thessalonians 2:13, by claiming God always chooses unconditionally. That dog will not hunt.​

 

Does anyone else wish to defend the bogus claims of Dr. White. All IT offers are "taint so" and insults.

Here is Romans 9 in a nutshell:
1-5 Paul is sorry the nation of Israel is separated from Christ.
6-8 Israel is not made up of blood line descendants, but of believing Jews.
9-14 God's choice is always according to His purpose, sometimes with or without regard for the characteristics of those chosen.
15-19 God chooses to have mercy on some and harden others according to His purpose.
20-21 God has the right of creator to choose some for mercy and pass over others.
22-26 God can choose from among Jews and non-Jews to have mercy.
27-29 Only a remnant of believing Jews remains, although a large number of blood line Jews are alive.
30-33 Those that believe (Jews and Gentiles) did not stumble over the snare of works based salvation, but trusted in the work of Christ.

 

Claiming you can say the English bible translators got it wrong, the lexicons got it wrong does not carry any weight.
And BTW, an active voice simply means the subject (God) did the action of the verb (knew beforehand).

If I learned something last week or formulated a plan last week, and then today I use the knowledge or implement part of the plan, I am acting on something I foreknew. Nothing supernatural about it.

 

I am not the one who offers personal assaults in place of biblical truth. Here we have folks claiming foreknew means predestined. Hogwash. Foreknew means to know something beforehand, something learned or formulated in the past and being used in the present.

 

The meaning of “For those whom He foreknew….”

There are a lot of theories concerning the meaning of the phrase, but two biggies are those of the Calvinists and Arminians.

The Calvinists will tell you it means “for those foreseen individuals whom God preferred or loved or elected.” Two inferences are made, the time of the “foreknowing” is in the past, before creation, and what is foreknown concerns foreseen individuals that will exist in the future.

The Arminians will tell you very much the same thing, only God foresees individuals who will freely choose to believe.


Lets deal with these ideas first. Both of course just happen to be consistent with their respective theology. But it is an open question as to whether initially their understanding informed their theology or whether they had formed their theology and arrived at an understanding of this passage necessarily consistent with it.

Does foreknew mean forelove? Certainly many times in scripture the term “knew” is used to allude to an intimate, individual, loving relationship. But it is also used many times just to refer to cognition, some fact or other possessed in the mind of someone including God, or some group. If we look at how the term is used in the New Testament, the most likely meaning is to know something now, some fact or plan, that was acquired or formulated in the past. Hence, Christ’s crucification, foretold in Isaiah 53, was carried out by the predestined plan and foreknowledge of God, Acts 2:23.

Similarly foreknew does not mean to look through the veil of time into an existent future and see who will choose to believe in Christ. Foreknow does not mean foresee, it means to know something now, in the present, that was acquired or formulated in the past.

So if both these mainstream views miss the message entirely, what is Paul actually trying to tell us? The “whom” refers back to verse 28, those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Thus the “whom” does not refer to individuals foreseen, but to all those who during their physical life love God and respond to the gospel. Now what did God know beforehand concerning this group of individuals? That they were the target group of God’s plan of salvation! God formulated His plan before creation, in the past as it were, and now things are happening in accordance with that plan. So “for whom He foreknew” means “anyone redeemed by God’s plan of salvation, because God knew before creation when He anointed the Word to be the Christ, that Christ would redeem those who love God during their lifetime. So the individuals existing at the time of Paul’s writing were foreknown because they were part of the target group of God’s redemption plan. These are the same folks who were chosen in Him, Ephesians 1:4, where before creation God chose Christ to be our Redeemer, and so in effect everyone redeemed was chosen in Him corporately as part of His plan’s target group, before the foundation of the world.

Why a corporately chosen target group, and not foreseen individuals? Because God’s plan was to save individuals by grace through faith, and individual selection before creation followed by irresistible compulsion does not bring glory to God. Only by fallen individuals turning to God and trusting in Christ is God glorified. Pulling the string on a doll that says “I love you” does not glorify the string puller.

 

Dr. White clearly and concisely stated that 'foreknew' is a verb. It is what God does. It is God foreordaining. That is the context(biblical) of God's foreknowledge.

 

The vast majority of translations say the word means foreknew. So I did not get it wrong, if Tom is right (and he is not) all those translations got it wrong too. Ditto for the lexicons. Basically we have an effort to redefine a word to pour bogus doctrine into the text.

 

Hi SG, did anyone say the word was not in verb form in Romans 8:29? Nope - so obfuscation.
Does the word mean predestine? Nope - so just another effort to redefine the word to pour doctrine into the text.