Double Predestination

That Predestination when addressed in the Bible always seems to be speaking towards the elect in Christ chosen out by God, and not the lost still in their sins!

 

Ok so you are resorting to philosophy and assumption. Unfortunately the logic does not work. If someone actively chooses some, that means they actively do not choose others.

 

God actively chose to not applying saving grace towards who are still lost in their sins is NOT same as He chose to damn them God chose that all not found in Christ will indeed suffer eternal Hell and eternal judgment, but he is not their direct cause while there!

 

Yes it is

 

If you are going to hold to Total Depravity and Irresistible Grace it necessarily is the same thing. If there is no ability for them to come without their election, that means they are damned by God's choice to not elect.

 

God determines the end result of all of the lost, but does not "force them/cause them" to go there, as they keep willfully rejecting Jesus and staying lost in their sins!

 

Just as long as we are not saying that God caused them to be lost, that he directly intervened to harden them off ands made it impossible to get saved!
God has both a determinative and a permissive Will...

 

The Council of Orange, which condemned semi-Pelagianism, also condemned Reprobation (that certain persons were decreed from eternity to be lost):

Google Books • Canons of the Council of Orange

Monergism.com • About the Canons of the Council of Orange 529 AD

 

As in, "He caused them to sin, and then punished them for it"?

God is the direct cause of someone going to Hell...
We don't cast ourselves into it.

Hmm....

I see it teaching that there are reprobates, and there are not...
Lost and saved.
His children and the children of the devil.
"Sheep" and "goats".

Since before the foundation of the world.

So, I don't see Him choosing believers out of the reprobate.
I see Him choosing the elect out of the non-reprobate....which is all of them.

 

I remember reading about the Council in 529 and thinking, "where's the consistency?"

To me, the visible church began slipping during the first century, after Paul departed ( Acts of the Apostles 20:29 ).
If I were at the Councils of Orange, I would have condemned "Semi-Pelagianism", and affirmed reprobation...and found myself in a minority, very much like I find myself in one today.

 

Dave...
He is the one "forcing" the lost into Hell...again, it's not like mankind is willing to go there.

As a baseline, we're all guilty.
Reprobation is God simply "digging a pit" between the saved and the lost, as I understand it.

It's adding another "layer" to their condemnation.

 

His word does:

" Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth." ( Romans 9:18 )

Many passages do.
Judicious blinding ( John 12:37-40, Romans 11:7-8 ), being appointed to stumble at the word ( 1 Peter 2:8 ), allowing Satan to blind people to the truth of the Gospel ( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 ), etc.

Using Judas to fulfill Scripture ( John 17:12 ) is another one.

Yes, it is frightening.
Yes, God can do whatever He wants with rebellious sinners.

On the other hand, if we were inclined to repent in and of ourselves, I think things would be a lot different.

 

Hmm . . . . Reminds me of a saying, "Hell is real, people are just dying to go there."

 

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your post above.
Let's look at the subject again:

Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, against God's express command.
Before they did it, He told them what would happen.
Despite the warning, they willingly did it...and even though Eve being deceived was "in the transgression", Adam was not.
He went in "face-first".
They then received what the Lord had told them were the consequences of their disobedience....death.

No one wants to go to Hell, and no one wants to die.
But God's will is going to get done, because we sinned.
It is a legal transaction.

What I'm saying is, people are not willing to go to Hell...we are being thrown in against our collective wills.
God is going to command the angels to cast unrepentant, unwilling sinners into eternal punishment, which is no laughing matter.

End of Part 1

 

In his quote above, Y1 seems to be expressing the objection to God causing them to be lost ( to sin and be alienated from God )...

I agree.
God does not cause a man to sin, nor to fall in love with it.
We did that just fine, all by ourselves ( Romans 1:18-32 ).

I then responded by disagreeing with his observation that God directly hardens sinners against Him, and posted the Scripture to show that He does indeed harden the sinner's heart if and when He chooses, to suit His own purposes ( Exodus 4:21, Romans 9:18 ).

My belief about this:

God, who sees the end from the beginning and knows the hearts and minds of men.
He knows the condition of our hearts, and our willful and stubborn rejection of Him, and is then fully within His right to treat us, as rebellious subjects, in any way He deems just.
If He wants to save some, He can.
If He wants to take any other action against men...whether immediate death, letting someone live out their lives and never having mercy on them all the way, or revealing Himself to someone and causing them to approach Him ( Psalms 65:4 )...
He is fully within His right to do with us as He sees fit.

He didn't sin...we did.
We are responsible, not Him.
If He decides to blind some, or even to allow them to be blinded to the truth of the Gospel by Satan ( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 ), then that is His prerogative.
It all comes back around to the simple fact that "given the chance", man would never repent anyway.

So to me, the Lord blinding people to the truth and hiding Himself from men, is simply an added layer of His justice...
He has mercy and compassion on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

It's as simple as that.

It may seem callous to us, but in the end, who is at fault?
We are.

End of part 2

 

So,
Similar to when I was in the US Navy and violated the UCMJ ( Uniform Code of Military Justice ) that I promised to uphold and live by ( yes, I did disobey once, to my shame ), I took the punishment that was coming to me.

That was part of the deal.
Whatever it said, the military was fully within its right to punish me according to the legal language contained in it.
I took whatever I had coming, regardless of whether or not I agreed to the punishment.

Why?
Because under the UCMJ, they had the right to command me.
If I refused those commands, then they had the right to punish me.

When I signed on, I agreed to obey them and the UCMJ.
If I later decided to disobey, then they had the right to throw the book at me.
For example, they had the right to throw me, unwillingly, into the brig and make me subsist on bread and water for a while, if that is what they wanted to do.

That is the way covenants, agreements and laws work.

With God, He has the right to command us because He made us.
He did not make robots, he made thinking, feeling people...but we are still His creation and He is still our Master.
Even though we may feel like we "got drafted", it makes no difference.
We are bound to His commands, whether we "like" it or not.

He is the King, we are the subjects.
We broke His law, and we now get punished according to His own "UCMJ"...His immutable word.
We don't get the privilege to side-step it.

We will either be saved by Him, or damned by Him... and there isn't a thing we can do to change any of it.
We are at fault...all of us.
He decides who to pardon and who to reserve for judgment, not us.

We as believers should be very grateful that we're "on His good side".
The alternative is far worse than we can imagine.

 

Two things. My quip was indeed a joke. And people going to Hades/Shoel, Death or the Sea awaiting the Judgement is no joke (Revelation 20:13-15). We as Christians want to win them to Christ. The quip is to get the careless lost to consider, not to make fun of being lost (2 Coeinthians 4:3-4).

 

I agree.

I'd like, almost more than anything, to see God work His miracle of gift-giving...
To see people believe on His Son when His word, the Gospel, is preached.

As Paul said, I could wish myself accursed for my brethren according to the flesh ( Romans 9:3 ), my fellow man.

But knowing how it all works, I now know why people believe and why they don't.
I now know that all of it is far beyond my control to affect, unless His Spirit is behind it.
Armed with that knowledge, I will no longer be devastated when people I mention the Lord to, reject me out of hand or make fun of me when they find out that I am a Christian.

While it will hurt, I will put up with it... knowing what all is involved.
I will keep in mind what He told me about our pitiful condition as men, and Who is ultimately responsible for the salvation of souls...

Him, and Him alone.

I suppose that is why I made the comment that I did...
I didn't see it as a quip, I took it seriously.

I agree with you, and admit that I have it within my heart's desire to never make fun of someone who is lost.
No matter what comes out of my posts here on this forum, I truly rejoice in my salvation and want others to have it as well.

To me, the older I get, the more I look at making fun of someone who hates God as being similar to the heartless mocking of a blind man who trips on the curb and falls into the path of an oncoming truck.
Even if the blind man doesn't care, I still do.
Even if the blind man refuses my help, calls me names and tries to walk out into the path of the truck again, I still don't want him hurt by it.

Finally,
Although we are fully responsible for our sin and rebellion, we really do not understand the magnitude of what we have done to Him, until God removes those blinders.
To me, it's like an alcoholic who mistreats his family, until he realizes the depth of his addiction and sees what it's doing to him and those around him.

Praise be to God for breaking my addiction to sin.



May God bless you greatly.