Featured Single Predestination

God always had his own faithful remnant, chosen and saved out by His grace, Noah, Abraham, 7000 who would not bow to Baal etc...
Jesus is the high Priest for many, not all per Hebrews, and one has to get the truth that all sinned in edam,, all deserve judgment, its act of grace and mercy that any are saved,,,

Do you see God wrong if He has chosen to save some and not all?

 

the desire of God to have lost sinners repent is not the same as His will that His own elect will get saved.

 

Jesus could cry over Jerusalem, pleading with them to turn back, and yet also knew that they would reject him as their messiah and have Rome destroy them AD 70!

 

Paul states to us that not all of Israel was spiritual Israel, as there were those Israelites of the flesh, and those who had faith and trust in Yahweh, true 'sons of Abraham"

 

I'm going to be on and off the next few days....I'll simply quickly note that God is neither obligated nor does He have to do anything to actively save anyone to begin with. I'm only saying it's a contradiction for God to predestine condemnation and then desire for those predestined to repent and live.

I'd be fine if God had said there was no Savior for non-elect man just as He had said for the non-elect angels - or there'd even be room for such an inference if God had remained silent. But He actively declares that He does desire that the non-elect repent and live - and furthermore does show He actively gives a new heart unto repentance once in the non-elect.

Agreed. I believe they are - shall expand later as I expect it to take significant time.

No. I'm not focused on man or what is fair to him - I'm focused on God and how His nature is always seen as consistent. He cannot contradict His own counsel/decree to predestine condemnation only to then desire the non-elect to repent and live.

 

His desire and His will are not the same thing.... I can what my son to do well, at same time knowing already that he will fail his exam!

 

Just so we can all be on the same page, let's agree on semantics - needn't be absolutely perfect but just close enough to have working definitions as used in this context.

God's desires/wants are not the same as God's counsel/determined will [referred here earlier]. God can desire obedience to His law and yet counsel/decree to permit man to disobey. God's desires can be overridden by such counsel of God but God's counsel/determined will/decrees are never thwarted and will surely come to pass.

A couple of things here that don't match with what we're discussing... predestination is without factoring in future acts of good or evil - so the equivalent should be the father not factoring in how the son will perform in the future. Also, the sequence/order of the decree or predestination precedes God's process of redemption - so the equivalent should be the father decreeing/determining/permitting the child to fail in his exam without factoring in the son's own future performance and then desiring for the son to do well - is inconsistent here, right? This is the internal contradiction i'm pointing to...

 

The way I believe Romans 9 should be read to make for the most consistent interpretation is to not assume the hardening of the non-elect was a predestined act of God. Choosing the elect and consequently the non-elect is a sovereign act of God that precedes all other acts - and His (single) predestination of the elect unto promised salvation too occurs immediately after his election of grace, and before all other acts.

However His hardening of hearts is always contingent on man filling up his measure of iniquity which obviously is after man's acts of evil and not before. To save time on repeating the references, I'm linking to an earlier post - but I'll surely elaborate in discussion here where needed.

The thought pattern in Romans 9 is -
1. Paul expresses sorrow that his fellow jews in the flesh are branches cut off from Christ.
2. But he acknowledges that God did promise the descendants of Abraham salvation.
3. But God's word has not failed because the promise was for the elect children of promise and not every children of flesh.
4. God can and has dealt differently even in the OT between the children of promise and children of flesh - thereby evidencing that God needn't deal with all the jews the same way during that time.
5. Choosing who are children of promise and who are children of flesh was done in a completely impartial manner not being based on anything they themselves have done / would do but completely by God's sovereign election of grace.
6. Moreover, God not only has shown mercy to some unto salvation but He has also hardened others unto destruction for His purpose of showing forth His power and glory - thereby evidencing that God can harden the jews who are now being cut off.
7. And some may question why God hardens someone and yet/still expects them to obey - to which Paul answers that God can do as He pleases with the same lump of clay.
7a. *** this is where we probably diverge in our interpretation - the same lump of clay is not necessarily referring to some base creation material but the generic unprofitable world that is under sin and deserving of condemnation because of their continuous evil as described in Romans 3. From that same lump of 2 equally evil people, God can love and show mercy on one afore-prepared (single predestined) for honorable use. And the other who is not afore-prepared but now fitted/completed for destruction can be hated and either be simply destroyed in their sleep or they can be used as props through hardening to contrast God's power against their increased evil and then destroyed. The key point to note is that this hardening occurs after they have filled up their measure of iniquity, hence fitted/completed for destruction and not before in predestination.

The mix-up for calvinists is in their confusing for this decree of hardening to occur at the same time election occurs because they begin with the incorrect double predestination doctrine. As per Single Predestination, God can genuinely desire all, elect and non-elect, to repent and live and then turn in His wrath through hardening upon the non-elect after they've filled up their measure of iniquity. This isn't feasible as per calvinism who have to maintain God's hatred and hardening throughout from before the foundations of the world - which goes against Scriptures which declare God's desire for the non-elect to repent and live.

 

Not at all. This is what single predestination holds - giving the freedom to the non-elect to determine their destiny by providing the means to it. Double predestination holds that the father determined that the second son would not attend school and not do his homework at the same time that he determined the first son would attend school. How can the father desire the second person to do well on the test after he has already determined against it?

 

How does one explain the inconsistency in God's nature to decree one thing first and then desire the exact opposite? God very well can decree as He pleases - but once He has decreed it, He cannot desire against what He Himself has sovereignly decreed.

God can very well counsel/decree to harden anyone, but He cannot desire them to repent and live after decreeing so. So how do you explain Scriptures that reveal such desires of God?

 

All of the decrees of God are ordered from eternity past ay the same "time", correct?

 

His desires are not the same as His will, as we would wander into the permissive and determined Will of God...

 

We're referring to the logical order of God's decrees in His mind and not as per our human time.

 

This is for us between God's spoken word we know about and our interpretations.

 

Not really. It's not just our interpretation that God knows the end from the beginning and yet Rom 9:11 places God's election of grace before His factoring in human acts of good or evil - both of which occur before the foundation of the world but having a relative sequence to each other qualified by just the word 'before'. How do you see this as our interpretation outside of scriptures?

 

I wasn't referring to hypercalvinism here. Though the calvinist position does get ambiguously confusing to me when I see someone, possibly taking the side of calvinism, writing the following and you agreeing with it -

Am I to read the above as God actively forming but not hardening initially - instead hardening only at a later time when man has filled his measure of iniquity? If so, we are in agreement.


Anyways, I meant that Romans 9 is read by the calvinists as God hating Esau and preparing vessels of mercy and destruction alike from the point of election itself - how then can it not mean God's hardening too from that same point in time? For Romans 9 lays out the parallels of God hardening those who are fitted for destruction, right? If destruction was decreed during election, then how can the hardening that leads to it not be decreed during election itself?