Featured The Foreknowledge of God Put in Biblical Context

David, the prophets, Melchizedek, had the Spirit of God.

 

Flesh is flesh spirit is spirit. A man who accepts the God required content of faith, by grace is born spiritually.

Having been born spiritually man has a dual nature and can seek the things of God.

Adam, having died spiritually the day he ate the fruit of the tree God had warned against, could not seek God but hid himself. By killing the animals and clothing Adam God showed that sin would be judged in physical death, the shedding of blood. Then God spelled out the Adamic Covenant to Adam which became the content of faith required for salvation. Cain did not believe - he was not alive spiritually. Able did believe and Able was a born again spirit who’s sacrifice to cover his sins was accepted.

Sin was covered by the blood of innocent animals by God. That is how God’s judicial requirements for men’s sins were atoned for. Salvation obviously was in the very possession of the pre cross believer. What he awaited was the removal of his sins. We now, today do not await the removal of our sins, they have already been removed and we will not endure any judgement for them at all.

 

George,
I'm not sure why you think it's philosophy, but I distinctly remember going from first an "Arminian" and then a "Traditionalist" mindset, to now being fully "5-Point Calvinist" over more than 42 years, and I can tell you today what I see more as vain philosophy...

IMO, it isn't what is commonly called "Calvinism".

" Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." ( John 3:3 )
According to Jesus' own words, in order to see the kingdom of Heaven, one must be born again.

" And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." ( Matthew 8:11 ).
If these men were not born again ( made partakers of the new birth ), then how is it that they are they in the kingdom of Heaven?

 

You think Abraham , issac and Jacob went to heaven when they died ? How ? Their sins had not been dealt with yet ? No ones sins were paid for until the cross . without the resurrection no one would be in heaven ,including all the old testament believer's.
1 cor 15 .50
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

 

How can God have a 'personal relationship 'with someone who does not exist?

 

“Foreknow” is being known by God in the sense of Gal. 4:9 after conversion and before glorification as if already glorified. It does not refer to any time prior to conversion. (Gal. 4:8-9; Rom. 8:29-30; 1 Pet. 1:2)

 

Good to see that we are all still here trying to figure this out. But not you Barry.

 

Not sure what you mean ?

 

Thats why I put ' thoughts '

 

(Emphasis mine).

Note how you substituted the physical, geo-political, Israelitish kingdom of heaven, for the spiritual kingdom of God. There are lost men in the political millennial kingdom, there are no lost men in the spiritual kingdom.

Paul commanded us to "divide" the scriptures (2Ti.2:15).

Now, that will take us into a discussion of the two kingdoms, but for the sake of briefly answering now, I point that substitution out.

 

"Remember this, and be assured; Recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; [I am] God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure'; Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned [it, surely] I will do it.” [Isaiah 46:8-11 NASB]

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. ... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” [John 1:1-5, 14 NASB]

Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.” [Revelation 21:6 NASB]​

God exists outside of finite time and space. Before the beginning of the beginning and after the end of the end ... eternally unchanging. If God will love us in the future, then God loves us now and God loved us in eternity past. The alternative is that God lied when he said that He is unchanging (which also means that God is not perfect, because any change to perfection must make it less perfect.)

 

They are one and the same, George.
The kingdom of Heaven becomes the kingdom of God when the Lord Jesus gathers His elect at the end of the "Great Tribulation" ( Matthew 24 ) and takes the throne at Jerusalem:

" And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become [the kingdoms] of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." ( Revelation 11:15 ).

However, I agree that there are no lost men in the spiritual kingdom, but there are lost men in that physical kingdom for exactly 1,000 years.

Now for Matthew 8:11's parallel passage in Luke 13:29, which I should have used to begin with.
Apologies for not being more accurate in my usage of the Scriptures.

" There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you [yourselves] thrust out.
29 And they shall come from the east, and [from] the west, and from the north, and [from] the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." ( Luke 13:28-29 ).

Again, in order to see the kingdom of God, one must be born again ( John 3:3 ).
Therefore, I see that the new birth did indeed occur before the cross.

What did not occur was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit wholesale in all that were born again.
That came at Pentecost.

 

It seems like you’re always the underdog here. We agree doctrinally mostly. So I like teasing you is all.

 

Only in Him . We have ' out 'of Christ and 'in Christ ' . No one is in Christ before they are born .

 

The bible is filled with ' underdogs ' who God used

 

God had a personal relationship with us:

Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. [Ephesians 1:3-6 NASB]​

God is not constrained by the space-time that He created. God is greater than His creation.

 

Chosen for what ? to do what ? . it doesn't say ' to be saved ' . Let's stick with what it says and forget about philosophy .
Predestined to what? Again , to be saved ? no , the adoption. Rom 8 .23

 

I think you have forgotten the question you actually asked me or you would have understood that WHAT we were predestined to is irrelevant to answering your original question.
Later.

 

Those two kingdoms – the spiritual and the physical – are not the same kingdom, yet in in a way they are because together they form a whole realm under God. Your spirit and your body are not the same thing, yet both of them are you, a single person [hopefully]. To confuse the two would be a mistake, and to completely separate the two would be a mistake. So it is with the following two Biblical expressions:
1) the kingdom of God and 2) the kingdom of heaven.
The expression the kingdom of God is basically a reference to the spiritual aspect of the kingdom as God is a spirit (Jn.4:24).
The expression the kingdom of heaven is basically a reference to the physical aspect of the kingdom, as heaven is a place (Rev.12:8, 20:11).
But since God is in heaven, it is normal to think of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven as referring to the same thing, especially when you read equivalent statements:



So it appears these two expressions refer to the same kingdom. The confounding element is that the expression kingdom of God – though mostly a reference to the spiritual aspect of the kingdom – is a general expression which sometimes refers to the holistic aspect of the kingdom – both spiritual and physical. It’s as with the term “America” which sometimes refers to the nation and sometimes to the continent – which also includes the nation – and the main way to tell the difference is the context. Likewise, the term “kingdom of God” sometimes refers to the narrower physical/political kingdom of God and sometimes to the wider and fundamentally spiritual kingdom of God – which also includes the physical/political kingdom of heaven:



The spiritual kingdom and the physical kingdom are part of the same overall kingdom, but they are not the same and that will begin to explain what the Lord called the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11). The lower two are never identical. The expression the kingdom of God can refer to the kingdom of heaven when the context is physical/political/Israelitish, but when the context is spiritual it cannot; and vice-versa the expression the kingdom of heaven can never refer to the spiritual aspect of the kingdom of God.

Any study that fails to note the following differences between the two aspects of the kingdom is non-scriptural study: