Featured Individual Election Revisited

Jesus stated that those who have ears to hear Him shall respond to Him, seems limited to just them!

 

That's funny, I would say the same thing to you.

 

Romans 8:28-30.
Romans 9:6-24.
Romans 11:1-8.
Ephesians 1:3-14.
Ephesians 2:1-10.
2 Thessalonians 2:13-14.

 

" according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:" ( Ephesians 1:4 ).

" The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is." ( Revelation 17:8 ).

" Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:" ( Matthew 25:34 ).

 

you just did, and you are as usual WRONG!

 

The only way you get to your position is to ignore MANY verses in Scripture.

 

guess what, the passage the you refer to in John 5, Jesus was saying this to the Jews who wanted to muder him!

Jesus and the Jews Who Wanted to Murder Him

 

just honestly deal with John 3:15-18, and you just may see the errors of "reformed" theology on salvation. No one who is from this camp has ever been able to disprove what it plainly teaches, that God so loves the entire human race, that He sent Jesus Christ to die for ALL their sins. This is the Bible, not the "reformed" twisting of it!

 

Except that isn't what it actually states. You are reading some things into that.

 

Rubbish...everyone believing..vs15 and verse16

 

There is no other Calvinistic alternative to read Ephesians 1:4. You were in him before the foundation of the world.

 

Nope, there are definitely calvinistic alternatives.

 

Believers are predestinated to put on the image of Christ's glorified resurrection body. Not about salvation from hell.

Paul takes the principle of God's election unto blessing and service (not salvation) aside from works as illustrated in the story of Esau and Jacob, and argues from it that God does make choices aside from works, and that it is therefore no surprise if he now chooses to save those believe on Christ aside from works while rejecting Jews who do work.

the election of grace is the people that God chose to save because they trusted his grace rather than their works, as in Romans 9.

The election there is of believers unto being holy and without blame before him in love positionally - not salvation per se.
It's a blessing (that's the context) connected to salvation, not salvation itself.
The rest of the passage is predestination unto adoption, which is not salvation but a blessing connected to salvation. That adoption is that of the body at the resurrection, as in Romans 8.

That passage is not a battleground. There is nothing inherently Calvinist about salvation by grace through faith.

Paul defines the beginning as that of his gospel, as in: Php 4:15 Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia. Not "the beginning of the world". God had recently to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life (Acts 11:18), remember? God's election of them was because of their belief of the truth. And the salvation in context is not from hell, but from suffering the tribulation.

That an intellectual Calvinist can avail himself of wording whose tenor fits the Calvinistic paradigm is not proof that these scriptures teach Calvinism. In the words of Kevin Thompson: "Calvinism and context never go together".

 

You ignore 80% of those verses if you think that is all that means/says.

 

Dave, much like @Yeshua1 , all too often you shoot off a salvo of the "it's not like that" variety without taking time to produce a detailed alternative to a detailed objection.
So, if you want a discussion, please put it in a little more effort.

 

It's simple George. Read the rest of the verse. It does not only say being conformed to the image of his son. It also says the predestined ones are the ones that are justified/glorified. That's salvation. They are predestined to salvation, that's the whole of the verse. Besides, it is only those that are saved that are conformed to the image of his son in the first place. It's all about salvation

 

Well, yes, Paul states that those that God predestinates to inherit a Christ-image glorified resurrection body are the ones who answered the call to be justified by faith, ones he foreknew would believe. No issues there. Clearly God doesn't predestinate lost people to a glorified body as his Son's. It's simple Dave.

 

The issue is that foreknew does not mean foreknowledge. Those are not the same thing. Go to the Greek.

Here's the BDAG entry I added emphasis to the relevant portion.:

προγινώσκω (Eur., X., Pla. et al.; BGU 1141, 39 [14 B.C.]; Wsd)
2 aor. προέγνων, ptc. προγνούς. Pass.:
• aor. 3 sg. προεγνώσθη Wsd 18:6;
• pf. ptc. προεγνωσμένος;
• plpf. 3 sg. προέγνωστο (Just., D. 70, 5)
① to know beforehand or in advance, have foreknowledge (of) τί someth. (Philo, Somn. 1, 2; Jos., Vi. 106; Tat. 8, 4) affliction Hs 7:5.
• Abs. (Jos., Ant. 2, 86) προγινώσκοντες since you know this (i.e. what the context makes clear) in advance 2 Pt 3:17.
• Of God (Alex. Aphr., An. p. 1, 7 Br. τὰ μέλλοντα, Fat. 30 p. 200, 29; Just.) πάντα Hm 4, 3, 4.
• —Closely connected is the idea of choice that suggests foreknowledge
② choose beforehand τινά someone Ro 8:29.
• τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ 11:2 (EWeber, D. Problem der Heilsgesch. nach Ro 9–11, 1911; THoppe, D. Idee d. Heilsgesch. b. Pls 1926; FMaier, Israel in d. Heilsgesch. nach Ro 9–11, 1929; EvDobschütz, Prädestination: StKr 106, ’35, 9–19; JMunck, Christus u. Israel: Ro 9–11, ’56; EDinkler, Prädestination bei Paulus, GDehn Festschr., ’57, 61–102; s. also on προορίζω).
• Pass. of Christ προεγνωσμένος πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου 1 Pt 1:20.
• —Know from time past (Jos., Bell. 6, 8) προγινώσκοντές με ἄνωθεν Ac 26:5.—DELG s.v. γιγνώσκω.
• M-M. TW.
William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 866.

 

In other words, the Bible does not say God chose based on what He knew someone would do. Nowhere in Scripture do you see that, you read that into it.

 

Already did that rodeo. And guess where I went? To the scriptures. I know, so novel of me.