Soteriology 102

utter rubbish!

 

this is not the original reading of the verse! here it is

"As for us, we can’t help but thank God for you, dear brothers and sisters loved by the Lord. We are always thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation—a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and through your belief in the truth"

 

YES, read 2 Peter 2:1; 3:9; John 3:16-18; 1 John :2:2; 1 Timothy 2:1-6,; Luke 22:19-22, where Jesus gives the cup representing His blood to Judas to drink, and said that He was going to die on the cross for him!

Reformed don't like this because it goes against their theology!

 

Van is wrong, because he is looking in the wrong place. He needs to consult a Greek grammar, and not a lexicon.

 

Deeper than that but yes.

 

Jon,
Thank you for clarifying things a bit.

That said, I doubt anything will ever change here, so to me there's no reason to bring this up again in public.
I can try reporting and see if it actually works, but I'm reluctant to go to that extreme unless other methods like personal admonition are exhausted...which, in the case of at least one person, it seems that they have been.

I wish you well and a good evening to you.

 

So a choosing before the foundation of the world is not before one's faith. Ephesians 1:4, Ephesians 2:8.

 

Here's the passage:
2 Thessalonians 2:11-14 (ESV)
Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 2:11-14 (NLT)
So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies. Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth. Believers Should Stand Firm As for us, we can’t help but thank God for you, dear brothers and sisters loved by the Lord. We are always thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation—a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and through your belief in the truth. He called you to salvation when we told you the Good News; now you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you think the NLT is the original reading?
In any case, notice that God is the cause and our response is the effect.

 

" But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.
22 And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!" ( Luke 22:21-22 ).

But He didn't die for Judas, as Jesus told the rest, "Woe to him by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!", and also identified Judas as the son of perdition in John 17:12 and that none them was lost except Judas...

" While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled."

Woe ( great sorrow or distress ) is never said of those who have truly believed on Christ, but rather that they are blessed.

When Jesus said in John 6 that none of the ones that the Father had given Him would be lost ( and that none would be cast out ), He was not lying.
The difference is in the physical versus the spiritual....
Judas was given to the Lord in the physical sense, but not in the spiritual... and He was given to the Lord Jesus so that the Scriptures would be fulfilled, not so the Lord Jesus would save him per John 17:2.

Judas was not one of God's elect and he was never one of Christ's sheep, neither did he really believe, or he would not have betrayed Him...which none of the others did.
He was a "devil" as John 6:70-71 tells us, something that the Lord Jesus never spoke of in regard to the rest of them.
He was a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction ( Romans 9:22-24 ), which is why Judas went to his own place ( Acts of the Apostles 1:25 ) and was replaced by Matthias.

My friend, to me, "the Judas Conundrum" is not a conundrum at all.
God can choose someone in the physical sense without choosing them in the spiritual, just as He chose the nation of Israel...

The same Israel that were as the sand of the sea, but a remnant shall be saved ( Romans 9:27 ).

 

until you learn to keep words within the context, you will never be able to accept what the Bible says, even when it is against what you personally believe. It is VERY CLEAR, to anyonw who is not biased like the reformed/calvinist, that Judas did part-take of the Lord's Supper, a fact that even John Gill and Matthew Henry admit. Jesus tells the TWELVE, not the 11, that "“This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for YOU (including JUDAS)" End of matter!

 

See post 92.

 

You don't get to tell us what we believe. You are bearing false witness. I believe we are saved by grace through faith. Not grace by reason of faith. I take the Bible for what it says, you change it.

 

Because that isn't what election is based on. It is based on God's choice and grace alone. Your position eliminates grace and is a works-based salvation.

 

I've learned how...the Lord has taught me.
But it has taken Him a very long time to show me the things that He has, by His grace.

I accept what the Bible says, SBG...every word.

But it seems to me that you don't, and that your view of the Bible is very selective...
For example, you appear to see a God that loves everyone ( John 3:16? ), when that is not what Psalms 5:5-6, Psalms 10:3, Psalms 11:5, Psalms 140:8, Proverbs 6:16-19 and Romans 9:13 tells me.

What I personally believe is what I see when I read the words on the page, my friend.
Respectfully, is there some reason that you don't believe all of them?

I see you rejecting many things that He says, and calling it "Calvinism", while I accept the fact that He does as He wishes with rebellious sinners who refuse to repent, and He does so according to Romans 8, Romans 9, Romans 11 and many other passages.
John 6 is one of the clearest places that I can find where the Lord Jesus Himself spells out why people come to Him in belief and why they do not...
John 8:43-47 is another, and John 10:26-27 is still another.

Yet these passages seem to confuse you ( or are outright ignored by you ) when they are brought up.
Why, I cannot say.

 

I recognize in the above that to you, Judas partook of the Lord's supper at the table...Looking at Luke 22 again, very carefully, I see that he was indeed there.
Yet the Lord still called him a "devil", and the son of perdition, and that language is never reserved for any of God's precious children.

In addition, I'm not "Reformed", I'm a Christian.
I'm a sinner saved by His grace, bought and paid for by His blood and suffering on the cross.
I stand on nothing ( not even my belief of the Gospel in 1978 ) except His mercy and grace toward me...

If you wish to label me as a "Calvinist", that is your prerogative.
I'll suffer the label and I'll suffer whatever hatred or persecution that you throw my way for His' sake.

I don't follow men, I follow my Saviour and His words...and whatever Matthew Henry or John Gill may have written is no concern of mine, since their writings are not God's words, nor or they of any source of understanding or authority for me.

Except that I do not see that it was poured out for Judas, or he would have been saved.

You and I understand salvation working very differently, SBG...
You seem to see that Jesus provided a potential sacrifice for all men, while I see that He provided a very definite appeasement of God's wrath on the part of His chosen people, whom He chose in Christ before the foundation of the world and wrote their names in the Lamb's Book of Life at that point.

As I see it, Christ's blood actually appeased the Lord's wrath against His people as Isaiah 53:8, Matthew 1:21 and John 10:11 tell me...
If Judas was one of His, then he was given to Christ by the Father to save per John 17:2.
Yet, he is called "the son of perdition" and a "devil" by the very Lord whom you say that His blood was poured out for.

I'm sorry SBG, but to me, you're faced with a very great contradiction if you teach that Judas was saved, my friend, or that Jesus actually died for him.
To me, he wasn't saved ( nor was it the Lord's purpose to love him and give Himself for him as He did for Paul, see Galatians 2:20 ) and he evidenced that in many ways.

In fact, the Lord Jesus tells us that it were better if he would have never been born ( Matthew 26:24, Mark 14:21 ).