Featured A Question for study

Are you saying that there is a preset/foreordained number? You?

 

Though my faith does not hold that beforehand, God chose for salvation certain individuals, apart from knowing ahead of time whether they would believe of their own free will, neither do I believe that the salvation of people depends on the willingness of the saints to proclaim the gospel. Rather, I believe that the decision to seek God for eternal life, procures for them by God the reception of the gospel, through those that God would move to carry it to them, so that, if and when they believe it, they will be given eternal life.

 

Though God is the one who grants eternal life to the believer, there is no place in scripture where it says that He predestines or causes their faith.

The rich young ruler, from what I understand, did not ask Jesus how to have eternal life, but what good thing he may do to inherit eternal life. In scripture, the inheritance of the saints has to do with rewards in God's kingdom.

There is no verse in scripture that says that God determines the time of a believer's faith. Even if He does determine the time of faith of those who will believe, still, He does not determine the ones who will believe.

Asking God for mercy is not the condition for receiving eternal life. Believing Christ's promise of eternal life, which is stated several times in the Book of John, is.

 

There is what Paul wrote concerning his own salvation:

“15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called [me] through His grace, 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,” (Ga 1:15-16 NKJV)

Paul certainly believed that God determined the time he came to believe in the Saviour.

 

Predestination, clear and simple:
15 But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother`s womb, and called me through his grace,
16 to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood: Gal 1

Saul, before Paul:
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God. Jn 16

The call:
4 and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul [John 10:3], why persecutest thou me?
5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: Acts 9

12 I thank him that enabled me, even Christ Jesus our Lord, for that he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service;
13 though I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: howbeit I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief; 1 Tim 1

 

That is only one instance, in which God may have chosen Paul. That does not automatically mean that God predestinated all believers to believe.

 

Instances in the scriptures are given for EXAMPLES to us. Why deprive yourself of them? Why the resistance to these great truths?

Paul was definitely chosen by God, there's no 'may have been' to it:

15 But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel: Acts 9

Paul was predestined, just as we all are:

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Ro 8

23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? Ro 9

4 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:
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, Eph 1

 

But from being a great persecutor of the Lord's people, Paul immediately was caused to address Jesus Christ as Lord:
“So he, trembling and astonished, said, "Lord, what do You want me to do?" Then the Lord [said] to him, "Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."” (Ac 9:6 NKJV)

 

It seems highly unlikely that the arch-persecutor would suddenly, of his own volition, decide to ask the One Whose way He had been persecuting, "What do you want me to do?" It's an example of what he was later to write as an apostle:

“4 ¶ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised [us] up together, and made [us] sit together in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in [His] kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; [it is] the gift of God,” (Eph 2:4-8 NKJV)

 

Where do you see that Paul "called upn the name of the Lord" after 3 days?

 

Sorry, I had missed that Acts 22 reference/ However, he wouldn't have been commanded to be baptized if he wasn't already a believer. He had shown my his words and actions in Acts 9 that he had changed from being against Christ and His followers to humbly asking Christ what he should do, then doing it, and calling Him "Lord".