Why did God hate Esau?

You should try it Helen. Then you'd start giving God ALL the glory for your salvation. </font>[/QUOTE]The fact that I asked Him to take me if He still wanted me certainly does not take away from the fact that all glory is His. He gave me a choice, but there would have been no choice had He not already done everything needed for my salvation.

Actually, though, that kind of sniping is something I am getting used to from Calvinists. I couldn't believe for the longest time that anyone who claimed the name of Christ could talk to someone else that way, but I found I was mistaken.

 

Hi Helen,

This kind of thing happens both ways and it is proof of nothing. Christians who do not know me at all have no problem pointing out my pride and arrogance, because after all, I am a Calvinist and all Calvinists are arrogant. It's not because I have studied the Bible and come to this conclusion, it's because I am proud.

 

Paul used this illustration to explain why it was that Israel as a nation had rejected the gospel, because "not all who are descended from Israel are Israel", and why so many Gentiles were receiving the gospel, because "it is not the children by physical descent who are God's children, but the children of the promise are considered seed". God's "purpose according to election" in His choice of Jacob over Esau illustrates His choice of those on whom He would have mercy.

 

It also doesn't teach that most people were predestined to hell, and only a select few were capriciously chosen for salvation for no apparent reason other than dumb luck.

Before you protest, kindly explain exactly why He chose the elect.

 

It also doesn't teach that most people were predestined to hell, and only a select few were capriciously chosen for salvation for no apparent reason other than dumb luck.

Before you protest, kindly explain exactly why He chose the elect. </font>[/QUOTE]You call it dumb luck for a few; I call it God's mercy for a multitude which no man can number.

 

God is sovereign; therefore he hate who he wants to hate.

 

Well, that's the error of Calvinism in a nutshell folks.

 

It also doesn't teach that most people were predestined to hell, and only a select few were capriciously chosen for salvation for no apparent reason other than dumb luck.

Before you protest, kindly explain exactly why He chose the elect. </font>[/QUOTE]You call it dumb luck for a few; I call it God's mercy for a multitude which no man can number. </font>[/QUOTE]I don't call it dumb luck for a few. John Calvin does. And no matter how you whitewashed in your above statement, you do too.

So then, explain for me exactly why God chooses this multitude from the poor folks that were predestined to hell. Try to keep in mind the Calvinist error of Total Depravity when you answer.

 

That's exactly what you called it.

Show me where Calvin said that.

Are you calling me a liar? I stand by my statement, which comes directly from Scripture.

God has not told us why He chooses some and not others. He has told us that if He made someone for the express purpose of showing His wrath and making His power known by way of their destruction that He would be perfectly just in doing so. Do you believe that?

Now, you tell me why God created people whom He knew would never believe. Wouldn't He have been more merciful to have not created them at all? Or maybe He didn't really know what they would decide?

 

Well, that's the error of Calvinism in a nutshell folks. </font>[/QUOTE]You mean he hates who he doesn't want to hate?

 

...it means learn what the word "hate" is in reference to and ALL it's meanings. Do you "hate" your father and mother? In one sense, you better if you are saved! Been plenty of threads talking about the Hebrew and Greek definitions of the word.

 

Ahhhh, another post dealing with issues FROM THE SCRIPTURE regarding Calvinism vs Arminianism (and everything in between). Honestly, I think these things sharpen me in my belief of what the Scripture says, more than they make me question.

And I love the way John 3:16 is always thrown in our face like we are going to give a collective shriek of surprise because we didn't know it was there. We (Calvinists) know that verse very well and love it. For the record, it supports neither side of the issue. It only says that everyone who believes will have eternal life. We all believe that. The question we are arguing is HOW one comes to believe. Calvinists believe the Scripture teaches that people only believe because they have been chosen by God and He has worked a miracle of regeneration in their lives. Arminians (and the other in-between views) believe the Scripture teaches that people have the natural ability to choose right and wrong and can therefore choose Christ on their own. John 3:16 doesn't deal with either of these viewpoint. SOOOO, could we please stop just tossing it out there and be honest about what it does and doesn't say?

Now, about this passage...

1) Romans 9 is all about salvation. Why have some of the Jews believed and some haven't? That is Paul's question here.

2) His answer is that the promise given to Abraham was never meant for every one of his offspring. God has always selected one over another. (Isaac vs. Ishmael)

3) He follows that up, just in case someone wants to argue that Ishmael wasn't chosen because his mother was Hagar and not Sarah, with the illustration of Jacob and Esau. Here is where our question comes in. Paul is NOT talking about the future of the nation. He is using the fact that God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born as an illustration explaining why some Jews believed the gospel and some didn't This is the only explanation that makes sense of the context. Every other view does violence to the first 5 verses of the chapter. The phrase "purpose of election" tells us what this is talking about.

3) He then follows that up with the illustration of Moses and Pharaoh. God gave mercy to Moses and hardened Pharaoh because it is His right to do as He wants. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

4) Paul then comes to a conclusion from these three illustrations - "So then, it is not of him who wills (so much for free will), nor of him who runs (so much for works), but of God who has mercy."

This is the plain reading of the passage. It is the passage that caused me to embrace Calvinism before I had ever read a Calvinist or knew what Calvinism was. I just knew what Romans 9 said.

 

Actually it does. "Whosoever believes", by definition and common sense infers to the ability to not believe (whosoever does not believe is condemned already), or this would end up being universalism. Choice = TWO things as an option...not one.

 

Actually it does. "Whosoever believes", by definition and common sense infers to the ability to not believe (whosoever does not believe is condemned already), or this would end up being universalism. Choice = TWO things as an option...not one. </font>[/QUOTE]"Whosoever believes" says nothing about WHY one believes and another does not. It is foolishness to quote John 3:16 in favor of free will OR election. It doesn't imply either. It simply says those who believe (for whatever reason) will not perish. Anything more is reading your own personal view into the text. The text itself doesn't have it.

Furthermore, two things (or any number of things) does not MEAN choice. One can assume that one person believes and another does not because of the way they choose. One can assume that one person believes and another does not because God changes one person and does not change the other.

Two outcomes, two different ways of viewing how the outcomes occurred.

Again, John 3:16 doesn't tell you which is right. All it tells you is that those who believe will not perish.

 

But other texts have it and Bible explains Bible.

 

We agree once again!

For example, Philippians 1:29 "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, 30 since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have."

It has been granted to us on behalf of Christ to believe on Him.

 

Picking and choosing favorite verses is not a good way to let Bible explain Bible. The entire Bible is actually predicated on the fact that God has allowed man to choose. The choice of salvation is only made possible through God's work in Christ Jesus, however, who has done everything for us. THIS is what makes the choice a free one -- for there is nothing to be done either way, actually. Only a choice to be made. If you will note, all the way through the Bible the vast, VAST majority of the time God restrains Himself to act in response to men's choices, from Adam on.

 

Well, that's the error of Calvinism in a nutshell folks. </font>[/QUOTE]You mean he hates who he doesn't want to hate? </font>[/QUOTE]The first quote is whatever's. The second was mine.

 

I think you better check again. Why do you keep accusing me of saying things that I didn't say?

 

Whatever wrote:

Paul is just giving the Jewish nation a hypothetical based on his belief that they would protest their going to hell. He wrote "what if" in the verse that you are alluding to in Rom. 9:22.

And you are dead wrong on your first assumption. God chooses for a reason: He said:

"For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that
is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." Isa 66:2 (see John 12:48 for the opposite knowing full well that to "reject" requires cognitive thought). And...

"The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Ps. 34:8

You wrote:

God did not want a bunch of Stepford Wives. He gave everyone a free will to either love Him or reject Him. Why did God includ this in His Word:

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers
served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we
will serve the LORD." Josh. 24:15

God makes the ultimate choice on who He will save (Rom. 9:15), on this we agree. But He doesn't choose capriciously for no reason at all as Calvinists assert. He chooses those that choose to believe His Word concerning their own sinful state deserving of hell (a contrite heart), and the biblical Gospel account that glorifies His Son Jesus Christ.