Foreknowledge or Foresight?

From John Macarthur here is the whole link on Foreknowledge..... http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Xzb_VvjJxZgJ:www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/sg60-3.htm+john+macarthur+on+Foreknowledge&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

 

How comforting to know that God may not have "predetermined to set His love" upon my 5 month old son. This means I potentially love my son not only more than God, but instead of God. If I had any certain knowlede that this is true, I wouldn't be able to serve God.

Bingo. Those "in Christ" become what, then? Begins with "e" and ends in "t".

 

ISAIAH 55:8 and 9, the Scripture says of God, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." We are in no position as fallen creatures to determine whether what God does is just, right or fair.

ROMANS 11:33 the Apostle writes, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways for who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become His counselor?" You've stepped out of bounds when you say that God does anything that isn't fair.

 

DEUTURONOMY 7:6, "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, the Lord your God has CHOSEN you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." Israel was elect.


MATTHEW 24: 22, "Unless those days be cut short, no life would have been saved. , But for the sake of the ELECT, THE CHOSEN, those days shall be cut short." Who are the elect? The believers. Verse 24, "False Christs, false prophets will arise, will show great signs and wonders so as to mislead if possible even the ELECT, THE CHOSEN, the believers." It is a term for believers, for Christians verse
31, "When He sends forth His angels with a great trumpet at the Second Coming, they will gather together HIS ELECT from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other."

LUKE 18:7 says, "Now shall not God bring about justice for HIS ELECT who cry to Him day and night and will He delay long over them?"

ROMANS 8:33 "Who shall bring a charge against GOD'S ELECT?"

COLOSSIANS 3:12, "And so as those who have been ELECT OF GOD, CHOSEN OF GOD, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion," and so forth. You've been CHOSEN OF GOD to be holy and beloved. He determined to set His love on you and me for no reason of ours at all, but strictly of His own free choice. The elect of God, that's who we are.

2 TIMOTHY 2:10, "For this reason, Paul says, I endure all things in my ministry for the sake of those who are CHOSEN that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus." I am doing my evangelistic ministry to bring the gospel to the ELECT...the chosen. Titus, when Paul writes that letter he couldn't say it anymore straight-forward. "Paul, a bond servant of God and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those CHOSEN OF GOD."

2 JOHN, describes the church as the chosen lady, the elect lady, 2 John 1; 2 John 13, the children of your CHOSEN sister greet you. Two churches, both elect.

PETER says, "You are a CHOSEN race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession." You are a chosen race. You are a Christian because you are chosen to be one by God.

ACTS 15:14, "Simeon, or Peter, has related how...this is the Council of Jerusalem...how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME." God's whole plan is to take out a people, to choose a people.

MATTHEW chapter 20 You have a parable here, the Kingdom of Heaven, like a land owner, went out in the morning to hire labors for his vineyard. He agreed with the laborers for a denarius, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out the third hour, saw others standing idle in the marketplace, went through the process, hired them....hired them...hired them...hired them. [/b]Selected them[/b], the whole parable all the way down to the bottom, he picked out who he wanted and he rewarded them with eternal life, that's the essence of the parable. Very simple. He selected them. Called them into his service. Sent them out to serve. Rewarded them fairly, faithfully, generously. That is a picture of election.

JOHN 15, Jesus said it to His disciples, "You did not choose Me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give it you." You didn't choose Me, I chose you.

JOHN 17:9, He says of Christians, praying to the Father does our Lord, "I ask on their behalf," this is the high priestly prayer of Christ, "I do not ask on behalf of the world but of those whom Thou hast given Me." The Father chose us and gave us to Christ as a love gift, for they are Thine.

ACTS chapter 13: 48, "And when the Gentiles heard this, that is the gospel message, they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed." The chosen believed. Those appointed to eternal life believed.

ROMANS 9:14. God is talking about choosing. He says, "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated." God made His choice. Verse 14, "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God is there? May it never be." Me gennetos, in the Greek, no, no, no. It's...it's not injustice, for He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion," which is to say I will do precisely what I want to do. Verse 16, look at this, "So then it, salvation, does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs but on God who has mercy." Sovereign mercy. And somebody in verse 19 says, "Well then how can He find fault, For who will resist his will?

ROMANS 11: 5, "In the same way then as in the case of the prophet Elijah and seven thousand men who didn't bow the knee to Baal, in the same way then there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's choice." God's choice.

1 CORINTHIANS 1: 9, "God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son." Your salvation was a direct work of God. He called you into fellowship with His Son.

EPHESIANS 1:3, "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." When did it happen? When were we chosen? Before we were born. Before anybody was born. Before there was a world we were chosen.

1 THESSALONIANS 1:4. "We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayer, I look at your life and I see...in verse 3...your work of faith, your labor of love, your steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren, beloved by God His choice of you."

2 THESSALONIANS 2 :13, "We should always give thanks to God for you, we shouldn't thank you, we should thank God, "Brethren, beloved by the Lord." Isn't that good? "Because God has chosen you from the beginning."

2 TIMOTHY 1:9, "God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose and gace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”

2 TIMOTHY 2:10 , Paul says, "In my ministry I endure all things," "For the sake of those whose name has been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who has been slain."

REVELATION 17: 8, "And those who dwell on the earth will wonder whose name has not been written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world." And again we are told in a backhanded way that Christians are those whose names have been written in the Book of Life from beginning, from eternity, from the foundation of the world.

REVELATION 17:14, "These will wage war against the Lamb, that is the host of the Antichrist, and the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful." We're the chosen.

REVELATION 20, Final judgment, Great White Throne, "If anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life he was...what?...thrown in the lake of fire." When were names put in the book? From before the foundation of the earth.

LUKE 4, Jesus in this marvelous synagogue event in Nazareth, opened the book of the prophet Isaiah, stood up in the synagogue, opened the book, read it. This is what He read, verse 18, and here was a prophecy that He was fulfilling right out of Isaiah 61. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor, He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.

 

I'm not sure what your point is, but I agree with the premise you set forth in that we cannot know what is determined just, right or fair in the eyes of God. The Bible does tell us about love, hate, our connection to both, and what we are to do and not do. John Macarthur does not overrule the Scripture put forth about God loving the world, God "being" love, those who hate being called "murderers", and loving even our enemies, etc.

 

What does that have to with election and foreknowledge?

 

Nothing. It has to do with your reply.

 

my reply was basically ALL scripture. your point?

 

If God desires that none perish, and if God lifts up Christ, then the default response of God is to save everyone!

But everyone isn't saved. Why? They persist in their rebellion (Romans 2:5).

Therefore election is based on God's foreknowledge of those who are in Christ before the foundation of the world. Those outside of Christ are lost, but not by God's desire, but by their own rebellion. All of this, mind you, before anything was created.

In real time, God loves everyone. He sends Jesus into time and space to die on the cross for everyone. Yet, though the penalty for sin has been paid, many still persist in rebellion to God and seal their own fate. Those who surrender to the lifted up Christ, through no merit of their own, experience the salvation of God.

So God loves the infant child more than the birth parents do. God also knows if the child is foreknown in Christ or not. One truth does not cancel out the other truth.

God loves each person born knowing that some will rebel and reject him. And he sent his Son to die to prove it.

What think ye?

 

My picture of this may be all wrong and you all may eat me up, but here goes.
God is soveriegn.God gives us the gift of choice to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
God has all knowledge. Gods' knowledge is not restricted by time.God knows who will choose Him and who will not choose Him.The elect are those who choose Him.The non-elect are those who through thier own choice do not choose Him.The responsibility for not choosing is ours if we don't choose Him.Because He knew before hand what choice we would make does not mean He made the choice for us.

 

Well put, Bill.

 

If I'm elected according to God's foresight, it means I elected myself.

Tom B

 

Oh, and that means that I get most, if not all, the glory
Tom B.

 

No, Tom, it means that you either said yes or no to God's gift. He gets all the glory. The only time you try to grab glory for yourself is if you say 'no' and want to do everything on your own. The person who says 'yes' to God is being totally humble and all the glory, as he knows all the way through his being, is God's.

 

Tom if you want glory go for it if you have yet to sin prior to this moment.As for me I will take all of the grace and mercy I can get.

 

I am saying that the choice is not to choose him but not to persist in rebellion. It is not a positive action (choosing Christ), but a negative action that we must avoid (persisting in rebellion). What God knows in advance is who will persist in rebellion in the face of his grace (the lifted up Christ).

I say it this way because, We don't choose God, he chooses us. We don't merit salvation, he provides it. Choosing Christ could be seen as a work on our part, but not resisting is doing nothing, and therefore not a work. God's desire is that none perish, but he allows free will to come into play. Do nothing and God will save us! Do something (persist in rebellion) and God will leave us to our own devices.

What think ye?

 

Yes, it's wrong. No, I will not eat you up. That would be canniablism. And besides, I'm not very hungry right now.

 

I say it this way because, We don't choose God, he chooses us.

How on earth do you reconcile that with the multitude of verses which tell us to seek God, which ask us to reason with Him, and which tell us to 'choose this day'?

We don't merit salvation, he provides it.

Amen! Absolutely no argument on that one!

Choosing Christ could be seen as a work on our part, but not resisting is doing nothing, and therefore not a work.

I disagree. Making a choice is not a work. Christ did the work. However, resisting one's sin nature without Christ is an ENORMOUS and impossible work!

God's desire is that none perish, but he allows free will to come into play.

True

Do nothing and God will save us!

I grant you there is nothing we CAN do to merit or help with our salvation, but that is a lot different that what you seem to be implying by 'do nothing.' I had a pastor once who mentioned that it is a lot easier to turn a moving car than to turn one which is not running...

I am curious -- how can a man born with a sin nature STOP sinning? If he could, then he would be obeying the law fully and could he then claim responsibility for saving himself?

Do something (persist in rebellion) and God will leave us to our own devices.

Since we are all rebellious by nature, there is no chance anyone can stop on his own. The most he or she can do is WANT to stop, and that is the 'free will' we are allowed. Yelling for help is not a work! It is simply yelling for help. Accepting God's work is not a work, it is just the same, in terms of doing a work, as accepting a gift from someone who loves you on your birthday. You earned it? No. You worked for it? No. All you did was accept it, and, hopefully, said thank you.

 

Not true. Calvinists claim that we all choose sin, unless and until God changes us. If that happens then we choose God.

You don't like for others to twist your words and misrepresent your views. Please reciprocate.

 

Helen,

Our sin nature does keep us from choosing God, repenting or believing.

But in the presence of God's grace (the lifted up Jesus) man is able to do nothing (surrender), be regenerated by the Spirit, and believe and repent.

You've said several times in your post that rebellious man can never choose God. Right. But in the presence of God's grace he can surrender. It is in this surrender (doing nothing as opposed to rebelling) that God regenerates.

What think ye?