Fruits of Calvanism

OK, so you, once again, ignored the Scripture that I posted twice to bring in a verse that doesn't even mention Pharaoh, but has to do with the ministry of Jesus 1500 years later. So, let's deal with these people and see if "predestination is ruled out."

Acts 4:27-28 For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together 28 "to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.

Now, I know you've been shown this verse before, but here goes. These same people, whom Jesus wanted to take under his wings, gathered together against Jesus "to do whatever [God's] hand and [God's] purpose determined before to be done." The only way you can deny that their actions were predetermined is to ignore and deny the Scripture.

You keep ignoring the fact that God said He raise Him up to accomplish a purpose, not simply that God decided to use him after his rejection to accomplish a purpose. If God were reactionary, as you suggest, then the possibility has to exist that God's purpose would not be achieved. That, my friend, is not possible.

Exodus 9:13-17 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh, and say to him, 'Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews: "Let My people go, that they may serve Me, 14 "for at this time I will send all My plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth. 15 "Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 "But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth. 17 "As yet you exalt yourself against My people in that you will not let them go.

Notice that God's purpose is the basis for the fact that Pharaoh exalts himself. This is precisely what Paul states in Romans 9. It is not the other way around as you want to have it.

Job 42:1-2 Then Job answered the LORD and said: 2 "I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.

Notice that no purpose of God can fail.

Daniel 4:34-35 And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever: For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom is from generation to generation. 35 All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, "What have You done?"

Even Nebuchadnezzar recognized that God does whatever He wants and no one can stop Him. Maybe you need to take a lesson from a pagan king...

There are no "good people." All of our righteousness is as filthy rags. The only good people are those whom God has saved. The verses I quoted show that Pharaoh was predetermined to be a "bad people" and to choose the wrong master.

You keep using this verse to talk about man in general. But this verse has nothing to do with the unregenerate unbeliever. It is written to believers about their new life in Christ. Only a believer can choose righteousness or unrighteousness. Unbelievers have no such ability. They only choose unrighteousness all the time even though the choice of righteousness is out there.

You still don't answer the question. Is unbelief a sin? Did Jesus die for all the sins of every person? If so, He died for unbelief. So, how can they be punished for a sin that Jesus already paid for? Universal atonement can't answer this question.

The Scripture does not say what you just did. The Scripture says that God is just in justifying the unrighteous because Jesus died for them. It does not say that God is just in condemning people that Jesus died for. That would be the height of injustice.

?!? What? Men are condemned with or without Jesus' death. God would be just to condemn all men (every person who ever lived) if Jesus never died. Jesus' death only justifies to righteousness according to the Scripture.

No man can claim anything in God's court except forgivenss based on mercy. Mercy is at the behest of the mercy-giver. He is under no obligation to give anyone mercy. So if He gives mercy to one and not to another at His own whim, it is not prejudice. This is the whole point of Romans 9:14-18. I am amazed how often you ignore that passage in your attempts to say that God has to have mercy on everyone to not be a "respecter of persons."

You still haven't explained to me how this passage dealing with judgement of a man's works (both believers and unbelievers) relates to salvation by grace through faith. I know what I think it means, but I don't think you can explain it. When you can do that, then you can use the "respect of persons" phrase all you want.

What in the world are you talking about? God is "guilty of the saved????" What does that mean? Do you think we don't teach that a man must repent and believe? It just shows me that you have no idea what "Calvin's doctrine" is or our belief. Nor do you deal with the fact that the predestination you deny is talked about in the Bible. You just want to imagine that it was something dreamed up 400 years ago by a guy named Calvin.

 

Back to the original post.....

Would you find it amusing to hear someone say, I find Christianity very confusing. It also seems that most Christians entire goal in life is to promote Christianity?

That is basically what you have said, at least in my hearing. You see I consider the Doctrines of Soverign Grace, what most call the five points of Calvanism, to be the Gospel.

That man is depraved and cannot come to God of himself..... That God has chosen a people unto Himself from the foundation of the world. That He has provided atonement for those He chose. That He saves them by the unfailing power of the Holy Spirit. And that those He has chosen cannot be taken from His hand.... That is good news to me! That is the Gospel

It also seems to me that the major goal of the Arminian is to promote Arminianism, because that is what they believe the Gospel is. If an Arminian didn't make it his life goal to promote what he thought the gospel was, I would question his dedication to what he believed.

Calvanist simply believe that salvation is God's choice of man, while Arminians seem to believe it is man's choice of God. I doubt that we will ever find common ground between those two lines of thought......

 

What's so hard to understand that God picks people for jobs based on his "Foreknowledge" of the choices they will make and without interfering with their free will of that choice???

If God, through foreknowledge, note foreknowledge, not predestination, wrote all the names of the saved before the foundation of the world, then he also knew the names of the unsaved, don't ya think???

Now with that information in hand, he can pick Jeremiah while he is still in the womb, or Pharaoh from a whole list of names, and without once violating the free choice of any individual, even though their life/choice was still in the future.

And God can also say, not one of them went to hell because he wanted them to go there, he didn't, but because it was their choice, not his choice.

And that's what the scripture teach.

There's a lot of "spiritual darkness" in the statement that God predestine people to hell when God plainly states it's not his will for any to go there, that's what you better "SEE".

 

Me4Him,

Why would God be picking anyone for jobs or jobs for anyone? Why doesn't he let them chose their own jobs? Why would he be interfering with their choices?

And if it is not his will for any to go to hell, and some wind up there, it seems to me that someone has twarted his will. If I am not mistaken, God has said that doesn't and can't happen. So maybe you ought to put those words "to usward" back in front of the "not willing that any should perish" and let God's word stand.

 

If you could show me one, just one, Scripture that supports this view clearly, then I will believe it. Because I know of quite a few that talk about God choosing before the foundation of the world based solely on His own will, not the will of man.

 

Hi all... newbie here...

I wanted to comment on Me4him’s "so predestination is ruled out."

"predestination" is never "ruled out", every Christian believes in predestination, otherwise, they aren't really a Christian of the biblical sort at all.... it's a biblical word, it's a biblical concept.... we may have different ideas about what "predestination" means... but it is never ruled out....

Me4him again-- “What's so hard to understand that God picks people for jobs based on his "Foreknowledge" of the choices they will make and without interfering with their free will of that choice???”
If what you say is true, then God is really unable to “pick” anyone for any job… all God seems to have in your view is bare prescience (foreknowledge), all He can (helplessly?) do is sit back and watch the “story of the world” unfold, because His hands are tied behind His back due to your (Libertarian) view of free will. So what you believe is really not orthodox Christianity at all, you seem to believe in Deism. This is because your view of man’s free will is such that you deny the sovereign Lord of the universe the right to do with His creation as He sees fit.

blessings

 

Good first post epistemaniac. Welcome aboard.

 

If some go to hell in spite of God's will that none go there, then quite obviously it isn't God will making the decision,

I mean, let's get real, how much of an IQ do you need to figure that out???

As the scriptures say, this isn't something done a corner or hid, and ya don't have to twist any scripture to make the scriptures fit your doctrine,

God loves whole world, Jesus died for whole world that the whole world might be saved,

I am amazed that people believe man's writings when they clearly contradict God's writing and wring God love out of the scriptures for all men and force an evil/respect of persons image on God, that isn't the "God is love" in the Bible.

If God give you the "Faith" to believe the truth, then why don't you know the truth, the very thing you deny having is the very thing you demonstrate on this forum, the "FREEDOM" to believe anything you hear/chose to believe,

If God was giving the faith to beleve, they'd all believe the same thing, there would only be one denomination.

You can have enough Faith in God to literally die for God and still go to hell,

faith is demonstrated in the person you trust to be telling you the truth,

"WHO" you believe is the first step on the road to salvation.

The difference in Abraham's faith in God and going to heaven

And a "Muslim/Buddist/Hindu" faith in God and going to hell.


And it's quite clear, some have more faith in calvins writing than in God's writing,

one describes a "hateful/vengeful/condemning God" against helpless sinners,

while the other describes a "loving/Forgiving/redeeming God" toward all sinners.

And we have the "FREEDOM" to put our faith in which ever one we think is telling us the "TRUTH" about the God of the Bible,

or we wouldn't be having this debate.

 

Me4Him,

Part of your problem is that you do not undsertand the dual nature of God's will. God has two aspects of His will- a will of desire and a will of command, or as some call it a revealed will and a secret will.

Here is an example. God says that you should not murder, yet He had ordained that Christ would be murdered on the cross. God did not apporve what those involved did to Christ, be ordained that it would come to pass.

Just because God says He desires that no one would perish does not mean that He has willed for all to come to salvation.

 

Is this your new obsession? I disproved your assertion that God's sovereign will is that no person [without exception] should perish, yet you keep insisting this is true.

How many verses do you need to read before you abandon that assumption? Here are a couple more, but I'll bet you keep grinding the same tune anyway.

Can you quote me verses that say God does not delight in their destruction? Sure. But delighting in something and willing it are two different things.

 

Me4Him, you said "God loves whole world"

this is simply unbiblical and therefore false....

Psa 5:5 nas The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity."

Psa 11:5 nas The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates.

God loved Jacob and hates Esau.... Mal 1:3, Rom 9:13

blessings,
Ken

 

thanks for the kind welcome CalviBaptist!

 

Greetings Ken. Welcome to TheologyLand. Be care of what rides you get on!

Soli Deo Gloria!

 

God loves the world is "ublbilical"? Ever read John 3:16?

It would help to understand the Hebrew and Greek words for "hate" (sane, miseo) do not always carry the same meaning in the english. Do you hate your father, your mother, or yourself for that matter?

Another question: can I love someone more than God?

 

lol... oh... so you want to qualify the word??!! I thought only us scripture twisting Calvinists did that sort of thing!!

Look at it like this, the statement was made above that God loves the whole world, apparently meaning "all" without exception, there were no qualifications of any kind... this is false... unless you can tell me what the verses I quoted above mean... does the Hebrew allow it to mean that God merely “loves less”? I don't think so....

And since you say “It would help to understand the Hebrew and Greek words for "hate" (sane, miseo) do not always carry the same meaning in the English”, I ask: are you a Hebrew scholar? How many years have of Hebrew have you had? I haven't had any Hebrew, but that does not mean that I am unaware of the qualifications that may need to be applied to a word or phrase and therefore, though I am no scholar of the biblical languages, I have had Hermeneutics at the Univ. level and have been studying it (along with many other areas in the realm of theology) for quite some time. That doesn't make me right or wrong necessarily, it just means you should not assume you know more about what I know or don't know then you do.

Strong’s says that the word in Ps 5:5 means "A primitive root; to hate (personally): - enemy, foe, (be) hate (-ful, -r), odious, X utterly."
Sounds to me like God hates all those who do iniquity (ie unsaved sinners) to me....

the BDB seems to agree:
BDB Definition:
1) to hate, be hateful
1a) (Qal) to hate
1a1) of man
1a2) of God
1a3) hater, one hating, enemy (participle) (substantive)
1b) (Niphal) to be hated
1c) (Piel) hater (participle)
1c1) of persons, nations, God, wisdom
Part of Speech: verb

…… and why it even looks as if the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament agrees:
"Hebrew Word: sane'
Strong's Cross Reference: 8130
Definition: hate, to be hateful.

Derivative TWOT Number: 2272a
Derivative Transliteration: sani'
Derivative Strong's Cross Reference: 8146
Derivative Definition: hated, held in aversion (Deu_21:15).

Derivative TWOT Number: 2272b
Derivative Transliteration: sin'a
Derivative Strong's Cross Reference: 8135
Derivative Definition: hate, hatred.

The term idneh has the same meaning in Ugaritic (UT 19: no. 2449). The verb idni, and its derivatives have the root meaning "to hate." It expresses an emotional attitude toward persons and things which are opposed, detested, despised and with which one wishes to have no contact or relationship. It is therefore the opposite of love. Whereas love draws and unites, hate separates and keeps distant. The hated and hating persons are considered foes or enemies and are considered odious, utterly unappealing…..

God's hatred for idols and feasts is also directed against people, e.g, Esau (Mal_1:3, Gen 27; Psa_5:5 [H 6]; Psa_11:5). In each case the character and/or activities of the hated ones are expressed; thus God is opposed to, separates himself from, and brings the consequences of his hatred upon people not as mere people, but as sinful people......."

so much for the Hebrew.....

which brings us back to John 3:16, if you take it to be the case that God loves the whole world, without exception, then the Bible contradicts itself as per Ps. 5:5, this cannot be, at least, not from my perspective.. maybe some others think differently, that is up to them... at any rate, it seems therefore, in order to avoid contradiction, the word "world" in John 3:16 has to be qualified.

As far as hating my mother, father and my flesh….. that is a good point, if you can show me that the qualifications to the word “hate” (eg “love less”) from my human perspective have to equally apply to God’s hatred as expressed in Ps 5:5, then I will have a closer look at my position. As it stands, it seems as though the Greek word used of hating one’s own father etc has a broader possibility of meanings then the Hebrew, eg to “love less”. Strong’s: “From a primary word μῖσος misos (hatred); to detest (especially to persecute); by extension to love less: - hate (-ful).”"

blessings,
Ken

PS, already having fun on the ride!!! yaaayyyyyy!!!

 

No.

Is that a "yes" or "no"?
If you take the greek as a possible meaning of "love less" here, but not the hebrew, then the text where Paul quoted the OT "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated" would carry the same possible meaning of "love less".

If you take Ps. 5:5 as God hates (opposite or absence of love) all workers of iniquity, can you tell me who besides Christ this would not apply to?

Can I love someone more than God does?

 

Ps. 5:5 has always been used in the context that God witholds love from "all workers of iniquity".

Does this mean that God denies the salvation of those who commit iniquity.?

(Notice he says “all workers”) see Psalm 51:2 - did God not love david? Did God desire Davids salvation? See psalm 51:9 -

Was David a worker of iniquity? See Psalm 51:5 -- were you and I and everyone shapen in iniquity?

Read Jermiaha 3:13 - If we aknowledge our iniquity do we receive the blessings of God? Read psalm 103:3--can iniquity be forgiven? (see also Pslam 130:3-4

Titus 2:14 - can we be redeemed from all iniquity?

Isa 53:5 -- was Jesus bruised for our iniquity?

So how do we understand psalm 5:5?

Lets let scripture interpret scripture. If you read a little further in psalm 5:10 david says “ Destroy thou them,oh God; let them fall by their own counsel; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.

 

Yes, I think I have. God so loved the world. In this case, world would have to mean all peoples without distinction, Jews and Gentiles. If it meant all people without exception, John 3:16 would contradict the plain meaning of other scripture.

The context supports this interpretation, as well, but I've already explained that.

 

Webdog, re the yes or no,,, the point I was trying to make is that if something (hate) is predicated of God and also of humans, it does not follow that this thing be equal when applied to either case. That is, when God loves and we love, it is obvious, or ought to be, that we do not love in exactly the same way. If I am to “love less” as far as my flesh and parents go, it does not seem to follow that God, when He is said to hate workers of iniquity, He merely loves them less. The Hebrew does not seem to allow this, and it is doubtful that God loves the sinner being tormented in Hell right now or in the future. Indeed, God’s hatred will burn for all eternity against such persons.

You say “If you take the greek as a possible meaning of "love less" here, but not the hebrew, then the text where Paul quoted the OT "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated" would carry the same possible meaning of "love less".”
Possibly. The point is, Psalm 5:5 speaks of God as hating some in the world, therefore the proposition that says “God loves the whole world” when taken to mean absolutely, must be false. There are some whom He hates.

Is there some problem with the general idea that God hates someone? Is there anything in His attributes that precludes such a thing? Or is it pop culture’s watering down of God’s fierce anger/wrath/hatred against sin and sinners that makes the concept so hard to swallow? Is it because too many have swallowed the popular maxim “God hates the sin but loves the sinner?” Where is that in Scripture? God does not throw sin into Hell without also throwing the person responsible for it as well.

Just because God is love, it does not follow that He cannot hate. Or, if you do not like the word “hate”, come up with some other word for it, the point is, whatever word you attach to the concept, God looks with (insert adjective that means "to hate") upon all those who have not (those already in eternity) and will not (in the future) turn to Him for forgiveness.

As for the “some” that God hates, the Scripture seems to be saying that God hates those who are in perpetual disobedience to Him. I am sorry that I took it as obvious that since we are all sinners and thus workers of iniquity, and that if we looked at the situation based on this point alone, none would be saved….. so to spell it out a little more fully, since it is the case some are saved, it follows therefore that God’s hatred does not extend to all, but the point of all this is to say that it does extend to some.

I do interpret Scripture with Scripture.

blessings,
Ken

 

I'm well aware of the dual nature of God, but I can't get these "knotheads" to see one side, much less two.