2 Timothy 2:10

[webdog]

So God wants to save people who are not elect?

Obviously if you are not a Jew and a believer!

 

[Isaiah40:28]

Obviously if you are not a Jew and a believer!

God wants to save all the Gentile unbelievers?

 

[webdog]

God wants to save all the Gentile unbelievers?

You obviously aren't following the thread too well. The "elect" mentioned in Scripture are in reference to jews who either have or will come to Christ. If you are a gentile believer, yes, you are saved. I would hope you would know that.

On a side note, 2 Peter 3:9 states God wants to save everyone, so yes, your question has merit.

 

[Isaiah40:28]

You obviously aren't following the thread too well. The "elect" mentioned in Scripture are in reference to jews who either have or will come to Christ.

Oh, I'm following the dispy stuff. I just happen to disagree with it.

On a side note, 2 Peter 3:9 states God wants to save everyone, so yes, your question has merit.

So God tries to save everyone?
If yes, how does He try?

 

[webdog]

So God tries to save everyone?
If yes, how does He try?

Another topic for another time...

 

[RichardJS]

On a side note, 2 Peter 3:9 states God wants to save everyone, so yes, your question has merit.

On this;

John Owen states: " See, then, of whom the apostle is here speaking. “The Lord,” saith he, “is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish.” Will not common sense teach us that us is to be repeated in both the following clauses, to make them up complete and full, — namely, “Not willing that any of us should perish, but that all of us should come to repentance?” Now, who are these of whom the apostle speaks, to whom he writes? Such as had received “great and precious promises,” chap. i. 4, whom he calls “beloved,” chap. iii. 1; whom he opposeth to the “scoffers” of the “last days,” verse 3; to whom the Lord hath respect in the disposal of these days; who are said to be “elect,” Matt. xxiv. 22. Now, truly, to argue that because God would have none of those to perish, but all of them to come to repentance, therefore he hath the same will and mind towards all and every one in the world (even those to whom he never makes known his will, nor ever calls to repentance, if they never once hear of his way of salvation), comes not much short of extreme madness and folly. Neither is it of any weight to the contrary, that they were not all elect to whom Peter wrote: for in the judgment of charity he esteemed them so, desiring them “to give all diligence to make their calling and election sure,” chap. i. 10; even as he expressly calleth those to whom he wrote his former epistle, “elect,” chap. i. 2, and a “chosen generation,” as well as a “purchased people,” chap. ii. 9. I shall not need add any thing concerning the contradictions and inextricable difficulties wherewith the opposite interpretation is accompanied (as, that God should will such to come to repentance as he cuts off in their infancy out of the covenant, such as he hateth from eternity, from whom he hideth the means of grace, to whom he will not give repentance, and yet knoweth that it is utterly impossible they should have it without his bestowing). The text is clear, that it is all and only the elect whom he would not have to perish. A place supposed parallel to this we have in Ezek. xviii. 23, 32, which shall be afterward considered.” (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/deathofdeath.i.x.iv.html)

Turretin states in his Institutio Theologiae Elencticae: "The will of God here spoken of ‘should not be extended further than to the elect and believers, for whose sake God puts off the consummation of ages, until their number shall be completed.’ This is evident from ‘the pronoun us which precedes, with sufficient clearness designating the elect and believers, as elsewhere more than once, and to explain which he adds, not willing that any, that is, of us, should perish.’"

 

[Humblesmith]

Oh, I get it. So "any" really means "any of us."
"Any" really means "some."

If the Holy Spirit wanted to say "any of us" or "some" then he could have used those words, since he used them elsewhere. But he didn't. The sentence does not say "any of us."

Further, restricting this to only believers is contrary to the last half of the sentence, which says "...but that all should come to repentence." So people who are already believers would be asked to "come to repentence." This is contrary to "us" already being saved. Rather, in Acts 17:30: All men everywhere are commanded to repent.

I agree with Spurgeon, who let the scriptures speak for themselves, even though they sometimes contradicted his theology.

 

[webdog]

Oh, I'm following the dispy stuff. I just happen to disagree with it.

You dont' agree with Romans 9:6?
Rom 9:6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

1. Who are the "not all who are descended from Israel" group.
2. Who are the "are Israel" group.

What abou Romans 11:7?

Rom 11:7 What then? Israel did not find what it was looking for, but the elect did find it. The rest were hardened,

Romans 11 is dealing specifically with Israel (9-11, actually). Two contrasting groups here: Israel and the elect. Both same people (race). Romans 9:6 gives a preview of who these two groups are.

 

[Isaiah40:28]

You dont' agree with Romans 9:6?
Rom 9:6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

1. Who are the "not all who are descended from Israel" group.
2. Who are the "are Israel" group.

What abou Romans 11:7?

Rom 11:7 What then? Israel did not find what it was looking for, but the elect did find it. The rest were hardened,

Romans 11 is dealing specifically with Israel (9-11, actually). Two contrasting groups here: Israel and the elect. Both same people (race). Romans 9:6 gives a preview of who these two groups are.

Let's make this easy for you to understand:
I do not see the Jews today as God's elect people.
God's elect people are believers, Jew and Gentile(aka the saints OT and NT)

I was raised as a semi-pelagian dispy, but have since left that system of theology.

 

[webdog]

Let's make this easy for you to understand:
I do not see the Jews today as God's elect people.

Then why did Paul?

God's elect people are believers, Jew and Gentile(aka the saints OT and NT)

Scripture for Gentiles? We have Scripture showing jewish believers...

I was raised as a semi-pelagian dispy, but have since left that system of theology.

I think that's irrelevant. You still didn't answer the questions, btw.

 

[Allan]

Let's make this easy for you to understand:
I do not see the Jews today as God's elect people.
God's elect people are believers, Jew and Gentile(aka the saints OT and NT)

I was raised as a semi-pelagian dispy, but have since left that system of theology.

So you are claiming to have believed the same as semi-pelagains?
I guess you have only listened to people who through this label around and did not know what the semi's believed. However I could be wrong and you actually believed this way, yes or no?:

Semi-Pelagianism - a Christian theological understanding about salvation; that is, how humanity and God are restored to a right relationship. The Semi-Pelagian teaching is derived from the earlier Pelagian teaching about salvation, and teaches that it is necessary for humans to make the first step toward God and then God will complete salvation...

Pelagianism is the teaching that man has the capacity to seek God in and of himself apart from any movement of God or the Holy Spirit. According to semi-Pelagianism, man doesn’t have such an unrestrained capacity, but man and God could cooperate to a certain degree in this salvation effort: man can (unaided by grace) make the first move toward God, and God then completes the salvation process

God does not seek man however when man seeks after God (with no divine influence attributed) God rewards man by giving him salvation and grace instead of the Pelegan view where we have man earning salvation through good works and grace is just a bonus but not necessary. Again we see God is decondary according to both of these veiws in saving man. However, we know scripture shows God coming to man who of and by himself will not seek God because man is depraved due to his sin nature.


So this was how you believed at one time?
A Man can come to God without God ever drawing or giving any grace to the man, and since man came God would give him salvation.

This my friend is the core of semi-pelagain or what is more properly termed semi-Augustinianism (at least according to Wiki). I thought that was an interesting note, since the seim's DIDN'T WANT to be associated with Pelagism and actaully held Augustine in high regard. You could almost say they were the first type of synergists. Since Augustines views were not historically known and Pelagus his view to the extreme. Anyway, I am curious as to your answer regarding if that was the theology you beleived before.

 

[Andy T.]

Allan,

Semi-pelagian belief is not that uncommon, but I do understand the traditional Arminian belief is not rightly called semi-pelagian. However, just recently, we have witnessed arguments from the non-cal contingent on this board that people do not receive grace until they have faith first. And that position is semi-pelagian to the core.

 

[Isaiah40:28]

I think that's irrelevant.

Well obviously I don't.

You still didn't answer the questions, btw.

of which, I am under no obligation.
I don't have the time to spend getting into all the of the reasons why I disagree with the dispy. beliefs.
I was just giving you two summary statements of my position.

 

[Isaiah40:28]

So you are claiming to have believed the same as semi-pelagains?
I guess you have only listened to people who through this label around and did not know what the semi's believed. However I could be wrong and you actually believed this way, yes or no?:


God does not seek man however when man seeks after God (with no divine influence attributed) God rewards man by giving him salvation and grace instead of the Pelegan view where we have man earning salvation through good works and grace is just a bonus but not necessary. Again we see God is decondary according to both of these veiws in saving man. However, we know scripture shows God coming to man who of and by himself will not seek God because man is depraved due to his sin nature.


So this was how you believed at one time?
A Man can come to God without God ever drawing or giving any grace to the man, and since man came God would give him salvation.

This my friend is the core of semi-pelagain or what is more properly termed semi-Augustinianism (at least according to Wiki). I thought that was an interesting note, since the seim's DIDN'T WANT to be associated with Pelagism and actaully held Augustine in high regard. You could almost say they were the first type of synergists. Since Augustines views were not historically known and Pelagus his view to the extreme. Anyway, I am curious as to your answer regarding if that was the theology you beleived before.

Allan,
Wiki is not the best place to get the straight dope on theological terms.

http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/semipela.htm

Church councils condemned Pelagianism in 418 and again in 431, but this rejection did not mean the acceptance of everything in the Augustinian system. Augustine's teaching on grace may be summarized as follows: Humanity shared in Adam's sin and therefore has become a massa damnationis from which no one can be extricated save by a special gift of divine grace that cannot be merited; yet God in his inscrutable wisdom chooses some to be saved and grants graces that will infallibly but freely lead them to salvation. The number of the elect is set and can be neither increased nor decreased. Nevertheless, Vitalis of Carthage and a community of monks at Hadrumetum, Africa (c. 427), contested these principles, asserting that they destroyed freedom of the will and all moral responsibility. They, in turn, affirmed that the unaided will performed the initial act of faith. In response Augustine produced Grace and Free Will and Rebuke and Grace, which contain a resume of his arguments against the Semi - Pelagians, and stress the necessary preparation of the will by prevenient grace.

Semi-Pelagianism involved doctrines, upheld during the period from 427 to 529, that rejected the extreme views both of Pelagius and of Augustine in regards to the priority of divine grace and human will in the initial work of salvation. The label "Semi - Pelagian," however, is a relatively modern expression, which apparently appeared first in the Lutheran Formula of Concord (1577), and became associated with the theology of the Jesuit Luis Molina (1535 - 1600). The term, nevertheless, was not a happy choice, because the so-called Semi - Pelagians wanted to be anything but half - Pelagians. It would be more correct to call them Semi - Augustinians who, while rejecting the doctrines of Pelagius and respecting Augustine, were not willing to follow the ultimate consequences of his theology.

These men objected to a number of points in the Augustinian doctrine of sin and grace, namely, the assertion of the total bondage of the will, of the priority and irresistibility of grace, and of rigid predestination. They agreed with Augustine as to the seriousness of sin, yet they regarded his doctrine of predestination as new, therefore in conflict with tradition and dangerous because it makes all human efforts superfluous. In opposition to Augustinianism, Cassian taught that though a sickness is inherited through Adam's sin, human free will has not been entirely obliterated. Divine grace is indispensable for salvation, but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice, because, despite the weakness of human volition, the will takes the initiative toward God. In other words, divine grace and human free will must work together in salvation. In opposition to the stark predestinarianism of Augustine, Cassian held to the doctrine of God's universal will to save, and that predestination is simply divine foreknowledge.

 

[webdog]

of which, I am under no obligation.
I don't have the time to spend getting into all the of the reasons why I disagree with the dispy. beliefs.
I was just giving you two summary statements of my position.

Good, because my questions weren't pertaining to "dispy beliefs".

Rom 9:6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

1. Who are the "not all who are descended from Israel" group?
2. Who are the "are Israel" group?

 

[Isaiah40:28]

Good, because my questions weren't pertaining to "dispy beliefs".

Rom 9:6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

1. Who are the "not all who are descended from Israel" group?
2. Who are the "are Israel" group?

Of course they are related to dispensational beliefs.
I don't have time to study this with you.

 

[Helen]

Evidently you are doing precisly that, Isaiah40:28 -- ignoring Scripture. However, if you don't feel it incumbant upon you to substantiate what you believe to be true, perhaps you should not be on the debate part of the Board.

If you don't believe there have been different times when God worked somewhat differently with different groups of men, you will also have to ignore the entire book of Hebrews!

 

[Isaiah40:28]

Evidently you are doing precisly that, Isaiah40:28 -- ignoring Scripture. However, if you don't feel it incumbant upon you to substantiate what you believe to be true, perhaps you should not be on the debate part of the Board.

Helen,
There is no good or helpful reason for you to have said the above comments.

One answer on my part will not be left alone and the discussion will drag on through countless passages and meanings
I cannot commit to such a discussion at this time.

Perhaps you can try to understand without thinking the worst of me.

 

[Humblesmith]

Did you hear the one about the group of Christians that got into a name-calling session?

The punchline was that everyone left. It wasn't very funny.

 

[rsr]

I have tried to clean up the worst offenses on this thread.

If you want to talk about personalities, take it somewhere else. If you have a complaint about whether the rules are being followed, take it up with a moderator; don't make a big deal on the board.

Thank you

rsr
moderator