Per the bible, per context have to show who all and the world represent though
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An Even Closer Look at God’s Election
- Thread starter Dougcho
- Start date
Saved421
Member
I will study this further, though I do agree that there is an 'elect' who are those who God knew who would be saved.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Of course He knew the elect would be saved because He chose to save them from b4 the foundation of the world
atpollard
Well-Known Member
When Jesus was "lifted up" in thirty-something AD, were all the Aztec and Mayan people [performing human sacrifice to the winged snake god they worshiped] immediately drawn to Jesus (even though the Gospel did not reach them for another almost 1500 years).
Is it more likely that Jesus was speaking of something like ...
Revelation 5:9 [NLT]
And they sang a new song with these words: "You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."
Some of each. All without DISTINCTION rather than all without EXCEPTION.
(Just my humble thoughts on "all men" for your consideration.)
Alan Dale Gross
Active Member
Jesus said,
it "is the Work of God (the Father),
that ye believe on Him (Jesus)
Whom He (God the Father)
hath Sent."
John 6:28;
"Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?"
"Then said they unto Him",.... Understanding by what he said, that they must labour and work, though not for perishing food, yet for durable food; and as they imagined, in order to obtain eternal life by working:
"what shall we do that we might work the works of God?" Such as are agreeable to his will, are acceptable to him, and well pleasing in his sight: they seem to intimate, as if they desired to know whether there were any other works of this kind, than what Moses had directed them to, or than they had done; and if there were, they suggest they would gladly do them; for this was the general cast and complexion of this people; they were seeking for righteousness, and life not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law.
John 6:29;
"Jesus answered and said unto them,
This is the Work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent."
"Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of God".... The main and principal one, and which is well pleasing in his sight; and without which it is impossible to please him; and without which no work whatever is a good work; and this is of the operation of God, which he himself works in men; it is not of themselves, it is the pure gift of God:
"that ye believe on him whom he hath sent"...; there are other works which are well pleasing to God, when rightly performed, but faith is the chief work, and others are only acceptable when done in the faith of Christ. This, as a principle, is purely God's work; as it is an act, or as it is exercised under the influence of Divine Grace, it is man's act: "that ye believe"; the Object of it is Christ, as sent by the Father, as the Mediator between God and men, as appointed by Him to be the Saviour and Redeemer; and believing in Christ, is believing in God that sent Him."
36 "But I said unto you, That ye also have seen Me, and believe not."
They saw Jesus and yet did not believe.
37 "All that the Father Giveth Me shall come to Me;
and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.
Those that the Father Gave to Jesus will see Jesus and Come to Jesus and believe.
38 "For I came down from Heaven, not to do Mine Own Will,
but the Will of Him that sent Me.
It is the Will of God that Jesus did and is doing here,
which was, "to Seek and to Save that which was lost".
John 6:29;
"Jesus answered and said unto them,
This is the Work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent."
39 "And this is the Father's Will which hath Sent Me,
that of all which He hath Given Me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the Last Day.
Jesus Will raise those whom the Father Gave Him
and in whom God Worked in them the Work of God that they believe on Jesus
Whom God the Father Sent to be their Savior.
40 "And this is the Will of Him that Sent Me,
that every one which seeth the Son,
and believeth on Him, may have Everlasting Life:
and I Will raise him up at the Last Day."
After God the Father Gave specific individuals to Jesus to Save their souls,
Jesus Accomplished the Eternal Plan of Obtaining Salvation Perfectly,
for those God Gave Him to be their Savior
and IT WAS WORK OF GOD IN THEIR SOUL THAT DREW THEM TO HIM, TO BELIEVE,
so, whereas they saw Jesus all they wanted to and willed in and of themselves,
in the own absence of any Spiritual capibilty, in their flesh which profits nothing,
and since it is not of him that runneth or Willeth, but of God Who Shows Mercy,
where Jesus told them, "That ye also have seen Me, and believe not", in 40:36,
until The Holy Spirit Enabled them to see, the Son, Spiritually in the New Birth,
and "believe on Him", and they wouldn't have believed on their own, of course,
since, "no man comes" unto Jesus, unless His Father through The Holy Spirit Draws their dead soul FROM THE DEAD SPIRITUALLY AND QUICKENS THEIR DEAD SOUL, WITH ETERNAL LIFE, JUST LIKE GOD SAID HE DID, "YOU HATH HE QUICKENED
WHO WERE DEAD IN TRASSPASSES AND SINS",
Verse 6:40 teaches that it is God's Will THAT THEY ALSO:
1. ) "may have Everlasting Life"
2.) "and I Will raise him up at the Last Day,"
WHICH ARE THE ONES GOD SENT JESUS TO
AND WHO HOLY SPIRIT GRANTED THE NEW BIRTH
NOW BE THOSE SAVED ONES WHO HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE SPIRITUAL ABILITY
WHERE ARE THOSE WHO ARE PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE
WHO JESUS DESCRIBES AS BEING AMONG THEM
WHO HAVE BEEN BROUGHT OUT OF DARKNESS, INTO THE MARVOLOUS LIGHT,
AND ARE SOME OF THOSE JESUS SAID
"that every one which seeth the Son", AFTER JESUS OPENED THEIR BLIND EYES
AND GRANTED THEM REPENTENCE AND FAITH IN JESUS,
"and believeth on Him," AS THE WORK OF GOD THAT THEY BELIEVE.
Alan Dale Gross
Active Member
The first knee jerk impulse of a carnal man's reasoning,
while only using their fleshly mind which suffered the effects of the Fall of Adam,
WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE AND ENABLEMENT OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD,
MIGHT ALWAYS HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST, IF GOD SAID IT DID,
BUT HE DOESN'T AND IT DOESN'T, AND CAN NEVER BE DREAMED TO BE ABLE
TO THINK THINGS EXACTLY AS IF IT IS GOD'S MIND THAT JUST THINKS LIKE GOD.
BUT GOD SAID HIS THOUGHTS ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS.
AND IN FACT GOD SAYS OUR MINDS ARE AT EMNITY WITH HIM AND OFFEND HIM.
We have to DIE T
UR FLESH and bow to the Lordship of Christ,If we are ever going to anything that is in way that Pleases God.
From: John 12 Gill's Exposition
"I will draw all men to Me; which is not to be understood of the concourse of people about him, when on the cross, some for him, and others against him, some to bewail him, and others to reproach him;
"but rather of the gathering of the elect to him, and in him, as their head and representative, when he was crucified for them;
"of the collection of them, through the ministry of the apostles, and of their being brought to believe on him for eternal life and salvation: and this drawing of them to him, in consequence of his death, supposes distance from him, want of power, and will, to came to him, and the efficacious grace of God to bring them, though without any force and compulsion;
"and this is to be understood not of every individual of human nature;
for all are not drawn to Christ,
or enabled to come to him, and believe in him.
"There were many of the Jews who would not, and did not come to him for life; and who instead of being drawn to him in this sense, when lifted up on the cross, vilified and reproached him; moreover, in the preceding verse, "a world" is spoken of, whose judgment, or condemnation, was now come; and besides, there was at this time a multitude of souls in hell, who could not, nor never will be, drawn to Christ;
"and a greater number still there will be at the last day, who, instead of drawing to him in this gracious way and manner, will be bid to depart from him, as having been workers of iniquity. Christ died indeed for all men who are drawn unto him; but this is not true of all men, that are, were, or shall be in the world.
"Add to this, that the word "men" is not in the text, it is only "all": Beza's most ancient copy, and some others, and the Vulgate Latin version read "all things"; and by "all" are meant, all the elect of God, all the children of God, "that were scattered abroad"; the Persic version reads, "I will draw my friends to me"; it designs some of all sorts of men, of every state, condition, age, sex, and nation, Gentiles as well as Jews, and especially the former;
"which agrees with the ancient prophecy, Genesis 49:10, and with the context, and the occasion of the words, which was the desire of the Greeks, that were come to the feast, to see Jesus; and which was a specimen of the large numbers of them, that should be drawn to Christ, through the preaching of the Gospel, after his death: the Jews say, that in the time to come, or in the days of the Messiah, all the proselytes shall be "drawn", shall freely become proselytes (e).
"The allusion here, is to the setting up of a standard or ensign, to gather persons together. Christ's cross is the standard, his love is the banner, and he himself is the ensign, which draw souls to himself, and engage them to enlist themselves under him, and become his volunteers in the day his power; see Isaiah 11:10."
Alan Dale Gross
Active Member
"An Experiment."
"As the Articles of Faith made no attempt to explain how God preordained
everything, including sin without being its author that task was left to the
early Baptists writers. These writers found different ways to express
themselves but it is plain from their writings they taught God executed His
Will differently with regard to evil than He did with regard to good.
"Before I take up the task of dealing with this issue I would like for the reader
to participate in a simple experiment. Take a quarter in your hand. With the
back of your hand facing up open your hand so that the coin falls to the
floor.
"Now, leave it on the floor until I tell you otherwise. I want to talk to
you first about what has already happened. Tell me, did you cause the coin
to fall? You might reply that you did since you let it go and such a response
seems reasonable enough.
"But let me ask the question in another way. Did you force the coin to fall?
To this you would clearly see you did not force it to fall. It fell by its own weight.
"Now we are ready for you to deal with the fallen coin so pick it up.
"The principles of this experiment may not answer every question how a
Sovereign God brings evil and good deeds into the world but it should go a
long way toward resolving many of them.
Section II. Evil Deeds.
"I submit God is neither the author of sin
nor does He force His creatures to commit sin.
God’s Permissive Will.
"What was first demonstrated by the experiment was that by letting the coin
go you permitted it to fall. From this let me introduce the concept of God’s
permissive will. Hear me out on this. I know a lot of folk who believe in
the absolute doctrine do not like this term. I also know Arminians and
Conditionalists readily adopt this term when speaking about God’s Will.
"Therefore, I must make sure I am not misunderstood when I speak of it. I do
not believe the term means a whole variety of things can happen. For
example, it does not mean lightning during a storm may strike your front
yard tree or maybe it will be your back yard tree, or maybe instead it will be
your neighbor’s tree, or again, maybe there will be no lightning strikes near
your home at all.
"For another example, it does not mean God leaves it up to
you whether or not you will sin. Maybe you will or maybe you won’t. I do
not understand permissive will to mean what most people think when they
use the term. They think of it as open-ended; that is, that by God’s
permission a whole host of things might occur.
"Contrary to this view I believe God’s Will is specific to what He permits. God’s purposes include all things but His methods in bringing many of them to pass is through what He has specifically intended to permit and what He intended to permit will happen.
"It should be observed the coin did not fall by accident. In order for you to
participate in the experiment you both intended and permitted the quarter to
fall to the floor. You knew if you opened your hand it would fall.
You did not force it to fall. But this brings up another point.
"The nature of the coin had to be as it was in order to fall.
"Suppose you had released a balloon recently filled with helium.
Rather than falling the balloon would have actually started going upward.
"Thus, the result of your release would have been different
had the object been a helium filled balloon rather than a coin.
"In all of this we see how it can be that God’s Will encompasses sin
while at the same time He remains apart from it.
"By examining yourself and by looking at the world around you it should be
sufficient to confirm to you the biblical truth that all humanity has fallen into
sin. Paul wrote “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5.12).
"By referring to Old Testament passages the same apostle concluded there
was no one righteous, there was none that understood or sought after God,
and that every one went astray and became unprofitable. Their throats were
compared to open sepulchres, their talk was deceitful, and full of cursing and
bitterness. They readily shed blood, and along the way they found
destruction and misery. Peace was far from them. Finally they had no fear
of God (Romans 3.11-18).
"It is human nature to live in such depravity.
"Jeremiah taught, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked” (Jeremiah 17.9), and Jesus taught, “out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies
(Matthew 15.19).
"Paul described the sinner’s condition as being “dead in trespasses and sins” and further described what he meant when he told the Ephesians: “wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others” (Ephesians 2.1-3).
"Isaiah 64.6 states even what men claim to be righteousness
is actually comparable to “filthy rags.”
"When you consider all these texts is there anyone who could reasonably
think God needs to force men to sin?"
More at:
GOD’S EXECUTION OF HIS WILL
CONCERNING GOOD AND EVIL DEEDS.
BY DAVID MATTINGLY
2008