Featured Calvinism Fact Sheet #2, by Joel Barnes: Unconditional Election

Could you spell it out for me, I don't understand what you think, does a baby need Jesus or not?


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Let me pose my question a different way, are babies separate from the body of Christ in heaven In your opinion?


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Everyone and everything needs Jesus.

 

I think Jesus says they are the greatest in the kingdom.

 

I agree with you, but it doesn't answer my question. I understand though, there really isn't a whole lot to go on. The way I look at it, it depends upon God's sovereignty. I asked another person that's a friend of mine what he thought would happen to a child, maybe an unborn, who dies and hasn't had the chance to choose to follow Christ and he said that God knows what they would choose if they had lived their life. Personally, I think that's a horrible way to think about God. Because my God is sovereign over our destinies in my opinion He may offer the unborn in heaven, "hey, would you like to be with me for the rest of eternity?" What person in their right mind is going to say no to that when they're sitting in heaven? It's irresistible grace on steroids! I think every single unborn goes to heaven and they don't get baby bodies when the rapture comes they're going to get an adult spiritual body.

So when do you think an unborn Child has or had their name written in the book of life?

I still think a baby needs Jesus because anyone who name is not written in the book of life, the lambs book of life, is cast into the lake of fire and like I said before in another place I believe everyone's name is in the book of life to begin with because it's a book of creation with every person who will be born into humanity's name in it, that's why it's written before the foundation of the world and so when a baby gets to heaven their name is in the book, there's no way they're name is going to be taken out of the book that I can think of. With prevenient grace and with irresistible grace there is a point of choice and maybe the choice is made in heaven I don't know.
I don't believe in the babies inherent goodness though, because every child of Adam (Gen 5:3) needs to become a child of Christ. I don't believe every child, just because they're sinless is perfect, I guess is the only way to say it, otherwise if they are then God is allowing perfect little beings to grow up in a horrible sinful world and that seems wrong to me.

 

Nope, stated that we have to be as they are, which means totally reliant upon God, just as they must rely upon adults!

 

So no more Limbo in Catholic theology?

 

Wow you gotta have great deal of mistrust to come up so worried about your babies.

OF COURSE in Calvinism anyone of them just as damned as adults. Jesus could have put a 80 year old on his lap and said unless you humble yourself as this child.

What exactly would have been the difference? an 80 year old or a child in his lap?

The very fact Jesus sets an example to follow speaks for itself.

But being UNBELIEVERS some of us feel Jesus giving a path to salvation is joke, Its all nonsense and only dependent on whether he wants to save your or damn you. Literally luck of the "Draw".

 

And your system is better how; if every person throughout humanity is given a personal choice to choose Christ or not, are the numbers of lost verses saved any different? You think the Calvinist view of God is arbitrary and callous, but your view justifies God because "they had the option?"
Freewill is a horrible system of salvation because look how many persons when given the option don't choose their Creator!
You evidently believe that God puts an innocent (child) spirit in a wicked world and that's ok, but because God knew who He could save out of what He knew would be a wicked world before He EVER CREATED Adam, you vilify persons who acknowledge God's omniscience.
On top of this both views totally ignore the ruler of this world and the battle for souls here. Your view proposes that everyone throughout time and humanity is brought to a point of complete clarity through the graces and given the choice to choose Christ which is sufficient for salvation so it is equal to the gospel so "hey devil, in your face you can't stop anyone from being saved!
Calvinism says God just chooses who he will save irrelevant of any outside influence, which is a darn sight closer to the truth

 

Calvinist hold that God has the authority and power to make sure that His intended to get saved will get saved, while other view is God hopes and frets that somebody, anybody will do the right thing and accept Jesus to save them!

 

I'm not the one hopping about saying there is UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION. You can't insist there is an unconditional election and at the same time say the condition of childhood is absolute saved condition. That's why I said put the 80 year old in Jesus lap Who alive was ever a child? Every adult alive was a child once, did they lose their infant salvation?

a divine probation period. What's child age were they are cut from child-salvation. Same folks who swear up and down you can't lose it, show us a child Damned to be.

What are you, a universalist?

"Freewill is a horrible system of salvation because look how many persons when given the option don't choose their Creator!"

Calvinist can't even name one other person other than themselves as elect. I can walk up to a complete stranger and tell them God loves them......and MEAN IT.

In a NON-FREEWILL system 100% NONE choose their creator, there is no will of their own.

"You evidently believe that God puts an innocent (child) spirit in a wicked world and that's ok,"

Yeah let me tell you about one named JESUS CHRIST.

Thats probably the best method to change a wicked world. Were do you get off that wickedness is a threat to GOOD? A wicked world , a wicked person, thats what a SAINT treasures the most. He has God on their side and God can bring the wicked around to stop being wicked.

Sin isn't a perk its a disease. The one who is under sin, he's already suffering under a great fear. Thats why we "SAVE" them.


You can't have this selfish point of view of heaven and salvation. The GOOD GUYS the actual GOOD GUYS will stop at nothing to save everyone. And they will LOVE and target to save the most wicked especially. Their GOAL has nothing to do with receiving divine Disneyland.

When you love others like the Father does its not about Rules and Law, those were for the service of the child, That soul is the responsibility. It is a love beyond OBLIGATION, you want what is best for another.

A Father is not here to play a silly gauntlet worthiness, I got it easy because I was taught God is not a jerk. That he cares for others more than I do.

 

First of all saved from what? in your view God is doing the killing. He literally hates people before the foundation, this is just the other side of the coin of choosing to love particular at the foundation.

He's too ignorant to deal with free willed entities he has to puppet everything. He can't beat you at a game of checkers unless he moves your pieces.


", while other view is God hopes and frets that somebody, anybody will do the right thing and accept Jesus to save them!"

Yes that's it. Something YOU can only comprehend as a weakness. Because you always view mercy and kindness as weak.

20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Literally what you just said in scripture. WE even BEG on behalf of Jesus. Jesus BEGS THROUGH US to reconcile with God.

God begging someone to do something, and yet letting his only son die for us while we are sinners is wooosh over your head.

There is no greater walking all over God then his letting his son die for you.

Do we value pride over humility. God is humble.

 

I think where your doctrine is off track is when you look at UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION without referencing Irresistible grace. Your doctrine says everyone throughout time and humanity is given the gospel grace and their mind is freed from any outside influence so that they can choose to be a good person and being a good person is the only thing God wants from you. On top of this, this choice is available throughout their lives because they always have freewill. IRRESISTIBLE GRACE says, there is still a choice but when God, who knows EVERYTHING, decided that He would be able to present the gospel to you, He knew He could prove Himself to you and you being a creation of God would want to know your Creator, your God, your Father and your savior. The main differences between prevenient grace and irresistible grace is where PG says everyone is given an Opportunity to choose, because freewill requires this, and this choice is somehow equal to understanding the gospel no matter what their external situation is, IG requires and works through the gospel and when and where God can present Himself to an individual through The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the witness of the Holy Spirit you will choose your Creator. So if you put an 80 year old person in God's lap who has had personal freewill all their life, but never had the Gospel and the witness, if God is able to through Grace to give that person the invisible evidence (Heb 11:1) that He is truly God, their faith will be changed.
This happens only if God has prepared their ground, all ground won't grow faith. If you throw more seed on a path, the rocky ground or the weedy ground that sits around the prepared field it will never produce a crop until the path is plowed, and the rocks and the weeds are removed. Mark 4:20. Your belief says all ground is good and the seed is inside every person. This is most assuredly a lie from Satan in hopes of making persons complacent in the spreading of the Gospel.
The seed that produces faith is the Word of God and unfortunately everyone throughout time hasn't had the gospel presented to them because Satan is the ruler of this world, so God isn't arbitrary in how He chooses who will be saved, He does know who will be and who won't be saved, but we don't so we spread seed everywhere we can and watch for Gods increase.


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God's view of justice is retribution ( Romans 6:23 ).
The wages of sin is death.

In other words, man's sin leads to retribution ( wages ) from God.

See Psalms 5:5-6, Psalms 11:5.
God is angry everyday ( Psalms 7:11 ).

The Hebrew word for justice is not "charity".
It is "צֶדֶק"
Tzedakah - Wikipedia
It describes the action taken when one does what is right and fair, which can be ( and often is ) completely counter to grace and mercy.

A justice that is deviod of holiness and righteousness is devoid of God.
A justice devoid of love is exactly what the Bible teaches when it declares that God hates the worker of inquity, and will cast them into eternal torment for their hatred and willful disobedience of His commands.

God, who cannot lie, is also incapable of sin.
According to His immutable word, He chooses to show mercy on some and chooses not to show mercy on others ( Exodus 33:19, Romans 9:14-24 ).
That is His way, whether or not you take exception to it, utilyan.

Respectfully, your analogies will not change what is.

The freight train of His justice and holiness will run right over all those who refuse to repent and continue to love sin and hate God...
That is everyone that is outside of His work ( Ephesians 2:10 ) through Christ Jesus.

Paul specifically said that anyone who does not love the Lord Jesus Christ ( the Jesus Christ as revealed in God's word ) is accursed ( 1 Corinthians 16:22 ).
You may wish to take that seriously,
instead of constantly coming off as insulting to those who are only telling you what the Scriptures say.

The fact that you've ( apparently ) believed on Christ should tell you that you are not accursed, from God's point of view, and that you are a recipient of His unspeakable gift of eternal life.

If I were you, I'd treat it as the rare and special thing that it is.

I agree.
Yet He allows men to sin ( and even to persecute God's elect ) in order to heap coals of fire upon their heads ( Proverbs 25:22, Romans 12:20 )

 

Then per Revelation 20:15, no one will be cast into the Lake of Fire.

See Revelation 13:8 and Revelation 17:8.

I believe you may be confusing the Lamb's Book of Life with the Book of the Living, which are different books that God keeps in Heaven.

Not by any means.
God's people are secure in their salvation precisely because they were chosen "in Him" from the foundation of the world ( Ephesians 1:4 ) and their names were written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world ( Revelation 17:8 ).

They are His people and always have been.

 

God's word teaches two groups of people throughout...
The children of God and the children of the devil ( John 10:26-27, Romans 8:28-30, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, 1 John 3:10 ).

The one are elect, precious and will be called into the fellowship of the saints at some point in their lives.
The other will never be called by the power of God and His preached word.

One group are vessels of mercy afore prepared unto glory, and the other are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ( Romans 9:22-24 ) by their own sins that God's Son never paid for.

God's purposes are never blocked by our "power",
and Scripture does not declare that our will is something that God will never violate.

Respectfully,
If you can find where Scripture declares that God draws a line with regard to our will that He will not step over, please show me and I'll take a look at it.

 

Yes, He did.
You simply refuse to believe it, as you refuse to believe much of the Scriptures, IMO:

" being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." ( Romans 1:32 ).

What is that "death"?

" And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." ( Revelation 20:14-15 )

The Second Death...which is to be cast into the Lake of Fire.
This will happen to everyone who is not His elect...
Everyone who does not truly believe, from the heart and that God has made accepted in the beloved by His own working in their hearts and lives.

This describes all of us before He does that, and verse 7 below describes His people whom He has made new creatures in Christ:

" Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
5 but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
6 who will render to every man according to his deeds:
7 to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
8 but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
9 tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; " ( Romans 2:4-9 )

Rejecting His words isn't going to change a thing that it says, utilyan.
If you think that God is only love and mercy, you've another aspect of His so-called "attributes" yet to learn ( and hopefully not to experience ).

 

Amen.
I see that in Matthew 7:1-5 and Romans 2:1-11.

Again I agree.

Then be grateful that your sentence was commuted, my friend, and that you are His elect...
but His elect also are willing to receive His every word ( Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4, John 8:47, John 10:27 ).

Do you?

Are you willing to believe whatever HE says, because you trust His words?
Or are you going to reject the words on the page because you find them "unbelievable" or "disagreeable"?
Believe His words, utilyan:

" It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.
64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." ( John 6:63-65 ).

There is a reason that people believe, and a reason that people do not...
And It doesn't have anything to do with our paltry will and "sovereignty".

 

I would argue ONE doesn't believe his words. Willing to accept every noise that has no love.

1 Corinthians 13

1If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

I reject the clear trash idea of a unloving God. And those who accept evil should repent.

 

It seems that you're fixated on a God of love,
and not one Who is willing to show His wrath ( Romans 1:18, Romans 9:22 and many others ) and to make His power known, utilyan.

His word tells us that He curses people, and that He blesses others.
A God that curses someone, hates them ( Psalms 5:5-6, Psalms 11:5, Romans 9:13 ), while He blesses them that He loves and that love Him.

Get used to it, because His word describes Him as both.
That truth will be made abundantly clear to you at some point...

Whether in this life or at the Judgment.

God is not evil, and charging Him with it because He is angry with the wicked and is perfectly willing to judge them in righteousness and holiness is irrelevant, utilyan.
His will is going to be done whether or not you agree with it ( Daniel 4:35 ).

God doesn't care about our objections as men ( Romans 9:14-21 );
He only ( eternally ) cares about His people...

Yet He continues to show His grace and mercy to people who hate Him, everyday ( Romans 2:1-11 ), by making the rain to fall on both the just, whom He chooses to justify ( Romans 8:33 ), and the unjust, whom He casts into eternal torment for their willful and unrepentant attitude towards Him and their sins.

I reject the lie that God loves everyone,
as Scripture tells me that He both loves and hates, and both of those are directed at differing groups of people.

Respectfully,
I will not repent from believing His words over mans' words.