Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Van, your dismissal of the written text as a "screed" does not alter the fact that your three-point summary creates an unscriptural, fragmented timeline within the decree of God. In a desperate attempt to shield human free will, you are forced to invent a double-election theory that splits the Eternal Phase (Phase I) into an empty corporate template in eternity past and an individual choosing that only takes place in time during a person's life.
Let’s lay bare the strict, text-focused, and grammatical collapse of your three points:
1. The Historical Modification of "Us" (Point 1)
You claim: "Who is the 'us' in Ephesians 1:4? People living at the time Paul wrote the letter and who had been 'individually chosen' during their lifetime."
This is a direct grammatical subversion of the text. Paul uses the aorist middle indicative verb exelexato ("He chose"), which denotes a definitive, completed action in the past. He modifies this past-tense action with a precise temporal boundary: pro katabolēs kosmou ("before the foundation of the world").
- The direct object of this eternal choice is the pronoun "us" (hēmas), representing specific, individual people.
- Your system demands that the direct object "us" is missing from the verb's action in eternity, and is only appended thousands of years later during each person's lifetime.
- Linguistically, you cannot have a past-tense verb executing a choice before the creation of the world whose actual direct objects do not exist as chosen entities until their lifetime. You are rewriting the Holy Spirit's grammar to turn an eternal decree into a historical reaction.
2. The Fallacy of the Abstract "Target Group" (Point 2)
You write: "The verse does not say He chose us before the foundation of the world, it says He chose us 'in Him' before the foundation of the world. Thus when God chose His Redeemer individually, He chose those to be redeemed corporately."
This is an artificial, syntactic division. The phrase "in Him" (en autō) is a locative of position and a marker of forensic, covenantal union. It defines the sphere and platform of the choice; it does not change the direct object of the choice.
Furthermore, your definition of a "corporate target group" as an empty folder devoid of specific names completely collapses under the weight of Ephesians 5:25. As previously noted, the corporate body is His wife, the Church.
- A bridegroom does not choose a generic, abstract concept of "a bride" in the abstract before his wedding, waiting to see which individual women will volunteer to fill the position in time. He chooses a specific person to be his wife.
- Christ, as the eternal Surety Mediator, did not accept a blank check from the Father. He was not appointed as a Redeemer over a nameless, open-ended target group. He was given a specific, numbered, and named covenant family (John 6:39). The corporate entity is explicitly made up of prearranged, eternally selected individual parts.
3. Faith as the Fruit, Not the Pivot of Election (Point 3)
You write: "The basis of choosing individuals for salvation is they receive a faith like Abraham's, which refers to faith God credits as righteousness."
By making a person's faith the "basis" of God choosing them individually, you place the cart before the horse and make election a work of human merit. You are claiming that God looks at a person's mental activity in Phase IV (The Practical Phase - Conversion), and then reacts by choosing them.
But the text declares the exact opposite. Ephesians 1:4 states that He chose us "that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."
- Holiness, blamelessness, and active evangelical faith are the infallible effects and fruit of election, not the cause or the basis of it.
- Furthermore, Abraham's faith was not an independent product of his own autonomous free will; it was a sovereign gift granted to him. As 2 Timothy 2:25 establishes, God must sovereignly grant the spiritual capacity to acknowledge the truth.
The Bottom Line:
Your system forces a holy, omniscient God to write a book of blank checkboxes in eternity past, waiting helplessly for natural men to validate His choices during their lifetime. But the testimony of Scripture is clear: God does not wait for a human trigger. He wrote specific individual names in the Lamb's Book of Life from the foundation of the world (Rev 17:8). Those specific names constitute His people (Matt 1:21), whom He legally cleared at the cross (Phase II), vitally quickens by His own voice apart from human tools (Phase III), and practically draws into faith and conversion (Phase IV). Your double-election theory is textually and logically dismantled by the plain words of the text.