Foreknowledge

I answered your first question as yes. This second scenario needs further explanation. What do you mean by Z?

Now here is the problem with your response to my question: Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23; Isaiah 53.

If left to our own devices we will not seek God. So apart from the knowledge of Jesus Christ no one will be saved.

Based on your thinking why would we send missionaries to China if they do not need to hear the Gospel in order to be saved?

As far as your suggestion that people alive today are held to the same standards as those of the OT, you fail to recognize that Israel had special revelation from God but the pagan nations did not. Hebrews 11 makes clear that anyone who was accounted righteous before God did so based on personal faith in God.

How do you respond to Romans 10?

The gospel is indispensable for faith in Christ and faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. Not all people have your theorized chance and that is major flaw in your critique of Calvinism. You are either going to have to concede that you believe in the exclusive truth claim of the Bible or you are going to fall into a camp known as Inclusivist, which believe that good Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhist all go to heaven.

 

Love

God by His own will and good pleasure is going to save all who believe.

We are not predestined to believe, but believers have been predestined to salvation.

That is where the foreknowledge is.

God foreknew so He also predestined.

God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

He wants all men to be saved and made us the messenger.

God made a simple plan, that men are trying to complicate.

It is so simple a child can understand.

God has given to us what to believe in through His word, now it is your choice what you do with it.

God loves everyone of you, God has not excluded any of you from His gift, what ever these men might say.

They have no idea what they are doing just as saul before he became Paul. He thought he was doing the will of God also.

The will of God is for all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

God has not inclined your heart to believe as the canon of dort says, God has given you a clear choice to believe in Jesus and be saved or not and be condemned.

 

Most of this has already been addressed. One only needs to read the full thread.

 

Well said Psalms:

 

Brother Bob, listened to one of your songs and will listen to the rest later. Enjoyed it very much.

 

Thanks Gordon, it is not your typical singing. It is mountain type singing.

 

OK, I have backed off on "charged words and terms" It is your turn to back off.

Let have a civil exchange of ideas.


Here is the question again

X = all the people of all time

Y = a small part of all the the People of all time

Z= the ones that are not Y

God picked Y
God is not going to pick Z

True of false.

 

OK you answered yes to Y the elect

Z is all that Y is not

Z folks can not be saved. God is not going to save them and they can not save themselves according to your view.

Is that a yes to Z as well?

 

Back off of what? Have I questioned your salvation? Have I called your doctrine the doctrine from hell? Give me a break. Why not show me your exegesis of Psalms 139, and after you are through with that, Romans 9. Then I'll think about playing your game. By the way. Try to be specific and use sentences that make sense. Go back and proof read before you hit the submit button. I'll ask again.... picked for what? You make absolutely no sense. What is true of false?

 

Now sure what you are asking here. I see everyone as a sinner. I see Jesus as the savior of all mankind.

If there is a specific question perhaps I can answer it.

Depravity to me is not inability to respond to God. God seeks us and We don't seek God. Jesus said I will draw all men. I believe this has been true from the fall. Drawing is not saving. I don't have all the answers to who God works in the remotest parts of the world where populations don't have the same access to media. I do believe that some how some way they are given "revelation" of the truth. Not new revelation as it pertains to Scripture, that is complete as I see it.

Paul address the Athenians who worshiped an un-know god. Paul told them it was Jesus.

On several occasions Missionaries have related stories similar to Paul's of different peoples around the glob. God provided to those people the means whereby thy were able to hear the Gospel.

Before the Cross, you had examples like Nineveh, and Melchizedek and Noah. We are not told everything and the small portions we are told are few and limited.

All the elections passages I agree with. I process them based on foreknowledge. I don't accept the Calvinistic definition and interpretation.

God's plan includes free choice. To me with out man having free choice and because of the purpose of God as we are told by Peter that He is not willing any to parish ad all to come to repentance that the only way to reconcile the two Election and Universalism is to reject both and see it as I do. The only way to resolve this tension is to accept the view that man can accept the offer. I don't see this as a work. The offer is free and man simply accepts or rejects.

I see each man when they are told the truth that it is the light (truth) whereby man can make a decision about.

Man is depraved. He is not looking for God. He does not want God.

But God is seeking man and when God reveals to man the gospel Man then is responsible to believe or reject and that is not a work.

Man has the capacity to believe. If faith is a gift it is from birth as part of the image of God in man.

I know short story long.

 

We have Nineveh and Melchizedek, and Noah and remember God was still verbally taking to Cain and Able. These examples of communication to these people suggest that there was an exchange between God and man.

Israel existed when the situation with Nineveh happened. So God is dealing with the not Jewish people and with the Jews. It has to raise some very legitimate questions.

Abraham believe the revelation he had. Did he actually understand about Jesus? I don't think so. His gospel was believing the promise.

The salvation of the people of Nineveh was different from Abraham. The people in Nineveh were told to repent of sins and turn to God. That is all we have and they repented and turned to God. I see that as salvation.

I hope that helps.

 

No not so. That if I may is how you would see it not me.

I believe I answered the questions you raise in this statement in my previous post.

The gospel to OT saints did not use the name Christ. It was the message they were call upon to embrace or trust in. Faith is always necessary. The object from the human side is the revelation given by God to the ones hearing.

 

What is taking place with you is a classic example of what I have heard all my life and experience all my life with respect to Calvinist.

 

The difference from my side and Bob's side is that all who come into existence have the capacity to believe.

Calvinism does not believe that. The ones that are lost can not believe and only some of them are picked out for salvation and the rest are on their way to hell.

 

On the one hand you say that all people have a chance to be saved. On the other hand you say that no one seeks God. Both cannot be true.

Read my post about the OT. I said that special revelation was needed. In every case of someone in the OT who is made right with God they had special revelation from God through either direct revelation from God or through a prophet of God whom God spoke directly to and gave instructions for him to preach to a certain group. Nineveh is not an example you can use to argue against my position. They had Jonah. If what you were saying was true then Nineveh would not have needed Jonah.

I will make this very simple for you. You are criticizing Calvinism because you do not believe they give people a fair chance to respond to Salvation. You see Calvinism as excluding much of the world.

There are really three camps that Christianity falls into: Inclusivism, Exclusivism and Universalism. Now if no one seeks God and if special revelation is necessary then there is a brutal fact that you have to face. If you are an Inclusivist you realize that not all pagan people have special revelation, so you believe that they find God through whatever religion to which they are exposed. If they are a Muslim then they get to heaven through being a good Muslim for example. If you are a Universalist you do not believe that special revelation is necessary because everyone goes to heaven, including Hitler. However, if you are an Exclusivist you recognize that no one seeks God and if let unchecked all have sinned and will die and go to hell unless they hear and believe the gospel.

Not everyone in the world hears the gospel. You said that they respond to God as they did in the OT times. To which I told you that in the OT they have special revelation and responded to God by faith based on the special revelation. Today our special revelation includes Jesus Christ and the gospel. So today in order for someone to be saved they must believe in Jesus Christ.

So I will ask you again, can someone go to heaven today who does not believe in Jesus Christ? The OT times were different because they did not yet have the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ. The God of the OT is the same God of the NT. So in the OT they had to believe in the God of Jacob. Today we understand that the God of Jacob is Jesus and he died on the cross and rose from the grave. Now at present and since the time of the NT, billions of people in Asia India and the Middle East have died or are going to die without ever having heard about Jesus and without every having had access to special revelation, ie the Bible.

I have set the table. You are either an Inclusivist or Exclusivist or an Universalist. Which are you?

If you are an Exclusivist and you believe that a part from the Word of God you cannot be saved then you have to except that not every has had a chance to be saved. So if you are an Arminian who is an Exclusivist you are really no different than Calvinist in terms of the fact that not everyone has a chance. The only difference between the Arminian and the Calvinist is that one believes that not everyone had a chance by design and the other believes that not everyone had a chance because man was irresponsible with the opportunity given to him to spread the gospel.

 

Gordon...

Lets say this is true, but you have yet to prove it, you would still have to say God did not give those in China before taylor went there, the same grace as the man born in the Bible belt. right?

Now if you can admit this, then there are still others that never heard. But it goes beyond just hearing. Please read the passage below.

Now get this....if you get nothing else.
Notice why God chose as clearly stated in verse 10.

God chose that they may KNOW!! Did you see that? God chose that His people may KNOW Him.. and that is not all...there is more.
God chose that they may believe. What? God did not choose because He foresaw? nope..that is a lie of the freewill group.
God foresaw because He choose. God choose for them to believe!!

and.......God choose so that His choosen people would understand that He is God.


Pretty good stuff...no?


In Christ...James

 

Um...doesn't the text state so that they may believe? It doesn't say He chose them to believe, as you conclude.

 

God knows all the possibilities. If a person would have chosen this instead of that. In other words if a person in some remotest part of the world would freely believe if they heard about Christ then I personally believe some how some way God will provide the witness. The Missionaries I spoke of to me indicates that. I see God knowing all the possibilities. In his love and desire he knows weather or not every single individual would accept Christ or not. On that basis I believe God sovereignly coordinates circumstances to bring a witness to that person . Weather it was OT or NT God knows all that will believe and he elects them. Knowing they will believe He guides events and circumstance whereby that individual will hear the gospel and respond unto salvation.

I don’t fit into any of your terms or definitions.