Free choice to choose...

God did choose a method, but that is not what he chose in 2 Thess 2:13. Again, all you have to do is read the verse and believe and put aside your preconceived notions about what it says. Just believe the verse.

 

Church

The church (the body) not individuals

 

Thats your opinion that I have preconceived notions. What notions I have, is where I have read from front to back, in the Scripture, that you must believe. Also, that it is the "work of God", that we believe.

Pastor Larry;
1. You say; God chose people, not a method.

2, You say; God did choose a method.

His Method for men to be saved is:Jhn 6:28Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

Jhn 6:29Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Question;
1. To be a child of God, did He choose that we have to be: ( holy and without blame before Him in love)?

2. Are you saying that God did not choose in 2 Thess 2:13 that we be holy and without blame before Him in Love?

 

"If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the lord. Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him." Leviticus 1:3,4

 

Who did you say was the "Learned One?" :laugh:

How in the world do you get that when Paul uses the exact same words to the Romans in Rom 10:9-10?? Let's review it, shall we??

" But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above 7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up CHRIST again from the dead.) 8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [CHOOSE LIFE, PINOY!!] 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.[/b]]

Deut 30:14 -- "But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. 15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; 16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways,...[ This idea that 1) a nation has a "heart" or that the people "may not do it" [choose life] is totally heretical, pinoy.

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:" And I call heave and earth against you this day -- choose life, pinoy.

skypair

 

Hmm. That doesn't sound like "born again" to me. You couldn't see the kingdom for 16 years whilest you yet say you were "regenerated??" Let's have a little honesty here, shall we? You couldn't learn the things that the Holy Spirit teacheth (Eph 2:13) to the perfect?? (Eph 2:6) Perhaps you were still a "natural man" (Eph 2:14) back then, eh?

Yes.

So Jesus spoke to you but you never responded Rom 10:9-10-wise in belief and confession of His salvation? See, it sounds to me like YOU are the one that "drew back" unto perdition, Heb 10:39 -- "But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." Now you think that you are "back" because you act like an "elect" of God. Give yourself the tests I suggested.

I'm not. That's self-conviction.

If you are, you are still totally depravd and not saved at all, right? Cause the totally depraved are "natural men" who can't even hear.

Yeah, I believe Rom 3 and have done something about it -- I chose Christ.

You no doubt allude to the OT saints here. Yes, they are as saved as we are. But they couldn't even go to heaven until Christ died, could they? So they aren't the same "fold" as we are. Christ said, "I have yet another fold I must bring with Me." John 10:16 They were the Gentiles who would hear His voice. We will be one sheep in the New Heaven and Earth of God's kingdom when Christ delivers us both up the His Father, 1Cor 15:24. You'll see, :jesus:

skypair

 

Anyone think ...

... that the tree of life was there to save Adam and Eve if they fell??

Ever think that they might have, had they known and done God's will, just gone over to the tree of life and eaten?

After all, it wasn't till next morning that God came looking for Adam, right?

I suppose many here are the same way. The tree of life is right there but they don't know or believe they should go eat of it.

Do you suppose Satan's deception had anything to do with that? Like they wouldn't believe God's word anymore?

skypair

 

Glory be to God for offering salvation, and glory to skypair for doing something to get it.

 

It's not really opinion. If you come to 2 Thess 2:13 and say that God chose a method, the only way you get there is be a preconceived notion. You don't get that fromm a verse.

I certainly don't disagree that we must believe. No Christian does.

Yes, God did both. But the verse was 2 Thess 2:13 and there, God chose people not a method.

No. That is a works salvation. He chose us so that we would be holy and blameless and we get that becuase he chose us to be saved.

Again, just read the verse. "Holy and without blame before him in love" is not there. Read the verse and look at the direct object of the verb "chose." It is "you." That is people. That verse does not tell us that he chose a method through which people would be saved. It tells us that he chose people to salvation.

The reason I point this out is to show that some people do not have a biblical theology. They read the Bible through their theology and end up denying what the Bible actually says so that they do not have to deny their theology.

 

Eph 1:4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

Actually its Eph 1:4

The "us" and the "we" are the same people that He chose to be Holy and without blame before Him in Love.

The "we" is a continuing of the "us" in who He was talking about, the direct object of both is "should be holy and without blame before Him in love;

It is the works of God, that we should believe and which includes "love of Him", which includes what He commands.

So, we are to be holy and without blame, before Him in love and we can't do it, and you say God don't do it.

He chose this is how his children would be, after being born again of the blood of the Lamb. It is God's works, not ours. It simply means though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow.

2 Thes 13:
Do you believe the following is part of being saved?

"through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth"

 

Us is the direct object of chosen.
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love is a dependent clause functioning as an adverb (introduced by the subordinating conjunction that) that modifies chosen. An adverb clause cannot be a direct object. A direct object must be a noun or a pronoun (in this case, the first-person plural objective case personal pronoun us).

 

we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

AresMan; what is "should be" then?

If we were not chosen to be holy and without blame before him in love, then what were we chosen to be? If we were chosen to be holy and without blame before Him in love, then that would be the direct object, would it not?

In other words, what did he chose "us" to be?

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

If we remove "in him before the foundation of the world" we still would have a sentence.

According as he hath chosen that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

I wonder what the Greek grammar would say?



If its as you say, then there must be a chosen people, and then these people, who Paul spoke to also:

Eph.
13: In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

These people, had to hear the word and had to believe, before that received the Spirit.

 

You probably have heard of "decretive will", "moral will", and "permissive will."

How is this for a solution?:

1. God is the source of all that is good, spiritual, and holy in that it pertains to His glory and salvation. God is the cause of absolutely every part of salvation. This is all through His decretive will and proscribed through His moral will.

2. Fallen man is the source of all that is evil or otherwise falls short of the glory of God, His righteousness, and salvation. Fallen sinful man does not need God to be evil, sin, or otherwise fall short of His holiness and salvation. This is all possible through His permissive will.

 

This does not work. that we should be holy and without blame before him in love in the actual verse is a dependent clause functioning as an adverb. You cannot maintain the same grammatical structure of the sentence by removing the direct object us, the prepositional adverb phrase in him that modifies chosen, and the prepositional adverb phrase before the foundation of the world that modifies the previous prepositional phrase in him, and convert the dependant clause from an adverb to a noun. You have altered the grammar of the sentence by removing more than modifiers.

The clause that we should be holy could be read incorrectly in English if the words are not lined up properly with their Greek equivalents.

that is not present in the Greek. It is implied.

should be (ειναι) is a present infinitive. It could be translated to be as an effect of its causal chosen. It is not an imperative (as in "you should do this"). In English here it is a subjunctive indicating cause and effect, hence the infinitive in Greek.

we (ημας) is an accusative case (direct object) first personal plural pronoun. In the Greek, it would mean us, but it would not be grammatically correct in English to render it this way given the rendered English phrasology here.

Hence, to render the phrase (italicized portion) as "literally" as possible in English, it would be:

Hope this helps.

 

Seems to be what someone else said:

"He hath chosen us (not because we were) but that we should be holy, and without blame, before him in love,"

It still is talking about one people before us Gentiles. IMO

Eph.
13: In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Thank you AresMan; My wife taught school for over 30 years, but I didn't.

 

I agree. He could not have chosen anyone that was holy (separate) because there were none with which to begin. All are sinners, unrighteous, and fallen. Those who consciously and willfully "choose" Christ and believe that His death, burial, and resurrection are efficient to pay for our sins have the wonderful assurance that we have done so because He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world. He had us in mind. We love Him because He first loved us. We can rest in His Word that He has secured us in Him, sealed us with His Spirit, and will never leave us nor forsake us. I imagine that these words of Paul at the time (that we often think are scary and unconfortable) were meant to be conforting to the saints in Ephesus.

Let's look at the context:

Now, this is speculation, but I think the next verse begins a parallelism. I think the we in this verse refers to the apostles:

Then, naturally, since Paul has switched from we to ye, he is talking about the saints in Ephesus following:

No prob. Let our earnest desire be to study the Word with an open mind, and let the Spirit lead us into all truth.

 

No it's not. Go back and look at what I responded to. Your post #52 cited 2 Thess 2:13, not Eph 1:4

Yes, no one disputes that.

No, you are incorrect. "We" and "us" doesn't have a direct object. It can't, by definition. Verbs have a direct object. The verb is chose, the direct object is us. Being holy and blameless is the purpose of the choosing.

BTW, "in love" probably goes with v. 5, not v. 4

What? I am not following here. The result of God's choosing us to salvation is that we gain a holy and blameless standing before him by virtue of our union with Christ.

That's true, but not the point.

Of course, but that is the result of being chosen. Again, just read the verse without your predetermined conclusions. This is so plainly obvious, I am not sure how you can miss it. Finish the clause from the verse: God chose ______.

The completion is "us." It is not "through sanctification and belief." This is simple grammar.

 

Scripture

Being chosen or grafted into the tree still doesn't prevent this from happening.

But praise be to God

To accept one part of the truth and reject another is why we are not one as Christ prayed us to be.