standingfirminChrist said:
Scripture nowhere states that the 144,000 are believers. Only that they are sealed servants. They are sealed for protection during the tribulation period. Sealed for a purpose.
If they are not sealed believers, they must be sealed non-believing sinners that are enemy of God. If this be the case, this is nothing but pure election 101.
If they are believers, then you case falls apart for this is another "group you were hoping to show were NOT believers, yet were elected.
No matter what your view holds no water.
Where is your proof text that those sealed in Revelation 7 (the 144,000) are sealed because of being believers?
I would NEVER say they were chosen because they believe. This is a view of a free-willer.
I am a Calvinist that holds that they were chosen TO believe, just as the Bible shows us. And yes..they became believers which are the elect.
When you read the Word with the preconceived notion that only the elect are saved, you won't find any of the verses that speak otherwise.
Christ does not have two brides. He chose the bride and bride come along that he was unfaithful to his chosen bride.
One church..chosen by God.
When you read with your own natural understanding and are not open to the spiritual truth, you won't see the truth.
Are you saying i'm blinded to the truth as are the lost? This is not allowed on the BB.
With each idea and each verse you want to twist....like saying chosen is not the same as election....you have been shown to be wrong.
What will you try next? Is it not easier to just believe the Bible as it is?
Even the great free-will hero john wesley believed believers were the elect.
John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes..
As he hath chosen us — Both Jews and gentiles, whom he foreknew as believing in Christ, 1 Peter 1:2.
even the beloved free-willer Adam Clark says we are the elect.
Verse 4. According as he hath chosen us in him] As he has decreed from the beginning of the world, and has kept in view from the commencement of the religious system of the Jews, (which the phrase sometimes means,) to bring us Gentiles to the knowledge of this glorious state of salvation by Christ Jesus. The Jews considered themselves an elect or chosen people, and wished to monopolize the whole of the Divine love and beneficence. The apostle here shows that God had the Gentiles as much in the contemplation of his mercy and goodness as he had the Jews; and the blessings of the Gospel, now so freely dispensed to them, were the proof that God had thus chosen them,............
I could go on.