No person can come to Christ by their own freewill ! 3

[Silverhair]

To your dismay sir Tulip comes from the scriptures the gospel of God's grace

Only for the calvinist BF only for the calvinist.

 

[Salty]

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[cjab]

Man doesnt have the freewill ability to believe in Christ Jn 6:44, John wrote of some jews that could not believe Jn 12:39-40

Unbelief is here being posited as a form of wrath, not as a teaching in regard to eternal predestination. As Paul says in Rom 9, God's callling is irrevocable, even though some of the Jews had "exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever to be praised." Rom 1:25.

But much more than this: (a section of the) Jews of that era are described as worse than Gentiles, as being a cause of God's name being blasphemed, just because they pretended to God's favor and passed judgement on the Gentiles, whilst committing the same sins as the Gentiles.

Rom 2:1 "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."

Rom 2:17 "Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”"

IOW, hypocrisy writ large was the charge against the Jewish leaders, resulting in them being left in unbelief. This was a temporal judgement, and it wasn't irrevocable for all, as some (i.e. Nicodemus) did believe who were willing to repent.

39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,

40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

Now did they have their own freewill ability to believe when scripture says they couldn't ? On top of that God blinded their eyes and hardened their so they could not believe !

They had once had that freewill ability, as Christ imputes it to the Jewish infants of that era. But, as adults, they had chosen satan, who was now their father, or at least, the father of the Jewish leaders. It was the degree and nature of their sins that precluded faith in Christ, in that rather than submit to Christ's teaching, they preferred their "the Jews are God's favorites" doctrinal deception, which made them incapable of seeing themselves as God saw them.

In respect of the Isaiah passage you quoted, the blinding and hardening of their hearts was the consequence of their exposure to the word of God as spoken by Isaiah. In Jesus day also, the word of God is cast as a judgement upon its rejection by the Jews. Similarly the word of God that came by Moses was a judgement on Pharaoh, for it resulted in him hardening his heart. So this teaches us that in respect of some kinds of very grave sin, the word of God comes only to prove, expose and judge sin, rather then induce men to repent.

This is the danger for anyone promoting Double Predestination. It is, conceivably, the "ultimate sin" as entailing such a hysterical delusion of the mind as to amount to a form of theological insanity - as if God has any interest in causing men to sin? No, but God does have a vested interest in judging sin.