Predestination/Double Predestination, No Difference.

I agree with you on this one, Chappie. I don't get the fuss about single or double predestination. God is ultimately responsible. I trust that God knows what He's doing.

But the Afganistan example was an unfair comparison. God does not have limited intelligence as to who is where doing what, and His weapons reach exactly the right targets every time.

 

It's perfectly scriptural...

 

That's what makes it a valid analogy, there is no collateral damage with God. Predestination does not result in double predestination unless God intends the consequences.</font>[/QUOTE]Then I guess I don't understand what you're comparing. Collateral damage is when a number of innocent people get killed while you're destroying the enemy. Double predestination is when some people are deliberately rescued from death, and others deliberately are not rescued from death I don't see how they relate.

 

Chappie, you may be right that the loved/hated comparison could be a way of saying elected/not-elected. That could be supported by this:

In other words, the part I emphasized above could be Paul saying, When I saud "in order that God's purpose in election might stand" I can back up that conclusion with the verse, "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated," which means God elected Jacob but not Esau.

Nevertheless, there's a good reason why euphemisms emerge. Obviously, there's a parallel there, and one that demonstrates that God not only loves/elects/chooses some of His created people and not others, but Romans also goes on to say that the fact that God works this way is not an indication that God is unjust.

 

Predestination to me as of the Primitive Baptist brethren means... A destination before time!... God elected a people before time out of every kindred, tongue, nation, and people to live with him in heaven, because of his love.

He did not predestinate any other action of mankind good or evil. I do not believe in Absolute Predestnation and the Bible does not teach it. God Absolutely Predestinated every thing man will ever do both good and evil. Neither does it teach double predestination!... God did not elect some to hell and some to heaven... We were all headed for hell because of the sin of Adam and Eve. God only predestinated the ones he loved to heaven and left the other ones where they were. So double predestination is a word that doesn't exist!... Is this your meaning?... Brother Glen

[ October 31, 2002, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: tyndale1946 ]

 

I agree.

I think people are confusing intent with responsibility, as if the latter necessitates the former.

IMO, the problem exists for both Arminianism and Calvinism. As far as I know, both sides acknowledge the fact that God foreknew that X number of people would go to hell if He executed His plan of creation. If God foreknew this and executed His plan anyway, then God is ultimately responsible for the fact that X people went to hell. One side tends to comfort themselves with the idea that the responsiblity shifts to the hell-bound people because they chose to turn down salvation of their own free will. Personally, I don't feel compelled to reconcile the issue at all, but I happen to think it was an unavoidable consequence of His ultimate goals, whatever they are. IMO, these views - including mine - are all just feeble rationalizations of human minds. We cannot comprehend all of the variables that are in play and, no matter how you slice it, it's still ultimately His responsibility that some go and some don't. When confronted with the idea that one or the other is unjust, I simply take it on faith that God knows what He's doing, regardless.

I'm just glad I'm not the one choosing which go where, because I guarantee I'd screw it up.

(Edited to remove how Calvinists comfort themselves, because I suspect I'm wrong on that account.)

[ October 31, 2002, 01:06 PM: Message edited by: npetreley ]

 

This is where you are wrong. God predestines people out of the group of already condemned sinners. His predestining some to salvation does not change in anyway the status of those He does not choose. They simply remain as they already are. His predestination of some to salvation has absolutely no effect on the rest.

Sort of like two murderers who are condemned to die. The pardon of one murderer does not effect the fate of the other in any way. He is no worse off because the other is pardoned. It is not the decision of the judge to have mercy on the other that seals his fate, but rather the just sentence of the judge upon his own crime.

 

In Ezekiel 28, God is speaking to Satan through the King of Tyre, and here is some of what God says:
”You were the model of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden,
The garden of God;
Every precious stone adorned you:
Ruby, topaz and emerald,
Chrysolite, onyx and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise and bereyl.
Your settings and mountings were made of gold;
On the day you were created they were prepared.
You were anointed as a guardian cherub,
For so I ordained you.”

I goes on, describing more, but that is enough. Satan, originally known as Lucifer, or the light bearer, was the guardian cherub of Eden. He was a creation (“bara” – part of the original creation) and his purpose was as guardian angel of Eden (which may be why Eve believed him).

Now go to Matthew 25:21, where Jesus refers to the eternal fire ”prepared for the devil and his angels.”

The inescapable conclusion is that hell was not prepared for man, and that it was not prepared at creation (which was pronounced ‘very good’ by God and, at that time, the cherub who would become the devil was ‘the model of perfection.’), let alone before creation. The used of the word ‘prepared’ by Jesus rather than ‘created’ also indicates this place was not part of the original creation.

And yet Calvinists state that from BEFORE creation all men were destined to hell except the ones God chose to save.

BUT:

1. They could not be destined for a place that was not yet in existence.
2. Hell was not prepared for people when it was prepared.
3. Hell was not prepared until AFTER Lucifer sinned (although that would obviously be before Adam and Eve sinned).

I have no doubt there will be away around this conundrum for Calvinism, but the Bible is pretty clear about the timing and the purpose of hell, and that really does put a bit of a damper on the idea of predestination before creation.

What WAS predestined before creation was that all believers would be conformed to Christ’s image; made holy.

Now, about “Jacob I have loved; Esau I have hated” etc. The time that is written is in Malachi. The reason for it is given in Hebrews, however, and this verse was skipped entirely above. In Hebrews 12:16, we read that Esau was godless. This is the REASON God turned against him. The only thing his mother heard about her unborn children was that they would be progenitors of two nations and that the older would serve the younger. This is not an indication of love or hate on God’s part, but only of prophecy regarding future generations. The verse in Malachi states that God says, “and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.

We know that inheritance refers to what a child gets when the parent has died. This is also reiterated, concerning the necessity of death, in Hebrews 9.

Esau did not have an inheritance until after Isaac died, by virtue of the definition of the term. And Malachi states that the Lord turned Esau’s inheritance into a wasteland.

There is thus NO indication that God hated Esau before he was born or as a child, but only as an adult, when he had chosen the godless way and wives. In other words, to use Esau and Jacob as examples of predestination does not work if you read all the involved texts instead of presuming.

 

That's an excellent point. Of course, if I were arguing from the other side, I'd say that God offered both murderers a chance for pardon. One of them turned it down of his own free will, which is what sealed his fate. Thus the apparent responsibility for going to hell shifts from God to the murderer. But then (as I pointed out above), God created the murderer in the first place knowing he'd turn down salvation. So there's no satisfying end to this kind of speculation, IMO...

 

Here we go again with same old tired, worn-out, wrong argumentative point. God graciously saving some from the road to hell does not result in others going to hell. They were going to hell anyway.

Ken
A Spurgeonite

 

1) Helen, sure they could as God know everything unless you now believe in open theism. Just look at your reasoning in 2) below for proof.

2) The Bible says that while the babies were in Rebekah's womb she was told that the older would serve the younger, not when they were adults or after Esau showed the kind of person he was. How could Rebekah be told this if, as you claim, people can't be destined for a place that does not yet exist? Under your erroneous reasoning, how could God tell that to Rebekah before the children were born? See, Helen, you are cut off at the pass by your own argument. You are arguing in contradictory fashion.

Ken
A Spurgeonite

 

1) Helen, sure they could as God know everything unless you now believe in open theism. Just look at your reasoning in 2) below for proof.

2) The Bible says that while the babies were in Rebekah's womb she was told that the older would serve the younger, not when they were adults or after Esau showed the kind of person he was. How could Rebekah be told this if, as you claim, people can't be destined for a place that does not yet exist? Under your erroneous reasoning, how could God tell that to Rebekah before the children were born? See, Helen, you are cut off at the pass by your own argument. You are arguing in contradictory fashion.

Ken
A Spurgeonite </font>[/QUOTE]Ken, hell was not formed for men. The original purpose of the place stands as Jesus stated it.

In the meantime, prophecies about people are all the way through the Bible. But that has nothing at all to do with predestination before creation.

Please show me where, in ANY passage for ANY person (besides Jesus, who is God) that the person is prophecied before birth or at birth to have a final destination of heaven or hell.

 

Reasoning like this is always flawed because it imposes our sense of chronology on God. You can rip apart tons of Biblical passages with this kind of thinking. For example, Jesus said He was going to prepare a place for the disciples. Does that mean they had no places to go until Jesus went to prepare the place? Does that, in turn, mean that God didn't intend to have places ready for us, but prepared them as an afterthought? (Doh! I guess if I'm going to bring them to heaven, I'd better build an extra wing to the mansion...wish I'd thought of that before.)

God turned against Esau because Esau was godless? Why, then, did he decree that the older would serve the younger before they were born and had done anything good or bad, "in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls"?

What is God electing here, and why?

If the older is supposed to get the inheritance, why did God choose Jacob to serve Esau before they were born and had a chance to do anything good or bad?

Foreknowledge, maybe?

If yes, then was there some limit to God's foreknowledge that He wouldn't know Esau would be godless? Was the foreknowledge of Esau being godless part of the reason God elected Jacob over him? Regardless, if God has the right to elect Jacob over Esau due to foreknowledge, then why would it bother you if God hated Esau and loved Jacob according to foreknowledge?

(This is off-topic, but how do you reconcile the fact that God elected Jacob foreknowing that Jacob would be a real sleeze-ball at times? grin)

Don't forget that Paul clearly connects the part about one serving the other and one hated, the other loved with the tie-in "Just as it is written:"

she was told, "The older will serve the younger. 13 Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

(Edited to fix a misplaced negative.)

[ October 31, 2002, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: npetreley ]

 

Judas, for one. You can argue that Judas was alive when this prediction was made, but can anyone really assume that Jesus "played it by ear" and hoped to find someone to play the role of Judas when He got here?

 

Here's another.

If the beast (the anti-Christ) is a human (even if he turns out to be a human possessed by an evil spirit), then this says someone who was not yet born is prophecied to be tossed into the lake of fire. The same goes for the false prophet.

(Edited for clarity)

[ October 31, 2002, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: npetreley ]