<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by wellsjs:
Chris,
You never answer my questions! In another thread I asked you to defend your belief that we are in the millennial kingdom now by asking you where is Christ, who is supposed to be physically with us, and why isn't Satan bound up (to which you said he was on a long chain - that's hillarious). Now you dodge the issue again.
Let me state it plainly: I believe that God gives man the free will to choose or reject Him, and that election and predestination are based on God's omniscience of knowing who will make the proper choices with that free will. You have opposed that. Pleasssseeee explain!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
We're not even discussing the millennium here, so I don't know what's set you off on that. If you want to understand historic amillennialism, email me and I'll send you a 20 page seminary paper I've written on it.
As to "election and predestination [being]based on God's omniscience of knowing who will make the proper choices with that free will", that is pure Arminianism and Semi-Pelagianism.
If election and predestination are based on foreseeing what "free-will" creatures will do, then man is sovereign and God is not. God must sit and wait in heaven, wringing his hands, to see if man will do what God wishes him to do.
Suppose Abram never decided to leave Ur? Suppose Joseph was not sold into slavery into Egypt? Suppose Moses said, no way am I going back to Egypt? Suppose the leaders of Jerusalem and Rome did not choose to crucify Christ? There would be no redemption.
Aside from the problems mentioned above, it really does not solve the problem for the Arminian, for if God looks down through the corridors of time and knows what man will do, then the future is assuredly as fixed as when God sets it, for God will know what will come to pass, and if He knows it will come to pass, nothing can change it from occurring, not even the will of man: See the problem?
The biggest problem in not believing in a God who is absolutely the Sovereign Ruler, who is the Potter and we are the clay, is that
it is a belief in a self-created God and not the God of the Bible. And such a God who waits to see what man will do is more akin to Greek or Roman mythology, rather than Inspired Scripture.
Lastly, every person I know who is confused over this issue has an unbiblical defintion of foreknowledge. Yes, God knows all things beforehand, but that is because He is sovereign, not becase he is a divine Watcher. Foreknowledge actually means "to know before" in an intimate sense, as Adam knew Eve his wife. It means a loving, intimate relationship between God and His elect, whom he knew and loved long before He ever created them.
In that sense, foreknowledge is the basis of God's electing love.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Isa 44:23 Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.
24 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: "I am the LORD, who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the earth—Who was with me?—
25 who frustrates the omens of liars, and makes fools of diviners; who turns wise men back, and makes their knowledge foolish;
26 who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’;
27 who says to the deep, ‘Be dry, I will dry up your rivers’;
28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfil all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’"
1 ¶ Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:
2 "I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron,
3 I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
4 For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me.
5 ¶ I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I gird you, though you do not know me,
6 that men may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.
7 I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things.
8 "Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth, and let it cause righteousness to spring up also; I the LORD have created it.
9 "Woe to him who strives with his Maker, an earthen vessel with the potter! Does the clay say to him who fashions it, ‘What are you making’? or ‘Your work has no handles’?
10 Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in travail?’"
11 ¶ Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: "Will you question me about my children, or command me concerning the work of my hands?
12 I made the earth, and created man upon it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.
13 I have aroused him in righteousness, and I will make straight all his ways; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward," says the LORD of hosts.
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