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Predestined to what?

Hope of Glory

New Member
Adoption has to do with position within the family, not being put into the family. When you are born from above into the family of God, what need to have to be artificially placed into the family?

At the moment that you are saved or born from above, you are in the family.

Placement within the family comes later; that's what you're waiting for.
 

Brother Bob

New Member
John, chapter 6
"63": It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.


Ephesians, chapter 2
"1": And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Ephesians, chapter 2
"5": Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)


1 Corinthians, chapter 15
"36": Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

Romans, chapter 8

"11": But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall (also quicken) your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
(Also means something has already been quicken, "the soul".)

Romans 8
"21": Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

"22": For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

"23": And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

1 Corinthians, chapter 15
"36": Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:


(actually this Scripture is talking about the body but same is true with the Soul, it must first die and the Soul has already died dead to the love of sin and made alive in Christ Jesus and is waiting on the redemption of the body, which is in the resurrection.)

And no!! I wasn't saying God could say one thing and do another for He said "time and chance has happened to all men".


 
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TomVols

New Member
We're at ten pages. Let's wrap this up. Without objection from other moderators, let's invoke the 24 hour notice. This thread will be closed at or after 10 am Tuesday, eastern.
 

annsni

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
I totally belive in predestination but could you help me answer a friend? She asks "If some are predestined to come to Christ, why didn't God just create those who He chose and not bother with the rest? Why do we have a free will? How are we 'free' to choose to come to Christ?"

Thanks!
Annie
 

2BHizown

New Member
the truth

Actually Annie, both of what you state are true! God is sovereign and chooses some to come to Him in faith. Also, man is responsible and accountable as to his decisions and his life, though at the same time he is deciding and choosing God has determined it all! That in no way frees us from being both responsible and accountable!
 

Skandelon

<b>Moderator</b>
TomVols said:
We're at ten pages. Let's wrap this up. Without objection from other moderators, let's invoke the 24 hour notice. This thread will be closed at or after 10 am Tuesday, eastern.

With all due respect, whoever made this decision is going to kill this board. If discussion is active on a particular thread it should be allowed to continue as long as it is on topic and productive, which this has been. Why do you think people come here? To discuss matters of concern and debate, but if you keep moving topics and cutting the discussions people aren't going to keep coming back, IMO.

Have the board members been consulted as to these types of decisions?
 

Skandelon

<b>Moderator</b>
Hope of Glory said:
Adoption has to do with position within the family, not being put into the family. When you are born from above into the family of God, what need to have to be artificially placed into the family?

At the moment that you are saved or born from above, you are in the family.

Placement within the family comes later; that's what you're waiting for.

It is really irrelevant because adoption into sonship is accomplished through faith, thus adoption follows faith and therefore the intepretation I've submitted is perfectly valid. All those who are "in Christ" through faith have been predestined to be adopted and conformed. God decided beforehand how he would reward those with faith, but nothing is said about his determining some to have faith and not others.
 

Skandelon

<b>Moderator</b>
2BHizown said:
He tells you in Rom 9:20, 21:love2:

This is a common mistake Calvinists make. They misapply these passages as if Paul is speaking about God choosing to show mercy to some and harden others is equal to their understanding of election of some and the reprobation of the rest.

Calvinists mistakenly believe that when Paul says, "I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy and I will harden whom I will harden," that he means, "I will save the elect and condemn all the rest." The reason they make this mistake is they think hardening is an sentence of certain condemnation to the "non-elect" individuals. No so.

Israel was being hardened temporarily. (Romans 11:26) But it is quite clear that even those being hardened at that time might be saved once provoked to envy (Romans 11:14) thus the Calvinistic application of these texts are incorrect and misleading to uninformed believers.

Paul is not responding to the objection of an Arminian when he writes, "So why should he blame us? Who can resist his will?" As if God has chosen to pass over a man born without hope of salvation and hardened in his depravity from birth. Instead Paul is answering the objection of a Jew who has freely rebelled against God's revelations for centuries and who is now being sealed or locked into that rebellious state for a time so that God can show mercy to all men through his crucifixion. Had the Jews believed in Christ they wouldn't have killed him, but in order for Christ's purposes to be fulfilled He had to seal the Jews in their rebellion so that they could not see, hear, understand and repent for a time. Jesus hid the gospel from them in parables so that they could not believe and be saved (Mk. 4) which makes no sense if the doctrine of Total Depravity is true. Jesus didn't want Jews to come to salvation UNTIL the right time, which was after the crucifixion and the ingrafting of the Gentiles.

This is all clearly explained throughout scripture. I encourage Calvinists to read Romans 11 again, with an open mind, and see that even the hardening process was an act of mercy. "He bound (or hardened) all men over to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all." (11:32) Even in hardening God was showing mercy, not condemnation!
 

TomVols

New Member
Administrators and Moderators set policy here at Baptist Board (Thank GOD!) and have the discretion to close threads at any time. In an effort to conserve much needed bandwidth, a general rule of thumb has been ten pages, give or take, unless circumstances mitigate otherwise. However, the new Baptist Board has shorter pages than the previous one. Therefore, I'll revoke the 24 hour notice. However, bandwidth is not the only reason this can be invoked. Members who do not carry themselves in a Christlike demeanor (something that has gotten out of hand lately in this forum), topics that are not on point, pages full of rehash, etc., can invoke the 24 hour notice. As I said, I'll revoke the 24 hour notice, but let's keep the gloves up and do right by each other, okay?
 
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2BHizown

New Member
I differ

I beg to differ! Please dont tell Paul what he is saying when he so clearly has stated his point with perfectly easy to be understood words! Calvinists are not wrong. Arminians refuse to consider and allow that God is sovereign and that they are not in charge, He is!
Have you prayed with sincerity and asked God to reveal whether His word is true! He will answer and show you all the doctrines of grace in detail, with scripture to substantiate each one so clearly you cant possibly miss it!
 

Brother Bob

New Member
[Removal of off topic post. Please focus on the original topic of the opening post. If you wish to discuss something else start a new thread.]
 
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TomVols

New Member
2BHizown said:
Have you prayed with sincerity and asked God to reveal whether His word is true! He will answer and show you all the doctrines of grace in detail, with scripture to substantiate each one so clearly you cant possibly miss it!

Calvinists and Arminians can both hurl the "Pray and God will reveal truth to you so you can agree with me" at each other all day long. Does it really help the discourse any? Come on folks.
 

Hope of Glory

New Member
Skandelon said:
It is really irrelevant because adoption into sonship is accomplished through faith, thus adoption follows faith and therefore the intepretation I've submitted is perfectly valid. All those who are "in Christ" through faith have been predestined to be adopted and conformed. God decided beforehand how he would reward those with faith, but nothing is said about his determining some to have faith and not others.

That's my point. It's not a predestination to simply being saved.
 

2BHizown

New Member
TomVols said:
Calvinists and Arminians can both hurl the "Pray and God will reveal truth to you so you can agree with me" at each other all day long. Does it really help the discourse any? Come on folks.

Perhaps it doesnt help the discourse but it certainly helped my life, which is what I was attesting to actually!
Proverbs 16:9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps!!

It was providence, for sure!
 

npetreley

New Member
On turning "hardening" into "mercy", from "Bondage of the Will" by Martin Luther.



In fact, by these tropes matters will come to this:—you may say, that God had mercy upon the children of Israel when He sent them into Assyria and to Babylon; because, He there punished the sinners, and there invited them, by afflictions, to repentance: and that, on the other hand, when He delivered them and brought them back, He had not then mercy upon them, but hardened them; that is, by His long-suffering and mercy He gave them an occasion of becoming hardened. And also, God's sending the Saviour Christ into the world, will not be said to be the mercy, but the hardening of God; because, by this mercy, He gave men an occasion of hardening themselves. On the other hand, His destroying Jerusalem, and scattering the Jews even unto this day, is His having mercy on them; because, He punishes the sinners and invites them to repentance. Moreover, His carrying the saints away into heaven at the day of judgment, will not be in mercy, but in hardening; because, by His long-suffering, He will give them an occasion of abusing it. But His thrusting the wicked down to hell, will be His mercy; because, He punishes the sinners.—Who, I pray you, ever heard of such examples of the mercy and wrath of God as these?


And be it so, that good men are made better both by the long-suffering and by the severity of God; yet, when we are speaking of the good and the bad promiscuously, these tropes, by an utter perversion of the common manner of speaking, will make, out of the mercy of God His wrath, and His wrath out of His mercy; seeing that, they call it the wrath of God when He does good, and His mercy when He afflicts.


Moreover, if God be said then to harden, when He does good and endures with long-suffering, and then to have mercy when He afflicts and punishes, why is He more particularly said to harden Pharaoh than to harden the children of Israel, or than the whole world? Did He not do good to the children of Israel? Does He not do good to the whole world? Does He not bear with the wicked? Does He not rain upon the evil and upon the good? Why is He rather said to have mercy upon the children of Israel than upon Pharaoh? Did He not afflict the children of Israel in Egypt, and in the desert?—And be it so, that some abuse, and some rightly use, the goodness and the wrath of God; yet, according to your definition, to harden, is the same as, to indulge the wicked by long-suffering and goodness; and to have mercy, is, not to indulge, but to visit and punish. Therefore, with reference to God, He, by His continual goodness, does nothing but harden; and by His perpetual punishment, does nothing but shew mercy.


Sect. 79.—B[SIZE=-1]UT[/SIZE] this is the most excellent statement of all—'that God is said to harden, when He indulges sinners by long-suffering; but to have mercy upon them, when He visits and afflicts, and thus, by severity, invites to repentance.'—
What, I ask, did God leave undone in afflicting, punishing, and calling Pharaoh to repentance? Are there not, in His dealings with him, ten plagues recorded? If, therefore, your definition stand good, that shewing mercy, is punishing and calling the sinner immediately, God certainly had mercy upon Pharaoh! Why then does not God say, I will have mercy upon Pharaoh? Whereas He saith, "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh." For, in the very act of having mercy upon him, that is, (as you say) afflicting and punishing him, He saith, "I will harden" him; that is, as you say, I will bear with him and do him good. What can be heard of more enormous! Where are now your tropes? Where are your Origens? Where are your Jeromes? Where are all your most approved doctors whom one poor creature, Luther, daringly contradicts?—But at this rate the flesh must unawares impel the man to talk, who trifles with the words of God, and believes not their solemn importance!


The text of Moses itself, therefore, incontrovertibly proves, that here, these tropes are mere inventions and things of nought, and that by those words, "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh," something else is signified far different from, and of greater importance than, doing good, or affliction and punishment; because, we cannot deny, that both were tried upon Pharaoh with the greatest care and concern. For what wrath and punishment could be more instant, than his being stricken by so many wonders and with so many plagues, that, as Moses himself testifies, the like had never been? Nay, even Pharaoh himself, repenting, was moved by them more than once; but he was not effectually moved, nor did he persevere. And what long-suffering or goodness of God could be greater, than His taking away the plagues so easily, hardening his sin so often, so often bringing back the good, and so often taking away the evil? Yet neither is of any avail, He still saith, "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh!" You see, therefore, that even if your hardening and mercy, that is, your glosses and tropes, be granted to the greatest extent, as supported by use and by example, and as seen in the case of Pharaoh, there is yet a hardening that still remains; and that the hardening of which Moses speaks must, of necessity, be one, and that of which you dream, another.


 

Brother Bob

New Member
Ecclesiastes
"2": Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
"14": I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
"17": Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
"19": For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
"8": Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
 

Brother Bob

New Member
Originally Posted by TomVols
Calvinists and Arminians can both hurl the "Pray and God will reveal truth to you so you can agree with me" at each other all day long. Does it really help the discourse any? Come on folks.

Help us out. How is quoting this phrase in Eccl. germane to the topic?[/quote]
I was just going along with your statement above, just agreeing with what you said.
 
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