Featured The dreaded doctrine of election and perseverance.

Would you see God as existing outside and beyond his own creation?

 

I am woke!
Scripture tells us believers are chosen (elect) from before the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1:3-6
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Again, I do not understand your adamant denial of God's truth.

 

"Election is the fundamental principle in the saving grace of God.

It is the sovereignty of God in respect to the salvation of man.

It forms a part of God's decrees.

It is an expression of His all-pervading providence.

It concerns only a portion of the human race.

Yet it "is the expression of God's infinite love towards the human race, redeeming man from sin through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit bringing him into this state of redemption, so far as it is consistent with the interests of God's great and final kingdom" (Smith, System of Christian Theology, p. 505).

It presupposes the entire sinfulness of the human race, and is based on the atonement of Christ."

And that without Election, no one would see Heaven. All humanity would burn in Hell, forever.

 

http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF Books II/Simmons - A Systematic Study of Bible Doctrine.pdf

I. SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 1. The Bible Doctrine of Election Not Popularly Understood and Received The Bible doctrine of election is much misunderstood, much perverted, much abused, and much opposed. Nevertheless, to "full-grown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil' (Heb. 5:14), it is a blessedly and gloriously profitable doctrine, a veritable mine of spiritual wealth.

2. IT IS EMINENTLY SCRIPTURAL This doctrine has a broad and deep foundation in the Scripture. It is woven into the very warp and woof of divine revelation. As a scarlet thread this gracious purpose of God runs through the fabric of the word. "The Bible not only teaches the doctrine, but makes it prominent--so prominent that you can get rid of election only by getting rid of the Bible" (Bishop, The Doctrines of Grace). "Let the Scripture be read with reference to this doctrine, and every passage marked which indicates God's dealing with men as an absolute sovereign, and also every declaration which ascribes election or the fruits of it to His choice and not to the will and acts of men, and every illustration afforded that this is Gods usual method, and it will appear that scarcely any book of Scripture will fail to furnish testimony to the fact that in the acts of grace, no less than those of providence, God "doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth' (Dan. 4:3-5)" (Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology).

3. YET IT HAS MANY OPPOSERS But since this doctrine is so stripping and humbling to the natural man and so thoroughly distasteful to the carnal mind, it has many opposers. It is even as the immortal J.. R. Graves said: "All men are by nature Arminians; and the absolute sovereignty of God is a doctrine hateful to the natural and depraved heart. False teachers have taken advantage of this natural feeling and have for ages inflamed the prejudices of Christian men and women against the exercise of sovereignty on the part of God" (The Seven Dispensations, pp. 95,96). Many false theories of election have arisen. These theories have come about through an effort at "measuring supernatural mysteries with the crooked mete-wand of degenerate reason" (Ness).

4. THE MEANING OF ARMINIANISM Any system of doctrine that conditions the saving purpose of God on the acts or merits of men is essentially Arminian; just as, any system that makes the sovereign pleasure of God the ground of His saving purpose is essentially Calvinistic. If one holds to the former, he is an Arminian, although he may not go all the way with Arminius. And if a man holds to the latter, he is a Calvinist, although he may not go all the way with Calvin. There is no middle ground between Arminianism and Calvinism in their accepted meaning among theologians. Every man that takes my view of election whatsoever is one or the other. G. W. Northrup, himself practically an Arminian, says, in discussing the question of whether election is conditioned on something in man "Arminianism may be considered as representing all non-Calvinistic systems as regards the point under consideration" (Sovereignty of God, p. 48). And in the second part of this book, written by Prof. Robert Watts, of Belfast, Ireland, in reply to the first part, we have A. A. Hodge's "Outlines" quoted as follows: "What is the ground of the eternal predestination of individuals to salvation? Is it the foreseen faith and repentance of the individuals themselves, or the sovereign good pleasure of God? Every Christian must take one side or the other of this question. If he takes the side which makes foreseen faith the ground, (or if he, as is common today, makes faith the procuring cause of an election in time, which is essentially the same as the foregoing proposition), he is an Arminian, no matter what else he holds. If he takes the side which makes the good pleasure of God the ground, he is a Calvinist."

5. CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM THEOLOGICAL TERMS It needs to be understood that Calvinism and Arminianism are now theological terms. They do not signify all that Calvin and Arminius believed or wrote. They refer to two antithetic systems of doctrine, somewhat modified in transmission, and having respectively unconditional and conditional election as their chief points. So it has become common in theological discussions to classify men and systems of doctrine as Calvinistic or Arminian on the basis of these two chief points. 6. THE SPIRIT AND NATURE OF ARMINIANISM The spirit of Arminianism is the spirit of Modernism. Arminianism is a system of rationalism, which, like Modernism, makes reason, instead of divine revelation, the standard of truth.

 

"Churches have been corrupted and cursed in almost every age by the undue confidence of men in their reasoning powers. They have undertaken to pronounce upon the reasonableness or unreasonableness of doctrines infinitely above their reason, which are necessarily matters of pure revelation. In their presumption, they have sought to comprehend 'the deep things of God,' and have interpreted Scriptures, not according to their obvious meaning, but according to the decisions of their finite reason" (Rice, God Sovereign and Man Free, p. iii). Let the reader be warned against that haughty spirit which rejects revealed truth because the twisted and vitiated mind of man cannot fully fathom it. This is the mainspring of infidelity and Modernism. "It was through pride of reasoning that man fell," and we may add that in the same way today man is falling farther and farther from God. Reason is a divine gift, and, when used aright, it is a pearl of great price. Its proper sphere in religion lies in the right dividing of the word of truth. But when it sets itself up as a standard by which the credibility of divine revelation is to be tried, it becomes a snare of the devil and a sure road to hell.

"Revelation constantly assails the arrogance which impiously arraigns the credibility of the divine word, unless our puny intellect can comprehend the things which it is the glory of God to conceal. The design of the gospel is to humble this temper and to nourish in us the spirit of 'a little child,' without which the mind will go on sounding its dim and perilous way, till it is lost in endless mazes bewildered and inextricable in dark, interminable labyrinths" (Richard Fuller, Baptist Doctrines, by C. A. Jenkins).

Arminianism is the slickest lie the devil has ever invented in all his age-long opposition to God. It is his supreme effort to efface the godhood of God. "Arminianism is man's religion, which can be accomplished by man. Man is the main power: with man it begins, and with man it shall perish" (Parks). It exalts man and insults God. It fosters human pride and detracts from divine glory.

http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF Books II/Simmons - A Systematic Study of Bible Doctrine.pdf

 

"Arminianism is the spawn of Popery, which the warmth of favour may easily turn into frogs of the bottomless pit" (Rous). It is "the Pope's Benjamin . . . the elixir of Anti-Christianism; the mystery of the mystery of iniquity; the Pope's cabinet; the very quintessence of equivocation" (Leighton). It "puts God into the same extremity with Darius, who would gladly have saved Daniel but could not. Daniel vi. 14" (Ness). It pulls "the great Jehovah Himself out of His throne of glory, setting up Dame Fortune to be worshipped in His stead" (Ness). It "surrenders the government of the world to mere chance, to wild caprice and disorder.

According to this system, nature, providence, and grace are only departments of atheism; God has no control over the earth and its affairs, or- if that be too monstrous and revolting- he exercises authority over matter, but none over the minds and hearts of men . . . consequently prophecy is an absurdity; providence a chimera; prayer is a mockery; since God does not interfere in mortal events, but abandons all to the wanton humors and passions of myriads of independent agents, none of whose whims and impulses he restrains, and by whom his will is constantly defeated and trampled under foot" (Richard Fuller, Baptist Doctrines, by C. A. Jenkins). It is no wonder, then, that B. P. Riley says: "Whitfield was a Calvinistic Methodist, whatever that is, though it is quite as easy of definition as an Arminian Baptist. Neither is free of obliquity, and they are clearly a standoff" (The Baptists in the Building of the Nation).http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF Books II/Simmons - A Systematic Study of Bible Doctrine.pdf