The Foreknowledge of God Put in Biblical Context

[Sai]

I am totally confused by your comments. What is going on with this Yeshua name? Your using this name is the source of my confusion. I will not be dealing with people who throws this wrinkle into the discussion.

Yeshua Hebrew for Jesus

 

[JD731]

JD, who are God's people according to the Bible?
Just the physical nation of Israel, or are there others who are said to be beloved of God as well?

Thanks Dave. Good question. I could quote a hundred verses both in the OT and the NT showing Israel is God’s, people and maybe I will later, but for now. I will quote one passage only and comment on it. I think it will show conclusively that Israel remains God’s people even to this very day. They are the elect of God. I present Rom 11:1-2 which says the following;

Romans 11:1-2
1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,

There would be no honest way of suggesting that our verses here are not identifying Israel as God’ people. What is not obvious from the text is when Paul is saying Israel is God’s people. I will try to help with that by pointing out a few facts.

First of all, Romans was written in AD 58 from Corinth in Acts 18. This is 28 years after our Lord Jesus ascended to heaven after he rose from the dead. It was 18 years after the gentiles were made partakers of the spiritual blessings of Israel’s covenant beginning in Acts 10. Paul would later say in Acts 14 that this incident was the “opening of the door of faith to the gentiles.” Galatians was Paul’s first letter of the 13 letters he wrote and this was penned in AD 49, 9 years before he wrote in Romans that he was an Israelite. I bring this up to show that there was still an Israel and Paul said he was an Israelite although we know he was a saved person in the church of God since AD 37 when he met the Lord on the Damascus Road in Acts 9. He had said these words in Gal 3:

Galatians 3:25-29

26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Of course the operative word in this passage is “children.” Paul is speaking of “ standing” here. All are equally the children of God in Christ. No one believes the gender is erased when someone gets saved.

So Dave, God has not cast away his people in this age but he has divided them into saved and lost. The greater part, the ones he calls Israel in our chapter 11 are those who were blinded by unbelief and would not come to Christ. The few who did are called the “remnant according to the election of grace. These represent the Jews in the body of Christ, the house that Is still under construction in our very day. See Eph 2:20-23 here. When this is complete and his house is full he will be dealing with the unbelievers in this discourse, Israel, and according to Paul in verse 26 and following, he is coming out of Zion, which is one of the seven hills of Jerusalem and is going to save them because of his immutable covenants he has made with them. Of course this is said to be a mystery and the natural man cannot understand the mysteries of God seeing as how there must be an element of revelation present for our comprehension.

There is still an Israel and always will be and they will always be the people of God. The church is called the house of God, the bride of Christ, his body. The church of God.

This should be sufficient to make my point. Romans 7-11 must be understood in a Jewish context. It was they who were foreknown and called according to his purpose of giving them his Spirit through Christ, collectively a born again son.Now, because of their unbelief, the gentiles replaced them and are the body of Christ along with the Jewish remnant, of which he is the head and in this way he still has a born again son. This is the “mystery of Christ” that is revealed in Ephesians, the theme of the epistle.

 

[Sai]

Thanks Dave. Good question. I could quote a hundred verses both in the OT and the NT showing Israel is God’s, people and maybe I will later, but for now. I will quote one passage only and comment on it. I think it will show conclusively that Israel remains God’s people even to this very day. They are the elect of God. I present Rom 11:1-2 which says the following;

Romans 11:1-2
1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,

There would be no honest way of suggesting that our verses here are not identifying Israel as God’ people. What is not obvious from the text is when Paul is saying Israel is God’s people. I will try to help with that by pointing out a few facts.

First of all, Romans was written in AD 58 from Corinth in Acts 18. This is 28 years after our Lord Jesus ascended to heaven after he rose from the dead. It was 18 years after the gentiles were made partakers of the spiritual blessings of Israel’s covenant beginning in Acts 10. Paul would later say in Acts 14 that this incident was the “opening of the door of faith to the gentiles.” Galatians was Paul’s first letter of the 13 letters he wrote and this was penned in AD 49, 9 years before he wrote in Romans that he was an Israelite. I bring this up to show that there was still an Israel and Paul said he was an Israelite although we know he was a saved person in the church of God since AD 37 when he met the Lord on the Damascus Road in Acts 9. He had said these words in Gal 3:

Galatians 3:25-29

26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Of course the operative word in this passage is “children.” Paul is speaking of “ standing” here. All are equally the children of God in Christ. No one believes the gender is erased when someone gets saved.

So Dave, God has not cast away his people in this age but he has divided them into saved and lost. The greater part, the ones he calls Israel in our chapter 11 are those who were blinded by unbelief and would not come to Christ. The few who did are called the “remnant according to the election of grace. These represent the Jews in the body of Christ, the house that Is still under construction in our very day. See Eph 2:20-23 here. When this is complete and his house is full he will be dealing with the unbelievers in this discourse, Israel, and according to Paul in verse 26 and following, he is coming out of Zion, which is one of the seven hills of Jerusalem and is going to save them because of his immutable covenants he has made with them. Of course this is said to be a mystery and the natural man cannot understand the mysteries of God seeing as how there must be an element of revelation present for our comprehension.

There is still an Israel and always will be and they will always be the people of God. The church is called the house of God, the bride of Christ, his body. The church of God.

This should be sufficient to make my point. Romans 7-11 must be understood in a Jewish context. It was they who were foreknown and called according to his purpose of giving them his Spirit through Christ, collectively a born again son.Now, because of their unbelief, the gentiles replaced them and are the body of Christ along with the Jewish remnant, of which he is the head and in this way he still has a born again son. This is the “mystery of Christ” that is revealed in Ephesians, the theme of the epistle.

You mean “the Israel of God”?

 

[Sai]

Now, because of their unbelief, the gentiles replaced them





Here is your major error

 

[Calminian]

...2) It is used exclusively in the context of God and Israel, whom God says hundreds of times in scripture that they are his people....

Nope. No context to support this. The chain of events in Romans 8:29-30 are for individuals, not a race.

 

[JD731]

Nope. No context to support this. The chain of events in Romans 8:29-30 are for individuals, not a race.

Thank you for weighing in on the very important topic. It is a blessing.

First of all, a man needs to think logically when he is studying the scriptures. Our Christian theology comes out of the first century AD. It does not come later than that.There has been no new and different subjects through whom God gives his doctrines. He does not have a new class called the elect before the foundation of the world that is completely separated from the players in the first 4000 years of human history and our Christian doctrines are not separate from them. We gentiles are in the church of Jesus Christ because Israel failed to believe God as his people.God dealt with Israel at the end of the law, his operative principle of divine dealing with them, in a new and different way because the law had been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. The gentiles are made "partakers" of the spiritual blessings of this new and living way, which has been provided by the cross of Jesus Christ. If you show up at the judgment boasting about how you are someone special to God you will have a long eternity in hell to consider how wrong you were.

In Rom 7 Paul begins the discourse by saying he is speaking to them who knows the law and he speaks to them through Rom 11:12. Then he says he is speaking to the gentiles about how we got in and why. In chapter 7 he writes there that Israel was married to one husband, Moses, but he is dead now and it is lawful to be married to another, Jesus Christ. The rules of this new household are different and better. Paul writes in the first person how he had a great love for the law and considered it to be holy and good but he was frustrated because, try as he might, he always failed to keep it and was condemned by it. He chose the tenth commandment to focus on, "thou shalt not covet." That was the design of the law, to prove their unrighteousness and their need for Christ.

There was not a gentile in Paul's day that would have written Rom 7 in the first person because gentiles have never been under the law of Moses. Therefore, Rom 7 is in the context of the Jews.They had labored under it for 1500 years at this time.

In chapter 8 the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus is presented as replacing the law of condemnation taking away the condemnation and giving them freedom to walk in newness of life. The contrast between these two principles is noted as walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit. So, in Rom 8:3 notice what is said;

3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

He is still speaking of the law of Moses. Some Jews, yea, most Jews, were still clinging to the law of Moses for their righteousness and that is what Paul means by walking in the flesh as opposed to walking after the Spirit. The law as a principle made Israel "servants" and under bondage but the Spirit made them "sons of God" and free from the law. The Spirit, when they received him, made them Christs, according to this;

Rom 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
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.

He said:

9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

While this is certainly true of any man, this portion of scripture is not primarily directed at any man, it is directed to them who had lived under the law of Moses. This is explanation of the history these Jews were living at that time. They were the people of God from their birth as a nation. They were a fleshly nation under the law but now Paul is explaining that God has sent his Spirit so they could experience the second birth. In the chapter 9 he explains the types in the OT that prefigured this new birth. The first born represented the flesh but the second the born again man whom God could fellowship with and bless. Ismael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and now those who are children of God through the new birth and those who opted to remain under the now defunct law of Moses. He further pulls the typology from the OT when he deals with Israel and Judah by quoting Hosea, where he says of the ten northern tribe kingdom as "not my people" and had prefigured by them the putting away of the flesh but making them children of God when he sent his Spirit.

Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.

Verse 25 is quoted from Hosea 1. When Israel is out of their land and cut off from their covenants they are as gentiles.

Has there been anything in the chapters yet that is not Jewish?

In Chapter 10 Paul complains that Israel is not saved though it is the great desire of God that they be saved. In chapter 11 we have the way God is handling this unbelief in the present age but we are assured that Israel's covenants will still be honored and kept by God.

Deut 7:6 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

Deut 14:2 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.

God has not changed his mind about Israel no matter what you have been told. Salvation, Jesus said, is of the Jews. Ignoring context does not help you to be more spiritual.

My conclusion to your comments here;

"The chain of events in Romans 8:29-30 are for individuals, not a race"

Maybe, but not at the same time. One thing I am sure about. God never foreknew you or me in the context that he foreknew Israel, and he nowhere says he did.

 

[Calminian]

....Maybe, but not at the same time. One thing I am sure about. God never foreknew you or me in the context that he foreknew Israel, and he nowhere says he did.

Paul was speaking to Romans, and he was speaking of both jews and gentiles.

 

[JD731]

Paul was speaking to Romans, and he was speaking of both jews and gentiles.

In Romans 7:1 through Romans 11:12 he was speaking to those who had intimate knowledge of the law. He said so. I know that because he dealt with the law in the first person. He was a Jew. What Roman do you think would know about the law in this way?

[QUOTE="Calminian, post: 2617094, member: 12923" and he was speaking of both jews and gentiles.[/QUOTE]

Not at the same time and not the same things.

Rom 2:17 Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,

23 Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?
24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

Who would argue that he is speaking to both Jews and gentiles here?

Rom 3:1What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?

Who would argue that he is saying this about both Jews and gentiles?

After the following verse he is speaking about both;

9 What then? are we (Jews)better than they (gentiles)? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

Take a guess who he is speaking to in the following verse;

Rom 7:1Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

Take a guess who he is speaking to in this verse;

Rom 11:13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

A man who says this must be indicating that he had not been addressing some other in the verses before.

You can see how Paul is speaking to both groups but not always at the same time unless he says so.

Thanks though for bringing this up.

 

[JD731]

Now, because of their unbelief, the gentiles replaced them





Here is your major error

The gentiles replaced them in the body of Christ. All the OT types of the church shows the bride of Christ as being gentile in character. Gentiles did not replace Israel as Israel like modern Christians teach.If you read Romans 11 you will find that "Israel" are that part of God's people who are blind and unbelieving. The gentiles in the church are the gentiles who believed in Christ.

Israel, the people of God will still one day flourish on this earth.

 

[Sai]

The gentiles replaced them in the body of Christ. All the OT types of the church shows the bride of Christ as being gentile in character. Gentiles did not replace Israel as Israel like modern Christians teach.If you read Romans 11 you will find that "Israel" are that part of God's people who are blind and unbelieving. The gentiles in the church are the gentiles who believed in Christ.

Israel, the people of God will still one day flourish on this earth.

Your choice of word “replaced” is incorrect. Here is what scripture says:

“For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved: even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: And this is my covenant unto them, When I shall take away their sins.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11:25-27‬ ‭ASV‬‬

Israel is still in the place of spiritual blessings and they continue to be under the unconditional covenants of God. Gentiles have been grafted into the place of spiritual blessings and are not overtakers but partakes. The Olive Tree belongs to Israel. The Jewish believers in Christ do not become non Jews they become the Israel of God who are part of the Body of Christ. The church did not replace Israel in God’s kingdom program, because of the presence of Gentile believers. In the first century mostly all of the church were Jewish people.

 

[JD731]

Your choice of word “replaced” is incorrect. Here is what scripture says:

“For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved: even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: And this is my covenant unto them, When I shall take away their sins.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11:25-27‬ ‭ASV‬‬

Israel is still in the place of spiritual blessings and they continue to be under the unconditional covenants of God. Gentiles have been grafted into the place of spiritual blessings and are not overtakers but partakes. The Olive Tree belongs to Israel. The Jewish believers in Christ do not become non Jews they become the Israel of God who are part of the Body of Christ. The church did not replace Israel in God’s kingdom program, because of the presence of Gentile believers. In the first century mostly all of the church were Jewish people.

You are right and I am glad to say it. The concept is the same but the words are different. If Jewish branches are cut off and removed and a gentile tree is put there instead, then there is a replacement but I agree that scriptural words should always be used when possible. I am sorry if I offended you with that error.

 

[Sai]

You are right and I am glad to say it. The concept is the same but the words are different. If Jewish branches are cut off and removed and a gentile tree is put there instead, then there is a replacement but I agree that scriptural words should always be used when possible. I am sorry if I offended you with that error.

We can be Presbyterian brethren, Baptist brethren, any kind of brethren we choose but Paul says we are not to be a certain type of brethren - ignorant brethren. No offense taken at all, I just want keep others from error.

 

[George Antonios]

The more I read, the more I see Calvinism for the philosophy that it is.
Now foreknowledge isn't even under the umbrella of allknowledge anymore.

 

[George Antonios]

God knew me and chose me and loved me enough to die to redeem me ... all before I was born. After I was born, God sought me out, drew me to the Son and transformed me from the inside out. Scripture says so, but if you want more of the technical details on a God that exists outside of His creation, then you will have to ask Him. I just take the great I AM at His word.

An elegant non-answer.

 

[Miss E]

God purposely raised up a people through Abraham through whom he could make himself known to the world as the one true God and could redeem the rest of the world through them. Think of humanity in the first 2000 years of history before Abraham as being a polluted river. God diverted a small stream away so he could purify it and then turn it back into the river downstream, thus purifying the whole river. That is God's plan with his people Israel. He made covenants with these people nationally that is still in force today but have not yet been realized. They will be in the future. In the OT time Israel is said of God to collectively be his firstborn son. What father does not know his son? In the NT when God was ready to send his Spirit to this son so the natural son could be "born again" and each individual could be a :son of God" as well as being born again collectively, they refused. Since God's plan through them at this time was to fashion a bride for his son in the same way he had fashioned a bride for Adam back in Genesis, from his side, after he had put him into a deep sleep, God is not frustrated in fashioning a bride for his Son, since those who were originally bidden, his people Israel, refused, he sent out into the world of the gentiles and whosoever will come by faith becomes part of his bride and his body. When they are joined, a man and his bride, they become one flesh. ! Cor 7 says so.This does not mean he has abrogated his covenants he made with his people Israel When the bride and body of Christ is complete (full) he will keep every one of his covenants with Israel, including the part that deals with the land. His covenants are immutable. Foreknowledge is used in a completely different way as omniscience. Confusing the two will blind your mind.

Ex 4:22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:

23 And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.

This is Israel in his natural birth. Individually God was not their Father. God intends a second birth for them collectively when he will become their Father. These are glorious truths if you can latch on to them. Israel's failure became our opportunity as gentiles. Thank God for this blessing.

Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh (by trying to keep the law for righteousness) , ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

The context proves that Israel in this chapter is the main focus of Paul even though some of these truths does apply to gentile believers as well. Paul deals with these subjects as they relate to gentiles in Ephesians and in the last half of Rom 11.

God did not foreknow gentiles;

11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

, Would you disagree with inspired words from God and say God did know us before we are in Christ? I am not that bold. What does without God and Christ no hope mean to you? The gentiles began receiving the Spirit 10 years later than did the Jews.History bears out what Paul says.

What i'm saying is that God knows each one of us, saved or unsaved, but we who become saved make that choice to be saved, which, God knew before we chose to be saved or not.

 

[atpollard]

An elegant non-answer.

I am sorry you feel that way.
It was the answer that I have for how God Foreknew me based on the actual meaning of the word and the Biblical lesson of God’s love and sacrifice for a people even before they knew Him.

 

[atpollard]

but we who become saved make that choice to be saved

Nyet.

[John 10:26-30 NASB] 26 "But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. 27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 "My Father, who has given [them] to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father's hand. 30 "I and the Father are one."

[John 15:12-19 NASB] 12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 "You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 "You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and [that] your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17 "This I command you, that you love one another. 18 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before [it hated] you. 19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.

[Romans 9:15-18 NASB] 15 For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." 16 So then it [does] not [depend] on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH." 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

[Ephesians 2:1-10 NASB] 1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

 

[Barry Johnson]

How do you know that noone in the OT was born again?

How were they saved?

because the Holy Spirit was not Given until Acts 2 . ( indwelled permanently into the body of Christ)

 

[George Antonios]

How do you know that noone in the OT was born again?

A fair question. We know that from Peter:

1Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Peter plainly says that the new birth is only possible by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Therefore before the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there was no new birth.
That doesn't mean there was no salvation.
Salvation and the new birth are inseparably connected only in the New Testament, not so in the Old.

 

[JD731]

Nyet.

[John 10:26-30 NASB] 26 "But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. 27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 "My Father, who has given [them] to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father's hand. 30 "I and the Father are one."

.

Are you claiming atpollard to be a sheep? When did you become a sheep? Is "sheep" a metaphor for a born again Christian? Is it a metaphor for the Christian church that is founded upon the death , burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? If you will accept the fact that the apostle Paul is given the revelation and doctrines of the NT church of Jesus Christ, which I am almost sure you will not,, why does he not present the church as a sheepfold and born again Christians as sheep? He wrote 13 letters to teach and explain the church. You would think that he would have used the terminology that you are forcing upon the church, sheep and sheepfold and the like. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the subsequent pouring out from heaven of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God and of Christ in a particular time in history to indwell men and assure them of the new birth means little to nothing to Calvinists, especially the hyper ones. It is tragic that the most important and wonderful thing that ever happened in history has to take second place to some kind of ethereal election of a few special people who fancy themselves as sheep of God.

It amazes me that Paul only uses the term "sheep" one time in his 13 letters and that is in the context of his addressing Jews in this present time, after God had ended the Law of Moses as his operative principle of divine dealing with the Jews and gentiles were accepted now equally with them, not by becoming proselytes to Israel but by becoming children of God through the spiritual new birth. This was written in AD 58, twenty eight years after Chris,t through his death, had ended the law by fulfilling all of it's requirements and was the Lamb that took away the sin of the world, according to God, but not according to Calvinists, who are not only ignorant of the scope of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ but are also deniers of it. This kind of false teaching is not something that God is tolerant of. What one says about this wonderful person had better be the same thing that God the Father says about him in his record, the Holy Scriptures, the one and only standard of truth by which all teaching must be compared. The lake of fire is going to be populated by the deceived.It is one thing to quietly reject God's offer of salvation and quite another to replace it with something else and then to teach it to others as truth.

Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
Heb 10:9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
Heb 9:16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. 17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

2 Cor 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life

Some Reformed here have actually suggested in their comments that men had the Spirit of life before Christ died on the cross. Makes one wonder why he died if that were true.
Gal 3:15 Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.
16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. (in the Abrahamic Covenant) He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after (after the Abrahamic covenant of promise) , cannot disannul, (The Moses Covenant does not disannul the promise of the Abrahamic Covenant) that it should make the promise of none effect.
18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
20 Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
21 Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.
22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.(What is the promise? It is Life. What is life? This chapter identifies it as the Spirit of Christ).
23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

The Jews did not get the Spirit by being drawn to Jesus by the Father in John 6. Neither did they become sheep because of it. They were already sheep and they belonged to the Father. The Lord Jesus became their shepherd when they willingly obeyed the Father. Gentiles never become sheep. They become children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

I hope you will consider these things.