The impotent will and sovereign will

[AITB]

Originally posted by Frogman:
It is not saying God wishes all to be saved

It is saying that.

You must mean that it doesn't mean that. Because it does say it.

Have you noticed that verse 7 talks about ungodly men? It seems to me therefore that the context is not 'saints' only.

Helen/AITB

 

[ScottEmerson]

Originally posted by Frogman:
The attempt here is to deny the scripture is speaking the saints.

No, I think people understand that this was written to the saints. The attempt is to show that "all" means "all."

Thus this scripture is addressing the perserverance of the saints.

Doesn't follow from your premise.

It is not saying God wishes all to be saved, if He wished this, then He has the power to make it so.

You are concluding your assumption. This is circular reasoning.

And to deny the power of God in this capacity belittles the sacrifice of the Son of God at Calvary's Cross.

This is another logical fallacy. No one here is denying the power of God, and no one here is belittling the sacrfice of the Son. So why do you say others are?

 

[Ray Berrian]

Jesus could stop Saddam from living but He has not done this so far today. This does not mean that He does not have the power and authority to do this act.

God desires that all people will be saved, [I Tim. 2:4] {the Greek word is 'wishes'} but this does not place Him in the position that He must use, if you will, His sovereignty to save every human being from Hell.

The Spirit attends the Word of God in the Gospel and after a person hears it, he or she is responsible toward Almighty God. No excuses will work at the Great White Throne Judgment, [Rev. 20:11] and no one will be able to blame Jesus for picking and choosing their final home of either Heaven or Hell. Why? Have a Sunday School pupil read to you again, John 3:16.

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by AITB:
Are you going to tell me that 'all' doesn't mean 'all'?

All means all, but "all" doesn't always mean "every person on earth" or "every person who ever lived". The word "all" is often qualified by the context in which the word appears.

For example, 1 Cor 10:17 "Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf." Does "all" mean "all"? Yes, it means all of those who are in the one body, who partake of the one loaf. It most certainly does not mean "all", as in "all of us who live on earth".

In the case of 2 Peter 3:9, "all" refers back to "any" and/or "us". And "any" and "us" mean those who God is not willing should perish.

9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

So if the word translated "any" actually means "certain", (which is how it is used everywhere else in the NT) then "all" means "all of those certain".Therefore, the verse is saying, "not willing that [certain] should perish but that all [of them] should come to repentance". That makes perfect sense in terms of election.

 

[The Archangel]

Originally posted by Frogman:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Notice there must have been some 'southerners' present because the author if Acts said that the healing was ministered ' . . .in the presence of you all.'

I Love this...can I use it sometime?

The southern usage is 'yall' or in my geographic region it would be read as follows: ministered '...drectly y'uns.'

Amen.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas </font>[/QUOTE]You know, if you are from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, it is proper to greet each other with a hearty Shalom--Y'all!!!!!

Blessings!

Archangel

 

[Frogman]

The qualifier for the definition of "all" is usward This limits the purpose of the scripture to the elect.

Bro. Dallas

 

[ScottEmerson]

Originally posted by npetreley:
All means all, but "all" doesn't always mean "every person on earth" or "every person who ever lived". The word "all" is often qualified by the context in which the word appears.

For example, 1 Cor 10:17 "Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf." Does "all" mean "all"? Yes, it means all of those who are in the one body, who partake of the one loaf. It most certainly does not mean "all", as in "all of us who live on earth".

But Paul immediately uses the word "we," and it makes it clear. Examine ALL the uses of the word "all" in Romans and it is evident which ones refer to "all" and which ones mean "you all," because Paul expressly says so.

In the passage that is being debated, there is no limiting word found near "all."

In the case of 2 Peter 3:9, "all" refers back to "any" and/or "us". And "any" and "us" mean those who God is not willing should perish.

There is no immediate connection found. If we use the principles of the rest of the NT, we see that for what you say to be true, Peter shoudl have had "all of us." He doesn't have it.

he word translated "any" actually means "certain", (which is how it is used everywhere else in the NT) then "all" means "all of those certain".Therefore, the verse is saying, "not willing that [certain] should perish but that all [of them] should come to repentance". That makes perfect sense in terms of election.

And funny... no translation that I have found translates it that way. I wonder why?

 

[Frogman]

Have a Sunday School pupil read to you again, John 3:16.

What is your use of Sunday School? Do you know the historical beginnings and use of Sunday School?

The church is not a christianizing assembly line, unless you are catholic.

Bro. Dallas

 

[ScottEmerson]

And, hey, let us ask Calvin what he thought about this verse, since you guys do take his name, eh?

This is His wondrous love towards the human race, that He desires all men to be saved, and is prepared to bring even the perishing to safety. . . . It could be asked here, if God does not want any to perish, why do so many in fact perish? My reply is that no mention is made here of the secret decree of God by which the wicked are doomed to their own ruin, but only of His loving-kindness as it is made known to us in the Gospel. There God stretches out His hand to all alike, but He only grasps those (in such a way as to lead to Himself) whom He has chosen before the foundation of the world.

John Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St Peter, trans William B Johnston (Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans, 1989 reprint), 364.


So there you have it - although Calvin drew different conclusions than Arminius did, both of them agreed that in this verse, "all" literally meant "all."

 

[AITB]

Originally posted by npetreley:
So if the word translated "any" actually means "certain",

...then why didn't any translations translate it that way?

Was every translator of the NT less skilled in understanding Greek than you are?

Or were they all so biased that they translated the text to fit their own theology rather than to be as accurate as possible?

Which is it?

It's easy to find where 'any' means 'any' in spite of what you wrote:

Matt 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and [he] to whomsoever the Son will reveal [him]

According to you, though, this verse actually says that only certain men don't know the Father without the Son revealing Him. I guess the rest do. But is that what you really believe? I doubt it!

Here's another one:

Matt 12:19 He shall &lt;2051&gt; &lt;0&gt; not &lt;3756&gt; strive &lt;2051&gt; (5692), nor &lt;3761&gt; cry &lt;2905&gt; (5692); neither &lt;3761&gt; shall any man &lt;5100&gt; hear &lt;191&gt; (5692) his &lt;846&gt; voice &lt;5456&gt; in &lt;1722&gt; the streets &lt;4113&gt;.

According to you this means certain people will not hear him in the streets. So, the rest will???

Doesn't it seem odd to you that the translators who were happy to translate the Greek word as 'certain' in many places, didn't translate it as 'certain' in the verse we are discussing? Do you now see that it doesn't always mean 'certain' in the NT, that it sometimes quite definitely means 'any'?

(which is how it is used everywhere else in the NT) then "all" means "all of those certain".

I already showed that 'any' doesn't always mean 'certain'.

Anyway, in spite of what you wrote, the key word here is "all". You could equally well argue that 'any' means 'any' because 'all' means 'all' as do what you did and condition the meaning of 'all' on your unproven limitation on the meaning of 'any'.

So let's look at 'all' in the NT.

The first occurrence of 'all' in the NT means 'all':

Matt 1:17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.

Or are you going to tell me Matthew really meant, "if you count certain of the generations from Abraham to Davd, David to the exit and the exile to the Christ, you get fourteen"? Why would he even say that?

Here's another one:

Matt 3:10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

According to you this means only certain trees will be cut down that do not produce good fruit.

Here's another:

Matt 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

But according to you, the devil actually meant "I will give you certain of these things if you bow down and worship me".

It seems clear to me that 'all' often does mean 'all' in the NT.

Therefore, the verse is saying, "not willing that [certain] should perish but that all [of them] should come to repentance". That makes perfect sense in terms of election.

Of course it does, because what you did was make Scripture fit your theology by saying it doesn't mean what it says. It's supposed to be the other way around though - you're supposed to make your theology fit the Bible. Not vice-versa!

I'm glad I'm not a five-point Calvinist - it would be hard to remember all the words and phrases whose meaning I have to change as I go through the Bible, to avoid having my theology challenged

Helen/AITB

[ March 26, 2003, 06:52 AM: Message edited by: AITB ]

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by AITB:
Or were they all so biased that they translated the text to fit their own theology rather than to be as accurate as possible?

Which is it?

You'll have to ask them. I don't know why they didn't translate it more clearly.

Originally posted by AITB:
It's easy to find where 'any' means 'any' in spite of what you wrote:

Matt 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and [he] to whomsoever the Son will reveal [him]

According to you, though, this verse actually says that only certain men don't know the Father without the Son revealing Him. I guess the rest do. But is that what you really believe? I doubt it!

Please don't misrepresent what I said. I did not say you should do a word study on the English, nor did I say you should do a word study on the root word. I did not say that every occurrance of "any" in the NT should be translated "certain".

I DID say that if you look up the Greek word translated "any" in 2 Peter 3:9, you'll find that this form of the word is always translated to mean a subset of people (certain, some, etc.) everywhere else.

In 2 Peter 3:9 the word is tinaV, but in Matthew 11:27 and 12:19, the word is tiV (pardon the lack of Greek fonts, but you get what I mean). The root word is the same. The form and usage are different. But if you look up every and any (grin) occurrance of tinaV, you'll find that it always refers to "some" or "certain".

Here are all the occurrances of tinaV in the entire NT:

Mark 7:2, Mark 12:13, Luke 7:19, Luke 18:9, Acts 9:2, Acts 9:19, Acts 10:48, Acts 12:1, Acts 15:2, Acts 15:36, Acts 16:12, Acts 17:5, Acts 17:6, Acts 19:1, Acts 23:23, Acts 24:24, Acts 27:1, Rom 11:14, 1 Cor 9:22, 2 Cor 10:2, Gal 2:12, 2 Th 3:11, Heb 4:6, 2 Pe 3:9

Of all the above quotes (note that "all" refers to these quotes, not every quote in the Bible - grin), I can only find two places where the word is translated "any". One place is 2 Peter 3:9, the other is Acts 9:2...

Acts 9:2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

Even in the above verse, the meaning is clearly referring to certain men - those of the way. But it would be awkward to translate it as "certain" in English, and the fact that it is a subset of men is clear from the context.

 

[AITB]

Originally posted by npetreley:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by AITB:
Or were they all so biased that they translated the text to fit their own theology rather than to be as accurate as possible?

Which is it?

You'll have to ask them. I don't know why they didn't translate it more clearly. </font>[/QUOTE]I'd say the burden of proof is on you for departing from every - and I do mean every! - English translation.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by AITB:
It's easy to find where 'any' means 'any' in spite of what you wrote:

Matt 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and [he] to whomsoever the Son will reveal [him]

According to you, though, this verse actually says that only certain men don't know the Father without the Son revealing Him. I guess the rest do. But is that what you really believe? I doubt it!

Please don't misrepresent what I said. I did not say you should do a word study on the English, nor did I say you should do a word study on the root word. </font>[/QUOTE]I know and I didn't say you did. I was checking whether what you said was true. I thought that would be a good way to proceed.

I did not say that every occurrance of "any" in the NT should be translated "certain". I DID say that if you look up the Greek word translated "any" in 2 Peter 3:9, you'll find that this form of the word is always translated to mean a subset of people (certain, some, etc.) everywhere else.

You said this:

So if the word translated "any" actually means "certain", (which is how it is used everywhere else in the NT)

You've now gotten much more specific and started talking about a particular form of the Greek word in 2 Peter 3:9

I didn't misrepresent you; you changed what you said.

In 2 Peter 3:9 the word is tinaV, but in Matthew 11:27 and 12:19, the word is tiV (pardon the lack of Greek fonts, but you get what I mean). The root word is the same. The form and usage are different. But if you look up every and any (grin) occurrance of tinaV, you'll find that it always refers to "some" or "certain".

Here are all the occurrances of tinaV in the entire NT:

Mark 7:2, Mark 12:13, Luke 7:19, Luke 18:9, Acts 9:2, Acts 9:19, Acts 10:48, Acts 12:1, Acts 15:2, Acts 15:36, Acts 16:12, Acts 17:5, Acts 17:6, Acts 19:1, Acts 23:23, Acts 24:24, Acts 27:1, Rom 11:14, 1 Cor 9:22, 2 Cor 10:2, Gal 2:12, 2 Th 3:11, Heb 4:6, 2 Pe 3:9

Of all the above quotes (note that "all" refers to these quotes, not every quote in the Bible - grin), I can only find two places where the word is translated "any". One place is 2 Peter 3:9, the other is Acts 9:2...

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Acts 9:2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

Even in the above verse, the meaning is clearly referring to certain men - those of the way. But it would be awkward to translate it as "certain" in English, and the fact that it is a subset of men is clear from the context. </font>[/QUOTE]Exactly. It wouldn't fit to put 'certain' instead of any because the text clearly means 'any' of the men referred to and not just certain of them.

And in the context of 2 Peter 3:9 the context is all men. So Peter means any of all men.

The translators could easily have used the word 'certain' instead of 'any' if they thought it was the best translation of 2 Peter 3:9. Evidently they didn't.

The fact that it is an unusual way to translate the word rather argues against you in that it shows they deliberately didn't render it 'certain' even though that is a common meaning of it.

But that it is translated 'any', anywhere else in Scripture shows it to be a legitimate translation.

So this is where we end up: your contextual argument that in context 'any' means 'certain' in Acts 9:2 fails because the context is 'all men' in 2 Peter 3:9. And your argument that it generally means 'certain' fails because that only serves to demonstrate that the translators very deliberately didn't put 'certain' in 2 Peter 3:9, in spite of it being one meaning of that particular form of the Greek word. Therefore, neither of your arguments stand up under scrutiny.

Since these arguments fail, we are left with no reason to translate 'any' as 'certain' in 2 Peter 3:9 except that your theology forces you to put the word 'certain' in there.

Helen/AITB

 

[npetreley]

Helen, I did not change what I said. Here is a quote from my original reply. The only thing I did not specify was that the form was tinaV, but I did recommend that you beware of the error of looking up the root word and not the form.

The word translated "any" in "to us-ward, not willing that any should perish" means "certain" (as in certain people) or "some". So, IMO, he is talking about the elect.

I recommend you do a word study for yourself. But beware that while the root word "tis" can mean "any", if you look at how this particular form is used everywhere else in the NT, you'll see that even on the very rare occasion when it is translated "any" it clearly refers to a certain subset of people. (I can't even remember where else it's translated "any", and I can't find that verse).

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by AITB:
And in the context of 2 Peter 3:9 the context is all men. So Peter means any of all men.

You are reading it backwards. It says he is not willing that (who?) "any/certain/some" should perish, BUT that that (who?) all (all of who?)...

Originally posted by AITB:
The translators could easily have used the word 'certain' instead of 'any' if they thought it was the best translation of 2 Peter 3:9. Evidently they didn't.

You're right. Evidently they didn't. I think it's a poor translation, especially given the usage of the same exact Greek word everywhere else. You have a right to your opinion that the translators trump anything I have to say. I have no problem with that. You asked me what my interpretation was, I told you and I backed it up with references to other appearances of the same word. Take it or leave it.

 

[AITB]

Originally posted by npetreley:
Helen, I did not change what I said. Here is a quote from my original reply. The only thing I did not specify was that the form was tinaV, but I did recommend that you beware of the error of looking up the root word and not the form.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />The word translated "any" in "to us-ward, not willing that any should perish" means "certain" (as in certain people) or "some". So, IMO, he is talking about the elect.

I recommend you do a word study for yourself. But beware that while the root word "tis" can mean "any", if you look at how this particular form is used everywhere else in the NT, you'll see that even on the very rare occasion when it is translated "any" it clearly refers to a certain subset of people. (I can't even remember where else it's translated "any", and I can't find that verse).

</font>[/QUOTE]Ok, sorry; I guess I didn't read it carefully enough

Helen

 

[AITB]

Originally posted by npetreley:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by AITB:
And in the context of 2 Peter 3:9 the context is all men. So Peter means any of all men.

You are reading it backwards. It says he is not willing that (who?) "any/certain/some" should perish, BUT that that (who?) all (all of who?)... </font>[/QUOTE]I don't see how you can know that unless there are things in the Greek I don't know about, which give 'any' precedence over 'all'. The structure as I see it in English is that Peter has two equivalent phrases; it's somewhat repetitive for emphasis. Peter says it negatively then positively.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by AITB:
The translators could easily have used the word 'certain' instead of 'any' if they thought it was the best translation of 2 Peter 3:9. Evidently they didn't.

You're right. Evidently they didn't. I think it's a poor translation, especially given the usage of the same exact Greek word everywhere else. You have a right to your opinion that the translators trump anything I have to say. I have no problem with that. You asked me what my interpretation was, I told you and I backed it up with references to other appearances of the same word. Take it or leave it. </font>[/QUOTE]Thank you for your answers.

I certainly know more about the way that Calvinists interpret that verse than I used to

I came to the conclusion a while ago that I'd rather say "I don't understand how these two texts go together" than "this one must mean such and such because of what the other one says". It is more important to me to say 'this is what the text says' than to have a system where I've worked out how every verse supports a particular theology. That's where I'm coming from and I don't expect that will change any time soon, although I try to be open to new information

Helen/AITB