Featured When Did God Choose His People?

God does not even choose who is born physically into the world except in a very few instances, like the birth of Jesus and Isaac, who is his type and figure. God has set natural laws into place and children are born through these processes. These natural laws can be manipulated and managed and even Calvinists can practice birth control, choosing the size families they have. Many children are conceived and are born out of wedlock, something God does not approve of, and others are the result of sexual crimes like rape.

Any Calvinist alive today must believe in double predestination, and he must believe in absolute determinism and anything they say to attempt to modify those awful doctrines is just an attempt at deception. The same God that chooses before the foundation of the world the product of a rape to be saved must of necessity predetermine the crime of rape or otherwise the person would never exist as that person and they would not be sired by that man.

But God did not do anything that even resembles what Calvinists say. God did not choose individuals before the foundation of the world but he did choose the collective church of Jesus Christ, fashioned over time by the addition of individual members that were added as they believed the gospel of Jesus Christ until they collectively become a complete body. The fashioning of this body in this age by including Jews and gentiles together as one body, filled with the Spirit is the mystery of Christ. The unfolding of these mysteries that characterize the church with our Lord Jesus as it's head is unique to this age while both Israel and the Lord Jesus are absent from the earth. Paul gives us several mysteries of this age and the reason for this goes against the determinism doctrine of the Calvinists. The reason is because it really was the Lord's will to establish his kingdom in his lifetime and if the nation would have received Christ as their Messiah and King, then these mysteries would have never happened and would never have been revealed. History would have been written very much differently.

So, there are two terms one must associate himself with if he will understand this age and the perfect holiness of God. One, he must understand the term "times of the gentiles" which simple means a time beginning during the days of Jeremiah the prophet when the last King of the line of David was deposed by the Babylonians and Israel will not see another King of his linage until King Jesus sits on the throne. The gentiles have ruled the world since that time

Two, one must associate himself with the term that Jesus himself coined in Matthew 13, after the rulers of Israel committed the unpardonable sin for the nation in Matthew 12 and his significant departure from the house of Israel into a ship sitting in the sea. These are all prophetic actions and the 7 parables in Matthew 13 tells the story of the future of this entire age, from it's beginning to it's tragic ending. It even speaks of some of you men and the groups you have become a part of and it is somewhat frightening to me. That term is "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." There are a total of 12 mysteries of the kingdom. The number 12 is God's number for his kingdom. Paul said he and the apostles had been made stewards of the mysteries of God. These mysteries would have never been known if Israel had been obedient and would have repented and believed in Jesus. They were mysteries because they were not the subjects of the OT writers and could not have been learned.

The purpose of Calvinism is to hide these mysteries of the NT church of Jesus Christ and how one becomes a part of it. When this age is finished, it will be like all other ages that have come to an end. There will be few believers but much religion. This is the main reason this age must end. it is because if God allowed it to continue, soon there would be no saved people left in the world.

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

Mt 13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

Eph 3:1 ¶ For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,
2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

Eph 3:9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

Lu 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

I cannot express how destructive (IMO) I think the Reformed gospel is.

 

This is hard. So opposite of Matthew 11:28-30. If this is the way it is, I'm going to hell. I can't get up and walk out of this room I'm in without sinning. So, why even try?

24 Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. Ro 7

FYI, I detest the 'Lordship Salvation' of the puritanicals. Bunch of judgmental intolerant fruit inspectors.

 

This is not looking good for the Calvinist cause, Ken.

Calvin would tan your hide but good!

 

In the early 2000's, Calvinist writers and internet guys would confound fundamentalist preachers and moderate Baptists with Romans 9 arguments and a few proof texts. I remember some guy would follow Swindoll everywhere and constantly challenge him with regeneration preceding faith for instance. Twenty years later the arguments against Calvinism have become more sophisticated with guys like Lennox and Craig and even Flowers.

The other thing that has happened is that many of us who got into Calvinism in that same time period did so for different reasons than the philosophical arguments on predestination. We started reading Puritan paperbacks which were newly discovered and found a more serious and satisfying Christianity than the shallow consumer driven, needs meeting, easy believism that much of Baptist Christianity had fallen into. The popularity of Paul Washer and MacArthur and his books on discipleship are proof of this. It was never the metaphysical arguments that we were concerned with primarily.

 

I'm glad I've met you Dave. You're a walking, talking, library. It will be nice to have your expertise at the fingertip.

Have you written any books?

 

Yeah. Sometimes I think the Puritans went too far. Their tendency to examine yourself is good if you also understand that perfection is not going to be possible. But many of them dealt with either antinomianism which said once you were saved you could do anything with impunity and Roman teaching which tended to say in practice that you do the rituals required by the church and worry little about practical living.

For us, it has become a tendency to trifle with sin, or depend upon an experience of salvation and you are told to "just make sure you really, really believed when you got saved. Then there was and is the teaching that one could be a "carnal Christian", forever and all is well as far as your salvation is concerned.

 

I believe you.

 

Ky and I are working on one together called: How to Man Up and Become a Waffling High T Mugwump

 

I am not sure that the "us" in 1:4 is speaking of us who are in this forum. What if Paul began writing his letter and verse 13 was the first verse in the letter after the salutation? What if the letter was written before 60 AD, say in 39 AD, a year before Peter opened the door of faith to gentiles? It would have made no sense. The history of the events had to take place in an observable time frame before the intentions of God through the church in this age could be explained, don't you think? All the history was past between Acts 1 and Acts 28 where the historical narrative of Luke ended and before Paul wrote this letter. One thing I am sure of and that is that v 13 and following does include me also together with them. Before V 13, they were chosen in Christ before the world began and the small remnant of believing Jews were first in the church and we were an addition at a later time. and under the principle called grace. That is what the words tells me and what is being explained. I actually do not think the emphasis of this letter is on the first ones in but the second ones in. A few chapters in Romans seems to put the emphasis on the first ones in.

What a book we have!

 

Ive read that, its pretty good.

 

When Did God Choose His People?

" Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4 according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." ( Ephesians 1:3-6 ).

 

These are some Passages that lead me to rest in the assurance of my salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 - "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,"

Ephesians 4:7 - "But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift."

Romans 12:3 - “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

Eternal life with Jesus Christ really is too good to be true. He is a good God~