canadyjd
Well-Known Member
I believe the biblical “version” of election. I have explained why. We don’t have to agree.
Have a nice day
Peace to you
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When were we Chosen?
- Thread starter Van
- Start date
Have a nice day
Peace to you
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
God foreknowing who will freely trust in Him is not Him picking out who will trust in Him as your view would suggest.
If He picked out those to be saved then He also picked out those that would be lost. In both cases those picked had no option but to fulfill the choices of God. So we have to ask why would He then say His desire was for all to come to repentance? Also why judge men for rejecting Him when he determined that they would? They were just doing what He had determined that they do.
Perhaps I was not deep enough in my comments. Yehovah God created this Rime/Space Continuum, placing Him into a Realm we cannot define. We know there is nothing but truth in Him. Therefore, there is no conflict in the Holy Scriptures, and it is impossible to understand any scripture without the light of all scripture shinning on it and this light is imposed, only by Ruah, (the Holy Spirit.) As per the whole of scripture, it is understood that Yehovah views the beginning and the end, a lesson learned from the Prophetic Writings contained in our Bibles.
All Scripture is truth, all mankind is called to repent and to live life serving Yehovah God, and He inscribed the Book of Life before He created the first man, meaning He is still issuing the call to repent, even today. The scriptures are not in conflict, but are found to be hand in hand,
I pray this is clear now.
All Scripture is truth, all mankind is called to repent and to live life serving Yehovah God, and He inscribed the Book of Life before He created the first man, meaning He is still issuing the call to repent, even today. The scriptures are not in conflict, but are found to be hand in hand,
I pray this is clear now.
canadyjd
Well-Known Member
canadyjd
Well-Known Member
Romans 8 refers to “those He foreknew…” are the ones He chose.
The context does not refer to knowing something about these folks (that they would believe), but rather knowing them in a personal relationship.
To suggest God looked through time, saw who would believe, and then predestined them to salvation, completely distorts the meaning of the word “predestined”.
Peace to you
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
I do not have any questions as I know what the bible says.
Now if you were to read Romans 9 without reading into it then you would have your questions answered.
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Silverhair
Well-Known Member
God being Omniscient foreknows all those that will freely trust in Him. He does not have to look through time as you put it.
The bible is clear that "whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son" Does not say predestined them to be saved, that is just you misreading the text.
Knowing that they would freely believe is why He could predestine them to be conformed to the image of His son through the sanctification of the Spirit.
canadyjd
Well-Known Member
Well, you did ask questions and you don’t know what the Bible teaches. These were the questions you asked
Answer in Romans 9. He has mercy on whom He chooses and He hardens whom He choses
Answer from Romans 9. You will say why does He still find fault? Who can resist His will? Who are you, oh man, who answers back to God.
You are in continuous error because you are ignorant of what scripture teaches, on the one hand, and determined to never allow the truth of scripture to get in the way of your man made philosophy that attempts to hold God to your secular understanding of what is fair.
God chooses individuals for salvation. He also chose the one and only method by which they would come into that right relationship with Himself.
Show me from Romans 9 how I am wrong. Remember, just because you say it doesn’t make it true.
Peace to you
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
Not questions but statements.
You have misunderstood Romans 9. But I do not expect much from you in regard too the truth of scripture. You give the calvinist story line as if it were the truth but it is a flawed version of the word of God.
Just because I do not accept your calvinist explanation of scripture does not mean I am ignorant of what scripture teaches rather it just means I am not willing to believe a philosophy based on pagan teaching from the 4th century.
Read Romans 9 without your calvinist glasses and you will see your errors.
The Romans 9 passage is Paul’s answer to the Jewish objections of, ‘Why must one believe in Jesus if one is physically descended from Abraham, given God’s blessings on Abraham?’ and also, ‘How can it be that God will show favour on the Gentiles?’ Rom. 9 accentuates that belief in God is for salvation, not physical, descended merit.
Rom 9:30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith;
Rom 9:31 but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.
Rom 9:32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
You should take your own advise "Remember, just because you say it doesn’t make it true."
Tea
Active Member
God is omniscient and foreknew that unless He intervened, nobody ever would freely trust in Him by their own volition.
That’s why it’s necessary that He choose to save some so as not to allow the entirety of humanity to perish.
canadyjd
Well-Known Member
But you didn’t address the answer to your question, which you did ask, not statements.
Why does He still find fault, who can resist His will? Who are you, oh man, that talks back to God.
Not surprising you cannot address these passages. They answer your questions and you don’t like the answer scripture very clearly gives, so you ignore these passages and deflect away.
That’s alright, we will always disagree. I will follow the teachings of scripture. You will follow scripture until it conflicts with your secular, man made philosophy of what is fair.
Peace to you
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
Tea as I have said numerous times on this board God in omniscient and foreknows all those that will freely trust in Him for their salvation.
God has used various means to draw man to Himself creation, conviction of sin, the gospel message, etc. But it is still man that has to respond to those various means Tea. God does not force them to trust in Him as your DoG/TULIP suggests.
Calvinism requires that God force man to come to Him via Irresistible Grace. That is not a biblical view Tea.
The Calvinist/Reformed {C/R} theology has made the good faith offer of salvation moot. If, according to C/R, you are not part of this select group then you are doomed form the start. And on top of that God has even decreed just the way you will act out your sinful life and then condemns you for it.
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
You do need to learn how to read @canadyjd.
When you take of those calvinist glasses and read all of Romans 9 you will find that your cherry picking of verses or words does not support the flawed view you hold.
Rom_9:6-29 does not teach unconditional election. When studied in its context, the passage clearly is seen to deal with the question of the circumstance of Israel, rather than the personal salvation of the individual. Paul's argument affirms only that God as sovereign Creator is free to order all things as He pleases and to bestow or deny favors as He chooses without becoming answerable to men.
The extended passage shows that the basis of Israel's fall (and thus of election of some and hardening of others) is unbelief; but that the fall is not final, that there is a remnant, that they are not beyond recovery if they will turn from unbelief (Rom_9:30 - Rom_11:36).
Paul tells us that no one is truly Israel unless he is governed by God. Although the Jews were God's chosen people, we see that for now He has chosen others on the basis of Grace - not race. We have a parallel situation with the word ‘Christian.’ Not everyone who is called a Christian is truly a follower of Christ.
@canadyjd as long as you continue to ignore context you will continue to misunderstand the word of God. You will continue to hold to your 4th century philosophy and I will hold to the word of God.
So you are correct in that we will not agree.
Tea
Active Member
@Silverhair
You still seem to be missing the biblical concept of free will. Prior to regeneration, a person is only free to persist in rebelling against God. Once regeneration occurs, a person is free to choose to follow God.
That’s biblical.
You continue to insist that man possesses a morally neutral free will to choose to follow or reject God independently.
That’s not biblical.
I’ve asked you before to show me verses to support your view. You’ve mentioned many, such as Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9, etc…
You’re not putting that together with the fact that God must first change a person’s nature so that they can respond favorably to the call to repent and believe.
Acts 16:14 (ESV)
One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
It’s so clear, and it’s a shame that you can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes.
You still seem to be missing the biblical concept of free will. Prior to regeneration, a person is only free to persist in rebelling against God. Once regeneration occurs, a person is free to choose to follow God.
That’s biblical.
You continue to insist that man possesses a morally neutral free will to choose to follow or reject God independently.
That’s not biblical.
I’ve asked you before to show me verses to support your view. You’ve mentioned many, such as Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9, etc…
You’re not putting that together with the fact that God must first change a person’s nature so that they can respond favorably to the call to repent and believe.
Acts 16:14 (ESV)
One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
It’s so clear, and it’s a shame that you can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes.
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
@Tea You still seem to be missing the biblical concept of free will.
Either man has a free will or all his choices are determined.
You continue to ignore the flaws in that calvinist theory Tea.
Jos 24:15 "If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve:
Joh 7:16 “My teaching is not My own,” Jesus replied. “It comes from Him who sent Me.
Joh 7:17 If anyone desires to do His will, he will know whether My teaching is from God or whether I speak on My own.
Deu 4:29 But if from there you will seek the LORD your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Heb 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Sure looks like free will to trust in God prior to being saved.
Calvinists have it backwards
"A man is not saved because he believes in Christ, he believes in Christ because he is saved" Calvinist Loraine Boettner
So you have just decided to ignore the verses that support a man's free will and then point to Act 16:14 as support. But did you not notice that it says she was "a worshiper of God". When she listened to Paul she came to know of Christ Jesus.
Look at the text for yourself. It does NOT say that God opened her heart to believe. “To believe” is an assumption, added by Calvinists. What it does say is that she already worshiped G4576 God.
Lydia had become a believer in Israel's God and, as a Gentile, was classified as a God-fearer as was Cornelius Act_10:1-2
(Act_13:16, Act_13:26, Act_13:50). That is, the Jews had not fully accepted her as a convert.
It’s so clear, and it’s a shame that you can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes. You are letting a 4th century philosophy distort the word of God.
Tea
Active Member
The natural person has the freedom to make choices that align with their own desires, and God has the authority to determine how He will utilize those choices to align with His own desires.
Man can only choose for themselves to seek and believe in God after they have been given a desire to do so.
I disagree with whoever said that. Being chosen will inevitably result in salvation, but salvation doesn’t happen until a person believes in Christ.
It is actually you who ignores verses when you skip ahead to the Philippian jailer, assuming he had the freedom to choose to believe, even though it was established earlier in the chapter that God must open the heart.
Nobody is asserting that because God opened her heart, that atomically caused her to believe. But He did give her a new nature, and with that, a desire to believe.
Are you suggesting that she had some kind of special revelation because she was worshipping through the law?
You continue to harp on 4th-century philosophy when I’ve already provided evidence in another thread that Christians understood unconditional election to be true well before Augustine.
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
You seem to be confused as to what regeneration means Tea.
In theology, new birth by the grace of God Webster
The new birth and "regeneration" do not represent successive stages in spiritual experience, they refer to the same event Vine NT
So you have people saved prior them knowing God and choosing to follow Him.
But the bible does not agree with your view
Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved through faith
Under your calvinist view God determines all the choices that man will make. The man has no ability to make independent choices.
You keep forgetting your LBCF
"God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass;"
So your comment does not hold water Tea.
Well since God desires all men to turn and trust in Him then it would seem that God has given all men the ability to turn and trust in Him. That is unless God is just being less than honest or perhaps He did not get the calvinist memo.
Your version of God even judges those that do not turn and trust in Him which if they can only do so if God gives them that desire really calls into question the character of the God you are referring to.
Yopu are presenting an unbiblical view Tea.
Then you cannot be a calvinist Tea. If you say you are then you are a really confused one.
There you go falling back to that errant view again Tea. We can be chosen for service but we are only saved when we have freely trusted in God not before. When we are in the "Elect One" then we are one of the elect not before.
Tea nothing has been established except that the jailer responded to the gospel message and freely asked “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” He responded to one of the various means that God used to draw man to Himself.
The calvinist's want to ignore what God does to draw all men. Do you think Christ was wrong when He said he would draw "All Men"? Or are you going to tell me that All actually means Some?
Act 16:14 Among those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.
Excuse me but where do you see "He did give her a new nature" in that text. You are reading your preconceived views into the text Tea. Lydia was already a worshiper of God and what Paul did was point here to the reality of Christ Jesus.
So were Paul, John, Peter and all the other Jews. Not all that hear the message will accept it, they did not then and they do not now. But according to the calvinist view the only reason that any reject it is because God has determined that they would.
That is not a biblical view but calvinists seem to be quite comfortable with it.
Actually you have not Tea. Clement, according to the text you provided did not support your view.
I keep pointing all you calvinists back to Augustine and the pagan philosophy that he brought into the church and which Calvin and later calvinists have just carried forward to today.
Why anyone would support a philosophy that has pagan teaching in it is a puzzle to me. You are casting away the word of God.
God destroyed the pagan cultures and now calvinism has brought those teachings into the church.
Tea
Active Member
That doesn’t negate the fact that God must change a person’s heart before they can be regenerated.
They are saved through faith at the appointed time that God has set.
Every decision made by a person is their own individual choice. The only exception is that they cannot independently choose to follow God if they are a slave to sin.
Or perhaps you’re not properly understanding who the “all men” are in context.
Those whom God didn’t give that desire to never would. That doesn’t make God unjust; he’s simply letting them be the way they want to be by their own choice.
You’re constantly misrepresenting what Calvinists believe, so forgive me if I can’t help but chuckle at that comment.
What was established is that God had to open Lydia’s heart for her to listen to the Gospel message. For some reason, you want to say that the Gospel message is the mechanism to entice someone to believe but could fail.
If the proper context demands it, then yes, I will tell you that.
What else do you think it means?
Hebrews 8:10 (ESV)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Could Paul have turned down God’s calling and pursued the law instead, despite being born to be an apostle to the Gentiles?
Galatians 1:15 (ESV)
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,
The early church concentrated primarily on protecting itself from the gnostics. It was Pagan Rome that started to undermine God’s sovereignty through the sacraments.
So, I can see how you might think it was just a new fad that came along in the 4th century, but that doesn’t make it true.
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
They are reborn/regenerated because they believe not so that the will believe as your calvinism says Tea.
God has provided various means by which man can know God. Man is the one that has to change his opinion, his heart if you will, about God. God does not do it for them.
Of course God knows when the person will turn in faith but God does not force the man to turn in faith as your calvinism says Tea.
Where do you get that silly idea that a slave cannot make a choice. God judges man for the choices he makes but if we follow your logic then He is judging them for choices then they are incapable of making because He has not given them the ability to do so. That does not seem like a very just God. Actually your view makes God unjust.
Joh 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
Joh 3:15 that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Joh 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
Joh 12:31 Now judgment is upon this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out.
Joh 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to Myself.”
Joh 12:33 He said this to indicate the kind of death He was going to die.
You are right we should look at the context and what it shows is that Christ will draw all men to Himself that they may be saved because that is the reason the Father sent Him.
Since your version of God has determined all things that will happen then the only way that those people could sin is if your version of God made it so.
Your version of God is at odds with the God of scripture.
When I quote calvinists I am told I misrepresent calvinism. All I do is point out the errors of your theology as it relates to scripture.
The bible is the standard not your man-made religion Tea.
Of course the gospel message can fail. Do you see everyone that hears the message turn in faith?
Do you not remember Peter's first message? Did all the Jews turn to God in faith? The gospel is the power of God to salvation but only for those that believe. Many will hear the message and reject it.
What was established is that Lydia was already a worshiper of God and through Paul's message came to know of Christ Jesus. She was not made more saved by that knowledge as you seem to think.
Then why do you disregard context?
Lydia already had a nature of worship of God did she get a different nature of worship of God?
Now you just said we need to look at context and if you had done so with Heb 8:10 then you would not be using it to support your case.
Context Heb 8:7-13 shows us that we are looking to the time when Israel will turn to Christ in faith, which as we know will not be until Christ returns in power.
Actually no I do not think Paul could have as he had been chosen for a specific task. Just as David was chosen for a specific task.
But that has nothing to do with whether a person will or will not respond to the gospel message.
Note the order Tea, they have to hear, then believe, then they are saved. Eph 1:13
Rom 10:13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Yes the early church was concerned with the Gnostics. But then we had Augustine bring Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Gonsticism, and Manichaeism into the church and many of those views are now found in calvinism.
I did not think it was a new fad Tea, I was just pointing out to calvinists that the basis of their theology is pagan thought.
I am curious why any Christian today would support what is clearly pagan teachings just because Augustine, Calvin and later calvinist told you those views were biblical.
Tea
Active Member
What is the sequence of events? Was her heart opened because she paid attention to what was said by Paul? Or was her heart opened so that she was able to pay attention to what was said by Paul?
Acts 16:14 (ESV)
One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
Nobody is saying God is believing for anybody. The only way a person can be saved is by faith in Christ. There are no "various means" that God uses to entice a lost person to believe. It's always been the Gospel.
God doesn't force a person to have faith, but He does give them the ability to have faith, and then they will believe all on their own.
John 8:34 (ESV)
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
The natural man only wants to follow their own desires, and yes, God will judge them for their actions. He is perfectly just to leave some the way they are and save some out of mercy.
If the Father's intention is to universally draw all men to the Son, but the Son will fail to raise up some at the last day, then you've created a contradiction within the triune Godhead. If you take a closer look, you'll see that Jews and Greeks are in view of "all men."
God doesn't hold a gun up to a person and tell them to sin or else, but He did create a world where sin was possible, and man will always choose to sin by their own choice.
As do I.
I think we should be careful about dismissing others' beliefs as an entirely separate religion. I have no problem saying that some Catholics are saved, but if they are, it is in spite of the RCC, not because of it.
So sometimes Jesus fails to save?
What I see in Scripture is that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. For everyone else, it results in their salvation perfectly.
Could she have been saved just by being a worshipper of God? What if Paul had not come along with the Gospel message?
That seems to be the dispensational understanding, and I'm not a dispensationalist. Regardless, God always initiates a change in a person's heart without their cooperation needed.
Acts 15:9 (ESV)
And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
So Paul and David didn't have free will, but everyone else does. How does that work, exactly?
I agree. The elect will do exactly that.
You may or may not be aware of it, but by definition, synergism requires man to cooperate with God. That's exactly how all of the pagan religions in the history of the world have operated.