Understanding God’s election
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I have been studying with this in mind since you mentioned it a couple weeks ago. It sure seems to fit. I have yet to find anything that throws up a red flag. It adds a little more meaning to this.........
Gen 2:2
By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Not that He needed to rest. But, doing it through His humanity as an example for our work.
Thanks for this nugget. Love it.
Gen 2:2
By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Not that He needed to rest. But, doing it through His humanity as an example for our work.
Thanks for this nugget. Love it.
That is where we differ. You believe the natural man, who is unable to understand or receive the spiritual
things of God, and is a lover of darkness captive to the will of the devil, enslaved to sin and suppressing
the truth in unrighteousness, can by the volition of their captive will decide to believe what thy are
inherently hostile to in their mind and stony heart. You have a bad tree bringing forth good fruit, and
I cannot agree with your assessment of the order of things. I believe God had to do a work in me first
and I further believe that Scripture plainly bears this out. When I believed, I was sealed with the
promised Holy Spirit. Being sealed is not the same as being made alive in Christ or heart circumcision.
things of God, and is a lover of darkness captive to the will of the devil, enslaved to sin and suppressing
the truth in unrighteousness, can by the volition of their captive will decide to believe what thy are
inherently hostile to in their mind and stony heart. You have a bad tree bringing forth good fruit, and
I cannot agree with your assessment of the order of things. I believe God had to do a work in me first
and I further believe that Scripture plainly bears this out. When I believed, I was sealed with the
promised Holy Spirit. Being sealed is not the same as being made alive in Christ or heart circumcision.
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John 16:8-9
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
Matt 27:51
And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split.
John 12:32
32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Luke 3:6
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”
2 Cor 6:2
For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Acts 16:31~~~Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved....
Equal privilege, equal opportunity for ALL.
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
Matt 27:51
And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split.
John 12:32
32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Luke 3:6
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”
2 Cor 6:2
For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Acts 16:31~~~Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved....
Equal privilege, equal opportunity for ALL.
Where in any of what I said did I claim I was forced? Nah, that is just another preposterous assumption based
on a faulty premise leading to illogical reasoning and an erroneous conclusion. Aren't you the one who once
castigated me because I did not know all of what you believed? And yet here you are still, clueless as to what
I believe. When God circumcises a person's heart, Scripture says it is so they MAY love Him. Do you see force
implied in that? I do not. Somehow you want to believe it is there, though. Why? Just so you can claim to know
things you do not? That is not a sensible tack for you to take, though common. How do you feel about Jesus
saying all those God gives Him WILL come? Were you pre-programmed also and made a robotic response?
Because no choice is implied in that. What about as a natural man... do you see that guy as being pre-
programmed also? You should. You were born after Adam, after all, as are we all but Christ Himself.
The problem too is that you make the natural man equal to Christ in His ability to lay aside His human will
to submit to the will of the Father. I wonder that you do not see the short-sightedness of that. To wrap up
here, hoping I have left nothing of import out (there is always so much to say on this topic! LOL) what do
you feel or think or believe of what Peter said, after acknowledging Who Christ was and is? This was revealed
to him through Spiritual means. Why would he choose to leave after having the Truth revealed to him? Do you
believe he made a robotic pre-programmed choice? If you do I can see why you might want to ascribe that
to others, although doing so does not make it any more true than mistakenly doing so in the first place.
But I suppose you have been programmed to say such things, in lieu of acknowledging the truth...
on a faulty premise leading to illogical reasoning and an erroneous conclusion. Aren't you the one who once
castigated me because I did not know all of what you believed? And yet here you are still, clueless as to what
I believe. When God circumcises a person's heart, Scripture says it is so they MAY love Him. Do you see force
implied in that? I do not. Somehow you want to believe it is there, though. Why? Just so you can claim to know
things you do not? That is not a sensible tack for you to take, though common. How do you feel about Jesus
saying all those God gives Him WILL come? Were you pre-programmed also and made a robotic response?
Because no choice is implied in that. What about as a natural man... do you see that guy as being pre-
programmed also? You should. You were born after Adam, after all, as are we all but Christ Himself.
The problem too is that you make the natural man equal to Christ in His ability to lay aside His human will
to submit to the will of the Father. I wonder that you do not see the short-sightedness of that. To wrap up
here, hoping I have left nothing of import out (there is always so much to say on this topic! LOL) what do
you feel or think or believe of what Peter said, after acknowledging Who Christ was and is? This was revealed
to him through Spiritual means. Why would he choose to leave after having the Truth revealed to him? Do you
believe he made a robotic pre-programmed choice? If you do I can see why you might want to ascribe that
to others, although doing so does not make it any more true than mistakenly doing so in the first place.
But I suppose you have been programmed to say such things, in lieu of acknowledging the truth...
After all this time, you are still without understanding of my positions...smh.
I'll start with an objection I have. Anyone who can't discuss ideas without labeling has a weak mind. Talking about what others believe and assigning those beliefs to another because some of the beliefs are similar is both insulting and disingenuous. I was saved at 31. My understanding of the Bible and God was slim and none. I never studied the writings of anyone in church history. My views are mine. I have listened to thousands upon thousands of sermons from a wide variety of sources. So if you are ever going to be genuine in a discussion, you are going to have to listen to what people actually say and not what you think they are saying because of your preconceptions. In this same vein, it is equally insulting and disingenuous to act as though you are the final authority on a subject and what you share is all there is to say on a matter.
If you are still reading at this point, I'll address the other issues. The idea that God only acts intermittently in the affairs of man and creation is simply false. Hebrews 1:3 says Jesus upholds all things by the word of His power. There isn't a moment in time when God is not involved in His creation. This includes man. But God is also intimately involved in the affairs of man. God is always at work. So much so that Jesus was able to say that He did only what He saw the Father doing. What do you suppose He saw? Are we not supposed to be living the same way? This is why I reject the idea of a distant God in favor of One who is a very near and present help.
As far as the nature of fallen natural man, I didn't set his limitations...God did. So you should ask yourself why are you bothered by some restrictions and not others? Are you upset that God has made you as you are? Or that He has set the bounds of your habitation? Probably not. Why? Because God can choose what He wants to choose for His creation. He is the Potter and has all authority. So you don't object on the basis of authority. You object because of your ideas about who God is. You believe that the love of God must compel Him to always act lovingly, or at least give everyone every possible opportunity and that God must always exercise grace. Yet this doesn't comport to the actions God has taken throughout history, biblically or otherwise. Your response to this is to leave these apparent contradictions as being covered some way by the love of God beyond what scripture teaches and not to conform your understanding of God to what the scripture plainly makes known of God.
Lastly, God is neither culpable for sin, nor the actions of mankind. God could literally make everyone 3 feet tall and require an individual to dunk a basketball on a 10 foot goal to be saved and He would be exactly as righteous and loving as He has always been. If no one was ever saved, God would still be love. His attributes don't change on the basis of their use. God is in the glory business. His purpose in creation was to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory. And equally glorified in all of His attributes. So the greater all of God's attributes are known, the greater the glory that will be ascribed to Him. With such a goal, one should expect that God will indeed make all of His attributes known. And so He is.
I'll start with an objection I have. Anyone who can't discuss ideas without labeling has a weak mind. Talking about what others believe and assigning those beliefs to another because some of the beliefs are similar is both insulting and disingenuous. I was saved at 31. My understanding of the Bible and God was slim and none. I never studied the writings of anyone in church history. My views are mine. I have listened to thousands upon thousands of sermons from a wide variety of sources. So if you are ever going to be genuine in a discussion, you are going to have to listen to what people actually say and not what you think they are saying because of your preconceptions. In this same vein, it is equally insulting and disingenuous to act as though you are the final authority on a subject and what you share is all there is to say on a matter.
If you are still reading at this point, I'll address the other issues. The idea that God only acts intermittently in the affairs of man and creation is simply false. Hebrews 1:3 says Jesus upholds all things by the word of His power. There isn't a moment in time when God is not involved in His creation. This includes man. But God is also intimately involved in the affairs of man. God is always at work. So much so that Jesus was able to say that He did only what He saw the Father doing. What do you suppose He saw? Are we not supposed to be living the same way? This is why I reject the idea of a distant God in favor of One who is a very near and present help.
As far as the nature of fallen natural man, I didn't set his limitations...God did. So you should ask yourself why are you bothered by some restrictions and not others? Are you upset that God has made you as you are? Or that He has set the bounds of your habitation? Probably not. Why? Because God can choose what He wants to choose for His creation. He is the Potter and has all authority. So you don't object on the basis of authority. You object because of your ideas about who God is. You believe that the love of God must compel Him to always act lovingly, or at least give everyone every possible opportunity and that God must always exercise grace. Yet this doesn't comport to the actions God has taken throughout history, biblically or otherwise. Your response to this is to leave these apparent contradictions as being covered some way by the love of God beyond what scripture teaches and not to conform your understanding of God to what the scripture plainly makes known of God.
Lastly, God is neither culpable for sin, nor the actions of mankind. God could literally make everyone 3 feet tall and require an individual to dunk a basketball on a 10 foot goal to be saved and He would be exactly as righteous and loving as He has always been. If no one was ever saved, God would still be love. His attributes don't change on the basis of their use. God is in the glory business. His purpose in creation was to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory. And equally glorified in all of His attributes. So the greater all of God's attributes are known, the greater the glory that will be ascribed to Him. With such a goal, one should expect that God will indeed make all of His attributes known. And so He is.
And yet Augustine taught free will. You are mightily deceived.
Augustine wrote a treatise on freedom of choice and human responsibility called
De libero arbitrio, which he began in 388 and may have completed as late as 395.
Structured as a dialogue in three volumes, he emphasized human freedom.
I bet you subscribe to and promote other errors Augustine taught, also.
Augustine wrote a treatise on freedom of choice and human responsibility called
De libero arbitrio, which he began in 388 and may have completed as late as 395.
Structured as a dialogue in three volumes, he emphasized human freedom.
I bet you subscribe to and promote other errors Augustine taught, also.
If you accept that Jesus was The Word ,God,made flesh then you must agree Jesus didn't ask that question of his Disciples because He didn't know the answer.
Jesus said He chose the Disciples. That they didn't choose Him.
He didn't say that to those others who left Him later. God does not waste His time.
I see Jesus' asking the Disciples that question as a test. Not because He didn't already know the answer but because He wanted them to ponder the depths of their convictions to Him and His ministry.
Jesus said He chose the Disciples. That they didn't choose Him.
He didn't say that to those others who left Him later. God does not waste His time.
I see Jesus' asking the Disciples that question as a test. Not because He didn't already know the answer but because He wanted them to ponder the depths of their convictions to Him and His ministry.
Of course, freewillers will predictably answer "yes" to all the above questions since their "freewill" is powerful and effectual! 
But I do want to make a few observations about your last question that is alluding to Eph 2:5, which absolutely demolishes FWT!
We mustn't forget that freewillers vehemently insist that the new birth, spiritual resurrection, circumcision of the heart, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the new heart, etc. all occur AFTER a sinner initiated his own salvation by loving and electing God first, repenting and believing the Gospel. THEN God reacts afterwards by providing all the spiritual "perks" I mentioned and more. But...not according to Paul! If FWT were biblical, Paul could have never written what he did! He would have had to have said something along these lines, "God made us alive...after we believed and were still dead in our sins".
The second thing that is worthy of attention is that if the Ephesians had been raised up after they came to faith and repentance, then this implies that they overcame the power of death by themselves by their acts of repentance and faith, which would make the idea of a follow-up resurrection by God anti-climatic, absurd, useless and meaningless. Why would God need to raise them up, since WHEN they were still in their dead state, the sovereign power of their own 'freewill" freed them from the power of their spiritual state of death? In fact, they overcame the power of the Evil One who holds the power of death and did only what Jesus could do (Heb 2:14)! They themselves overcame the power of Satan and death and the evidence of this is that the "GOOD" soil of their own "GOOD" hearts produced the GOOD fruit of faith and repentance. This must be the case, since Jesus did teach that bad trees cannot produce good fruit (Mk 7:18)! Therefore, why would God need to add any spiritual "perks" whatsoever to people who already had good hearts that were able to bear the good fruit of repentance and faith?
The third noteworthy observation is that Paul clearly equates the Ephesians' spiritual resurrection with God's effectual grace with this last clause in v.5: "...it is by grace you have been saved". He gives zero credit to the Ephesians' faith and repentance as the reason or impetus for God's grace. Grace can never be Grace if the reason for Grace is ever found in the recipients' hearts or actions; for then God would in fact be rewarding or repaying them for their good deeds of faith and repentance. He would in fact be reciprocating favor upon them for the "favor" they first displayed toward Him! (As I have often said: In FWT, salvation is reduced to a quid pro quo business-type arrangement: Man must first do his part before God can do his. God is reduced to merely man's co-worker in his salvation! But this theory runs counter to numerous scriptures, including all the unilateral New Covenant promises.) Therefore, God's grace is indeed effectual because HIS power alone raised the Ephesians from their spiritual tombs! They had as much to do with their own spiritual resurrection as Lazarus had with his own physical resurrection! Lazarus was raised up by the power of Jesus' effectual grace; and so, too, were the Ephesians!
But I do want to make a few observations about your last question that is alluding to Eph 2:5, which absolutely demolishes FWT!
We mustn't forget that freewillers vehemently insist that the new birth, spiritual resurrection, circumcision of the heart, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the new heart, etc. all occur AFTER a sinner initiated his own salvation by loving and electing God first, repenting and believing the Gospel. THEN God reacts afterwards by providing all the spiritual "perks" I mentioned and more. But...not according to Paul! If FWT were biblical, Paul could have never written what he did! He would have had to have said something along these lines, "God made us alive...after we believed and were still dead in our sins".
The second thing that is worthy of attention is that if the Ephesians had been raised up after they came to faith and repentance, then this implies that they overcame the power of death by themselves by their acts of repentance and faith, which would make the idea of a follow-up resurrection by God anti-climatic, absurd, useless and meaningless. Why would God need to raise them up, since WHEN they were still in their dead state, the sovereign power of their own 'freewill" freed them from the power of their spiritual state of death? In fact, they overcame the power of the Evil One who holds the power of death and did only what Jesus could do (Heb 2:14)! They themselves overcame the power of Satan and death and the evidence of this is that the "GOOD" soil of their own "GOOD" hearts produced the GOOD fruit of faith and repentance. This must be the case, since Jesus did teach that bad trees cannot produce good fruit (Mk 7:18)! Therefore, why would God need to add any spiritual "perks" whatsoever to people who already had good hearts that were able to bear the good fruit of repentance and faith?
The third noteworthy observation is that Paul clearly equates the Ephesians' spiritual resurrection with God's effectual grace with this last clause in v.5: "...it is by grace you have been saved". He gives zero credit to the Ephesians' faith and repentance as the reason or impetus for God's grace. Grace can never be Grace if the reason for Grace is ever found in the recipients' hearts or actions; for then God would in fact be rewarding or repaying them for their good deeds of faith and repentance. He would in fact be reciprocating favor upon them for the "favor" they first displayed toward Him! (As I have often said: In FWT, salvation is reduced to a quid pro quo business-type arrangement: Man must first do his part before God can do his. God is reduced to merely man's co-worker in his salvation! But this theory runs counter to numerous scriptures, including all the unilateral New Covenant promises.) Therefore, God's grace is indeed effectual because HIS power alone raised the Ephesians from their spiritual tombs! They had as much to do with their own spiritual resurrection as Lazarus had with his own physical resurrection! Lazarus was raised up by the power of Jesus' effectual grace; and so, too, were the Ephesians!
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