Understanding God’s election

[Rufus]

Today's devotional by Charles Spurgeon is appropriate for this thread:

November 8th AM

"As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord."
Colossians 2:6


The life of faith is represented as receiving-- an act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit. It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells, or streams, they are but cisterns into which the living water flows; they are empty vessels into which God pours His salvation. The idea of receiving implies a sense of realization, making the matter a reality. One cannot very well receive a shadow; we receive that which is substantial: so is it in the life of faith, Christ becomes real to us. While we are without faith, Jesus is a mere name to us--a person who lived a long while ago, so long ago that His life is only a history to us now! By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. But receiving also means grasping or getting possession of. The thing which I receive becomes my own: I appropriate to myself that which is given. When I receive Jesus, He becomes my Saviour, so mine that neither life nor death shall be able to rob me of Him. All this is to receive Christ--to take Him as God's free gift; to realize Him in my heart, and to appropriate Him as mine.


Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received CHRIST JESUS Himself. It is true that He gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; He gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ Himself. The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received Him, and appropriated Him. What a heartful Jesus must be, for heaven itself cannot contain Him!

Yet, this receiving of sight by the blind, the receiving of hearing by the deaf and the receiving of life to awaken the dead -- all of these are results, according to many professing Christians, of sinners' acts of their "free" will. Sinners willed to receive sight, willed themselves to receiving their hearing, chose for God to bring them back from the dead, etc. And so...God being at the beck and call unworthy sinners, apparently, obliged them according to their sovereign will. Talk about getting things backwards!

 

[Rufus]

Rufus,

Our change/transformation/experience is evidence and the reason for assurance/confidence, NOT for asserting infallible knowledge; we walk by faith, not by sight/proof/absolute certainty per 2CR 5:6-8, PHP 1:6&14, CL 4:12, 2CR 5:7, etc.

We should harmonize all Scripture in order to have the best interpretation.

But scripture is infallible. And I only "assert" what is in God's Word.

Also, if you truly believe that your personal knowledge of God's Word is fallible, how do you post your version of the gospel with such certainty? I do walk with "absolute certainty" because I implicitly trust God's Word -- being confident also that whenever I'm wrong on something, God will eventually show that to me in his Word.

 

[decipher]

How does one know that we elect or sealed includes you?

God's sealing.

How did Peter know Cornelius and his family should be baptized?

Cornelius and family were already baptized during Peter's preaching because they received the Holy Spirit before Peter suggested water baptism. Peter was a Jewish Christian who still followed the Jewish tradition of getting spiritually cleansed by water baptism. John the baptist said that he baptized with water, but some one greater was going to baptize with a different medium called the Holy Spirit. It is not people that do the baptizing with the Holy Spirit, it is Jesus Christ. The same with Philip water baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. Even the apostles before Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension baptized with water. It was after Jesus went back to the Father to get glorified that Jesus was able to baptize with the Father's glory (Holy Spirit) which started at Pentecost.

 

[John146]

It seems that you don't understand why man was created in the first place. He was created to SERVE God and to glorify him. He was created as God's under lord to rule over His creation, etc. You asked a question about prayer, implying that you're unaware that God commands men to pray. So...very clearly that is God's will for his people. Did not Jesus teach the Lord's prayer to his disciples? It's not a question of what God "needs", for he needs absolutely NOTHING from fragile, finite, sinful mortals. Rather, it is a question of what he wants.

Aside from the insults, you did not answer my question. God desires us to prayer. He has instructed us to pray. Prayer matters to God. God's heart is reachable, touchable with our prayers. Our prayers can cause God to move on our behalf, move in ways that left to their own, would have never happened, but because we prayed, God made a way.

 

[ocean]

Grace ... as Paul tells it applied to himself .... is POWER to be something we can not be in our weak fallen state.

Saved by grace?

God's grace power must take our flesh and SILENCE it's effects over dominating our soul, so that our soul can decide for the Gospel!
Without grace? The flesh would dominate over the soul and make impossible for our soul to believe if it wanted to.
That is why we need to be saved by Grace!

No regeneration first! God's grace power provides the Gospel hearer a temporary God-imposed state of freedom to choose from their soul! Its all about volition in that case!

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” ​

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may ​

rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9​

'Power' is not unmerited favor!

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. ​

No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." 1 Cor 15:10​

Grace is God's enabling power granted by God, to enable believers to become what merits His favor!

Calvinists took a brave shot in the dark, and landed in a ditch.
The light that shines with what Paul stated should allow themselves to crawl out, and dust themselves off....
To begin once more walking by faith in truth in the grace power from God to recover.


Grace and peace ...........

I am not sure how you are applying the word 'power' to God's grace here. I do believe we have a choice and I do believe God actually does bring us to the place where we do have that choice (accept Christ) unlike Calvinists who believe we have no choice. I think you may be conflating the word power with the understanding of grace, taking into consideration your highlighting of the word power. Indeed, power is not unmerited favor but it is not grace either. I don't think we will agree on that.

 

[ocean]

The idea was to illuminate the foundational scriptures upon which other scriptures are dependent and have been built. The verses
built upon the foundation, cannot contradict the foundation or their interpretation is incorrect - in this case, the foundation is that it is solely by God, not by us.

The meaning of the verses I posted is that God uses the Holy Spirit to save those whom He had chosen to salvation "from the beginning", by whom He imparts unto them a belief in the truth. As conformation of that, we are told faith is given to those chosen by God through the Holy Spirit via His fruit upon His indwelling of them along with giving spiritual life (spiritual rebirth). Until then, they are unsaved and without true faith; the point being that one must first be given the Holy Spirit in order to become saved, and by Him, given faith, after which, upon their hearing of the gospel, they will believe.


He doesn't tell us to choose from one end of the Bible to the other; He tells us that it is He who chooses us, not that we choose Him.
For those He had chosen unto salvation, no choice exists for them but that they must become saved - the covenant is strictly unilateral and is from God to man, not the reverse.

In the below verse we are informed of that. The "I will" and "will I" tells us that it is God alone who will carry it out, not us.
Observe the "he hath perfected". It means that it has already been completed.

[Heb 10:14 KJV]
14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

[Heb 10:16 KJV]
16 This [is] the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

Kindly review the history of the Israelites and God telling them to choose. You have a bit of a long explanation, but since you deny the use of the word choose and choose only to review verses you believe support what you say, it leaves one with the feeling your response is somewhat sketchy. I am quite well versed in what Calvinists believe and all the 'proof' texts they hang their beliefs on. You cannot justify ignoring some scripture that does not support no choice.

I will also state for the record that I don't think we fully understand just what is going on with regards to God choosing.

 

[Genez]

Ohhhhhh... God.

Please have mercy.

Everyone has become a teacher, knowing not what they teach.

.... I said it anyway.

 

[ocean]

Ohhhhhh... God.

Please have mercy.

Everyone has become a teacher, knowing not what they teach.

.... I said it anyway.

Everyone is everyone though.

 

[Genez]

Of course, LIFE (regeneration) precedes the new birth! Do the physically dead have any ability to do anything physically? And doesn't life exist in a woman's womb before she gives birth? Then why would you just gloss over the metaphors of spiritual "resurrection" or the "new birth"? God must raise his elect from their spiritual tombs so that they can appropriately respond to the Gospel, at which point they become "born again".

Here you go! Good boy!!!
Twenty gold Calvinism points.

You don't understand what is spiritual death.

And, I don't think you care.

 

[Genez]

I am not sure how you are applying the word 'power' to God's grace here. I do believe we have a choice and I do believe God actually does bring us to the place where we do have that choice (accept Christ) unlike Calvinists who believe we have no choice. I think you may be conflating the word power with the understanding of grace, taking into consideration your highlighting of the word power. Indeed, power is not unmerited favor but it is not grace either. I don't think we will agree on that.

Grace in man's salvation is power used of God to free up a man's soul, as to not have his soul dominated and enslaved by his sin nature (flesh).

If grace was not given?
No man could believe with his soul.
It would remain enslaved to his own flesh!

This what man was before grace was introduced to save him...

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. ​

​

Galatians 5:17​

Grace moves in and shuts down the flesh!

Then, in that state?
One is made able to decide (in his soul) what he wishes to believe concerning the drawing of God.

Not all given the same grace (while being drawn by God) accept faith.
That is why God hold's them accountable!
For grace removed their excuses for not believing!
It then becomes their own choice!


grace and peace ..............

 

[rogerg]

Kindly review the history of the Israelites and God telling them to choose. You have a bit of a long explanation, but since you deny the use of the word choose and choose only to review verses you believe support what you say, it leaves one with the feeling your response is somewhat sketchy. I am quite well versed in what Calvinists believe and all the 'proof' texts they hang their beliefs on. You cannot justify ignoring some scripture that does not support no choice.

I will also state for the record that I don't think we fully understand just what is going on with regards to God choosing.

That choice was of the of the Old Covenant (OC), not the New Covenant (NC). The OC was works based with choice required as one of its works. However, in the NC it is not so. God gave to Himself the task of choosing those whom He desired saved, and Himself the reponsibility for carrying it out. Having given Himself that responsibility, He also made Himself guarantor that it would be executed as He desired it be, and as He had promised to His spiritual heirs that it would be. Nothing has been left to chance nor to random choice.

 

[ocean]

Grace in man's salvation is power used of God to free up a man's soul, as to not have his soul dominated and enslaved by his sin nature (flesh).

If grace was not given?
No man could believe with his soul.
It would remain enslaved to his own flesh!

This what man was before grace was introduced to save him...

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. ​

​

Galatians 5:17​

Grace moves in and shuts down the flesh!

Then, in that state?
One is made able to decide (in his soul) what he wishes to believe concerning the drawing of God.

Not all given the same grace (while being drawn by God) accept faith.
That is why God hold's them accountable!
For grace removed their excuses for not believing!
It then becomes their own choice!


grace and peace ..............

I see what you are saying. I think it best to just leave it there. Thanks

 

[ocean]

That choice was of the of the Old Covenant (OC), not the New Covenant (NC). The OC was works based with choice required as one of its works. However, in the NC it is not so. God gave to Himself the task of choosing those whom He desired saved, and Himself the reponsibility for carrying it out. Having given Himself that responsibility, He also made Himself guarantor that it would be executed as He desired it be, and as He had promised to His spiritual heirs that it would be. Nothing has been left to chance nor to random choice.

So God did not really know who would be saved from the foundation of the world and had to 'task' Himself with the choice(s) He would make?

got it

 

[GWH]

Let's see...if one has 2 choices, one being thinking an author of scripture lied and the other an individual's understanding of what the author wrote is incorrect, which do you choose?

The Apostle John clearly states we can know that we possess eternal life...1 John 5:13. The Apostle Paul tells us how...Ephesians 1:13...we are sealed. Notice verse 14 says that this is the earnest, a token, of the sureness of the promise. In other words, the promise cannot fail.

If you do not possess such assurity, how is it that you believe you share in the experience?

Cam,

You have not explained why you think my understanding of Paul in 2CR 5:6-8, PHP 1:6&14, CL 4:12 & RM 1:16-17 is incorrect, so please choose to do so.

1JN uses the terms "know" and "have confidence" interchangeably, as in 1JN 4:13&17.

Paul says we are sealed in EPH 1:13 and warns against apostasy/believing in vain in 1CR 15:2 because of failing to persevere.

Your closing question indicates that you also ignored me saying "Assured/confident, yes! (Per 2CR 5:6-8, PHP 1:6&14, CL 4:12),
but that is not knowing infallibly; we walk by faith, not by sight/proof/absolute certainty--from first to last (2CR 5:7, RM 1:16-17)."

 

[Rufus]

Aside from the insults, you did not answer my question. God desires us to prayer. He has instructed us to pray. Prayer matters to God. God's heart is reachable, touchable with our prayers. Our prayers can cause God to move on our behalf, move in ways that left to their own, would have never happened, but because we prayed, God made a way.

I'm glad you recognize this fact. God uses prayers as a means to accomplish his will. God's saints are his co-workers here in this age and in the age to come for all eternity. However, God is self-sufficient and needs nothing from his clay pots. And that was the big part of your question, as I recall. "God needs our prayers"? No, he most certainly does not. But he does want us to pray, which is one of the ways we work alongside God.

 

[rogerg]

So God did not really know who would be saved from the foundation of the world and had to 'task' Himself with the choice(s) He would make?

got it

Given that His elect were chosen by Him, then it was He alone who chose.

[Eph 1:4 KJV] 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:

 

[GWH]

But scripture is infallible. And I only "assert" what is in God's Word.

Also, if you truly believe that your personal knowledge of God's Word is fallible, how do you post your version of the gospel with such certainty? I do walk with "absolute certainty" because I implicitly trust God's Word -- being confident also that whenever I'm wrong on something, God will eventually show that to me in his Word.

The perfect interpretation of Scripture is infallible, but we are not inerrant, thus humility is needed and appropriate. We cannot be certain that we "only" assert GW. I post my interpretation of the Gospel with confidence, but not with certainty because of this awareness as well as the Scripture I cited.

We cannot truly claim absolute certainty without having infinite knowledge, i.e., without being God. This is why Paul says we walk by faith, not by absolute certainty. I know there are Christians who kick against this goad and want to prove their faith, but that quest indicates they lack sufficient faith. Their faith is too weak.

 

[Rufus]

So God did not really know who would be saved from the foundation of the world and had to 'task' Himself with the choice(s) He would make?

got it

That's your conclusion based on what Cam wrote?

For your info, God "tasked" himself with election right in the Garden after the Fall. Just sayin'....

 

[Cameron143]

Cornelius and family were already baptized during Peter's preaching because they received the Holy Spirit before Peter suggested water baptism. Peter was a Jewish Christian who still followed the Jewish tradition of getting spiritually cleansed by water baptism. John the baptist said that he baptized with water, but some one greater was going to baptize with a different medium called the Holy Spirit. It is not people that do the baptizing with the Holy Spirit, it is Jesus Christ. The same with Philip water baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. Even the apostles before Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension baptized with water. It was after Jesus went back to the Father to get glorified that Jesus was able to baptize with the Father's glory (Holy Spirit) which started at Pentecost.

The story of the salvation of Cornelius and his family is instructive on many levels. The first thing I believe we should notice is the work of God to prepare both Peter and Cornelius for the encounter. God prepares Peter through a vision. Gentiles were considered unclean by Jews. So God through the vision teaches Peter that He determines who is clean. Likewise, God has Cornelius send an envoy to Peter at the direction of a vision. God is always at work, and, like Jesus, we should be ever doing what we see the Father doing.
Cornelius and friends and family were already believers. Verse 2 gives his Christian pedigree, and verse 8 records his faithful response. So if they were already believers, they were indwelt by the Holy Spirit and placed into the body of Christ...1 Corinthians 12:13. What they had not experienced was the baptism with the Spirit...Ephesians 1:13, which you correctly identify as the work of Jesus...Matthew 3:11. And this is what all present observed as the Spirit fell.

 

[John146]

Given that His elect were chosen by Him, then it was He alone who chose.

[Eph 1:4 KJV] 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:

Don't miss out on the word "according" which takes the context back to verse 3. The context is not us, but what God has chosen to give those who are in Christ.