Understanding God’s election

[Rufus]

You are correct.
God chooses people for all kinds of reasons.
Some are chosen for salvation, some for different ministries, etc.

Correct! Including for condemnation.

 

[studier]

But therein is the crux of the problem; for the warp 'n' woof of the discourse is eating, drinking and BELIEVING, and "things" do not eat the flesh or drink the blood of the Son of Man, nor do plants, trees, shrubs, rivers, oceans, the clouds, the sun, moon or the stars, etc, etc., etc. believe in Him! Furthermore, only entities who are capable of eating, drinking and believing have eternal life within them. I have never read anywhere where animals or trees, or plants or shrubs or the grass, etc. eat, drink and believe and have eternal life.

Did you understand the outline I posted for John6:35-40? Did you see that Jesus is talking about 2 things - the neuter "thing" and the masculine "man"? Did you note how the non-indented and the indented align? This is called and ABABA chiasm where the A points are parallel, and the B points are parallel:

A 35 The [man] who comes to[ward] Me... (come-never hunger - believe-never thirst)

B 37a every thing the Father gives to Me will come to[ward] Me​

A 37b The [man] who comes to[ward] Me I will not cast out

B 39 from every thing which the [man - Father from parallel 37a] who sent Me, I not lose but raise it​

A 40 Every man who sees the Son and believes into Him [may] have eternal life, and I will raise him

Eat & drink is only attached to man. This carries through the chapter, just as does see and believe.

But as I said, John is dealing with more than just men.

With that said, please note post #9,395. My apology for not flagging you. I had meant to. Most of your questions can be answered by the work I directed you to and now by that post

And just what "things" are enabled to come to Jesus (v. 65)? How are "things" enabled to COME to Christ? You seem to be conflating giving and coming; yet, these are two very different things. And in this verse, why is the personal pronoun "you" used instead of some impersonal pronoun? "This is why I told YOU that NO ONE can come to me..." Shouldn't this text read, in order to be consistent with your interpretation: "This is why I told all things that nothing can come to me..."?

There's no talk of enabling/drawing things (neuter), just men 6:44-45 and 6:65 both dealing with masculine pronouns. "You (plural) is very obvious in context.

And how come v. 56, instead of beginning with "He" or "Whoever" (which is how most translators render the Gr. term "ho" (Strong's 3588), the language scholars didn't opt for "That" or "Whatever"? And do "things" that eat Jesus' flesh and drink his blood "remain in him" and He in those "things"? Jesus actually indwells trees and rivers and such? Is the Christian faith at its core pantheistic in nature?

Answered.

You're interpretation of John 6 raises far more questions than can be answered intelligently, rationally and coherently.

Funny charge. Seems more like trolling as does most of this post.

Also, since you think that all "universal" terms should always be interpreted in the distributive sense, then I take it that since the Father has given to the Son all things in the distributive sense (v. 37), then you must believe (again to be consistent with yourself) that the Father gave to Jesus all the unbelieving Pharisees in John 5 and all the "disciples" in John 6 who deserted him? And since you must in order to be true to yourself, you have unwittingly placed yourself on the horns of no small dilemma; for Jesus clearly taught that ALL that come to him, he will in no wise reject, drive away or cast out and that his Father's will is that he lose NONE but raise up "everything" on the last day. Yet, Jesus did lose many! He lost the majority of Pharisees (and other religious elites) and he lost many of those "disciples" who followed him over to Capernaum. This means Jesus did not obey his Father's will. He did not do his Father's will! Therefore, Jesus is a sinner as a result of his disobedience. He's not the sinless, spotless Lamb of God after all, is He? Now...what are you going to do since you are still dead in your sins?

I'm not really reading this lengthy paragraph to respond with any precision. When you come to understand the 2 tracks (at minimum) John is dealing with, men and things, then there is no real dilemma. You also should be considering some overlap of the neuter as @PaulThomson and I have both pointed you to. Again, if you want to extract a point-by-point discussion from these narratives, I'll consider the discussion. It looks like you may have at least a few legitimate questions that will be fun to reason through. But you'll need to get past your baseline of trees believing.

 

[Rufus]

Did you understand the outline I posted for John6:35-40? Did you see that Jesus is talking about 2 things - the neuter "thing" and the masculine "man"? Did you note how the non-indented and the indented align? This is called and ABABA chiasm where the A points are parallel, and the B points are parallel:

A 35 The [man] who comes to[ward] Me... (come-never hunger - believe-never thirst)

B 37a every thing the Father gives to Me will come to[ward] Me​

A 37b The [man] who comes to[ward] Me I will not cast out

B 39 from every thing which the [man - Father from parallel 37a] who sent Me, I not lose but raise it​

A 40 Every man who sees the Son and believes into Him [may] have eternal life, and I will raise him

Eat & drink is only attached to man. This carries through the chapter, just as does see and believe.

But as I said, John is dealing with more than just men.

With that said, please note post #9,395. My apology for not flagging you. I had meant to. Most of your questions can be answered by the work I directed you to and now by that post.

I still don't see how things fits into the context. Things have nothing to do with believing, coming or drawing. So, let's move on to another question I have for you pertaining to v. 35. You might recall that I equated "coming" to Jesus with believing in Him. A few times I cited Mat 11:28 and Rev 21:17 in which the Lord invites men to himself telling them to "come" to him! I cannot imagine him issuing such invitations apart from having faith in mind, especially because without faith it's impossible to please God (Heb 4:12). As stated often, to truly come to Lord is to believe on him, which stands in sharp contrast to the faux disciples who had no faith and yet followed him anyway for the wrong reasons.

But v.35 itself strongly supports my above contention. Part a. of the text reads: "He who comes to me shall never hunger"; part b. reads "and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." How can these two parts of the same verse not be parallel to each other!? How can someone in part A come to Christ without faith and never hunger and yet at the same time always go thirsty because he didn't come in faith? Or how can someone in part B believe on him and never thirst but at the same time always go hungry because he didn't have faith?

I have more to share on John 6 regarding the "drawing" the Father does and what that nature of the drawing looks like in the NT. But more on this later. Meanwhile, why are you so reluctant to answer my question re v.37? You and PT do believe, if I'm not mistaken that the "all" in this verse, as well as in Jn 12:32, is to be understood in the distributive sense pertaining to individual men, i.e. each and every person on this little green planet. So, since this is case, unless I'm totally off the mark, then how does your understanding of v.37 and Jn 12:32 not present huge theological problems -- the largest of which is that since God draws each and every person in the world to his Son but most do not believe, then this means that the Son lost them and he will never raise them up to life on the last day -- both of which are clearly not the Father's will for the Son? Since the Son, therefore, disobeyed his Father's will (contrary to Jesus' claim to the contrary), then Jesus cannot possibly be the sinless Messiah, the spotless Lamb of God without blemish, who the Father sent into the world to save it.[/QUOTE]

 

[studier]

I still don't see how things fits into the context. Things have nothing to do with believing, coming or drawing. So, let's move on to another question I have for you pertaining to v. 35.

No thanks. If you can't understand where we've been, it'll likely be the same wherever you want to go. Even a quick look at Matt11:28 simply requires one to look back one verse and see that we're right back into discussing 'all things" again which you don't understand and are glossing over. And you've made some type of error referencing Rev21:17.

I think one of the things that started this discussion between you and @PaulThomson was the issue of parallelism between coming and believing, or it came up after I joined in. As I said some time ago, John6 discussion boils down in part to a view of Come = Faith vs. Come + Faith. The same question can be asked re: Matt11:28-29 right after 11:28 "all things" being "conveyed" to Jesus by the Father. Sounds quite a bit like John6:37a doesn't it:

Every thing that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, (Jn. 6:37)

All things were handed over/given to Me by My Father (Matt. 11:27)

​

THEN, after this handing over of all things to Jesus by the Father, Jesus is commanding men to come to[ward] Him.​

​

And we're right back to discussing Come = Faith vs. Come + Faith.​

That's as far as I'm reading your post.

Sorry you can't understand.

 

[Rufus]

No thanks. If you can't understand where we've been, it'll likely be the same wherever you want to go. Even a quick look at Matt11:28 simply requires one to look back one verse and see that we're right back into discussing 'all things" again which you don't understand and are glossing over. And you've made some type of error referencing Rev21:17.

I think one of the things that started this discussion between you and @PaulThomson was the issue of parallelism between coming and believing, or it came up after I joined in. As I said some time ago, John6 discussion boils down in part to a view of Come = Faith vs. Come + Faith. The same question can be asked re: Matt11:28-29 right after 11:28 "all things" being "conveyed" to Jesus by the Father. Sounds quite a bit like John6:37a doesn't it:

Every thing that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, (Jn. 6:37)

All things were handed over/given to Me by My Father (Matt. 11:27)

​

THEN, after this handing over of all things to Jesus by the Father, Jesus is commanding men to come to[ward] Him.​

​

And we're right back to discussing Come = Faith vs. Come + Faith.​

That's as far as I'm reading your post.

Sorry you can't understand.

Again, Mat 11:28 is not an invitation to things; it's an invitation to people, as you have already conceded. Jesus doesn't give spiritual rest to things -- not that I know of.

Also, not even the NKJV, which seems to be your preferred translation, reads as you wrote above. In fact, none of the formal or dynamic translations that I have on my computer read that way. They all read "All that..." It seems all those various teams of expert translators insidiously wanted to avoid the connotation that Jesus meant "things". And I can see why because giving and coming are two very different things (no pun intended). When I asked you yesterday how things come to Jesus, you basically answered with: by the Father giving those things to Jesus Really? The Father gives the Son all inanimate creation and yet this lifeless creation somehow "comes" to Jesus?

The fact that you won't answer a straightforward, honest question tells me all I need to know about your interpretation of John 6. I can understand, though, why you don't want to answer because the question puts you on the horns of a nasty dilemma, since you likely understand "all" in v.37 as being used in the distributive sense. I don't because the text doesn't say that God gives each and every person to Jesus. And for very good reason I might add.

But who knows...maybe PT or some other FWer here has more courage than you do, and will answer the question that I have presented a couple of times, the latest of which is in my 9403 asked in the last paragraph.

 

[PaulThomson]

But v.35 itself strongly supports my above contention. Part a. of the text reads: "He who comes to me shall never hunger"; part b. reads "and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." How can these two parts of the same verse not be parallel to each other!? How can someone in part A come to Christ without faith and never hunger and yet at the same time always go thirsty because he didn't come in faith? Or how can someone in part B believe on him and never thirst but at the same time always go hungry because he didn't have faith?

The sense of the Greek is not that someone who comes to Jesus one time will immediately that first time begin to never hunger after coming to Me, whether they keep coming to Him or not; and someone who believes on Jesus one time will immediately that first time begin to never thirst after believing on Him, whether they keep on believing in Him or not.

The participles (coming and believing) are present tense. The sense of the Greek is -
He that is coming to Me will never hunger while coming to me, and whoever is believing in Me will never thirst while believing in Me.
You ask how someone can keep coming to Jesus without believing in Jesus. We have examples of such people in this very chapter 6 of ,John.
People are seeking Jesus and coming to Him from one side of the lake to the other, and were being given food by Jesus. He was teaching them daily as long as they were coming to Him, and yet most of them came without faith in His biblical Messiahship, not yet consistently believing in Him so as to develop an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. Some came to argue with Him, or out of curiosity, or out of physical need.
Some like Peter were believing in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was able to impart more understanding to people like him.

I don't think anyone claimed that someone could be being led by the Holy Spirit and still feel unsatisfied with God's Word.

 

[PaulThomson]

I have more to share on John 6 regarding the "drawing" the Father does and what that nature of the drawing looks like in the NT. But more on this later. Meanwhile, why are you so reluctant to answer my question re v.37? You and PT do believe, if I'm not mistaken that the "all" in this verse, as well as in Jn 12:32, is to be understood in the distributive sense pertaining to individual men, i.e. each and every person on this little green planet. So, since this is case, unless I'm totally off the mark, then how does your understanding of v.37 and Jn 12:32 not present huge theological problems -- the largest of which is that since God draws each and every person in the world to his Son but most do not believe, then this means that the Son lost them and he will never raise them up to life on the last day -- both of which are clearly not the Father's will for the Son? Since the Son, therefore, disobeyed his Father's will (contrary to Jesus' claim to the contrary), then Jesus cannot possibly be the sinless Messiah, the spotless Lamb of God without blemish, who the Father sent into the world to save it.

Neither @studier nor I have been reluctant to answer your question re v. 37. We have answered. You do not understand the answers because you do not understand even the rudiments of biblical Greek grammar. Your understanding of John 6 comes purely from your looking for translations that most closely enable you to read Calvinist presupposition into the texts, and parroting the calvinist reading of the texts, as if the original revelation obviously proclaims what you want the Bible to say. You have no interest in unpacking the actual nuances of the Greek to get a clearer understanding of the meaning of what John actually wrote, if doing so might undermine your doctrinaire claims.

You do not understand that Greek nouns, pronouns and articles have grammatical gender. You cannot recognise grammatical gender in the text. You do not understand how the meaning of a text can change depending on the grammatical gender of pronouns used. You cannot explain the evidence in the Greek text that supports your preferred meaning. You simply believe that God has unilaterally downloaded the Holy Spirit to you and whatever you think you see in scripture, determined by your calvinist presuppositions, is divine inspiration and infallible, and by virtue of your Holy Spirit download, you are equipped to declare BIBLICAL TRUTH to everyone, and you don't need to match your doctrine to what we have in the original Greek revelation. Wow!

 

[PaulThomson]

You are correct.
God chooses people for all kinds of reasons.
Some are chosen for salvation, some for different ministries, etc.

Where does scripture say that one of the reasons God chooses people is for salvation?

 

[PaulThomson]

And just who would he choose to preach the eternal Gospel: Seeds of the Serpent? Or perhaps even demons themselves?

And I suppose in your mind, the other 11 could have ended up in hell with Judas, right?

And when Peter denied him three times, didn't Peter repent as Jesus said he would since he interceded on Peter's behalf to the Father? (Wonder how Jesus knew this since he didn't see Peter's denial unfold as it was literally taking place in time and space?)

And when was the last time you read Jesus' High Priestly Prayer to his Father in John 17?

Jesus had Judas in His inner circle, explaining His parables to Judas. Jesus preached to Pharisees and Sadducees in His audiences who were only there to argue with and entrap Him. How do you come to the conclusion from scripture that Jesus only preached to those he knew were elect?

It's above my authority to declare who was and who was not condemned or justified in God's eyes. I do not want to leave my God-given estate, like the fallen angels and domineering wives. Maybe you feel qualified to make those kinds of decrees and can read the dying consciences of those who died centuries ago. For me, that is the Lord Jesus Christ's prerogative and His alone.

Successful predictions by men do not prove exhaustive foreknowledge of the future by those men; nor do they prove exhaustive control of all things by those men. And there are myriad examples of successful predictions by men.

I don't know the date when I last read John 17. I guess that disqualifies me from having viable opinions of John 6.

 

[Kroogz]

Yeah, so much dishonesty and twisting of what is said. Whoever is a person. Whoever distinguishes whatever gibberish
thing the other was trying to say "all" means. Unbelievable the lengths people go to in order to deny what is plainly stated.

John 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

Neither @studier nor I have been reluctant to answer your question re v. 37. We have answered. You do not understand the answers because you do not understand even the rudiments of biblical Greek grammar. Your understanding of John 6 comes purely from your looking for translations that most closely enable you to read Calvinist presupposition into the texts, and parroting the calvinist reading of the texts, as if the original revelation obviously proclaims what you want the Bible to say. You have no interest in unpacking the actual nuances of the Greek to get a clearer understanding of the meaning of what John actually wrote, if doing so might undermine your doctrinaire claims.

You do not understand that Greek nouns, pronouns and articles have grammatical gender. You cannot recognise grammatical gender in the text. You do not understand how the meaning of a text can change depending on the grammatical gender of pronouns used. You cannot explain the evidence in the Greek text that supports your preferred meaning. You simply believe that God has unilaterally downloaded the Holy Spirit to you and whatever you think you see in scripture, determined by your calvinist presuppositions, is divine inspiration and infallible, and by virtue of your Holy Spirit download, you are equipped to declare BIBLICAL TRUTH to everyone, and you don't need to match your doctrine to what we have in the original Greek revelation. Wow!

Thanks Paul, for your many well thought out posts. It seems many here have had some learning of the original languages. I appreciate It!

But "whoever" And "all" are pretty clear for the average 2 year old. Not for the calvies though.

 

[Rufus]

No thanks. If you can't understand where we've been, it'll likely be the same wherever you want to go. Even a quick look at Matt11:28 simply requires one to look back one verse and see that we're right back into discussing 'all things" again which you don't understand and are glossing over. And you've made some type of error referencing Rev21:17.

I think one of the things that started this discussion between you and @PaulThomson was the issue of parallelism between coming and believing, or it came up after I joined in. As I said some time ago, John6 discussion boils down in part to a view of Come = Faith vs. Come + Faith. The same question can be asked re: Matt11:28-29 right after 11:28 "all things" being "conveyed" to Jesus by the Father. Sounds quite a bit like John6:37a doesn't it:

Every thing that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, (Jn. 6:37)

All things were handed over/given to Me by My Father (Matt. 11:27)

​

THEN, after this handing over of all things to Jesus by the Father, Jesus is commanding men to come to[ward] Him.​

​

And we're right back to discussing Come = Faith vs. Come + Faith.​

That's as far as I'm reading your post.

Sorry you can't understand.

Again, Mat 11:28 is not an invitation to things; it's an invitation to people, as you have already conceded. Jesus doesn't give spiritual rest to things -- not that I know of.

Also, not even the NKJV, which seems to be your preferred translation, reads as you wrote above. In fact, none of the formal or dynamic translations that I have on my computer read that way. They all read "All that..." It seems all those various teams of expert translators insidiously wanted to avoid the connotation that Jesus meant "things". And I can see why because giving and coming are two very different things (no pun intended). When I asked you yesterday how things come to Jesus, you basically answered with: by the Father giving those things to Jesus Really? The Father gives the Son all inanimate creation and yet this lifeless creation somehow "comes" to Jesus?

The fact that you won't answer a straightforward, honest question tells me all I need to know about your interpretation of John 6. I can understand, though, why you don't want to answer because the question puts you on the horns of a nasty dilemma, since you likely understand "all" in v.37 as being used in the distributive sense. I don't because the text doesn't say that God gives each and every person to Jesus. And for very good reason I might add.

But who knows...maybe PT or some other FWer here has more courage than you do, and will answer the question that I have presented a couple of times, the latest of which is in my 9403 asked in the last paragraph.

The sense of the Greek is not that someone who comes to Jesus one time will immediately that first time begin to never hunger after coming to Me, whether they keep coming to Him or not; and someone who believes on Jesus one time will immediately that first time begin to never thirst after believing on Him, whether they keep on believing in Him or not.

The participles (coming and believing) are present tense. The sense of the Greek is -
He that is coming to Me will never hunger while coming to me, and whoever is believing in Me will never thirst while believing in Me.
You ask how someone can keep coming to Jesus without believing in Jesus. We have examples of such people in this very chapter 6 of ,John.
People are seeking Jesus and coming to Him from one side of the lake to the other, and were being given food by Jesus. He was teaching them daily as long as they were coming to Him, and yet most of them came without faith in His biblical Messiahship, not yet consistently believing in Him so as to develop an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. Some came to argue with Him, or out of curiosity, or out of physical need.
Some like Peter were believing in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was able to impart more understanding to people like him.

I don't think anyone claimed that someone could be being led by the Holy Spirit and still feel unsatisfied with God's Word.

So...did God give those phony disciples to Jesus or not? Did God draw them to Jesus? Did those fake disciples "keep coming to Jesus" or did they reject him and leave him?

I have never claimed than no one can come to Jesus, apart from God's drawing. Christendom is filled with phony believers (a/k/a "tares"). Rather, I have maintained that no one can TRULY, SINCERELY and GENUINELY come to Jesus in faith apart from the Father's effectual drawing. Stated differently: No one can come to Jesus in the flesh; for those in the flesh (e.g. most of those who followed Jesus to Capernaum) cannot please God (Rom 8:8). Those who are Darkness itself cannot tolerate being exposed to the Light for long, as those phony disciples proved when they turned away from Christ.

 

[PaulThomson]

And when was the last time you read Jesus' High Priestly Prayer to his Father in John 17?

When was the last time you read John 17, or any other biblical passage, with fresh eyes, with a blank slate, without preconceptions and without looking for details that could support your presuppositions?

 

[Rufus]

Jesus had Judas in His inner circle, explaining His parables to Judas. Jesus preached to Pharisees and Sadducees in His audiences who were only there to argue with and entrap Him. How do you come to the conclusion from scripture that Jesus only preached to those he knew were elect?

It's above my authority to declare who was and who was not condemned or justified in God's eyes. I do not want to leave my God-given estate, like the fallen angels and domineering wives. Maybe you feel qualified to make those kinds of decrees and can read the dying consciences of those who died centuries ago. For me, that is the Lord Jesus Christ's prerogative and His alone.

Successful predictions by men do not prove exhaustive foreknowledge of the future by those men; nor do they prove exhaustive control of all things by those men. And there are myriad examples of successful predictions by men.

I don't know the date when I last read John 17. I guess that disqualifies me from having viable opinions of John 6.

I never made that conclusion or made that claim. You just created a straw man.

What about successful predictions by men in whom God, who alone possesses exhaustive knowledge of all things, inspired those prophecies? Don't you know that biblical prophecies never originated in the minds of men (2Pet 1:20-21)? You are Shirley a master artist and skilled practitioner at creating straw men, aren't you?

 

[Rufus]

When was the last time you read John 17, or any other biblical passage, with fresh eyes, with a blank slate, without preconceptions and without looking for details that could support your presuppositions?

No one's mind is a blank (or neutral) slate! Those who are ruled by the flesh have their ungodly mindset; and those led by the Spirit have their godly mindset and the twain shall never meet.

 

[PaulThomson]

Which means God is not all-knowing. To be all knowing is possess all knowledge intuitively. What you said in what I bolded implies that God LEARNED about the Fall in time and space "as it was becoming fact". And if this is the case, then I suppose you think Moses embellished the creation account by adding in after-the-fact the first prophecy in scripture (Gen 2:17)? Moses did this to make God look smart? After all, you just said above that God knew all as it was becoming fact -- as the events were unfolding before his very eyes.

Also, if God could learn something, then he's not immutable either! And since he wouldn't be immutable then this further implies that God isn't perfect in his being, since all knowledge residing in him is not as eternal He himself is. If God can change in his character or his attributes, then such change would have to be for the better or even for the worse. And if God can change, that would be very cold comfort to his Redeemed who understand the importance of his immutability and take great delight in it. After all, if God is capable of change, who can say with certainty that he could never change for the worse?

As often discussed, God's will, plan and purposes are never contingent on the will of any of his creatures (Eph 1:11; Rom 11:34; 1Cor 2:16; Isa 40:13-14). He works all things after the counsel of his own will. Since you must deny the answers to the rhetorical questions in Isa 40, then this means that the sons of men actually teach God -- just like A&E obviously taught God something about human nature.

Maybe being all-knowing is to know everything that is true. And maybe the future as it eventually appears, is not yet true, is not yet a real thing, so is not something an omniscient Being needs to know to be all-knowing. maybe your definition of all-knowing is not biblical, but a human tradition you have uncritically absorbed from others.

That there will be events in the future brought about by the actions of extant beings at the time is a present fact. That God has sufficient power and intellect to decree specific events to happen in the future, and bring them about if He chooses, is also a present fact. That many human actions are rather easy to predict, based on history, is also a present fact. God, being omniscient and therefore knowing these facts, can make predictions with whatever degree of certainty He wishes.

The Bible does not say God is absolutely immutable. God does say in Malachi that he does not change, but the context puts this assertion in contrast to the Israelites, who change their vows and their covenants. God does not change and betray those He has covenanted preservation towards, which is why treacherous Esau had been destroyed, but treacherous Jacob had not. The Bible shows God changing many times in other contexts in other ways. It is unwise to reinterpret all of those occasions in order to hold on to a misinterpretation of that Malachi verse.

God's will changes as man's hearts change. God willed to destroy Nineveh. When their hearts changed, his will for them changed., much to Jonah's chagrin.

 

[Rufus]

Neither @studier nor I have been reluctant to answer your question re v. 37. We have answered. You do not understand the answers because you do not understand even the rudiments of biblical Greek grammar. Your understanding of John 6 comes purely from your looking for translations that most closely enable you to read Calvinist presupposition into the texts, and parroting the calvinist reading of the texts, as if the original revelation obviously proclaims what you want the Bible to say. You have no interest in unpacking the actual nuances of the Greek to get a clearer understanding of the meaning of what John actually wrote, if doing so might undermine your doctrinaire claims.

You do not understand that Greek nouns, pronouns and articles have grammatical gender. You cannot recognise grammatical gender in the text. You do not understand how the meaning of a text can change depending on the grammatical gender of pronouns used. You cannot explain the evidence in the Greek text that supports your preferred meaning. You simply believe that God has unilaterally downloaded the Holy Spirit to you and whatever you think you see in scripture, determined by your calvinist presuppositions, is divine inspiration and infallible, and by virtue of your Holy Spirit download, you are equipped to declare BIBLICAL TRUTH to everyone, and you don't need to match your doctrine to what we have in the original Greek revelation. Wow!

There's a lot of things I don't understand but I do know that scripture is an organic whole in which there can be no contradictions. So, tell me: Do you believe that God the Father gives and draws each and every person on this planet to Christ? Yes or no?

 

[PaulThomson]

There's a lot of things I don't understand but I do know that scripture is an organic whole in which there can be no contradictions. So, tell me: Do you believe that God the Father gives and draws each and every person on this planet to Christ? Yes or no?

No. Jesus statement that no one is coming to Me unless the Father who sent Me is drawing him" was true at the time about people coming to Him at the time. That role of the Father was superceded when Jesus rose from the dead, superceded by a new dynamic that Jesus predicted saying, "And I, if I be lifted up, I shall draw all men unto Me." So, when Jesus was lifted up, the previous MO changed somewhat.

 

[PaulThomson]

No one's mind is a blank (or neutral) slate! Those who are ruled by the flesh have their ungodly mindset; and those led by the Spirit have their godly mindset and the twain shall never meet.

That you haven't learned to do it, does not mean that no one has learned to do it.

 

[Jimbone]

Which is done by choice and free will.

Who is denying choice? I haven't seen anyone do that. Who are you talking about? Only people I've seen keep on clearly saying that free will doesn't = choice and we all have choice. Have not seen anyone in 471 pages deny we have a choice. This is the whole disagreement right here. You think they're saying something that's not being said. YOU are.

 

[PaulThomson]

I never made that conclusion or made that claim. You just created a straw man.

What about successful predictions by men in whom God, who alone possesses exhaustive knowledge of all things, inspired those prophecies? Don't you know that biblical prophecies never originated in the minds of men (2Pet 1:20-21)? You are Shirley a master artist and skilled practitioner at creating straw men, aren't you?

My apologies. I misread your statement, and responded to what I thought you said.

You said, "And just who would he choose to preach the eternal Gospel: Seeds of the Serpent? Or perhaps even demons themselves?"

I read, "And just who would he choose to preach the eternal Gospel to: Seeds of the Serpent? Or perhaps even demons themselves?"

But He did also choose Judas to preach the gospel and sent him out with the twelve to heal and cast out demons.