Understanding God’s election
- Thread starter dougcho
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Ultimately but not in every way. I don't want to debate election, but if God wills that all be saved, and not all are saved, then in a sense God's will has taken a back seat to man's will. Stated differently, God has willingly honored the will of the creature He created to have a will. And God's seemingly obvious ultimate will to have a willingly, faithfully obedient, loving family for His perfect first-born Son takes a back seat to no one and nothing. There's always some dimensional reasoning involved in these things.
If God foreordains something – it will surely come to pass. He does not foreordain something to go either way. So, we are either foreordained to be saved, or we are foreordained to be condemned – it cannot be both. Therefore, if we are foreordained to be saved, we don't choose – God Chose.
Maybe you mean that we are not foreordained.
Maybe you mean that we are not foreordained.
Please explain how God is not morally culpable for the murder of his only Begotten Son, according to this passage:
Acts 4:23-28
23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
"'Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the Lord
and against his Anointed One.'
27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
NIV
If you need help in explaining this, feel free to consult with the smarty pants on this thread such as Studier or PT. After all, they were both smart and intelligent enough to embrace the Christian faith which they think is what makes the difference between them and the stupid people of the world who reject the truth. So...with all these smarts they have, they should be able explain how God isn't morally culpable even though His hand was in everything pertaining to Christ's life, ministry, death and resurrection -- just like it was in Joseph's life in the OT.
Will be looking forward to your thoughtful reply...
Acts 4:23-28
23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
"'Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the Lord
and against his Anointed One.'
27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
NIV
If you need help in explaining this, feel free to consult with the smarty pants on this thread such as Studier or PT. After all, they were both smart and intelligent enough to embrace the Christian faith which they think is what makes the difference between them and the stupid people of the world who reject the truth. So...with all these smarts they have, they should be able explain how God isn't morally culpable even though His hand was in everything pertaining to Christ's life, ministry, death and resurrection -- just like it was in Joseph's life in the OT.
Will be looking forward to your thoughtful reply...
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”
John 10:11, 15-18
Re "if God wills that all be saved, and not all are saved, then in a sense God's will has taken a back seat to man's will": I think the better
conclusion is that although it is God's intentional will for all to be saved, His permissive will allows sinners to resist His intentional will (Deut. 30:19), because MFW is the essential aspect of humanness and God-likeness, thereby allowing or activating love that is different from animal instinct or robotic programming. (This is what allows Rufus to be so disagreeable :^)
conclusion is that although it is God's intentional will for all to be saved, His permissive will allows sinners to resist His intentional will (Deut. 30:19), because MFW is the essential aspect of humanness and God-likeness, thereby allowing or activating love that is different from animal instinct or robotic programming. (This is what allows Rufus to be so disagreeable :^)
Understood and appreciated. As time goes on, I simply have found myself setting aside the theological descriptives like intentional and permissive and being more willing to flow with the terminology of the discussion as much as makes sense to me.
I do like what you said that I highlighted above. In all these discussions re: loss of salvation and such, including as in #12,250 above, this matter of MFW as you refer to it and that @Rufus criticizes so adamantly, has become more and more important and pointed and important for me in how I view the Text. It was important before but especially in the loss discussions I can better see that nothing really makes sense if it negates human choice.
Thanks for the comments.
I do like what you said that I highlighted above. In all these discussions re: loss of salvation and such, including as in #12,250 above, this matter of MFW as you refer to it and that @Rufus criticizes so adamantly, has become more and more important and pointed and important for me in how I view the Text. It was important before but especially in the loss discussions I can better see that nothing really makes sense if it negates human choice.
Thanks for the comments.
'TRY' is the key word.
Concerning salvation and eternal security no need to "TRY."
It's equal privilege and equal opportunity.
All can believe. And All have eternal security.
Draw your theory out.....It's not equal privilege and equal opportunity. Some may forfeit, walk away, jump out of His hand or lose salvation.....Impugning His Justice.
Concerning salvation and eternal security no need to "TRY."
It's equal privilege and equal opportunity.
All can believe. And All have eternal security.
Draw your theory out.....It's not equal privilege and equal opportunity. Some may forfeit, walk away, jump out of His hand or lose salvation.....Impugning His Justice.
John 10 verses 14-16 ~ I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. And I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them in as well, and they will listen to My voice. Then there will be one flock and one shepherd.
-
1
-
1
- Show all