Isn't it about time for this? The Elect of God & Predestination What they are and are not according to the Bible, God's words

What does the term the elect of God mean?

BibleAsk Team

• Posted on April 4, 2013

God has not predestined or chosen an elect people to be saved and others to be lost. The Bible says, “He [the Father] predestined us [fallen human beings] to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will”; “He [God] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (Ephesians 1:5, 2 Peter 3:9, insertions mine.)

Ephesians 1:5 says that God has predestined fallen man to be adopted as His elect through Jesus. In other words, God predestined the adoption process. It is called justification! “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Romans 4:4,5).

To think that God predestines our eternal reward and chooses an elect group makes a mockery of the Plan of Salvation. If God predestined the eternal reward of a man without recognizing man’s actions or power of choice, the Plan of Salvation would be a deceptive trick. If God predestined people to be saved and others to be lost, the Plan of Salvation would not be necessary. Then, what is the point of choosing to follow the Holy Spirit if you are predestined to be lost?

There is a critical difference between God’s foreknowledge and God’s power to predetermine an event. Predestination pre-decrees the outcome, whereas foreknowledge knows the outcome of all things in advance.

The presence of Lucifer and sin proves, among other things, that intelligent creatures are not predestined and that they have the power of choice. The rebellion of one-third of God’s angels, the fall of Lucifer and the sad consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin prove that God will not interfere with the inalienable right of all intelligent beings to exercise their power of choice. This is why the future, as far as God is concerned, is unchangeable. He allows it to unfold according to the choices of His subjects and He responds accordingly.

Here is an illustration to demonstrate the critical difference between foreknowledge and predestination. Suppose an airplane pilot can look down and see the path of a long river. In one look, he can see the end and the beginning. However, the people who are traveling down the river in a boat – can’t see that. While, the pilot can see where the boat is heading, he has nothing to do with the travelers choices in reaching their destination.

Knowing the end from the beginning without interference is foreknowledge. On the other hand, predestination is pre-decreeing that an event will occur. God does not predestine the eternal destiny of people. God gives people the freedom to decide their own path (Joshua 24:15).

In His service,
BibleAsk Team

Does God predestine some people to heaven and hell?

BibleAsk Team

• Posted on December 14, 2013

What does the word predestine mean? Predestination is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God and that He willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others.

According to the Bible, God foresaw, and thus foreknew, each generation of men that would come upon the stage of this world’s action, He coupled immediately with His foreknowledge the decision to predestine them all to be saved. For God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Eze. 33:11). “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17).

Divine foreknowledge and divine predestination in no way exclude human liberty. No Bible writer, suggests that God does predestine certain men to be saved and certain others to be lost, regardless of their own choice in the matter. Having foreknowledge of what choices people would make is far different from predetermining it. God does predestine each person that has ever been born, to go to Heaven. But, He also gives us the FREE WILL to choose to be saved or lost. God, being all-knowing, knows what we will choose. He does not get in the way of our decisions and predestines our lives.

The doctrine that God predestines humans denies a fundamental teaching of the Bible—that we have freedom of choice and that God holds us accountable for the choices we make. In the Old Testament, God appealed to Israel to make right choices and then held them accountable for the choices they made “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). God didn’t predetermine or predestine the outcome.

In the New Testament, we see the same principle of accountability to choices, Christ said: “For every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36). God will have us answer for our actions “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Also Paul says, “for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Romans 14:10). Again God does not predestine our choices.

While Salvation is offered freely to all, sadly, not all accept the gospel invitation “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14; 20:16). Salvation is not forced upon us against our will.

Some use Romans 8:29 as a basis for their belief in predestination “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” But the purpose of this verse seems to be a practical one. Paul is simply trying to comfort and assure the afflicted people of God that their salvation rests in His hands and that it is in process of being accomplished in accordance with His eternal and changeless purpose for them.

With the idea in mind and after a prayerful meditation I share these resources here. I did so because I grew concerned for anyone who may arrive here seeking answers in Christ. And as I've read some posts on the Introductions Board, indeed there are those precious one's who do arrive here for that reason.

To forestall the question, you're posting walls of other people's texts but what do you believe? I will say, it should be apparent in the many posts I have provided on these particular topics under discussion elsewhere on this very board.

I will also ask one special gift to myself and any who may enter in and share their views. Please do not enter in with a hard heart or an unkind response. Please do not call people names, even by allusion. As in, 'you're like the Pharisee'. No, no one here could possibly be that due to what the office of Pharisee entailed in Jesus day. Nor is anyone deserving of that attack label when we know what Jesus thought of them and made certain to speak of that to their face as well. Vipers , who's father was the Devil.

We are all in Christ and I think we should speak to one another as if that is true even on an Internet forum.
While others who are not yet in our church could be here to see what it means to be a Christian.
A friend of mine once asked someone who was very brash in their efforts to rebuff her beliefs in comparison to that of the young woman's own.

Thank you for reading my thread. Bless you if you gift me and others by honoring my humble request.

God Bless.

Yeah, because these are never talked about on here.....

Well, as a relatively new arrival I will say the wrong information has many (new?) threads of late. I think a timely factual Biblical rebuttal all to itself is due.

I believe it a great disservice to let people who may be here seeking answers about Christ and Salvation to have as a takeaway the wrong information on a matter that vital. It's worth my time .

Point.....if God wants all to come to him and they do not then your god is a weak ineffective god who is bound by by what men do. Our God saves all his chosen people regardless of there sins and is mighty just and true in all his ways. I thank God he has done it and men should praise him for his wonderful works and be thankfull he does have a people. Other wise all would be lost as God sits around hoping you will accept him but is not powerfull enough to Save you if you dont. OUR God is not bound by man and his will.
Praise God for his blessings wonderful works to the Children of men.

I would say if my god created people after he predestined those he'd save from a condition not yet in existence,sin, and predetermined other people to be condemned for that sin and to a Hell that was not yet created, he would then be a moral monster playing with himself in all ways always.

Such an idea were it to exist in any doctrine makes all things of god's creation and will for the created.
That's a god idea its believer needs saving from.
And that does exist. When a people dare to seek holy truth and rightly divide the truth of God's holy words.
Thank God, He forewarned us to test every spirit because there would be false prophets in this world.

The Book of 1st John chapte 4
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

The Epistle of 1st Thessalonians chapter5 verse 21 ...but test them all; hold on to what is good,

Jesus was born and died so that anyone could be saved!

When people read of the "elect of God" in scripture, and it does appear in our Father's word, "elect", they're reading a term that describes those whom God knew would come to His only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ.
And God knew us by name. That isn't to say God knew, Steve, Mary, John, would come to be saved.
See, the Bible first appeared as what we call the Old Testament. In the Jewish culture the Old Testament is called, the Tanakh. This is an acronym for the three parts of the book.The Torah, (T) , which are the teachings, or also called the five books of Moshe, Moses. The Prophets, in Hebrew the Nevi’im. And the Ketuvim, the writings. Hence, Ta(Torah/the law) Na( Nevi’im = the prophets) , Kh.(Ketuvim=the writings) = TaNaKh

Sadly, much of God's truth has been altered to conform to men's predisposition for a god created in their image and likeness.
When we're told God knew who would come to redemption by name it is a consequence of His divine Omniscience, eternal all knowing God. It also means those who would come to be saved God would know because that is why He would predestine Salvation for the whole world. Through His grace for the world's sinners. ALL the world's sinners. That whosoever believes would be saved.

This resource linked below is invaluable to understand the origin of God's Elect, in my view. Just the first page is enough to satisfy the question, who are the Elect? And who they are not.



... However, for Yeshua to lament over Jerusalem's failure to respond to what Reformed theology coins His "Irresistible Grace" when He has not caused them to receive it, it is illogical on Yeshua's part. In other words, it is not problematic for a sinner to be condemned without any opportunity to find forgiveness except by means of general revelation (See Romans 1:19-21). However, for there to be any disappointment or anger on the part of G-d, when people fail to respond to His Gospel, when according to Reformed theology only the predetermined "elect" have been given the ability, which they are compelled to exercise to respond to G-d's "call" to salvation, is not logical.
Source:
The Doctrine of Election Part 1 by Rabbi Baruch

Note concerning that source. You may run into people who condemn teachings of a Rabbi as they deny any attribution to Judaism in our faith at all.
That would be a grave error in Soteriology (the study of Salvation) as well as Exegesis, (critical study of Biblical texts, history, form, etc...).
Because as the Bible tells us, Salvation is of the Jews. (Jesus was born into a Jewish family and was a practicing Jew and was also the Prophesied Messiah in Jewish literature)
The Book of John chapter 4 Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
…21“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. 24God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” 25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”…

Amen to that brother.

It never fails that people who defend a God that created for himself his saved people before there was created anything to be saved from, and consequently created also those he would damn eternally and according to his construct that comprised preordained sin and predestined salvation, are absolutely certain they are one of those elect.
Perhaps that is why they are so cocky , self assured, and wrong.

Counter point. God's word tells us He would that all would come unto Salvation. That no one perish in their sins.
God gave The word life and The Word entered the world of sinful people and taught the eternal irrevocable Good News of God's grace spread out across the whole world. That whosoever would believe in that Savior, Jesus the Christ, would not perish but have everlasting life.
Salvation and repentance of sins is a choice!
Just like sinning is a choice.
Salvation does not bind God to what men do.
Men bind themselves to what they do not do when they hear the word and deny its very simple veracity to change a life in them.

Yes, God has a people. Those for whom the Gospel resonates as truth so that they repent and are reborn in Him. All that is required is faith.
Find the meaning of Jesus promise; no one comes to the Father but through me, and one will be on their way to the truth of God in Christ.

Do We Have a Choice About Salvation?

Choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah (Joshua 24:15).

I will try and hope you.
We live in time God doesn't,
Scripture tells us that Jesus was slain before the foundation of the earth.
Therefore we were also created before the foundation.
God our father knew each and every person that would accept Jesus before he began.
He was at your end before you had a begining.
Everyone had the same decision to make, he knew your decision

As created beings man has a beginning. Christ in His pre-incarnate state and part of the Godhead God purposed to make Christ an atonement for mans sin long before man sinned. If He had not I do not think God would have created man.

There is no glory in God creating souls that have no choice in obedience. God created all things and declared them good.

God knows your decisions but God does not compel you to make those decisions. You do not have the benefit of knowing your decisions until after you make them therefore glorify God in your body and life.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

There is no one in scripture named christ, there is Jesus.
Tells me how uninformed you are. Christ is the anointing given to Jesus at the Jordan river.
If you don't know your saviors name are really saved

you can count on it

I think that yes, many are called but few are chosen; however believers in the bible should pursue the straight and narrow everyday. It's good to be on the safe side and is commanded. Also "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." 1Timothy 4:16

I can see that scripture still doesn't play a large part in these discussions.
It's all there everything I said.
It's there but its seems fear and tradition supersedes the HOLY SPIRIT who by the way wrote the book

your god

her god

his god

their god

any god

the Bible says whosoever will and God is not willing that any should perish

apparently you do not understand the meaning of those words to lable GOD as someone's 'god' but not YOUR god

whosoever will, indicates a choice. the will of a person operates through their ability to make a decision.

the fact that God is not willing that any perish, DESTROYS the calvinism position that God creates people to use as fuel in the fires of hell

so, 1) people have a will that indicates they are not robots nor are they beyond being able to refuse God's Son, which, leads to

2) God is not willing to send people to hell and therefore has not created certain people to send there just because, but neither does that indicate that all are saved either

THEREFORE, men are eager to depict a god that is controlled by whimsy and uses the enie meanie mynie mo selection process

false gospel, false judgement and false security

no thank you

if you are going to mock people, make sure your own information is beyond reproof

the word or name 'Christ' is not an anointing, while it does mean Jesus is anointed

Christ means Messiah or the Anointed but it is not 'an anointing'

the word anointing is a verb while Christ is a noun

He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, 'We have found the Messiah ' (which translated means Christ)." John 1:41

I had to read that 3 times to understand what you are saying so please ignore my other response which I was thankfully still able to delete