Total Depravity

And what difference would it make whether God knew in advance how Israel would behave, or God discovered in real time how Israel would behave and adjusted His strategies in real time to shepherd the people into the promised land?

Ephesians 2

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.


Why Calvinists are wrong:

1) As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins...

Emphasis is personal sin, not inherited sin.

2) Paul affirms that all of us “were. . . children of wrath.” The verb emetha (“were”) is an imperfect tense, middle voice form. The imperfect tense describes on-going action as viewed in the past.

Thus, here it depicts the style of life which had characterized these saints prior to their conversion. Had the apostle intended to convey the notion of inherited sinfulness he would have stated BORN children of wrath.
Salmon, S. D. F. Expositor’s Greek Testament. Vol. 3. Ed. W. Robertson Nicoll. New York: George H. Doran Company.

3) It is possible that the King James Version, and most subsequent translations, reflect a Calvinistic bias in the rendition, “by nature children of wrath.” The Greek word phusei rendered “nature” in our common versions can denote “a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature” (Thayer, 660).

Clearly, these people by habitual practice had become worthy of divine wrath. McCord’s translation suggests that the Ephesians had “by custom” become children of wrath.


Therefore “Nature” >>>>Habitual Practice.

Winer contended that their trespasses and sins had made them “natural children of wrath” (270). His understanding of the Greek are consistent with the immediate context of this passage and the tenor of the Bible as a whole.
Winer, G. B. 1825. A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek. Edinburgh: T & T Clark.

And while slaves can disobey their masters, they can't purchase their own freedom. They must be purchased by another who is willing to free them. Could you list for me all those Satan has set free?

I don't recall seeing a description of goats, other than they are separated to the opposite side of the sheep.

Jesus doesn't claim to have a goatfold. He doesn't claim to have come for lost goats. He does claim to separate the goats from the sheep.

Being a slave ......


We are born as slaves to sin.

Jesus has purchased our freedom.

We can choose to follow Jesus and serve Him or stay a slave to sin.

Jesus does not force us to serve Him.

Think of Israel in Egypt.... they could not free themselves, they were born as slaves, but God stepped in to free them. God gave them a way to escape the slavery of Egypt. They needed to follow Moses out and obey by faith.

Today we need to follow Jesus by faith.

What? You really didn't notice any different characteristics between the sheep and the goats in that parable?

Do you believe if the goats acted differently they would somehow become sheep?

Wrong... HE claims to be a doctor for the sick. To save the sinners.

Mar 2:16-17
16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? 17 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

if time is greater than God then we should be worshipping that which is greater, not that which is lesser.

The goats were uncompassionate toward Christ's disciples in their afflictions. Others were compassionate toward the disciples in their afflictions. According ti the parable, that is what distinguished them. So, yes, had a goat changed their behaviour towards Christians, they would have become a sheep. Neither the sheep nor the goats were designated as Christians in that parable.

The difference is if God has to learn, He is not omniscient and if He is not omniscient, He can make mistakes and If He can make mistakes (potentially), we aren't able to fully trust His word and that means there can be no righteousness not from God or for ourselves.

God's omniscience is what makes God righteous. The two go hand in hand.

Your premise is wrong. Jesus isn't rewarding or punishing based on works. That would mean salvation wasn't actually by grace. What He was doing was describing the works that are characteristic of sheep and goats.

If you remember back to Ephesians 2,you will recall that all people were living like the children of wrath. But when God enters the picture, He changes all that. They no longer follow the ways of the world, but begin to do the works He has prepared for them. This is why they have acted as they have. The passage is descriptive, not prescriptive.

How is asking questions contradicting God?

Who are you, oh man, to falsely accuse me?

You are assuming that the sheep in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Mt. 25) are Christians. The parable does not say that. What Christian is unaware that what s/he does for Christians, s/he is doing to Christ? These are the nations surviving His coming with His saints in glory. The sheep are not resurrected saints, they are surviving unglorified non-Christians who for conscience sake had shown kindness to Christians during the great tribulation. They enter the kingdom prepared for them as unglorified commoners under the saints' rule. Who do you think the saints will be ruling over in the millenium? And they are judged and rewarded according to their works, according to Jesus, whom you seem to want to correct. "Nay. Not so, Lord."

I'm not assuming anything. Look at the outcome for each group. In John 10 Jesus says He gives His sheep eternal life. In Matthew 25, the sheep receive eternal life. No doubt that they are Christians.

Being a slave ......


We are born as slaves to sin.

Jesus has purchased our freedom.

We can choose to follow Jesus and serve Him or stay a slave to sin.

Jesus does not force us to serve Him.

Think of Israel in Egypt.... they could not free themselves, they were born as slaves, but God stepped in to free them. God gave them a way to escape the slavery of Egypt. They needed to follow Moses out and obey by faith.

Today we need to follow Jesus by faith.

No attribute of God is greater than God, We do not worship love, or truth, or holiness or time.

time is physical; God is spirit

Omniscience means knowing all truth. If the future is a series of probability functions that only collapse into certainty when they become the present, that is how God would know the future: as uncertain possibilities. God does not know things as true that are not now true. But since God is perfectly good and powerful, I can trust Him, even if the future is largely uncertain to Him. Of course, anything God determines ahead of time to make happen, he can bring to pass by applying His omnipotence and ingenuity to circumstances.