Understanding God’s election

Most translations from the Hebrew scriptures render "chesed" as lovingkindness. So...when God removed his "lovingkindness" from king Saul (2Sam 7:15), you're going to tell us that he still loved him -- even though there are numerous scriptures that teach that God hates, despises, loathes sin as well as sinners?

I'm just informing that chesed is not the word meaning love. It's frequently translated with Greek "mercy." There's been a lot of research on it, and some compare it to "loyalty" in regard to covenant.

I exercise my God-given volition and logic to harmonize Scripture,
but although I hope my effort is inspired and edifying,

including "we love God because He first loved us (Rom. 5:8) as He does everyone (1Tim. 2:3-4)
by providing seeking grace (Matt. 7:7, Tit. 2:11), thereby freeing them from enslavement to sin and hell,
if they exercise that efficacy to repent of atheism and reflect His love by loving His Son (John 8:42-47),
whereupon God's HS indwells the new convert (Rev. 3:20, 1Cor. 12:13)",

I do not view such exercise as meritorious/salvific.

I love Paul, but not your misunderstanding of his and other NT teachings,
unless I misunderstand your reluctance to agree with the kerygma:

The normative way of stating the kerygma/GRFS in the NT is “Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as in 2CR 4:5 & CL 2:6). The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:

1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (DT 6:4, JN 3:16, 2THS 1:6), who is both able (2TM 1:12) and willing (1TM 2:3-4) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (RM 3:23, 2TM 3:2-4, CL 3:5), miserable (GL 5:19-21), and hopeless (EPH 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (MT 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (JN 3:18, RM 2:5-11).
3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (JN 3:16, ACTS 16:30-31, PHP 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (RM 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1CR 15:14-28).
4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God’s justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (LK 2:11, JN 14:6, ACTS 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (MT 22:37-40, JN 13:35, RM 13:9)—forever (MT 10:22, PS 113:2).
5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept Him (RV 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word/sanctification everyone cooperates fully with His will (JN 14:6, 17&26, RM 8:6-17, GL 6:7-9, EPH 1:13-14, HB 10:36, 12:1, JM 1:2-4).

You totally misuderstand the Gospel. You glibly interpret 1Tim 2:3-4 totally out of context -- just as you do Rom 8:29. You constantly add your presuppositions to biblical texts. You manhandle, mangle and distort God's Word shamelessly.

Let's revisit Rom 8:29 for a few seconds. What if the text read: "Everyone God foreknew he predestined to be conformed..."? Or what if the text read in place of "those", "All whom God foreknew....", would you still read your garbage into it by saying the text is really saying "Everyone God foreknew [would come to faith in Him] he predestined..."? Or "All whom God foreknew [would believe on him] he predestined...?. If Paul meant to say what you superimpose on the text, why didn't he just come out and say it? Why do you assume the authority to speak for him?

I assume no authority, and I love Paul, but I do not understand why you disagree regarding the Gospel.
Let's discuss that foundational doctrine before proceeding with didachaic discussions regarding predestination or whatever.

Groovy - 1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (Deut. 6:4, John 3:16, 2Thes. 1:6),
who is both able (2Tim. 1:12) and willing (1Tim. 2:3-4) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—
a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.

Rufus - 1. There is no loving Lord God who wants all sinners to repent and go to heaven???

Yes, He did change His mind. He said "Let me ... consume them"
God, through the prophets, says He changed His mind.


Exo 32:9 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!
Exo 32:10 “Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.”
Exo 32:11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
Exo 32:12 “Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people.
Exo 32:13 “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”
Exo 32:14 So the LORD repented (וַיִּנָּחֶם NaKhaM, Niphil waw-sequential : from the harm which He said He would do to His people.

(Niphal)

1. to be sorry, be moved to pity, have compassion
2. to be sorry, rue, suffer grief, repent
3. to comfort oneself, be comforted
4. to comfort oneself, ease oneself

Psa 106:23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

You say He didn't mean what He said, because you don't want to have to go back to the drawing board and reformulate your complex theological schema.

No, that's not what I said. He definitely meant what He said. But one can err when they do not consider the full council of God. Truth is always true whether it has been revealed or not. For instance, salvation has always been by grace through faith, though this truth was obscured in the OT. Likewise, mercy has always been an option when God threatens judgment. And salvation has always been wrought through judgment. Except a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it will not bring forth fruit. Except Jesus was judged at Calvary, no life springs forth through Him.

It has always been true also that when one prays according to the will of God that their prayer is answered. Since Moses' prayer was answered, was it not God's will to spare Israel?

I just leave this here.

You totally misuderstand the Gospel. You glibly interpret 1Tim 2:3-4 totally out of context -- just as you do Rom 8:29. You constantly add your presuppositions to biblical texts. You manhandle, mangle and distort God's Word shamelessly.

Let's revisit Rom 8:29 for a few seconds. What if the text read: "Everyone God foreknew he predestined to be conformed..."? Or what if the text read in place of "those", "All whom God foreknew....", would you still read your garbage into it by saying the text is really saying "Everyone God foreknew [would come to faith in Him] he predestined..."? Or "All whom God foreknew [would believe on him] he predestined...?. If Paul meant to say what you superimpose on the text, why didn't he just come out and say it? Why do you assume the authority to speak for him?
What God DESIRES and what he DECREES are two very different things. If he rested solely on his desires, no one would be saved. But thanks be to God that he loves Abraham's helpless descendants so much that he decreed their salvation.

And what I bolded is more of your doublespeak. "God...is able to provide human beings salvation or heaven...", but he does not effectuate that salvation?

Your FWT that limits God brings this passage to mind:

Isa 66:9
9 Do I bring to the moment of birth
and not give delivery ?" says the LORD.
"Do I close up the womb
when I bring to delivery ?" says your God.
NIV

These are more rhetorical questions which your false gospel that you love so dearly will not permit you to answer correctly. Instead, you have God bringing one up to the point of the new birth, but NOT PROVIDING the enabling power for actual delivery.

If babies are "innocent" then your god is an unrighteous, monstrous murderer since he has decreed millions of very young people to suffer the penalty of sin, which is death, before they personally attained to a true knowledge of good and evil. Explain to us how your god is just in doing this.

I have several times on this thread challenged FWers to provide one text in scripture that explicitly (the operative term) teaches that God loves sinners with a filial love -- just as much as he loves the righteous, which is explicitly taught in many places. No one has obliged. Evidently, there is no such passage in all the bible. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Too bad for you FWers! Once again y'all come up empty!

But in the interest of being fair and balanced and above all else truthful to God's Word, there is one passage that comes close (another operative term). But remember what they say about "close": Close counts only in hand grenades, death and horseshoes. Let's look at the passage:

Ps 117:1-2
1 Praise the LORD, all you nations;
extol him, all you peoples.
2 For great is his love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Praise the LORD.
NIV

The first thing to notice is that we don't know who penned this psalm. A Jew might have -- but then again, maybe not. Perhaps a Gentile who became a Jewish proselyte penned it. We must remember that there are a number of Gentiles in the OT who became believers.

But the big question to be asked pertaining to v. 2a is: Should we understand "us" as being each and every person in the world w/o exception? The psalmist is clearly addressing the nations or "you peoples". But if the psalmist was Jewish then he's including Israel in with the other nations.

The second noteworthy item is that if the psalmist was a Jew, then based on the OT Doctrine of Separation (from the nations of the world), why would the psalmist include Israel in with the heathen, uncircumcised, unclean, idolatrous nations? On what basis would a Jewish psalmist include Israel? The only biblically-based answer I can think of would be is that the psalmist penned his psalm throgh the prism of the the Abrahamic Covenant; for it is this covenant wherein God promised Abraham that he would become the "father of many nations" (Gen 17:4-5), and that "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (Gen 12:3). At the same time, we learn from the NT that Abraham is the spiritual father of all believers -- believers who reside in many nations all over the earth (Rom 4:11, 16)! Abraham is not the spiritual father of each and every person in the world w/o exception. But he is the spiritual father of all believers in the earth w/o distinction, since God is not a respecter of persons (Act 10:34).

Therefore, there is no compelling reason to understand the "us" in the above quoted passage in the distributive sense even if the psalmist were Jewish. (Of course, this would be doubly true if the psalmist was in fact a Gentile believer; for then we would have a Gentile believer addressing other Gentiles.) Moreover, in either case, the w/o distinction interpretation would harmonize with numerous passages which do explicitly teach that God hates, despises, abhors sinners.

Close...but NO cigar!

No, if salvation depended solely on God's desire, everyone would be saved,
but seeking grace is resistible or able to choose to ignore GW as you do.
I know you disagree, but I bet my harmonization is more correct than your omission.
BTW, today I learned to cite Ezek. 33:11 along with 1Tim. 2:3-4.