Not so much "He has the perfect solution".
Rather, He is the perfect solution and that is an under statement.
Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
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Rather, He is the perfect solution and that is an under statement.
Wrong
This is where you get confused - and confuse others.
You keep spouting some kind of TULIP reasoning that is backwards.
Sorry.
You need to read the Bible again. From the OT to the NT.
Gods Chosen people were from Abraham onwards. God made a convenant with Abraham and his descendants. He didn't make them with any other nation. They were chosen. They were not born into sin and slavery, they were born to be His special righteous and holy people. They had to observe the convenant and follow God and all the commandments He laid down for them. Of course, they didn't always observe them but even if they did not, God had mercy on them and rescued them time and time again.
You really need to understand this, its actually spelled out for you in the Old Testament. You don't need to read the Hebrew, but it helps when you don't try to Christianise the Old Testament. The New Testament reveals to us that Jesus is now the one who will redeem everyone, including Gentiles who believe.
Remember the convenant was a BLOOD covenant. Hebrew boys were circumcised at 8 days old -- the boys did not have a choice in the matter. They were born into the Hebrew lineage and into the covenant. This is an everlasting covenant made with the Hebrew people.
Now are you Jewish? Are you circumcised? Or is your husband? Your ancestors going back to the Holy Land?
I know I'm not. But it DOES NOT MATTER. Jesus was chosen. Jesus saved me. And I believe in him, FREELY. Nobody is forcing me to believe in Him. His covenant is a NEW covenant. Yes it is grace, but it is not the same as the old one. The Old one had certain requirements, plus many people did not have any idea of Jesus before He came. They only had God and didn't know His only begotten son.
You can try to retrofit Jesus into the Old Testament (as many Calvinists try to do) but it does not work.
His Will is going to be done through you but it's normally you who chooses the actions by how it gets done. So you are exercising His Will by the way you fulfill it.
The things of God are the doctrines that are given to those who believed in Jesus Christ.
The natural man can not understand them.
They are meant for instructing believers.
But, as shown to you in Romans 1:18-23?
The unbeliever can be drawn to the place where he knows God is real.
That place is the foundation for God drawing men.
I may be misunderstanding your post, because Christ is referenced so extensively in the Old Testament that it is difficult to see how that could be missed. But if your post means what it appears to mean, I would respond that Christians do not “retrofit” Jesus into the Old Testament; Jesus Himself taught us to read it that way in John 5:39, where He said the Scriptures “testify of me.” Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 9:6 explicitly point to the Savior, and Isaiah contains many other references to Jesus—too many to list here—along with similar testimony throughout the Old Testament.
From beginning to end, all of Scripture is centered in one way or another on Jesus Christ as Savior. Scripture states this clearly in Psalm 40:7:
[Psa 40:7 KJV] 7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book [it is] written of me,
In the following verses, Jesus refers Himself in the Old Testament.
[Jhn 5:39-40 KJV]
39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
[Jhn 5:46-47 KJV]
46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
The writer of Hebrews often connects Christ to the Old Testament; these verses are only a few examples.
[Heb 9:23-24 KJV]
23 [It was] therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, [which are] the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
[Heb 13:11-12 KJV]
11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
We're to ignore the OT Scriptures that fhoretell of Jesus then?
Romans 9:8
So it is not the children of the flesh (of Abraham) who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as offspring.
Well sure you can but its best to read the Bible in the order that it was published.
Not saying ignore it but just read it in order.
Also we know Jesus was circumcised, and when the church first started, there was debate over whether Gentile believers had to be.
Before Jesus, every male who professed Judaism had to be circumcised, and women had to follow the commandments set out and given to Moses. Abraham was circumcised. Granted circumcision is the flesh, but it was also meant to symbolise a cutting off or setting apart and a covenant.
Recall that Ishmael was Abraham's offspring too, but was not counted as a child of the promise, nor his subsequent offspring. He is included in the covenant though. He was circumcised at 13.
Not saying ignore it but just read it in order.
Also we know Jesus was circumcised, and when the church first started, there was debate over whether Gentile believers had to be.
Before Jesus, every male who professed Judaism had to be circumcised, and women had to follow the commandments set out and given to Moses. Abraham was circumcised. Granted circumcision is the flesh, but it was also meant to symbolise a cutting off or setting apart and a covenant.
Recall that Ishmael was Abraham's offspring too, but was not counted as a child of the promise, nor his subsequent offspring. He is included in the covenant though. He was circumcised at 13.
Of course not.
We have always had limited willpower and a tremendous urge to sin.
Does that then mean that God drives every single choice we make, definitely not.
The Lord is not the author of sin or evil.
There are two very important words in the N.T which are often missing on Christian Forums.
The two words are "grace" and "love".
We cannot understand either the O.T or the N.T without knowing these two words.
Otherwise, the debate between Calvinism and and Arminianism is a philosophical discussion.
Freewill cannot be adequately defined nor can Determinism (God's Sovereignty) be strictly defined.
The debate is a never ending clash of carefully selected verses by each side to support the underlying philosophy.
The scripture also presents both of these viewpoints.
Once you include grace and agape love the debate should end but it does not.
So what is the issue.
If God is so powerful that He elects to salvation folk from eternity.
Then surely these folk pursue love to the extreme and pray without ceasing?
Something is wrong with this idea because 99.9% of Christians, I doubt, would pray more than twenty minutes a day.
Can anyone explain this paradox?
When it comes to loving your enemies as Jesus told us Calvinism (Augustine and Calvin) both stated heretics must
be punished. Which is not far removed from the Catholic practice of punishing heretics during their Inquisitions.
Something is deeply wrong here.
Maybe the error is in not understanding the meaning of prayer in that context.
And just to interject and avoid confusion here, I am not a Calvinist!
Our Christian lives are dominated by prayer.
Romans 12:12
Rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer.
Ephesians 6:18
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
Colossians 4:2
Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;
Luke 18:1
Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.
Prayer is a two way conversation between us and the Lord and in the Spirit.
What is your definition of prayer?
No, in Galatians 4:9 Paul is not teaching that God lacks eternal omniscience or that He learns about a person's existence only after they choose to believe. This verse highlights divine initiative and covenantal election, not a delayed divine awareness.
God is omniscient and knows all things from eternity past (Psalm 139, Ephesians 1:4). He does not wait for human beings to make the first move before He becomes aware of them.
When Paul writes, "you have come to know God—or rather to be known by God," he corrects any prideful assumption that a believer's salvation originates from their own brilliant spiritual insight or human achievement. Paul corrects himself to emphasize that human knowledge of God is entirely derivative—it exists only because God first knew, chose, and loved them.
In scriptural terms, God "knowing" someone (like the concept of yada in the Old Testament or Paul's use in passages like Romans 8:29) implies an intimate, electing, and saving relationship. To be "known by God" means to be the object of His sovereign, gracious affection and predestined adoption before time began.
That's absolutely true, yet the vast majority of professing Christians don't believe it.
Grace and saving faith are unmerited gifts from God that precede human belief.
Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
The Greek phrasing for "this" is neuter, which encompasses both grace and faith, meaning the entire package of salvation—including the ability to believe—is a divine gift.
Philippians 1:29 "For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake."
Faith is something explicitly "granted" or gifted to the believer by God.
Acts 13:48 "And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed."
Ordination or appointment to eternal life comes before the action of believing.
John 6:44, 65: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him... This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."
Human capability is spiritually dead (monergism) until God actively draws and grants the capacity to come.
Romans 9:16 "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy."
Salvation explicitly bypasses initial human free will in favor of God's sovereign mercy.
None of that is true. The Abrahamic Covenant includes Abraham's physical descendants and all people of faith from every nation.
The Covenant of Grace is God's ongoing promise to save people through faith in Jesus Christ across all history. It is not a separate plan, but the same foundational promise given to Adam, Noah, Abraham, and later believers.
The covenant was never limited by ethnicity. God told Abraham that all families of the earth would be blessed through him. The New Testament book of Galatians explains that anyone who has faith in Christ is a spiritual child of Abraham and an heir to the promise.
The Old Testament believers were saved by the exact same Lord Jesus Christ and through the same method as New Testament believers. Salvation has always been a free gift from God, never earned by human works or keeping the ceremonial law. Old and New Testament saints are justified the same way—by placing their trust in the Lord Jesus.
The actual merit, blood, and payment that saved Old Testament believers was the future work of Jesus Christ on the cross. They were saved "on credit" or looking forward to the promise, while New Testament believers look backward to the finished event.
Old Testament believers looked forward to a coming Messiah through shadows, prophecies, and animal sacrifices. New Testament believers look back to a historical Savior who has already come and died.
Old Testament believers were regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit to have faith, but the New Covenant brought a richer, fuller, and universal outpouring of the Spirit following Christ's ascension at Pentecos.
That's a definite brainfart of a comment, which goes way beyond misinterpretation.
Stuff i need to sort out on here first, then i'll scan a few pages to see if there's similar stupidity which needs a reply.
"God chooses who to save unconditionally, based entirely on His sovereign will rather than by looking ahead to see who would choose to believe."
My personal understanding, which is always open to modification if a better theory turns up, is that God KNOWS all so doesn't need to look ahead.
Our brains are incredible, there's definitely plenty of evidence their capability is far beyond our current lifespan, including that of people who lived before the flood. However, i think the heart is probably where our mind resides, to use relevant computer terms, i think of the heart as the motherboard and the brain as the cpu.