Understanding God’s election

GWH · Saturday at 4:45 PM

LOL!

On a more serious note, you may have missed/ignored this attempt at reconciliation:

Re "So, why do you accuse me of having a divisive spirit? Please provide quotes of me exhibiting such."

My search found that we discussed things amicably until I posted in #4,045 that ignoring Paul's teaching that God loves and wants to save all people, which means that He gives every sinner volition, thereby enabling him to seek salvation--or not, implicitly blasphemes God by ascribing to Him hatred of humanity, or at least most of it, depending on how many you think He elects.

In the next post you replied, "I have never claimed that faith is meritorious. I'm not sure where you got that idea. It is the opposite of my belief. I do not ignore that A&E are examples of sin and Abe an example of faith. It is quite shocking how easily you lie. I never said the gospel message was foolishness to Abe. I don't know why you feel you have to make up so much crap. Blaspheming God. I never said He hated humanity. My God, what a liar you are to be so dishonest about what I believe."

My reply in #4,079 was this:
Re "I have never claimed that faith is meritorious. I'm not sure where you got that idea. It is the opposite of my belief." Why else would you refuse to ascribe the ability to seek and have faith in God to sinners? If it is non-meritorious, what's the problem?
Re "I do not ignore that A&E are examples of sin and Abe an example of faith. It is quite shocking how easily you lie.": Sorry, I thought that if you viewed Abraham as an example of saving faith for all to be erroneous that you would probably think the same about A&E being an example of sin.
Re "I never said the gospel message was foolishness to Abe. I don't know why you feel you have to make up so much crap.": I inferred it from you saying that the natural/uncircumcised man--which Abraham was--could not believe the Gospel unless God circumcised his heart first, but Paul says Abraham had faith first before circumcision, so how do you avoid implying that crap?
Re "Blaspheming God. I never said He hated humanity. My God, what a liar you are to be so dishonest about what I believe.": What I said was that by denying the teaching that God loves and wants to save all people you implicitly ascribe to Him hatred of however many humans you think He does not elect to circumcise--and you did not say that you believe God circumcises everyone's heart just now, so how do you avoid this implication?
Then I stated my amended understanding:
1. You agree with Paul's teaching that faith is a non-meritorious acceptance of Christ's work...
2. You agree with Paul's teaching that A&E exemplify sin...
3. You disagree that Abraham was saved by faith first and THEN God deemed him to be or spiritually circumcised...
4. You agree with Paul's teaching that the proto-gospel message was NOT foolishness to Abraham...
5. You seem oblivious to the implication that by ignoring Paul's teaching that God loves and wants to save all people, which means that He gives every sinner volition, thereby enabling him to seek salvation--or not, you ascribe hatred for the part of humanity whose hearts God does not circumcise so they may believe and be saved and effectually force them to go to hell. [BTW, it is wrong to say someone lies when they merely misunderstand you.]

[And so we got crossways on p.204, 15DEC24, and Jimbone & Rufus were also pejorative in their disagreement
with us Arminians per #4,197]

I am sure further search will find that I already apologized for misunderstanding y'all's beliefs to be TULIPism,
but just to update our discussion, I hereby apologize again and request that you respect the honest
Arminian interpretation of Scripture, even though you disagree with it.

I hope everyone affirms the essential belief in Jesus as Messiah and Lord,
but I wish we all would agree on what that means and thereby grant the prayer of Jesus in John 17:21-24.
If you disagree with something in my five-point elaboration of the Christian creed, please specify why.
Thanks. Over...

Rufus · Saturday at 4:58 PM

studier said:

Wrong still. This Rufus is a feline lover. I have eight of the little furry critters.

Rufus · Saturday at 5:06 PM

GWH said:

LOL!

On a more serious note, you may have missed/ignored this attempt at reconciliation:

Re "So, why do you accuse me of having a divisive spirit? Please provide quotes of me exhibiting such."

My search found that we discussed things amicably until I posted in #4,045 that ignoring Paul's teaching that God loves and wants to save all people, which means that He gives every sinner volition, thereby enabling him to seek salvation--or not, implicitly blasphemes God by ascribing to Him hatred of humanity, or at least most of it, depending on how many you think He elects.

In the next post you replied, "I have never claimed that faith is meritorious. I'm not sure where you got that idea. It is the opposite of my belief. I do not ignore that A&E are examples of sin and Abe an example of faith. It is quite shocking how easily you lie. I never said the gospel message was foolishness to Abe. I don't know why you feel you have to make up so much crap. Blaspheming God. I never said He hated humanity. My God, what a liar you are to be so dishonest about what I believe."

My reply in #4,079 was this:
Re "I have never claimed that faith is meritorious. I'm not sure where you got that idea. It is the opposite of my belief." Why else would you refuse to ascribe the ability to seek and have faith in God to sinners? If it is non-meritorious, what's the problem?
Re "I do not ignore that A&E are examples of sin and Abe an example of faith. It is quite shocking how easily you lie.": Sorry, I thought that if you viewed Abraham as an example of saving faith for all to be erroneous that you would probably think the same about A&E being an example of sin.
Re "I never said the gospel message was foolishness to Abe. I don't know why you feel you have to make up so much crap.": I inferred it from you saying that the natural/uncircumcised man--which Abraham was--could not believe the Gospel unless God circumcised his heart first, but Paul says Abraham had faith first before circumcision, so how do you avoid implying that crap?
Re "Blaspheming God. I never said He hated humanity. My God, what a liar you are to be so dishonest about what I believe.": What I said was that by denying the teaching that God loves and wants to save all people you implicitly ascribe to Him hatred of however many humans you think He does not elect to circumcise--and you did not say that you believe God circumcises everyone's heart just now, so how do you avoid this implication?
Then I stated my amended understanding:
1. You agree with Paul's teaching that faith is a non-meritorious acceptance of Christ's work...
2. You agree with Paul's teaching that A&E exemplify sin...
3. You disagree that Abraham was saved by faith first and THEN God deemed him to be or spiritually circumcised...
4. You agree with Paul's teaching that the proto-gospel message was NOT foolishness to Abraham...
5. You seem oblivious to the implication that by ignoring Paul's teaching that God loves and wants to save all people, which means that He gives every sinner volition, thereby enabling him to seek salvation--or not, you ascribe hatred for the part of humanity whose hearts God does not circumcise so they may believe and be saved and effectually force them to go to hell. [BTW, it is wrong to say someone lies when they merely misunderstand you.]

[And so we got crossways on p.204, 15DEC24, and Jimbone & Rufus were also pejorative in their disagreement
with us Arminians per #4,197]

I am sure further search will find that I already apologized for misunderstanding y'all's beliefs to be TULIPism,
but just to update our discussion, I hereby apologize again and request that you respect the honest
Arminian interpretation of Scripture, even though you disagree with it.

I hope everyone affirms the essential belief in Jesus as Messiah and Lord,
but I wish we all would agree on what that means and thereby grant the prayer of Jesus in John 17:21-24.
If you disagree with something in my five-point elaboration of the Christian creed, please specify why.
Thanks. Over...

Volition doesn't enable anyone to make spiritual choices. God ENABLES sinners to draw near to Christ (Jn 6:65). Give me one text in scripture that explicitly teaches man's "freewill" enables him to seek God and/or His Christ.

GWH · Saturday at 6:51 PM

Rufus said:

Apparently you missed seeing this memo:

Jesus Himself expressed GRFS succinctly using three, four and five letter words: “Ask… seek… knock…” (Matt. 7:7). This indicates that God graces every sinful soul with the ability or opportunity to understand how to be saved (1Tim. 2:3-4), which might be called “seeking grace” (Tit. 2:11). As Hebrews 11:6 states: “He [God] rewards those who earnestly seek him” (cf. Isa. 45:19). Seeking God is the beginning of saving faith, and not seeking God or rejecting His salvation in Christ is the essence of evil atheism or faith in I-dolatry (Rom. 3:11, 1:18-23).

Thus, sinful humanity retains the image of God or moral free will, so every normal adult soul is able by faith to choose to seek salvation–or not (cf. Deut. 30:19). That is why Paul went “every Sabbath to the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18:4)! “He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus.” (Acts 28:23b) “Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. (Acts 28:24) They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul made this final statement: The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving, for this people’s heart has become calloused.” (Acts 28:25-27a, cf. 2Tim. 3:7)

Rufus · Saturday at 7:28 PM

GWH said:

"Ask, Seek, Knock" does not equate to enabling the will. And Mat 7:7 does not say that God "graces" the souls of all mankind in the distributive sense, nor does the text even mention grace! Again, you read those assumptions into the text because that is what YOU want to believe. You have zero love for the biblical truth! So...you have to make up your own personal truth to replace the truth in scripture. I asked you a very specific question: Give me a text that explicitly says that man's will enables people to believe the gospel, since that is what you specifically claimed in a prior post. But I provided a text that says that no one can come to Jesus [in faith] apart from the enabling power of God. So what are you going to do now: Are you going to try to con us into believing that God's enabling power in Jn 6:65 = man's volition?

PaulThomson · Saturday at 10:39 PM

GWH said:

Even Pilate wanted to free Jesus, yet he sent Him to the cross. Jesus began to create unity with Pilate before Pilate was a disciple. Jesus washed Judas' feet, working to create unity with Judas, when Judas was plotting to betray Jesus into the Sanhedrin's murderous hands.

We can create unity with anyone, by practising humility, empathy and respect to find and share common ground with them. Your focus on demanding a minimum of specific propositional truth claims in common before acknowledging unity is actually creating unnecessary division.

Rufus · 2025-04-27T14:44:05-0400

PaulThomson said:

Even Pilate wanted to free Jesus, yet he sent Him to the cross. Jesus began to create unity with Pilate before Pilate was a disciple. Jesus washed Judas' feet, working to create unity with Judas, when Judas was plotting to betray Jesus into the Sanhedrin's murderous hands.

We can create unity with anyone, by practising humility, empathy and respect to find and share common ground with them. Your focus on demanding a minimum of specific propositional truth claims in common before acknowledging unity is actually creating unnecessary division.

Where in scripture does it say that Pilate became a disciple of Jesus?

Rufus · 2025-04-27T14:45:46-0400

One and All: Is it just me or is anyone else experiencing ongoing problems with this website? I'm experiencing more down time than not when trying to access this forum.

Magenta · 2025-04-27T15:01:41-0400

Rufus said:

Wow! That is a lot... is one of them a Momma Kitty?

Rufus said:

Scripture says no such thing and does not even hint at such a conclusion. More fanciful thinking from PT.

John 18 verses 37b-38a “You say that I am a king,” Jesus answered. “For this reason I was born and have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.” “What is truth?” Pilate asked.

Rufus · 2025-04-27T15:11:52-0400

Magenta said:

No! All our cats are fixed and have been rescued by us. However, we do have one female (the oldest in our feline family) whose mom gave birth to her and a couple of other kitties years ago on our patio, and my wife helped her make the delivery.

And you're right about PT. Another eisegesis interpreter. And it still amazes me that he insists that Judas was saved, despite the fact that he was indwelt by his spiritual father the devil! This is unprecedented. Nowhere in scripture is there a record of any true believer ever being possessed by Satan.

GWH · 2025-04-27T15:43:33-0400

Rufus said:

So, you think Jesus would have told people to seek who were not enabled to seek?!
What part of Tit. 2:11 does not mention grace?
Again you refuse to see biblical truth, because you have zero divine love!
Yes, a loving God enables volition; what else?

Rufus · 2025-04-27T16:06:55-0400

GWH said:

The better question to ask: What part of Tit 2:11 mentions "freewill".

Secondly, here's a novel thought for you: People who "ask, seek and knock" are those those whom the Father has given to the Son in the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6! This chapter overflows with God's grace! If you want to talk about enabling power, then look no further than this chapter.

The Father gives his elect to the Son...
The Father draws his elect to the Son...
And whoever the Father gives to the Son will come to Him...
And whoever comes to the Son has been enabled by the Father...
And whoever comes to the Son, the Son will raise him up on the last day...
And the Son will resurrect the elect because this is the Father's will for them...

So, tell me how all the above doesn't speak to God's effectual saving grace?

Rufus · 2025-04-27T16:27:37-0400

To change the subject for a moment I have a question about about a problematical passage, so I would welcome all intelligent, thoughtful replies. Here's the passage:

1 Cor 15:3-5
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
NIV

Now the question: How could Jesus have appeared to the Twelve since Judas was already dead?

BTW, I have another question that pertains to the larger context of this passage but I just want to tackle one question at a time.

GWH · 2025-04-27T17:53:02-0400

Rufus said:

The best question to ask is what part of Tit. 2:11 contradicts the MFW implied by Matt. 7:7 & 23:37?
Enabling/drawing is resistible, not forcing or coercing, which is why not everyone is elect, vice the "I" in TULIP.

Magenta · 2025-04-27T18:10:10-0400

Rufus said:

Jesus knew Judas never believed... so I don't know how anyone could think he was ever saved.

"Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them
did not believe and who would betray him. Jesus knew Judas did not believe from the beginning, calling him
an unclean devil and son of perdition, meaning doomed to destruction. No child of God is doomed to destruction.

Judas was an unbeliever and is a devil . . . . . . . John 6:64-71
Judas was spiritually unclean . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . John 13:11
Judas is lost and is the son of perdition . . . . . . John 17:12
Judas was not kept by Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John 17:12; 18:9

John 13 verses 10-11 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and
you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore, He said, “You are not all clean.”

Judas was an unbelieving, unclean devil who betrayed Jesus. (John 6:64-71; 13:10-11)

John 17:12 - While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me
I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

John 18:9 - that the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, "Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none." Jesus
did not lose Judas. Judas was already lost. Judas was not included in those "whom the Father gave to Jesus to be kept."

DeanM · 2025-04-27T18:57:28-0400

PaulThomson said:

Even Pilate wanted to free Jesus, yet he sent Him to the cross. Jesus began to create unity with Pilate before Pilate was a disciple. Jesus washed Judas' feet, working to create unity with Judas, when Judas was plotting to betray Jesus into the Sanhedrin's murderous hands.

We can create unity with anyone, by practising humility, empathy and respect to find and share common ground with them. Your focus on demanding a minimum of specific propositional truth claims in common before acknowledging unity is actually creating unnecessary division.

Didnt know Pilate became a desciple?

Rufus · 2025-04-27T20:13:41-0400

GWH said:

Nope it is not resistible under the New Covenant. Jesus gives eternal life to all whom the Father has given to Him (Jn 17:2). There's no forcing or coercing when Christ raises the dead. Is that what Jesus did to Lazarus when he commanded him to come forth!? Or did he rescue a helpless dead person from his dark tomb!?

And when God instills the Fear of Himself into the hearts of his covenant people so that they'll never turn away from Him, is that grace resistible (Jer 32)?

Or when God circumcises the hearts of his covenant people so that they can love him, is that grace resistible, too (Deut 30)?

Furthermore, God's will or plan can never be thwarted (Job 42:2). And when God acts, no one can reverse it (Isa 43:13)!

And neither passages in Matthew imply freewill. But what they do imply is a moral obligation of people to obey since God never lowered his moral/spiritual standards after Adam fell.

Rufus · 2025-04-27T20:19:21-0400

Magenta said:

Jesus knew Judas never believed... so I don't know how anyone could think he was ever saved.

"Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them
did not believe and who would betray him. Jesus knew Judas did not believe from the beginning, calling him
an unclean devil and son of perdition, meaning doomed to destruction. No child of God is doomed to destruction.

Judas was an unbeliever and is a devil . . . . . . . John 6:64-71
Judas was spiritually unclean . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . John 13:11
Judas is lost and is the son of perdition . . . . . . John 17:12
Judas was not kept by Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John 17:12; 18:9

John 13 verses 10-11 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and
you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore, He said, “You are not all clean.”

Judas was an unbelieving, unclean devil who betrayed Jesus. (John 6:64-71; 13:10-11)

John 17:12 - While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me
I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

John 18:9 - that the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, "Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none." Jesus
did not lose Judas. Judas was already lost. Judas was not included in those "whom the Father gave to Jesus to be kept."

Excellent post! And, yes, I especially had Jn 17:12 in mind. Jesus said to his Father that Judas was lost, which clearly implies he did not keep Judas because the Father never him to Jesus. Jesus only keeps those whom the Father gives to Him. Judas' spiritual daddy was the devil himself. It's no wonder at all that the devil possessed him!

Rufus · 2025-04-27T20:20:23-0400

DeanM said:

Pay PT no mind. He often makes things up on the fly because he likes to tickle his own ears.

PaulThomson · 2025-04-27T22:16:14-0400

DeanM said:

We are not talking about discipleship. We are talking about unity. and the requirements for generating unity.

Understanding God’s election

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