Posted on 09/05/2001 2:47:45 PM PDT by RnMomof7
God bless each of you!
You can't even begin to refute our reading of John 6 or Romans 9 or Hebrews 10:14.
You just ignore everything we say. It's not as though you have reasonable counterarguments, because you definitely don't.
you flatly refuse to believe John 6 or Romans 9. You won't even discuss them intelligently.
You have no explanation for John 6:37, 39, and 44 or Romans 9. The Calvinistic position is correct. but You can ignore it, it won't change the Truth. So, ignoring it is dangerous. Why don't you deal with this problem?
And John 6 is perhaps the most staggering example of your contempt for sound doctrine. Verses 37, 39, and 44, taken together, utterly destroy everything in your Wesleyan/Arminian theology. This is why you IGNORE THE PASSAGE and why you IGNORE OUR WARNINGS about THAT.
A real bunch of RUBBISH if fact PURE RUBBISH
I would like everybody to take a look at what is below. Then ask if this qualifies as ignoring John 6. Then ask is this a REASONABLE ATTEMPT TO REFUTE THE CALVINIST READING OF JOHN 6. Then ask is this AN ATTEMPT TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM.
Then take note of the HYPOCRITE'S words
but You can ignore it, it won't change the Truth. So, ignoring it is dangerous.
WHAT HAS HE DONE WITH WHAT IS BELOW ? OR EVEN BETTER WHAT COULD HE DO WITH IT ?
In your 68 you state something very interesting
John 6 is perhaps the most staggering example of your contempt for sound doctrine. Verses 37, 39, and 44, taken together, utterly destroy everything in your Wesleyan/Arminian theology
I find it most interesting YOU STOP AT VERSE 44. if you read 45
"For it is written in the prophets: And THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD EVERY ONE EVERYONE THAT HATH HEARD OF THE FATHER and hath learned, COMETH TO ME."
That kinda pulls the rug out from under YOUR THEOLOGY, It is no wonder you CONVENIENTLY STOP at verse 44
Regards
don
84 Posted on 09/04/2001 14:59:14 PDT by
Please take notice that though there has been 97 more posts on that thread with many of the references that were stated at the beginning of this one included in that 97.
BUT 84 recieved the NORMAL TREATMENT "IT WAS IGNORED" But note the statements above saying that NO RESPONSE TOOK PLACE. WHAT ARE THEY ?
Regards
don
--TJM
Checkers is a fun game, don't you think, Uriel? BTW, I'll flag you when I get my post together for RnMom. You'll like what else I have to say about checkers.
For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Worry about God not Uriel:>))
I bet you didn't know that I often put secret notes of praise & thanksgiving to my God in the posts I write. Did you catch the one in that post? Do you know what it meant?
Your appeal to v.45 of John 6 means nothing. Verses 37, 39, and 45 destroy your anti-Reformation theology.
To the_doc-anyone who can read English can see that 9-11 is parenthetical
It deals with Israel and her rejection and her future reacceptance.
Quit obscuring the point. Anyone who can read English can see that Romans 9 is talking about salvation and damnation in the entire chapter. Look at how the chapter starts. Look at how it concludes. Look at how the next chapter starts. QED, bubba.
***
In the beginning of Chapter 9, Paul is pointing out how much his kinsmen in the chosen nation of Israel had in the way of privileges as the professed people of God.
But notice that Paul is specifically lamenting the fact that these privileges did not save most of them. This is the point about which Paul is concerned. And it is the subject of the entire chapter. Notice what he says along these very lines. He comes up with a real shocker in v.6. He says that God had not intended to save most of them. This is obvious in v.6 in two ways. First of all, Paul is saying in v.6 that the Word of God did not fail to accomplish its purposes in the national of Israel.
(See also Isaiah 55:11. God's Word NEVER really fails. What appear to us to be failures on the part of the Word are not failures after all. Surprisingly enough, God is not trying to save everyone. Why does this surprise folks? It is because they do not understand the dilemma inherent in the free offer of the gospel. The free offer is sincere, but when unregenerate sinners exercise their free will, they don't come to Christ. Period. [The problem is, they won't repent.]
This oddly free refusal to accept the free offer of the gospel is the point of the parable of the feast in Luke 14. It is also the point of John 6:37, 39, and 44.
This horrible mess which fallen sinners are in is why we Calvinists have tirelessly pointed out to Christians and unspiritual scoffers on this thread that regeneration has to precede saving faith--not the other way around [as is ordinarily taught by careless theologians in our day].)
Back to the argument of Romans 9, I will reiterate that Paul is flatly declaring that God's Word had not failed to accomplish its purposes in national Israel. This is not a matter of interpretation, friend. This is an explicit statement in the text. You need to deal with it. And if you ever manage to deal with it honestly, you will have the entire doctrine of predestination confronting you.
Study it for a while if you can even stand to admit that you are wrong. (Most people on this forum can do no such thing, by the way.)
So, God's Word succeeded in establishing national Israel with all of its theocratic privileges. But the God of predestination was not trying to convert everyone in Israel--which is the sense in which the Word of God did not fail. And it is the very thing Paul is concerned to discuss. Paul finds solace in the decidedly awful, majestic will of His Sovereign God.
Paul elucidates this doctrine of God's will, of God's utterly sovereign, unstoppable purposes of salvation and damnation, in another thing which he says in v.6. He says that not all who were of Israel were Israel. He is telling us that there was an Israel within an Israel. This Biblical-theological oddity ultimately tells us that the theocratic election of Israel as a nation was an Old Covenant type for the soteriologic election of those who are chosen unto salvation.
This second body is the second Israel Paul talks about in v.6. It is related, BTW, to what Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9 when he refers to the saved as comprising a royal priesthood and holy nation. (Peter is borrowing the idea of literal Israel and applying it figuratively to the Church, which functions as a metaphorical nation with its King in Heaven.)
Now, the idea of being chosen is the main idea inherent in Israel, as far as Paul is concerned. But Paul is clearly telling us that it is possible to be chosen in the national sense and not chosen in the spiritual sense. It is possible to be in the first Israel and to miss the second Israel.
This is exactly what the Lord Jesus is telling us in John 10 concerning what He calls His sheep. Most Jews assumed, based on the Old Testament figures of the "sheep," that being in national Israel made them members of that flock which would surely be saved. But Jesus shocked them with the new revelation in John 10 that there is another election, i.e., another idea of Israel. And even if God had a theocratic flock, the flock which the Lord Jesus would serve as the Good Shepherd involves an altogether different election!
The net result of what the Lord was saying in John 10 is that it establishes the peculiar situation of an Israel within Israel. It tells us that some Jews were elect unto salvation, whereas many (actually, most) were not elect unto salvation. Those who were elect unto salvation were the Lord's true sheep in His special role as the Good Shepherd.
This is why we have the odd logic in John 10:26. Notice that it is presenting the reverse of what Wesleyan/Arminians want it to say. Faith doesn't get a sinner elected. Election is what actually guarantees that he will receive the supernatural gift of faith.
What I am saying, in case you did not notice, is that John 10:26 utterly destroys the Weseleyan/Arminian notion that God elects based on His precognition of a sinner's faith. According to the Lord's Own logic, election is the ultimate cause of the sinner's faith, not the result of his faith. John 6 also rules out the Wesleyan/Arminian position--very emphatically so.
(The Wesleyan/Arminian theologian does not understand what God's foreknowledge really is. It is a planning faculty, not mere precognition. God envisions a people of faith, and He makes that scenario happen.)
John 10:26 is telling us is that a non-elect sinner will never be morally able to believe the gospel. Intellectual apprehensions aside, his moral wickedness will seal his unbelief. He hates the Truth. He has no Truth-receptors in his soul--precisely because he is unregenerate. He has a nature of unbelief, of hatred for the Truths of his Creator. He will not believe the gospel. He will not come to Christ even when invited. (See again John 6:37, 39, and 44.)
But he may very well profess faith in Christ. That's different.
I would point out that reprobates confronted with the awful Truth of God's utter sovereignty in election and reprobation will just complain that if predestination is true, then the free offer of the gospel is a lie! They're wrong, of course. The Bible teaches both true predestination and a true free offer gospel. If folks can't grasp this in a believing way, that's too bad. They'd better quit calling God a liar. (But a reprobate will not stop calling God a liar--not in this life, anyway. So, when God throws him into hell forever, he gets precisely what he deserves. [He wouldn't stop calling God a liar, so God won't stop punishing him.])
***
As an aside, I would point out that the spiritual election which forms spiritual Israel is bigger than the election of national Israel. Spiritual Israel includes some Jews but a great many Gentiles. The Lord Jesus makes this point in John 10 when He says "Other sheep have I, and they are not of this fold. And there shall be one fold and One Shepherd." He is telling us that He intended to go out and secure the salvation of elect Gentiles and bring them into the Body of the saved, into the one fold of His True Church, the fold in which there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile.
When you start putting all of this together, the doctrines of election and reprobation are actually pretty easy. The Apostle Paul already had the material which we have in the form of John 10. He understood the election of grace. And he understood that being in the first Israel meant nothing in the way of salvation. And Paul noticed the very strange sovereignty of God in His dealings with the descendants of Abraham. He noticed that God continually exercised His sovereign prerogatives in chosing one descendant and rejecting another.
Jacob and Esau were the very best example of this. They were chosen to head two different nations, but Paul uses the very sovereignty of God's choosing to illustrate the soteriological point which he has been concerned to address from the very beginning of Chapter 9.
As Calvin pointed out, God's choice of one nation over another is emblematic of His sovereignty in spiritual election and spiritual non-election. Paul is definitely keying on this very point to illustrate what he was talking about in vv.1-6. Although it is true that Esau was the head of the nation of the Edomites, Paul was keying on the fact that Esau, a physical descendant of Abraham himself, was reprobate. And Esau was an individual. Reprobation is just as personal as salvation and damnation are. Esau was damned by the sovereign Creator Who owed him nothing anyway.
This is also why Paul goes on to talk about the reprobation of Pharaoh. Pharaoh was also an individual.
***
This stuff ain't hard. Romans 9 is obviously talking about salvation and damnation, and these are matters which go all the way down to the level of individuals. Some individuals within Paul's own physical nation were saved--because God saved them individually--but most of the individuals within Judaism were not saved. God simply left them in their unregenerate state. And He did this by the very design of His plan of self-glorification in election and reprobation.
He picks one individual and rejects another. He is the Potter making sovereign decisions with the clay of fallen humanity.
So, if you don't think this God is very glorious, maybe you need to realize that He's not all that impressed with you. Maybe you haven't given sufficient thought to the matter of sin. It is a lot worse than most people realize. (The Wesleyans are the worst I have ever encountered in their dullness concerning the horror of sin. But the easy-believism types who are ruining today's dispensational movement are not much better, IMO.)
Again, this is pretty easy, pretty clear doctrine. As I said in a humorous comment to jude24, I have the distinct advantage of defending the correct theological position. Some of the clearest passages in the Bible support me. And Romans 9 is one of the clearest of all.
On the other hand, it is impossible to embrace what Paul was saying in Romans 9 if you are determined to defy the Calvinistic position. Gosh, Paul was a Calvinist.
If you continue to argue this point by scoffing at me--as you have done incessantly up until this point--I will just start laughing at you. Your scoffing has gone on for too long already. You don't know whereof you speak, and thus far, you have been far too proud to admit that.
You really need to straighten up. And you need to quit trashing the Reformers. They were correct when they said that the issue which we are discussing was the most important issue of the entire Reformation. And even if no one else on FR is inclined to laugh at you, I don't care. I will have God Himself laughing with me (Psalm 2:4).
A sinner doesn't have to be a Calvinist to be saved. But then again, it's not a real good idea to scoff at predestinarian doctrine when God decides to make an issue of it with you in His providence. The Truth is more important in this regard than most people realize, and the modern apostasy from sound doctrine--which started in a big way with none other than John Wesley--is a pretty scary mess. (Wesley actually taught his followers to be "loving" folks, but he simultaneously taught them to hate many, many important Truths. Something awful was going on with that fellow. And I see it in his followers.)
I don't claim to have infallible discernment as to who is saved and who is lost. But I will say that I am presenting a God Whom most professing Christians in our day don't really know any more than the lost Jews knew Him in Paul's day. And that's not an accident, either.
You need to be sure your God is the God of Romans 9. He's the real God.
Regards
don
"Study it for a while if you can even stand to admit that you are wrong. (Most people on this forum can do no such thing, by the way.)
I would so much like to call your attention to this remark especially.
"and to admit that you are wrong. (Most people on this forum can do no such thing, by the way.)"
In the last TWO YEARS on this fourm To the best of my knowledge and let the RECORD SPEAK FOR ITS SELF I have NEVER SEEN NOR CAN I RECALL A PLACE WHERE DOC HAS EVER ADMITTED TO BEING WRONG !!! IT HAS ALLWAYS BEEN THE OTHER GUY.
This ought to tell you something !!
The TRUTH will always come out
regards
don
Romans 8 concludes by saying our confidence is in the God who justified and the Christ who died in our place, such that nothing could separate us from him. Romans 9 is crucial to this-- can we trust God, given how Israel is in unbelief? So the purpose of this chapter is to vindicate God's dealings with Israel.
What I am saying, in case you did not notice, is that John 10:26 utterly destroys the Weseleyan/Arminian notion that God elects based on His precognition of a sinner's faith. According to the Lord's Own logic, election is the ultimate cause of the sinner's faith, not the result of his faith. John 6 also rules out the Wesleyan/Arminian position--very emphatically so.
Again some of doc's OWN OPINIONS And just as arrogant and full of pride in himself as usual.
Lets consider John 10:24--26
"John 10:24-27
First we must consider what the words of v. 24 imply.
But the problem all along had not been the problem of clarity about who Jesus really was. He gave evidence in the many miracles He had performed,and this would point to with even a clear answer In fact one would just have given them more ammunition which would have spurred them on even more in the area of thier hostility. One can read the words quite plainly
My sheep listen to my voice; I known them and they follow me (10:27)
At his point it becomes quite easy to conclude that the choice to accept Jesus lies outside of the individual's power. Right off I want to agree with the fact that only those who are allready in the flock can hear Jesus voice and follow
So then the critical question is
How does one BECOME A MEMBER OF THE FLOCK ?
The answer to all of this has been given back in that FAMOUS chapter John 6 in Jesus earlier examination of thier unbelief. (John 6:43--45) It was quite plain that He taught that NO ONE could come unto Him unless the Father draws them. Here too it would appear like HUMAN WILL and belief has NOT a role to play. But in the very NEXT breath Jesus says this
"EVERYONE WHO LISTENS TO THE FATHER AND LEARNS FROM HIM COMES UNTO ME"
Stout words indeed. For Jesus was not preaching Absolute Election or Predestination He was saying that the acceptance or rejection to listen and learn from the Father depended upon a persons willingness. Their exclusion from being of the flock depended upon thier choice or willingness to listen and learn of the Father.
A very important point needs to be made at this point. That is we have not been talking about a spiritual approach to God. Just a willingness to listen and learn of God. While man is spiritually dead and cannot approach or please God in any way. He can have the knowledge of a existence of God.
Now the Calvinist WILL tell you that natural man wants nothing to do with God. This is not totaly true. For in Rom 1:19 In reading on you see the awfull picture of sinful man becoming REPROBATE But please note something. Paul in describing the fallen state of man in Rom 3 uses the word ALL But in Rom 1 he uses the word THEY This denotes that NOT ALL are doing this or he would have used that word.
Now lets look at what these people were doing in Romans 1.
In every case above you can notice a CHOICE to refuse to learn about God. The Calvinist will very quickly quote Rom 3:11 to you
" There is none that UNDERSTANDETH God, there is none that SEEKETH after God"
But take note there is not a mention of the fact they can not LEARN about God when the chance is given. This chance comes in the form of His Word and the preaching of it. Sure they can reject this knowledge just as the Jews did in John 10. But there is an equall chance they can learn and be drawn to Jesus in doing so.
God bless
don
"But there is an equall chance they can learn and be drawn to Jesus in doing so."
I would like to add. The choice is man's to make. But this is ONLY because of God's LOVE and GRACE that is extended to EVERY MAN
Be blessed
don
Just to stir the pot-- a friend at school sent me this link. His dad (a pastor) made these notes up earlier, and posted them on the web. its 97 pages from a very calvinist viewpoint, but i'm gonna review them tonite. Free Will and Election (Election.PDF)
Wow! What a superb lesson plan. My own Sunday school teacher is very good but I would love to sit in this Walt Svarczkopf's class. What an outstanding series of thirteen lessons! It's very sound and orthodox from the Calvinist (i.e. scriptural) view. A very mild drawback is the sparse use of a font which they did not include in the PDF but that doesn't detract at all from the lessons.
Thanks. I'm going to keep this one. I'd recommend it to all those who post here as it contains a very nice discussion of all the topics we discuss here endlessly including God's hatred (generally and also toward Jacob/Esau) and double predestination and man's free will vs. God's predestination.
I would have to say that the only drawback is that it just doesn't contain enough insults and condemnation to be suitable for extended quotes here at FR. You should convey to the author that if he wants to be a real Calvinist, he's just got to tell more people they're ignorant and damned. That's what works best. If he needs some pointers, you can invite him here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.