Posted on 01/17/2014 10:17:41 AM PST by dangus
God does not prevent anyone from coming to Him.
So yes or no - those who are not predestined can be saved?
First, let me say I truly enjoy this conversation with you.
Let me use an analogy. Say I have twin sons, I send them both to MIT for an engineering degree. I pay for their schooling. I call them weekly. I provide all they need. One son studies hard. The other barely cracks a book and drinks and smokes pot daily. I know one son will get his degree, and one will fall short. Neither were predestined to succeed or fail. Both could have achieved, Both were given all the opportunity (grace) to succeed. Because I know one will fail does not mean he was predestined to fail. It was his choice, not mine.
That is the difference. Because God knows who will accept His grace does not mean it was His choice. He does predestine some. That is in Scripture, so I believe it, but don’t understand it. But believing that God predestines some to hell is not consistent with Scripture. We can choose to accept his freely given grace, or reject it.
We do not "earn" our salvation through good works (Eph. 2:8–9, Rom. 9:16), but our faith in Christ puts us in a special grace-filled relationship with God so that our obedience and love, combined with our faith, will be rewarded with eternal life (Rom. 2:7, Gal. 6:8–9).
Since no gift can be forced on the recipient—gifts always can be rejected—even after we become justified, we can throw away the gift of salvation. We throw it away through grave (mortal) sin (John 15:5–6, Rom. 11:22–23, 1 Cor. 15:1–2; ) Paul tells us, "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23).
Read Paul’s letters and see how often Paul warned Christians against sin. Paul would not have felt compelled to do so if our sins could not exclude us from heaven (see, for example, 1 Cor. 6:9–10, Gal. 5:19–21).
Paul told the Christians in Rome that God "will repay everyone according to his works: eternal life for those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness" (Rom. 2:6–8).
The predestined go to heaven
Those not predestined can accept God's grace, or reject it.
God knows what we will choose. But the choosing is our choice, not His.
Otherwise, Phil 2:12 would be meaningless - "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
Your analogy fails because.... You are not God.
The problem that you have, and it is a problem I struggled with for 30 years is that you can't call a God who exercises his divine sovereignty and who actively chooses whom he will save "evil" merely because he doesn't save those whom he does not save and then turn around and call a God who creates people whom he knows beforehand will never ever be saved and who are equally as damned as "good".
No matter how you slice it, God makes the decision on whom he will create and whom he will allow into his presence. You don't get that choice. The "choice" was foreordained before the foundation of the Earth.
You can claim that your position makes God better than the Reformed position, but no matter how you slice it, a man's salvation has been foreordained if not by God's own sovereign will, then by his infinite foreknowledge.
The Reformed position is that nobody knows why God picks one man for salvation and not another. I personally disagree with the Westminster Confession when they say that God's foreknowledge has nothing to do with it. I can't make that call. It is God's own sovereign will that determines the state of our salvation and his alone.
So the problem is that you seem to call a God who leaves our salvation in the hands of Fate a "Good" God, but the God who secures our salvation solely by his own divine and perfect choice and leaves nothing to chance an "evil" god.
I have come to peace with the Reformed position. Since I still have some concerns with the language of the Westminster Confession on the issue of foreknowledge and I am not comfortable with the idea of Limited Atonement as it is understood by most Calvinists, I suspect that I am not a Calvinist. But I am more than comfortable in the knowledge that those who are saved are saved because of a decision by God and not by a decision of their own. If they make that decision then it is because God changed their hearts. It is not a decision that a "natural" man would ever make. I think the scriptures make that perfectly clear.
Also, before you go off and accuse God of being "evil" because he passes over some people and gives his irresistible grace to others, I'd suggest you do a deep study into Romans chapters 8 and 9.
Now Paul may have been wrong, but if you believe that those chapters are inspired by God (as I do) then you can't help but come to the understanding that God does predestine the elect and he passes over everyone else.
It is a hard concept to come to peace with, but it is clearly set forth in scripture.
If you want, I will answer all your other points later. Such as your notion that a gift cannot be forced on someone. (Didn't God give you the gift of life? or how about the Gift of Faith? Once you have it, can you reject it? If so, then you never had it. Or whatever talents God bestowed upon you. You can refuse to use them but you still have them).
Maranatha
Your analogy fails because.... You are not God.
The problem that you have, and it is a problem I struggled with for 30 years is that you can't call a God who exercises his divine sovereignty and who actively chooses whom he will save "evil" merely because he doesn't save those whom he does not save and then turn around and call a God who creates people whom he knows beforehand will never ever be saved and who are equally as damned as "good".
No matter how you slice it, God makes the decision on whom he will create and whom he will allow into his presence. You don't get that choice. The "choice" was foreordained before the foundation of the Earth.
You can claim that your position makes God better than the Reformed position, but no matter how you slice it, a man's salvation has been foreordained if not by God's own sovereign will, then by his infinite foreknowledge.
The Reformed position is that nobody knows why God picks one man for salvation and not another. I personally disagree with the Westminster Confession when they say that God's foreknowledge has nothing to do with it. I can't make that call. It is God's own sovereign will that determines the state of our salvation and his alone.
So the problem is that you seem to call a God who leaves our salvation in the hands of Fate a "Good" God, but the God who secures our salvation solely by his own divine and perfect choice and leaves nothing to chance an "evil" god.
I have come to peace with the Reformed position. Since I still have some concerns with the language of the Westminster Confession on the issue of foreknowledge and I am not comfortable with the idea of Limited Atonement as it is understood by most Calvinists, I suspect that I am not a Calvinist. But I am more than comfortable in the knowledge that those who are saved are saved because of a decision by God and not by a decision of their own. If they make that decision then it is because God changed their hearts. It is not a decision that a "natural" man would ever make. I think the scriptures make that perfectly clear.
Also, before you go off and accuse God of being "evil" because he passes over some people and gives his irresistible grace to others, I'd suggest you do a deep study into Romans chapters 8 and 9.
Now Paul may have been wrong, but if you believe that those chapters are inspired by God (as I do) then you can't help but come to the understanding that God does predestine the elect and he passes over everyone else.
It is a hard concept to come to peace with, but it is clearly set forth in scripture.
If you want, I will answer all your other points later. Such as your notion that a gift cannot be forced on someone. (Didn't God give you the gift of life? or how about the Gift of Faith? Once you have it, can you reject it? If so, then you never had it. Or whatever talents God bestowed upon you. You can refuse to use them but you still have them).
Maranatha
Sorry about the double post. :-)
So when Paul told the Christians in Rome that God "will repay everyone according to his works: eternal life for those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness" (Rom. 2:6–8) - he was lying?
So when Paul tells us, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), that really means nothing.
There are people who are saved and there are many who are not. Scripture teaches that it is God who hardens the heart so that they cannot come to Him.
Every Christian who has ever been, it has been because God has chosen to reveal Himself to them. And like Moses drawn to the burning bush or Paul on Damascus Road, we submit to His loving call.
Let's spend some time on this one.
Working out my salvation - if Paul was predestined, there was no need to work. If ANYONE was predestined, there was no need to work. What is the meaning of this verse?
What is there to fear if one is predestined?
I am not going to trade scripture bricks with you or engage you in some kind of juvenile proof text exchange. I know all the proof texts for the Anti-Calvinist position because for 30 years that was my position. I think the thing that changed my position the most was when I began finding that on the Catholic threads many of the people who espoused the "Free Will" argument were really Pelagians. That they viewed Man's Free Will as somehow more sacrosanct than God's Sovereign will. That somehow everyone gets an equal chance at Salvation and everyone has within them the inherent power to basically save themselves.
I get from your posts that you somehow think that everyone somehow has some inherent ability to come to Christ without God working some kind of divine miracle in their life. And that in order to be fair to everyone, that God gives an equal share of some amount of "grace" and that the good people will respond favorably and the bad people will reject him.
But the scriptures make it clear that there are no good people. There are none righteous and that all of us are born with a nature that will reject God and based on that idea of Total Depravity that only those whom God changes will come to him.
But, I hear you say, THAT IS NOT FAIR!.
I think the whole Calvinist v. Arminian debate can be set forth succinctly. Here is the Calvinist position in perfect King James English:
Romans Chapter 9
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
14What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 22What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
And here is the Typical Arminian/Anti-Calvinist Position:
BUT, BUT, BUT, THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!
I understand your position completely because it was my position as well. But the scriptures are clear and once a person's eyes are opened to them, there is no going back.
We are depraved people, and that is the simple truth.
2Ch 36:16 But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy.
It is God that must take us by the hand and yank us out of Sodom.
Eph 2:2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
Eph 2:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
God so loves us that there is a remnant that He saves with His grace and mercy. The real mystery for the believer is why did He grant us His grace and mercy.
Some days it makes your head explode and some days your heart.
No, you instead will not answer hard questions, change the subject, pretend you can read my mind, and then throw out your own proof text.
Amen and amen.
So what is the meaning of the verse that Paul is ‘working out my salvation in fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2:12)
We work out of salvation in "fear and trembling" not because we fear the Father, for perfect love cast out all fear. Rather we work out our salvation in "fear and trembling" because our love for the Father is (should be) so great that we want to bring honor and glory to Him, not reproach. Our nature is such that we can bring reproach. Understanding that we are sinful creatures help us to understand that we can dishonor the Father and Son. Therefore we work out our salvation in fear that we will bring dishonor to God. This is the love that God has instilled in us.
Post 108 was a hard question. Post 107 and 109 were stupid questions and were phrased in such a way as to evoke an emotional response.
I believe that HarleyD did an excellent job of answering your question in Post 108.
Looking at the whole argument fairly it appears that you believe that a God who makes the decision on whom he will extend saving Grace is evil. That it is not fair that people who are not extended such saving Grace are not allowed to make a Free Will choice to be saved. But you fail to realize that it is the Free Will of man which prevents people from coming to a saving knowledge of Christ and that any and all "Free Will" choices of men will always be to reject Christ as it is not in the nature of Fallen man to turn to God. Those who ultimately make their choice for Christ do not do so of their own free will, but instead are responding as sheep who hear the voice of their shepherd. They respond because they are sheep.
Christ promised he would not lose any of his sheep. Thus if you are numbered among Christ's sheep, your salvation is now, and has always been, in the hands of God.
Is it unfair that God gets to pick his own sheep?
That was most eloquently answered by Paul in Romans Chapter 9.
Who are you to question God's decisions? God is the potter. We are but clay.
Anyone can come to God and be saved.
The question is who wants to without the working of the Holy Spirit?
Good way to phrase it.
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