The elect

[Gregory Thompson]

How can I imagine not being an elect, if the non-elect hate God? I wouldn't care, I would ride on that rebellion to the very gates of hell itself...

God didn't do a memory wipe with me, so I can still remember, though it was a while ago.

 

[HTacianas]

I explained how impersonal it is. Thanks for the affirmation.

Whether it is personal or impersonal really has no bearing on it.

 

[redleghunter]

We need only take the point as far as it is written. The writer warns his audience that they can be cut off just as others had been cut off. They cannot be both predestined and subject to being cut off at the same time.

No Paul is addressing the Gentiles who were grafted in as a people could also be cut off. He used the comparison over three chapters.

 

[HTacianas]

No Paul is addressing the Gentiles who were grafted in as a people could also be cut off. He used the comparison over three chapters.

So does that answer the question as to whether they were elect or whether they were not elect?

 

[redleghunter]

So does that answer the question as to whether they were elect or whether they were not elect?

The answer is in an expository examination of the teaching.

If you want to make your point on the elect as something that is fungible, then Romans chapters 9-11 must be addressed. Not a few verses. Paul does compare “groups” as in Israel and Gentiles but also addressed individuals in the text.

You happened to pick verses which addressed groups and not individuals.

 

[Monk Brendan]

...Sometimes saved people appear on the list and it is confusing.

Just what list are you talking about?

 

[Jonaitis]

God didn't do a memory wipe with me, so I can still remember, though it was a while ago.

I don't know where you are on the spectrum, how do you understand John 6:44 and 65?

 

[His student]

We need only take the point as far as it is written. The writer warns his audience that they can be cut off just as others had been cut off....... They cannot be both predestined and subject to being cut off at the same time.

Non sense.

A final result can be predestined and the various steps along the way which lead to that predestined result can be predestined as well.

 

[HTacianas]

Non sense.

A final result can be predestined and the various steps along the way which lead to that predestined result can be predestined as well.

Which leaves us at the original question: Who are the elect?

 

[HTacianas]

The answer is in an expository examination of the teaching.

If you want to make your point on the elect as something that is fungible, then Romans chapters 9-11 must be addressed. Not a few verses. Paul does compare “groups” as in Israel and Gentiles but also addressed individuals in the text.

You happened to pick verses which addressed groups and not individuals.

So by all means tell us about the individuals.

 

[Not David]

Everyone believes they are the elect, no one will say "I guess I was predestined to go to hell".

God have mercy on me!

 

[Rescued One]

Which leaves us at the original question: Who are the elect?

The elect are His sheep. They are the ones He saves and keeps. Those predestined won't fall away. I don't know who is elect but the elect know they have eternal life. We share the gospel message with everyone.

1 Corinthians 3
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

 

[HTacianas]

The elect are His sheep. They are the ones He saves and keeps. Those predestined won't fall away. I don't know who is elect but the elect know they have eternal life. We share the gospel message with everyone.

1 Corinthians 3
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

1Co 9:27

No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

 

[GingerBeer]

So are the elect like that group of people at the prayer meeting who decide who's saved and who's not?

No, the people at the prayer meeting are gossips who have nothing better to do with their time and prayers so they gossip about who is saved or not saved in their opinion.

I Mean, how do they know who isn't saved?

They do not know they just offer their opinions and gossip.

Did they vote?

No, nothing so organised and systematic, they just offer opinions and gossip and that is the whole point of the exercise. Just to gossip about other people who are not present.

Sometimes saved people appear on the list and it is confusing.

They have a list?

 

[Mark Quayle]

So are the elect like that group of people at the prayer meeting who decide who's saved and who's not? I Mean, how do they know who isn't saved? Did they vote? Sometimes saved people appear on the list and it is confusing.

I can't tell if you are trying to be funny or sarcastic. Seems hard to believe you are serious.

But to deal with the question, read the Bible. It uses the word, "elect" and that is where we get it. For starters, though, it means "chosen". God is the one who chooses. And he did this from the beginning, not like he looked out over us and chose the best of us, but he has a "project" in mind --the Bride of Christ-- and he chose the members of that Bride --the elect.

And he didn't do it because they deserve it or because there is anything better about them than anyone else, but only according to his own purposes.

 

[Rescued One]

Double Predestination: Some are shown mercy and others are left to their own devices.

Jude 1
1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: 2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

God doesn't force people to be evil.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

The difference is sometimes described as corporate election, meaning that there is a group that is elected, and individual election, the idea that certain individuals are elected.

So the body of believers is elected, but not the individuals? The individuals are identified by being in the body, and the substance of the body is its individuals. The only thing he would have elected is that there will happen to be some unspecified number of individuals who have faith, and even that could not be guaranteed unless at least one individual was elected.

Whether it is personal or impersonal really has no bearing on it.

If it is impersonal, then it goes back to his earlier point that you seem to think that God elected an idea. Your position seems vague to the point of not being meaningful, to me.

 

[HTacianas]

So the body of believers is elected, but not the individuals? The individuals are identified by being in the body, and the substance of the body is its individuals. The only thing he would have elected is that there will happen to be some unspecified number of individuals who have faith, and even that could not be guaranteed unless at least one individual was elected.



If it is impersonal, then it goes back to his earlier point that you seem to think that God elected an idea. Your position seems vague to the point of not being meaningful, to me.

The question is perhaps easiest to answer by Exodus 32. God had promised Abraham that he would build his descendants into a nation. Abraham's descendants were then held in Egypt for four hundred years then left. After they left Egypt, they then sinned against God and God swore to destroy them and build His nation from the descendants of Moses:

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.”

God had decided long before that the descendants of Abraham would become a great nation. If God had destroyed the Israelites and then created His nation from the descendants of Moses, He would have His nation, and He would have kept His promise to Abraham, but with an entirely different group of people.

Now, were the Israelites the "elect" before during or after all of that? God relented at the prayer of Moses and allowed most of them to live, but many of them did not. Again, we're they the elect? Were they not the elect?

 

[friend of]

No Paul is addressing the Gentiles who were grafted in as a people could also be cut off. He used the comparison over three chapters.

It's very reminiscent of John 15 actually. Christ is speaking about individuals in John 15.

 

[SinoBen]

So are the elect like that group of people at the prayer meeting who decide who's saved and who's not? I Mean, how do they know who isn't saved? Did they vote? Sometimes saved people appear on the list and it is confusing.

"The elect" is not equivalent to "the saved".