Does Matthew 22:14 prove Calvinism and Predestination?

[Dave L]

Even when it is obviously unjust. God taught us what it means to be just and your doctrine says he can disregard that lesson because his sovereignty allows him to punish the innocent.

That statement is false. If God did something that was unjust, then it would BE unjust. Why? Because he said that arbitrary justice is a false justice. He punishes the unjust, not the just. Romans 2 (which is in preparation for what Paul would write in the 9th chapter) establishes MEN as hypocritical because they judge men unrighteous for the same things they practice themselves. He then goes on to say that they cannot escape God's judgement who does not practice hypocrisy but certainly recognizes theirs as unjust. By the time he gets to chapter 8 he tells us that it is MAN who condemns others for the things they do wrong and GOD who delivers us from condemnation through the gospel of Jesus. Then in chapter 9 he shows us that God loved even Pharoah and was willing to give him all 10 plagues before he destroyed him, a show of MERCY, rather than condemnation if only Pharaoh would repent. He even tells Pharaoh that he raised him up so that people would see the power of God in him. Pharaoh rejected that purpose and resisted God's will that his people be brought out of Egypt.

Your doctrine preaches that God needed Pharaoh to disobey to show what an awesome God he was.

If true, this would, rather than make him great and glorious would make him petty and small. Any God who needs to pick on somebody smaller than him in order to exalt himself is no God at all.

Your doctrine slanders God. It says that he causes men to be sinners so that people can see how great he is. It is not god-like at all, it is the equivalent of a child who picks the wings off of flies.

The scripture in no way preaches that God you preach. The scripture is telling us that God gave Pharaoh every opportunity to repent, not that he made Pharaoh to sin in order to make himself look good.

Personally, I would have God just as he is because he is perfect. He would be imperfect if he were to be as you would have him to be.

 

[Dave L]

The bible says no such thing. If you want to worship a god who is a hypocrite and a liar, I can do nothing to stop you. But frankly I think that you have erected that idol to justify your own hypocrisy. The God of the bible says hypocrisy is a mortal sin.




So did the Greek scholars who defined it from its use in scripture apparently. 'Adjusted' is another word they used to explain it's meaning. There are words for create and made which apply to something's beginning. Paul was not talking about that. Had God meant 'created' God would have inspired him to use that word.

Here's where we are. If Calvin was right about sin and grace, most hate God and worship an idol. Are they saved? I think some are in spite of their ignorance.

 

[Al Touthentop]

But the adjustment comes from God anyway! So you say God refits them for destruction which implies they were saved and now lost because repaired them for destruction or adjusted them or refitted them.

Now you're talking. The adjustment comes from God. Paul writing to a congregation consisting of Jews and Gentiles both, who were having some problems dealing with this newly established diversity. The Jews in the audience who were once made for glory, (chosen people) were now under a law which included non-chosen people (Gentiles).

"How can God allow Gentiles! WE'RE the chosen ones." But even as chosen ones they sinned. So to accuse Gentiles as being worse sinners than them was total hypocrisy. But through the gospel God saved everyone who obeyed him. So those who they viewed once (Gentiles) as being somehow inferior to them were being saved, and the majority of their Jewish brethren were now condemned. Then Paul goes on to say that jealousy may cause some to come to Christ. Notice, he never says maybe God's special zapping will cause them to obey but their own carnal jealousy - their own will.

Everything was being switched up. All was 'refitted.' Paul tells them that even people who weren't under the law were Righteous in God's eyes. Faith - which includes obedience lest it be a dead faith - saved Abraham 400 years before there was even a law of Moses. Thus it should be plainly obvious to the Jews who were reading that (and the Gentiles who were in Rome also reading it) that God was merciful at all times and to all kinds of people including Pharaoh, not just Jews.

 

[nolidad]

Don’t you think it’s strange that Jesus would give Jezebel time to repent if she were not able to repent?

Romans 2 specifically states that God’s patience and kindness lead us to repentance and the cause of people receiving God’s wrath is because of their own stubbornness. Notice Paul says God’s patience and kindness leads the very same people to repentance whom are being stubborn and unrepentant.


“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭2:4-5‬ ‭NASB‬‬

So their unrepentant attitude is not the result of God not making them able to repent but the result of their own stubbornness.

It doesn't matter whether or not I think it strange, it is Scripture.

And you forget that everyone is by nature objects of Gods Wrath. In order to go to hell, people have to do nothing! No one is born a child of God!

The flesh is oppossed to the things of God so people are by nature stubborn and unrepentant! It is God alone who brings conviction that leads to repentance!

 

[nolidad]

"With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

The 12 were not the only disciples preaching the gospel.

So do you believe that the gospel was preached on all 6 inhabited continents by the middle of the first century A.D.??? a simple yes or no will do.

Why is there no evidence whatsoever of the gospel being preached to every single human being around 50 AD?? Its like the Mormons and there book saying Jesus came to the Americas after he left the apostles and preached to this much more advanced civilization than Rome ever was!

 

[Al Touthentop]

Here's where we are. If Calvin was right about sin and grace, most hate God and worship an idol. Are they saved? I think some are in spite of their ignorance.

If it is possible for God to demand obedience by people he has created to disobey, then he's a hypocrite by definition. And by definition, a god who acts like that is an idol. God does not create men to disobey in order to make himself look bigger. He never did that and never would do that.

Calvin erected an idol who didn't have to follow his own proscriptions to man. He gloried in God's alleged injustice rather than see that it is impossible for God to lie, the same God who said that each man is responsible for his own sin and who can become righteous by turning to God (repenting).

 

[nolidad]

The bible says no such thing. If you want to worship a god who is a hypocrite and a liar, I can do nothing to stop you. But frankly I think that you have erected that idol to justify your own hypocrisy. The God of the bible says hypocrisy is a mortal sin.

Well the Bible does say that sorry. You just don't like what He said through th eApostles!

Mortal sion? Are you from the church of Rome?

So did the Greek scholars who defined it from its use in scripture apparently. 'Adjusted' is another word they used to explain it's meaning. There are words for create and made which apply to something's beginning. Paul was not talking about that. Had God meant 'created' God would have inspired him to use that word.

Wellkatartizo does derive from the root which means to adjust, but its Greek form as I showed you shows it cannot mean adjust. First off the Greeks had no word for adjust! That is an english equivalent if it is in the aorist. But Romans 9 is not aorist so sorry, you are just wrong!

 

[Al Touthentop]

Personally, I would have God just as he is because he is perfect. He would be imperfect if he were to be as you would have him to be.

So he would be imperfect if he held men accountable for what they do rather than what he created them to do? Sorry but the God you claim is 'perfect' is one who you say is able to be a hypocrite. Because he's God and 'sovereign' he's allowed to create men for the explicit purpose of sinning and then he gets to punish them for it. That's not perfection, that's human.

 

[BNR32FAN]

In the OT law demands free will. No law in the NT.

so people had free will in the old covenant but they don’t in the new covenant?

 

[nolidad]

So did the Greek scholars who defined it from its use in scripture apparently. 'Adjusted' is another word they used to explain it's meaning. There are words for create and made which apply to something's beginning. Paul was not talking about that. Had God meant 'created' God would have inspired him to use that word.

Yes and katartizo is one of them. It is a more graphic word, which means that they were perfectly fitted!
Its primary meaning is: to render, i.e. to fit, sound, complete.

And given the rest of teh Bible verses that absolutely declare that believers are elected by god and everyone by birth is lost and fitted for destruction (Eph. 2 by nature objects of wrath)

nature

1. the nature of things, the force, laws, order of nature
   
   1. as opposed to what is monstrous, abnormal, perverse
      
      
   2. as opposed what has been produced by the art of man: the natural branches, i.e. branches by the operation of nature
      
2. birth, physical origin
   
   
3. a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature
   
   
4. So it is natural that everyone is born as objects of wrath!

 

[BNR32FAN]

God cannot sin even if you think he is sinful.

I know He’s not sinful and I know His judgement is righteous and just, which is how I know that Calvin’s theology cannot be correct. This is only the same argument every church established by the apostles made against Calvin’s theology.

 

[Al Touthentop]

Wellkatartizo does derive from the root which means to adjust, but its Greek form as I showed you shows it cannot mean adjust. First off the Greeks had no word for adjust! That is an english equivalent if it is in the aorist. But Romans 9 is not aorist so sorry, you are just wrong!

What you proved is that you didn't understand a word of what you quoted. The root from which the word derived is a Greek word. They're both Greek words and so obviously the Greeks had a word for adjusted since this word is also Greek and it means adjusted or refitted. The perfective tense in this passage means that the action is ongoing. That means that the refitting is not completed action and continues. Meaning that it can be adjusted again and is undergoing adjustment all the time. To which side of the equation, saved or condemned, is something up to the person being refitted. God isn't moving them back and forth like a see-saw, they are.

 

[Al Touthentop]

Yes and katartizo is one of them. It is a more graphic word, which means that they were perfectly fitted!
Its primary meaning is: to render, i.e. to fit, sound, complete.

καρτιζω is not translated created or made anywhere.

The word for make is ποιηω (I make). It is used in the Septuagint in Genesis 1.

And given the rest of teh Bible verses that absolutely declare that believers are elected by god and everyone by birth is lost and fitted for destruction (Eph. 2 by nature objects of wrath)

Elected means chosen. In a human political election, we choose and our choice dictates the political office holder. There is a reason it was translated 'elected' in the bible. Because it is the result of being chosen. The criteria for the choice is God's. But there is a criteria.

Under Calvin's doctrine, the choice has no criteria. It's arbitrary and is made before a person is even born and it is made on his behalf, with no input from him whatsoever.

But there is an alternative to believing that God would make such arbitrary and unjust choices. And that is to say that a person is chosen when he becomes of an age to understand the criteria ( the gospel), agree and meet that criteria and he is therefore chosen. So the criteria is what is predestined, not the individual.

One of these claims God is a liar. The other conforms to what God says about himself

"a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature" - ding ding ding!

That's the definition that applies based on the context.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Well that is the Bible as written, I will accept it- sorry you don't! I don't believe God says one thing when He means another.

Let’s test this claim.

“"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”
‭‭John‬ ‭3:16-17‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Do you believe God loves the entire world? Do you believe that Jesus was sent so that they whole world may be saved?

“"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15:1-2‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Do you believe that the branches whom were cut off by The Father for not bearing fruit were in Christ?


“This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭2:3-4‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Do you believe God wants all men to be saved?


“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭3:9‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Do you believe God wants all to repent and that none would perish?


“Opening his mouth, Peter said: "I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭10:34-35‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Do you believe that God does not show partiality and that any man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him?


“For there is no partiality with God.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭2:11‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Again do you believe God is not impartial towards some?

 

[Al Touthentop]

Paul says he forms from the same lump vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath.

Which you totally misunderstand. This is the equivalent of saying a gun is neutral from the factory. That it can be used in self defense or in the commission of a crime is the very reason we can't blame the gun manufacturer for how its used after it leaves the factory.

Paul was actually ridiculing the idea that God made people to sin when he ridiculed anyone who would ask God "why have you made me this way!?" Shall the one that it is formed ask its maker, 'Why have you made me this way?'

God didn't make people to sin. God made them, as explicitly told to Pharaoh, 'that they might see my power in you.' By claiming that God makes people to sin, you're concluding that God's display of power to the rest of the world is through sin, not obedience. Of course you've got it all backwards because Calvin had it backwards. And rather than use your own brain and logic to see the absurdity of such a doctrine, you just make yourself look sillier and sillier in the defense of slander against God.

 

[BNR32FAN]

It doesn't matter whether or not I think it strange, it is Scripture.

And you forget that everyone is by nature objects of Gods Wrath. In order to go to hell, people have to do nothing! No one is born a child of God!

The flesh is oppossed to the things of God so people are by nature stubborn and unrepentant! It is God alone who brings conviction that leads to repentance!

No it’s not scripture, the scriptures do not say that Jezebel was incapable of repentance. It’s your doctrines that say this, not the scriptures.

 

[nolidad]

So he would be imperfect if he held men accountable for what they do rather than what he created them to do? Sorry but the God you claim is 'perfect' is one who you say is able to be a hypocrite. Because he's God and 'sovereign' he's allowed to create men for the explicit purpose of sinning and then he gets to punish them for it. That's not perfection, that's human.

Thats you r opinion and not His Inspired Sacred Word!

 

[nolidad]

No it’s not scripture, the scriptures do not say that Jezebel was incapable of repentance. It’s your doctrines that say this, not the scriptures.

No one in their flesh is capable of repentance unless God enables them! So no unless God acted on Jezebels heart, she could not repent. Her own nature would not allow her, if you wish to believe the Bible instead of opinion.

 

[BNR32FAN]

No one in their flesh is capable of repentance unless God enables them! So no unless God acted on Jezebels heart, she could not repent. Her own nature would not allow her, if you wish to believe the Bible instead of opinion.

Then why did He give her time to repent? That would be like me waiting at the gate for my cows to come home knowing full well that I don’t have any cows. Lol

And Jesus never said she was incapable of repentance He said she didn’t want to. There’s a big difference between inability and being uncooperative.

 

[Ilikecats]

Then why did He give her time to repent? That would be like me waiting at the gate for my cows to come home knowing full well that I don’t have any cows. Lol

And Jesus never said she was incapable of repentance He said she didn’t want to. There’s a big difference between inability and being uncooperative.

Is the repentance mentioned the repentance that leads to salvation? Scripture clearly states that repentance that leads to salvation is from the Lord.