I find it curious you would build doctrine on numbers of verses saying this and not saying that in a Bible's footnotes or lists in appendices.
The appendix of "THOSE WHO", is what I included in the book I wrote. Whatever doctrines I perceive, are what Scripture teaches -- for instance, Rom10:6-10 connects directly to Deut30:11-20; and Deut30:12 is a foundational refutation of Monergism, the basis of "Sovereign Predestined Salvation".
You ask, "Does that make sense to you?" YOU don't make sense to me.
Thankfully, we are not debating whether you or I "make sense" -- but Scripture makes sense, otherwise the opposite
is "nonsense"... And when multiple verses from different letters say the same thing, that establishes "sound doctrine" (Titus1:9).
Here and throughout your post you display the same tendencies as those promoting freewill. You read with presuppositions --you cannot help it. So do they, and admittedly, so do I. But you have no more reason to believe yours is the "plain meaning", or that others "do violence to the text to take it to mean something it does not" etc etc. I don't have the time or energy nor inclination to go through each of your attempts to demonstrate your thesis, to show their error, but this blanket fact seems obvious to me. I don't know how to show it to you though, except by parallel. The Freewillers, read every occasion in scripture demonstrating choice or will as demonstrating freewill. It is in their mindset. They can't seem to see that fact.
I will try to explain. You have spent hours on this post, it seems to me, but you do the same thing. You see that people MUST do this or that or they are not saved, even lose 'what they had'. But one thing you fail to take into account is the method of speech I will try to show thus: I can say, "The Emperor struts about showing off his new suit. He is careful not to scuff it, not to dirty it. But the Emperor has no clothes on at all." Have I contradicted myself here? --after all, I said all these things concerning his clothes, thus (or so it appears) affirming that he was dressed in real clothes, then I turn around and say he was not dressed at all!
So with Scripture. 1.When the way a writer talks supposes a person is saved that can lose his salvation by this or that fact, it can be a mere rhetorical method, attributing substance to the assumption the believer may have concerning his faith. It doesn't mean there is substance.
There are also many other valid ways to look at these: 2. If the person does continue in the faith, he will indeed be saved. And in fact -will have been saved. So he must continue in the faith. 3. Sometimes a corporate use is made, where the person is 'in the faith' because he is a member among other members of the church. This does not, of course, guarantee his salvation, and if he departs from the faith he has lost the status he had been given. 4. There is the raw fact that attendance unto the means of grace naturally produces results. Study and self-discipline are good for everyone, and good deeds produce temporal and even spiritual rewards. 5. To go along with (4) the Holy Spirit does whatever it pleases, for whatever reasons it has, to anyone it has designated for that purpose. It is natural to all of us to read self-determination into whatever we consider, as though the Spirit must follow certain laws, principles and promises. We don't really understand such things well. The Spirit of God can 'enter' whoever it chooses to enter, and to accomplish through that person whatever it pleases. We even see in the Bible an account of a pagan prophesying truly, by the Spirit of God. I think we have all seen the Spirit truly move in a congregation led by a false teacher. So with falling away --the Spirit can work in the 'believer', even convincing the unfaithful that they are 'in Christ', and then leave at its convenience. 6. Like (4) and (5), the lost can walk, talk the talk, and have feelings for Christ and goodness and desire purity for its own sake, that remain at enmity with God, still in subjugation to their depravity. Christian, in Pilgrim's Progress, is accompanied on the road by several different ones for a time. 7. I am minded many times of the fact that thoughts concerning the grandeur and immensity of God, and all the deeper subjects of study concerning him, can exalt the spirit of man, causing wonderful things, even a form of worship and praise, that nevertheless still lack substance. In philosophy, finding the logically necessary attributes of God, can ring true to anyone who finds them, and the intellectual apprehension of them can both humble and exalt the spirit, but the heart remain contrary to Christ, though the emotions drove a temporary accord with truth.
I acknowledge the effort you made to write this -- I'm just disappointed that you didn't interact with any verses.
Hebrews3 for instance -- verse 8, "do not harden your hearts" (reflecting Israel in the wilderness, see 3:18-19). Verse 12-13, "take care BRETHREN" -- could he be talking to
unsaved brethren? No. "Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart
that falls away from the living God." Brethren? Capable of a hard heart that falls away from God? How could the clear meaning not be the writer's intent? What's the
second possible meaning?
"But encourage one another, while it is still called 'today', lest any of you be hardened by deceitful sin; for we are partners in Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end."
Okay, what's your interaction with those words? How is it not admonishing "don't get deceived by sin to falling away from God, you remain saved if you hold fast to Him"?
And how is Deut30:12 not refuting Monergism?
I'm not sure why you want to preach to me the very thing I myself brought up. There are many reasons here and in Revelation this is put this way --that a name can be blotted out of the book of life. If "book of life" is the correct translation (and I don't say it is) it can still be seen according to those numbered uses I showed above. Meanwhile there are plenty of verses like this one in 1 John 5: “Everyone who is born of God overcomes the world.” This must be used to temper or qualify the claim that a person's name can be blotted out of the Book of Life.
Please give your opinion as to why 1Jn5:1 uses "present-active-participle"? It's the same in John3:16 -- "whoever IS BELIEVING, is born of God"; and that leads to verse 4, "whatever is born of God overcomes the world" --- if "IS-BELIEV
ING" is the key, what if a person ceases to believe?
Verse 5, "he that overcomes the world, is he that
IS BELIEVING that Jesus is the Son"! Do you think present-active-participle is an accident?
Again, "Perseverance of the Saints" is not a claim that a person cannot stray, nor even that nobody who attends to the way of faith will be lost, but that the Elect will not finally be lost.
Based on what verse? Are there sins that God
overlooks? Or does God
guarantee repentance and restoration? What about Romans 11 -- "Do not be conceited, but fear; if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Behold then the kindness and severity of God -- to those who fell, severity; to you kindness, if you continue in His kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in again."
There is no implication that those considering themselves elect need not work nor exert personal effort,
What's the point? God will PRESERVE us, why not sit back and take it easy?
nor that their obedience is automatic or unnecessary, any more than their repentance was unnecessary.
It's all a question of "cause-and-effect"; is obedience irresistible from God's sovereign choice, or can we mark out passages like Heb3:12-14 and 4:11? Or is there some way to explain them?
You are right it was loooong, i have taken hours already in responding and am not even halfway through. Please just take this generalization, that I hope covers your questions --Calvinism does not claim we have no choice or will.
Publicly, it does not. But "behind the scenes", a will that cannot choose except consequentially to God's sovereign heart-changing (or equally ordaining them to BE wicked even if by volitional neglect), has no choice.
And there is no verse that places "heart-change", before belief. Cite any if you disagree.
It does not even say we need not work. It sequences cause and effect to credit God for all good. It does not say that a believer (depending on the definition of 'believer') cannot be lost, but that those whom God has chosen in and for his particular grace will not ultimately be lost. It does not say that anything is automatic, but that what God has ordained is sure.
Back to the most foundational question -- WHERE does it say God ORDAINS any for salvation?
Acts13:48? A.T.Robertson strongly disagrees; so does the context -- Acts13:43 and 50 use the same word as with Lydia in Acts16:14-15, "sebo" --- worshiper of God. That is a BELIEVER; Lydia embodied Jesus' words of John8:42, "If God was your Father then you would love Me".
Acts13:50 proves godly women and prominent men can be misled into persecuting Paul and Barnabas.
Acts13:46 says that the Jews, UNELECTED THEMSELVES ("considered themselves unworthy for eternal life").
Acts13:48 uses "tasso", specifically past pluperfect passive (Robertson fully asserts
middle passive, "Luke does not say why the Gentiles RANGED THEMSELVES on God's side"). Correctly translated, "as many as were inclined to eternal life, believed".
Where is the verse that says God ordains a few favorites (violating Rom2:11, Acts10:34-35, and Col3:25) --- and ordains most to be sinful/wicked/perishing, (violating Jesus' words in Matt12, God's house cannot be divided)?