Free will/predestination

Revealing Times said:

Satan and 1/3 of the Angels did also.

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Show me that in scripture.

God Bless

Till all are one.

DeaconDean said:

Show me that in scripture.

God Bless

Till all are one.

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3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

lesliedellow said:

but I can't make head or tail of that.

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That's a special code for the initiated only.

Revealing Times said:

Some people love sin more than God. Satan and 1/3 of the Angels did also.

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ALL people, since the days of our first parents, in fact, have clearly demonstrated that they love sin more than they love God (i.e. Romans 3:10-12). Hey, at least the angels are batting in the high 600's

Of course, none of this answers the questions I posed

St_Worm2 said:

ALL people, since the days of our first parents, in fact, have clearly demonstrated that they love sin more than they love God (i.e. Romans 3:10-12). Hey, at least the angels are batting in the high 600's

Of course, none of this answers the questions I posed

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Not true, some chose to serve God over sin, else they would be no such thing as a Christian. All men were born sinners, save Jesus. TRUE.

Revealing Times said:

3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

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That does not say "Satan and 1/3 of the Angels did also".

And you seem to forget, that passage is "future" eschatology.

God Bless

Till all are one.

Revealing Times said:

Not true, some chose to serve God over sin, else there would be no such thing as a Christian. All men were born sinners, save Jesus. TRUE.

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I couldn't agree more RT, the question is, WHY Why would ANYONE, of even the most base intelligence/understanding, and who is just barely reasonable/rational, who knows what you and I knew when we became Christians, EVER choose the Kool-Aid over the "living water" the Lord offers to those who are His? The next question is, why do MOST (who you believe as capable of becoming a Christian as you were) willingly march to their own eternal destruction in Hell?

Unless there is something truly different about the saint and the reprobate(?) .. but you say there is not!!

Yours and His,
David

St_Worm2 said:

I couldn't agree more RT, the question is, WHY Why would ANYONE, of even the most intelligence/understanding, and who is just barely reasonable/rational, who knows what you and I knew when we became Christians, EVER choose the Kool-Aid over the "living water" the Lord offers to those who are His? The next question is, why do MOST (who you believe as capable of becoming a Christian as you were) willingly march to their own eternal destruction in Hell?

Unless there is something truly different about the saint and the reprobate(?) .. but you say there is not!!

Yours and His,
David

"You do not believe because you
are not of My sheep"
John 10:26
​

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Just like some Demons who knew the fullness of God, chose to Rebel. Some men are deceived just like the Angels were. Each man has in himself the right to chose his own path, some chose Satan over God in real terms, some hate God and don't believe in Satan, some love sin and don't want to hear about the need for a Redeemer.

God could not create some men for hell, and be a just God, you know that deep down brother. These Epistles of Paul were never intended by Paul to be Canonized as Scriptures. We do not get the other Letter coming his way, there are some things that are not spelled out because an understanding already exists between the two party's.

Paul is only trying to get the Romans to understand, do not be like the Jews, do not get full of yourselves. Do not think you are better than them like hey think they are better than you. God uses who He wills. Or in other words I can't explain why Israel fell in full, or I don't really want to, she fell because she loved the Law more than God.

People over analyze thee Letters that Paul never meant to say THIS SAITH THE LORD with.

I am sure if Paul would have written to be Scriptures, he would have expounded much more. He was not called to write scriptures per se. But to Reach the Gentiles, he said he would be all things to all people to reach a brother. So maybe he laied it on thick sometimes to the Gentiles, then maybe he had to back-track a misunderstanding.

God Bless.......

Revealing Times said:

These Epistles of Paul were never intended by Paul to be Canonized as Scriptures.

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Simple question, other than the need for the Pentateuch, a need for the Laws and Covenants, what other parts written by the Prophets and Apostles were "intended" to be canonized?

God Bless

Till all are one.

DeaconDean said:

Simple question, other than the need for the Pentateuch, a need for the Laws and Covenants, what other parts written by the Prophets and Apostles were "intended" to be canonized?

God Bless

Till all are one.

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The Epistles. The First Five Books of the Bible were given to Moses, the Prophets who said THUS SAITH THE LORD wrote most of the rest, save for the Psalms (songs unto God) and Proverbs. The Gospels were 4 accounts of Jesus' life. The Epistles were letters unto peoples, its just a fact. The Revelation is a revealing of the future by Jesus unto us.

Like I said, whether or not Paul wanted them in the canon is not a matter of concern since it was some 300 years later.

The Hebrews needed a record of the "Laws", but, they didn't need "history, poetry, or prose" if we use your standard.

Yes, the Prophets did speak as the Holy Spirit moved them.

But the Apostles, and Luke, did they not record their accounts by inspiration of the Holy Spirit?

God Bless

Till all are one.

Perhaps I have a different view of scripture than you do.

Seems to me that if the Prophets are given leeway because they said "Thus saith the Lord", was this not the same thing the Apostles did in the New Testament?

God Bless

Till all are one.

Hi RT, you might also consider a couple of other things. The Apostles knew they were writing down God's very own ("breathed") words, in fact, St. Peter calls the Apostle Paul's Epistles, "Scripture", in 2 Peter (2 Peter 3:14-18).

And along with what the church, ALL OF IT, BTW, has always taught, there is the testimony of the earliest of the Early Church Fathers to consider. The first three in particular, Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, all of whom lived from the mid-first century through the mid-second, and all of whom were purported to be students of one or two of the Apostles themselves, considered the Epistles of St. Paul to be the very words of God, not simply stuff that he decided to write down on his own. As such, his Epistles carry the weight and authority of any other part of the Scriptures, either OT and NT.

Yours and His,
David

I have for the last three (3) years, because of the KJV-Only debate, devoted time to doing my independent study of Textual Criticism.

Here is some facts that you need to be aware of:

"So far as we can tell, all of these groups appealed to written

authorities for their views, texts that were allegedly penned by apostles.

Some groups subscribed to Gospel accounts written in the names

of Thomas or Philip or Peter, or attributed to Matthew or John or

Mark. We know of Christians in the TransJordan who adopted a

Hebrew Gospel similar to our own Gospel according to Matthew,

of Christians in Egypt who used the Gospel of the Egyptians, of others

there who accepted the Gospel of the Hebrews, of yet others

who subscribed to the Gospel according to Thomas; there were

Christians in Rhossus who revered the Gospel of Peter, Christians

in Rome who read a synopsis of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Christians

in Syria who read an expanded version of this that included John,

Christians in Alexandria who read only John, and Christians in Asia

Minor who read only Luke, and that in a somewhat truncated form.

Some of these groups used only one Gospel as their text of Scripture;

others appealed to a wide range of available texts as authoritative.


We know, of course, that these various Christian groups did not

conduct their affairs in total isolation. There was constant interaction


among them—often in the form of polemical confrontation.

Moreover, each of the groups had to deal with the problems of existence

in a hostile wider environment, that is, with the difficulties


imposed by the social realities of the Roman world, where the pagan

populace sometimes expressed suspicion and hatred, where civil

authorities sometimes took measures of oppression, and where the

religious community of the Jews from which most of these groups

traced their religious lineage generally held them in contempt.

For a variety of historical reasons, not directly germane to this

paper, one of these Christian groups eventually emerged as predominant.


This is the group that established the creeds that became


determinative of “true” Christianity from the fourth century on, and

that produced revisionist histories of the church that continue to

inform the way Christians, even Christian scholars, uncritically think

of the earlier period. Eusebius, of course, was a chief spokesperson

for this victorious party."



Studies in the textual criticism of the New Testament / by Bart D. Ehrman.
Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. Chapter 5, The Text of the Gospels at the end of the 2nd century,

This fact is bore true as seen in the account of the very First Apostolic Council around AD 47-49 as recorded in Acts 15. (When viewed in light of "divisions")

And, we now know that in light of the Nicene Council of AD 325, some of the Gospels some groups were subscribing to, were Gnostic in nature.

God Bless

Till all are one.

DeaconDean said:

Perhaps I have a different view of scripture than you do.

Seems to me that if the Prophets are given leeway because they said "Thus saith the Lord", was this not the same thing the Apostles did in the New Testament?

God Bless

Till all are one.

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Since when is writing a Letter the same as saying "Thus Saith the Lord" by a prophet ? For one thing, you have foreknowledge that you are representing God in your written word 100 percent. In a letter, everything is not about "thus saith the Lord" some things are of Paul, some things will be his own belief on certain things or it might be him being gentile with one of their "bad beliefs". Many things will not be covered FULLY in a Letter, because the peoples might already have a previous understanding of what they are speaking about and give the matters at hand a wink and a nod, and this might confuse other readers.

NO, IT IS NOT THE SAME.

Revealing Times said:

Each man has in himself the right to chose his own path...

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Hi RT, that is correct, and left to our own devices, all of us choose the broad road (Romans 3:10-12)

Revealing Times said:

God could not create some men for hell, and be a just God, you know that deep down brother.

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Wait, except for Hyper-Calvinists (who are similar to Calvinists in name only, BTW), who teaches/believes that The Bible doesn't (i.e. Ecclesiastes 7:29). Those going to Hell have freely chosen their path (as I believe we just agreed above ). The thing is, those of us who are going to Heaven chose the very same path as those who are going to Hell, but in the case of the Elect, God intervened (Acts of the Apostles 13:48). He chose to interfere (in a sense) with the free will of some that a remnant might be saved, that His Son might have His promised "bride".

Yours and His,
David

St_Worm2 said:

those of us who are going to Heaven chose the very same path as those who are going to Hell, but in the case of the Elect, God intervened

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No. YHWH said CHOOSE TODAY; Y'SHUA said CHOOSE TODAY (TURN TO YHWH for the KINGDOM IS AT HAND).
The elect CHOSE to FOLLOW Y'SHUA. They do not chose the same path at all as those unrepentant.
And who ever said YHWH interfered with the free will choices of some ? (and not others the same way) ?
That's not like HIM nor HIS WORD, is it now ?

DeaconDean said:

Perhaps I have a different view of scripture than you do.
Seems to me that if the Prophets are given leeway because they said "Thus saith the Lord", was this not the same thing the Apostles did in the New Testament?
God Bless
Till all are one.

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COOL! Even MORE and BETTER in the NEW TESTAMENT than "Thus saith the Lord".....
as
Y'SHUA told the disciples : spend a lot of time apart, with ABBA YHWH, praying ; gradually your focus will change from yourself to YHWH. Let all the words you speak (not just some 'prophetically'; not just some of YHWH'S people) be as from the FATHER in heaven, and let all you do be as HE DOES. (not of yourself) .

Rare. But done.
Narrow road to LIFE.

yeshuaslavejeff said:

No. YHWH said CHOOSE TODAY; Y'SHUA said CHOOSE TODAY (TURN TO YHWH for the KINGDOM IS AT HAND). The elect CHOSE to FOLLOW Y'SHUA. They do not chose the same path at all as those unrepentant. And who ever said YHWH interfered with the free will choices of some ? (and not others the same way) ? That's not like HIM nor HIS WORD, is it now ?

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Hi Jeff, God promised His Son a bride, but He encountered a problem.
He solved the problem by intervening in the lives of the Elect


Yours in Christ,
David

YHWH did not change their(our/ekklesia) free will. That's kind of the point. (and thread topic)

HE had to intervene - to PROVIDE A WAY OF SALVATION - or no one would be saved.

THAT IS SUPREME SHEER GRACIOUSNESS !

Hi Jeff, you are correct, of course, He doesn't change the free will choices of the Elect, rather, He changes our hearts (so that we finally can, and will, freely choose Him .. i.e. Ezekiel 36:36). He quickens/regenerates the hearts of the Elect, and in so doing, causes us to be "born again", and to be made into wholly new creatures in His Son (2 Corinthians 5:17)

But we, like the reprobate, still freely "choose" according to that which we desire the most, a desire made possible by the mighty work of God alone.

Yours in Christ,
David