Response to ad hominem Post #34
OP: Q: To Those arguing against "
Calvinism"
I join the orthodox majority of theologians who attack ~1550 errroneous "Calvinism".
I do NOT: "attack the {gospel of grace}".
Romans 9(NASB)...
Solicitude for Israel
1 I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit,
2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed,
separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
4 who are Israelites,
to whom belongs
the adoption as sons, and
the glory and
the covenants and
the giving of the Law and
the temple service and
the promises,
5 whose are the fathers, and
from whom is the Christ according to the flesh,
who is over all, God blessed [c]forever. Amen.
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;
7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but:
“through Isaac (Israel) your descendants will be named.”
8 That is,
it is not the "children of the flesh" who are "children of God",
but the "children of the promise" are regarded as descendants.
9 For this is the word of promise:
“At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.”
10 And not only this, but there was
Rebekah also,
when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac;
11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand,
not because of works but because of Him who calls,
12 it was said to her,
“The older will serve the younger.”
13 Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
>>>God loving Jacob and hating Esau has nothing to do with the human emotions of love and hate.
It has everything to do with
God choosing one man and his descendants and rejecting another man and his descendants.
God foreknows all. God irrevocably PRE-DESTINES nothing!
Why did God love Jacob and hate Esau (Malachi 1:3; Romans 9:13)?
Who was Rebekah in the Bible?
Answer: Rebekah in the Bible was the wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau. We first meet Rebekah in Genesis 24:15, where she is identified as “the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor.” This would have made Rebekah a great-niece to Abraham and second cousin to Isaac.
Abraham had been looking for a wife for his son, Isaac, but he was unwilling for Isaac to marry a Canaanite—Abraham and his family were living in Canaan at the time. So Abraham sent his servant to his own kinsmen, to the city of Nahor, to find a wife for Isaac. The servant came to a well and prayed that God would give him success in this mission. Specifically, he prayed that whichever young woman provided water for him and his camels would be God’s choice to be Isaac’s wife. As the servant was praying, along came a beautiful young virgin named Rebekah, who not only gave the servant a drink but also watered his camels, providing the sign to Abraham’s servant that she was the appointed bride (Genesis 24:10–28).
Everything was settled peaceably between Abraham’s servant and Rebekah’s father—and her brother, Laban—and the servant took Rebekah back to Isaac. Isaac and Rebekah were married (Genesis 24:67), but for many years Rebekah could not have children. Isaac prayed for his wife; the Lord answered his prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant (Genesis 25:21). Rebekah became the mother of Jacob and Esau, the first twins mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 25:22–24). From these twins came two conflicted nations. God gave Rebekah a prophecy during her pregnancy. She had noticed that the twins were struggling against one another in her womb, and she asked the Lord why they were fighting. The Lord told her that two nations were in her womb and that those nations would be at odds with one another (Genesis 25:22–23). This prophecy came true. Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel (Genesis 32:28), became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Esau became the father of the Edomites, who warred against Israel for ages and were finally wiped out (Obadiah 1:1—21).
Esau was born first, and he was Isaac’s favorite son (Genesis 25:28). The younger Jacob was Rebekah’s favorite. As the firstborn, Esau was due the birthright, but Rebekah helped Jacob deceive Isaac so that the blessing would fall to the younger son instead of to the elder (Genesis 27:1–40).
When Esau discovered Jacob and Rebekah’s deceit, he planned to kill Jacob. Rebekah devised a plan to help save her favorite son, but it again involved deceiving her husband, Isaac. Rebekah made up an excuse to send Jacob to her brother, Laban, to look for a wife for himself (Genesis 27:41–46). Deceit was apparently a family trait.
Rebekah’s marriage to Isaac was the result of God’s providence, her pregnancy was an answer to prayer, and the lives of her sons fulfilled prophecy. Rebekah’s choice to lie and deceive her husband is an example of how wrongdoing in human beings does not thwart the plans of God and how God can ultimately bring about His will, through His mercy and wisdom, despite our sin (see Genesis 50:20)....<<<
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14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
15 For He says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and
I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh,
“For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”
18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
19 You will say to me then,
“Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?
The thing molded will not say to the molder,
“Why did you make me like this,” will it?
21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay,
to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known,
endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. 25 As He says also in Hosea,
“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’
And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”
26
“And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; 28 for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.”
29 And just as Isaiah foretold,
“Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity,
We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.”
30 What shall we say then?
That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness,
even
the righteousness which is by faith;
31 but Israel, pursuing a (Mosiac) Law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.
32 Why?
Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.
They stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 just as it is written,
“Behold, I lay in Zion (Israel) a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,
And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”
