Please explain if no one is predestined

Rescued One · Mar 6, 2019

fhansen said:
That's where our will comes in. Without free will of created beings, no sin could exist

Adam had free will. His sin changed the course of everything. Now every single person has sinned and needs the Savior. Sin exists and everyone is under the power of Satan until God sets a person free. Non-Christians and atheists don't bring glory to God.

John 8
47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

John 10
24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. 26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

1 John 5
19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 20
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

Unless the person is quickened and set free from Satan's grasp, that person is incapable of understanding spiritual things. That is why many who hear the gospel message reject it.

Acts 27
15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. 16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; 17 Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

1 Corinthians 3
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.

John 10
26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep,
as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

Sin is disobedience to God's commandments.

fhansen · Mar 7, 2019

Phoebe Ann said:
Adam had free will. His sin changed the course of everything. Now every single person has sinned and needs the Savior. Sin exists and everyone is under the power of Satan until God sets a person free. Non-Christians and atheists don't bring glory to God.

John 8
47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

John 10
24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. 26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

1 John 5
19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 20
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

Unless the person is quickened and set free from Satan's grasp, that person is incapable of understanding spiritual things. That is why many who hear the gospel message reject it.

Acts 27
15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. 16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; 17 Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

1 Corinthians 3
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.

John 10
26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep,
as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

Sin is disobedience to God's commandments.

Yeah well, it's not God I doubt, but you and some others perhaps. In any case the church has known and taught for centuries that man's "falleness", his death, his lost condition, consists primarily in being spiritually separated from God, that relationship which man was made for being shattered as he essentially rejected God as his God. Man didn't inherent a "sin nature", rather he fell into a severe disadvantaged state because, "Apart from Me you can do nothing. And that happens to be the main lesson we're here to learn. So that we can willfully, to the greatest extent possible and not without God's help, turn back to Him, reversing Adams' decision within ourselves.

It's always been about the will, about choosing good over evil, life over death, God over no God, and while we need grace in order to do that, to turn back to Him, we can still nevertheless resist and reject grace, at any step along the way.

Adam willed to sin, to disobey God; that's about the most we can say. God has been working ever since, through human history to steer man's will towards rectitude, into alignment with His will. He's very patient-and that's why it's taken so much time. He could've simply prevented Adam from sinning to begin with. Or just stocked heaven with the elect and hell with the rest and avoided all the pain suffering and death that ensued as a result of God allowing man's will to reign free. But instead He wants us to learn the error of our autonomous ways for ourselves, so that, with His help we might have a change of heart. So He calls and draws us; He seeks to elicit a response. That's what the cross is all about BTW. He doesn't hit us over the head with a hammer but instead places a cross, representing the ultimate act of His love and rejection of force, on the horizon so that we might be able to choose to navigate to it when the time is ripe in our own histories. God wants man to use his freedom, to use it correctly, ultimately to recognize His supreme, incomparable goodness and trustworthiness and ineffable love so that we might willingly bind ourselves to Him. To the extent that man does that, his justice is all the greater. God didn't make junk. He has a purpose in it all, to produce something of great value and worth rather than to almost reluctantly save a bunch of otherwise worthless wretches.

FreeGrace2 · Mar 7, 2019

fhansen said:
Yes, as with any gift it can still be rejected.

Let's not make the mistake of trying to equate God's gift of eternal life (Rom 6:23) and the indwelling Holy Spirit (Acts 11:17) with some cheap material gift that man gives to man. There is no comparison.

Eternal life and the indwelling Holy Spirit cannot be rejected once given. These gifts are irrevocable. Rom 11:29

Heck, Paul says we have no excuse for doubt based on observing God's handiwork in creation alone for that matter

Exactly!

RDKirk · Mar 7, 2019

HTacianas said:
The answer to your question is no one knows. The notion of predestination in the bible is partly to give all credit to God, and partly due to the ancient Essene belief that "all things are best ascribed to God". Both Jesus and John the Baptist were Essenes.

I think the notion of predestination in the bible was to give confidence to those who were saved that their salvation was not by momentary whim of God.

Paul (and, later, John) were not preaching into a theological vacuum. The gentiles already had their gods, and they already had their beliefs about the character of gods.

The people Paul and John preached to already believed gods to be whimsical, capricious, unreliable. They could never be sure of where they stood with their gods. Zeus could love you one day and curse you the next, for any or no reason. All they could do was constantly entreat their gods for favor and hope for the best.

Paul presented to them a God of eternal plan and purpose, and preached the novel concept that they had always been part of His plan and purpose. The God that Paul preached was a reliable God, and His favor upon them was reliable.

John and Paul both preached that the gospel was powerful because God enabled people to accept it. Evangelism would produce results, evangelism would not be in vain.

I don't think they ever intended to create a doctrine that God created anyone for the purpose of damnation.

Bobber · Mar 7, 2019

RDKirk said:
I don't think they ever intended to create a doctrine that God created anyone for the purpose of damnation.

Very true! I wonder if the theologians of the middle ages and current day were like executives of a company sitting around a board table, bored with too much time on their hands so they dreamed up a bunch of crazy stuff. If they spent their real time focusing on the things that God said and just get out there, live a holy life and get people saved they'd find they wouldn't have time to go off the deep end of speculative thought.

BCsenior · Mar 7, 2019

Phoebe Ann said:
Unless the person is quickened and set free from Satan's grasp, that person is incapable of understanding spiritual things. That is why many who hear the gospel message reject it.

Yes, unbelievers can ONLY see Jesus' gospel
as "foolishness" (1 Corinthians 1:18).
I.E. They do NOT choose to see it this way;
they are powerless to see it any other way!
This is NT Truth, but who understands the NT?

But, beyond this we must ask: WHY do BACs seem
to be incapable of understanding spiritual things?
We delve into this problem here ...
Reasons why many BACs are spiritually blind

fhansen · Mar 7, 2019

FreeGrace2 said:
Let's not make the mistake of trying to equate God's gift of eternal life (Rom 6:23) and the indwelling Holy Spirit (Acts 11:17) with some cheap material gift that man gives to man. There is no comparison.

Eternal life and the indwelling Holy Spirit cannot be rejected once given. These gifts are irrevocable. Rom 11:29

Um...of course?? There's not really much comparison between my post and yours here for that matter. Faith is a gift-of grace-from God-that man can resist/reject.

FreeGrace2 said:
Exactly!

Ok, so while not a gift of grace in itself, reasons for believing, such as the one I mentioned, are sometimes called "motives of credibility" by theologians and they, along with other motives and grace, can help prompt us towards faith. Again, we're in this messed up world for a reason, a purpose, where both good and evil, essentially God's presence, observed second-hand, from a distance so to speak, along with with His absence, are experienced or literally known and that is to help educate us to choose the one over the other, good over evil, the ultimate Good being God, Himself.

FreeGrace2 · Mar 7, 2019

BCsenior said:
Yes, unbelievers can ONLY see Jesus' gospel
as "foolishness" (1 Corinthians 1:18).
I.E. They do NOT choose to see it this way;
they are powerless to see it any other way!
This is NT Truth, but who understands the NT?

Actually, not.

Twice in Acts we read of Jews who REFUSED to believe the gospel. And 3 times in Revelation we read of people who REFUSED to repent.

The simple fact is that in order to refuse to do something, a person MUST BE ABLE to do something.

It is absurd to make the claim that someone refused to do something when they have no ability to do something.

But, please proceed to prove that someone who is unable to do something can refuse to do it.

I'm not talking about simply making a claim about it. I'm talking about the reality of what refusal means.

A commandment to clean one's room makes no sense to someone who is unable to do it. it only makes sense if someone CAN do it.

FreeGrace2 · Mar 7, 2019

fhansen said:
Um...of course?? There's not really much comparison between my post and yours here for that matter. Faith is a gift-of grace-from God-that man can resist/reject.

Ok, so while not a gift of grace in itself, reasons for believing, such as the one I mentioned, are sometimes called "motives of credibility" by theologians and they, along with other motives and grace, can help prompt us towards faith. Again, we're in this messed up world for a reason, a purpose, where both good and evil, essentially God's presence, observed second-hand, from a distance so to speak, along with with His absence, are experienced or literally known and that is to help educate us to choose the one over the other, good over evil, the ultimate Good being God, Himself.

For me, the bottom line is Rom 2 which says that God created mankind with an intellect. It is with this intellect that man is able to see God's divine attributes (Rom 1:19,20) and has no excuse for not recognizing His existence AND being thankful to Him.

Those who have listened and learned from the Father (John 6:45) will come to Jesus.

But it starts with recognizing His existence (Heb 11:6).

When a person refuses to see God's existence and divine attributes in creation, God has no obligation to provide any more revelation about Himself or His plan for mankind.

It's only those who do recognize Him and seek more that He will oblige (Acts 17:27).

FreeGrace2 · Mar 7, 2019

BCsenior said:
IMO, God must give the necessary faith to man
so he is capable of believing this "foolishness"
(of God's gospel of salvation)!q

BCsenior is quite correct to say this is his own opinion.

Truth is, God doesn't "give the faith" to anyone. He has provided His plan for mankind to accept or reject.

Man is capable of either believing or rejecting whatever man comes across.

Rom 1:19,20 tells us that man has no excuse for not recognizing the existence of Creator God, AND being thankful to Him. So, man has a choice here; believe that God exists, or not.

I have about 25 NT verses, which are supposed
to teach us that man in incapable of believing
(without God's help).

I'll bet you don't.

But I'm sure there are some Calvinists who would be interested in them.

Even before God put Adam on earth, He ALREADY addressed the issue of man's capacity to believe. He created all of creation and put His signature on all of it, whether peering into a microscope or the largest telescope.

And He created mankind with an intellect with which to process information.

Man was created able to believe. Yet, some REFUSE to believe. Acts 14:2, 19:9.

So, explain how to REFUSE to do something that you AREN'T ABLE to do.

anna ~ grace · Mar 12, 2019

Phoebe Ann said:
What or who causes one sinner to have faith and another to not have faith?

Grace, and a responsiveness to grace.

Rescued One · Mar 12, 2019

Gracia Singh said:
Grace, and a responsiveness to grace.

Who would cause different responses?

anna ~ grace · Mar 12, 2019

Phoebe Ann said:
Who would cause different responses?

It is really between the individual soul, and God. God's grace is sufficient, but is also resistable. A soul may be able to respond to some graces and get some things right, but via ignorance, miseducation, or even pride get other things wrong. God does not compell us to faith; but He does work with us, and on us.

Rescued One · Mar 12, 2019

Gracia Singh said:
It is really between the individual soul, and God. God's grace is sufficient, but is also resistable. A soul may be able to respond to some graces and get some things right, but via ignorance, miseducation, or even pride get other things wrong. God does not compell us to faith; but He does work with us, and on us.

If God made His grace resistable, made it so that some were ignorant, allows certain people to be miseducated, remain under Satan's power, etc. then the God others describe makes no more(even less) sense than the God I love and adore. I don't believe God forces anyone to have faith; he enables people to have faith by showing mercy and releasing them from Satan'a power. The only other option is that He doesn't rescue anyone from his unregenerated thoughts and actions.

Romans 3
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

John 6:55
And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

worshipjunkie · Mar 22, 2019

Phoebe Ann said:
If God made His grace resistable, made it so that some were ignorant, allows certain people to be miseducated, remain under Satan's power, etc. then the God others describe makes no more(even less) sense than the God I love and adore. I don't believe God forces anyone to have faith; he enables people to have faith by showing mercy and releasing them from Satan'a power. The only other option is that He doesn't rescue anyone from his unregenerated thoughts and actions.

Why is the idea that the majority of the people God created are predestined to an eternity in hell more acceptable then the idea that God wants a free will response to His salvation on our part?
Under your beliefs He allows almost everyone to be ignorant, miseducated, and remain under Satan's power. Irresistible grace is exactly that....irresistible. And the lack of it is irresistible as well.

"God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4)

"Say to them: 'As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?' (Ezekiel 33:11)"

Rescued One · Mar 23, 2019

worshipjunkie said:
Why is the idea that the majority of the people God created are predestined to an eternity in hell more acceptable then the idea that God wants a free will response to His salvation on our part?
Under your beliefs He allows almost everyone to be ignorant, miseducated, and remain under Satan's power. Irresistible grace is exactly that....irresistible. And the lack of it is irresistible as well.

"God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4)

Your God fails to save all people. Remember the flood? Very few were saved.

He didn't predestine people to hell. They choose wickedness.

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
Genesis 19:24

worshipjunkie said:
"Say to them: 'As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?' (Ezekiel 33:11)"

Why should He have pleasure in wickedness? He punishes the wicked. Who deserves salvation? I don't.

Rescued One · Mar 23, 2019

FreeGrace2 said:
Really? This is what you said:
"In the flesh, we cannot please Him. Only in the Spirit can we please Him."

I showed from Heb 11:6 what pleases God, which is faith. Having the Holy Spirit indwell the believer doesn't specifically please God. Only those who are filled with the Spirit do.

The Holy Spirit lives in each believer. They are filled with the Spirit otherwise they wouldn't have genuine faith in Christ.

FreeGrace2 · Mar 23, 2019

Phoebe Ann said:
The Holy Spirit lives in each believer.

Correct. This is called the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Eph 1:13,14

They are filled with the Spirit otherwise they wouldn't have genuine faith in Christ.

No, believers are commanded to be filled with the Spirit in Eph 5:18. Being filled is not automatic.

Recall 2 other commands regarding the Spirit:

STOP grieving the Spirit. Eph 4:30
STOP quenching the Spirit. 1 Thess 5:19

How can any believer be filled when they either grieving or quenching the Spirit?

That would be impossible.

worshipjunkie · Mar 23, 2019

Phoebe Ann said:
Your God fails to save all people. Remember the flood? Very few were saved.

Many are called but few are chosen. God could have made creatures who would have no genuine response to Him, but He didn't. A command to turn from wickedness is worthless if the elect will repent and no one else will no matter what. You still don't explain how He can want to save all people, like is said in 1 Timothy 2:4, and yet have predestined most of them to hell.

Who deserves salvation? I don't.

That goes without saying, for all of us.

this is not my name · Mar 23, 2019

devin553344 said:
I was my understanding that faith was a gift from God as a fruit or gift: Galatians 5:22-23, 1 Corinthians 12:8-11. Because the faith of a mustard seed could move mountains: Matthew 17:20. Now we can't have a bunch of humans moving mountains with this tiny mustard seed faith. No one would survive on earth.

But that we as humans can have hope and belief.

I personally think the word "faith" from the bible is being incorrectly applied to people and Faith is something only God has. They should have used a different word from the bible translations for moving mountains and such.

what word should they have used when it came to moving mountains? could you expand on the last paragraph you sent.

Please explain if no one is predestined

...yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me

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