Does Matthew 22:14 prove Calvinism and Predestination?

The Holy Bible said:

11 And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:
12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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King = Jesus.
Servants (at this point in the Parable) = Angels.


Note: Jesus uses his angels to cast out wicked servants in another parable (Which relates to a different judgment - See: Matthew 13:41-42). Naturally, Jesus is the King because He is called the King of Kings in Revelation 19.

The Wedding Guests = The Gentiles (Primarily).


Wedding Garment = The Fine Linen (Which is the Righteousness of the Saints - Revelation 19:8).


So this Gentile wedding guest did not have on a wedding garment (Which is the fine linen that is the righteous acts of the saints). They were speechless because they did not fully understand those Scripture verses like 1 Timothy 6:3-4, Jeremiah 4:22, and Job 28:28.

While many may deny it, many only see God's grace as a license for immorality on some level (Jude 1:4). They believe Jesus is a safety net to commit some amount of grievous sin that the Bible condemns with warnings of hellfire, and or spiritual death. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said to those believers who said they did wonderful works to depart from Him because they also worked iniquity. Iniquity is sin. So they justified sin under His grace. They did not really keep Christ's commandments as mentioned in the New Testament and not the Law of Moses. 1 John 2:3 essentially says we can have an assurance in knowing the Lord if we find that we are keeping His commandments. 1 John 2:4 is basically saying that "the person who says they know the Lord and yet they do not keep His commandments, they are a liar, and the truth is not in them." What truth is not in them? Jesus. For Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. This is why Jesus did not know them in Matthew 7:23.

Cast him into outer darkness, & weeping and gnashing of teeth = Punishment for Wicked Unprofitable Servants of God before their Judgment and Being Cast into the Lake of Fire.

The rough phrase "cast into outer darkness & weeping and gnashing of teeth" is used three times in the Bible. It is used in:


Obviously this denotes a form of punishment because being cast into outer darkness and weeping and gnashing does not sound like a good thing but a bad thing. Plus, gnashing of teeth is what the Jews did towards Stephen when they were stoning him. Gnashing of teeth is what wolves do when they show their teeth in anger. So this is indeed a form of judgment against God's servants or people.

The Holy Bible said:

14 For many are called, but few are chosen."

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Taking the whole parable into account into what it says, the many that are called is clearly both Jews and Gentiles, but few are chosen. But even if you wanted Matthew 22:14 to refer to only Israel alone, that still does not help you. If God called many in Israel but only few were chosen, it still does not make sense that God would have called them and failed to bring forth what He desired for them by calling them. This proves Conditional Election, and Conditional Salvation, and not Calvinism.

When it is said we are dead in our sins doesn't that mean, we can do no other but sin, we do not have a choice to do any other, for all have sinned.

Eph. 2:1
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Eph. 2:5
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved

Col. 2:13
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

Does not sound like we did anything to get what we got from God.

Bible Highlighter said:

Let's look at the Scriptures and see if what you are saying is true or not.

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Everything you have said is accurate, I agree with it.

I said it did not relate to Gentiles or Christians because, they were only mentioned as to what took place after the rejection by the Jews.

The Parable was spoken for the benefit of and to the Jews, the understanding of who the Gentiles were only comes about after the fact, and the Christians should understand the actual meaning of the Parable.

JIMINZ said:

God was the direct cause for the Jews to Reject Jesus as their Messiah.

Mark 4:12
That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

Luke 8:10
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.

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Gods WORD was the direct cause. They didn't have to reject his word. Some accepted his word.

Al Touthentop said:

Calvin didn't say that and I didn't say he said that unless I mistyped. I think I said he relied on it. God was definitely arbitrary to Calvin. He made some to sin and some to be saved.

The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknow what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree. Should any one here inveigh against the prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was not ignorant of what was to happen?

Calvin, John, Institutes of Christian Religion,trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2008-11), 586 (Book II, Chapter 23, Section 7)

Calvin believed that God was present in the future in the here and now. He sees the future because it is with him "now." But that seeing is just mere observance. Since God caused everything, his knowledge of the future was because he predestined it all to happen. His prescience comes from his predistination, says Calvin. If you cause everything, then you know what's going to happen!

Election is in the bible, sure. But it doesn't mean that every individual was predestined to sin or be saved. That's what Calvin taught. It's slander. God gave us the example of righteous judgement and said we were to live up to that. He did not exempt himself from it.

Were we to live up to Calvin's idea of God's righteous judgement, then we could, say, put a man in a cage and tell him he had to wash the sink outside the cage and then punish him if he couldn't do it.

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You said the he "claimed" it.

Calvin is reasonable to say that God foresees the future at least in that he caused it. It is simple reason to believe that God sees all fact as present, and that we think of it as foreseeing because WE are bound by time. God is not bound by time. Time is his invention.

How is it slander, then, to say that every person is predestined to one thing or another? We may wish to make it a polar matter, being a matter of (among other things) salvation, but there is more to it than that. God is making each one he chose for the specific use he had in mind in making them. He didn't create a pool of possibles from which to draw a first or second attempt at a plan. Each one of us will indeed do what God intended.

From our point of view, are we really the masters of our own destinies? Hardly. Calvin did not believe that we do not choose. In fact, he did say that we do choose, and that with obvious results (even eternal consequences).

Aside from Calvin, allow me to indulge in a little secular logic. If First Cause, then: (The Deist view) the "seeds all future results" were sown in the first act of creating, or (The Theist view) First Cause intervened during the passage of time after that first act. My personal opinion is that the two are both the same thing to God, since he is not subject to time --though I admit God can do anything he wants with time and is not subject to my assessment.

A little more logic defeats the notion of absolute free will, and even of any use of "chance" --that is to say, it does not allow for anything to happen without a pre-incidental cause, (unless it be First Cause, of course, which doesn't "happen" but simply "is"). To say that one person makes a good choice but another makes a bad choice simply because one person is better, or better prepared for the choosing, either admits to Chance as a determining factor, or to something having caused the difference. Logic fails in saying that Chance is the cause of the difference --to say that chance causes anything is self-contradictory.

Mark Quayle said:

You said the he "claimed" it.

Calvin is reasonable to say that God foresees the future at least in that he caused it. It is simple reason to believe that God sees all fact as present, and that we think of it as foreseeing because WE are bound by time. God is not bound by time. Time is his invention.

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God only caused every thing in the future to happen if we don't have any free will at all. What God did was set the thing in motion. That he can still see the future is something almost impossible to fathom for a man.

How is it slander, then, to say that every person is predestined to one thing or another?

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Because it asserts that God is a liar.

We may wish to make it a polar matter, being a matter of (among other things) salvation, but there is more to it than that. God is making each one he chose for the specific use he had in mind in making them. He didn't create a pool of possibles from which to draw a first or second attempt at a plan. Each one of us will indeed do what God intended.

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Paul tells us that EVERYONE has resisted God's will. That's what sin is, disobedience. Now if sin isn't disobedience but robotic conformance to a predestined plan, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to preach the gospel or make Godly laws. You're already forced to disobey or forced to obey those laws and to suggest that there could be any transgression when one is doing exactly what God programmed him to do, is to prove the system completely unjust. It's rigged, fixed and lied about all through the bible.

From our point of view, are we really the masters of our own destinies? Hardly. Calvin did not believe that we do not choose. In fact, he did say that we do choose, and that with obvious results (even eternal consequences).

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But your choice is not possible until God zaps you according to him. Until then, it's not possible for you to obey God, according to the doctrine.

A little more logic defeats the notion of absolute free will, and even of any use of "chance" --that is to say, it does not allow for anything to happen without a pre-incidental cause, (unless it be First Cause, of course, which doesn't "happen" but simply "is"). To say that one person makes a good choice but another makes a bad choice simply because one person is better, or better prepared for the choosing, either admits to Chance as a determining factor, or to something having caused the difference. Logic fails in saying that Chance is the cause of the difference --to say that chance causes anything is self-contradictory.

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No logic defeats free will. It's a self evident fact, especially to one who is trying to walk in Christ's footsteps. But it is also clear from scripture that man has free will.

Genesis 4
6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

If we don't have free will, then God was lying to Cain when he said he was capable of ruling over sin. If Cain was already charged with Adam's sin, he was already condemned and God was toying with him.

Dave L said:

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Romans 5:8–10 (KJV 1900)

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Amen, so long as we abide in Christ “we shall be saved from wrath through him”.

nolidad said:

As for all- you are simply wrong as even a light a tool as Strongs concordance would show you.

But taking a verse from Chapter 9- discarding the rest of its immediate context and then coupling it with a verse from chapter 10 is disingenuous.

Read verse 16 again!!!!

16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,


THE UNSAVED PERSON HAS NO SPIRITUAL CAPACITY TO RECEIVE THE GOSPEL. PAUL SAID THAT IN ROM. 8 AND 1 COR. 1&2

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What are your thoughts on Revelation 2:20-21?


“But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.”
‭‭Revelation‬ ‭2:20-21‬ ‭NASB‬‬

or Romans 2?

“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

In light of Romans 2:4-5 and Revelation 2:21 what do you think Paul meant in Romans 9:22?

“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?”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭9:22‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Why is God enduring with much patience the vessels of wrath?

Mark Q says, "How is it slander, then, to say that every person is predestined to one thing or another?"

Al Touthentop said:

Because it asserts that God is a liar.

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Perhaps you could elucidate. How does that assert God is a liar? Where does God say that not every person (or perhaps you would say, "nobody") is predestined to one thing or another?

You make the claim, to you logical, I suppose, (since Scripture doesn't say so, it must be simply logic), that if God causes all things then we don't have free will. Well, that is true according to one use of the term "free will", but false if one only means by free will, that one does indeed choose --one does cause. And really, that's how simple it is. We cause when we choose. But we are not entirely spontaneous. There are no miniature First Causes walking about on Earth.

Al Touthentop said:

God only caused every thing in the future to happen if we don't have any free will at all. What God did was set the thing in motion. That he can still see the future is something almost impossible to fathom for a man.



Because it asserts that God is a liar.



Paul tells us that EVERYONE has resisted God's will. That's what sin is, disobedience. Now if sin isn't disobedience but robotic conformance to a predestined plan, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to preach the gospel or make Godly laws. You're already forced to disobey or forced to obey those laws and to suggest that there could be any transgression when one is doing exactly what God programmed him to do, is to prove the system completely unjust. It's rigged, fixed and lied about all through the bible.



But your choice is not possible until God zaps you according to him. Until then, it's not possible for you to obey God, according to the doctrine.



No logic defeats free will. It's a self evident fact, especially to one who is trying to walk in Christ's footsteps. But it is also clear from scripture that man has free will.

Genesis 4
6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

If we don't have free will, then God was lying to Cain when he said he was capable of ruling over sin. If Cain was already charged with Adam's sin, he was already condemned and God was toying with him.

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We have will; we have choice. Calvin doesn't deny that. But Free??? What do you even mean by that? And where in the Bible does it reference it? Volition --of course we have volition. But FREE? We are all slaves to sin or to Christ. And according to science and philosophy, we are all somewhere within a series of causes and effects. It is inescapable for us in this temporal plane.

I hear you saying the same thing many atheists say. But no, God isn't making us robots, he isn't forcing us, but he does use means to accomplish his ends, and if the means he uses is determined to go their own way, just as he planned, how are they not to blame? But don't fear --their punishment will not exceed their crime. God's justice is precise and thorough.

As I have told a couple of atheists: If, without taking God into account, we have real choice, though we admit our choices are caused by influences and circumstances, then how is it any different if God is the one causing those influences and circumstances?

It is clear from Scripture than man can choose. It is not clear that man has free will.

If any Biblical passage absolutely and definitively proved Calvinism or any other ism there would not be a debate. However, we being men attempt to discern the scripture. The most important thing is to not let these issues divide the Church but that we move forward with our primary mission which is to reach the un-reached and share with them the Good News of Christ so that He may return.

Mark Quayle said:

Mark Q says, "How is it slander, then, to say that every person is predestined to one thing or another?"

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Because that would mean that God glories in man's sin. That he has created certain men to fail and they have no power over his choice to condemn them or save them. That's partiality by definition and God said he doesn't do that. Explicitly and forcefully. And he demands that we use his righteous judgement as our example. He does not exempt himself as a hypocrite would. If his example is partial and arbitrary then it is perfectly ok for us to be arbitrary and partial.

But what does he say about his discernment and judgement?

7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

God has the sort of discernment and judgement that men strive for and never achieve.

Romans 2
2 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. 2 But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. 3 And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

Paul lays out the fact that God's judgement is better and purer than ours is. We judge people and do what they do, acting as if we're superior. Does God do those things? Does he tell us not to show partiality and then he himself show partiality?

Many Calvinists will take you to Romans 9 and argue that God predestines people to sin (using Pharoah as an example). But, in Roman's 2 Paul has begun by establishing that God's judgement is not partial or arbitrary. He did NOT cause Pharaoh to disobey him so that he would look more important. Yet that is what people will teach there.

God said that the purpose that he created Pharaoh for was to glorify his name. Go read the Exodus passage Paul is quoting there. It's a complaint! "I gave you all of this power and authority over all the land and yet you still refuse to let my people go!"

Exodus 9
16 But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth. 17 As yet you exalt yourself against My people in that you will not let them go.

God does not say here that he raised Pharaoh up to disobey him so that he then could claim he was a great God. Pharaoh was created as a vessel for honor, not sin. God does not need people to sin to prove he is good. God would have been just as great a God had Pharaoh lived up to his true purpose and succumbed to God's will. Instead he resisted God's will. God's complaint here is that he showed Pharaoh grace and instead of recognizing what God had given him and therefore exalt God, he exalted himself against God's people. He went against the purpose for which he was created, he didn't live out God's predestined plan to be a fool at God's expense. If God had created Pharaoh to sin, then God's complaint here is literally insane. He's complaining that Pharaoh has done exactly what he created him for. Does God in Exodus not know that he made Pharaoh as a special vessel to disobey him? Why on earth would he complain about something he allegedly caused? So God is petty along with being grossly misleading (how dare you resist me when I made you to resist me! Burn in hell, sinner!)

Of course it's slander to say that God made Pharaoh (or anyone else) to disobey his will. Such would contradict everything that God has ever done, and it would require God be literally an insane megalomaniac who uses gnat-like humans to amuse himself.

Paul was not making the point that God is arbitrary and partial. He was making the point that his mercy is beyond measure and his righteousness is greater than any man can understand. We humans tend to despise Pharaoh because of the destruction he brought on his own people through his defiance. God tells Pharaoh that he loves him and gave him the authority he had so that Pharaoh would realize God's love one day and glorify his name. It never happened. Pharaoh resisted God's will.

When Paul asks the question, "For who has resisted God's will?" It is rhetorical. The answer is "everyone."

Pharaoh was resisting God's will, not following along his predestined defiant life that God made for him.

We have will; we have choice. Calvin doesn't deny that. But Free??? What do you even mean by that? And where in the Bible does it reference it? Volition --of course we have volition. But FREE? We are all slaves to sin or to Christ. And according to science and philosophy, we are all somewhere within a series of causes and effects. It is inescapable for us in this temporal plane.

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Free just means that it is our decision. We choose to be bond servants to sin or to Christ. God didn't make us slaves and then offer the gospel which we can't obey until he zaps us. But you are not in line with Calvin in your thinking. I find hope in that.

It is clear from Scripture than man can choose. It is not clear that man has free will.

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A distinction without any meaningful difference. Your mind, your emotions, your will. God gave you ownership and responsibility over that and the choice to voluntarily submit it to his will (meaning obedience to his commands). The gospel is not the only grace God has given us. The very breath we take is his gift. As we read from the account of Noah, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It was Noah who did the finding. He recognized what God had given him and chose to obey based on that. That's why John calls Christ, grace on top of grace. We are born under God's grace. The gospel is in addition to the grace or favor God has already shown us.

BNR32FAN said:

Amen, so long as we abide in Christ “we shall be saved from wrath through him”.

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We cannot trade eternal life for temporal life. Eternal life has no beginning or end. We are always saved in God's plan.

Al Touthentop said:

That's not what Jesus said. He said that belief is a work that we must perform and doing that work RESULTS in salvation (eternal life). That belief is only 'living' (see James) when one obeys his call to repent from sin, confess that he is the Son of God, be baptized (be born again and receive the remission of sins) and continue or abide in him. All those are commands that Jesus gave.

He said elsewhere, 'by their fruits you will know them.' Obedience produces the fruits that God said would be produced by a person's obedience. Obedience is not itself a fruit. We could do good works that we invent "of yourselves" (Eph. 2) and it would still not result in God's fruit. Only obedience to his commands will do that. And even partial obedience is rendered moot.

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

The grammar excludes the idea that God is causing anyone to do this work. The person is held responsible for his obedience to God's commands. A person can call Jesus his Lord and Master all he wants and he can even do good works, some of which are commanded as this example shows. So even if you were to see a person performing good works, it wouldn't be proof that God, a. caused him to do it, b. were complete.

If you disobey in one thing, your good works are counted as nothing. A person has to do all he is commanded. He can't cherry pick. See Ezekiel 18.

But here in this passage also we see that Calvinism is utterly smashed. Under his teaching, a person can't even obey without God's hand on his head. Those who disobey are proof that God has predestined that person to destruction. But this is even a worse situation. Here we have a situation where God provides only partial obedience and then still condemns the person! How is it possible to not have the capability to obey unless God gives you that free will and yet be able to obey partially without that special gift? That means that God must have provided only partial obedience to those people!

What a terrible God who would only give people a little bit of an ability, leading them to believe that they have been granted all of it. "Nope! Sucker! Fooled you! Now burn in hell!"

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The flesh can only mimick the lifestyle of the Born Again. This is why 3/4 of the "believers" in the parable of the sower fail.

Dave L said:

We cannot trade eternal life for temporal life. Eternal life has no beginning or end. We are always saved in God's plan.

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Yes I agree, looking at it from God’s perspective those who are written in the book of life will be saved and cannot lose their salvation because it was written according to His foreknowledge of who would believe and abide in Christ to the end. But from a human perspective we don’t know who is written in the book of life. We are right now living out and shaping what God has already foreseen. The choices we make right now are determining what He foresaw before the book of life was written. So a person can lose their salvation in the aspect that they could be on the path to salvation and later veer off of that path and the result will be that they lost what they would’ve received if they hadn’t turned away from Christ.

BNR32FAN said:

Yes I agree, looking at it from God’s perspective those who are written in the book of life will be saved and cannot lose their salvation because it was written according to His foreknowledge of who would believe and abide in Christ to the end. But from a human perspective we don’t know who is written in the book of life. We are right now living out and shaping what God has already foreseen. The choices we make right now are determining what He foresaw before the book of life was written. So a person can lose their salvation in the aspect that they could be on the path to salvation and later veer off of that path and the result will be that they lost what they would’ve received if they hadn’t turned away from Christ.

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This means God is not omniscient if he learns from watching. Eternal life means a saved lifestyle that overcomes sin once begun.

Nope, Mt 22:14 doesn't prove a Calvinistic view of Predestination. The context speaks of a man invited to a wedding, but showed up not wearing wedding clothes. Not indication in the text that God controls people in puppetlike fashion to do what they do.

Many are invited to receive Christ. (It's called "Evangelism") But not everyone chooses to believe it. Those who genuinely believe it are the chosen. Upon coming to faith in Christ they are eternally secure, predestined for heaven and predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

boxman144 said:

adjective: chosen

1. having been selected as the best or most appropriate.

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Well . . . if God chose to save me, I was not the best or the most appropriate!

He simply had mercy on me.

I was not somehow superior to others so I chose Him while others didn't; plus, I was not somehow superior so He considered me to be a better choice.

So, I would say there are other meanings for "chosen".

Among others, people's chosen things or people can be bad choices. And people's chosen ideas and things and people can be uninformed choices, and not the best.

I personally understand that when God's word refers to His children as elect and chosen, this might not have to do with how we have been predestined, but it has to do with how we have become pleasing to God because of how He has made us new in Jesus who is so pleasing to our Father. So, then our being chosen has to do with how God has changed our quality of our character. And God's word says what this includes, that He says He wants, by the way >

"rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:4)

So, what God has really chosen is how we can become in our character because of His love curing our nature to become like Christ.

God is changing us into the image of Jesus so we become > like Jesus whom God has chosen because of how pleased our Father is with His Son.

The One truly chosen, then, is Jesus. Then, with this, God desires children who become like Jesus.

So, the way we are now is not really who is predestined, then, but who we are when we are conformed to the image of Jesus will be whom God really has predestined.

"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Romans 8:29)

"Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2)

Dave L said:

The flesh can only mimick the lifestyle of the Born Again. This is why 3/4 of the "believers" in the parable of the sower fail.

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You have no idea who fails or doesn't and neither do I. The flesh can only mimic the lifestyle of the born again. That is true as Paul taught. But what he didn't teach is that it was impossible for us to set our minds on spiritual things so as not to be "in the flesh." He taught that one could chose to be born again and described exactly how that worked. To be born again was a command, not a promise.

Dave L said:

We cannot trade eternal life for temporal life. Eternal life has no beginning or end. We are always saved in God's plan.

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Eternal life is not a super power or a magic wish granted to a person like from a genie. Eternal life is possessed alone by one man.

His name is Jesus Christ.
Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the LIFE (John 14:6).

For Christ alone possesses "immortality" (See: 1 Timothy 6:16);
And we have to abide in the Son to have life.

"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."(1 John 5:12).

How can we have an assurance that we know the Lord (or the Son)?

"And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." (1 John 2:3).

What if a person says they know the Lord and yet they do not keep His commandments?

"He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." (1 John 2:4).

Dave L said:

We cannot trade eternal life for temporal life. Eternal life has no beginning or end. We are always saved in God's plan.

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Eternal life has nothing to do with time.

3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.