May God "Violate" Your "Freewill"?

butterball

Rejection" - "cast off" - "broken off" would mean the same thing that God cast off fleshly Israel from being His elect.

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I dont believe the rejected ever belonged to the Elect, the Election of Grace Remnant.

Butterball1 said:

Even though God is sovereign that does not mean He must violate man's free will and make men sinners just so He can punish men. That would be unjust on God's part.

God carried out His sovereign will Romans 9:17 in--

1) showing his power over Pharaoh
2) magnifying His name

God did these 2 things WITHOUT violating Pharaoh's free will. God left it in Pharaoh's power as to HOW God would carry out these 2 things. Whether Pharaoh obeyed God or disobey, God was going to carry out these 2 things but again, God left it up to Pharoah as to HOW it would happen.

Had Pharaoh obeyed letting the people go then God would have shown His power over Pharaoh and magnified His name. But we know Pharoah chose to disobey, therefore God used Pharoah's disobedience to carry out these 2 things. So God was sovereign in carrying out His will, none could stop Him, but God did not have to violate man's free will in the process. Letting Pharoah choose for himself to disobey leaves Pharaoh culpable for his own choice. God would be culpable for Pharaoh's disobedience (sin) if God forced Pharaoh to disobey against his will.

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Yes Gods Will often violates mans will if it is against His Will. Gods Will is Sovereign over mans will 100% of the time !

Butterball1 said:

"Rejection" - "cast off" - "broken off" would mean the same thing that God cast off fleshly Israel from being His elect. Yet not all fleshly Jews were cast off as Paul, for those that became Christians would be God's people.

Romans 11:23 "And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again."

The fact those fleshly Jews that were cast off can be grafted in AGAIN, implies that had been cast off. There would be no need for them to be grafted in again if they were never cast off to begin with.

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All people start out at birth being an innocent child of God and it is with “rejection” they are cast off, rejected and broken off. Good Jews, who accepted Christ were never cut off. With Pentecost the Jews did loss their very special status, since all people were and are equally part of all the promises going forward. The “status” the Jews exclusively had prior to Christ never included eternal life in heaven.

Was Paul, when he was Saul killing Christians, “cut off” and needing to be grafted back in?

Butterball1 said:

I never said God cast off all Jews, I even showed Paul was a fleshly Jew but not cast off. What God did was cast off fleshly Israel from being His chosen people to making Christians His chosen people and any fleshly Jew or Gentile who becomes a Christian therefore is of God's chosen people - Christians. Those fleshly Jews in Acts 2 who obeyed Peter and became Christians then became of God's chosen people.

But only a very few fleshly Jews became Christians, Paul says "Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:" Romans 9:27 "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace (became Christians)" Romans 11:5. In Acts 2 there was about 3000 who became Christians, very much a remnant from among millions of Jews.

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OK

Butterball1 said:

God accepts anyone, Jew or Gentile, that becomes a Christians sine now Christians are God's chosen people. Thereefore just being a Jew in the flesh is not enough to be saved, the Jew must become a Christian

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Was it ever the situation that an individual Jew obtained eternal life by just being a fleshly Jew?

Butterball1 said:

I covered this already. Romans 11:1-2
"I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,"

"His people" CANNOT refer to fleshly Israel for the text in Romans 11 shows God did reject, cast off, broke off fleshly Israel. Again no need for God to graft in fleshly Israel AGAIN (Romans 11:23) if the fleshly Jew if he was never cast off to begin with.

What GOd did was CHANGE who His chosen people now are..chnaged from fleshly Israel (no longer God's chosen) to Christians (now God's chosen).

The reason Paul was not cast away even though he was a fleshly Jew was because he be came a Christian. Therefore Paul was grafted in again as beong of God's chosen for he became a Christian.

Those 3000 Jews in Acts 2 who became Christians were grafted in again having become Christians. They had been cast off being fleshly Jews but grafted in again when they became Christians.

I am not seeing why you don't understand this and I don't think I can explain any more simple than what I have.

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I think we differ in our understanding of “God’s chosen people”. All fleshly Jews were God’s chosen people to be the nation prepared to accept Jesus, but that does not mean: they were all individually chosen for eternal life. Christians are chosen for eternal life, because they have accepted Christ.

Butterball1 said:

Romans 9 Paul is proving God was just in having cast off, broke off, rejected the fleshly Jew due to the fleshly Jew's rejection, unbelief in Christ. Yet those Jews who became Christians were grafted back in again as God's chosen. Romans 9:8 just being a Jew in the flesh is not sufficient to save, one must become a Christian (child of promise) to be a child of God/Christian.

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You assume all fleshly Jews were “cast off”, while some Jews might not have ever rejected Christ. God is justified in “casting off” all mature adults, because they have all sinned, but God is not justified in making a particular example of all Jews over the equally bad gentiles. Many Jews did accept Christ, which could have been at a greater percentage then the Gentile who accepted Christ, as far as we know.

Romans 9 would be a slap in the face to the Jewish Christians in Rome if Paul was saying: “God has cut off all fleshly Jews for rejecting the Messiah” and is replacing fleshly Jews with Gentiles. That would puff the Gentiles ego up, as now being better off then the Jews, when Paul’s goal with Romans is to show Jews and gentiles are equal, so the Gentiles do not have to become Jews to be Christians. Paul and God are not trying to put the Jews down, but let the Jews see Gentiles Christians are equal through faith.

Brightfame52 said:

Then you don't accept that God is absolutely Sovereign over man in every way.

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No because "Then our sin, our desire to sin, is by HIS will. I cannot accept this because a source of pure Light cannot create dark / evil: 1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is LIGHT; in him there is no darkness at all."

No source of light can be 'turned on' and dark come out. No source of loving, righteous justice can act an evil act, ie, an unloving, unrighteous unjust act. There is another answer to the creation of evil...and that is found in HIS will to have a true marriage with HIS church which cannot be forced but can only be entered upon by the free will decison of all involved.

YHWH's will for us to choose to accept HIM or to reject HIM cannot be fulfilled by HIM choosing for us. HE gave us the free will ability and opportunity to choose to put our faith in HIM as our GOD and saviour or to put our faith in HIM being a liar and a false god, most evil. Iow, HE could not and did not choose the results of our true free will decisions in the least or HIS love and HIS marriage are a sham.

bling said:

All people start out at birth being an innocent child of God...

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ImCo

When someone can answer my three objections to the doctrine of the innocence of babies, I will switch...I want to know how you reconcile my objections.

Are they innocent? No.
1. If just newly created they have no free will to be saved or damned.
2. They are treated the same as those judged for sin.
3. Why are not all men saved this way?


Have you considered God's wrath? Noah's flood and the innocent babies in his day...?
Gen 6:11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.
12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

Also, when God smote the nations did He not order the killing of everyone? Do we not see that as judgement for sin?
EX 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.
DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.
DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.

Children are not treated as innocents, are they? I guess it is not proof they are sinners since it may be (though not likely) that GOD killed them in their innocence to send them on to heaven (except why do they get to be the lucky ones?).

Have you considered The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?
God was asked about sparing a city if HE found righteous people within it. God responded by saying that he would not destroy a city that had righteous people within it. To be righteous, one must have eschewed evil and embraced holiness, right? 2 Timothy 2:22 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness [i.e., pursue doing righteous works].

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness [i.e., in doing righteous works].

Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

These three scriptures, and some others, use “righteousness” to mean, “doing what is right before God.” Presumably Sodom and Gomorrah had many babies inside them. Why didn't God spare those cities since there were innocent babies in the cities if innocent means righteous?


Genesis 18:32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Not even ten babies in all of two big cities? No, I think there was a normal contingent of babies and pregnant mothers etc, but I don't think they were counted as innocent in the eyes of the LORD's wrath. They may have been young but they were indeed under condemnation for sin.

I also think the wages of sin is death means that death is the proof of sin. Do those who think babies are innocent have proof their death is NOT from sin?

We know that a house divided against itself will fall so somehow this GOD of wrath must be reconciled with the Jesus who calls children to HIM and says that we must become like them to go to heaven ourselves. Either there must be two different classes of children involved in these stories or there must be some other difference, because we know that there is no difference between the Persons of the Trinity and Jesus mentions Sodom and Gomorrah without any hedging about children.

PLUS:
You need free will to sin AND to be saved for being sinless:

If babies who die prior to the age of accountability automatically go to heaven without any free will choice to become saved or to reject salvation, by a God who does not want people to go to hell as per: 2 Peter 3:9: ....He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance,
then WHY are NOT all humans saved this way if it is a legitimate way to be saved?

Why do some die to automatically go to heaven and some live to get tested, some to their annihilation or eternal torment? Why some and not others?

I feel left out of the automatic heavenly club - God should have killed me as a child!! What a lot of suffering it would have saved the people I've hurt.

Peace, Ted

TedT said:

When someone can answer my three objections to the doctrine of the innocence of babies, I will switch...I want to know how you reconcile my objections.

Are they innocent? No.
1. If just newly created they have no free will to be saved or damned.

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Agree with the idea: newborn and preborn have no free will, but how does that keep them from being innocent at conception and/or birth?

TedT said:

2. They are treated the same as those judged for sin.

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Where do you find that in scripture?

What sin have they done and are thus guilty of doing?

TedT said:

3. Why are not all men saved this way?

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A newborn baby is not saved, but in a safe condition, since they are innocent. All mature adults, sin and thus are in need of a savior.

TedT said:

Have you considered God's wrath? Noah's flood and the innocent babies in his day...?
Gen 6:11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.
12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

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Yes, what is your point? Death is the way the saved and the innocent go to heaven and the way bad people quit doing bad stuff.
OK, God said: “people on earth had corrupted their ways” and “the earth is filled with violence because of them”. Now newborns are not violent and corruptive, but their parent can be. Yes, sometime the innocent die and go to heaven, along with their violent and corrupt parents who go to hell.

TedT said:

Also, when God smote the nations did He not order the killing of everyone? Do we not see that as judgement for sin?
EX 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.
DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.
DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.
Children are not treated as innocents, are they? I guess it is not proof they are sinners since it may be (though not likely) that GOD killed them in their innocence to send them on to heaven (except why do they get to be the lucky ones?).
Have you considered The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?
God was asked about sparing a city if HE found righteous people within it. God responded by saying that he would not destroy a city that had righteous people within it. To be righteous, one must have eschewed evil and embraced holiness, right? 2 Timothy 2:22 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness [i.e., pursue doing righteous works].

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness [i.e., in doing righteous works].

Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

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God can and has directly and indirectly (even using others) to cease to provide life on earth for people including children, which is not bad for the innocent, so what is your problem with it?

I am not saying the innocent have done anything righteous.

Getting to heaven without fulfilling your earthly objective is not as wonderful as fulfilling your earthly objective and going on to heaven.

Yes, in this messed up world some innocent people will die, but this messed up world is also the very best place for willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective.

TedT said:

These three scriptures, and some others, use “righteousness” to mean, “doing what is right before God.” Presumably Sodom and Gomorrah had many babies inside them. Why didn't God spare those cities since there were innocent babies in the cities if innocent means righteous?

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Innocent does not mean righteous.

God can quit providing life to anyone at any time. Death is not bad in and of itself. It is a sin to murder a person, but death itself is not bad.

TedT said:

Genesis 18:32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Not even ten babies in all of two big cities? No, I think there was a normal contingent of babies and pregnant mothers etc, but I don't think they were counted as innocent in the eyes of the LORD's wrath. They may have been young but they were indeed under condemnation for sin.

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Yes

TedT said:

I also think the wages of sin is death means that death is the proof of sin. Do those who think babies are innocent have proof their death is NOT from sin?

We know that a house divided against itself will fall so somehow this GOD of wrath must be reconciled with the Jesus who calls children to HIM and says that we must become like them to go to heaven ourselves. Either there must be two different classes of children involved in these stories or there must be some other difference, because we know that there is no difference between the Persons of the Trinity and Jesus mentions Sodom and Gomorrah without any hedging about children.

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One of several “proof texts” to show children are innocent, but that does not mean they cannot have their life on earth taken from them.

TedT said:

PLUS:
You need free will to sin AND to be saved for being sinless:

If babies who die prior to the age of accountability automatically go to heaven without any free will choice to become saved or to reject salvation, by a God who does not want people to go to hell as per: 2 Peter 3:9: ....He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance,
then WHY are NOT all humans saved this way if it is a legitimate way to be saved?

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Again, if you are innocent and have not sinned you do not need to be saved from your sins or hell, but you are in a safe condition. All mature adults sin, so they need to be saved to go to heaven.

TedT said:

Why do some die to automatically go to heaven and some live to get tested, some to their annihilation or eternal torment? Why some and not others?

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We are not living to be “tested”! We live to fulfill or not fulfill our earthly objective. Going to heaven is not the objective, but part of the benefits of fulfilling our objective.

TedT said:

I feel left out of the automatic heavenly club - God should have killed me as a child!! What a lot of suffering it would have saved the people I've hurt.

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Ted, do you not care about your objective in this life and the undeserving wonderful charitable gifts that come with fulfilling your objective?

You have been forgiven of all the hurt you have caused and it now becomes part of your witness. Think of all the good you can do to help others in stopping their hurting of others.

Brightfame52 said:

Yes Gods Will often violates mans will if it is against His Will. Gods Will is Sovereign over mans will 100% of the time !

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When a man sins, whose will is in effect?

bling

All people start out at birth being an innocent child of God

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Thats not scriptural. All are born sinners, unclean ? Job 14:4

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

Job 15:14


What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

Job 25:4

How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?

Isa 48:8
Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.

Ps 58:3

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

TedT said:

No because "Then our sin, our desire to sin, is by HIS will. I cannot accept this because a source of pure Light cannot create dark / evil: 1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is LIGHT; in him there is no darkness at all."

No source of light can be 'turned on' and dark come out. No source of loving, righteous justice can act an evil act, ie, an unloving, unrighteous unjust act. There is another answer to the creation of evil...and that is found in HIS will to have a true marriage with HIS church which cannot be forced but can only be entered upon by the free will decison of all involved.

YHWH's will for us to choose to accept HIM or to reject HIM cannot be fulfilled by HIM choosing for us. HE gave us the free will ability and opportunity to choose to put our faith in HIM as our GOD and saviour or to put our faith in HIM being a liar and a false god, most evil. Iow, HE could not and did not choose the results of our true free will decisions in the least or HIS love and HIS marriage are a sham.

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Thats fine if you dont accept it. May God have mercy on you ! God is Sovereign over mans will !

Fervent said:

When a man sins, whose will is in effect?

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Both. Gods will purposed the man should sin with his will !

bling said:

All people start out at birth being an innocent child of God and it is with “rejection” they are cast off, rejected and broken off. Good Jews, who accepted Christ were never cut off. With Pentecost the Jews did loss their very special status, since all people were and are equally part of all the promises going forward. The “status” the Jews exclusively had prior to Christ never included eternal life in heaven.

Was Paul, when he was Saul killing Christians, “cut off” and needing to be grafted back in?

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I agree all are born innocent, whether Jew or Gentile, but God cut off the fleshly Jews because of their unbelief, Romans 11:20.

Paul, when he was Saul, was lost as unbeliving fleshly Jew but later when Paul believed in Christ and became Christian was grafted back in. Any Jew that became a Christian was grafted back in while the rest remain lost in unbelief.... unless they became Christians.
Romans 10:1-3 Paul lamented over the fact his brethren in the flesh, the Jews, were lost and that they might be saved. Romans 10:3 they would be saved by obeying the righteousness of God but most would not.

bling said:

OK


Was it ever the situation that an individual Jew obtained eternal life by just being a fleshly Jew?

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That is what the Jews thought, John refuted such an idea that the physical birth is all that is needed to be of God, Matthew 3:9.

Under the OT law, the Jews were God's chosen people and not the Gentiles. Just the physical birth into a Jewish family with lineage to Abraham made one of God's chosen. But the Jew still had to be obedient to the law to right with God.


Under the NT, it requires a new spiritual birth that Jew and Gentile must have to be a chosen of God, Christian.

God's people, "His people" has always been those who obeyed Him.

bling said:

I think we differ in our understanding of “God’s chosen people”. All fleshly Jews were God’s chosen people to be the nation prepared to accept Jesus, but that does not mean: they were all individually chosen for eternal life. Christians are chosen for eternal life, because they have accepted Christ.

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Yes, God long promised the Jews a Messiah far back in the OT. When GOd did send the Messiah, the Jews rejected Him and had Him crucified Acts 2:23,36. Therefore God rejected the Jews. Romans 1:16 it was God's plan the gospel go to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. Jesus and His Apostles did first go the lost house of Israel (Matthew 10:6; Matthew 15:24) but they rejected Christ and His gospel so the gospel went to the Gentiles..."Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you (Jews): but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." Acts 13:46
So Jew and Gentile must be saved through the gospel and any reject it will be lost.

bling said:

You assume all fleshly Jews were “cast off”, while some Jews might not have ever rejected Christ. God is justified in “casting off” all mature adults, because they have all sinned, but God is not justified in making a particular example of all Jews over the equally bad gentiles. Many Jews did accept Christ, which could have been at a greater percentage then the Gentile who accepted Christ, as far as we know.

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I NEVER said all fleshly Jews were cast off. Paul was a fleshly Jew but he was NOT cast off because he became a Christian. Those 3000 Jews in Acts 2 who obeyed the gospel and became Christians were NOT cast off.

So those few Jews (just a remnant) that became a Christian were not cast off but all the other Jews that did NOT become a Christian remained cast off.

bling said:

Romans 9 would be a slap in the face to the Jewish Christians in Rome if Paul was saying: “God has cut off all fleshly Jews for rejecting the Messiah” and is replacing fleshly Jews with Gentiles. That would puff the Gentiles ego up, as now being better off then the Jews, when Paul’s goal with Romans is to show Jews and gentiles are equal, so the Gentiles do not have to become Jews to be Christians. Paul and God are not trying to put the Jews down, but let the Jews see Gentiles Christians are equal through faith.

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But Romans 11 clearly says God cut fleshly Israel off, Romans 11:20-21 because of unbelief. But those few Jews who did believe as Paul, Peter and others including the 3000 Jews in Acts 2 who became Christians were not of the cast off. But all the Jews who refused to believe remained cast off.

Paul knew the Jews would accuse God of being unjust in casting them off and Paul refutes that argument proving GOd was not just in casting off the Jews but just in grafting in the Gentile. (The Jew wrongly tho't salvation only belonged to them but God can show mercy to whom He will.) And when Gentiles become Christians they do become spiritual Jews (Romans 2:28-29) having had a circumcision of the heart, a circumcision made without hands when they were baptized; Colossians 2:11-12.

Brightfame52 said:

Yes Gods Will often violates mans will if it is against His Will. Gods Will is Sovereign over mans will 100% of the time !

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It's not in God's nature to violate man's free will.

Brightfame52 said:

butterball



I dont believe the rejected ever belonged to the Elect, the Election of Grace Remnant.

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Under the OT law, fleshly Israel was God's elect, His chosen people. Paul says they were cast away, broken off because of unbelief. How can they be cast off/broken off if they were never of God's chosen? What were they cast off/broken off from?

Deuteronomy 7:7-8--according to Calvinism God "hates" the non-elect and "loves" the elect. Yet from Romans 11 God cast away His loved elect. How can this be....according to Calvinism?

Brightfame52 said:

Both. Gods will purposed the man should sin with his will !

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That makes God the author of sin. In proposing an absolute sovereignty in which God micromanages men's wills God is not given glory but instead transformed into an untrustworthy monster. How can you have faith in a being that decries sin while willing that men commit sin?

Butterball1 said:

It's not in God's nature to violate man's free will.

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This sounds like a god you made up in your mind friend.

butter

Under the OT law, fleshly Israel was God's elect, His chosen people.

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I dont believe that. Paul made a distinction between the chosen in Israel and the rest Rom 11:7

What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded

Now it would be unreasonable to say the whole nation was the election, when its a clear distinction being made !

Fervent said:

That makes God the author of sin. In proposing an absolute sovereignty in which God micromanages men's wills God is not given glory but instead transformed into an untrustworthy monster. How can you have faith in a being that decries sin while willing that men commit sin?

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God is the author of sin since He purposed man to sin ! Thats not God sinning because He purposed someone else to sin.

Brightfame52 said:

God is the author of sin since He purposed man to sin ! Thats not God sinning because He purposed someone else to sin.

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It is certainly not loving, righteous nor just.

Brightfame52 said:

God is the author of sin since He purposed man to sin ! Thats not God sinning because He purposed someone else to sin.

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Causing someone else to sin is in fact sin, especially if the one who commits the sin has no choice but to commit the sin.

Brightfame52 said:

This sounds like a god you made up in your mind friend.

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God will not violate man's free will, as Pharoah, causing man to sin then God punishes that man for the sin God forced that man to commit against his own will...not in God's perfect, just nature to do such.