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SeventhValley
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I appreciate your appraoch.
You of course are very nice Thanks for the links but I am going to general theology for a while.
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I appreciate your appraoch.
You of course are very nice Thanks for the links but I am going to general theology for a while.
- Jun 26, 2004
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God predetermines all things, all the time...
(I posted this on another forum so I'll just repost it here.)
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isa. 45.7
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Amos 3.6
As Don Fortner noted in a sermon not so long ago, God still did it.
No matter what you do with the word evil in these passages, translate it as "wicked," "bad," "hurt," "harm," "ill," "sorrow," "mischief," "displeased," "adversity," "affliction," "trouble," "calamity," "grievous," "misery," and "trouble."
God still did it.
The wickedness, the bad, the hurt, the harm, the ill, the sorrow, the mischief, the displeased, the affliction, the trouble, etc. God did it. God does all things.
God: Author of Sin? | Feileadh Mor
Jerome Zanchius:
Consider Gen. 50: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."
Here we have one event: The selling of Joseph into slavery and lying to their father about it. Man is sinful. God is righteous.
A portion from the quote by Zanchius after reading the texts above,
jm
___________________________________
* efficacious: Successful in producing a desired or intended result; effective.
(I posted this on another forum so I'll just repost it here.)
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isa. 45.7
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Amos 3.6
As Don Fortner noted in a sermon not so long ago, God still did it.
No matter what you do with the word evil in these passages, translate it as "wicked," "bad," "hurt," "harm," "ill," "sorrow," "mischief," "displeased," "adversity," "affliction," "trouble," "calamity," "grievous," "misery," and "trouble."
God still did it.
The wickedness, the bad, the hurt, the harm, the ill, the sorrow, the mischief, the displeased, the affliction, the trouble, etc. God did it. God does all things.
God: Author of Sin? | Feileadh Mor
Jerome Zanchius:
God, as the primary and efficient cause of all things, is not only the Author of those actions done by His elect as actions, but also as they are good actions, whereas, on the other hand, though He may be said to be the Author of all the actions done by the wicked, yet He is not the Author of them in a moral and compound sense as they are sinful; but physically, simply and sensu diviso as they are mere actions, abstractedly from all consideration of the goodness or badness of them.
Although there is no action whatever which is not in some sense either good or bad, yet we can easily conceive of an action, purely as such, without adverting to the quality of it, so that the distinction between an action itself and its denomination of good or evil is very obvious and natural.
In and by the elect, therefore, God not only produces works and actions through His almighty power, but likewise, through the salutary influences of His Spirit, first makes their persons good, and then their actions so too; but, in and by the reprobate, He produces actions by His power alone, which actions, as neither issuing from faith nor being wrought with a view to the Divine glory, nor done in the manner prescribed by the Divine Word, are, on these accounts, properly denominated evil. Hence we see that God does not, immediately and per se, infuse iniquity into the wicked; but, as Luther expresses it, powerfully excites them to action, and withholds those gracious influences of His Spirit, without which every action is necessarily evil. That God either directly or remotely excites bad men as well as good ones to action cannot be denied by any but Atheists, or by those who carry their notions of free-will and human independency so high as to exclude the Deity from all actual operation in and among His creatures, which is little short of Atheism. Every work performed, whether good or evil, is done in strength and by the power derived immediately from God Himself, “in whom all men live, move, and have their being” (Acts 17.28). As, at first, without Him was not anything made which was made, so, now, without Him is not anything done which is done. We have no power or faculty, whether corporal or intellectual, but what we received from God, subsists by Him, and is exercised in subserviency to His will and appointment. It is He who created, preserves, actuates and directs all things. But it by no means follows, from these premises, that God is therefore the cause of sin, for sin is nothing but auomia, illegality, want of conformity to the Divine law (1 John 3.4), a mere privation of rectitude; consequently, being itself a thing purely negative, it can have no positive or efficient cause, but only a negative and deficient one…[end quote]
Before Zanchius brought us to this point, showing that God acting “directly or remotely” is not the “Author of them in a moral and compound sense,” he teaches in Position 2;Although there is no action whatever which is not in some sense either good or bad, yet we can easily conceive of an action, purely as such, without adverting to the quality of it, so that the distinction between an action itself and its denomination of good or evil is very obvious and natural.
In and by the elect, therefore, God not only produces works and actions through His almighty power, but likewise, through the salutary influences of His Spirit, first makes their persons good, and then their actions so too; but, in and by the reprobate, He produces actions by His power alone, which actions, as neither issuing from faith nor being wrought with a view to the Divine glory, nor done in the manner prescribed by the Divine Word, are, on these accounts, properly denominated evil. Hence we see that God does not, immediately and per se, infuse iniquity into the wicked; but, as Luther expresses it, powerfully excites them to action, and withholds those gracious influences of His Spirit, without which every action is necessarily evil. That God either directly or remotely excites bad men as well as good ones to action cannot be denied by any but Atheists, or by those who carry their notions of free-will and human independency so high as to exclude the Deity from all actual operation in and among His creatures, which is little short of Atheism. Every work performed, whether good or evil, is done in strength and by the power derived immediately from God Himself, “in whom all men live, move, and have their being” (Acts 17.28). As, at first, without Him was not anything made which was made, so, now, without Him is not anything done which is done. We have no power or faculty, whether corporal or intellectual, but what we received from God, subsists by Him, and is exercised in subserviency to His will and appointment. It is He who created, preserves, actuates and directs all things. But it by no means follows, from these premises, that God is therefore the cause of sin, for sin is nothing but auomia, illegality, want of conformity to the Divine law (1 John 3.4), a mere privation of rectitude; consequently, being itself a thing purely negative, it can have no positive or efficient cause, but only a negative and deficient one…[end quote]
That God often lets the wicked go on to more ungodliness, which He does (a) negatively by withholding that grace which alone can restrain them from evil; (b) remotely, by the providential concourse and mediation of second causes, which second causes, meeting and acting in concert with the corruption of the reprobate’s unregenerate nature, produce sinful effects; (c) judicially, or in a way of judgment. “The King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of waters; He turneth it whithersoever He will” (Prov. 21.1); and if the King’s heart, why not the hearts of all men? “Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good?” (Lam. 3.38). Hence we find that the Lord bid Shimei curse David (2 Sam. 16.10); that He moved David himself to number the people (compare 1 Chron. 21.1 with 2 Sam. 24.1); stirred up Joseph’s brethren to sell him into Egypt (Genesis 50.20); positively and immediately hardened the heart of Pharaoh (Exod. 4.21); delivered up David’s wives to be defiled by Absalom (2 Sam. 12.11; 16.22); sent a lying spirit to deceive Ahab (1 Kings 22.20-23), and mingled a perverse spirit in the midst of Egypt, that is, made that nation perverse, obdurate and stiff-necked (Isa. 19.14). To cite other instances would be almost endless, and after these, quite unnecessary, all being summed up in that express passage, “I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things” (Isa. 45.7). See farther, 1 Sam. 16.14; Psalm 105.25; Jer. 13.12,13; Acts 2.23, & 4.28; Rom. 11.8; 2 Thess. 2.11, every one of which implies more than a bare permission of sin. Bucer asserts this, not only in the place referred to below, but continually throughout his works, particularly on Matt. 6. § 2, where this is the sense of his comments on that petition, “Lead us not into temptation”: “It is abundantly evident, from most express testimonies of Scripture, that God, occasionally in the course of His providence, puts both elect and reprobate persons into circumstances of temptation, by which temptation are meant not only those trials that are of an outward, afflictive nature, but those also that are inward and spiritual, even such as shall cause the persons so tempted actually to turn aside from the path of duty, to commit sin, and involve both themselves and others in evil. Hence we find the elect complaining, ‘O Lord, why hast Thou made us to err from Thy ways, and hardened our hearts from Thy fear?’ (Isaiah 63.17). But there is also a kind of temptation, which is peculiar to the non-elect, whereby God, in a way of just judgment, makes them totally blind and obdurate, inasmuch as they are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” (See also his exposition of Rom. 9.)[end quote]
"But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." 1 Samuel 16:14-23
Consider Gen. 50: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."
Here we have one event: The selling of Joseph into slavery and lying to their father about it. Man is sinful. God is righteous.
A portion from the quote by Zanchius after reading the texts above,
"God, as the primary and efficient cause of all things, is not only the Author of those actions done by His elect as actions, but also as they are good actions, whereas, on the other hand, though He may be said to be the Author of all the actions done by the wicked, yet He is not the Author of them in a moral and compound sense as they are sinful; but physically, simply and sensu diviso as they are mere actions, abstractedly from all consideration of the goodness or badness of them."
A few points from Gill's Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity that might be helpful:
"God predetermined the fall of Adam; this fell under his decree, as all things do that come to pass in the world; there is nothing comes to pass without his determining will, "Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?" (Lam. 3:37), nothing is done, or can be done, God not willing it should be done: that the fall of Adam was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God is certain; because the sufferings and death of Christ, by which is the redemption of men from that sin, and all others, were ordained before the foundation of the world; and which must have been precarious and uncertain, if Adam’s fall was not by a like decree (Acts 2:23; 4:28; 1 Pet. 1:20), but then neither the foreknowledge of God, nor any decree of God, laid Adam under a necessity of sinning; it is true, there arises from hence a necessity of immutability, that is, that the things God has decreed should unchangeably come to pass, but not a necessity of co-action or force; as Judas and the Jews sinned freely, the one in betraying, the other in putting Christ to death; so Adam sinned freely, without force or compulsion, notwithstanding any decree of God concerning him; so that these do not make God at all chargeable with being the author of his sin; he and he alone was the author of it."
"God permitted or suffered Adam to sin and fall, which permission was not a bare permission or sufferance; God was not an idle spectator of this affair; the permission was voluntary, wise, holy, powerful, and efficacious, according to the unchangeable counsel of his will: he willed, and he did not will the sin of Adam, in different respects; he did not will it as an evil, but as what he would overrule for good, a great good; he willed it not as sin, but as a mean of glorifying his grace and mercy, justice and holiness: and that this was not a bare and inefficacious permission, but attended with influence"'
"The influences of divine providence concur with every action, be it what it may, as an action, since all live, and move, and have their being in God; every action, as an action, is from God; but the obliquity, irregularity, and sinfulness of the action, is from the creature: wherefore God is not the author of any sin; as he is not the author of sin in any man, notwithstanding the concourse of his providence with every action of his, as an action, so neither of the sin of Adam." (emphasis added)
All sin including the the fall was found in the decree of God, not by permission but *efficaciously so. It was decreed and willed as a good deed for "he willed it not as sin, but as a mean of glorifying his grace and mercy, justice and holiness: and that this was not a bare and inefficacious permission, but attended with influence.""God permitted or suffered Adam to sin and fall, which permission was not a bare permission or sufferance; God was not an idle spectator of this affair; the permission was voluntary, wise, holy, powerful, and efficacious, according to the unchangeable counsel of his will: he willed, and he did not will the sin of Adam, in different respects; he did not will it as an evil, but as what he would overrule for good, a great good; he willed it not as sin, but as a mean of glorifying his grace and mercy, justice and holiness: and that this was not a bare and inefficacious permission, but attended with influence"'
"The influences of divine providence concur with every action, be it what it may, as an action, since all live, and move, and have their being in God; every action, as an action, is from God; but the obliquity, irregularity, and sinfulness of the action, is from the creature: wherefore God is not the author of any sin; as he is not the author of sin in any man, notwithstanding the concourse of his providence with every action of his, as an action, so neither of the sin of Adam." (emphasis added)
jm
___________________________________
* efficacious: Successful in producing a desired or intended result; effective.
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How would we find out we are not elect, especially when election is a status granted upon us through baptism?
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Apologetic_Warrior
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Mankind is inescapably religious, being made in the image of God with His law written on hearts, so many non-elect do attend Church, in the same way the Pharisees continued in Judaism. But I am curious, why is it necessary for the elect to attend an Church? What does attending Church have to do with election? Granted the elect should have an even greater desire to attend Church, with the hope of gathering with other like minded believers, to bear one another's burdens, to pray, and worship God in unity and agreement. However the realities of many a Church doth diminish if not demolish that hope. Further the elect also know attending a Church is a common grace, and in so doing is not a means of saving grace with almighty God.
Faulty premises (as others have shown) can only lead to faulty conclusions. Many have believed the damnable lie above though, deceiving themselves, in suppression of the truth of God.
The answer is in interpretation, in reconciliation with countless passages of Scripture which support particular redemption, and in how words like "all" are used an defined. For example, you state "God states he loves everyone", yet we read “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” Is Esau not a part of "everyone"?
We also read passages such as "The LORD tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates."
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Apologetic_Warrior
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The heresy of universal redemption, not only reduces Scripture into meaninglessness, but ultimately reduces everything in this life to absolute meaninglessness.
To further address the notion of "God loves and wants to save everyone", why do we also read passages such as:
"5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Did the love of God spare Sodom and Gomorrah? Did the love of God withhold the hand of God from destroying Sodom and Gomorrah? Jesus pronounced judgement upon cities where he had performed miracles, referring to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Again we read: "4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;"
Extra-biblical arguments can be made, to the effect of, the truth that not "everyone" has even been provided the gracious opportunity to hear the gospel of Christ preached.
In conclusion, it is clear to me the notion that "God loves everyone and wants all to be saved" taken at face value literally is neither sound nor biblical.
To further address the notion of "God loves and wants to save everyone", why do we also read passages such as:
"5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Did the love of God spare Sodom and Gomorrah? Did the love of God withhold the hand of God from destroying Sodom and Gomorrah? Jesus pronounced judgement upon cities where he had performed miracles, referring to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Again we read: "4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;"
Extra-biblical arguments can be made, to the effect of, the truth that not "everyone" has even been provided the gracious opportunity to hear the gospel of Christ preached.
In conclusion, it is clear to me the notion that "God loves everyone and wants all to be saved" taken at face value literally is neither sound nor biblical.
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bricklayer
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In theory, enlightenment to God's sovereignty could produce a mistaken liberty.
In theory, practice is no different than theory, but in practice it is.
In practice, enlightenment to God's sovereignty does not have that effect.
1 Tim. 2: 3-4 is descriptive of God; it is not descriptive of God's creation.
God has a God-centered purpose for God's creation not a creature centered purpose.
Creatures are characters with being but no less prescribed.
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Gerhard Ebersöhn
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TULIP
'TULIP' for:
'T' for Total Depravity of man ...
'U' for Unconditional Election ...
'L' for Limited Atonement ...
'I' for Irresistible Grace ...
'P' for Perseverance of the saints ...
In my opinion and experience TULIP spells Salvation. It is a help to understand the truth and reality of God's grace in one's personal life experience. Instead of TULIP, for example, a Roman Catholic will rub a wooden cross bracelet; and an Arminian would rub his knuckles. TULIP to me, has become a great consolation; in it I discovered how the grace of God operates, beginning with unregenerate man and ending with regenerate man,
T: Unregenerate man --- Total depravity
U: God --- Unconditional election
L: Christ --- Limited atonement
I: Holy Spirit --- Irresistible Grace
P: Regenerate man --- Perseverance of the saints.
I am a simple man and I love simple aids for, and in the faith.
The more earthy its soil the more glorious TULIP blooms.
The beauty of TULIP is like the beauty of the lilies of the field which Jesus compared with Solomon and his wisdom "in all his glory" --- what the wise cracks of human sovereignty and free will in all its glory of the fleshly mind.
This is what I, do, by grace through faith, believe.
'TULIP' for:
'T' for Total Depravity of man ...
'U' for Unconditional Election ...
'L' for Limited Atonement ...
'I' for Irresistible Grace ...
'P' for Perseverance of the saints ...
In my opinion and experience TULIP spells Salvation. It is a help to understand the truth and reality of God's grace in one's personal life experience. Instead of TULIP, for example, a Roman Catholic will rub a wooden cross bracelet; and an Arminian would rub his knuckles. TULIP to me, has become a great consolation; in it I discovered how the grace of God operates, beginning with unregenerate man and ending with regenerate man,
T: Unregenerate man --- Total depravity
U: God --- Unconditional election
L: Christ --- Limited atonement
I: Holy Spirit --- Irresistible Grace
P: Regenerate man --- Perseverance of the saints.
I am a simple man and I love simple aids for, and in the faith.
The more earthy its soil the more glorious TULIP blooms.
The beauty of TULIP is like the beauty of the lilies of the field which Jesus compared with Solomon and his wisdom "in all his glory" --- what the wise cracks of human sovereignty and free will in all its glory of the fleshly mind.
This is what I, do, by grace through faith, believe.
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Gerhard Ebersöhn
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Election is not our 'status' and does not depend on or has anything to do with water baptism in whatever form. Election is salvation by grace without the works of the Law towards the works of faith. Election does not begin or end with the Law or its works but with God and HIS works of grace.
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