Can we choose Him before He wakes us up?

[Dave L]

Verse please

“to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time, and now, and for all eternity. Amen.” (Jude 25)


26. What is eternity?
Eternity is infinite duration; duration discharged from all limits, without beginning, without succession, and without end. The schoolmen phrase it a punctum stans, an ever-abiding present.
We, however, can positively conceive of eternity only as duration indefinitely extended from the present moment in two directions, as to the past and as to the future, improperly expressed as eternity a parte ante, or past, and eternity a parte post, or future. The eternity of God, however, is one and indivisible. Eternitas est una individua et tota simul.

Hodge, A. A. (1878). Outlines of Theology: Rewritten and Enlarged (p. 142). New York: Hodder & Stoughton.

 

[BNR32FAN]

“to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time, and now, and for all eternity. Amen.” (Jude 25)


26. What is eternity?
Eternity is infinite duration; duration discharged from all limits, without beginning, without succession, and without end. The schoolmen phrase it a punctum stans, an ever-abiding present.
We, however, can positively conceive of eternity only as duration indefinitely extended from the present moment in two directions, as to the past and as to the future, improperly expressed as eternity a parte ante, or past, and eternity a parte post, or future. The eternity of God, however, is one and indivisible. Eternitas est una individua et tota simul.

Hodge, A. A. (1878). Outlines of Theology: Rewritten and Enlarged (p. 142). New York: Hodder & Stoughton.

That’s saying God is glory, majestic, all powerful, and all authority for all time. It is not saying God is eternity. God is eternal not eternity itself.

 

[Dave L]

That’s saying God is glory, majestic, all powerful, and all authority for all time. It is not saying God is eternity. God is eternal not eternity itself.

Eternal life = God

 

[BNR32FAN]

That’s saying God is glory, majestic, all powerful, and all authority for all time. It is not saying God is eternity. God is eternal not eternity itself.

Why did Jesus say

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15:4-6‬

 

[Dave L]

Why did Jesus say

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15:4-6‬

Only those with eternal life will want to remain.

 

[Dave-W]

If God learned what people might do, and then created it, he was not omniscient.

"might do" "then" "He was not"

You are limiting God to time. He is in eternity, outside of time.

 

[Dave-W]

Only those with eternal life will want to remain.

"Want to remain?" Where do you get that?

 

[Wordkeeper]

Eternal life has no beginning or end. You were always saved in God's mind. And nothing can change the eternal decree. Those who appear to believe and fall away never had eternal life.

Eternal life is not immortality. Even those burning in hell will live forever (sigh...)

Eternal life is a type of living. The text is quite clear about that:

John 17:3This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Knowing God, like Joseph knew Mary. Union.

John 17:20“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; 21that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Only those with eternal life will want to remain.

Then why did Jesus say it? He was speaking to those who have eternal life.

 

[Dave-W]

God loves the world John 3:16
God sent His Son so the world could be saved. John 3:17
God wants everyone to repent and be saved. 2 Peter 3:9 1 Timothy 2:3-4

Yes, yes and yes.

But not everyone WILL repent and accept salvation.

Matthew 7:13
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.​

 

[BNR32FAN]

Yes, yes and yes.

But not everyone WILL repent and accept salvation.

Matthew 7:13
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.​

Amen

 

[Ken Rank]

It is easy to reconcile if you realize people choose what they want, but God controls the reasons they base their choices on. And so God controls them through their own desires.

So we are all robots, programmed to serve a God without it being our will. He is forcing us to serve Him.... that almost sounds pagan, Dave. (To me anyway)

 

[Dave L]

Then why did Jesus say it? He was speaking to those who have eternal life.

Jesus thins the herd.
“But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” (Matthew 15:13)

 

[Dave-W]

So we are all robots, programmed to serve a God without it being our will. He is forcing us to serve Him.... that almost sounds pagan, Dave. (To me anyway)

That is the crux of calvinism.

 

[Dave L]

So we are all robots, programmed to serve a God without it being our will. He is forcing us to serve Him.... that almost sounds pagan, Dave. (To me anyway)

No, you wanted to write the exact words you used. But God controlled all of the circumstance prodding your willful response.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Only those with eternal life will want to remain.

Brother please you have to answer this question. How can God choose a select group to be saved and allow all others to burn in the lake of fire if He loves the world and sent His Son so the world could be saved?

 

[Ken Rank]

Verse please

By definition, eternal is outside of time. But @Dave L is unknowingly shooting himself in the foot here. Where on one hand he says we were spiritually dead... he then is running our eternal life back through the time when he believes we were dead.

 

[Ken Rank]

No, you wanted to write the exact words you used. But God controlled all of the circumstance prodding your willful response.

So I am a mind-numbed robot without free will to choose and God was misleading, if not outright lying, when He said, "Choose this day."

 

[BNR32FAN]

It is easy to reconcile if you realize people choose what they want, but God controls the reasons they base their choices on. And so God controls them through their own desires.

Jonah is as chosen by God yet he sailed away from Nineveh. How could Jonah rebel like all believers do if they don’t have free will? Peter denied Jesus 3 times. Thomas doubted Jesus’ resurrection.

 

[Ken Rank]

Brother please you have to answer this question. How can God choose a select group to be saved and allow all others to burn in the lake of fire if He loves the world and sent His Son so the world could be saved?

Indeed... the God whose character traits include love, peace and joy has created people to be tortured for eternity for the sole reason that He created to suffer like that? That doesn't sound like love, peace and joy!