Did God predestine the Fall?

dad said:

I don't agree. I think there comes a time when we choose to accept things not of God, that we get deluded strongly. All as a result of our own original choice...and heart condition.

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If we are deluded, then we think we are believing the truth. We never believe something that we think is a lie. Unless there some mental issue going on.

Hammster said:

That’s not it. He says, and I quote, “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

He never says that they were once children of wrath, but their nature was that of the children of wrath.

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I do not see why this makes a critical difference, could you please explain that?

Hammster said:

That’s not it. He says, and I quote, “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

He never says that they were once children of wrath, but their nature was that of the children of wrath.

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Did you read your own quote? We were children of wrath by nature LIKE (SAME AS) the rest of mankind.

Hammster said:

I think it more likely that if one wants to avoid the truth, they pretend to answer a question, but really don’t.

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I noticed that is your habit - not answering questions,
and actually not even pretending to answer, just deflecting as if , if this is the case, you don't know the truth or understand it ?

dad said:

Equally as cursed AFTER THE CROSS ALSO, UNLESS THEY CHOOSE TO ACCEPT THE GIFT MADE POSSIBLE BY THE CROSS!

If people do not repent and ask for the salvation Jesus offers, they remain under the curse.

False, we have a part to play in salvation, we must choose Jesus. His work was to die for us, we must accept it..or not.

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This is what you rejected in my statement:

You ignored the fact that Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, as well as the faith being once and for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3) That makes faith a work, which isn't how the gospel is presented in the New Testament.

The issue is whether we choose to try and believe and ask and accept, or whether it is all arranged in advance and we are but robots.

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Your still not dealing with Paul telling us he was chosen before the foundation of the world. There is a simple way of resolving this unless you ignore the text.

If not for the work of the cross we would not be ABLE to choose life and salvation. Now..we can, because of His work. His work was not forcing us to choose Him. (or reject Him and go to hell)

We have a choice to repent or not! If we are sincere and want to believe and repent, He helps us..NOT predestinates us and forces us and makes the choice for us. What was pre destined was that He died for us and made the way.
In simple terms and language I would express this as

'He chose to die for us, so we could become the group of believers we are' 'He chose that there would be Christians as a result of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God'.

NOT..'He choose individually for every person to be saved or damned beforehand'!

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God predestined that all who would be saved, would be made holy, blameless and sons according to the glorious riches of his grace, in Christ. You keep leaving out the essential element of what God does and has done.

Wrong. The change can and does only come after the choice. We get an attitude adjustment...a new heart in us. Born again.

He pre destined that HE would die for us and we could choose Him, who is salvation. He did not pre determine our choices.



That was not talking about you or me choosing to ask Jesus for salvation. Sorry.

Acts 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. 27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.


In other words He plans that when the heathen rage against Jesus, that they be totally defeated. That does not mean He forced them to reject Jesus or accept Him. It means if people and kings do reject and fight Jesus, they are doomed to be clobbered.


The pre determined thing was that those who chose Jesus would then be worked on and changed within. NOT that He picked who could accept Jesus!

Right, so those who choose Jesus are justified and will be glorified etc etc.
The plan of salvation was a mystery. Not that He chose FOR us and that was the mystery!!
Yes what was pre destined was that we could be adopted as His children BY choosing to do so! NOT that He made billions of people orphans and they had no choice.
It is destiny that anyone can have the inheritance who accepts Jesus. Not that their choice to do so was pre programmed!!​

Great, so hopefully you see the light now.




This is actually what people who know Jesus and the bible reject...that we have no real choice to accept or reject Jesus of oue own will. We could only be doomed after we choose to reject Jesus. We are not born saved or doomed.
Sorry but the messages we are getting from other Calvies here do not seem to agree with your assessment. I am arguing against ANY fate regarding a real ability to choose Jesus in this life.The pre determined bits come after people choose. We might say the 2 highways were build in advance and where they lead/go. What was NOT pre determined was our choice to take one or the other!
Correct, we all can have mercy for the asking/choosing by Christ.
Wrong. If we desire to know Jesus and repent and ask for salvation, then we can do so, because He made the way possible. It is not our works that save us. It is asking/choosing to avail ourselves of Jesus, and His work. His work was not stuffed down man's throats.

THAT is the gospel.​

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More of the same, I don't see any point of chasing this in circles. Faith is indeed a work, but it's the work of Christ where it was originated, perfected and is communicated to us through the agency of the Holy Spirit in Christ.

Serving Zion said:

No, I don't condemn St. Paul, but rather I defend him. I am proclaiming that you are misreading Paul and twisting what he has said. Furthermore, you don't understand the wrath of God. That is why your speech is without grace, and you are not paying attention to what is being said, only wanting to dominate to win a debate.

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I quoted Paul in context. Address the context.

Serving Zion said:

It says that we will be saved from the wrath of God through Him: that is, just as John 3:36 says "the one who does not obey the son, the wrath of God abides on him".

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It says by His Blood. Verse 9 as with Romans chapters 3 through 5 is about Justification by faith in the shed blood of Christ.

Serving Zion said:

You do not understand the wrath of God - that wrath that drove them to nail Jesus to the cross because they were suffering condemnation in His presence (John 3:19), the wrath that drove them to cover their ears when Stephen spoke to them. It is the same wrath that when you are condemned for speaking blasphemy against children, you cover your ears and refuse to hear too. I bet that if I was speaking to your face, you would have some feeling of rage that you would want to get violent (that is what happens - they hate the light).

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What drove the men to crucify Christ was their suppression of the truth in unrighteousness.

Serving Zion said:

No it wasn't, that is the devil's doctrine. God says "it is not wrath in me! .. who will confront me with thorns and briars in the day of battle? I would trample them altogether and set them on fire!" (Isaiah 27:4).

No, as I said, they could not endure the wrath of God that was coming upon them for their disobedience, and they were driven to murder because they refused to repent. (That is the same course that you are on by fixing yourself on such heresy, btw).

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You can keep making up doctrine by hop scotch theology but the apostle Paul clearly shows we are children of wrath and it is God who makes us alive in Him through Christ.

Ephesians 2: NASB

1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Serving Zion said:

Start at post #317 and let me know what more you need.

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You quoted one verse and then unfolded your own doctrine not addressing the text.

Serving Zion said:

I do not see why this makes a critical difference, could you please explain that?

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Because there are those who are children of wrath, and those with the same nature. The only difference between the two is God. To understand that is to understand why we should be humble. We have nothing to boast about, not even making a “choice”.

dad said:

His say is that we get to choose!

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Please explain

dad said:

So in times past, we WERE, before getting saved, under the wrath of God. Once we get saved we are NOT appointed to wrath.

Hoo ha.

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Yes that is correct. What I was referring to was Romans 6 and by extension chapters 7 and 8.

yeshuaslavejeff said:

Did you read your own quote? We were children of wrath by nature LIKE (SAME AS) the rest of mankind.

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Yes, I know what it says.

yeshuaslavejeff said:

I noticed that is your habit - not answering questions,
and actually not even pretending to answer, just deflecting as if , if this is the case, you don't know the truth or understand it ?

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I asked a question. You didn’t answer it. Not the other way around.

yeshuaslavejeff said:

The False Gospel Of John Piper
May 20, 2009 - John Piper Agrees With The Arminian View Of Universal Atonement ... We need to continue to expose John Piper's false teachings and cult-like ...

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That didn’t take long to refute.

What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism

dad said:

Baloney. You have no way of knowing what was going on in his heart and mind at that time. Your idea is seemingly like God swatted an evil man against his will, and presto chango the man was some saint. That is not the way it works. Yes he was knocked from the horse, but I have to believe it was because Paul had been seeking the truth. Just because he was caught up in the false religion of the day, and had a good job in it, does not mean he was above having a conscience, and praying sincerely. Since that is the way God works usually in the bible it is logical to assume it to be true here also.

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Did Saul call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ before being swatted and confronted?

DZoolander said:

Define then what the “other kind” looks like in practice?

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I know the question was not directed to me, but if I may add a comment, just like to say, freedom to choose according to the nature of a will and not contrary to nature. Part of the problem of the whole debate are those who deny the will is in bondage, those who deny that the fall and extent of sin applies to the whole person, such that it impacts the will and by extension the choices from a will. Another way of stating or framing this is that for all the "good" (humanly speaking) choices a sinner is capable of, none of them no matter how good they may appear to us as fellow humans, none of them please God, they all fall short (of His glory of His righteousness), because without faith it is impossible to please Him, and faith is a gift from God authored and completed by Christ. Woops I said more than planned.

redleghunter said:

I quoted Paul in context. Address the context.

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Alright:

Serving Zion said:

Just to be clear: the false doctrines of Inherited Sin teach that children are spiritually condemned because of the sin of Adam.. but I reject that doctrine.

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What is the reason that Jesus said the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children?

It is because they are obedient to the truth: they walk in the light and they do not rely on deceit (because they are easily busted, that keeps them accountable). That doesn't last forever though, as we know that a time comes when they do begin to rely on deceit in order to not walk in the light. They reject The Spirit of Truth in that decisive moment and they are taken captive by their sin (see Romans 6:16).

So that is how Romans 7:9-11 comes to say that "I was alive once, until sin took advantage of the commandment and through it, killed me" - just as St. James says in James 1:14-15 that it is our desires that lure us into sin, and that death follows.

In Christian terms, we say that a person who is walking in the darkness is not doing the truth, and must be born again else they are already judged according to John 3:19-20. They are unable to see the kingdom of God because they have been put to death spiritually - remaining only as carnal and not having any discernment of the spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14-15, Revelation 3:20).

The key that reveals the error in the doctrine of Inherited (Imputed) Sin, is where St. Paul says "I was alive once". That goes against what the Original Sin doctrine teaches, that says we are born spiritually dead. You can see that it directly contradicts the scripture of Romans 7:9-11. But there are other scriptures that teach the truth of James 1:14-15, and they also need to be twisted in order to fit the doctrine, the main one being Romans 5:12 - where the key distinction between your view and my view, is what we understand in the word "spread":

How did the death spread to all? .. you say it is "imputed", but I say it is "invoked" and the main difference is in the right of God to condemn us for the sin:

If we are condemned because of the imputation of a sin that someone did 6,000 years ago, then there is no justice in that, but if we are condemned because we have chosen to follow our desires to the detriment of righteousness, then justice is empowered to judge us for the decision we made.

Romans 5: NASB
15But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. 17For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

This is saying that because we are being redeemed to life after having known the true cost of our sin, then we are wiser to not fall as in James 1:14 again - and in this way, the gift of grace that came to the world through Christ abounds more than the sting of death that came to the world through Adam.

18So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. 19For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. 20The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.(NASB)

redleghunter said:

There’s a reason original sin was an early church doctrine. Because it was apostolic teachings. There’s no wiggle room in the above text to suggest otherwise.

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I don't agree. Some of the writings of the early church fathers did fail to accurately convey the teaching of Christ and His apostles. This doctrine is the most primary of the heresy, that they didn't seem to have foreseen the subtlety of the error that their writings were leading to.

redleghunter said:

we are all under condemnation for the one transgression.

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I cannot support you in saying that. It is because you have used the word "for" to suggest that God holds us personally responsible for Adam's sin, whereas if you had said "through" or "as a result of", then it would be an acceptable statement (in an isolated context).

redleghunter said:

It says by His Blood. Verse 9 as with Romans chapters 3 through 5 is about Justification by faith in the shed blood of Christ.

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And the mechanical explanation for that is found in Hebrews 10:26-27. It is obedience that justifies us, and the key is knowing that the blood of Christ is not a license to sin, but an offer of mercy that we may repent before the coming Day of Adonai (Zephaniah 1, 2 Peter 3:10-13, Hebrews 10:28-29).