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Absolutely correct! And it is only those who haven't been touched by the mercy and grace of God in Christ, that refuse this truth in scriptureThose who end up saved is no arbitrary rolling of the dice.
The saved are saved because God has chosen to save them.
God made that predetermined decision before their birth.
Our becoming saved was entirely due to His favoring grace by which God made us accepted into the family of God.
Ephesians 1New King James Version (NKJV)
Greeting
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Redemption in Christ
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
And is why the rhetorical question was brought up by Paul in Romans 9:19-21.. The pride and arrogance of man cannot stand that salvation is by elective grace. And is why it's unfair to them. Self righteousness blinds them from humbling themselves before God and pleading to be found in Christ and His righteousness aloneIf people are honest about it, they would realize that they do not like the idea of some being saved over others. It's not fair! However, it is completely biblical that God has chosen one person over another, for many purposes in order that God's will be done. God reserves the right to do what He chooses, with whom He chooses and whatever He chooses is just and good for His purpose.
Free will is not free the way we commonly think its is. Most Christians that believe 'free will' is a position that allows for choices to be entirely self-derived (without ANY internal/external coercion or limitation) so as to be able to do any possible thing (imagined or unimagined), such as the ability to accept or reject Christ as Savior (apart from God's enabling). In the case of salvation, it assumes that the sinful will is somehow capable, by virtue of being "free", to be able to choose to believe in God and follow him through Christ. It assumes that men are autonomous, independent of any restrictions of law.
The only being in existence that is truly autonomous is God. He is autonomous in that His existence and behavior are not dependent upon anything other than Himself. He is completely self-contained and is independent of anything. He is transcendent in that he exists apart from and existed prior to the universe. Though men are created in His image, were are not like God in regards to autonomy. Free will violates the autonomous character of God by making God's decrees, such as the salvation of His people, conditioned and dependent upon the sinful man's supposed autonomous free will choice.
The fact is, a self-caused free will choice of an individual to trust in Jesus could lead to a denial of the legal substitutionary work of Jesus because the salvation of that individual would only be offered as a possibility, and not a guarantee, because the said salvation can only become effective based upon that individual's autonomous free will choice. So then because salvation can only be realized by a man’s autonomous choice, Christ's sacrifice on the cross, according to this idea of free will, did not actually save anyone.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent advocated independence from God when he suggested that Eve should make the decision to eat the forbidden fruit so that she would know good and evil. In this, Satan was moving her away from complete dependence on God's word, to an independence from God's word. To believe that we are autonomous and independent from God, having the free will to overthrow His plans by our choices, is to sin against Him.
It's not that we do not have free will, the ability to make choices, certainly we do. However, since we are not autonomous, our choices are subject to the various laws and conditions that can influence these choices. This is especially true when dealing with the realm of the spiritual, where man has absolutely no authority.
Gill,
I find that confusing. Choices but they are not really choices? Is that what you are saying?
There were choices given to Adam in Gen 2:16-17. Then sin came into the world, but choices continued (see Joshua 24).
In God's sovereign will, does God allow human choices?
Oz
Actually, natural, fallen man hates God and wants nothing to do with Him. God is the one who changes the heart. God starts it, continues it and finishes it.
I believe in free will. Free, within the confines of ones natural state. For example, a dog is free to do what dogs do. They bark, they eat dead squirrels, etc. etc. However, is a dog free to fly like a bird? No. Natural, fallen man is the same. Without God's intervention, natural man is free indeed, free to do what he likes to do and that desire is to want nothing to do with a perfect Holy God. All natural man wants to do is live in his sin, to chart his own course. However, natural man is NOT free to choose God because he is at enmity, against God. God must act first, and change mans nature with the new birth. Only then will man have a desire for God.
Gill,
Why should we pray for them when they are unconditionally elected to salvation (and damnation as Calvin believed) and they cannot resist God's grace - according to the TULIP soteriology?
Oz
The enemy soldier and enemy of God can both surrender and at their point of surrendering they are not “joining” their enemy and their former enemy they were fighting is still their enemy.
I fully agree the enemy soldier or rebellious disobedient sinner at the moment of his/her surrender does not “deserve” anything due to former war crimes.
So the analogy works for the rebellious disobedient sinner and vicious soldier.
The difference you bring up is with God and the enemy, since God has an unbelievable huge Love and the enemy of the soldier love will be much less and/or not at all.
Paul describes all humans as being children of God, so do you believe we were made in God’s image and everyone starts out a child of God?
Why did God choose Israel? Were they better than anyone else? Did they have any redeeming qualities to where God would favor them over any other nation? No. Nothing has changed. God chose His children before the foundation of the world. If you are God's child He knew YOUR name before you were even born. Dead men cannot save themselves. Dead men can do NOTHING but be..........dead.
Ephesians 1:
[4] According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
God chose Abraham and I do not know why. I don't think he used a dart board with a bunch of names on it and struck Abraham's. Sounds like a lot of times he regretted what Israel turned into.
If you are right then we are all actors on a stage with pre-written scripts and character roles. Meaningful choices don't exist. All the tragedies and sufferings of mankind really don't mean anything since it's all been pre determined. Sounds pretty cold to me.
Free will is the gift of the holy spirit, when you are in bondage you do NOT have free will, your will has been taken captive by your demon owners.
2 Timothy 2:26
He must gently reprove those who oppose him, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. 26Then they will come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, who has taken them captive to his will.
You say God knows everything from the beginning yet the Bible says: "God never new those that are lost", so could the way God never new those that are lost be the same way God knows who is going to be saved?
God will know all those that accept Him and not know all those that refuse Him.
It is simple: The nonbeliever is like an soldier fighting hard against God (his enemy), but this is very exhausting and as a soldier he can always surrender to his enemy, give up and really just wimp out.
At the very moment of a soldier's surrendering his enemy is still his enemy and he can well believe he will be tortured and destroyed for his war crimes, but he "hopes/trusts" he can just have some kind of livable life (like the prodigal son) and he is willing to accept his enemy's pure charity (something he knows he does not deserve). "work" is something you do to justly receive benefit for doing, you earn your reward, and it is not a gift to you, but payment for your work. The vicious enemy who surrenders is not worthy of anything and will have no monument built for his behavior, while monuments are built to soldiers that fought and died on both sides in this world.
The macho person (those that refuse God's charity) are willing to pay the piper and accept fully what they deserve and really not bother God further with their "needs", so it is the wimps who are "saved".
sdowney
I believe God's church is predestined, which means God has a predetermined role and place for the church. So if you are one of his, you are predestined because his church is predestined. That predestination does not apply to individuals. If individuals are predestined for saving grace then others are predestined for damnation. I do believe in predestination to a limited extent meaning some people groups are disadvantaged when it comes to salvation and if you are born into that group your chances are weaker, but to be deliberately excluded by God without any chance or possibility, I don't think is biblical.
No thanks to Calvinism, Jiminz.
Technically , Adam was not given a choice, he was told by God.
Gen 2:16,17
16) And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
That does not sound like a choice, it was a Command "NOT TO" God didn't say it's up to you if you wnt to eat it or not.
That TULIP discussion, hasn't been solved in 500 yrs.
are you of the belief Calvin was correct?
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