Predestination

There is one more thing. There is as far as I know, no place in the bible where it says that Jesus didn't die for someone. The bible says that Jesus died for "all men", "the world", "all" "everyone" but never anything about that he didn't die for someone.

zoidar said:

There is one more thing. There is as far as I know, no place in the bible where it says that Jesus didn't die for someone. The bible says that Jesus died for "all men", "the world", "all" "everyone" but never anything about that he didn't die for someone.

Click to expand...

Jesus tells us he clearly dies for the sheep.

John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

Jesus did not say
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the world, now why do you suppose that?

The sheep follow Christ, and Christ says He dies for them, so how does Christ die for an unbelieving world?
His death means our eternal life who believe, but the world does not believe in Him and has no life at all being they are dead and they stay dead too.

The people Christ dies for gain eternal life.
His death accomplishes nothing for them of the world. They experience God's wrath.
Jesus saves US from the wrath of God to come on the world.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Isaiah 53

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many, (not all)
And made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53
Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

I would like to bold it all, but he bore the sin of many only, a vast multitude are described in heaven.
All the OUR verses and the one ALL verse are for the SHEEP only, that is those to whom the arm of the LORD was revealed.

It says
"And by His stripes we are healed."

the world though was not healed spiritually were they, so this does not and can not apply to the world, but only for the sheep, believers in Christ.
Peter also mentions this when addressing believers.
1 Peter 2:24
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

sdowney717 said:

Isaiah 53

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many, (not all)
And made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53
Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

I would like to bold it all, but he bore the sin of many only, a vast multitude are described in heaven.
All the OUR verses and the one ALL verse are for the SHEEP only, that is those to whom the arm of the LORD was revealed.

It says
"And by His stripes we are healed."

the world though was not healed spiritually were they, so this does not and can not apply to the world, but only for the sheep, believers in Christ.
Peter also mentions this when addressing believers.
1 Peter 2:24
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

Click to expand...

My understanding is that Jesus was a sacrifice of sins for everyone, the whole world, that whoever believes in him will be accounted his righteousness, which means that Jesus wore the responibilty and punishment for any person that comes to faith. If that person lose his faith then he himself will go back to wear the responsibilty of his sins. Still Jesus will be a sacrifice for his sins, but he can no longer count it to his righteousness. In that sense Jesus bore the sins of the many.

zoidar said:

My understanding is that Jesus was a sacrifice of sins for everyone, the whole world, that whoever believes in him will be accounted his righteousness, which means that Jesus wore the responibilty and punishment for any person that comes to faith. If that person lose his faith then he himself will go back to wear the responsibilty of his sins. Still Jesus will be a sacrifice for his sins, but he can no longer count it to his righteousness. In that sense Jesus bore the sins of the many.

Click to expand...

Some people, like me, don't like the idea that Christ's death did not absolutely accomplish anything, and guarantee eternal life, as if no one was elected, predestined, and chosen to become a Christian.

No predestination creates a very uncertain situation, and God said Jesus would save His people from their sins, most certainly.

Scripture conveys extreme certainty of eternal salvation. We were predestined to actually be the children of God, that God would give to Christ his family, his brethren.

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

More predestination concepts in Hebrews 2. God gives to Christ His brethren, as Romans 8 states, we are the children God gives to Christ. There is no uncertainty in this being given, those God foreknew, God predestined to be the children of God given to Christ.

10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 saying:

“I will declare Your name to My brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.”

13 And again:

“I will put My trust in Him.”

And again:

“Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”

sdowney717 said:

Jesus tells us he clearly dies for the sheep.

John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

Jesus did not say
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the world, now why do you suppose that?

The sheep follow Christ, and Christ says He dies for them, so how does Christ die for an unbelieving world?
His death means our eternal life who believe, but the world does not believe in Him and has no life at all being they are dead and they stay dead too.

The people Christ dies for gain eternal life.
His death accomplishes nothing for them of the world. They experience God's wrath.
Jesus saves US from the wrath of God to come on the world.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Click to expand...

Jesus died for the sheep, the sheep herd. Anyone can come and leave the herd.

Rom 11:17-24

"But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?"

zoidar said:

Jesus died for the sheep, the sheep herd. Anyone can come and leave the herd.

Rom 11:17-24

"But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?"

Click to expand...

Yes, you can read it that way, however it is not confusing if you read this as being national people groups, gentiles versus jews as a whole, and not as individual persons.

Example

11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

Going further paul talks about these groups as being likened to branches on the olive tree, natural versus wild branches. The natural branches are the jews, the wild are the gentile nations.

If you read it this way, it also makes sense further down where Paul describes the mystery of hardening of the jews, and that when the fullness of the gentile nations has come in, then God's mercy will return to the jewish nation.

I propose you can not read this as individual persons as it puts many other scriptures at odds, such as Christ gives His sheep eternal life and they will NEVER perish, and also the verses on predestination supporting the concept of eternal life never to be lost, that their names are written in book of life of the Lamb from before the foundation of the world. Read Ephesians 1.

Christ says He loses none of those the Father gives Him, which means they can not be cut off the true vine to lose eternal life. Study John 6 and John 17, you will find no support for someone to be lost who God gave to Christ for salvation. And no Judas was not elect for salvation.

Predestination is well presented here.
The predestined are going to be eternally saved, they also though trusted in Christ when they heard the gospel, and are then sealed into their eternal inheritance.
So God's part is our predestination, meaning being born again, taught about Christ by the Spirit and our part is responding in belief, which Paul saying in Him you also trusted, means all the predestined will trust in Christ and be sealed into obtaining their eternal inheritance as a guarantee.


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.

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

The Father predestines all, the only one who has "always been" 100% fully omniscient from the very beginning... Who no man has heard or seen directly, without Christ, at any time...

If ALL w/o exception are predestined/chosen/drawn by the Father, then ALL, w/o exception, will be saved.



Yours and His,
David





*(ἑλκύω [helkuo] "draws" - 1. to draw, drag off 2. metaph., to draw by inward power, lead, impel .. cf John 6:44 - "helkuo" does NOT mean to "allure" or "woo" or "entice"**)

**(δελεάζω [deleazo] "woo" - 1. to bait, catch by a bait 2. to beguile by blanishments, allure, entice, deceive .. cf James 1:14)

sdowney717 said:

Yes, you can read it that way, however it is not confusing if you read this as being national people groups, gentiles versus jews as a whole, and not as individual persons.

Example

11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

Going further paul talks about these groups as being likened to branches on the olive tree, natural versus wild branches. The natural branches are the jews, the wild are the gentile nations.

If you read it this way, it also makes sense further down where Paul describes the mystery of hardening of the jews, and that when the fullness of the gentile nations has come in, then God's mercy will return to the jewish nation.

I propose you can not read this as individual persons as it puts many other scriptures at odds, such as Christ gives His sheep eternal life and they will NEVER perish, and also the verses on predestination supporting the concept of eternal life never to be lost, that their names are written in book of life of the Lamb from before the foundation of the world. Read Ephesians 1.

Click to expand...

The only problem is that Paul talks about those that have been grafted in and stand by faith and why should they fear if they could not be cut off?

"Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either."

sdowney717 said:

you will find no support for someone to be lost who God gave to Christ for salvation

Click to expand...

Maybe not individuals, though the bible hints us that some people that God gave to Jesus will be lost. Jesus warns us:

"For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect." (Matt 24:24)

sdowney717 said:

Some people, like me, don't like the idea that Christ's death did not absolutely accomplish anything, and guarantee eternal life, as if no one was elected, predestined, and chosen to become a Christian.

Click to expand...

Who likes the idea that Jesus death didn't accomplish anything? Luckly Jesus death was a perfect sacrifice for the sins of all men. It's done no matter that some people rather carry the responsibility for their sins themself.

If you are a Christian you are elected and chosen by grace. It's the work of God, not your own work. It's the will of God for all men to come to Jesus and be among the elect by grace.

zoidar said:

...the bible hints us that some people that God gave to Jesus will be lost.

Click to expand...

Hi Zoidar, if that's true, then we have a BIG problem, because the Bible does far more than "hint" at the fact that NONE, who are drawn and given to the Son by the Father, will fail to come to Him in faith, or lose their salvation once they do. Jesus said:


Yours and His,
David

"All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be condemned." - Martin Luther

What happened to Lutheranism after Luther passed, they departed from scripture, that fresh work of God in the reformation and changed Luther's teaching about predestination.

Double Or Nothing: Martin Luther's Doctrine of Predestination by Brian G. Mattson

Erasmus fully realized the implications of Luther's strong statement of God's sovereignty. He writes that if this teaching of God's sovereignty is proclaimed, "Who will try and reform his life?"[37]

Luther lashes back, "I reply, Nobody! Nobody can! God has no time for your practitioners of self-reformation, for they are hypocrites. The elect, who fear God, will be reformed by the Holy Spirit; the rest will perish unreformed."[38]

Erasmus pushes the point: "Who will believe that God loves him?"

Luther stands his ground: "I reply, Nobody! Nobody can! But the elect shall believe it; and the rest shall perish without believing it, raging and blaspheming, as you describe them. So there will be some who believe it."[39]

This is the central point Erasmus makes in his Diatribe, that God's sovereignty should not be emphasized to the point that the freedom of man's will is usurped.

Luther fires volley after volley, arguing that unless the sovereign God changes the heart of man, none shall accept the gospel. He writes:

"God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realises [sic] that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another - God alone."[40]

Thus Luther affirms the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. In this same passage, Luther also goes on to speak of those who are not elect, that is, the reprobate. He realizes that his theology will not allow him to speak only of the elect, but of the non-elect as well. He writes:

"Thus God conceals His eternal mercy and loving kindness beneath eternal wrath, His righteousness beneath unrighteousness. Now, the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though he saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation, and seems (in Erasmus' words) 'to delight in the torments of poor wretches and to be a fitter object for hate than for love.' If I could by any means understand how this same God, who makes such a show of wrath and unrighteousness, can yet be merciful and just, there would be no need for faith. But as it is, the impossibility of understanding makes room for the exercise of faith when these things are preached and published; just as, when God kills, faith in life is exercised in death."[41]

Thus Luther exhibits no qualms about following his theology to it's logical conclusion.

Time and time again he makes this known. He uses the specific examples of Pharoah, Judas, and Esau to prove his case that God sovereignly, in the counsel of His own will, determined to harden and reprobate them. At this point it is best to allow Luther to express his own views.

"Here, God Incarnate says: 'I would, and thou wouldst not.' God Incarnate, I repeat, was sent for this purpose, to will, say, do, suffer, and offer to all men, all that is necessary for salvation; albeit He offends many who, being abandoned or hardened by God's secret will of Majesty, do not receive Him thus willing, speaking, doing and offering. . . .It belongs to the same God Incarnate to weep, lament, and groan over the perdition of the ungodly, though that will of Majesty purposely leaves and reprobates some to perish. Nor is it for us to ask why He does so, but to stand in awe of God, Who can do, and wills to do such things."[42]

"On your view [Erasmus], God will elect nobody, and no place for election will be left; all that is left is freedom of will to heed or defy the long-suffering and wrath of God. But if God is thus robbed of His power and wisdom in election, what will He be but just that idol, Chance, under whose sway all things happen at random? Eventually, we shall come to this: that men may be saved and damned without God's knowledge! For He will not have marked out by sure election those that should be saved and those that should be damned; He will merely have set before all men His general long-suffering, which forbears and hardens, together with His chastening and punishing mercy, and left it to them to choose whether they would be saved or damned, while He Himself, perchance, goes off, as Homer says, to an Ethiopian banquet!"[43]

sdowney717 said:

Isaiah 53

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many, (not all)
And made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53
Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

I would like to bold it all, but he bore the sin of many only, a vast multitude are described in heaven.
All the OUR verses and the one ALL verse are for the SHEEP only, that is those to whom the arm of the LORD was revealed.

It says
"And by His stripes we are healed."

the world though was not healed spiritually were they, so this does not and can not apply to the world, but only for the sheep, believers in Christ.
Peter also mentions this when addressing believers.
1 Peter 2:24
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

Click to expand...

Excellent verses BTW

So, do we have to bear sins, or suffer in that way (so we could see in the end the fruit or reward of how we bore affliction or suffering), Be a "champion in suffering", or did He (Jesus) do it for us, so we don't have to...? Or What...?

God Bless!

St_Worm2 said:

If ALL w/o exception are predestined/chosen/drawn by the Father, then ALL, w/o exception, will be saved.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily, it would be that he might make some, specifically for a dishonorable use, meant to be of and stay, in this world, or kind of world, and somehow, like iron sharpening iron, to refine his chosen ones, he might make some to be the refining instruments, of his chosen ones in some way... That he might make good come out of bad, and ultimate Good, come out of ultimate Bad... In the end...

God Bless!

Neogaia777 said:

Excellent verses BTW

So, do we have to bear sins, or suffer in that way (so we could see in the end the fruit or reward of how we bore affliction or suffering), Be a "champion in suffering", or did He (Jesus) do it for us, so we don't have to...? Or What...?

God Bless!

Click to expand...

Isaiah 53 is about the Savior's great love for us (about the suffering He endured because of His love for us).

We cannot bear our own sins (nor will any amount of suffering on our parts in this life, or the next, make atonement for them), which is a big part of why He had to come here. Our sins, and our sinful selves, is the principle thing we are saved from. Being saved from God's wrath .. Romans 5:9, and therefore from the Lake of Fire in the age to come, is the result (or byproduct, if you will) of His first saving us from sin in this life.

A. W. Pink makes this point in one of his famous quotes about evangelism:

Neogaia777 said:

Not necessarily, it would be that he might make some, specifically for a dishonorable use, meant to be of and stay, in this world, or kind of world, and somehow, like iron sharpening iron, to refine his chosen ones, he might make some to be the refining instruments, of his chosen ones in some way... That he might make good come out of bad, and ultimate Good, come out of ultimate Bad... In the end...

God Bless!

Click to expand...

Hi Neogaia, I'm not quite following your meaning here Biblically, if the Father chooses/draws all w/o exception, then all w/o exception will be saved. If that's not true, then the Lord's didactic teaching in passages like the one below cannot be true either.

Yours and His,
David