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Featured Did God predestine ISIS & Boko Haram to rape, torture, kill the Christians?

Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by Eliyahu, Apr 4, 2015.

  1. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    Did God predestine ISIS & Boko Haram to rape, torture, kill the Christians?

    1) Did God predestine Mohammed to invent the religion of Islam?
    2) Did God predestine the Popes and RCC to organize the Inquisitions and torture and kill His Christian Believers?
    3) Did God predestine Mafias to commit so many crimes in the world?
    4) Did God predestine the Al-Shabab to kill Christian students in Kenya ?
    5) Did God predestine 99% of the people not to believe the Gospel and to reject Jesus and thereby to go to the Hell even though He as the Almighty God could make them believe only if He wanted?

    My God never did so!
    But He foreknew the wickedness of human beings and prepared the Hell for the unbelievers as the sins come from the Unbelief.
    I do understand the questions and arguments by the supporters of Predestination Theory and therefore want to answer shortly as follows:

    1) John 17: 9, 20
    9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.</SPAN>

    20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;</SPAN>
    This is the prayer by Jesus for the further protection of His Believers after they believe in Him. This is not the prayer for the salvation of the unbelievers.
    Here is the prayer by Jesus for the salvation of the Unbelievers:
    Luke 23: 34
    34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.</SPAN>
    Jesus prayed for the Unbelievers.
    There were Priests, High Priests, Soldiers, Pharisees, Sadducees, elders, scribes
    But Jesus prayed Father to forgive them all! Though they didn’t know what they were doing.
    God so loved the world that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but has everlasting life ( John 3:16)

    So, John 17 cannot be the proof that Jesus atoned only for the Elect.
    No sin of the world was left unatoned at the Cross.
    His Blood paid all the price for all the sins of the world.

    2) Why then there are many people who are going to the Hell?

    Because they don’t believe what Jesus has done for them at the Cross.

    John 16:9
    Of sin, because they believe not on me;</SPAN>
    Heb 3
    19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.</SPAN>

    Heb 4 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it
    It is because of Unbelief!
    Faith is the Bridge between the Grace of God and the Sinner.

    3) Acts 13:48
    And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.</SPAN>

    On this verse, KJV was leaning onto Predestination theory.
    ἀκούοντα</SPAN> δὲ τὰ ἔθνη ἔχαιρον καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν λόγον τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον
    τάσσω
    1. to put in order, to station
    1. to place in a certain order, to arrange, to assign a place, to appoint
    In other words, as many as were prepared for the eternal life believed.
    In other words, as many as were humbled, broken-hearted believed the Gospel.
    Bible doesn’t teach the human predestination theology.

    4) Ephesians 1
    5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
    11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:


    God predestined all human race to believe in Jesus.
    But only the Believers accept it and confess such predestination by God.
    Therefore the Predestination here in Ephesians is the one planned by God indiscriminately applicable to all human beings, which is different from that of Calvinism.
    Here are the proof:


    2 Peter 3:9
    The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.</SPAN> ( Original Predestination by God)
    1 John 2
    2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.</SPAN> ( Universal Atonement)

    I would call Unlimited Atonement at the Cross.

    5) Ephesians 2:8
    8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:</SPAN>
    Which is first, Grace or Faith?
    Grace is first!
    Even before we were born on this earth, 2000 years ago, God showed His Grace thru His Son at the Cross.
    If anyone believe it, he or she will be saved by Faith.
    Even in that process, the Grace works again because God reacts to the faith of the people and therefore He gives the Holy Spirit to dwell in him or her.
    It is a continuous process of interaction and reactions between God and Man.
    Faith is the Bridge between the historical fact of Grace at the Cross and the Sinner

    6) Does Foreknowledge and Faith mean the works?
    Nope! Faith is not a work. Faith is distinguished from Works as we read in Romans 4
    Romans 4
    5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.</SPAN>
    16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,</SPAN>
    Believing is not Work.

    ( to be continued)

    Eliyahu
     
    #1 Eliyahu, Apr 4, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2015
  2. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    7) Total Depravity
    On this Calvinists and Arminians differ quite a lot!
    Calvinists equalize the Total Depravity with Total Inability or Total Impotent.
    However I believe that human beings are totally corrupted, but they can hear and listen to God thru their conscience ( Rom 2:15, Acts 17:27, 30)
    God created Man in that way!
    ACTS 17
    27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
    30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
    8) Does Foreknowledge mean that human destiny is decided by human beings and human beings become God?
    No!
    The Destiny of Human beings are decided by the interaction between God and Man, which result in either God-Man Cooperation or God-Man Conflict.
    9) Romans 3:11
    There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.</SPAN>

    This is the overall situation and status of human beings before the Gospel is preached.
    This is not the situation of the interaction and reaction between God and Man.
    People can seek God and therefore Paul asked Athens people to seek God ( Acts 17:27)
    Some would respond to the calling by God positively and the others negatively.
    As the result, some will go to the heaven and the others to the hell.

    10) Misunderstanding by Calvinists
    They misunderstand and ignore that Almighty God cannot do several things because of His own Attributes.
    God cannot commit suicide, cannot coerce the people to believe, cannot forgive the sinners without punishing their sins.
    Calvinists misunderstand Believing is not Works.

    11) Questions to the Calvinists.
    If God predestined only 1% people to believe in Jesus and to go to the Heaven and 99% not to believe and thereby to go to the Hell even though He could do all to believe only if He was willing to,
    Is your preaching Gospel to the people who were not predestined to believe in Jesus by God a rebellion against God? Or a waste of time?
    If someone is predestined to be saved by God, then do you think you need to preach the Gospel to such person at many risks because he will be saved by any means even if you don’t preach?
    Is it necessary for you to pray for the Christians persecuted by Muslims because God will do whatever He predestined before the Creation?
    Does God need to ask people to repent because He already predestined all the destiny of the people?
    Isn’t it God of Predestination Theory that should repent?
    Can you ask your God about the Lists of the People who were predestined to believe in Jesus and accept the Gospel so that you may not waste time to preach the Gospel?

    12) Comments by John Wesley
    - Predestination is a doctrine full of "blasphemy."
    - The doctrine represents Christ as a "hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common sincerity."
    - The doctrine "destroys all" God's "attributes at once. It overturns both his justice, mercy, and truth."
    -
    - http://staffordsgreenhouse.blogspot.ca/2011/09/free-grace-john-wesley-sermon-summary.html

    To me the Theory of Predestination is full of Blasphemy to God too!
    Human destiny is decided by the interaction and reaction between God and Man.
    Either people believe or reject will lead them to the Heaven or Hell while God appeals and tries to help the people to repent, believe, and obey Him.
    Sorry, I will not spend much time on this issue hereafter.

    Eliyahu
     
    #2 Eliyahu, Apr 4, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2015
  3. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    No one has answered on this question.

    Can anyone believing Calvinism answer this question?

    Did God predestine ISIS to behead Christians?

    Did God predestine the Egyptian Christians to be beheaded by ISIS but He didn't predestine ISIS to behead them?

    Did Almighty God predestine 99% of people not to believe in Him, then He deplored about them (Gen 6:6), though He could predestine 100% people to believe in Him ?

    Did Jesus lament about Jerusalem for their unbelief ( Luke 19:41) since God had predestined them not to believe in Him and to reject the Gospel?


    If the Calvinists cannot answer these questions, the theory of Predestination is a nonesense, I believe.


    Eliyahu
     
  4. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Does the bible teach to us that God tempts us to do sin and evil? God forbid!
     
  5. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    God never predestined anyone to commit sins.

    The god of predestination theory is the fundamental source of all the evil, rebellion against God, all the tragedy of human world, all the wickedness and crimes.
    The God of predestination theory must go to the Hell.
    The theory of predestination depicts a god which actually never exist but the god is a human imagination.

    Therefore Predestination theory is an Idolatry !


    Eliyahu
     
  6. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    You stated in your first post:

    He died for all sins but the sin of unbelief? If He didn't die for the sin of unbelief, then that sin is completely unpaid for for ALL mankind, not just those who are unsaved. Or we can say that if the sin of unbelief was not paid for at the cross, when a sinner believes, it is of his own works so he can boast in his own righteousness because he was able to do that which God could not.
     
  7. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    So Romans 8 is not found in your bible version then?
     
  8. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    It seems that you didn't understand my point.

    I asserted that Jesus died for ALL, all human race!

    I oppose to the Limited Atonement!


    I never said that. You misunderstood what I said.

    I have opposed to the Limited Atonement all the time.

    Jesus paid the full price for the sins of the Believers and those of the unbelievers as well, as we can read it in 1 John 2:2

    I oppose to the Limited Atonement and believe Unlimited Atonement.

    No single sin was left un atoned at Cross.

    Eliyahu
     
  9. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    In other thread, I clearly mentioned that I oppose to the Limited Atonement by asking the question < whose sin was not atoned at the Cross?>


    Here is the content:


    The people who believe in Predestination theology do not know or often forget that there are several things which Almighty God cannot do.

    God cannot coerce the people to believe, because that is against His Attributes. That's why He didn't prevent the Fall of Adam and Eve.
    God didn't create the human beings as puppet or robots but is in the process of creating us as gods ( Joh 10:35)

    God cannot forgive any man without punishing the sins of the person.

    That's why He had to impute human sins to Jesus Christ, and Jesus was punished for our sins. His Blood atoned for All human race.

    Whose sins were left unatoned at the Cross?
    No single sin was left unatoned at the Cross!


    Abraham believed God, then God regarded his faith as his righteousness. ( Romans 4:3, 9), which I term as his credit.

    Was Adolf Hitler predestined to kill the Jews by your God?

    Then your God is wicked!


    My God didn't predestine Hitler to kill the Jews but to believe in Jesus and do good to the Jews. He just foreknew Hitler would do so, then prepared the Hell for such people.

    Almighty God have some things that He cannot do, not because of his capacity but because they contradict His attributes.
    Calvinists ignore this truth.

    Did God predestine 99% of the people not to believe in Jesus and then ask the people to believe in Jesus, then punish them to go to the Hell since He predestined them not to believe in Jesus, though He could predestine them all to believe in Jesus only if He wanted to?


    According to them, human effort to preach the Gospel to the people who were not predestined to believe in Him is against His Will and rebellion to God.

    Calvinsits must study hard to find out the lists of the people who have been predestined to believe in Jesus before they preach the Gospel.


    Predestination Theory is a blasphemy to God as John Wesley said, I believe.


    Eliyahu
     
    #9 Eliyahu, Apr 9, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2015
  10. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    I guess you are talking about

    Romans 8:29

    Because whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be [the] firstborn among many brethren.


    God foreknew him first, which means he foreknew the believers, then accordingly He prepared the further protection and predetined them to be conformed to the image of his son.

    As long as anyone repent and come to God, he or she will enjoy this previlege.

    That is the original predetination by God for ALL, as is mentioned in Ephesians 1:5, 11.

    God predestined all human race to believe in Him and to go to the Heaven.

    However most people are sinful and rebellious against God and reject the Gospel, and therefore God prepared the Hell, to His sadness.

    God didn't make them be robots or puppets but created them to be
    gods ( Jn 10:35) choosing their own way.

    My God never predestined any of the human beings to become wicked, to torture and rape, kill Christians, but wanted to repent and return to Him ( 2 Peter 3:9)
    My God wants all human beings to accept Jesus Christ and to be holy and live righteous life. He didn't choose only 1% to be holy and to believe in Jesus, but ALL to be holy and believe in Yeshuah!
    Only human beings reject that offer.


    The God of Presdetination Theory who plotted the most of human beings not to believe in Him, to reject Jesus Christ, to behead Christians is very much wicked and must go to the Hell!

    Such God never exists but was invented by the human minds.

    The God of Predestinatio theory is a god of human imagination.

    Therefore the God of Predestination Theory is an Idol, and the Theory of Predestination is an Idolatry.


    Eliyahu
     
  11. robustheologian

    robustheologian Well-Known Member
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    Did God predestine Herod, Pilate, the Romans, and the Jews to whip, torture, and kill the Christ?

    Whatever is the answer to this question is the answer to the question in the OP.

    (hint: the answer is in Acts 2:23 & 4:27-28)
     
  12. Eliyahu

    Eliyahu Active Member
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    Nope!

    God never predestined them to do so!

    But He foreknew that they would kill Him and utilized such murder minds and converted it into the grace to save the human race.

    God foreknew all the wickedness of the people and placed Jesus in that situation to save the human race.

    God didn't cause or plan or intend the wickedness of the people but used that for the grace and salvation of the people.

    That was what He predestined. So the Predestination of God is quite different from that of Calvinism.


    God never plotted the wickedness!


    Eliyahu
     
    #12 Eliyahu, Apr 10, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2015
  13. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Then there are people in hell who's sins have been paid for? Why the double punishment?
     
  14. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

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    They all have their sins paid for.
    They all rejected that payment.
    Why then is it a double payment. I don't understand that conclusion at all.
    The one sin for being in Hell is the rejection of the redemption provided for them, the rejection of Christ. Jesus could do no more miracles in Capernaum because of their unbelief (for example).
     
  15. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    If their sins have been paid for, why are they in hell? There is a double punishment - Christ died for those sins, thus paying the penalty but now the person pays again in hell? That makes no sense. If the one sin for being in hell is the rejection of the redemption, then there is sin that was not atoned for on the cross.
     
  16. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

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    Every person has a choice: to accept Christ or to reject Christ. Just because my sins are paid for doesn't make me saved. I must accept the gift of salvation or I remain unsaved.
    Whosoever believeth on him shall be saved. There is this matter of faith.
    Whatever happened to "sola fide"?
     
  17. robustheologian

    robustheologian Well-Known Member
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    Oh really???

    for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. (Acts 4:27-28)
     
  18. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    So then the atonement was limited, was it not?
     
  19. robustheologian

    robustheologian Well-Known Member
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    Exactly. If Jesus didn't die for the sin of rejecting Him then He didn't die for all sins and so (1) no one is saved because there is still one sin that man must account for—for all it takes is one sin to keep one from being saved—and (2) if one can be saved without Jesus having died for his sin of unbelief, than he must have removed his own sin of unbelief and thus man is his own savior.

    Jesus died for the sin of unbelief, so since unbelief can keep you from enjoying the grace of Christ's atonement, those who die in unbelief are those for whom Christ DID NOT remove all sins for.

    I recommend that everyone should read John Owens' "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ".
     
    #19 robustheologian, Apr 10, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 10, 2015
  20. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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