Featured Devil's Advocate for Doctrines of Sovereignty and Grace

It is no more non-sense for Joshuah to command people to do something that they cannot do than it was for Moses who gave hundreds of commandments that the people would not keep perfectly due to the fact that they could not keep them perfectly.
Whether God gives people commandments that they cannot keep through Moses or Joshua or Samuel or Elijah or Jeremiah- it matters not the source. The fact remains. Sinners CANNOT keep them. The Bible proves this on every page.

And you ought to read the whole passage:

The point here is not that people cannot choose to serve the Lord under any circumstance. Many billions have chosen to serve the Lord since man was made. The point is that man cannot, in his lost estate, without the gracious help of God ever choose to do ANYTHING righteously.

These people actually DID serve the Lord but the fact remains that Joshua affirms in this very text what the Bible everywhere else affirms- that man, before regeneration, cannot choose anything but evil.

 

As should you: Jos 24:31 And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.

This was, in fact, the "choice" he was calling them to make....and they made it....and (in the future) their were failures, yes. And indeed, there was a witness to their failures later...Joshua was not asking them to be perfect in "unregenerate nature"....they weren't. He was telling THAT GENERATION to make their ultimate choice. They did. And they chose rightly.

 

I addressed that very thing in the end of my post. Did you miss it?

 

Initially, yes, actually :laugh:...but I saw it afterward and adjusted my post somewhat. You are indeed correct that Joshua stated that:

19And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.

Thus, you are indeed correct that he is telling them that they cannot be perfect and "holy"...

But the ultimate "choice" he was commanding them to make was one they were, in fact, capable of making:

Jos 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell:

and he offers himself as the example of the "right" choice:
but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

and they chose to indeed...
Jos 24:24 And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.

and they were indeed capable of both "choosing" correctly, and fulfilling that particular vow:

Jos 24:31 And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua,

It was a generational decision to serve the Lord...and as the knight said at the end of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade: "You have chosen, wisely."

 

But I agree that men can choose to serve the lord- but only after they have been enabled to do so by God.

Joshua was not wrong when he said "Ye CANNOT serve the Lord."
This is confirmed and clarified many times in Scripture.

The carnal mind is enmity with God and is not subject to the law of neither indeed CAN IT BE.
The natural man receiveth not things of the Spirit of God neither CAN HE know them.
There is NONE THAT SEEKETH AFTER GOD... NONE THAT DOETH GOOD, NO NOT ONE.
You did not choose me but I chose you.
And the list goes on and on...

God bless you my brother! Thanks for the discussion!!

 

And you!... batting 1,000 when you discuss such topics :wavey:

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

There's plenty that do and you've been told them a kazillion times.

The birth from above, to be born of God, is what is irresistable. Man is totally passive in it; you know, like Jn 1:13:

"who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

Or like Isaac born after the Spirit by the time of his weaning, David made to hope while on his mother's breast, and John the Baptist filled with the Spirit and jumping from joy while in his mother's womb.

The Spirit where he willeth doth blow, birth from above irresistable, man totally passive.

 

I think its becaise non cals will at times refuse to aknowledge that while cals hold to God will being ultinmate cause/source of salvation for sinners, nons see will of man as final authority...

 

They refuse to "aknowledge" that because it isn't true. No non-Cal would consider man's "will" as the final "authority" about anything. Indeed the word "will" and "authority" don't even make sense to any sane non-Cal when used in the same sentence. This may make sense to you...but, I would suggest you actually learn something about non-Calvinist Theology and from a non-Calvinist rather than a Calvinist before you throw those words around willy-nilly. "Will" and "Authority" may have a correlative meaning to you, as a Calvinist...but it is unintelligible to an Arminian when spoken of that way.

 

Be careful of the broad brush

 

I agree with you on that! just stating that it appears some refuse to even state that in their understand, it does at least appear that God leaves it all up to us in final decision process....

 

Now this is different wording than the last post. And the nuances make a significant difference.

Saying final decision and man as final authority are two different things.

 

And...that would be more or less accurate Yeshua....but it is not the same thing as saying:

It's the word "authority"...that is not accurate in a non-Cal or Arminian Theology....but the former statement is correct enough. The "authority" is, and remains, within the purview of God's Sovereign will either to grant it, or to refuse it. If he did, indeed, elect to grant man the capacity to make the final "decision", it is understood to mean, that that is only in accordance with his Sovereign purpose either to refuse or to grant the "authority" to make such a decision. He still reserves the ultimate "authority" either to "allow" such a volitional act or to refuse it...An Arminian merely believes that the Scriptures convey the idea that God has chosen to grant man the capacity to engage in the final "decision" as you put it.

 

This is why it get interesting, as calvinists also hold to man being part of the "final process" of the Lord to save us!

 

Many are invited but only some are chosen. The chosen believed in a certain event. The point is how God chose. God chose by removing freewill, or God chose but without removing freewill. The latter actually shows how omnipotent He is. He doesn't need to remove our freewill in order ot ordain us to eternal life. He allows Satan to temp us till we are all captive to him. Then He can bring us back, or ordain us, or appoint eternal life to whoever He likes in accordance to His will and criteria.

"God must remove your freewill in order to ordain you eternal life" perhaps is just a human assumption. The two may not that mutually exclusive as we presume. The Bible never says how (criteria wise) to ordain, more likely it may go "off topic" or even "out of human intelligence" to be included in the Bible. God can make possible what man considered impossible. In a nutshell, no one actually understand the mistery of pre-destination. We assume what we assumed and there's where the arguments are from. We assume that we understand pre-destination but most likely we don't.

 

You assume that free will exists...but it does not.

 

You assume that free will doesn't exist but it does. You are actually exercising it right here in this forum. Or are you saying that your mind is controlled by someone else? The sinner sin by their own will, or God makes them sin?

 

Never understood why a determinist would be on a debate board. If there is no free will who is he debating, God? Or better yet since that means the determinist also has no free will...is God debating himself?

 

We are just sinners saved by grace.We have a will.It is not free.Philosophy says it is. Scripture declares we are either bound to be willing servants of sin,or willing servants of God.:type:rom6:16-18

We should and can discuss , debate, and learn from scripture.