God Got The Memo

In the context of temporal common grace, sure.

True, but he knows whosoever will - John 10:27
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;

Certainly He is willing to the same degree that we are willing to turn - which is exactly zero unless He transforms our (the elect's) "heart of stone" to a "heart of flesh", but He does not decree that ALL WILL repent - otherwise it would be so.

Matthew 13:14-16 (New American Standard Bible)

14"In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,
'YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND;
YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;
15FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL,
WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR,
AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES,
OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES,
HEAR WITH THEIR EARS,
AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN,
AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.'

John 6
35Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. 36"But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.
37"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
38"For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
39"This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
40"For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

 

God's Grace is not temporal, jd.

No one is a sheep until they come to Christ. Christ, when one comes to Him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, changes that one into a sheep. And every human being on this earth has that grace extended to Him.

God is not a respector of persons. He said all... not some. He said whosoever... not who I choose.

God does not save just the elect, He saves any who will come to Him in repentance. And no one is elect before Salvation. Elect only means chosen for a special service.

Gaius was not elect, but was saved.
The Brethren in Galatia were not called elect... but were saved
Same with the saints in Ephesus... saved... not elect according to God's Word.

God saves all who will come to Him in repentance. He does not save just elect.

 

double post

 

How can that be? They hear His voice, He calls them by name, then they follow Him. Jesus is calling His sheep by name, prior to their following Him.

What about those to whom Jesus said they didn't believe because they were not His sheep (John 10:26)?

Do you believe the gospel of Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation? Do you believe everyone who has ever lived has heard the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Surely you must acknowledge that some people will live their entire lives without hearing the gospel. Surely, untold millions (perhaps billions) have lived their lives without hearing the gospel. Surely people are dying as we speak, never having heard the gospel.

Are you saying the gospel is not necessary for salvation?

peace to youraying:

 

In certain contexts it is - if not for the grace of God, Mankind would have been completely judged and eternally condemned at the Fall.

So the sheep gets to pick the shepherd first? Please show me that in Scripture - I only see the Shepherd going after the lost sheep, not the sheep finding themselves.

Grace leads to faith, faith to salvation - and that is God's choice to give, not Man's to receive, lest anyone should boast.

He said whosoever will - the whosoever is His choice - they are the only one who will.

John 15:16
" You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you..."

John 6:70
Jesus answered them, " Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?"

Incorrect - only the elect, whom He foreknew, will come to Him in repentance and thus be conformed to the image of the Son.

Romans 9

15For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION."
16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH."
18So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

Only the elect whom God foreknew before time began will come in repentance and thus be saved. And I'd be real careful about judging who is elect and who is not, brother - in all concern for you.

 

Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. The choice is the individual's. God does not force His Grace on anyone... but He does offer it to all.

God is not playing some kind of cosmic game in which He chooses some to go to hell and others to go to heaven. He has offered the opportunity to miss hell to each and every individual... even to those who would lie about His grace being only for the elect.

You must think that those who Paul addressed as saints and brethren in Galatians and Ephesians were not really saved because they were not elect. You are mistaken. Elect are only some of the saved.

 

For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake (Phil 1:29).

When will people stop denying Scripture to maintain their own views?

 

Text without context is pretext - this is a national/household choice, not meant to be tied to matters of individual election - besides who chose the nation of Israel first? Even had they chosen not to follow, God would have preseved His elect - or remnant from among them.

God bestows His gift of salvific grace to whom He chooses. Show me an individual anywhere in Scripture that chose God before He chose them.

You are correct in that this is no cosmic game - God is working a pre-ordained plan to glorify Jesus Christ. Christ is glorified as Savior of the redeemed and Judge of the reprobate.

God doesn't deal with potentials - His plan to redeem His elect and judge the reprobate is absolute. If you believe in chance and potential, you should become a naturalist.

BTW- are you calling me a liar or implying that I am lying?

The elect are the totality of the saved.

2 Peter 1

10Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: 11For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.



Only the elect will enter the kingdom.

 

Hypothetical posed to everyone: If your child was walking blindfolded towards a deep pit with spears in the ground pointing upwards, would you grab that child, preventing him from death? or, would you just shout a command to avoid the pit and hope he/she hears and listens to you?

PreachTREE

 

"God doesn't give him the faith to believe"
Your post makes no sense.
How does that verse say that God doesn't give one faith to believe? It says nothing about the subject--for or against.
Take a look at Young's Translation:

Philippians 1:29 because to you it was granted, on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also on behalf of him to suffer;

In other words it was our privilege not only to believe on Christ but also to suffer for His sake.
Believing on Christ is a privilege.
Suffering for Christ is a privilege.
--We choose to do both. We can choose to avoid suffering inasmuch as we can choose to endure suffering by the way we do live.
We choose to believe. It is our choice. God doesn't give us the faith to believe. It is our faith.

 

Peter's epistle was to specific people. It was to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

Apparently there were indeed elect in five provinces that Peter addressed. Why would Peter address the epistle to those five provinces and not 'throughout the whole world' if the verse to 'make your calling and election sure' was to everyone?

As I pointed out, there were no mention of elect in Paul's epistle to Galatia. Peter apparently knew of some 'elect' in Galatia at the time of his writing the epistle... approximately 63AD. Paul's letter to the Church in Galatia was approximately 56AD.

Paul wrote to the Churches in Galatia, while Peter wrote to people who were scattered abroad...not the Church.

It is evident there were no elect in the Churches Paul communicated with in Galatia at the time he wrote the epistle, but there were saved.

Paul spoke of elect in other epistles, but not in the Churches of Galatia.

 

Brother - I can see that we are going to be talking past one another here and you have a carefully constructed and implacable position, so I will take the opportunity to close with this:

I have seen, in the short time I have been here, much bickering and insults - implied and implicit - between the brethren. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." I cannot believe that any of us would disagree with this statement.

That being said - we are all, or all ahould be, passionate about the truth God has given us and what the full counsel of God teaches concerning Himself.

Scripture tell us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling - how the Calvinist understands that and how the Arminian understands that may be completely different, but we both understand it to be a command from God.

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

As long as we all agree that God is sovereign and Man is responsible and we continue to strive toward truth, let's contend together in love and not accuse one another or treat one another as if we are of a different spirit.

Let's reason together with love.

Have a blessed Lord's day.

 

Well said. :thumbs:

 

You said that God doesn't give faith to believe. I pointed out that the Bible says God does give faith.

Every translation says essentially the same thing. And it says that God gives faith.

When it says "it was granted not only to to believe," that means that belief was one of the things granted.

I am not sure how you dispute this.

"Privilege" is not in the verse. You have changed Scripture.

The Bible says that it is ours because God gives it to us.

 

Sorry --- I was rather in a hurry to get to the golf course. :laugh:

What I meant is that when God wants to glorify Himself, He amazes the world by His power. Now that will happen when Jesus returns -- it will happen when Gog is defeated in northern Israel, etc. But the world is not impressed by Christianity and her God. And if you meant glorified by us -- well, look around you. We don't glorify Him much either in our day-to-day lives. So I question if the whole plan was for God's glory or whether there might be some other thing --- like having as many children into the kingdom as He could. You might say that right now He is on a "rescue" mission looking for anyoone who is alive but soon, when the "elements melt with a fervent heat," He will be on a "recovery" mission (judging the dead of the earth at the GWT, Rev 20:11).

Or He could have created only elect and made short work of the plan, right? The problem of "time" is the problem that there is "resistance" to God's out-and-out control, right? For some very UN-omnipotent reason, He can't make everyone "elect."

Please let me know where you find this covenant in scripture.

I believe that's what is called the "Cliff Notes" approach. Remember those little yellow and black stripes synopses we got of our reading assignments? 30 pages vs. 300? The Cliff Notes blew off the details and gave us what the author thought were the "raw, ungarnished" facts. Well, that's sorta like what you been reading. There is no "covenant of grace." The word "elect" has a vastly different meaning than the "Cliff Note" version (even though the authors tend to call their notes "Systematic Theology" or "Institutes" and such like titles). And the two images --- it's all God's fault (sovereignty) but man is responsible --- are quite ludicrous when seen for what they really are, now aren't they?

skypair

 

I often wonder why Calvinists refer to those Christians who do not believe as they do as "Arminians."

I am not an Arminian. Arminians believe one can lose one's Salvation... I do not. Christ secured my Salvation through my faith in Him and His shed blood on Calvary's cross.

Scripture clearly shows Christ died for the sins of the whole world, not just some. If all people commit sin, Christ died for all people. And we know all people do sin... else Christ would not have had to die.

Christ is faithful to His promises. He said He would draw all men unto Himself if He were lifted up... He was lifted up, and He is drawing all men unto Himself. He offers His gift of Salvation to all, not some.

 

We are obviously saying "know God" with quite different thoughts in mind here.

I'm rereading C.S. Lewis at this time. He says we all know when something is fair or unfair? Without even living but a few years, a child can perceive if he/she is being treated unfairly. Where does that come from? A higher, unseen Authority.

That, my friend, is God revealing Himself to EVERYONE. Not that we go seek Him though in many unfair situations, we KNOW to go to someone higher. And when we do, sometimes our appeal is to God because there seems to be no one on our side.

And yet with all this looking for God/fairness, we haven't even received "grace" as you describe it yet, have we? And from fairness, we often go on to seek true Justice, right? And the quest goes on. Soon the OT saints were seeking "who might this Messiah be. Even those who were unbelievers were curious and looking -- even thinking maybe Moses, Elijah, or John the Baptist might be Him.

Perhaps Paul was saying, "no man seeks after JUSTICE for HIMSELF." That would be consistent with scripture, right?

skypair