No Choice

Have a blessed night.

 

Simply put ~ they are elect of God. Not only infants, but those who enter as children. More aptly put ~ I believe Spurgeons view:

"Now, let every mother and father here present know assuredly that it is well with the child, if God hath taken it away from you in its infant days. You never heard its declaration of faith—it was not capable of such a thing—it was not baptized into the Lord Jesus Christ, not buried with him in baptism; it was not capable of giving that "answer of a good conscience towards God;" nevertheless, you may rest assured that it is well with the child, well in a higher and a better sense than it is well with yourselves; well without limitation, well without exception, well infinitely, "well" eternally. Perhaps you will say, "What reasons have we for believing that it is well with the child?" Before I enter upon that I would make one observation. It has been wickedly, lyingly, and slanderously said of Calvinists, that we believe that some little children perish. Those who make the accusation know that their charge is false. I cannot even dare to hope, though I would wish to do so, that they ignorantly misrepresent us. They wickedly repeat what has been denied a thousand times, what they know is not true. In Calvin's advice to Omit, he interprets the second commandment "shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me," as referring to generations, and hence he seems to teach that infants who have had pious ancestors, no matter how remotely, dying as infants are saved. This would certainly take in the whole race. As for modern Calvinists, I know of no exception, but we all hope and believe that all persons dying in infancy are elect. Dr. Gill, who has been looked upon in late times as being a very standard of Calvinism, not to say of ultra-Calvinism, himself never hints for a moment the supposition that any infant has perished, but affirms of it that it is a dark and mysterious subject, but that it is his belief, and he thinks he has Scripture to warrant it, that they who have fallen asleep in infancy have not perished, but have been numbered with the chosen of God, and so have entered into eternal rest. We have never taught the contrary, and when the charge is brought, I repudiate it and say, "You may have said so, we never did, and you know we never did. If you dare to repeat the slander again, let the lie stand in scarlet on your very cheek if you be capable of a blush." We have never dreamed of such a thing. With very few and rare exceptions, so rare that I never heard of them except from the lips of slanderers, we have never imagined that infants dying as infants have perished, but we have believed that they enter into the paradise of God."

And there is much more here if you are really interested. He speaks better than I ever could:

http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0411.htm

 

I'm pretty sure that that was not what God said to either Jacob or Esau, or even about them some 400-odd years later, in Malachi, for that matter. You might wanna' study that a were bit more, and then get back to me, on it.

Ed

 

And yes, it's my opinion, and Spurgeon's opinion, and George Whitefields opinion, and Jonathan Edwards opinion, and John McCarthur's opinion and......and....and....based on scripture, although you will never accept that. This debate has raged for a couple of centuries now and it will continue until we are bowing at His feet, the Sovereign Lord of all.

 

Scripture?? As opposed to someone's theology??














Then we might not have anything left over which to argue!

Ed

 

Here you go Ed Romans 9:9-13

9For this is what the promise saidR) "About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son." 10And not only so, but(S) also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of(T) him who calls— 12she was told,(U) "The older will serve the younger." 13As it is written,(V) "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."



So was Paul misinformed about what God said about Jacob and Esau?

Why don't you go study that one and get back to me.

 

Not at all was Paul misinformed. "The elder shall serve the younger" was prophesied to Sarah, before the children were born, and is recorded in Genesis; However, the words "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" were spoken much later, by the Lord to Malachi, hence, the words of Paul that "as It is Written!"

Hmmm.

Those last three words would make a good lead-in for a TV program, sometime.

However, God never said (as was implied) to either Jacob or Esau or Sarah or Malachi or Paul, for that matter, the words that were attempted to be put into His mouth namely that -

As it has been said, "A text (or part of a text) apart from the context (and specifically the whole context of Scripture) is a pretext to a proof-text.

I submit this misreading of the verse in Romans is "Exhibit 'A'" in that regard.

Ed

 

Then tell me how a spiritually dead person (lacking any life and ability according to your usage of the phrase) can reject the truth (Rom. 1)?

 

Yes, ONCE to die. It has been appointed to all men to die physically.

 

Since Romans 9 has nothing to do with either individual, it is you that is misinformed, not Paul. Provide one instance where Esau ever served Jacob as individuals...just one.

 

I have had many debates with Arminians and have always cited the scriptures. For those knowledgeable in the Word, you will know what they are when you read the summary. Just pressed for time, sorry.

 

It is not what I say it is what Scripture says.

1Corinthians 2:14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The natural man is the unsaved man, the man who is spiritually dead.

John Gill, perhaps the greatest of Baptist expositors states of this passage:

Ver. 14. But the natural man, &c.] Not a babe in Christ, one that is newly born again, for though such have but little knowledge of spiritual things, yet they have a taste, and do relish and desire, and receive the sincere milk of the word, and grow thereby; but an unregenerate man, that has no knowledge at all of such things; not an unregenerate man only, who is openly and notoriously profane, abandoned to sensual lusts and pleasures; though such a man being sensual, and not having the Spirit, must be a natural man; but rather the wise philosopher, the Scribe, the disputer of this world; the rationalist, the man of the highest attainments in nature, in whom reason is wrought up to its highest pitch; the man of the greatest natural parts and abilities, yet without the Spirit and grace of God, mentioned 1Co 1:20 and who all along, both in that chapter and in this, quite down to this passage, is had in view: indeed, every man in a state of nature, who is as he was born, whatever may be the inward furniture of his mind, or his outward conduct of life, is but a natural man, and such an one

receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: not the things relating to the deity, personality, and perfections of the Holy Spirit, though these the natural man knows not, nor receives; nor the things done by him, particularly the operations of his grace on the souls of men in regeneration, concerning which he says, as Nicodemus did, "how can these things be?" but the truths of the Gospel before spoken of; so called, because they are contained in the Scriptures edited by the Spirit of God, are the deep things of God, which he searches into and reveals; and because they are made known by him, who is given and received for that end and purpose, that the saints might know them; and because they are delivered by the preachers of the Gospel, in words which he teacheth; now these the natural man receives not in the love of them, so as to approve of and like them, truly to believe them, cordially embrace them, and heartily be subject to them, profess and obey them, but on the contrary abhors and rejects them:

for they are foolishness unto him; they are looked upon by him as absurd, and contrary to reason; they do not agree with his taste, he disrelishes and rejects them as things insipid and distasteful; he regards them as the effects of a crazy brain, and the reveries of a distempered head, and are with him the subject of banter and ridicule:

neither can he know them: as a natural man, and whilst he is such, nor by the help and mere light of nature only; his understanding, which is shut unto them, must be opened by a divine power, and a superior spiritual light must be thrown into it; at most he can only know the literal and grammatical sense of them, or only in the theory, notionally and speculatively, not experimentally, spiritually, and savingly:

because they are spiritually discerned; in a spiritual manner, by a spiritual light, and under the influence, and by the assistance of the Spirit of God. There must be a natural visive discerning faculty, suited to the object; as there must be a natural visive faculty to see and discern natural things, so there must be a spiritual one, to see, discern, judge, and approve of spiritual things; and which only a spiritual, and not a natural man has.
__________

 

Good explanation of foreknowledge Victorious!:thumbs: