Featured God is absolute.

No, God specifically picks a portion of clay to mold for honorable use, and specifically choses another for common use. His acts are deliberate, according to His will. There is nothing arbitrary about it. Nothing that God does is arbitrary.

Once again, scripture tells us God choses according to the kind intention of His will, for His purpose.

We shouldn’t go beyond what scripture says about “why” God choses. We can’t say there is anything special about us in His choice, lest we nullify His grace.

We also shouldn’t, as you are doing, claim God doesn’t act in a deliberate, purposeful manner to bring about salvation to those He chose before the foundation of the world.

peace to you

 

You are cherry-picking Paul. Remember, God hated Esau and loved Jacob before they did either good or bad.

 

“Hating” and “loving” are not arbitrary acts.

peace to you

 

God hates sinners. But His glory is at the highest level when He sets His love on those worthless He selected, paying for their sins in Christ, so He can bless them as though they never sinned. If He saw anything in you worth saving, you would share His glory. But He assures you, the faith He gave you proves you are a vessel of mercy.

 

So, you ignore my point that “hating” and “loving” are not arbitrary acts (which directly addresses your statement concerning Esau and Jacob) and move to disprove something I never stated (that God saw something in me and based His choice on that).

This is one reason it is impossible to have an intellectually honest conversation with you.

I’ll leave you to it.

peace to you

 

Esau and Jacob prove God's arbitrary choice in the damnation and the salvation of those He made.

 

Thanks for the conversation.

peace to you

 

You should look into this. It's the most precious understanding of God's word I'm glad to share with you.

 

You are saying if you cannot understand this theme, nobody can. But we are just touching on it. There is a complete study in Supralapsariqnism and Infralapsarian the Reformers knew well that would do us good to grasp.

 

They merit mercy because Christ paid for their sins. But Universal atonement cannot support this conclusion. Only Limited Atonement can.

 

I’m always ready to be convinced to change my mind based on scripture. Your understanding is not biblical, therefore cannot be precious.

peace to you

 

You do not understand these basic topics Protestants held dear.

 

My understanding is just fine, thank you very much.

If you can point to any Protestant scholar that agrees with you that God’s work is arbitrary, please provide the reference.

peace to you

 

Why did He save you? A straight answer will settle it.

 

I’ve already answered directly, you just can’t or won’t accept the answer.

Give a reference to a Protestant scholar that taught God acts arbitrarily concerning salvation. If you can’t, apologize for misrepresenting your position as being “precious” to, or “held dear”, by Protestants.

peace to you

 

In the limited atonement sense, Christ bought us which means are Christ's body. We have Christ's own value imputed to us.

We deserve all that He deserves. Even though we are worthless in Adam.

So God arbitrarily divided the worthless lump of sinners in Adam, arbitrarily assigning some to Salvation in Christ to glorify His mercy. While leaving the rest in Adam's sin to display His wrath.

The beauty of this is, if you are a believer, is that we had nothing to do with our damnation in Adam. Nor did we have anything to do with our salvation in Christ.

Only those who understand the doctrine of limited atonement can understand this. It does not fit with universal atonement.