I can't take much of what you say seriously if you can't cite your thinking on Paul as part of the Sanhedrin.
Is Election Conditional?
Discussion in 'Calvinism & Arminianism Debate' started by tyndale1946, Jan 22, 2016.
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"From the apostle to the Gentiles note 2 Timothy2:8-10;
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel,
for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!
Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."
It's so obvious that Paul was speaking of the Jews a child could see it. Looks to me like you just refuted your self. LOL!
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You're so full of fabrications and denial of plain truth that it's unbelievable. Now let's apply your false teaching to Romans 8:28ff that no Gentile is elect. You cannot claim this passage because it is only a promise to the elect of God, Romans 8:33 and therefore nothing it says pertains to you. But then again it was written to the elect Gentiles at Rome. Maybe only Gentiles from Rome are elect...so you're still out of luck LOL!!!! :) -
Is election conditional or unconditional?
Paul said in Ephesians 2:8 "for by grace we have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, but the gift of God"
An Armenian will say that God foreknew our faith and that's why he chose us. This verse from Ephesians says that faith is a gift, so his election is not based on what I did but on the grace and mercy of God.
He has mercy on whom he wills to have mercy. Do I have a right to protest why he chooses some for eternal life and the rest not? The argument of Paul is that I don't. Why? Simple as that because salvation is by grace and a free gift of God.
On the other side of argument, you have Calvinists who interprete the doctrine of election as if we don't have a free choice to believe the Gosple or minimize human responsibility. To deny that is to deny John 3:16 that whosoever believes will be saved and many other Bible verses that clearly show man in responsible before God and believing even thought at its final analysis its a gift from God still the gosple of Jesus Christ calls us to repents and believe, we do our part and God will do his part.
Maybe I'm contradiction a little myself here but you see this is a deep subject and Arminianism or Calvinism don't give a satisfactory answer, its only the word of God that gives us a balanced truth of Predestination, election and human responsibility. The Bible completely affirms God's sovereignty over human affairs but at the same time
It teaches that we are responsible human bings before a Holy God. It does not excuse our sin but offers a way of salvation for all who repent and believe the gosple of Jesus Christ.
So I won't explain away something I don't understand like how God before the foundations of the world elected us in Christ Jesus for eternal salvation? God after all is a mystery that's can't be explained, some truths are so deep that we won't be able to completely understand on this side of heaven but we are called to believe them. -
Hello again brother walkinspirit,
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Colosians 3:
12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
4 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
If the elect are only Jews then we as believers cannot Put any of these.
That is we cannot put on Bowels of Mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, we can't do these if we are not the elect of God.
We see that many of these are part of the fruit of the Spirit as seen in
Galatians 5:22, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
So we cannot show these if we are not the elect for only the elect can show these things. Therefore all believers of this current age are the elect based upon their Faith and are elect according to God's knowing them beforehand. -
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Calvin:
For by grace are ye saved. This is an inference from the former statements. Having treated of election and of effectual calling, he arrives at this general conclusion, that they had obtained salvation by faith alone. First, he asserts, that the salvation of the Ephesians was entirely the work, the gracious work of God. But then they had obtained this grace by faith. On one side, we must look at God; and, on the other, at man. God declares, that he owes us nothing; so that salvation is not a reward or recompense, but unmixed grace. The next question is, in what way do men receive that salvation which is offered to them by the hand of God? The answer is, by faith; and hence he concludes that nothing connected with it is our own. If, on the part of God, it is grace alone, and if we bring nothing but faith, which strips us of all commendation, it follows that salvation does not come from us.
Ought we not then to be silent about free-will, and good intentions, and fancied preparations, and merits, and satisfactions? There is none of these which does not claim a share of praise in the salvation of men; so that the praise of grace would not, as Paul shews, remain undiminished. When, on the part of man, the act of receiving salvation is made to consist in faith alone, all other means, on which men are accustomed to rely, are discarded. Faith, then, brings a man empty to God, that he may be filled with the blessings of Christ. And so he adds, not of yourselves; that claiming nothing for themselves, they may acknowledge God alone as the author of their salvation.
Calvin emphasizes that Salvation is by Grace through faith and that it (salvation is not our own.) Salvation is the gift of God.
Henry sees it as both Faith and Salvation as the free gift:
The grace that saves them is the free undeserved goodness and favour of God and he saves them, not by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, by means of which they come to partake of the great blessings of the gospel and both that faith and that salvation on which it has so great an influence are the gift of God.
Then we see Eadie: Men are saved by grace- τῇ χάριτι; and that salvation which has its origin in grace is not won from God, nor is it wrung from Him; “His is the gift.” Look at salvation in its origin-it is “by grace.” Look at it in its reception-it is “through faith.” Look at it in its manner of conferment-it is a “gift.” For faith, though an indispensable instrument, does not merit salvation as a reward; and grace operating only through faith, does not suit itself to congruous worth, nor single it out as its sole recipient. Salvation, in its broadest sense, is God's gift.
Hodge states this:
The only point in the interpretation of these verses of any doubt, relates to the second clause. What is said to be the gift of God? Is it salvation, or faith? The words καὶ τοῦτο only serve to render more prominent the matter referred to. Compare Romans 13:11; 1 Corinthians 6:6; Philippians 1:28; Hebrews 11:12. They may relate to faith ( τὸ πιστεύειν) or to the salvation spoken of ( σεσωσμένους εἴναι). Beza, following the fathers, prefers the former reference; Calvin, with most of the modern commentators, the latter. The reasons in favor of the former interpretation are,
Calvin agrees with the latter that is to the salvation spoken of. Hodge states taht it is both faith and salvation spoken of here in speaking of the former he speaks of faith as the gift, so Hodge states that Calvin believed it to be salvation that was the gift not faith.
then Henrich Meyer's Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the new testament states:
Rightly, therefore, have Calvin, Calovius, Baumgarten, Semler, Zachariae, Morus, and others, including Rückert, Matthies, Holzhausen, Harless, de Wette, Schenkel, Bleek, referred it to the salvation just designated as regards its specific mode. Paul very earnestly and emphatically enters into more detailed explanations as to what he had just said, τῇ γὰρ χάριτι κ. τ. λ., namely to the effect, that he briefly and forcibly places in the light of the respective contrasts, first, that objective element of the saving deliverance which has taken place ( τῇ χάριτι) by οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον, and then the subjective element ( διὰ τῆς πίστεως), by οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ἵνα μ. τ. καυχ. His thought is: “Through grace you are in possession of salvation by means of faith, and that to the exclusion of your own causation and operative agency.” This latter he expresses with the vivacity and force of contrast thus: “and that ( καὶ τοῦτο, see on Romans 3:11) not from you, it is God’s gift; not from works, in order that no one may boast.” The asyndetic juxtaposition takes place with a “propria quadam vi, alacritate, gravitate,” Dissen, Exc. II. ad Pind. p. 273.
So the gift seen in Ephesians 2:8 is seen by many as faith and yet Calvin,Calovius, Baumgarten, Semler, Zachariae, Morus, and others, including Rückert, Matthies, Holzhausen, Harless, de Wette, Schenkel, Bleek see it as Salvation. I go with it as referring to Salvation being the gift. J. Vernon McGee sees that Salvation is the gift while Ironside and Gill see it as Faith. This has long been debated we are not the first and won't be the last to debate it. -
A. W. Tozer is of the few men of God that I know who does justice to the twin truths of the Bible, God's sovereignity and human responsibility and I will quote him here:
"The whole matter of moral choice centers around Jesus Christ. Christ stated it plainly, "he that is not with me is against me" and "no man cometh unto the Father but by me." The gosple message embodies three distinct elements: an announcement, a command and a call. It announces the good news of redemption accomplished in mercy, it commands all men everywhere to repent and it calls all men to surrender to the terms of grace by believing on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
We must all choose whether we will obey the gosple or turn away in unbelief and reject its authority. Our choice is our own but the consequences of the choice have been determined by the sovereign will of God and from this there is no appeal."
God in eternity past decreed in his sovereign will to give man the freedom to choose whenever the gosple is preached to the sinner. The choice is ours to believe or not believe Jesus as our Lord and Savior but the power to save it belongs only to God because salvation is all of grace and not by the works of the law. The glory in saving us belongs all to God.
God did not create us to be like robots, he gave us the choice between good and evil and Adam chose to rebel and sin against God and as the cosenquence of his fall we too have spiritually died because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
We were all spiritually dead in our transpases and sins, sold to sin and in bondage and darkness but the bible clear and loud keeps us responsible for our sins and not for ours personal sins but whenever the good news of redemption is preached to us we have the moral freedom and choice to believe it or reject it.
And by the way its only hyper Calvinism that denies human responsibility, If you so alittle bit of research you will know what I mean. -
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