According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:11)
I first wish to thank Pastor DHK for allowing the previous thread to reach 31 pages.
This thread is dealing specifically with God’s eternal purpose in Christ.
All God’s purposes originate in eternity before creation took place.
This is a difficult concept for many because many seek reasons for God’s purposes.
The reasons are according to the counsel of His own will. (Eph. 1:11)
Nothing or no one influenced His counsel because nothing and no one existed before God brought it or him into existence.
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?
35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? (Romans 11:35)
Please note verse 35. Our Pelagian/Arminian friends would have themselves be the ones who gave God their faith in Christ, thereby deserving eternal life.
But Scripture, once again, dismisses such arrogance declaring it was God who gave them faith.
Synonyms for ‘Purpose’
When we speak of one’s ‘purpose’ we speak of one’s intention, one’s goal, one’s end, one’s objective, one’s mission, that which one specifically wills to achieve.
So we ask: Was it God’s eternal purpose, intention, goal, objective, mission to save every person ever born?
If you answer ‘Yes’ then He has failed miserably in achieving His goal.
But God cannot fail at anything. If He did, He would be no God.
My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.(Isaiah 46:10)
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? (Numbers 23:19)
If you answer, ‘No,’ then God has not failed at achieving His objective because not all are saved.
We must then ask: What was God’s eternal purpose in Christ?
Was Christ to die for all mankind that all might be saved?
If you answer ‘Yes’ then Christ has failed miserably in His mission.
And what was His mission?
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. (Matt. 1:21)
There you have it in plain, easy to understand language a child could comprehend: He shall save His people from their sins.
Has Jesus saved all people from their sins? No.
Is He a failure on that account?
No, because we are specifically told that He shall save His people – not all people – from their sins.
There is a difference. A difference which our Pelagian/Arminian friends choose not to recognize.
According to their misguided theology, they claim Jesus came to give His life as Savior for all people. In fact, the whole world.
John 3:16 and 1 John 2:2 are their classic proof texts.
Had Jesus and innumerable other Scriptures not taught the contrary, our opponents might have a leg to stand on……not two legs, but one leg.
Let us listen to the words of Jesus in John 17, words of prayer spoken to the Father moments before being taken captive that He might be put to death.
These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
We discover in verse 2 there is an exchange between the Father and the Son.
The Father has a specific people – specific in number and identity – who He has given to Christ.
To what purpose were they given?
To the end that Christ should give them eternal life.
Which brings us back to John 3:16.
Had it been the eternal purpose of God in Christ to give Christ to all the men in the world?
No. His purpose was to give specific people to Christ and those same specific people were those to whom Christ was to give eternal life.
Does eternal life include saving faith?
Of course it does. By grace we are saved through faith.
But does not man give saving faith in Christ to God and receive back the gift of eternal life as a just reward?
No. Faith is the first and primary component of eternal life.
Why would our infinitely all-wise God give Christ and every other spiritual gift necessary to eternal life and leave it up to sinful, wretched man to supply the most essential component: a holy, justifying, living faith in the Son of God?
Man is dead to God, devoid of the Spirit, and cannot comprehend the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned.
Christ died that the Elect would believe and have eternal life.
So says John 3:16.
The Elect are raised from spiritual death by the same power that raised Christ from the dead. (Eph. 1:19-20)
From that same power comes faith.
Did Christ die for the world?
No. How do we know?
Because He prayed not for the world, but only for them which the Father gave Him. (John 17:9)
But is He not praying only for His disciples?
No. He is praying for all who will believe on His name. (John 17:20)
Are they also considered among the people given Christ by the Father.
Yes. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and the one who comes to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37)
CONCLUSION: Our holy God is highly dishonored by positing an eternal will and purpose to save all, yet saves few. Such a God is not the biblical God.
Furthermore, our holy infinitely all-wise God is shown to be less wise than man by providing the Savior, but not providing all the necessary graces which must accompany salvation, i.e. saving faith.
Especially if His will is to save all men.........which it isn't.
The Eternal Purpose of God in Christ
Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by Protestant, Jul 31, 2015.
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JohnDBaptiste MemberSite Supporter
And sovereign God giving man the ability and the responsibility to choose undoes a lot of the ways we three dimensional thinkers try to box in an omni-dimensional being.
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JohnDBaptiste MemberSite Supporter
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Do you think he wants to save those he blinds and hardens? Do you think he wants to save those who he does not reveal himself to?
Do you think he wanted to save all those already in perdition before he was even incarnated?
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SovereignGrace Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.[2 Cor. 5:18,19]
On the surface, it appears to be universal in application. But hold la onions, monsieur.' It states 'not counting people's sins against them.' Now, no sin goes unpunished, mon ami. So if God is not counting them against them, where did they go? The Atlantic ocean? Non. The Pacific, Indian, Artic oceans, Mediterranean sea? Under a snow bank? In a deep, dark cave? Non. They went to Christ, our Sinbearer, as He atoned for them on the cross by This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.[Acts 2:23]
Christ also had distain for the Pharisees as He told them You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.[Jn 8:44] Then Jesus uttered these words right before He was betrayed "The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” If God truly desired to save everybody, everbody would be saved, monsieur. -
The Bible tells us that God desires all men to be saved, and commands all men to repent, yet the Calvinist says God must make us repent before we can actually repent. That makes God's statement a dubious one at best, seeing as He is calling for us to repent, and then, per your ideology, He never grants the ability to repent, and then blames us for not doing something He never gave us the ability to do in the first place.
That, quite simply put, is not the God I find evident in the scriptures. The God found in Calvinism is very much a vicious monster. I say that with a clear conscience, because I don't believe Calvinism's God is the same God found in scripture.
By and large, in my experience, it is the Calvinist camp that has to twist wording and scripture to make it conform to their ideology. They have to say things like "well, 'the world' doesn't actually mean 'the world,' it only means the Elect." -
Yep, I'll show myself out. -
Iconoclast Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
You post quite foolishly in the last 4-5 posts I see....have you been drinking??
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SovereignGrace Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Did Christ died for those who died before He came in the flesh? -
SovereignGrace Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Well, what about the likes of Adolph Hitler, Genghis Khan, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Ted Bundy, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Vlad Dracula(Vlad the Impaler), Joseph Stalin, Ivan the Terrible? They were some of the cruelest people who ever lived. Yet, in your schema, you feel better because God 'tried' to save them. These guys are the epitome of This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.[John 3:19,20] -
To do so I always harken back to the attributes of God as revealed in His Word.
It is my experience that too many professing Christians have not a clue as to whether or not the God they worship is compatible with the revealed God of the Bible.
Too frequently they begin their studies with Man: his failures and shortcomings.
They then progress to the Good News: God loves them unconditionally and sent them a Savior.
They then are asked to make a decision for Christ, which they do amidst a stirring, emotionally saturated atmosphere.
Once ‘saved’ they then learn all the wonderful blessings God has in store for them: health, wealth and popularity.
Alas, the most important Bible study is neglected: learning the revealed attributes of the God they claim to serve.
Why? Because it requires much study, prayerful reflection and logic.
For many that process takes too much of their time and effort.
It also rubs against the grain of their preconceived, ill-conceived beliefs when confronted with the hard, pure truth of the matter.
As a result, they shut down and continue on their merry way, not willing to do the work necessary to understand what are, on the surface, confusing Scriptures which, in their minds, are clear contradictions.
Never mind that for centuries after centuries wise men of God have explained and correlated those difficult passages so they need no longer be considered contradictory.
But such a revelation requires the serious Christian to interpret the Scriptures through the lens of our holy, sovereign God’s perspective.
I have in the recent past dialogued with Tony regarding the same issues he, once again, raises.
What I find quite sad is that despite the clear explanations, all with Scriptural proofs, Tony’s ears were shut tight.
It is as if we never had the lengthy dialogue.
For here he is again, using the same tired arguments which have been refuted time and again.
So at this time I would like to compare the God worshipped by Tony and the God we worship.
Tony’s God:
1. Sends a Savior to save the world, yet fails to do so.
2. Loves the world, yet His love is not quite powerful enough to save the world He loves.
3. Owes all men an equal shot at salvation.
4. Denies Himself His rightful sovereign rule, preferring man’s free-will to overrule His will.
5. Loves those who are now or will soon be in Hell, as much as He loves those who are now or will soon be in Heaven.
6. Had all eternity to devise a perfect plan which could successfully save all humanity, yet failed to do so.
Our God:
1. Sends a Savior to specifically save those the Father gave Him.
2. He loses none.
3. Loves those He chose with an everlasting love which never fails to bring them to Him in Heaven.
4. Hates all the workers of iniquity.
5. With a perfect holy and righteous purpose and intention chose some for mercy and the rest for judgment.
6. Owes no man grace, but owes all men justice.
These are a few of the differences between our God and Tony’s God.
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: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. -
"Shall not the God of all the earth do right (be just and fair)?"
You seem to deny this truth, and his attribute of justice and fairness to mankind. He gave to man the characteristic of justice and fairness, and made man in the image of God. But you make God into a cruel monster after the image of Calvin. That truly is sad.
In God's sovereignty the non-Cal views God as One who has the authority to allow man to have a will to choose or reject Jesus Christ. This does not violate his sovereignty but strengthens it. In allowing man, within the boundaries of his sovereignty to choose to receive Christ, God's sovereignty becomes greater than the limited sovereignty the Calvinist allows God to have. He is afraid that God will "lose control." He (in the Cal's eyes) really isn't omnipotent.
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PT's meanderings follow the tracks of John Wesley at his worst.
PT : My post 5 was short and to-the-point.
You objected to it most strenously.
Why then didn't you simply address it, line-by-line?
When you just show venom, it exposes not only your heart --but your biblical inadequacy. -
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Again, the power of Christ is being questioned, and the accusation being made that Christ is a failure? Preposterous! Do you also look on Christ as a failure, as your fellow Calvinists do?
Do you understand the sovereignty of God, really? I don't think so.
Or is it, you don't like my explanation simply because I am a non-Cal explaining sovereignty to you a Cal. It is beyond your dignity. Is that the real problem?
God fails at nothing. That was my remark.
So you believe God fails. Tell me more about your failing God.
Thus was my further remark that he really isn't omnipotent if, in your opinion he fails. -
The Parable of the Tower Builder
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. (Luke 14:28-30)
Consider that the God revealed in the Bible is similar to the tower builder.
First, the man begins with an intention, a goal, a purpose.
His intention: to build a tower.
The Lord God also has an intention: to build His Church.
I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18)
Next, the man must count the cost to determine if he has the funds to actually finish his dream tower.
Likewise, the Lord God counted the cost of such an expensive and miraculous endeavor.
It cost the Father the life of His beloved Son.
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
Unlike the materials used to build a tower, the materials used to build Christ’s Church are Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ…..Christ the chief cornerstone.
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5)
Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. (1 Peter 2:6)
Unlike the cost of building a tower, the cost of building Christ’s Church was of a completely different nature.
The cost of building His Church was Christ’s blood.
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: (1 Peter 1:18-19)
Herein Lies the Difference Between the True and the Counterfeit
The true actually finishes building His Church to the exact specifications of His architectural plans.
He drew up His plans in eternity and is completing construction now in the Church Age.
One day construction will be complete.
Revelation 21 gives us a sneak peek.
She is a beauty.
Not one living stone is missing. All are present and accounted for.
The counterfeit, however, intended a structure comprised of many more living stones.....a whole world of them.
Lamentably, the counterfeit’s Church will never match the original blueprints.
The counterfeit’s intentions were good, but, alas, failed to reach its goal, requiring extensive revisions and delays.
CONCLUSION: The God of Scriptures will not be mocked.
He is building His Church with the precise number of living stones He always intended.
He has handpicked the individual stones, passing over many others in the process.
Why?
He has His reasons.
And you can be sure they are good, holy and righteous reasons. -
Those kind of infantile comments coming from you over the years is sickening.
That's why I said in reply that you are the court jester. If anything, non-Cals here complain that Calvinists over-emphasize the sovereignyty of God.
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I do worship God, and I worship the God that I find revealed in scripture and I find in the guidance of the Holy Ghost. I do not see the God Calvinism claims to see, but according to the Cals that because I'm not sound in my Biblical study. Which is what it seems so often to come down to with them. "You don't know God because you haven't properly studied." It doesn't matter how much of your life you've dedicated to studying the Word and praying for the Spirit's guidance, unless you believe in their God you simply have not studied enough. Thankfully not all Cals act this way. -
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