WARNING THIS THREAD COULD GET HOT!
OK,
GE Posted this:
'TULIP' for:
'T' for Total Depravity of man ...
'U' for Unconditional Election ...
'L' for Limited Atonement ...
'I' for Irresistible Grace ...
'P' for Perseverance of the saints ...
Please explain Unconditional Election.
I *think* I understand this one from our debates on Predestination. If so, this could get *very* interesting. With a lot of "Proof Texting". :)
TULIP: Unconditional Election
Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by SpiritualMadMan, Dec 9, 2010.
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Here is a good baseline for you
Taken from "By Grace Alone"
a d o c t r i na l s t u dy b y J im McCl a r t y
For a more theological explanation, Pastor David Morris defines election
this way:
“Because of man’s Total Depravity and inability, salvation from
sin and its penalty is completely of the Lord, our Triune God. In
eternity past, before the worlds were created, God chose in Christ
a great multitude that no man could number. The election of this
number out of the mass of damnation of ruined mankind as they
stood in Adam was based on God’s grace and good pleasure and
on nothing in man by way of condition or foreseen quality. God
purposed this election for His own glory.” -
Thinkingstuff Active Member
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>Please explain Unconditional Election.
In one sentence, God can save anyone he chooses "in" Christ Jesus. -
Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
this could get *very* interesting. With a lot of "Proof Texting".
Not so heated I'm thinking. -
Yep - basically that God chooses who He will save just because. There is nothing inherent in the man or woman that would cause God to choose him - He just does.
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Unconditional election is God’s choice of certain individuals unto salvation before
the foundation of the world while others are passed by. This choice is based on
God’s sovereign will alone and not on anything in or about the one chosen.
http://www.fbccarmel.com/ccpapers/Unconditional Election.pdf -
Gerhard Ebersoehn Active MemberSite Supporter
The difference between 'at random' and 'sovereignty', is the difference between 'fatalism' and 'sovereignty'. And that difference is that God acted Tri-Unely. Were God's decisions of only the Father, or only the Son, or only the Holy Spirit, God's Eternal Predestination would have been no different than Islamic fatalism.
Then the Living Actual Truth of this difference between the Predestination of the God who is God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the fatalism of Unitarianism or and Islam (and, in my opinion between the God of Arminianism and the God of Calvinism), is, That God EVER, and ONLY acts (—and to have Predestinated the eternal destiny of every work of His hands is as much an ACT of God as was its creation—) BY, IN, AND THROUGH, AND TO THE GLORY OF JESUS CHRIST. God is dead, lived He not by, in, through, and to the glory of Jesus Christ— Jesus Christ who became Man and lived and acted and taught to the glory of God only and WAS the Glory of God— the Glory of God: The Father and The Son and The Holy Spirit.
Now THIS and ONLY true and living GOD, through Jesus Christ ever acting, EVER AND ALWAYS, ACTS “to US-ward”, or He is a dead God. And “to us-ward” means, ‘to-the-SALVATION-ward-of-us’, TO THE EFFECTIVE, TRIUMPHANT, GLORIOUS, salvation of us. So that in no single case of an Elect of God ("God knows them who are His"), God would FAIL— FROM EVERLASTING, would not fail; “so that WHO-SO-EVER BELIEVETH in Him (and NO other), should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
(Thinkingstuff, you are right handed, are you?) -
TULIP only gets complicated because True Believers want the rest of us to end up in Hell and thus can't make themselves believe that God would "elect" everyone as the null position/condition.
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Sounds like you may have some course work in non-parametric statistics.....Null Hypothesis.
:) -
Gerhard Ebersoehn Active MemberSite Supporter
GE:
YES! Except for two factors of Divine intervention in the affairs of men:
One, That none are simply "passed by", or simply 'chosen for salvation'. Each whether saved or reprobate, is visited with "the strength of sin", which is the Law. Those of God’s election “in Christ”; those not of God’s Election, in themselves.
Two, God’s Election is based on God’s sovereign will realised in eternity and time in Christ “by the sacrifice of Himself”, and not on anything in or about the one chosen except that his being a chosen elect of God’s mercy from eternity is as real as the fact that he was born a death-deserving sinner among death-deserving sinners.
God looked for that Divine Predestination IN his elect —not only ‘about’ his elect— for to save them through and IN, Jesus Christ. -
Gerhard Ebersoehn Active MemberSite Supporter
"Amazing grace"! Grace that not always surprises us could be human goodness, but not the grace of God. -
Gerhard, I am a simple man, could you please assist me in understanding what you were saying here.
BTW: I was only offering that definition for my "reformed" brethren. I myself do not consider myself to be "reformed", and thus I remain at present "unconvinced" with regard to "unconditional election".
Mercy, peace and love in abundance. -
Gerhard Ebersoehn Active MemberSite Supporter
YES!
But God's Predestination doesn't mean He just 'saves' at the throw of the coin. That's Islam and fatalism.
Paul says that the mystery of Godliness that in past times has always been hidden, now has been made known by the hearing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing that God does, He just does; not even with respect to those whom He chose for salvation and saved, because God BOTH chose and saved to the Glory of our Saviour Lord Jesus Christ.
The Name of Jesus Christ cannot but be mentioned first and last in the salvation of any. Because there IS NO OTHER NAME! -
Gerhard Ebersoehn Active MemberSite Supporter
God
Redeems
All
Chosen
Elected -
Gerhard Ebersoehn Active MemberSite Supporter
My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will.
C.H. Spurgeon -
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Gerhard Ebersoehn Active MemberSite Supporter
YES! I know we agree, and am thankful for it.
I only want to stress:
that God does absolutely NOTHING towards our salvation in which the Name and Person and involvement of Jesus Christ could pass unnoticed and unmentioned. His Name MUST SOUND and be sounded.
The Jews never mentioned God's Name; the Christian never speaks but uses the Name of God and Christ in honour.
Especially in this our own day of lethal viruses like the Jesus Revolution or New Reformation and Religious Pluralism and Ecumenism, Unitarianism and Neo-Theism - there is no end to the list - people find it possible, easy and necessary to work out a salvation that can and must leave the mention of Jesus' Name OUT. -
Thinkingstuff Active Member
BTW I am right handed.
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