Unconditional Election

Conditional Election

Calvinists deny the validity of conditional election on these grounds:
(1) Because of the Calvinist’s acceptance of their doctrine of Total Spiritual Inability, they say man is incapable of the faith needed for God to use it as satisfying His conditional for election to salvation.
(2) Saving faith, faith satisfying God’s supposed conditional, is a gift God gives to the previously chosen person.
(3) Faith is a work and therefore cannot be a conditional for a salvation not of works.

But let’s see if there is any merit whatsoever in any of these so-called problems with conditional election.

Total Spiritual Inability is demonstrated to be false doctrine by Matthew 13:20-22, where unregenerate men, in their natural fallen state, receive the gospel with joy. This demonstrates they have some spiritual ability, and therefore the doctrine of total spiritual inability is unbiblical. Further, what level of faith is required? Only a faith that God accepts and credits as righteousness, it need not have any merit of or by itself. Paul teaches that our faith in Christ provides our access to the grace in which we stand, Romans 5:2, clearly supporting that we are saved by grace through faith, and not of works.

Ephesians 2:8-9 does not say nor suggest that faith is a gift; the idea is that salvation is
The gift. We are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is a gift and not of works. The pronoun “that” is not in the same gender as faith, so according to Greek grammar, “that” does not point to faith or grace, but to the resultant salvation.

And while it is true that placing ones faith in Christ is a “work” it is not “works” whereby salvation is earned by doing works over time. Jesus makes this distinction between works and the work of believing in Christ, in John 6:29. The meaning of the phrase, “work of God” is not something God does, but rather something God requires, because Jesus is answering the question, what “work” shall we do.

Bottom line, the so-called problems are based on misunderstanding selected verses, rather than anything of merit.

Now the Arminians assert that God’s election unto salvation occurred before the foundation of the world, based on Ephesians 1:4, with God foreseeing individuals who would trust in Christ. But this puts election (whether Calvinist’s unconditional view, or the Arminian conditional election view) before anyone has lived without mercy. And since 1 Peter 2:9-10 puts our election after we live without mercy, our individual election must occur during our physical lives. And this is precisely what James 2:5 says, God chooses the poor of the world, rich in faith, and heirs to the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him. Consider 2 Thessalonians 2:13, which says, we are chosen for salvation through…faith in the truth. The phrase “for salvation” describes the purpose of the choice, and the phrases “through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” describes “how” we were chosen so it is an adverbial clause modifying the verb chose and not the noun “salvation.”

Matthew 13:20-22 provides insight into this faith or trust in Christ; the conviction must be firm, heart-felt, and not rootless such that it is abandoned when difficulties arise. And the faith and devotion to Christ cannot be “half-hearted” with other worldly treasures, either possessions or relationships, sharing a place in our heart’s devotion. We are to love God and our Lord Jesus with all our heart, all our mind and all our understanding. Or as a modern phrase from Texas Hold-em would say, we must go “all in” with all our chips for Christ.

 

Van, I like everything you said here, especially concerning 1 Peter 2;9-10, but I do believe there is scripture that supports the "foreknowledge" view of election, that God could see beforehand who would believe. Several examples are Nathanael;

Jhn 1:47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.
50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.

I believe the statement "Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him" has a double meaning, Jesus of course saw Nathanael physically coming to him, but I believe this also speaks of Nathanael coming to Jesus in faith. Notice that Jesus compliments Nathanael as a true Israelite, see Rom 2:28-29. Note that Nathanael asks Jesus "whence KNOWEST thou ME?", and that Jesus answers that BEFORE Nathanael was CALLED, Jesus SAW him. I believe this is a direct example of God's foreknowledge, he knows in advance who will trust him.

Another example is the prodigal son;

Luk 15:20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

In this story the father represents God the Father, and says that when the prodigal son was YET a great way off, his father SAW HIM. This shows that the Father is watching us to observe who will come in faith.

I can think of other examples as well, God said he knew Jeremiah before he was born.

Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

So, I believe there is scripture to support the foreknowledge view of election.

That said, I agree that we are chosen WHEN we believe, only I think God in his foreknowledge knows this in advance. We cannot understand this, being supernatural.

 

And you prove my point as I give you Biblical based evidence you give me unsubstantiated personal assertions.

 

I do not always agree with Van, but it is completely false that he simply asserts his position. He always shows scripture to support his view which you have not refuted. He has done a MUCH better job of presenting his position than you have.

2 Thes 2:13 indeed shows we are chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit AND BELIEF OF THE TRUTH. This is CONDITIONAL election.

Actually, I find you string together any scripture you can rummage up to support your position, much scripture you use is completely unrelated to the other. You may believe yourself a sound scholar, I don't see it.

 

Now here is a post from a real unbaised person:laugh:

I will say however, that you present and defend your position far better than Van. Van did not deal with the scriptures I gave except by sweeping general assertions - period!

 

You better believe I am biased! I believe what the scriptures say, not some "scholar" who lived 1500 years ago. When Paul says he was alive without the law once, I believe him.

Matthew 22 makes it very clear, we are told the parable of the king who sent out servants to call people to the wedding of his son. These persons (the Jews) made excuse and would not come, so God burned their city (Jerusalem). God sent out his servants again to call every single person they could find (no Limited Atonement). Those that came were received except one man who came without the proper wedding garment representing the righteousness imputed a believer (but this refutes Total Depravity).

In the end Jesus said many are called, but few chosen. Those who are chosen are those who obey when they are called and come in faith.

Both of you guys are mixed up on quite a few points.

 

jeremiah prophecied though that there was coming a FUTURE time , when the Lord would brant them new hearts, write external law of God internally on them, and the NT agrees with this, seeing it as fulfilled when jesus died/rose ascended AND the Coming o fthe Holy spirit at pentacost!

That was NOT under old Covenant times!

 

You fellows don't understand the very thing you are attempting to deny as you confuse one aspect with another.

We preach the gospel to all men and call all men to repentance and faith in Christ. Limited atonement has nothing to do with the gospel call as you falsely conclude.

Limited atonement has to do with final application of the atonement. The gospel is preached to all men as the only way to know the elect is by their reaction to the gospel (2 Cor. 1:15-17; 1 Thes. 1:4-5).

 

Hi Winman, as you can see, anything said that differs from Biblicist's views must come from someone who has no understanding of the Bible. :) His nonsensical posts simple cite random scriptures and then he claims of support of Calvinism where none exists. Then he repeats these assertions and disparages others for dismissing them.

Lets leave the Calvinist's efforts which sidetrack the discussion and focus on the assertion some scripture supports the idea of God's foreknowledge "before creation" of individual election for salvation through faith in the truth. First, I disagree and assert there are no scriptures that say or support such a fiction.

Lets examine the evidence you provided, John 1:47-50.

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus replied, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel!” 50 Jesus said to him, “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” ​

1) I agree that Jesus had searched Nathanael's heart, because of what He said about a lack of deceit. Whether this is indicated by "coming to him" is debatable, but the context requires acceptance that Jesus had searched Nathanael's heart. The statement mirrors Psalm 32:2, thus Jesus is issuing a blessing to Nathanael.

2) Romans 2:28-29 refers to one's heart being set aside for God or the world. Clearly Nathanael was a Jew inwardly, with his heart set apart for God.

3) Nathanael's question, how do you "know" me goes past the idea of how Jesus had physically seen him before, because of Jesus saying something about Nathanael's character.

4) Philip's call to Nathanael, come and see, refers to a physical call to come and see Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Based on the OT, Nathanael was looking for the Messiah, and may in fact have been meditating on the coming Messiah while under the fig tree, but this is conjecture.

5) Yes this is an example of God being able to know a person's thoughts, attitudes, values, and motivations such that future actions given a circumstance can be known with certainty. However this passage does not show knowledge concerning non-existent humans before creation. You have proved "A" and I agree, but you have not proved "B" which is the assertion I disagree with.

As far as the Luke passage, I agree that the Father watches to see who will come to faith, but again this refers to watching existing people, i.e. Psalm 14, and seeing some without faith, i.e. the wicked fools, and some who sought God has a refuge, verses 5 and 6.

In Jeremiah 1:5, again we have an existent human being, and what is said. Before I formed you - lets stop and consider. Before your egg was fertilized, or before the baby took shape over 9 months? Thus before I formed you could mean before you were fully formed. So at conception, the Bible refers to the fertilized egg as the "unformed substance" of our beginning. Now scripture also says God forms our Spirit within us, so at conception God puts our human spirit into us, thus He knows us because He created us. So again we have God's ability to know what we will do because He can cause us to do it, and God can know what we will do after we have thoughts, attitudes, values, and motives.

So what has been demonstrated from scripture? God can know our choices before the circumstance of our choice arises, based on searching our hearts. Also, we agree that God can bring about any circumstance He chooses, thus God could compel us to believe in Christ. However, no evidence has been provided to show God has chosen to predestine our choice to believe.

But we do agree, God does not compel our choice to believe or not, and we do not compel His choice to credit our faith as righteousness, He decides since salvation does not depend on the man that wills or the man that runs, i.e. does works worth of repentance.

 

Returning to Conditional Election, we have several verses that clearly teach we are chosen for salvation through faith in the truth. We have James 2:5 telling us God in choosing us is keeping His promise to those who love Him. We have 1 Peter 2:9-10 teaching we lived without mercy, i.e. people who were by nature children of wrath, before we became a people chosen for His own possession. We have 1 Corinthians 1:26-30 teaching we were chosen not based on being well born, or having a powerful place in the world, or being well educated. All attributes of people existing in the world.

On the other side of the ledger, i.e. verses that teach we were chosen individually not based on God crediting our faith as righteousness, we have zip, nada, nothing. So what is the result, Calvinism claims their view has been proven but dismissed because of bias. Go figure.

 

Hi Biblicist,

1) Then you claim Romans 3:25 is explaining how the OT saints were made perfect before Christ died. Utter nonsense, the verse is completely non-germane.

2) Next you make the nonsensical argument that because the OT saints were indeed saved, that somehow shows they were saved according to your unbiblical view. LOL

3) Then you simply repeat your arguments already shown to be nonsense. No flesh was justified by the works of the Law. No flesh was justified based on the Old Covenant. No one ascended to heaven under the Old Covenant. But the OT saints did obtain approval through faith, and did receive the promises of the New Covenant after Christ died.

4) Next, you claim being set aside through faith means being made perfect, born again in Christ, etc, etc. Nonsense. Under the new covenant we are the circumcision, those set aside in Christ, those who have undergone the circumcision done without hands, the circumcision where our body of flesh is removed.

5) Next a repeat of the denial of Hebrews 11:39-40, the OT saints did not receive the promise, but had to wait until they received it together will us, so the delay was in the past, i.e. between their death, and Christ's future death. This is the period they waited in Abraham's bosom. Thus they died, not having received the promise of being made perfect, Hebrews 11:13.

6) Next you deny that scripture mentions more than one everlasting covenant, such as the rainbow is a symbol of God's everlasting covenant to never destroy the whole earth with flood again.

7) Next you say what Jesus did not tell Nicodemus, as if I had asserted it. No mention of Pentecost, so yet another demonstration of misrepresentation.

8) Regeneration does refer to being born anew in Christ Jesus, not outside of Christ. So it occurs when we are put in Christ by God, not before we are placed in Christ. In Christ we are made alive, quickened and outside of Christ we are spiritually dead. This is not rocket science.

9) It is not all humans "who have sinned" it is all humans have been made sinners by the transgression of the one. Yet another mistaken view, now numbering more than two dozen. ​

 

No, I am not! Romans 3:24-26 describes justification by faith. Look at the first words of Romans 3:24 and then look at the following treatise from Romans 3:27-5:1. If you can't figure it out that he is talking about justification by faith then you are a hopeless case.

Hence, the only being made "perfect" in Romans 3:25-5:1 is POSITIONAL righteousness by faith. Not one word about regeneration or glorification of the body.

Now, the fact that all of Romans 4:1-22 plainly and clearly and explicitly and repeated claim Abraham was justified by faith BEFORE he was circumcised, much less, BEFORE the cross (Rom. 4:9-11) demands that Romans 3:25 refers to the application of justification by faith to Old Testament saints as Paul goes right on to give Abraham as an example of that very thing.

If you can't see this or understand this you can't see or understand anything and need to go back to sunday school and learn the abc's of salvation.

I will not respond to any denial on this because it is pointless to respond to that kind of ignorance.​

 

You are laughing at your own immense ignorance of God's Word. There is no salvation for anyone at anytime OUTSIDE of Christ but only "in" Christ. There is no salvation for anyone at anytime under heaven among men other than the same salvation before the cross as Matthew 7:13-14; John 14:6; Acts 10:43; Acts 26:22-23; Heb. 4:2 all spell out in the clearest language possible just and it is the very same salvation after the cross as Acts 4:12 clearly and explicity states.

Abraham was justified by faith EXACTLY as we are justified by faith as Romans 4:1-25 spells out in the clearest language possible.

Abraham was sanctified by faith EXACTLY as we are sanctified by faith as Hebrews 11 spells out in the clearest language possible.

You are teaching "another gospel" as there is no other gospel preached before or after the cross as Hebrews 4:2 explicitly and literally and clearly says - "For UNTO US was THE GOSPEL PREACHED as well as UNTO THEM.

You are entwined with dispensational igorance.

Tell the readers you believe there is salvation OUTSIDE of Christ for those prior to the cross? Tell them that Abraham was not justified before God by faith BEFORE he was circumcised (Rom. 4:9-11) and tell the readers the gospel was never preached and believed by Abraham as it was to us (Gal. 3:6-8).

The only difference is that the gospel prior to the cross beginning in Gen. 3:15 was summarized and with progressive revelation was expanded with more details until it was fully revealed in the actual life and death of Christ.

 

What falsehoods! The only statment that was correct in the whole paragrah was no flesh was justified by the works of the law. However, the gospel was preached to them before they received the law (Heb. 4:2) and had been preached by Abel, Enoch, Noah and all the prophets before Moses and after Moses (Acts 10:43).

They did receive justification by faith BEFORE the cross and in fact Abraham is said to have been justified by faith BEFORE he was circumcised - Rom. 4:9-11 - and this is irrefutable and I will predict what you will do with it as you do all explicit scripture that utterly condemns your ignorance and that is you will simply dismiss it, ridicule it and ignore and make your silly empty baseless unbiblical assertions.

They did go to heaven upon death and claimed. Solomon said the body went down but the human spirit went UP to God. David said upon death " I will fly away" and that God would never leave him on earth and afterwards RECEIVE HIM INTO GLORY which he immediately defined as "heaven".

David contrasted two places - heaven versus hell - Psa. 139 with no protestant purgatory.


What can you do with these scriptures? Oh yeah, dismiss them, ignore them, and pit other UNCLEAR scriptuers against these very clear statements of Old Testament saints. Do I have to give you the addresses of these scriptures? Probably! But let's see if you know your Bible well enough.

 

Never said any such thing! You don't understand the difference between justification and regeneratior or election and your statements show that. Justification provides the believer the righteousness of God in Christ and thus gives a POSITION of legal perfection "before God."

Being born again provides spiritual union with God in the human spirit (Jn. 3;6).

Glorification provides a body made "perfect" without indwelling sin or the prinicple of corruption - 1 Cor. 15:52-55.

The Old Testament saints were justified by faith - Rom. 4:9-11

The Old Testament saints were sanctified by faith - Heb. 11

The Old Testament saints were circumcised in heart and those who deny it are ignorant according to Jesus - Jn. 3:9

 

Hebrews 13:20 is defined by context and it is a context of blood redemption or can't you read. Nowhere are there plural "everlasting" covenants of Christ's blood redemption. There has never been any other covenant of Christ's blood redemption.

Think! There is no salvation for anyone OUTSIDE of Christ's everlasting covenant of redemption and the covenant provisions where applied to Abraham and all the pre-cross saints "justification" and "sanctification" are both provisions of that covenant and they are applied to the persons of Abraham in Romans 4:1-3, 9-11 and sanctification is applied to all those listed in hebrews 11.

According to your theory they could not have been justified or sanctified by faith prior to the cross and anyone that can read English can easily see they were justified and sanctified and did believe in the gospel of Christ and did "walk by faith" BEFORE the cross.

7) Next you say what Jesus did not tell Nicodemus, as if I had asserted it. No mention of Pentecost, so yet another demonstration of misrepresentation.

8) Regeneration does refer to being born anew in Christ Jesus, not outside of Christ. So it occurs when we are put in Christ by God, not before we are placed in Christ. In Christ we are made alive, quickened and outside of Christ we are spiritually dead. This is not rocket science.

9) It is not all humans "who have sinned" it is all humans have been made sinners by the transgression of the one. Yet another mistaken view, now numbering more than two dozen. [/INDENT][/QUOTE]

 

You misunderstood what I said. Jesus did not tell Nicodemus that a man "SHALL" be born again but must be born again right then. He did not qualify it by a Pentecostal time table or say wait until after the cross or after Pentecost but told him right then and there he needed to be born again.

If you position were correct Jesus was just flapping his lips as Nicodemus could not possibly born again according to your theory. If you theory were correct Jesus was foolish for rebuking him for not understanding the need for new birth. Your position is foolish in so many ways. However, circumcision of the heart was taught and implemented by God from Genesis 3 to John 3.

 

Apparently it is rocket science to you as there are only two kinds of humans on planet earth since Genesis 3 - the unregenerate and regenerate or those who are in spiritual union with God in Christ and those who are spiritually dead or spiritually separated from God in Christ. Either you are "in the flesh" or "in the Spirit" there is no middle ground - Rom. 8:8-9

God does not fellowship with the spiritually dead and all who are not quickened by the Spirit are spiritually dead no matter when they lived.

 

The whole human nature existed in Adam when he sinned. When he acted the whole human nature acted.

He acted as our representative just as Jesus acts as a representative. That is why Jesus is called the "Last Adam." You cannot be called the "Last Adam."

Secondly, you fail to see the repeated statement "by one man's offence many were made" sinners, many died, many were condemned because HE ACTED AS THE REPRESENTATIVE for "many."

Likewise with Christ. Christ on the cross suffered "for many". You did not go to the cross but your representative did.

When Adam sinned we sinned corporately as the human race and the proof is that INFANTS share in the consequences - death. They do not die because of PERSONAL INDIVIDUAL sins but they die becuase of the sin of Adam and they were in Adam when he sinned and sinned with Adam when he sinned as a race.