It’s not that it’s not good enough, it’s that it doesn’t answer my question.
I asked what is the purpose, and to what end.
I did not ask why. I’m well aware that we’re commanded to.
By your taking the position that we are preordained and make no choice in the matter, then it likewise makes no sense to command us to spread the gospel. The same number of people will be saved whether we leave the house or not, regardless of the life we live - unless all of that is preordained also.
If all of this is preordained, then Jesus died for nothing, because we would’ve gone to heaven anyway (those of us that were picked that is).
I agree that you can read the scripture that way, but reading it that way causes problems.
The reason relates back to a fundamental doctrine studying SUFFERING.
Some suffering is induced as discipline, some as punishment, some as providential testing. The testing is performed to further strengthen our souls with sanctified thinking. Our successes in those tests also merit eternal rewards at the bema seat. So their consequences may have eternal impact.
Somebody who endures suffering prior to the first death by remaining in fellowship with God also have additional crowns awaiting them in heaven.
“By your taking the position that we are preordained and make no choice in the matter, then it likewise makes no sense to command us to spread the gospel. “
How do you come to that conclusion? Look at the Gentiles who heard the preaching of the Apostles:
Act_13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
They HEARD the Word of God, and as a result of HEARING they believed “as many as were ordained.” They were ordained to salvation, yet they heard the call in the PREACHING of the Gospel.
No one is saved by election. Election is simply God’s plan, predestinated before the foundation of the world, of how we WOULD be called, and WOULD be justified and WOULD be glorified. But we are not “justified” in eternity, we are merely elected from eternity. We are not “called” from eternity, we are KNOWN from eternity. Therefore justification occurs in time, but God’s plan for us occurs in eternity. It was God’s plan that Jeremiah, for example, would serve Him and be His prophet BEFORE the foundation of the world:
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.
It was God’s plan that Paul would be CALLED on the road to Damascus, a decision made before the foundation of the world, before He was in the womb:
Gal 1:15-16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, (16) To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
It is GOD who draws each of us, in His own good time, using His own methods and instruments, to salvation:
Joh_6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
But you say, “I don’t get it! Why bother doing anything?” The question is an absurd one. If you yourself don’t “do anything,” nor feel the least bit concern for the damned or the commandments of God, it is more likely that you “do nothing” because you are a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction:
Rom 9:16-24 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. (17) For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. (18) Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. (19) Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? (20) Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? (21) Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? (22) What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: (23) And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, (24) Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
“I agree that you can read the scripture that way, but reading it that way causes problems.”
Problems for you, but not, eventually, for the elect, and certainly not for God.
It is true, that all whom God calls WILL come:
Joh_6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
So, you COULD stay inside all day, and never do anything, and God’s plans will not be thwarted.
But you yourself (if you did nothing), I would have to say, are likely damned, and have no place in God’s plan except to be hardened, like Pharaoh, and serve as a sad example of the fate of man without God.