Posted on 01/21/2005 6:34:28 AM PST by P-Marlowe
So God stands around and waits to see who "accepts or rejects" Him? Man must act first, then the Creator responds to the creature?
If God doesn't want the eventual outcome, re: saved and unsaved, He could at any time change the circumstances that have brought one to faith and another to damnation.
Unless He's just playing games.
You, x, are American, white, healthy, robust, intelligent, loved and saved.
The sick and faithless reprobate in Calcutta who was orphaned at the age of three and put out onto the streets to sell his body for food and now lays dying of AIDS, unloved, unsaved and unconscious, has chosen by his own free will to deny Christ and was JUST as capable and enabled by God as you were to "choose" correctly???
No, none whom the Father has given to the Son can be lost. The dying of Calcutta and Cleveland and Cologne will be saved exactly like you have been saved -- by the grace of God alone, ordained by Him from before the foundation of the world, according to His good pleasure alone.
The Lord does not sit and wait, because the Lord is omniscient, absolutely foreknowing from eternity all that ever will be.
Therefore, the rest of your post is built upon a false premise, and that is, that God does not possess absolute foreknowledge.
God foresees free creatures.
That sentence is self-contradictory and ultimately makes no sense.
It's like saying we're free in shackles or we're fed by hunger.
Whatever God foresees, He has ordained. Or else it would be otherwise.
That's part of the perks that comes with being God.
Sorry X, I don't see the various positions at all. The scriptures in John 6 do not say "The Father gives all who chooses the Son to the Son". (Doesn't that sound the least bit silly?)
There are some very black and white scriptures in John and only one interpretation if you're willing to accept it. It is supported in John ? where Jesus said, "You did not choose me but I chose you." and in Acts 13 and other places. If you don't accept it you either have to ignore those verses like I did or you have to invent some crazy reasoning to support your theology. I've never invented crazy reasoning.
***then "eis aphesin hamartion" is translated as "because of the remission of sins" in Matthew 26:28.
This would mean Christ said he shed His blood because we were already forgiven, which I know you will deny wholeheartedly.***
Ok, so I presume that you deny that David, for instance, required the shed blood of his Lord to have true remission of sins. Your statements in the past about different covenants and there being only one gospel for TODAY and your statements about baptism all seem to suggest that you believe that over the course of Redemptive history there have been different ways to heaven, even if there is only one today.
I say this because those of us who RIGHTLY believe that throughout Redemptive history, beginning with Adam and moving to the last elect soul, there has only been one way of salvation and only one means of Atoning and remitting one's sin would not have any problem with the idea that Christ "shed His blood BECAUSE we were already forgiven." In fact, Scriptures emphatically declare that we were actually saved BEFORE time began. I believe the exact wording of the Scripture is this: "who has SAVED us... according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior...." (there are more verses like this one, BTW)
The shedding of the blood of my Lord was merely the revelation of the salvation which had been given to me before God had spoken the very first word of creation. So, to be honest, I have no problem believing that Christ's blood was shed because I was already forgiven. Christ was the appearing of the promise of salvation and the actual sacrificial representative of the punishment of my sin. Christ died on account of an election given by the Father to Atone for the sin of His chosen people.
BTW, I notice that you didn't properly render the words of Matthew 26:28. It properly reads in my translation and all of the translations which I checked: "For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for MANY for the remission of sins." Now, the part I noticed that you have conveniently left out is the word many. I notice this a great deal listening to Arminian sermons. They often leave out a word or phrase or gloss over those nasty little passages which teach contrary to their universal and man centered doctrines. I do wonder if this was merely an oversight on your part or if you really do have a hard time understanding that Christ didn't shed his blood for every man on earth indiscriminately, but particularly for certain people.
Also, the idea of an event happening because of something, in this case because of or on account of the remission of our sins, is not new. In fact, here is an interesting verse from Romans which gives the same idea about Christ's death, burial, & resurrection:
Romans 4:25 "[The Lord Jesus] was delivered up BECAUSE of our offenses, and raised BECAUSE of our justification."
I'm not really sure just how this idea you gave for Acts 2:38 and Matthew 26:28 is suppose to in any way harm our Reformed position. The Lord Jesus was delivered up BECAUSE of the offenses of God's people, His elect, for the specific purpose of providing a means of remitting THEIR, and only their, sins. The Father had already purposed to forgive them. We are the vessels of mercy and we needed a means of remitting our sin because of the righteous requirement of God. According to the Law our sins are purged with blood and without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin. The Lord's blood was required BECAUSE of our offenses to secure that remission.
Now, I'm not an expert in Greek anymore than the rest posting on this forum are experts in Greek so I can't comment on the proper translation of any word or phrase. If someone is an actual expert, I would be interested to see their comments about the verses. I do know this: Even were we to have a perfect translation from the Autographs, a translation which we don't have, we still must answer the question "what does it all mean?" And, I have absolutely no problem with these ideas as answers to that question:
Christ was delivered BECAUSE of the offenses of God's people.
Christ's blood was shed BECAUSE of the forgiveness of God's people.
Christ was raised BECAUSE of the justification of God's people.
Here is another little problem for you with regards to the Matthew verse you cited. The Lord had already declared the disciples clean without any ceremonial washing or any kind of old covenant animal sacrificial system or any of what you refer to a baptism under the New Covenant. It was nothing more than the word which the Lord preached to his disciples. See John 15:3. The disciples were also already in possession of everlasting life and already removed from the judgment of the world to come. See John 3:36, 5:24, 6:47, etc. Now, those of us who truly believe in Biblical election have no problem understanding all of these things in context. The Lord's blood was required for the remission of their sins, but they were already enjoying and in full possession of everlasting life with the certainty that they would not come into judgment.
In the service of the Lord,
Christian.
***For example, compare again these two statements:
Me: "One is born in the Spirit by choosing to trust in God after He has extended His initiative." (post #875)
You quoting me: "One is born in the Spirit by choosing to trust in God"
Dr. Eckleburg: "According to Buggman, man is saved by his own choice to trust God."
Do you not see where you chopped off an important part of my sentence in order to change its meaning?***
I sure don't. But, then, I'm no longer Arminian and I don't think like one anymore so I don't know what is so problematic for an Arminian with the assertion that "man is saved by his own choice to trust God."
But, then, I took another Arminian's statement as true when he said the million was deposited in my account when it was clear that the Arminian would need several mulligans to properly explain his analogy after I made it look like swiss cheese.
Scratching head,
Christian.
How much would you give me for me to get xzins (and the other Arminians) to, AGAIN, argue against the classical Arminian position of Predestination and, AGAIN, argue the Middle Knowledge position of Molinia without ever realizing that he was arguing against Arminianism?
;^)
Christian.
Makes perfect sense to me. We're discussing HOW the appointing is done.
That IS the sticking point, isn't it? You say that God appoints (Elects) based on foreseen actions of those He Elects, and fail to realize that if that is so, then God is rewarding that man for "right behavior", making Election "wages" for services performed. That makes God a respecter of persons, something which the Bible emphatically states he is NOT. A respecter of persons is someone whose regard for them is based on what they do. Biblical Election is based on His choosing them without regard to their actions, but only the choice of the One Electing, which is God. That is not respecting persons, but God exercising His sovereign choice according to His Will, not the will of man. Therefore, His Election CANNOT be based on foreseen actions.
You base this idea on the word "foreknew", which is a reference to His special love for them. God knows every person who ever lived, so Foreknew is not knowledge of who they are or what they do (all of which He knows in minute detail), it is intimate knowing, as a man knows his wife, and a wife knows her husband; it is the love of a bride and bridegroom. Jesus said He would tell many, "I never knew you". "Knew" in this sense cannot mean who they are, or what they did, because we already know that God knows those things completely. What Jesus is telling them is that He never had intimate fellowship with them. They never really knew Him, and He didn't know them in an intimate sense, because their hearts were not united with His.
The Bible illustrates Particular Election all the way through. Israel was chosen out of all the tribes and nations of the earth. Only Israel. God did not choose the rest. He left them to die in their sins. The Church are God's chosen as well. The Church is not everyone, but only those chosen by Him, who are joined to the Church by faith in Christ, and the true communion of the saints with their Lord and Savior.
You still have a "shake and bake" theology: "Jesus saved me, and I helped!"
You say that God appoints based on some decree.
We say that God appoints based on His foreknowledge.
Our position is more supportable scripturally AND it preserves the biblical viewpoint that God is Love and that he "loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son."
If God just picked them out randomly before time, then why bother having Jesus die?
At least we can answer that one, too. "God was IN CHRIST reconciling the world to Himself."
And just for the record, I don't believe I've ever said that God appoints based on some decree. I have said repeatedly that God chose the Elect based on something within Himself, which He has not chosen to reveal. If He had, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The issue is not the word foreknowledge, it is the definition of the word. Your definition is logically reduced to God rewarding men for right behavior. This is unbiblical. Romans 9 applies, whether you believe it refers to individuals or to nations. Nations are made up of people, so ultimately it IS individuals. God has Elected for His own reasons, and those of us (and I include you) who are recipients of that Election can only fall on our faces in awe and reverence before Him, because we know, each one of us, that we didn't and couldn't do anything to deserve His favor.
And to truly believe that puts a stake in the heart of your 'foreknowledge is of foreseen faith' idea. You cannot consistently say that you know you don't deserve His Grace, and at the same time believe that Election unto Salvation is based on your actions which He foresaw and foreknew. They are mutually exclusive beliefs.
"One is born in the spirit (saved) by choosing to trust in God (man making a choice to believe) after He has extended His initiative (whatever that is)?
Short answer: Yes that's accurate, if incomplete.
Longer, more complete answer (per post #933):
Salvation is God's gift. Man cannot earn it, he cannot work for it, he could not have obtained it for himself, nor can he make an end-run around around his need for it by claiming that he really doesn't, for all alike have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.However, God having taken the initiative to offer this salvation to him (both on a global and individual scale), Man has a choice to either accept it by trusting God's provision or to condemn himself by rejecting God's loving offer. Trusting God's provision is not a work in the sense that your side has tried to define it, nor can the man who trusts God's provision in Jesus Christ boast of it any more than a man who chooses to trust a person with a branch to pull him out of the quicksand and take hold of it boast that he rescued himself.
Even if that were the case (random selection), those He chose would still need a Savior. Even a randomly chosen sinner is still a sinner in need of redemption to save him from damnation.
Your statement does not advance your argument, or reduce mine.
Because that assertion implies that Arminian believes that the choice has some magical power to save apart from the God who won salvation on the Cross and offered it to us. It's the construction of a strawman, which, since you seem unaware of what you are doing,
is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:When you're ready to stop attacking position Y and start dealing with position X, let me know. Until then, you go on your way and enjoy your conceited, "I'm no longer Arminian and I don't think like one anymore" load of crap. I'm going to go back to discussing the issue with the more mature Christians.1. Person A has position X.This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
Gee, you make me realize how much I didn't miss you. Did you come back just to be snotty?
'Cause if you did, you're doin' a fine job.
And for the record, I lobbied for you to come back as well.
You're welcome.
No one is placing faith in the choice,they are placing their faith in the object of their choice, the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ
No, not really,an honest man would deal with the analogy as given and not pretend that it was saying something it wasn't.
But, I made an error in thinking that you would engage in an honest discussion.
It is an error I will not make again.
By their fruits will you know them!
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