Yes, and it is lovely. :) Thank Him that He decided to save any of us. I don't see how your verse changes anything. I'm not sure if the Bible is explicit or not, but I always had the impression that God banished satan before He created man. If that's true, then God created hell for satan and friends. That many men would also wind up there does not speak to the original creation of hell. What is your position in the alternative, that God didn't know that men were going to hell until the first lost person wound up there?
Anyway, what you are saying is that God saved the 'elect' before He even created them? Were they in any danger? I mean, to be saved means that you have to be in need of saving, FK. You'd have to be on the road to perdition before you were on the road to perdition if you know what I mean.
I think I know what you mean. Yes, from GOD'S POV I would say the elect are saved before they are created. This speaks to the 100% certainty that His chosen will be saved. It is also identical to say, more from man's POV, that they are predestined "to be" saved. Normally, the elect spend the first part of their lives in the state of being "lost". Then they accept Christ and are "saved". Since this is absolutely guaranteed to happen for the elect, it is just two different ways of saying the same thing. While we spend our time as lost, we are definitely on the road to perdition, and fully in need of a Savior. Only God knows whom He will touch to remedy that situation.
Why not just cut through the chase and call it the way it is in the Reformed theology: God decided to create mankind destined to hell, but decided to 'save' some.
I don't have a problem with that. Every human who was ever born came into the world destined to hell. This much is fully Biblical.
If this is Reformed theology, it has no biblical basis; God did not create man destined to hell in need of saving.
Well, if you are saying that God's "man" experiment didn't turn out the way He planned it originally, then that speaks to your view of God's sovereignty and omnipotence, etc. The Bible says that God created Adam and Eve without sin already in them. The Bible also says that all humans, including the dynamic duo, were in need of saving after the fall. The way you appear to be describing it, it sort of makes God look like a failure in what He did. It was a disaster from the beginning. Reformers say that everything happened exactly as God wanted it.
FK: "At any time during the life of an elect, God will grace that person with saving grace. The result of that grace will always be true faith, 100% of the time."
Oy, vay! Not even the Apostles who walked with our Lord had true faith 100% of the time.
LOL! I can see how you took it that way. :) Just a misunderstanding. What I meant was that with each particular person whom God chose to grace, that person would always come to a saving faith, 100% of the time. Not that the faith would always be perfect, just that every one who was chosen would in fact be saved. I meant that God's success rate was 100%.
First, it is colossal pride and vanity to presume that one sees from God's point of view.
Second, even if one were to admit 'double predestination' as a correct description of God's foreknowledge, the doctine is corrosive of good morals, ascetic discipline, prayer, and all other aspects of the Christian life. To call His foreknowledge, 'predestination' makes God a tyrant, the author of damnation which is, in fact, freely chosen by the damned. To tell people that they are already 'predestined' to salvation or damnation creates fatalism and spiritual sloth.
What you are portraying is a father who consciously decides that, out of his five children, he will feed only one, and let the remaining four live in neglect until they starve to death, and you call him a 'good father.' Why, he is a monster!
The doctrine of double predesitination is not Scriptural, but based upon the theology of Calvin's successors who impied such a conclusion based upon rationalism rather than on faith through Christ.
God doesn't need to create anything that is good for nothingness. Instead, He created some creatures with volition. Creatures with volition have volitional responsibility. When we choose to rebel from Him, we are accountable for that rebellion.
In God's magnificent grace and love, He brilliantly chose to condemn all of mankind before we are saved. Now by believing in Him through faith in Christ, we have salvation from condemnation. This is discernibly distinct while exercising the mind of Christ, from supporting the doctrine of double predestination or thinking God has predestined particular human to the Lake of Fire.
The Lake of Fire was created with respect to the fallen angels and Satan, but is is also a place for things which are PONEROS(evil which is good for nothingness).