Posted on 11/30/2007 12:40:54 PM PST by Alex Murphy
Amen Brother. Anyone who's spent much time leading Bible study groups will definitely appreciate your point.
Good bye, Newbie. Learn some courtesy, will you?
I do hope he'll explain these to me when I pass on. And a few more things....
Two questions come to mind—Judas and Paul. Can you explain why one was damned and another saved?
Can you also explain Romans 9 from your perspective? I have struggled with this chapter for years.
As for Judas; I can't say if he was eternally damned. After all, he did show great remorse for his betrayal. that, I leave in God's hand.
I do not pretend to know the mind of God, but I know his judgment is just and holy.
SEAHAWKFAN: I hear this a lot, but I'd like to see the scriptural support for this claim.
Ephesians 2 might work, but the Baptist John Piper wrote a lovely sermon on the subject (which I'm pinging Alamo-girl to just because I see she's still awake and might like it...
"For through the grace given to me I say to every one among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgement, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith..."
SeaHawkFan, here are some of my favorite Scriptures on the points raised by Dr. Eckleburg:
I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness [come] by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. - Gal 2:21
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. - Ephesians 1:4-6
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. - Romans 8:9
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: - Romans 8:16
Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? ... Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are? Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?" -- Job 38:28-29,35-36"Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
John 1:12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent,[c] nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (NIV)
This seems to make it pretty clear that belief is the key to salvation and becoming a child of God.
Ephesians 1:4-6 is address to believers and thus does not directly relate to a man exercising saving faith in Christ. Certainly, once adopted into the family of God, God does have a plan for our lives.
The Romans verses merely point out that God sends the Holy Spirit to His children to dwell within them. I don’t see how this can be evidence of predestination as to the salvation or condemnation of every individual man.
IOW, it doesn't matter to me that we see things a bit differently in this mortal life. Jesus could have chosen twelve disciples like Peter or James or Paul or John or Thomas - but He didn't. He didn't reveal Himself in the same way to Thomas as He did to Paul, Peter as to John, etc.
Seems to me that God is like a master artist. He doesn't mix all the colors into one on His palette - but uses them all in times and places on a living canvas to create the new heaven and new earth - and most especially, His eternal family - according to His own will.
Or to put it another way, God's Light is the same to all of us. When His Light shines through our mortal lives, the results are colorful, like light shining through a gemstone - e.g. the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21.
Paul's explanation of the different parts of the body of Christ (Romans 12) also speaks to this beauty.
The bottom line is that the words of God are Spiritually discerned:
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. II Cor 2:6-16
I struggle with the question of free will vs. predestination. Since election from the foundation of the world and choosing Christ are both Biblically correct, it's a subject sure to cause headaches. I do not believe God created automatons but I also believe this, especially in regard to believers:
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.~Proverbs 19:21
Election/predestination/etc. is something about which I just have to trust God and believe that His word is True.
In Christ,
marinamuffy
***It is not a better analogy if what Calvinists say is true - that mankind is born totally depraved. Being born with a certain condition (i.e. blindness) is not under our control. Drinking is (unless you think it would be God that caused the person to drink).***
Before I respond to your point, and yes, mankind corporately fell and all men are conceived, not born, depraved, do you deny that men are born fallen?
***Maybe the problem is trying to fit the “story” of God as found in the Bible with the categories of ontology.***
Or, perhaps, men are simply unable to wrap their minds around the notion that God as creator is the first cause of all things, including beings that became evil when he also had the power to create differently and try and resort to all kinds of silly things to try and get God off a hook upon which he doesn’t mind hanging.
***But that old chestnut is still true — if God “foreknows” all things (because God ordains all things for His glory) then where you put your soda can at night (I hope this isn’t just some cheap George Carlin joke in sheep’s clothing) has been known to God from before the foundation of the world, and as such, that fact has been set in stone in the mind and purpose of God’s creative will.***
Sure, but we would have to classify the placement of the can as penultimate at best or simply unimportant. I still stand beside my assertion that such things fall under the realm of men acting with the permission of God. And, I stand beside my assertion that a great deal hangs upon “what do you mean when you say will of decree.”
And, yes, I too hope we are not laboring under something Carlinesque.
Well, men don’t like paradox, such as that Al Mighty God became flesh and dwelt among us, died and was buried and on the Third Day rose.
I understand that verse to mean that the Lord may will me to die, and therefore my plan would be for naught, NOT that the Lord may will for my plan to take a different street, or to leave 5 minutes earlier or later.
Amen, to all you wrote.
No, but what does that really mean? If men cannot choose God or righteousness UNTIL God regenerates them, then how is hell just? (That is one of the things I am struggling with, as you know from my initial post.)
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