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To: Salvation
This "predestination" doctrine gets screwed up by many people, even Calvinists.

It's really not that hard to understand. Read Romans 8:29...

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethern.

The verse tells you whom is "predestined" to be conformed....those whom God knew before hand. If you ask yourself, "who didn't God know before they were born?" you will realize that God knew EVERYONE before they were born, therefore EVERYONE is "predestined" to become children of God.

As it says in John 3:16 "For God so loved THE WORLD..." God loves everyone, not just a select few. God gave every person a chance at a destiny with him, not just a special group. At the final judgement of the damned (as talked about in Revelation) the damned will see that God had provided them a path to him, and they will see all of the opportunities they chose to refuse that path, and they will be justly destroyed in the Lake of Fire (the second death or the death of the soul).

The other way makes no sense. If only certain people are chosen by God before they are born to be with him forever, then what kind of God creates people who will suffer on earth, die, then be destroyed basically because God didn't choose them? That's not justice. That's evil and God is not evil.
4 posted on 08/10/2013 10:59:22 AM PDT by ScubieNuc (When there is no justice in the laws, justice is left to the outlaws.)
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To: ScubieNuc; Salvation

“The verse tells you whom is “predestined” to be conformed....those whom God knew before hand. If you ask yourself, “who didn’t God know before they were born?” you will realize that God knew EVERYONE before they were born, therefore EVERYONE is “predestined” to become children of God. “


Ye know not the scriptures, which declare that Christ knows His Sheep, but doesn’t know the reprobate. “My sheep hear my voice,” saith Christ, “and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand”(Joh 10:27-28). On the other hand, to the reprobate, Christ declares, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Mat 7:23).

This does not refer to His omniscience, but His knowledge in particular of who is and is not given to Him, which is in no way universal, nor does it have anything to do with man giving himself to the Son. It is the Father that gives, and all those whom the Father gives come to the Son.

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). So we see that none of the elect are ever lost or fail to come, since all those who are given by the Father do come to the Son infallibly. God does not merely ask and persuade, but actively “put[s] [His] law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be [His] people,” and again, God says, “I will... cause you to walk in my statutes” (Jer 31:33, Ezekiel 36:27, Hebrews 8:10, 10:16).

Christ constantly tells them that they do not believe, because it was not given to them to believe. To the Pharisees He says, “ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep,” and then He adds, “as I said unto you” (John 10:26). Earlier He had told them that the sheep hear His voice, and He knows them. They are not here removed from Sheephood because they refused to believe, but because they were never sheep at all. To other unbelievers He says:

“But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” (Joh 6:64-65)

If all receive it from the Father to believe in the Son, then it should have been said “My Father gave it to you to believe, but you refused His fair offer.” Or, at best, “I foreknew you would not receive what my Father gave you.” But instead Christ tells them, as an explanation for their unbelief, “no man can come unto me, except it were given... [by] my Father.” Plainly Christ here declares that it is given to some to believe, but not all.

And in still another place, Christ begins to pray for some, but not for all, saying “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine”(Joh 17:9). Now Christ could not have prayed only for those given to Him if the whole world was given to Him. His prayer should have been for the whole world, rather than just for those given to Him out of the world.

And in the very next verse of Romans that you quoted, it declares, (proving the falsehood of Salvation’s OP which declares an “incomplete” and a “complete” predestination,) that all predestination is complete. “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Rom 8:30).

I’m sure there are many people who are in hell, who had either been removed from Judea in ancient times by thousands of miles, or who today live in various parts of the world who had never so much as even heard of any Gospel, who will be surprised to hear that they were called, justified and glorified.

In the very next chapter of Romans, Paul distinguishes even further from the “children of the flesh,” and the “children of promise.” Such a distinction in itself proves that not all are promised. He also removes any sense of the idea that salvation is based on conditions, rather than on the gratuitous choice of God to save one man, and not another.

“That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed... but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” (Rom 9:8-13)

Now Paul uses this to explain the nature of God’s election, that it is not based on the righteousness of the elect, but on the purely free mercy of God for one child over another. As he says himself, “not of works, but of Him that calleth,” proving that salvation belongs utterly to God’s selective call. This is the whole point of this passage, to show the gratuitous and sovereign choice of God, and that it is this choice which determines salvation. But if what you say is true, Paul should have written “not of works, but on him who believeth.” But lest you still beat your chest and say that faith is not ruled out as a condition for election, a little further Paul says “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Rom 9:16). What is willing if not to believing? And what is running if not works of righteousness? But, again, if what you say is true, it should have said “it is not of God who runneth, or God who willeth, but of him that believeth.” And immediately responding to the inevitable complaint, “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?” since the inevitable logic is that those whom God does not choose are left out. Paul, instead of correcting his misapprehension, confirms the truth of election and attacks the unbeliever for his impertinence, saying, “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?” (Rom 9:19-20).

Now as for the will. Not even Augustine, who was the champion of what you would call “Calvinist” doctrine, did away with the will. After all, those whom the Father gives to the Son, come to the Son with faith. And those who are not given to the Son, are left in their wretched and depraved state. Being dead in their sins, they are not held off by God as if they tried very hard to believe but couldn’t. They simply do not want to believe, of their own choice and will.


5 posted on 08/10/2013 4:15:33 PM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans
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