[P-Marlowe]

PM, can you provide even one scripture reference that clearly says that? - I mean clearly like Acts 13:48 says that a certain number of them were ordained to believe, rather than chose to.

You are unecessarily making a distinction between a person who "chooses" to accept the call of the holy spirit and one who is "ordained" to salvation. If you follow the commandment of the Lord and choose to believe and receive, then God will sanctify and ordain you to salvation. In our minds it would appear that the ordination followed our acceptance of Jesus, but in reality, since God knew this was going to happen before the foundation of the earth, God sanctified your choice and ordained you to salvation based upon his foreknowledge. Jesus said that whosoever comes to him he will in no wise cast out. Now it is true that the Father gives them to him, but it does not follow that God does not honor our choices and ordain us according to his foreknowledge. If he didn't want us to be saved, he could always kill us off before we are "destined" to accept him, but he doesn't do that. No, he sees the choices we make now and he sees them from the foundation of the earth and if he wants us to be saved then he ordained us from the foundation of the earth.

Your picture of God seems to me to limit Him to time, but He is not limited to time. He exists everywhere both in time and in space. He is in the past, he is in the present and he is in the future. He is the one "who is, who was, and who is to come." God knows the number of those who will believe. God has ordained them to eternal life based upon both his foreknowledge and the good pleasure of his will. Calvinists seem to me to limit his ordination of belivers based solely on "the good pleasure of his will." They are only half right.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

You are unecessarily making a distinction between a person who "chooses" to accept the call of the holy spirit and one who is "ordained" to salvation. If you follow the commandment of the Lord and choose to believe and receive, then God will sanctify and ordain you to salvation.

Editor makes no such distinction. Those whom God has ordained to Salvation -- those and those only, of course -- are those who choose, by God's Grace, to accept the Gospel call.

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. (Acts 13:48)

In our minds it would appear that the ordination followed our acceptance of Jesus, but in reality, since God knew this was going to happen before the foundation of the earth, God sanctified your choice and ordained you to salvation based upon his foreknowledge. Jesus said that whosoever comes to him he will in no wise cast out. Now it is true that the Father gives them to him, but it does not follow that God does not honor our choices and ordain us according to his foreknowledge. If he didn't want us to be saved, he could always kill us off before we are "destined" to accept him, but he doesn't do that. No, he sees the choices we make now and he sees them from the foundation of the earth and if he wants us to be saved then he ordained us from the foundation of the earth. Your picture of God seems to me to limit Him to time, but He is not limited to time. He exists everywhere both in time and in space. He is in the past, he is in the present and he is in the future. He is the one "who is, who was, and who is to come." God knows the number of those who will believe. God has ordained them to eternal life based upon both his foreknowledge and the good pleasure of his will. Calvinists seem to me to limit his ordination of belivers based solely on "the good pleasure of his will." They are only half right.

Your picture of God heretically limits Him to only one creationally-possible Universe-Timestream... this one, the one which He actually ordained to Create.

But the God of the Bible is sovereign over all possible Universe-Timestreams.

Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

The Tyrians, the Sidonians, and the Sodomites are all Creatures whose existence and cosmological conditions within any potential Universe-Timestream are wholly dependent, subsequent, and conditional upon God the Father's antecedent, precedent, and sovereign Election as to whether or not to create them at all, and under what Gratuitous conditions to create them.

Thus, both the Tyrian/Sidonian/Sodomite choice NOT TO REPENT, and the Tyrian/Sidonian/Sodomite choice TO REPENT are/were/have-been EQUALLY FOREKNOWN to the Omniscience of God alone in Eternity. And, given that the choice-actions of any Creature are NECESSARILY wholly dependent, subsequent, and conditional upon the Father's antecedent, precedent, and sovereign Election as to whether or not to create them at all, and under what Gratuitous conditions to create them, the PREDETERMINING ESTABLISHMENT of whether or not their equally-foreknown choice to Repent, or to Not Repent, would be granted Actuality in Existence, is/was/has-been solely determined before Creation by the Sovereign Election of the Father Alone.

Their Choice to Repent was fully foreknown (given one possible Creative Election).
Their Choice to NOT Repent was fully foreknown (given another possible Creative Election).

Both Foreknown Universe-Timestreams being freely available to His Creative Omnipotence, therefore, God CHOSE to create the Latter foreknown Universe-Timestream, in which they would choose NOT to Repent, and be damned to Hell.

Even so, for it seemed Good in His Sight.

Will any man date to say that God did not foreknow those to whom He would give to believe, or whom He would give to His Son, that of them He should lose none? And certainly, if He foreknew these things, He as certainly foreknew His own kindnesses, wherewith He condescends to deliver us. This is the predestination of the saints,--nothing else; to wit, the foreknowledge and the preparation of God's kindnesses, whereby they are most certainly delivered, whoever they are that are delivered. But where are the rest left by the righteous divine judgment except in the mass of ruin, where the Tyrians and the Sidonians were left? who, moreover, might have believed if they had seen Christ's wonderful miracles. But since it was not given to them to believe, the means of believing also were denied them. -- Saint Augustine