The poster to whom I have been responding tells me that God compels us to love Him. That's not love, that's not wooing, that's puppeteering. To assert that God forces us to be saved or not saved does violence to the Great Grace of God in Christ's sacrificing Himself for us. If man has no choice but to accept or reject the Gift, then it is no gift, it is but an act in a game played with automatons. THAT is not the God of the Bible nor the Plan of Salvation as God has shown it to us.
Let's not shift to 'the glory' just yet. To God is The Glory for He calleth us. Faithful is He that calleth us for He will also do it. Do what? Save us, seal us with His Spirit, sanctify us as we submit our will to His transforming Spirit within ('let God be God in you').
Except God's Spirit call to our spirit we are not able to 'hear with spiritual ears' (It is a God instigated/orchestrated moment of 'resonance' when God pricks the thing in Man that He, God, put there --the spirit of man-- to have direct contact with Him. John 3:8 the Spirit where he willeth doth blow, and his voice thou dost hear, but thou hast not known whence he cometh, and whither he goeth; thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit.’ Young's Literal Translation)
Who is due the glory for His Grace? Why of course ONLY GOD is due the glory for His astonishing Grace. If man has no choice, why would God repeat this wooing, in deed why even do it a first time? The Calvinism I see operating today has become a vehicle to remove man from having any responsibility for his accepting or rejecting The Grace of God in Christ, and by this (thus) man rejects the responsibility he has in his own destruction. But without Christ in him, the Hope of Glory, that man is doomed to destruction. It is similar to the great trick of satan to persuade men that he, satan, does not exist. But of course he does exist!
This drives me 'toward' Armenianism. But I did not want to sidetrack this thread with discussions of the isms with the accumulated baggage of generations of philosophical discussion therein, because the process of seeing with spiritual eyes requires no more than to listen to the still small voice, believe that ONLY God can perform a spiritual miracle of New Birth, be born from above, so the Character of God is discerned in the Word He has given to us.
If God forces us to love Him, it is not love, for we read that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And what does the Word say further? ... That whomsoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have everlasting Life. In Modern Calvinism, whomsoever becomes only the chosen to believe and thus it is not an act of Love God performed on The Cross but merely a scene in a play, a game of lead soldiers maneuvered upon a game-board. Without the freedom to choose, the election is nothing but stagecraft. God forbid that we allow such a degeneration of His astonishing Gift of The Grace of God in Christ.
To remove the truth that man has been given a responsibility to accept or reject so Great Salvation (thus assuming it is all predestined to happen or not) is to cheapen the Greatest Act of a Loving God, Who is Absolute Sovereign over all His creation, and Who in His great Mercy has provided a way, THE way to be transformed back into what God first created humankind to be but was lost in Adam when Adam chose to defy God. If Adam had no choice but to sin then we are of men most miserable because we have believed God and believed that 'faithing' is counted for us righteousness. This is a righteousness we cannot achieve of our fleshly pursuits, but which we have been told by God through His Word and His prophets is the means by which He counts Christ's righteousness on our account.
That God can see the end from the beginning is not in question. That seeing, God is then solely responsible for what He sees is what is at issue. It removes any responsibility from man and cheapens Christ Crucified for us to stagecraft, God showing off His power with an act of horrific pain and suffering to achieve what He has already predestined, pre-arranged to be accept or rejected by each and every individual, thus every human remains in the rut of life God has preordained, some to eternal damnation/separation from God, some to Life eternal with The Creator of all.
Am I going to take credit and the glory for having chosen Christ? God forbid! To God be all the glory for first He loved us! Now let me ask you a question: In giving man a sovereignty over choice to accept or reject His Gift, has God given up any of His Sovereignty? ... I won't wait for a posting such as I received from the poster to whom I've been responding, lengthy passages from someone else's thoughts. The answer is NO, God gives up none of His sovereignty when he creates man to have responsibility to accept or reject Hid Grace. And this responsibility is indeed a sovereignty of man, for it is ultimately the working of Love. God teaches us that in loving others we are built up, not diminished. But we also note that in loving others, do we thereby force them to love us back? Well, that's not love is it!
That's not what Jesus said.
Mark 3:28 "Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin "--
Matthew 12:31 "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
Blasphemy is NOT simply refusing to heed the call. I'm not sure why you would change the words of Jesus to somehow fit this conversation.
>>To assert that God forces us to be saved or not saved does violence to the Great Grace of God in Christ's sacrificing Himself for us.<<
Proverbs 16:4 The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil.
Romans 9:10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. 19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? 22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—
All that typing you did but God still says it's His call.
I was brought up in a God fearing family. Who gets credit for that? It was God who determined that I would be born to God fearing parents rather than Muslims or atheists.
Like I said. Are you going to take the credit and the glory for having chosen Christ or is that credit and glory due God alone?
You chose Christ but another refused the message. Does that make you smarter than he is? Are you wiser than he is?
\ My phrase is always: "but for the grace of God there go I". God gets the credit and the glory. Never man lest he should boast.
Makes sense to me...
Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Why would that grace be available to all men if it is just meant for some...
1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
That one's kinda hard to dispute...
2Ti 4:17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
No need for all the Gentiles to hear the preaching...
As I see it as far as this predestination thing is concerned; there are always exception to the rule but I believe it was the church that was predestinated, not the individual...