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2 Cor 4:6 - For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2 Thess 2:13 But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, BECAUSE God from the beginning CHOSE you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He CALLED you by our gospel

2 Tim 1:8-9

BTW, You forgot to go onto vs 13 "who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

You receive, because God in his electing love, worked it in your FIRST. Just like when Jesus gave the invitation, come unto me all ye that are heavy laden...and I will give you rest...that call goes out to all, but only those whom God's Spirit has effectually worked in and granted repentence and faith to will respond. But unless you understand man's condition, you won't see that. You will continue to think there is something within us that enables us to move toward Christ (with a little help from the Spirit. wooing us) but, there isn't. Its all of God, so he gets ALL the glory.

John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
This verse says that man receives before God gives them power.

I ~think ~we are running ahead of the institutes and not letting Calvin develop his theology..I believe it will be better to take each part or else we will never work it through in a academic way ..Did you want to look at it systematically?

BTW I believe Calvin did not emphasize the limited atonement

One thought on John1..and your comment. Notice he did not give the power equally to be saved to everyone....but only to those that "received" Him.Jesus said you must be born again to see the kingdom..you can not receive what you can not see or comprehend..

We would say that John 1:12 is a fine calvinist verse:>)

Did you want to stay on topic?

This raises an interesting question. Did the Old Testament saints have the same adoption experience which we experience? A good case can be made that they did not.

But they were regenerate. 1 Corinthians 2:14 proves that.

My point is that regeneration and the experience of adoption are not the same thing. Regeneration is secretive. The Spirit crying "Abba, Father" is not.

If John is actually making a peculiarly dispensational point associated with the First ADVENT of the Messiah, then it is not contradicting the Calvinistic Order and Causes of Salvation at all. In other words, John is not necessarily talking about regeneration, but about Christian conversion</b and the Christian experience of adoption.

This is the way I have always read the text, anyway. It works for me. This is because I read the first chapter of John as presenting what is NEW as a result of Christ's appearance among the people of God.