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[twohumble]

Carol, you mentioned chapter 9 in Romans, and you seemed to state a case for predestination, but then implied that Pharoh hardened his heart first. Which do you believe, and why? I am asking for a clerification.

Thanks

[carol_au]

Too humble,

sorry missed this post, though I've been looking for it. Give me a couple of hours and I'll post my reply for you.

Carol_au

[carol_au]

Hi again,

For the sake of those who don't know the meaning behind this question.. predestination and election is a doctrine that God chooses some to become believers and the non elect are those who never will become believers, because God has not chosen them. Ephesians 1 is the place where this doctrine is particularly discussed.

What do I believe in relation to this.. well Naaji is right in this regard, there are some doctrines that christians are not agreed on because it does depend on how you interpret the Bible and great Christians through the ages have disputed this one, however, my own feeling is that God is Soverign, yet we have free will. In His foreknowledge He knows who will respond to Him and who won't.

Now why is there a both side to this question... look at the theological problems in Romans 9:19 as stated by Paul "You will say to me then, why do you still find fault? For who resists his will? " How can man be responsible for his own sin and disbelief if it is all dependent on God?

If God chose to create two types of people, the elect and the reprobate and then programs them to respond to the nature they have been created with... a nature without allowing independent choice, the utltimate blame and cause for sin and failure to repent would lie with God and this is clearly not the Message of the Bible as a whole.

Scripture asserts "Thou art not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with Thee " Psalm 5:4

James 1:13 -14 states the same thing Isaiah 45:7 states that God has created a moral universe in which punishment follows wrong doing. The word used is ra which covers the whole range of "badness" from distressing calamaties to moral evil. Always though, there is the opposite light and darkness.

God created man and angels to enjoy him forever.. to do this demands voluntary choice. There can be no possiblity of real love without the possiblity of real hate and rejection. Without the freedom of choice, there is no morality and no love, but only automated mechanical response.

We should ask... if it was all of God.. then why does Satan exist? Why did he approach eve? Why not make Adam and Eve so completely good, they couldnot yield to temptation?

Jesus in the Garden on the night he was betrayed showed the agony of choice.. the knowledge of what total obedience to the will of God would cost him. Yet, His words "not my will but thine be done". Jesus who was totally man when he died on the cross had choice of obedience. He had to be tempted in every way as we were, yet was without sin... the only way to provide our atonement.

Man is totally and utterly responsible for his own moral choices and for the consequences of those choices with God as the yardstick of Holiness.

On the other hand, scripture asserts that Salvation is completely provided for by God alone. Our good deeds will never lead us to salvation and forgiveness no matter how sincere we may think we are being. One step outside of the moral code leaves us guilty before the holy God, regardless of how many good deeds we do. Eph 2:8-9 and Titus 3:5

Nothing we can offer God.. be it character, service, obedience contributes anything to our salvation. John 1:12 and Romans 10:9 -10 show this. Good works follow our salvation as a response to it.. not as a means to it James 2:26, Colossians 3:1-4)

The entire work of bringing someone to repentance is totally God's work (Romans 8:10,11, 14) Even the ability to respond to God ...ie our faith, is a gift from God Ephesians 2:9

God has chosen His redeemed from all eternity.. before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4) He did not have to wait and see for He knows all things and knows what each one's response to the Gospel will be. These so called chosen ones are revealed and become part of the bride of christ John 17:6) that Jesus Christ will present to God

God's call is to all people's everywhere " Acts 17:30 -31 states "Now he commands all people everywhere to repent" yet... faced with the same command some repent and some do not. For some it is clear and easy to see the call of God through Christ on their lives, others will never accept it... or the free gift of the knowledge of salvation that is offered to everyone. John 6:37 states that "all the Father gives the Son shall come to Him and will be in no way cast out". Furthur more John 6:44 states that "No one can come to the Son, unless the Father draws Him"

It is God who calls
It is God who provides for our Salvation
It is God who draws us to Himself
We respond because God Himself gives us the ability to respond.

God is not willing that any should perish but all come to repentance ( 2peter 3:9)

The character of God demands that we are responsible for our own sin and the choice we make to not accept His provision for the consequences of our sin.

The Omniscience of God knows those who wil respond

The love of God calls and draws those to Himself and provides them with the sacrifice of Christ to provide the punishment for those sins as demanded by the holiness and justice of God

The ability to respond comes from God..

Yet God still says

"So choose life that you may live" (Duet 30:19)

Too Humble, my previous argument was that Pharoh hardened his own heart and then God hardened Pharoh's heart and used Pharoh for His own glory. The end result was the glory of God and God knew that Pharoh would harden his heart against God.

I hope this answers some of your question at least. I have a busy weekend a head, so may not have time to write during it, but will continue this if you like on Monday if not before

Thanks and again sorry it took so long to find this mail. I was looking for it in the wrong forum

Carol_au

[twohumble]

Thank you for the thorough response.

You have brought up a few vs's that I would like to discuss.

2Peter 3:9- "...none should perish...."- If it is truly Gods will that none should perish, then why do some men perish? God ALWAYS gets His will.
May I offer this explanation: Peter was directing this letter to a group of believers, it was the church or Body of Christ not "all men of the world" but the "you" was "believers". It is the doctrine of eternal security.

John 6:44- In this passage the word "drawn" in used....the aramaic word for this (don't have it at the tip of my fingers to share it, but I can get the reference for this if you would like), is only used 2 other times in the new testament. When Paul and Andrew (I think) got arrested it was used, and interpreted "they were 'dragged' before the authorities". Later in one of Pauls epistles he is entriting people "not to cross the rich, because they delight in dragging you before the courts".

I think you see my point. The word drawn in John 6:44 is not a word of "cooercion" but a word denoting a "forcefull pulling, or irresistable draw" (lexicon definition of that particular aramaic word). It is not a "wooing". Passages in Acts regarding the "appointed", Jesus claim that "My Church heres my voice" "my flock will recocnize my voice", "some are goats and others are sheep", goats don't speak sheep . Also in John Jesus says that "I don't pray for the whole world, only those that the Father has given me".

You quite correctly pointed out in your response, that God foreknows. You however, conveniently left out all discussion of where the Word clearly states "predestined" Romans 8:29-31...throughout Ephesians 1, and many others, in both the new and old test. If you grasp the passages on free will, and Gods foreknowledge, you must also recognize that God makes a clear distinction between "foreknowledge" and "predestination"

Paul clearly states he was predestined...Romans 9 tells us that Esau was, and Pharoh too. The old Test gives us this picture in the Election of the Jewish Nation, where it says "because you have been chosen, other nations will perish"

I assume you are inline with the doctrine of "we do nothing to gain our salvation" and as such, even a "choice" would be, to some extent, to merit Heaven: in that, the one who makes the choice is either "holier, smarter, wiser, more righteous" or something "more" than those who don't, and as such we have "earned" our salvation, if by nothing else by the fact that we recognized our need and others did not.

Scripture clearly talkes about 2 types of calls....and outer call the "the whole world" and an inner call, in which God reveals the truth to us....example is Jesuss' response to Peter when aske "who do u say I am"

Now I will backtrack....you can also quote me MANY vr's that support free will and "our choice". To be consistent, we cannot deny free will, since it is clearly a biblical doctrine. On the other hand, the message of election, or Gods predestination is also clearly evident, and seems to be a contradiction...yet I proffer that its a mere paradox, and one that is easily reconsiled.

How? The resolution of all biblical paradox's lie in first identifying the point of reference (such as we do in the scientific method, which by the way was first laid out in Genesis). What is the point of reference for election vs free will? It is from a multi-dimensional perspective.

If God predestined you to read this, and you "choose" to read this, how do you "EXPERIENCE" this? You, in the dimension will experience your "choice"....but if it was predestined, you would not experience any difference, you would still experience the actual choice.

In Gods existence He resides in a dimension where He can predestine (in fact scripture tells us He does) and in this dimension in which we live we actually make, and experience a choice. Both doctrines must coexist, and the denial of either clearly contradicts scripture.

I have a compilation of the volumn of vs's that describe both free will, and the set that discuss election, and the set of scripture that actually talk of BOTH in the same vs...when I have time, I will send them to you. The point is, we do not resolve seeming contradiction, by ignoring what scripture says about certain things (predestination) we must reconcile scripture as best we can, knowing there are NO CONTRADICTIONS in Gods Holy Word.

Interestingly, our muslim friends would completely agree with the theory of predestination...if they are at all familiar with there own rightings since the Quran clearly points it out. I dont use that as support for my claim, only an interesting aside.

Carol, it all comes down to understanding Gods purpose for us, Genesis explains that God created us as His ultimate means of defeating evil....how He chooses to do that through us is a mystery, but as you quoted in Romans 9, please reread it with what I have said in mind, especially 9:17-24. I think some of your points are addressed by Paul there.

I will not be able to respond until monday eve at the earlies..FISHING IN NEW ORLEANS this weekend...talk to you more I hope. You have well thought out, and thorough responses and I enjoy reading them.
Thanks

[BeBe]

The Holy Spirit will overcome all rebellion and effectually call the Elect.
This doctrine does not teach that no one can resist the Holy Spirit - that would clearly contradict Acts 7:51 - but that no one can finally resist His sovereign call. It's God who brings us to faith and overcomes our Total Depravity. Due to the hardness of our hearts, none of us would choose Christ unless we were sovereignly called by God. The Bible teaches :

John 1:13 Born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Acts 16:14 One of those listeners was a woman named Lydia... The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.

[carol_au]

Too Humble,

My apologies for not quoting scripture in this post. I am not at home and have not bought my Bible with me. So hopefully you will recognize where I am using scripture and the scriptures I refer too.


We are both in agreement on the doctrine of predestination and election. I did miss out discussing it, but not conveniently, rather by error. By the time I had discussed my belief in there being a dual role of God's soverignity and His calling us (drawing) us to Himself, and giving us the ability to have the faith to accept Him, I didnot realise I had not explored the doctrine of predestination in more detail than just mentioning it in my early statements.

I am, as you may have gathered, involved in introducing Jesus to people from other cultures. Time and time ago, you see and hear stories of how long before someone tells these people about Jesus, they have already been visited by Him or by an angel and have been prepared for the message of the Gospel. Once the message is given, they see how their own culture has the key to sharing Jesus to others within their culture. God has not left Himself without witness in any culture and is drawing to Himself, as many as would believe.

The understanding of predestination is basic to anyone who knows that when they were introduced to Jesus.. they could not resist Him.. they didn't want to resist Him. The overwhelming and irresistable urge to respond to Him is not only scriptural it's also very experiential.

The sheer joy of knowing as David did, that even before we were born we were intimately known by God and that our life circumstances have led us to the point where we have responded to His call, is the joy and assurance of every believer.

From the calling of Abraham and then of the nation Israel, to the now calling of the Gentiles into His Kingdom, the Bible does not play games when discussing election. We were predestined before the foundation of the World, even as He was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Our response to His calling is His gift of the faith to respond. Our ability as humans to respond is necessary for it to be free will and His foreknowledge predestined us to become His adopted sons and daughters.. the whosoever will of scripture. However, that choice is a gift from God. He has given us the faith to respond so we can't boast that it was our faith or our doing.

I'm a sinner.. I deserve nothing but eternal damnation.. yet He has given me the grace and the right to be called a child of God. When He called, I couldn't resist His calling, because He knew I would respond, He placed both the ability and the desire to respond in me.

In myself, would I ever have given up the right to be in control of my own life? Look at Adam and Eve.. commanded to eat nothing from the tree of good and evil by God.. yet under the temptation of the evil one "did God really say".. even the most intimate relationship man has ever had with God was broken in one act of disobedience. Yet God provided the necessary covering.. the animal skin to overcome Adam's shame at His nakedness before God. Adam was powerless and hid from God, God took the initiative and provided the covering. So it is with us. It's all of Him. He brought me to Himself. My response was to bow to His Lordship over my life and to serve Him, out of total wonder and awe at all that He has done for me. My response is to want to share that same wonder and awe with others, both as something I'm powerless not to do, and something I truly want for my friends in their life.

I don't know who else is part of the predestined company of believers who oneday will join us in Heaven. I know that Jesus commanded that I go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations. Paul said " if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is the Christ, you will be saved".

As believers, the doctrine of election and predestination is ours to enjoy and to appreciate the wonder of. As disciples, our responsibility is to obedience.. "to become all things to all men, in order that we might win some."... to go and share the good news that "God so loved the world he gave His only son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life".

Israel's election was to be a nation holy to God (her predestined election) and to bless the nations and to declare His glory to them. There was always the command to accept the gentile who came into their midst .. such as Ruth.

God does the choosing.. To Him alone, as Creator of all mankind is reserved that right.. but as we do not know who He is drawing to Himself, we have no right to put down others.. but to be like Phillip who helped the Eithiopian ruler find what was lacking in knowledge of the God of Isreal.. and like Jesus who spent time patiently explaining to the Samaritan woman of another worship form and of eternal water to quench her thirst, or of Peter, who responded to the call to "come over here and help us" and pushed aside all racial and religious misgivings to enable the entire household respond to Christ.

We as believers are called, elected and predestined to do the same thing .. to be a Holy Nation, a Royal Priesthood, a People belonging to God, that we might declare the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His glorious light"..

[Guest]

Carol, that was well put, and I have not any doctrinal dispute with the way you have put it. Your original post did not convey that message to me but then that may be what I read into it.

It was posted by Josh on the other subject line, and you seemed to say God didn't turn his back on anyone...and although that sounds harsh, it is clearly implied.

I don't think we disagree after reading your post above.

In light of your stated goal, to bring the gospel to people of other cultures, this is not a topic to debate here, but I was interested in your take, since you seem well informed in general.

Thanks for your response and time.