"After the counsel of His own Will" !

[Alabaster]

The question is not do you have it; the question is how did you get it?

The evidence most strongly leans toward unlawful seizure. (Sin)

For every one thing you can point to, to claim that it is a gift of God, ten things can be pointed to, to show it is not. For every ten things you can point to, to claim it is a gift of God, one hundred things can be pointed to to show that it is not.

You are fighting a losing battle.

What battle is that?

I have lain every single scripture out in the Bible as I also did with the subject of Omniscience, and the result overwhelmingly showed free-will was an unlawful seizure. The seizure of free-will is Adam's primary sin of disobedience. Eating an apple (or, whatever fruit) would have been nothing but for that.



God said "NO" and Adam had no right of free-will to challenge that until he sinned and unlawfully seized it.

If it makes you a robot not to have free-will then it would make you a robot to submit your will completely over to God. That right there proves to any God loving man's mind there is a serious problem with believing free-will was a gift of God.

We have a free will because we are created in the image of God who also has a free will. It isn't so much a gift, but it is part of how we are created. We are free to rebel and free to conform to His will.

Belief in free-will as a gift of God will cause many to lose their salvation as they will never fully surrender their will to God while they hold on to that rebellious belief.

You have just said it---we must surrender our will---freely.

 

[Who Says]

What battle is that?



We have a free will because we are created in the image of God who also has a free will. It isn't so much a gift, but it is part of how we are created. We are free to rebel and free to conform to His will.

That is exactly why we cannot have free-will. You do not image God to the extent you step away from his will. You corrupt the glory of his image by the use of free-will just as Romans 1: 22-23 shows.

The way you are saying we are supposed to be like God is what Adam was barred from the tree of life for.

Genesis 3:22 "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken."

It is too easy for you to see. We were not made to EVER exercise a will independent of God.

It is by living completely in His will (and His will alone) that we consistently image Him and do not fail to honor Him and bring glory to Him as our creator.

You have just said it---we must surrender our will---freely.

See the error in your thinking? We would not have to surrender it if Adam had not seized it. So your point is an illusion.

 

[Alabaster]

That is exactly why we cannot have free-will. You do not image God to the extent you step away from his will. You corrupt the glory of his image by the use of free-will just as Romans 1: 22-23 shows.

The way you are saying we are supposed to be like God is what Adam was barred from the tree of life for.

Genesis 3:22 "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken."

It is too easy for you to see. We were not made to EVER exercise a will independent of God.

It is by living completely in His will (and His will alone) that we consistently image Him and do not fail to honor Him and bring glory to Him as our creator.

We have a free will, but we honour God by exercising our will in cooperation with God. We have a relationship with our Father. He is blessed to bits when we conform to Him.

See the error in your thinking? We would not have to surrender it if Adam had not seized it. So your point is an illusion.

What error? There is nothing wrong in my thinking, thanks. We have the same will Adam was given.

 

[Who Says]

We have a free will because we are created in the image of God who also has a free will. It isn't so much a gift, but it is part of how we are created. We are free to rebel and free to conform to His will.

Another way to see this is to realize that Jesus as our last Adam portrayed to us what the first Adam was supposed to be like.

And what did show us even about his own will, let alone about what the first Adam's was supposed to be like?

John 5:19 "Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."

John 5:30 "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me."

John 8:28 "Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things."

That is what the first Adam was supposed to be like. That is what we were supposed to be like if Adam had not unlawfully seized to have free-will.

It is crazy to think love requires us to have free-will. By free-will we can only make a mess of love just as we do of the glory of the image we bare of God.

God is the expert on love. He is the standard for love. It is only by making his will our complete and total will that we can truly love perfectly.

We do not at all need our own will to love. We absolutely need God's will to be our will if we be able to love.

Jesus showed us what Adam was like before Adam unlawfully seized free-will. And if Adam had never sinned we would not be sitting here talking about free-will right now. God's will would be 100% natural to us and it would be all that we know or would ever need to know.

 

[Alabaster]

Malachi 4:2 NLT
“But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.


Jesus came to set us free from the curse, and once set free and Spirit-filled, we have the ability within us to exercise our free will and still please God!

 

[Who Says]

We have a free will, but we honour God by exercising our will in cooperation with God. We have a relationship with our Father. He is blessed to bits when we conform to Him.




What error? We have the same will Adam was given.

You do not have the same will Adam was given and if you would look closely at Christ as I wrote about in my last post you would know that.

If you have your own will you are not and never will be one with God. With your use of free-will you use your own works to honor God. For if your obedience is of your own will then the works you do are your own. You in effect insist on being the head with God, never truly completely submitting to him.

People who have a stubborn will are blinded by their will so that they cannot see these all too simple things. They even ignore Jeremiah 10:23 and Proverbs 16:9 rationalizing those scriptures away to suite what they desire to believe. They do not look at the example that Jesus showed us of what Adam was like and they invent their own idea of Adam in their imagination.

So be it. Galatians 6:5 "For every man shall bear his own burden."

 

[Alabaster]

You do not have the same will Adam was given and if you would look closely at Christ as I wrote about in my last post you would know that.

If you have your own will you are not and never will be one with God. With your use of free-will you use your own works to honor God. For if your obedience is of your own will then the works you do are your own. You in effect insist on being the head with God, never truly completely submitting to him.

People who have a stubborn will are blinded by their will so that they cannot see these all too simple things. They even ignore Jeremiah 10:23 and Proverbs 16:9 rationalizing those scriptures away to suite what they desire to believe. They do not look at the example that Jesus showed us of what Adam was like and they invent their own idea of Adam in their imagination.

So be it. Galatians 6:5 "For every man shall bear his own burden."

Yes, we are descended from Adam and have been created just like he was, with a free will. Everyone has a stubborn will.

 

[Who Says]

Malachi 4:2 NLT
“But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.


Jesus came to set us free from the curse, and once set free and Spirit-filled, we have the ability within us to exercise our free will and still please God!

There is the greatest proof that belief in free-will has corrupted your ability to think. You think walking by your own will is freedom. And you think that is the freedom God wants you to have. Yet you cannot show me even one scripture that says that as there are none.

Keep thinking it and you will never know the freedom you just described. That is not born of man's will; that is born of God's will.

But as Paul said, Galatians 6:5 "... every man shall bear his own burden."

 

[Who Says]

Yes, we are descended from Adam and have been created just like he was, with a free will. Everyone has a stubborn will.

There is your problem showing itself blatantly again. You think you are as you should be when the truth is you are born into sin.

 

[Alabaster]

There is your problem showing itself blatantly again. You think you are as you should be when the truth is you are born into sin.

You have a strange way of accusing people of all sorts of things they never mention! Not very endearing, I must say.

I was born in sin just like you were. I was created by God for a purpose. One of the things I possess, as all do universally, is a free will that is naturally averse to God's perfect will. Once I came into relationship with the Father through His wonderful Son, I now have the responsibility to adhere my will to His. It is a lifelong battle we all share. Some have a worse time of it than others.

It pleases God when we submit to Him. When we do, one of the by-products of that is His joy and peace with Him.

 

[Who Says]

You have a strange way of accusing people of all sorts of things they never mention! Not very endearing, I must say.

I was born in sin just like you were. I was created by God for a purpose. One of the things I possess, as all do universally, is a free will that is naturally averse to God's perfect will. Once I came into relationship with the Father through His wonderful Son, I now have the responsibility to adhere my will to His. It is a lifelong battle we all share. Some have a worse time of it than others.

It pleases God when we submit to Him. When we do, one of the by-products of that is His joy and peace with Him.

You said, did you not, quote, "we are descended from Adam and have been created just like he was, with a free will."

I said, did I not, quote, "There is your problem showing itself blatantly again. You think you are as you should be when the truth is you are born into sin."

Did you not, by saying what you said, basically say that your will has remained normal as Adam's when he was created?

You really don't think that sin had an effect on Adam's will?

When I showed you how the last Adam Christ Jesus spoke showing he would not even so much as ever think about disobeying God and would not therefore even consider such a thing an available choice?

Do you really believe that Jesus was not demonstrating to us what the perfect Adam would have been like before he sinned?

I have said nothing that you did not reveal.

Sorry if what I said offends you.

Sorrier yet if I lose you as a brother in life everlasting.

 

[savedbygrace57]

prov 16:

9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

From this scripture who determines what we will do ? Is it saying man's freewill ?

The word directeth here is the hebrew word kuwn and means:

to be firm, be stable, be established

to be firmly established

to be fixed, be securely determined

to be prepared, be arranged, be settled

to arrange, order

The word is used in PS 37:


23The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

So prov 16:9 is teaching that God determines our steps, so its really not our freewill..

God has prearranged the course we will take, yes consciously we do make choices, however what we did not know was that the choice we made was already determined by God for us to make it...

And at the same time, if its a sinful choice, God has the right to hold us accountable for it..

 

[Elijah674]

Adam & (Second Adam Christ) had NO Gen. 3:22 'desire' to sin before Adam sinned. But Christ was of Adams sinfull flesh of 4000 years decay, yet without sin & with NO DESIRE to do so.

Even note Cain in Gen. 4:7 going from sin into the sin against the Holy Ghost with a new fatal 'desire'. Think Acts 5's Holy Spirits fullness, & here with Christ in person giving him an opportunity for Cain to do what was right. (+ 1 John 5:16-17)

--Elijah

 

[warhorse]

Eph 1v11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, and not after the counsel of mens imaginary freewill.

99.9 % of religions and people today reject this most sacred Truth, for we will not let God be God [ a figure of speech] but He is God anyway, and He is in control of all things, all things go according to the counsel of His own will..

His Kingdom, all that He is, ruleth over all ps 103:

19The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.

Or His counsel ruleth over all..That is time, space, angels the good or bad, men the righteous and wicked and all creatures in the air, under the sea, on the ground.

He does as He pleases scripture says ps 115:

3But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.

Many deny this kind of God, and teach a god that is a bystander and His creatures and their freewills do as they please, His will being subordinate too theirs, as He is their genie in a bottle. How many remember I dream of Jeannie ? Thats how religious people think of God, for He serves their wills and them His ..

We as men use words such as contingency, perhaps, and chance, words fit for unbelievers in the True God, but those of us who have been blessed, we say " He that worketh all things [ not some things] but all thinks after the counsel of His OWN WILL !"

Now the word worketh in eph 1:11 is the greek word energeō and means:


to be operative, be at work, put forth power

to effect

to display one's activity, show one's self operative

To display one activity is akin to His Purpose, the word right before worketh in our text verse, which is the word prothesis which means:

a setting forth of a thing, placing of it in view, the shewbread

Gods power is being set forth, displayed in the outworking of His own counsel, in all things...

Do you desire today to set up your own will against His ? Those who teach freewill of man, thats what you are doing !

You are taking this out of context.

Eph 1v11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

We who having first accepted christ then become predestined to work according to his purpose and will. that we would bring him praise and glory.

 

[Who Says]

You are taking this out of context.

Eph 1v11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

We who having first accepted Christ then become predestined to work according to his purpose and will. that we would bring him praise and glory.

Good point so long as you realize that it had to be "who first trusted in Christ" because all were confined under sin.

Otherwise they would have already been trusting in God and His Son and that would not have been necessary.

He deals with us according to the way we are. But we cannot prevent what He chooses to do. He did not ask, "Would you like to do this or do that?" He said, "Do it or die because your way will only harm yourself and others unless you give up that stiff-necked will and do things the right way, MY WAY which is the only true love."

Free-will was Adam's unlawful seizure. We were created to have a God governed will; a will synchronized with God's will. Adam tossed away our governor and look where it got us. Without that synchronization we became out of control. And anyone that thinks they can do it by their own use of free-will is continuing Adam's lie and illusion. We are not designed that way. never were and never will be.

 

[savedbygrace57]

warh

You are taking this out of context.

Thats your opinion

We who having first accepted christ then become predestined to work according to his purpose and will. that we would bring him praise and glory.

Thats no where stated in the passage..

 

[savedbygrace57]

whosays:

Good point so long as you realize that it had to be "who first trusted in Christ" because all were confined under sin.

Who is that first trusted in Christ ? Paul is talking about the jewish disciples first of all, those Christ had given to Him by the Father Jn 17:


2As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

4I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

5And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

6I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

Then in eph 1 13 those who heard [spiritually] the word of Truth trusted also..

eph 1:

13In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Trusting and believing is the result of Hearing the Word of God, and in order to hear the word of God one must be of God Jesus says:

Jn 8:

47He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Is not the Gospel God's words ? Of course it is..Its the Gospel of God rom 1:


1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,

2(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)

3Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

Only those redeemed out of spiritual death and regenerated can hear the word of God..

 

[warhorse]

Good point so long as you realize that it had to be "who first trusted in Christ" because all were confined under sin.

Otherwise they would have already been trusting in God and His Son and that would not have been necessary.

He deals with us according to the way we are. But we cannot prevent what He chooses to do. He did not ask, "Would you like to do this or do that?" He said, "Do it or die because your way will only harm yourself and others unless you give up that stiff-necked will and do things the right way, MY WAY which is the only true love."

Free-will was Adam's unlawful seizure. We were created to have a God governed will; a will synchronized with God's will. Adam tossed away our governor and look where it got us. Without that synchronization we became out of control. And anyone that thinks they can do it by their own use of free-will is continuing Adam's lie and illusion. We are not designed that way. never were and never will be.

I disagree, free will is needed for love. We were created to love him, and could not do so without free will. Adam choose the knowledge of evil, not free will they are not the same. How many times Adam chose good before he chose evil, we have no clue. But free will had to be present in the garden from the moment he had a choice to partake in that tree. To say that we are predestined to Gods will insinuates that it was Gods will that Adam would partake of it. And thus God would be to blame for all of the sin from then till now. It convienianly leaves God to blame for all the unrightousness in the world and leaves man without fault. That sounds like Satans position to me.

 

[warhorse]

warh



Thats your opinion



Thats no where stated in the passage..

Read it again. And NO thats pretty much the text book definition of removing a verse from its context. The verse following the predestined statement clarifies that it was to those who first trusted christ. King james is hard english i know but that is what he is saying there.

 

[savedbygrace57]

wh:

Read it again.

I have, and nothing of what you said is there..