Biblical Election and Predestination

[Drew]

People. This man is a heretic. He is a proud, false teacher who doesn't know anything about God's word because God has revealed nothing to him. What he speaks, he speaks from his own corrupted beguiled mind, and he sows God's word to his flesh because he doesn't have the Spirit. Do not listen to him. Your Master commands you not to let anyone spoil you by philosophy and vain deceit, and that is the only thing that spews forth from this man's mouth. Withdraw yourself from him, and ignore him as your God commands.

For my part, I will not deign to suggest that JayR is in for a good old fashionned shunning.

Instead I will simpy ask this question: Is the weight of the scriptural case in favour of his position on this matter or mine? (I am talking only about Romans 9 here).

I do find it interesting how it is you know that I am a heretic who does not have the Spirit. Is it because you have a sixth sense about such things or is it because I dare to disagree with you.

Let the reader decide who has the problem with pride.

 

[Drew]

Since JayR's participation in this board may be shortly coming to an enforced end, I would like to respond to this statement of yours:

* Finally, I find it amazing that Paul himself would say, and I paraphrase, "Those things that I know I should do, I don't do them, and the things I know that I SHOULDN'T to, those things I do all the time." And Paul was supposed to be one of the giants of Christianity. Maybe Paul was never saved.

I assume that you are referring to this passage from Romans 7:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to doâ€â€this I keep on doing.

Please understand that Paul is not talking about his present regenerated state - he is reflecting on his situation in the past, when he had not yet come to faith and was under Torah. In fact, despite Paul's use of the singular "I", I believe that in this passage, he is reflecting on the position of the Jew under Torah, as seen from a Christian perspective.

 

[JayR]

Orion can I talk to you via some type of chat?

 

[Drew]

Further to the matter of "who is being hardened for what" in Romans 9:

Consider these texts from earlier chapter in Romans (I added the bolding):

Romans 5:The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more...

Romans 7For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful

I suggest that these verses are related to the hardening of Israel that I claim is at the heart of the potter's account in Romans 9.

The Torah was given to Israel in order that (note Paul's use of "in order that" and "so that" suggesting divine intent) sin would grow to its full height in national Israel. This, I claim is the nature of the hardening of Israel that is implicitly present in the potter account of Romans 9.

Do you think it is a coincidence that 5:20 has the exact same "a bad thing had to happen so that a good thing will result" flavour as this from Romans 9:

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrathâ€â€prepared for destruction? 23What 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...

If you see the Romans 9 stuff as being about "individuals being elected to heaven / hell" then there is no connection between Romans 5:20 and Romans 9. I think the connection is there and that the giving of Torah to Israel tells us what form the hardeining of Israel takes.

Same deal with the Romans 7 text - Torah is given by God to Israel (and here Paul uses "I" not to refer to himself specifically, but rather to the Jew under Torah) to actually harden her - to so that sin could be brought to its full height in Israel and then borne by Jesus.

If you see Romans 9 as about election of individuals to salvation or to loss, there is no connection to the Romans 7 stuff. You, the reader, decide for yourselves - am I seeing something that is not there?

 

[Drew]

Don't listen to the heretic. He doesn't know God, and is a child of the devil. There is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, because he is a liar, and his father is the father of it.

You really should not call Paul a heretic and a child of the devil.....

 

[JayR]

Are you Paul? No, you are a heretic who is twisting Pauls words and whose heart is corrupted by philosophy and vain deceit. Can you see how proud you are, or are you so proud that you have yourself convinced that you are humble? All it takes is one post of "scriptural evidence" from you in order to clearly recognize that you have no idea what you're talking about, you just think you do, the problem though is that your interpretations are radically false, and your mind is twisted like a pretzel so you can't recognize it. You know nothing, are proud, and are destitute of the truth.

 

[Orion]

Orion can I talk to you via some type of chat?

I don't have any access to any chat spaces. And it apparently doesn't matter because, since I am not fully on board to those questions on that test, . . .Therefore, I am NOT called by God, but am hated by God and will soon be suffering for all eternity in Hell.

I wonder what the point of me being good is, then. No matter how good of a life I live, I will still end up in Hell. So, I suppose, let the "good times" role, while I'm still alive.

 

[JayR]

Pray to God that He will give you repentance and faith. You accept God's absolute sovereignty, so pray accordingly. You realize that you are helplessly lost without Him, so pray accordingly. Pray earnestly for Him to give you saving faith and acknowledge your sins before Him. You can either give up and live like a demon, or you can cry out to God for mercy until He saves you.

 

[Orion]

Pray to God that He will give you repentance and faith. You accept God's absolute sovereignty, so pray accordingly. You realize that you are helplessly lost without Him, so pray accordingly. Pray earnestly for Him to give you saving faith and acknowledge your sins before Him. You can either give up and live like a demon, or you can cry out to God for mercy until He saves you.

Sure, I can do all those things, truly, . . . .but I have a serious problem with the idea of a completely infallible scripture being directly from God. I have no problem accepting and abiding under God's sovereignty, but don't agree of the position of the inerrant Bible. Now, I can agree with the Bible if some of the passages are place in the context that they should be in, . . . Hebrew history and non-literal stories (in a few places), and even the wise words of a believer in God, but only a man's words, not "God speaking every single word through vessels".

Yes, I would consider myself lost without the true divinity, and WILL pray that the divine will be made manefest in my life.

I am well aware of my sins, . . .every time I do them.

But as for "crying out for mercy for God to save me", . . . If God has destined me for Hell since the foundation of the world, what good will my cries do? Surely they won't change his mind! :-?

 

[JayR]

But as for "crying out for mercy for God to save me", . . . If God has destined me for Hell since the foundation of the world, what good will my cries do? Surely they won't change his mind!

Surely, but as far as you know God could be on the brink of saving you. So don't make such an assumption.

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throroughly furnished to all good works."

Every single word in that book came from the mouth of the Almighty. If you don't believe God's word, you are calling Him a liar. "He who believes not God has made Him a liar."

"I will worship toward your holy temple, and praise your name for your lovingkindness and for your truth: for you have magnified your word above all your name."

God has maginified His word above all His name. It is magnified above all His wondrous works, above all His attributes, and all His character. If you so despise it, what kind of greivous offense do you think that is to God?

 

[Drew]

Amid all the shrapnel from JayR, the question at issue remains: Is Paul talking about a hardening of Israel in the potter account or is he talking about the election of individuals to salvation or to loss?

So while JayR is reloading, I want to address this comment of his:

God condemned Pharoah to death and hardened Him so that His people would suffer 10 long plagues to display His power and to proclaim His name in all the earth.

Is Paul really intending us to understand that God's name is proclaimed through Pharoah by the sending of plagues and sentencing Pharoah to death?

Or does Paul intend us to see the hardening of Pharoah in light of the entire argument of Romans 9 through 11 - the story of Israel itself and what has happened to Paul's "kinsfolk according to the flesh"? Paul goes on to say this in Romans 11:

11Again I ask: Did they (Israel) stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. 12But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!

At this point the reader has a choice:

1. Paul is talking about Israel being hardened in Romans 9 with the result being "salvation for the world" as per the above.

2. Paul is talking about the election of individuals to heaven and hell in Romans 9, and here in Romans 11, he is saying something that is not connected to the potter's account.

Returning to Pharoah: Which seems the more plausible reason why Paul refers to the hardening of Pharoah and uses it as example of God displaying his power in all the earth:

1. Pharoah is being used as a model for how God has displayed his power in all the earth by hardening Israel, thus producing "salvation for the world" (Romans 11);

2. Pharoah is being used as a model for how God has diplayed his power by sentencing him to death and throwing out some frogs and locusts.

I'll take door number 1, Monte. As far as displaying God's power in all the earth is concerned, sending Pharoah to hell and delivering a plague or two pales in comparison to hardening Israel so that salvation will come to the Gentiles, that is, the rest of world.

And, of course, we have this little cutie, supporting the claim that it is Israel in the potter's hand in Romans 9:

Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in....

Coincidence?

 

[Orion]

But as for "crying out for mercy for God to save me", . . . If God has destined me for Hell since the foundation of the world, what good will my cries do? Surely they won't change his mind!

Surely, but as far as you know God could be on the brink of saving you. So don't make such an assumption.

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throroughly furnished to all good works."

Every single word in that book came from the mouth of the Almighty. If you don't believe God's word, you are calling Him a liar. "He who believes not God has made Him a liar."

"I will worship toward your holy temple, and praise your name for your lovingkindness and for your truth: for you have magnified your word above all your name."

God has maginified His word above all His name. It is magnified above all His wondrous works, above all His attributes, and all His character. If you so despise it, what kind of greivous offense do you think that is to God?

I thought "the word" was Jesus, not the groupings of various religious texts placed in Canon in the 4th century, or so?

As for 2 Timothy 3:16 and the word "inspiration", a painter is inspired to paint a mountain, but it is only HIS interpretation of what he believes he is seeing. He didn't make the mountain. . In the same, men thinking of the greatness of God may write many things, but our Canon was put together LONG after Timothy wrote those words, and a group of men decided on the content, leaving out works from Mary, Thomas, . . . . others.

 

[JayR]

That's a name for Jesus, He is the Word. He is the light of men, but the Bible is the word of God.

 

[Orion]

Sorry, I edited my post while you posted what you did.

Anyway, who said that this Canon is the "word of God", and why isn't it just speaking of "the word" as being Jesus?

 

[JayR]

Paul wrote those words to Timothy, and they were inspired directly from God as a revelation from God, and due to the importance of the matter in God's absolute sovereignty He saw to it that the words written were exactly what He wanted them to be. God isn't a fool, and His word is magnified above all His name and what we have today is the word of the living God. Having been transformed by God through His word nothing you can possibly say would ever convince me of believing otherwise.

 

[JayR]

God said it was.

 

[Vic C.]

Guys, guys, lets try to be a little more Christ-like in the way we respond to each other. It saddens me (and I'm sure God too) to come here and read such vile insults against another member. It also annoys me to have to spend much of my lunch break cleaning out offensive posts.

Lets address the subject and not use these boards as a battlefield. :-?

 

[JayR]

With all due respect Vic c, Christ responded passionately and with strong words to the heretics of His day and made it absolutely clear to them what they were doing. If we are to be Christ like, we should do the same.

 

[MarkT]

Is this topic closed because I just lost my post?

 

[Drew]

To step back and try to explain my methodology. I fully admit that I come to Paul's material with a number of beliefs about him:

1. He is a brilliant sophisticated thinker, much more subtle than most;

2. He does not tend to wander from one topic back to another, except when absolutely necessary;

3. He needs to be read in his historical context. So, for example, Paul wrote the letter primarily to the Romans to the church at Rome, not us. Of course, this does not mean there are not truths in there for us.

4. When Paul quotes Old Testament passages, he intends us to look those passages up and let their content inform what he is saying in the letter he is writing.

These beliefs about Paul lead me to skeptical of the idea that he would introduce a chapter (Romans 9) as dealing with Israel, then make a tangent to statements about God's election of individuals to heaven or hell (something that has no connection to the Israel issue) and then return to dealing with Israel, without announcing a change of topic.

Point number 4 manifests itself, for example, in Paul's quoting of Malachi when he refers to loving Jacob and hating Esau. I do not think it is correct to simply import the 21st century notion of what it means to "love" or to "hate" when we read the stuff in Romans. This would lead to JayR's conclusion that since God "hates" Esau, this leads us to conclude that Esau has been elected to hell (in a context where Paul is admittedly talking about election).

Instead, I go Malachi 1 and follows the "trail" to the relevant ways that "love" and "hate" have been used elsewhere in the scriptures. And when I do this, I see "love" and "hate" as having a more precise meaning: "selection" and "rejection" in respect to covenantal behaviours on the part of God. And since I see Romans as largely an apologetic from Paul as to how God has been faithful to the covenant, and 9 through 11 as specfically focussing on Israel in this respect, I am inclined to see the Romans 9 treatment of Esau and Jacob as having a specifically "covenant plan" sense more than the more broad sense that might sustain the view that Paul is talking about "election to salvation" and "election to loss".