Biblical Election and Predestination

[JayR]

Drew understands Romans 6 in the way that it was written.

He's denying it in the way it was written, because he doesn't accept salvation by grace and grace alone, and neither do you.

"By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God not of works, lest any man should boast."

You two refuse to accept the fact that you were at one time hopelessly enslaved to sin like the Bible says and that God gloriously transformed you from what you were into someone who loves Him and is set free from sin in order to become His slave.. Every act of true righteousness done by any believer is done by the grace and the power of God through the Holy Spirit. It is NOT of works, human will, or human effort, but by the power of God. Period. You just want to believe that you have a free will so you can claim bragging rights in heaven and say that you somehow pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and freed yourself from your bondage to sin in order to freely choose to follow God, something that contradicts the words of Scripture. Salvation, and everything attributed to it, is by grace. Period. Repentance is God given. Faith is God given. If you are saved it has nothing to do with what you chose to do. It has to do with what God chose to do to you, and that He regenerated you and He caused you to walk in His statutes, you didn't do this by your own will, but He did it as a gift. Salvation is grace grace grace not human will, no not at all. Believing anything else is a works based religion that will lead straight to the pits of hell. Believing anything else is evidence of your pride and self-righteousness. "By grace you are saved through faith, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast."

 

[GraceBwithU]

Good post drew...but There is a difference in being a slave to sin an a willing servant of the Lord.
I totally agree that we still sin even after accepting God's grace of salvation. If Jayr or anyone else says different on this point...well he/or she is just fooling his/or her self.

How would a slave feel peace in Heaven. Only the willing will be at peace to worship our Lord. Just another thought...not a contradiction of your post.

 

[Drew]

Drew understands Romans 6 in the way that it was written.

He's denying it in the way it was written, because he doesn't accept salvation by grace and grace alone, and neither do you.

I have never denied salvation by grace. I have indeed denied the incoherent form of it which denies us our "creature-hood" and treats us as though we were merely extensions of God Himself, or an inanimate object.

You two refuse to accept the fact that you were at one time hopelessly enslaved to sin like the Bible says and that God gloriously transformed you from what you were into someone who loves Him and is set free from sin in order to become His slave.

And you deny that your own argument here about the slave thing self-destructs. In order to be consistent, your argument has all regenerate people behaving as "slaves to righteousness", incapable of sinning.

You just want to believe that you have a free will so you can claim bragging rights in heaven and say that you somehow pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and freed yourself from your bondage to sin in order to freely choose to follow God, something that contradicts the words of Scripture.

Ah the familiar logic of the Calvinist whose arguments have been dissembled.

One faulty line of argument is the view that if man plays a necessary but tiny role in his ultimate justification, he (man) can then legitimately be said to have been responsible for his salvation. This is simply untrue and leverages off the possibility that the reader will conflate a necessary condition with a "substantially sufficient" condition. In more common terms and by way of example: the bed-ridden man who cries out for help in a burning building must cry out or he will die unnoticed. But when he does cry out and a neighbour risks life and limb by entering the building and carrying the man to safety, it is the neighbour who, in any remotely reasonable interpretation, is responsible for the man's rescue.

And when Paul refers to works, he is not referring to "moral self-effort", he is referring to the works of Torah, and more specifically those aspects of Torah that mark out the Jew from his pagan neighbour. Paul is simply not arguing against "Pelegianism" in Romans. Do you wish to debate this points with me - what "works" means in Paul? I am happy to oblige, as many with eyes no doubt spun up into foreheads, will attest.

Paul is not, in Romans at least, speaking against the boast of the morally self-righteous - his critique is of the Jew who thinks his membership in national Israel is enough to justify him.

 

[GraceBwithU]

T- Total depravity. Of course it is not total, there are the Calvinist which are not somehow depraved. And are not included in what is stated. (probably only used Total because DULIP would not sell as well.)

U –Unconditional election. Hey what a great idea. I can just sit here and not care about my sins.

L – Wow…God sent his son to die on the cross for people He had already chosen. Does that not seem a little pointless even for the Calvinist? Why sacrifice your Son for people you have already elected to be saved. Their salvation is after all, according to Calvinist, predestined.

I – Hum…I suppose this fits very well because Satan does not exist and I’m going to be saved regardless of any temptations to not accept God’s grace. Satan will never lie to me.

P – Here again I’m free…I have no sin in me and never will have…therefore why be concerned?

The TULIP is not only unbiblical…but just plain doesn’t make sense. It attempts to convince the believer that he is not a believer at all they are already chosen…it is a done deal.

Sorry for my bluntness....I get it from my dad.

We are NOT slaves to the worship of the Lord...we are "willing" participants in His worship...This gives Him the Glory He deserves.

 

[Orion]

Thanks for answering my other questions, JayR. I have [possibly] a couple more scenarios.

I would love to be called. I have searched for it for some time now. However, I feel no draw, . . . no desire to "come to God", and even though I would love to understand God, and have that presence in my life, I just don't sense any such draw. Is it possible that I am one of the damned, and no matter how much I would want to have a walk with God, I can't because I'm not called?

Just as an FYI, I don't love sin. I don't like doing it, but like everyone on earth, including you, it happens. That just to say, . . . I have no desire to "continually sin" or "be a slave to sin". Yet, I find no calling. . . nothing that draws me to desire God.

Where do you see me at, in this spiritual journey?

 

[GraceBwithU]

Thanks for answering my other questions, JayR. I have [possibly] a couple more scenarios.

I would love to be called. I have searched for it for some time now. However, I feel no draw, . . . no desire to "come to God", and even though I would love to understand God, and have that presence in my life, I just don't sense any such draw. Is it possible that I am one of the damned, and no matter how much I would want to have a walk with God, I can't because I'm not called?

Just as an FYI, I don't love sin. I don't like doing it, but like everyone on earth, including you, it happens. That just to say, . . . I have no desire to "continually sin" or "be a slave to sin". Yet, I find no calling. . . nothing that draws me to desire God.

Where do you see me at, in this spiritual journey?

You are not damned...this is one of the biggest flaws in 100% predestined election believers. They promote lose of hope to those that struggle. They read verses of Jesus speaking to His chosen disciples and boast about he was talking to them. You don't love sin because you seek Jesus. He is there for you. Keep seeking him…You are a sinner...so am I...and so is JayR. I read ps 51 almost every day. You might try that yourself. Just keep being hungry and thirsty.

God has not damned you before the world began, but he will judge you one day. It is us that chooses the wrong path that damns us. The book of life is being written in every minute.

Just remember…God so loved the WORLD….not just Sally, Jim and Joe.
:

 

[mondar]

I suggest that the following text from Romans 1 makes no sense if men do not have a measure of free will:

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualitiesâ€â€his eternal power and divine natureâ€â€have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

The thrust of the claim here is pretty clear - God reveals Himself to men, they reject Him and are to be declared to be without excuse. Of course, "free will" is not explicitly stated, but the whole concept of being in a position where one is "without excuse" clearly necessitates that men indeed have some freedom to act.

Again, we need to unpack the relevant concepts and see where they lead us, and then be true to them. When we say a person is "without excuse", what do we mean? We mean, clearly, that they are in a state where they had:

1. The information needed to make the right decision;
2. The capacity to understand that information; and
3. The freedom to make the right decision.

It is simply a violation of the relevant concepts to say that an "agent" is "without excuse" if some external agent (or agents) fully determined what they did. Nobody thinks that way.

Let's say that poor Fred is strapped into a chair. Fred knows that a meteorite is coming right at him. Fred understands that he will be killed if hit by the meteoritre. However, Fred is not free to act - and this totally takes the air out of any claim that we can level against Fred to the effect that he is "without excuse'.

The concept of "without excuse" does not necessitate any concept of unrestrained libertarian free will. his is the typical use of tradition to trump an obvious text. You import a concept of libertarian free will that is foreign to the passage

It is a major exegetical mistake to disconnect the first part of the sentence in verse 20 from the 2nd part of the sentence. Verse 20 makes it clear that the basis of man being without excuse is that the invisible things of creation (natural revelation) has been revealed to all men. If anything, this verse implies the exact opposite of what Drew is saying. If we are without excuse because of natural revelation, then certainly the fact that we do not have total libertarian free will is not an excuse either. in verse 20, God is just for judging men who did not even hear the gospel, let alone the issue of does mankind have the ability to believe the gospel.

To import free will into such a text is to turn the text on its head. Being without excuse is obviously due to having natural revelation.

 

[mondar]

Why are men without excuse? Because they know that they are doing evil, and not only are they incapable of choosing to do right, but they wouldn't choose to do right even if they were able to in their unconverted state.

This kind of reasoning is not simply true to the meaning of the relevant concepts. When we read scriptures, we read words. And words have meanings. We cannot twist and distort the meaning beyond recognition. Is there anyone out there besides JayR who would claim that a person who is incapable of doing "X" can be deemed as "without excuse" in respect that person's failure to do X?

The very concept of being "without" excuse necessitates that choice be in there somewhere. This is why we laugh our heads off when someone angrily yells at the car for running out of gas - as if the car had some "freedom" to do anything about that situation. The concept of having "no excuse" means that one had the self-deteriminative capability to do something other than what one actually did.

Unfortunately, Drew focuses upon individual words, and then typically imports some foreign concept into the context. The basis of the fact that men are without excuse is directly stated in the context. Men are without excuse because God has revealed his eternal power and Godhead (in nature). Now why would we ignore the actual reason for men being without excuse that is directly stated in the text? Is it because "words have meanings?" No, its because the tradition of free will is to be imported into the context no matter what the text says. Its tradition over exegesis as a hermeneutic.

 

[GraceBwithU]

Mondar,
Welcome back...long time no see.

One question to start...How do you witness to the lost souls in this world? Or do you even bother since it is all predestined?

 

[mondar]

If you are going to be consistent, you are forced into a position of asserting that, as the text says in parallel fashion, believers are so enslaved to righteousness that they are incapable of sinning.

No that's not what the text is saying. We know that isn't what the text is saying from the context of the rest of the Bible. We also do know in the context of the rest of the Bible that unregenerate sinners are incapable of doing righteousness, because even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and no unregenerate man does anything for the glory of God, and therefore all his deeds are sinful, selfish, and bent towards evil. Men are slaves to sin before conversion, absolutely. Men are slaves to God when they are converted, and God even uses our sin to conform us into the image of Christ.

You are simply not arguing fairly here.

You use Romans 6 as "proof-text" for our lack of freedom to do good in our unregenerate state. You seem to rather clearly ground that argument in the fact that we are slaves to sin. Fair enough.

But here again is the clip from Romans 6:

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obeyâ€â€whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

You cannot have it both ways here. If in our unregenerate state we cannot choose to fo good since we are slaves, then it follows that in our regenerate state, we cannot choose to sin, since we are again slaves. And we all know we can and do choose to sin.
....snip...

Drew, the whole point of Romans 6 is exactly the opposite of what you are saying. The point is that we can have it both ways, when we were slaves of sin, we could not serve God, but as slaves of God, we can still serve sin. This is exactly what Paul is complaining about. He is saying these things should not be. As we were once slaves of sin and served sin, we should now live free of sin, because Christ made us free of sin.

Drew, I will believe you understand Romans 6 if you can answer a question. What freedom is verse 7 and verse 18 talking about? I suspect I know your answer already. You are going to import your tradition into the text and say this is about libertarian free will, and thta man should make a choice to sin or not to sin. That would be a wrong answer. Verse 18 makes it clear that servants of righteousness are (present tense and continuous action) free from sin.

 

[mondar]

Mondar,
Welcome back...long time no see.

One question to start...How do you witness to the lost souls in this world? Or do you even bother since it is all predestined?

The difference between Calvinists and non-Calvinists concerning evangelism is that while non-Calvinists talk about evangelism, Calvinists do evangelism. As a matter of fact, the Reformation was the greatest explosian of the gospel in all of history. The reformers did things we have not even begun to do today. The question of "Justification by faith alone" was a question every household in Europe had to answer. The first great awakening was a Calvinist movement. Who can deny men like Spurgeon were highly evangelistic.

Non-Calvinists commonly recite the mantra that Calvinists are not evangelistic. Such a notion is only foolishness and ignorance. Most Calvinists are more evangelistic in their pinky then non-Calvinists are in their entire hand. I personally have spent many hours knocking on doors, doing street evangelism, speaking to co-oworkers and neighbors. I am the least of evangelistic Calvinists.

Generally, I think the idea that Calvinists are not evangelistic comes from non-Calvinists who simply have no idea what a Calvinists actually is. Do you have the foggiest idea what the difference is between a Calvinist and a Hyper-Calvinist (sub Calvinist according to RCSproul) might be? Do you understand the doctrine of predestination? If you do, why would you ask such questions?

Now a question for you. Why would you pray to God for a mans conversion if it depends so totally upon mans all powerful, libertarian, free will. Or do you bother to pray to God?

 

[GraceBwithU]

Mondar,

Excellent response. I think However that it is very judgmental to state that non-Calvinist

Most Calvinists are more evangelistic in their pinky then non-Calvinists are in their entire hand.

Not true and you most likely know it. I was just curious to how you would approach the situation…by understanding that ALL salvation is predestined and not a result of any works of man that is regenerated by God. Good response…but you still did not answer the question.

The difference between Calvinists and non-Calvinists concerning evangelism is that while non-Calvinists talk about evangelism, Calvinists do evangelism.

Shallow!

 

[JayR]

Wow, it's refreshing to have a brother on here. Every forum on theology that I have ever been to has been filled with people with wrong theology. Finally. Good to meet you Mondar.

 

[GraceBwithU]

Wow, it's refreshing to have a brother on here. Every forum on theology that I have ever been to has been filled with people with wrong theology. Finally. Good to meet you Mondar.

Good to meet you to JayR Don't be so quick to judge....I'm not so sure that you and Mondar are coming from the same page, although Mondar and I may disagree on somethings...

 

[JayR]

Good to meet you GraceBWithU.

 

[GraceBwithU]

Listen guys,
I'm not sure if any of you have read all of my post on this subject...but I'm a bit in the middle. And quite frankly I think it is where the real truth is. I understand election and free will. I believe both exist.

I know this because I know all the scripture to be true and do NOT contradict.


Rev 2:1-2
2 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
2 I know thy works,
KJV

I could go on but I think we all know that Jesus addresses all the churches in this manner.

Rev 2:5
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works;
KJV

Our first works are repentance and believing. This was not predestined for most of us. Mondar or JayR...how many books of the Bible have you published that is now part of the canon of the bible. Or when did Jesus speak to you and say to you that he chose you for his disciple...or when did God make a covenant with you that would make a differance in God's plan for the ages. These are the ones that have been elected beforehand and all of these would witness to the fact that it was irresistible. But for most of us it is just not that way. We have to choose between the lies of Satan or the grace of God.

People the thing is that YES some have been chosen...but that great multitude that John saw in chapter 7 of Rev are those that chose Him.

:

 

[JayR]

"Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins."

"When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."

Repentance is God given my friend. No man repents aside from the grace and election of God.

Faith is God given as well. We aren't saved by our own capacity to believe, we are saved by God's grace through the faith which He gives us, so that nobody can boast. There will be no room for boasting in heaven, and if faith wasn't given from God but came from man's own capacity to believe, then some in heaven could brag all day long that they believed more than others. No. It doesn't work that way. Repentance is God given, and so is faith, and He gives it according to whom He has mercy on, whom He has compassion on, and those whom he has mercy and compassion on are His elect who are predestined for glory.

 

[GraceBwithU]

"Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins."

"When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."

Repentance is God given my friend. No man repents aside from the grace and election of God.

Faith is God given as well. We aren't saved by our own capacity to believe, we are saved by God's grace through the faith which He gives us, so that nobody can boast. There will be no room for boasting in heaven, and if faith wasn't given from God but came from man's own capacity to believe, then some in heaven could brag all day long that they believed more than others. No. It doesn't work that way. Repentance is God given, and so is faith, and He gives it according to whom He has mercy on, whom He has compassion on, and those whom he has mercy and compassion on are His elect who are predestined for glory.

Blah blah blah Mondar is more interesting You did not answer any of my questions.

 

[JayR]

You say blah, blah, blah to truth? Come on now.

You edited your post and didn't even ask those questions until after I made mine, but whatever.

 

[JayR]

You do realize that if repentance is God given, which it is, and if faith is God given, which it is, then salvation has absolutely nothing to do anything with any choice you make, like the Bible says?

"So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."

It is purely by God's mercy according to His election and good pleasure.