Fastfredy0
2024 Supporter
You are intelligent and articulate. Those are only 7 of 50ish verses supporting (IMO) election/predestination/appointment/choosing by God. Let's not waste each others time. You won't accept my interpretation and vice versa. There ... saved a lot of time. I would like to see your verses stating a person believed in God salvifically and that belief was via FREE WILL. Find me those FREE WILL verses. Not verses saying person "A" chose to believe with no explanation of why. Rather, person "A" chose to believe completely independent of God's influence.I don't have time at the moment to address these. However, I will when I have a few minutes. Each of these passages when understood in context can be shown to be saying something other than what you're suggesting.
- Psalm 65:4 Blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to dwell in Your courts. We will be filled with the goodness of Your house, Your holy temple.
- Psalm 139:16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written
The days that were appointed for me, When as yet there was not one of them [even taking shape].
- Amos 3:2 You only (Israel) have I known [equivalent to salvation – see definitions] of all the families of the earth.
- Matthew 11:21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. [God determined their choice]
- Matthew 11:27 All things have been entrusted and delivered to Me by My Father; and no one fully knows and accurately understands the Son except the Father, and no one fully knows and accurately understands the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son deliberately wills to make Him known. [the will of the Son determines who knows God]
- Matthew 13:11 And He replied to them, to you it has been given to know the secrets and mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
- Matthew 15:13 He answered, “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant [non-elect] will be torn up by the roots.
- Matthew 20:1-16 … 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. This is in regards to the choosing of the elect to enter the kingdom of heaven
- Matthew 21:43 I tell you, for this reason the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the fruits of it. Salvation taken away from a group in general
- Matthew 22:14 For many are called (invited, summoned), but few are chosen.”
- Matthew 24:24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and they will provide great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect (God’s chosen ones).
- Mark 13:20 And if the Lord had not shortened the days, no human life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose [for Himself], He shortened the days.
- Luke 10:20 Your names are written in heaven 21 In that same hour He rejoiced and gloried in the Holy Spirit and said, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have concealed these things [relating to salvation] from the wise and understanding and learned, and revealed them to babes (the childish, unskilled, and untaught). Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will and choice and good pleasure.
- Luke 12:32 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. do the sheep (men) chose the shepherd (Christ)?John 6:37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. [the action is the Father giving to the Son; believers are not involved in the transaction save their coming is the result of the Father’s action][Counter argument: Perhaps the reason for the father’s gift is the choice of men. Salvation is dependent upon giving; one does not give because one foresees faith]John 6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”