Free Will, Predeterminism and Predestination

[Jethro Bodine]

That is not what the scripture teaches. It teaches that the holy and blameless DO not do wrong so they are not to be blamed. It is not that they do wrong but just get away with it.

Hebrews 12:4-7
4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons:
“My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord,
and do not lose heart when He rebukes you.
6For the Lord disciplines the one He loves,
and He chastises every son He receives.”
7Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you do not experience discipline like everyone else, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

Plenty of context included here so you can see that legitimate sons of God may struggle with sin, and that God does not let his sons sin and get away with it.

He chose us to act according to his teaching and commandments before the world was created.

That's the plan and purpose that the elect are predestined to fulfil. It's a process.

He certainly did not chose man to sin freely but being accounted as sinless.

As we can see from the passage I posted above he won't let his true sons and daughters sin freely. The person who claims to belong to God but makes grace a license to sin and gets away with it is showing themselves to not belong to the family of God.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

The difficulty comes when a theology assumes this being elected happens before the foundation of time based on nothing but whim (unjust.)

The fact that we are chosen in him before the foundation of the world is not in dispute. The Bible says that.

Ephesians 1:4
4For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence.

What is in dispute is what being elected in him actually means.

What is the elect are elected at salvation and not before?

Huh? Can you rephrase the question, please?

I didn't. That is not my argument, it is yours.

That was addressed to n2thelight, not you.

Everyone on the planet has free will.

But only within God's will. God is able to be sovereign and exercise his complete and unhindered free will at the same time that we are able to exercise our free will to the extent that has been given to us. Your theology doesn't seem to be able to acknowledge this.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Nope. But what I believe is going to be difficult to communicate as I suspect you have ready made boxes to classify people. Am I wrong?

It was a question. That's how a person learns what someone believes. No need to be defensive.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

What I believe is to love God with all my being as He defines love to be and love my neighbor as I love myself.

Yes, but saved people do that because they are already saved, not in order to become saved. When a person says they must be obedient in order to be saved at the judgment of God it's important that they understand that to mean their obedience is the manifestation of the faith that does the justifying (see Galatians 5:6), and that it doesn't mean that obedience is what makes a person saved.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Jesus said if you don’t forgive others, you’re not forgiven either. Is that a part of your gospel?

Yes it is. But it doesn't mean you are forgiven as a result of you forgiving others. It means your forgiveness is the result of you having already received God's forgiveness in salvation. The person who walks in unforgiveness is showing that they have not received God's forgiveness. It doesn't mean they have failed to gain God's forgiveness by not first being forgiving.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Yes it is. But it doesn't mean you are forgiven as a result of you forgiving others. It means your forgiveness is the result of you having already received God's forgiveness in salvation. The person who walks in unforgiveness is showing that they have not received God's forgiveness. It doesn't mean they have failed to gain God's forgiveness by not first being forgiving.

Is that what you tell yourself if others do you wrong and you do not immediately and easily forgive? That you're not born again? Do you tell others that as well?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Ah, so do you forgive others easily and quickly or have you failed to secure the righteousness of God yet?

I have indeed secured the righteousness of God. I know that by the fact that I can and do forgive, and do all the other things God commands his sons to do. But surely, sometimes I struggle with his commands as Hebrews talks about that, but in the end God is faithful to work obedience in his children despite their struggles and failures. Not talking about purposely sinning, as if grace were a license to sin and get away with it, so don't even bother going there. As I showed in a previous post, the person who is doing that doesn't belong to the family of God as evidenced by the fact they are getting away with doing that. Ultimately, God won't let his children make grace a license to freely sin.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Is that what you tell yourself if others do you wrong and you do not immediately and easily forgive? That you're not born again? Do you tell others that as well?

I am born again. So I don't tell anybody that. If I was not born again I would not forgive altogether. My struggle with that and the other commands of God, if and when that is the case, is the sign that I am indeed born again and belong to the family of God in salvation. The absence of that struggle is what would show I am not born again. Unbelievers do not struggle with sin. They embrace it.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Do you tell yourself that this “securing the righteousness of God” varies daily depending upon whether you’ve forgiven new offenses or not?

No, because the securing of God's righteousness is a one time event that does not need to be repeated because in this Covenant that has been completed on behalf of the believer and requires no further sacrifice to accomplish.

Hebrews 10:1-14
1For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2If it could, would not the offerings have ceased? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt the guilt of their sins.
[...]
8In the passage above He says, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire, nor did You delight in them” (although they are offered according to the law). 9Then He adds, “Here I am, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
[...]
12...when this Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time, He waits for His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet, 14because by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.


So, as we can see perfection is secured for the believer one time by the sacrifice of Jesus and does not need to be redone over and over again. In the passage we can see that what has yet to be completed for the believer is the "being sanctified" part, which occurs as they are trained by God to walk more and more in the qualities of the Spirit, as Peter talks about that here.

2 Peter 1:8
8For if you possess these qualities and continue to grow in them, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And as Paul also talks about that here.

Ephesians 4:13
13...as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I mean new offenses come. So if we ever fail to forgive, is it that we’ve never secured the righteousness of God or that we lost it for a time?

For the believer, neither. It means you're weak. And since you are a believer the blood of Christ is there for you through your faith keeping you in the forgiveness of that one time sacrifice of Jesus.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

How was this measured? BY WHAT WORKS SHE DID!

That is correct. The mistake is to say she is forgiven by God in return for her forgiveness towards others. We forgive because we are a forgiven, saved person, not in order to become a forgiven, saved person. Obedience is not how you get saved. Receiving God's forgiveness for your sins is how you become a saved person.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

The fact that we are chosen in him before the foundation of the world is not in dispute. The Bible says that.

Ephesians 1:4
4For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence.

No, you were not personally chosen and not others. The believers were to be holy and blameless of evil in behavior. They weren’t chosen for heaven instead of others who refuse to believe. What you believe makes God cruel.

What is in dispute is what being elected in him actually means.

No, choosing Frank for Heavenbut Stan for Hell is in dispute.

Huh? Can you rephrase the question, please?


That was addressed to n2thelight, not you.


But only within God's will. God is able to be sovereign and exercise his complete and unhindered free will at the same time that we are able to exercise our free will to the extent that has been given to us. Your theology doesn't seem to be able to acknowledge this.

Gods will stops at the border of our will. That is Gods will.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

For the believer, neither. It means you're weak. And since you are a believer the blood of Christ is there for you through your faith keeping you in the forgiveness of that one time sacrifice of Jesus.

That’s not what Jesus said.

 

[Edward]

But Paul is literally using him as an example of what God also did in regard to the offspring of the Patriarchs and the Israelites. So how does that make Pharaoh's an unusual case?

Scripture says God hardened Pharohs heart. God doesn't normally do that I think. But God is not subject to rules upon Himself. Especially something man thought up, Lol!

 

[Jethro Bodine]

No, you were not personally chosen

I was chosen on the basis of my faith. How about you?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

The believers were to be holy and blameless of evil in behavior.

And so then they were chosen? Is that what you're getting at?
Remember, these are just questions. No need to get defensive.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

No, choosing Frank for Heavenbut Stan for Hell is in dispute.

No, Frank being chosen on the basis of faith in Christ, not works, is not in dispute. And Stan being chosen to go to hell is a misuse of the word 'elect'. I only see 'election' being used in scripture when speaking of saved, born again people. But if I missed a case where that is not so, I will change my view on that.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

What you believe makes God cruel.

I do not believe God is cruel. What I believe is God is able to exercise his free will without hindrance despite him allowing us to have a measure of free will. I personally don't believe God exercises the free will to send people to hell who would have otherwise been saved if he's just had mercy on them. That's where I'm at on that.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Gods will stops at the border of our will. That is Gods will.

Actually, I'm coming to the more correct understanding that our will stops at the border of God's will. We're like rats in a maze. It's easily observable that we are not free to do whatever we want. We can only exercise our free will within the boundaries that God has allowed us to do that. For example, I can not decide on my own that I will be a saved person. That can only happen, if it will happen, when God opens up that part of the rat maze to this miserable rat. And he did that...when he decided to do that, not me.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

That’s not what Jesus said.

Hebrews explains it detail.