As you may remember, I lived as a Calvinist for a number of years, teaching the “doctrines of grace” in a Sunday School Class for Adults, and in Small Group studies for years.
During this time, certain verses and passages seemed to niggle at the back of my mind, but I sought to ignore them and refused to consider alternate ways of looking at the Word, and the God of the Bible.
Certain verses seemed to be in contradiction with the general teaching of Calvin.
One of those teachings were the apparent hatred God has for some sinners, to the point where He would not allow regeneration of their souls prior to their activating the faith required to please God. Yes – that is a common teaching in the reformed thought, that God regenerates a lost sinner prior to the sinner responding to the call of salvation.
Any sinner that is not regenerated, given life eternal, is relegated to eternal suffering. This brings up a number of issues in my mind, which include the justice of God in condemning a sinner for not able to respond to the Gospel of Christ.
Nevertheless, the topic I want to consider is the Love of God in relation to the sinner.
Many times in the New Testament, (golly – bunches of times in the Old Testament) believers are enjoined to love thier enemies.
Matthew 5:44
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
or
Romans 12:20
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
What has that got to do with Calvinism? The doctrines of grace teach that God does not love His enemies, but of the destruction and eternal torment of sinners, the enemies of God. They will suffer throughout eternity and this will supposedly bring glory and honor to the Father.
Wait a minute
We are told to imitate Him, as dear children.
Ephesians 5:1
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
or, consider
Matthew 5:48
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
So what is your point Carl?
Are we to hate our enemies or love them? If we follow the teaching of Calvin, it seems in order to follow our Father in relation to His enemies, we would have the right to do damage to them. After all, according to the God depicted by Calvin, destruction of the enemies of God pleases Him.
Never mind all the passages that speak of our not taking revenge, or that God is love. I found that once I admitted to myself that the logic of Calvinism had some weakness, the whole scheme tumbled down.
If you are considering the teaching of Calvin, remember to keep a gentle spirit, an open mind to the passages of Scripture that give you pause, and flee from the pride of a “higher spirituality”
To be loved by the suffering Savior and His gracious Father is enough.
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Considering the Bible 
I took this comment from Paul not the apostle
“Words have meaning and the apostle Paul was a hebrew scholar better than any scholar that’s ever interpreted the OT. Paul in Romans 9 interprets the OT texts using Koine Greek. You don’t have a problem with me- you definitely have a problem with the apostle who translates his OT into Koine Greek and then he interprets those same texts in Koine Greek “
“Better than any scholar that’s ever interpreted the OT. Ugh spell check”
“So your saying that there are superior Greek scholars than the apostle Paul? “
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And that the apostle was incorrect in his interpretation of the OT texts in Romans 9?
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God chose the weak things of this world the low born to confound the wise so they can’t glory ( paraphrased)
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What English word in Greek did paste ?
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My memory recollected the incorrect Matthew verses should be Matthew 16:16-18 not chapter 18
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I have interacted with Carl back and forth and now Gordon, we don’t agree on what scripture says.
I believe natural man cannot come to Christ unless given by the Father
I do not believe the Bible teaches any form of the Free Will of man
I believe the Bible teaches salvation is an act of God from regeneration to glorification to whom he wills to show mercy
I believe faith or belief is the work of God
I believe God completely controls His creation and causes all things including evil
Due to the fact, He declares the end from the beginning means He controls everything
He controlled all thoughts, words and deeds that led to the timing and crucifixion of Jesus Christ for the good of His people chosen unconditionally from before the foundation of the world.
I believe Free Will is the doctrine of demons and presents a false gospel and a salvation conditioned on man
I believe Jesus Christ when He said it is finished; that it meant I have secured the salvation of the people He promised to save
I believe He endured with much long suffering vessels fitted out for destruction in order to show the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy
Jehovah said it is idol worship to pray to a god that cannot save or agree with someone who believes in the god that cannot save
Jesus says he won’t lose one person that the father gives Him
God is not sitting around wondering what is going to happen in order to protect the delusional freedom of man
Isaiah 45:4-7
For My servant Jacob’s sake, and for Israel My elect, and I call you by your name, I name you, but you do not know Me.
5 ¶ I am Jehovah, and there is not one besides; there is not one except Me. I will clothe you, though you do not know Me,
6 that they may know from the rising of the sun, and to its going down, that not one is God, except Me; I am Jehovah, and no one besides Me,
7 forming light, and creating darkness; making peace, and creating evil. I, Jeho- vah, do all thse things.
God has a plan that won’t be thwarted because man is not God
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You make that opinion, and how poorly you defend it, pretty clear.
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So far all I have is your understanding based on your emotional rejection of God’s complete control over His creation
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You think that me proving you wrong over and over again is because of an emotional denial of nonsensical slander against God’s operation?
Your god is controlling me into rejecting Calvinism, and making me experience those emotions (and plain logic). I’m not doing anything; your god is doing it, and I am a puppet made in his image, forced to believe in the diabolical doctrines that your god authored in which he makes me believe that my actions are my actions, as though scripture indicated that all of the commandments in the Bible are not mirages, and that the Gospel were good news.
If I find fault with your god and questioning him, your god is making me question him, not me, and yet because he questions himself through me, he is finding fault with me doing that as well, not only finding fault with sin that he exploits to good outcomes, but sins that he authors for self-congratulations.
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I use scripture you don’t think it means God controls His creation He creates and He knows what exactly He creates There are no unknowns with God because He ordains all things You don’t believe this God either has to open your eyes or mine
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God doesn’t have to control everything to get his way. Jesus is God, but did not know when the end would come. God could literally refuse to operate on any knowledge of the future and still have everything he plans to happen, to do so, with no number of the trillions of decisions he allows us to make against him thwarting him.
You think human freedom would make God’s authority completely collapse like a house of cards, so you pretend that everything the Bible says about human freedom is a lie. We were NOT free to eat of any of the other fruits in the garden. We are NOT meant to repent. We are NOT meant to do anything that God says, just what he does.
Your god has to micromanage everything because he couldn’t possibly tolerate the idea of his creations being in his image. My God does what he wants and fulfills his purpose no matter what we do, and because of this, he lets us do whatever we want with notable exceptions, most of which are him honoring decisions we already made. Your god can’t do that.
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Jesus was also man remember he emptied himself and took in human flesh
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So what? If Jesus can be God without meticulously controlling everything, why can’t the Father? Because you say so, against the implications of every commandment ever written.
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Wow, God is God He is omniscient Jesus came as the God/man and emptied himself You are making me feel like you are just trying to confuse
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“God could literally refuse to operate on any knowledge of the future and still have everything he plans to happen”
That is ridiculous to me
You give man a lot of power; but tell me what distinguishes one person from another John 3:27 and 1 Corinthians 4:7
He lets us do whatever he wants” and it fulfills His purpose”
Yes, because he created us to do that very thing
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You think accepting a gift is earning it. I get it. You’re absolutely wrong, but I understand clearly that you think that taking God’s hand is the same thing and has the same merit as flying up to heaven yourself. Iron sharpens iron, but your constant ad nausea are in danger of grinding me down instead of honing my beliefs. Have fun in Calvin’s realm. I don’t need to go on disproving your accusations against God.
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The natural man doesn’t even want the gift. He thinks the effectual atonement securing the salvation of who the father gives is foolishness He thinks spiritually things are foolishness The world and it’s wisdom never found God God chose the foolish things to confound the wise None seek after the true God not one
So, the gift that cannot be received unless given is a total act of Grace to whom he wills
The ones that think he died for everyone make salvation an act of man
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If Adam and Eve couldn’t trust God’s word, how is it possible for fallen man to trust God’s word when Jesus says your father is the devil?
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God has to generate from above a believing heart with a new spirit and the spirit blows where it wills according to His will John 3:8 otherwise they can’t see or enter into the kingdom of God
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Back when that was written, the foolishness was the idea of God loving gentiles or being humble. Today, the foolishness is nullifying scripture for the sake of tradition.
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The gospel is the gospel for both Jew and Gentile you are sidestepping the cross was that which was foolishness not loving the Gentiles Please I have no idea where you are going with this
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You do not believe the cross actually saved someone in and of itself. You believe your Will makes the difference between heaven and hell That is a false gospel that doesn’t save
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You don’t believe in the cross at all. All you need is predestination. Your cross only connects God’s plans to save some with his own actions to save some, connecting God to God, instead of connecting God to Man. You don’t need the cross. Just fate.
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You are getting more ridiculous The cross makes it possible to predestine those into Christ
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Predestination does not need the cross. The cross needs predestination. You are ordering things backwards again, and again, contradicting the overall meaning of scripture in the name of your traditions. There are no mysteries left for you. You think the foolishness of God’s love is him contadicting himself instead of humbling himself to death for our sakes. The need for determinism to defend your god’s fragile grip on the universe stems from the same Platonic and proto-Gnostic beliefs that decried the original gospel as foolish. The foolishness of God is not the foolishness of the Galatians; and you are most certainly not standing here for God any more than the Sadducees did for Moses.
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You don’t understand the need for the cross
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Nobody does; it’s a divine mystery. But I certainly do understand your cross and your paradigm of it, and I understand that it’s wrong.
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The cross makes the difference between saved and not saved
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No it doesn’t for you. Predestination does. The cross is only an extension of it. Nowhere near the center of your gospel.
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Predestination doesn’t happen without the cross of christ You are making void the word of God by your refusal to let God be God
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After voiding the overall message of scripture, all of Jesus’ parables, the love-being of God, every commandment as being a commandment, and the laws of mathematics… you accuse me of voiding scripture when I take your own theology and bring it to its logical conclusion in front of your face! Can you not comprehend the implications of your own teachings? I’m done. Have a good night.
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The apostle Paul said I profess to know nothing except the cross of Christ
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My parting message for you is the confession of Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem, from a succession of episcopacies leading down to the apostles, from the tradition that has not changed its stance on god, having grown up reading the Bible’s language. These peopke have an immensity of authority above the 16th century lawyer who made Geneva into his personal dictatorship and brought about this Manichæan monstrosity of a god. http://www.crivoice.org/creeddositheus.html
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If you research the scriptures using the words foreknew, knew, know, known, knowing, You should discover their meaning of “foreknew” will not be scripturally supported.
It appears this document supports the false doctrine of “free Will” From what I have studied I have decided their meaning of “foreknew” is incorrect and presents the doctrine that individual salvation is determined and conditioned on man. John 3:8 Romans 9:16, John 6:44, John 6:65, John 10:26 Romans 9:15, Romans 9:18 Matthew 1:21 Matthew 11:26 Matthew 18:16-18 and many other scriptures refute this false notion of free will. Here is a partial quote from the document you referred me to.
“But since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will, and the other a wrong, He predestinated the one, or condemned the other.”
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Your “research” comes from those without knowledge of the spoken greek, and without even a lick of the unspoken Jewish context translated into Greek. The ὁρισμός is not the same thing as ἡ διάνοια.
The Eastern Orthodox are the ones who put the Bible together. They know it better than you and Calvin. I’m not going to debate that with you on the obvious any more since you’re going to robotically repeat the same fallacies and keep pretending that a cursory reading of isolated phrases in the Bible completely undo and filter out the rest of it. Drawing near to God and reflecting his light saves, and he commands us to decide to do this for ourselves.
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Well said Gordon
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Did they answer how one person differs from another?
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Do all 3 of you, Carl, Gordon and oron61 support the doctrines of the Eastern Orthodox ?
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Here is a quote from a grammar is.org
I found that hopefully will cause you to stop mislabeling me with the word “ Calvinist”
“Popular Calvinism claims that the Holy Spirit enables sinners to meet conditions for their own salvation but the Scripture teaches that the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus Christ, NOT the sinner. It is Christ ALONE who met all the penal and preceptive conditions for His elect. Faith and repentance are NOT conditions of salvation, but immediate and inevitable fruits of salvation. To confuse the fruits of salvation with the conditions for salvation is to confound one’s own righteousness with the righteousness of Christ. It is to be ignorant of the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness (Romans 10:1-4).
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Sorry the blog is agrammatos.org
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A rose by any other name is still a rose.
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He that believes salvation is conditioned on man’s “free will” whether a pink carnation or a yellow carnation is still mouthing and generating a false gospel that does not save.
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Calvin didn’t believe in free will. They’re just phrasing it so that the gullible and thoughtless listener doesn’t consider the idea until they’ve been properly brainwashed into accepting it. You’re just more honest than they because they still pretend that God is loving and just.
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There are 2 gospels a false gospel that doesn’t save conditioned on man and the true Gospel, one conditioned on Christ and Him alone. The one conditioned on man is unbiblical and false. Call them whatever you want.
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Ok. I will call the false one …. let’s see now. Ya I think the name calvinism fits the definition.
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Sovereign Grace or no sovereign Grace that is the difference
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Again with incorrect definitions (of soveriegnty) come false doctrines and wrong theology
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Ok, Try this Does God choose who will be saved of does man?
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Jesus said He will not lose one the father gives to him
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The father is in complete control of His creation
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Jesus paid or atoned effectually for the sins of those given by the Father
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The Spirit generates from above those given by The Father and those redeemed by The Son
Perfect mathematical harmony
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You are robotic in your teaching.
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God controls everything read the scriptures
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I used scripture you don’t use scripture just emotive labels
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Sure whatever you say
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You don’t use scripture. You use clippings of scripture to force them to fit your arrogant and self-righteous presumption on your status as a child of God just like the Pharisees and Zealots did to excuse their own arrogance and criminal attitudes. You do so to your own destruction. If you actually used all of scripture, you wouldn’t be straining the gnats of which type of sovereignty God exercises and swallowing the camel of denying the effect of most of the Bible in the name of theistic fatalism. You can’t even write in complete sentences any more; you’re spouting slogans, covering your ears and singing “I can’t hear you!” because you can’t imagine how you could possibly be wrong in the ways you misinterperet the Bible from a Platonic-Gnostic fatalistic view that’s closer to Islamic Occasionalism than it is to Apostolic Christianity.
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Why don’t you exegete John 6:37 -44 for me if you are interested in opening my eyes?
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It’s already been done by many people smarter than either of us. Here’s two of them:
It means that the Father and the Son are one and the same, and that just as the Son delivers to the Father, so the Father draws to the Son. Those with noble hearts and a thirst for righteousness, those who “delight themselves in the lord” per the psalmist, will be drawn by their pleasurable delight in goodness and their desire for the resurrection by the Father’s guidance to get what they want, which is Jesus, to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Bad people are not drawn to the scent of God’s ointment.
(From Chrysostom’s homilies and Augustine’s tractates on John, per Ancient Christian Commentaries, per my paraphrase.)
I’m not going to entertain your attempts to twist scripture any more.
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I see the word “draws” that it is a conditional draw
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Because it *is* conditioned on your desire. Those who pursue righteousness will be filled (Beatitudes), a filling that only comes when empowered, even if ever so slightly, by the Spirit, the Author of the law in our hearts, and gift-giver, to do righteousness. The ones who do righteousness are ones of God (2 John) and will be drawn by the Father (John 6). Those who are guided by the father will see the love of the Son. Those who approach the Son by faithfulness to his teaching, no matte his mode or appearence, whether as Jesus Christ, Lady Wisdom, Priest-King Melchizedek, the Word of God to the Prophets, or other modes in which the Son has operated on this earth, will be delivered to the Father in the end.
That is the promise. If you are one of God’s people, he will lead you to him.
The righteousness that is filthy rags is the presumption on Jesus’ blood to grant you impunity through fruitless imputed righteousness. Unless you are a worshipper of the Beast, you will be judged and rewarded according to your deeds.
The son’s power to deliver was from the great exaltation he took when rising up in his resurrection from the great humility he lived in as God a Man. This is how God relates to us personally, and that is the promise from the down-throw of the world (a better translation of “foundation”). Those who seek righteousness are the chosen. They will be saved so long as they persevere. 2 John, the parables, aand Revelation would not warn us about losing what we have if our reward weren’t eternally secure.
Those who are faithful to Jesus Christ, who is the the giver of the covenant of faithfulness (not election, not belief, not the sacraments) will be saved, a σωτηρία beyond escape from hell, but a reconstructed everything.
To say that God creates living and feeling beings for the purpose of endlessly torturing them “for his own good pleasure” is the blasphemy to end all. There is no construction of Scripture (for all heretics acknowledge scripture while using it against the truth, Conf. Dosethius §2) that slanders God’s character than such as Calvinism, and its the inescapable doctrine of unconditional reprobation, God’s active authorship of all evil by proxy, and divine command theory.
BTW I am Gordon Holley; I just use multiple devices not all linked.
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I appreciate knowing that both addresses are coming from Gordon Holley. It felt like you were coming from the same point of reference.
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Gordon, I suggest you revisit in the Bible the unrighteousness of man and the righteousness of God in Christ; particularly the account of the tax collector and the regenerated thief or plunderer on the cross.
Romans 10:1-4 Please tell me why and how the thief changed his mind (repented) gift or no gift?
You think too highly of man and do not know who saves who. Romans 12:3
You do not know about the biblical unrighteousness of all and every individual human and the effectual work of the Cross of Christ that secured the salvation of those He represented and promised to save. How could He promise if you are unknowing special?
God created everything and the knowledge of what he created was ordained before time.
Salvation is conditioned on His righteousness of Propitiating, Justifying and Redeeming those regenerated from above and given by the Father to Jesus, unconditionally. The objector complained in Romans 9 “ Why do you find fault?” Who can resist His will?” “Why did you make me like this”? Are you an objector?
Salvation is a gift unmerited without your effort and all that receive this gift cannot boast.
If you make the difference in your salvation, then you can boast “ and you won’t be boasting in the work of Christ alone.
You will think you differ from the sinner that somehow doesn’t get it. You can boast
I could go line by line referring and replying to your statement of faith; but I would be repeating myself over and over and I know you have read it all and nothing sunk in. God controls His creation.
Jehovah has made all for his purpose even the wicked for the day of evil.
Proverbs 16:4
Isaiah 43:7
every one who is called by My name, I have created him for My glory; I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
Please notice in the above verses that God made and makes and forms.
Your statement of faith is not biblical
No one seeks after the true God unless God acts upon him and no one thirsts after righteousness without God acting on him according to what I read in the Bible.
The serpent sold the same idea “ you will be like God” but all that happened was exactly what God said would happen “ Dying you shall die” we all became liars and Satan became our father.
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Every time you say “formed” or “made,” you are using the wrong definition. Every time you quote Romans, you are using it to address a subject Paul was not addressing. You find me “unbiblical” because I’m not controlled by your inserted westernized subtexts and definitions read into the Bible, upon the which you base your entire theology.
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Give me the right definition
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Better than that please give me the right translation
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What makes you to be chosen over those who are not chosen?
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What we are discussing is scripture interpretation; not my thinking God thoughts for God; but whoever is chosen according to my view of scripture; it is unconditional; so if chosen, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea
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Here is a reply from Paul
“He must say “my free Will is better than his”
“And he therefore believes that “he forms and makes himself” and he boasts in himself “
My comment and “therefore, they are not boasting in the Cross of Christ; Alone”
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Ok. I am chosen too.
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You originally asked
“What makes you to be chosen over those who are not chosen? “
God makes the difference
Isaiah 43:7 Romans 9:15,16,18 Ephesians 1,2 2 Thessalonians 2:13 John 6:37-44,65
Now you are saying “Ok. I am chosen too”.
Not sure why you jumped the original question you asked; and then gave a different answer; but since you want to determine how you know you are chosen so you can say “Ok I am chosen…” other than the spirit witnesses with our spirit Romans 8:17 is in
Mark 16:16
The one believing and being baptized will be saved; but the one not believing will be condemned.
The Gospel is God’s promised to save His people Matthew 1:21 conditioned on Christ’s atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness alone without any work or effort from the ones He represented. Romans 3 Ephesians 2:8-10
Salvation is all by the work and person of Christ. All that follows the work is the fruit of that salvation Philippians 2:13, 1:6
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I won’t, since you’ll just deny and deflect. How about you make a fool of yourself at the source of your foolishness? Don’t take my word for it. Literally ask any studied Jew what their own scripture means. I know you probably won’t , since you think your “research” from 19th century Englishmen understands the meanings of their Bible better than they do, and can pull some isolated bible verse to discredit the Jews, who wrote the entire Bible, and ignore the whole “oracles of God” pertaining to them.
Go ask three or more legitimate, studied Jews to witness you the meaning, messianic or not, to exegete your proof texts, who has studied them, not an evangelical convert before 13. Go to Maimomedes, Talmud, any rabbi you can find, and see if they agree with your conclusion.
Go interperet their own scripture for them.
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Isaiah 43 – Click for Chapter
3605 [e] 7
kōl 7
כֹּ֚ל 7
Everyone 7
N‑msc 7
7121 [e]
han·niq·rā
הַנִּקְרָ֣א
who is called
Art | V‑Nifal‑Prtcpl‑ms
､
8034 [e]
ḇiš·mî,
בִשְׁמִ֔י
by My name
Prep‑b | N‑msc | 1cs
､
3519 [e]
wə·liḵ·ḇō·w·ḏî
וְלִכְבוֹדִ֖י
for My glory
Conj‑w, Prep‑l | N‑msc | 1cs
1254 [e]
bə·rā·ṯîw;
בְּרָאתִ֑יו
Whom I have created
V‑Qal‑Perf‑1cs | 3ms
3335 [e]
yə·ṣar·tîw
יְצַרְתִּ֖יו
I have formed him
V‑Qal‑Perf‑1cs | 3ms
､
637 [e]
’ap̄-
אַף־
yes
Conj
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I knew you wouldn’t even try.
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After reading this partial quote below from your referenced document, I don’t need to go any further. That statement is ridiculous from what I read in scripture and presents a non biblical description of the creator of all things.
I consider this partial quote just vain words of men and that statement quoted has nothing to do with the true Gospel of Grace and presents a false gospel that presents a salvation conditioned on man who makes the difference in salvation and not the work of Christ alone.
How did these special people he refers to get their “right use of their free Will” The Bible answers my questions on that; but the free Will advocates can’t answer where it comes from because it would mean their sovereign decisions would be eliminated.
“The Confession of Dositheus
(Eastern Orthodox, 1672)”
“But since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will, and the other a wrong, He predestinated the one, or condemned the other.”
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I was talking about asking some real Jews about interpereting their own scripture and your proof-texts. You pulled out an interlinear, pretending the definition is the same thing as the meaning. You won’t do it, because you know they won’t agree with you.
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If you have an Eastern Orthodox Bible translated into English, please give me the translated scriptures of Proverbs 16:4 and Isaiah 43:7
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Proverbs 16:4
Jehovah has made all for His purpose, yea, even the wicked one for the day of evil things.
Isaiah 29:16
O your perversity! Shall the former be counted as the clay, that it shall say to its maker, He did not make me? Or shall the thing formed say to the former, He does not understand?
Isaiah 43:7
every one who is called by My name, I have created him for My glory; I have formed him; yea, I have made him
Isaiah 43:11-15
11 I, I am Jehovah; and there is no Savior besides Me.
12 I declared, and I saved, and I pro- claimed; and there is not an alien god among you. And you are My witnesses, a state- ment of Jehovah, and I am God.
13 Even from this day I am He, and not one delivers from My hand. I will work, and who will reverse it?
14 ¶ So says Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought all of them down as ones fleeing, even the Chaldeans, whose shout is in the ships.
15 I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the One creating Israel, your King.
Isaiah 43:21
This people that I formed for Myself shall recount My praise.
Romans 9:18-24
18 So, then, to whom He wills, He shows mercy; but to whom He wills, He hardens.
19 You will then say to me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?
20 Nay, rather, O man, who are you, the one answering back to God? Shall the thing formed say to the One forming it, Why did You make me like this? Isa. 29:16
21 Or does not the potter have authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel to honor, and one to dishonor?
Jer. 18:6
22 But if God, desiring to display wrath, and to make His power known, endured in much long-suffering vessels of wrath hav- ing been fitted out for destruction,
23 and that He make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy which He before prepared for glory,
24 whom He also called, not only us, of Jews, but also out of nations.
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John 1:12:13
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. ( Who didn’t receive Him?)
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to the ones believing into His name,
13 who were generated not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were generated of God.
Who did receive Him? Not the ones generated of blood, nor of the Will of the flesh nor of the Will of man, but the ones generated of God ( it sounds like John 3:3-8) The Spirit blows where it desires ( verse 8)
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Jeremiah 1:5-10
5 I knew you before I formed you in the belly, even before you came out of the womb, I consecrated you. I gave you to be a prophet to the nations.
6 And I said, Alas, Lord Jehovah! Behold, Idonotknowhowtospeak.forIamaboy.
7 But Jehovah said to me, Do not say, I amaboy;foryoushallgotoallthatI shall send you. And whatever I command
you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am
with you to deliver you, a statement of Je- hovah.
9 And Jehovah put out His hand and touched my mouth. And Jehovah said to me, Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
10 Behold, I have today appointed you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to tear down, and to destroy, and to cast down, to build, and to plant
Will you complain when God makes His people unable to sin at the resurrection? Will you complain because you don’t have your present delusion of “free Will”?
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Don’t play games. Go ask the Jews about predestination and fate, and their proof-texts.
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Why don’t you just give them to me?
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I’m not playing games I actually believe the concept of free Will is not biblical and satanic
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Here is a simple biblical revelation from scripture
Did the Apostle Paul come to Jesus Christ believing the Gospel due to his free will? No, absolutely not; It was by no human effort or free Will. It was totally by the unmerited Grace of God
Why did the apostle Paul pray for the unsaved Israelites in Romans 10:1-4 ?
A very simple biblical scriptural revelation is because God is in control of if, when and how one comes to Christ believing the truth that salvation is by the work and person of Christ alone without any effort from the ones He represented.
There is no reason to ask God to save someone if salvation does not rest in His hands
God had not yet revealed himself to them yet Matthew 11:27 and the apostle being one that knew how he came to Christ knew that would be the only way these Israelites would come; by the Will and Grace of God.
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No, you are playing games. Stop it, and go ask the Apostolic Fathers, the Jews, and your own God-given conscience what the Bible means, because you clearly don’t understand its overarching message. If you can’t, go and wallow in your inability to, because you know their consensus doesn’t match your Calvinistic Gnosticism with Christian icing on top. I’ve exposed your lies over and over again and you know that all you can do is repeat yourself like a parrot. Just let the writers of the Bible sit on your shoulder. You’re calling a basic assumption behind scripture demonic? There’s no correcting your obstinate foolishness.
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I just gave you scripture that presents God being in control and you don’t like it because it is very simple to understand No need to pray to God for anyone’s salvation if Free Will rules
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Well said Gordon.
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Get used to AJ’s scripture twisting. Hes a pro
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Nice religious fervor AJ. The pharisees would be proud.
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This is a more accurate scriptural description of the Pharisees and it doesn’t apply to me because I know I’m not seeking to establish my own righteousness to gain salvation because I know my righteousness was imputed based on the work of another and given at the time I received the gift of faith that Jesus saves based on His work and person alone.
Romans 10:1-4 Romans 4:3-10
Brothers, truly my heart’s pleasure and supplication to God on behalf of Israel is unto salvation.
2 For I testify to them that they have zeal to God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For not knowing the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God.
4 For the end of the law is Christ for righ- teousness to everyone that believes
Romans 4:3-10
For what does the Scripture say? “And Abraham believed God, and it was imputed
to him for righteousness.” Gen. 15:6
4 But to one working, the reward is not imputed according to grace, but accord-
ing to debt.
5 But to the one not working, but believ-
ing on the One justifying the ungodly, his faith is imputed for righteousness.
6 Even as also David says of the blessing of the man to whom God imputes righ- teousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are they whose lawlessnesses have been remitted, and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” LXX-Psa. 31:1, 2; MT-Psa. 32:1, 2
9 ¶ Is this blessing then on the circumci- sion, or also on the uncircumcision? For we say the faith “was imputed to Abraham for righteousness.” Gen. 15:6
10 How then was it imputed? Being in cir- cumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision!
John 6:29
29 Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe into
Him whom that One sent.
God works the faith into the heart or it doesn’t get generated
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I am referring to you self righteous presentation and judgemental attitude. Truly something Caiaphas would be proud of!
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I’m only using scripture to point out that Jesus Christ promised to save His people (Matthew 1:21)( He could not promise this if man was in control) He promised to save and the fruit of their salvation is they know their salvation is based on His work and imputed righteousness alone and that the cross was effectual (Romans 10:1-4)( The Pharisees didn’t know this). He died for a certain number of people (John 6:37) (John 10) chosen unconditionally from before the foundation of world Ephesians 1,2 or God is not a just God and a savior if He sends anyone to Hell that Christ died for and redeemed. There is nothing arrogant or self righteous in the Gospel of Grace alone. Man’s will does not prevent God from saving whom He wills to save and to think otherwise, does reflect arrogance
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Whatever…
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How can there be a “free will offering” outlined in Leviticus? Is that another deception written by God.
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That means they give willingly. Wills come from somewhere. Where does this special characteristic come from that someone has and someone else doesn’t have assuming they believe the truth No one believing in “free Will”Will answer that for me; but the Bible answers it for me because I believe in a sovereign God who controls and causes all things John 3:3,5,8 John 6:37-45 for example
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So it’s a fixed-will offering instead. I see.
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What grace? you mean arbitrary selection? It has to be “good news” if you aree to call it Gospel.
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Xp
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All I said was go to agrammatos.org for an explanation of Ezekiel 18 or 11
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Isaiah 45:21-25
I, Jehovah? And there is not a god be- sides, except Me, a just God and a Sav- ior; there is not one except Me.
22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is not one besides.
23 I have sworn by Myself, the Word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not turn back, that to Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
24 He shall say, Only in Jehovah is to Me righteousness and strength; to Him he comes; and they are ashamed, all who are angry with Him.
25 In Jehovah all of the seed of Israel shall be justified, and shall glory.
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Psalms 5:5
For You are not a God enjoying wick- edness; evil shall not live with You.
5 The boasters shall not set themselves before Your eyes. You hate all workers of iniquity.
6 You shall destroy those speaking lies; Jehovah will despise the man of blood and deceit.
7 ¶ But I, in the abundance of Your grace, I will come into Your house. I will worship in Your fear toward Your holy temple, O Jehovah.
8 Lead me in Your righteousness, because of my enemies; make straight Your way before me.
9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is engulfing ruin;
their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.
10 O God, hold them guilty; let them fall from their own counsels. Drive them away in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against You.
11 But all putting their trust in You shall be joyful; they shall shout for joy forever, because You cover them. And those who love Your name shall be joyful in You.
12 For You, O Jehovah, will bless the righ- teous one; You will surround him with fa- vor, as with a shield
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So was Peter lying when he says that he has no pleasure in the deaths of the wicked but is willing that all should come to Christ? Is David’s transmission of his inspired prayers in his metrified lyric sheets to be takem more preciselh than Peter is in his letters?
Your interperetation of the Bible means that God doesn’t collectively love his creatures, and you refuse to be convinced otherwise. You’ve made your point, and you’ve shown me how much different the foolishness and offense of the “Gospel” is nowadays compared to wonderful and joyful foolishnes and offense it had on the the Rabinical (ex-Pharisees until the temple was destroyed) and Greek theologians of Paul’s day.
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Please reference scripture one at a time Please go to agrammatos.org for an explanation of your reference to Ezekiel, I’m guessing that is the subject in your first sentence
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I don’t need to hear what loops of mental gymnastics you put your readers through to say that God indeed desires the death of the wicked, especially since God’s covenant has expanded to the Gentiles. I really don’t need you to make God a double personalilty. I’m amazed how much your faith takes pride in its incongruence and self-contradictions.
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Sorry, I meant if God hated Esau before he “did” anything good or bad, if this hatred did not happen before creation of Esau, then when did this hatred take place or originate? There are no conditions listed for this hatred; making this hatred unconditional
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If God Hated Esau before he didn’t anything good or bad, then when did this happen?
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“Explain to us how hiding from someone,”
I’m thinking you mean God is hiding from someone; but it is man that is hiding John 3:19
Genesis 3:8
And they heard the sound of Jehovah God walking up and down in the garden at the breeze of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the face of Je- hovah God in the middle of the trees of the garden.
“letting them be lured into being a bad person” “ and killing them”
I’m thinking you mean it started with Adam and Eve being tempted by the Serpent after God commanded not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because “dying you shall die” Genesis 2:17
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is everlasting life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“preventing that someone from repenting”
Acts 17:30
Indeed, therefore, God overlooking the times of ignorance, now strictly commands all men everywhere to repent,
2 Timothy 2:25
in meekness instructing the ones op- posing, if perhaps God may give them re- pentance for a full knowledge of the truth
John 3:27
27 John answered and said, A man is able to receive nothing if it is not given to him from Heaven.
“ only after they are allowed to clearly see tehe truth,”
My comment
I don’t see in scripture where an unbeliever ever clearly sees and believes the Gospel that salvation is conditioned on the atoning shed blood of Christ and His imputed righteousness alone without any contribution or effort from the sinner
1 Corinthians 4:3-4
But if even our gospel is being hidden, it has been hidden in the ones perishing,
4 in whom the god of this age has blinded the thoughts of the faithless ones, so that the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine on them.
John 10:26-28
26 But you do not believe, for you are not of My sheep, even as I said to you.
27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
28 And I give eternal life to them, and they shall not perish to the age, not ever! And not anyone shall snatch them out of My hand.
John 5:21
21 For even as the Father raises the dead, and makes alive, so also the Son makes alive whom He wills.
“then torturing him for all eternity- can be done in love to that particular person.”
My comment
I agree, God does not love the person not found in the book of life. Romans 9:13 Jacob I loved; Esau I hated and this was done before they had done anything good or bad (both love and hate are unconditional) (before creation)
Revelation 20:15
15 And if anyone was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into
the Lake of Fire.
We do not know who God’s elect are. Jesus said love your enemies bless them that curse you; which I take to mean do no harm to enemies.
“Tell me where the love is in tricking someone with temporal pleasures into infinite suffering is out of God’s infinite love.”
My comment
God does not have infinite love for the non elect; otherwise, he would not have hated, for example, Esau before creation.
Romans 9
The Serpent provided the temptation to temporal pleasures. Adam and Eve were fine until confronted with outside influences. You should be mad at the Serpent. The Serpent was pushing evil onto Adam and Eve
Psalms 139:21
21 O Jehovah, do not I hate those hating
You? And I am loathing those rising against You
Back to my original question that needs to be answered
How did Adam and Eve acquire the nature to disobey God’s word?
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“God does not have infinite love for the non elect; otherwise, he would not have hated, for example, Esau before creation.”
How is setting up humanity to sin using Adam as an occasion to give us a sinful nature, and then infinitely torturing them for it, love? If it isn’t, God does not love his enemies at all.
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Where does the Scripture state that God hated Esau before creation?
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The Greek word for “born” is a general word meaning “to procreate,” “to produce,” or “to conceive” – it is talking about before the children’s time of conception within their mother.
You don’t think this lines up with before creation? Splitting hairs won’t change the fact that God had an unconditional predetermined plan for Jacob and Esau
Romans 9:11
11 for the children not yet being born, ( conceived) nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of the One calling …..
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True
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You should not use the word enemies; but use the term non elect; since the elect were once enemies before conversion Ephesians 2:2-3
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Once they are converted, they are not his enemies. The non-elect are still his enemies, and he doesn’t love them.
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All that the Father gives to Jesus will come to Jesus believing that His atoning blood and His imputed righteousness are the only grounds alone for salvation.
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I know you think that intellectual orthodoxy is the key to heaven. You’re not telling me why that’s loving.
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God never loved the non elect. He never knew them
Matthew 7:23
23 And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; “depart from Me, the ones working lawlessness!” Psa. 6:8
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Okay, so, he doesn’t love his enemies.
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If God doesn’t love His enemies, maybe the church (and christians) should hate their enemies, since we are to follow His example. (as dear children)
What a confusing way to think.
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Makes sense to me. Doesn’t the church teach that the epistles supercede the Gospels, and that we are saved by faith instead of by Jesus’ response to us following the two commandments, thirsting for righteousness, meekness, poverty in spirit, hospitality to the least of mankind, stewardship of God’s gifts, and the desire to please God?
Paul throws all of that away and says that you have to be made into a Christian proselyte to be saved, no love or change of attitude or participation in God’s love required. In fact, Paul says it’s all pointless because God considers us all disgusting sinners.
Isn’t the Gospel supposed to be a conditioning and limitation on God’s love instead of an illustrated truth of God’s love? That’s what the church teaches. “extra ecclesiam, nulla salus.”
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I’m not sure what you are trying to say Gordon.
Repentance from sin and faith in the Savior bring us into the body, and yet as we follow the Master as Lord, we are to become more like Him, in love, patience, mercy and truth (seeking)
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That is just a rephrasing of “join the church and assent to our beliefs”, and “all those who don’t are sent to hell.” I’ll keep boiling down your buzzwords all day long, but you and I both know that Christian doctrine says that “everyone deserves to be tortured in hell forever; join our program and you won’t.” (John 3:16-18)
If you can’t deny that belief in the gospel is required for salvation, then you can’t deny its implications, that being incorrect about God will result in eternal damnation.
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What did I say that caused this response? You seem to want to interpret other peoples words and that causes discussion to freeze up. So be it.
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Mark 16:16 Belief of the Gospel is evidence of salvation John 3:3-8 and no belief of the gospel is condemnation.
Now, the issue is what is the gospel and is faith in that Gospel a complete gift of God conditioned on Christ’s atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness without any effort from or conditioned on the sinner relating to his salvation?
My faith is based on this Gospel and anyone that thinks he contributes to his salvation is not my brother.
God does all his desires and those unsaved must not be loved and part of His desire to save them because they aren’t saved.
Does he love his enemies? No, not before conversion ( in my view). He loves his elect after conversion and does not love His non elect enemies because He never knew them. He demonstrated love on His while elect while they were children of wrath.
Psalms 139:9 21 O Jehovah, do not I hate those hating You? And I am loathing those rising against You? (Hate)
Matthew 5:44
44 but I say to you, Love your enemies; bless those cursing you, do well to those hating you; and pray for those abusing and persecuting you,
Why would we hate and treat poorly our enemies when the elect were once enemies? Does any human know the outcome of unbeliever before his death? No, but God does and that is the difference .
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So you admit, that God does not love his enemies. Why did your opening statement say that you can love AND hate them when even God can’t do such a thing?
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No. That is not me. I do not believe that god hates his enemies.
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I was responding to AJ, but that doesn’t change the basis of the Christian faith’s effects that all non-Christians are condemned and that all goodness is restricted to the gospel in spite of every altruistic act that points to the contrary.
On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 6:14 PM Considering the Bible wrote:
> consideringthebibletogether commented: “No. That is not me. I do not > believe that god hates his enemies. ” >
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God showed His love for while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Who is the us? The called out ones, The assembly, Jesus said I will build my assembly ( of called out ones ) and the gates of hades shall not prevail. Does He love from an eternal perspective everyone? No, He promised to save His people Matthew 1:21 and those He loves unconditionally. Romans 9 He created everything and is in control of everything. The ones He does not save are not loved. How can they be loved if not saved? God is telling us to love our enemies. Why wouldn’t we be kind, considerate to everyone which includes our enemies Wasn’t there a verse that refers to this somewhat?
Proverbs 25:22
If one hating you is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,
22 for you shall heap coals of fire on his head, and Jehovah shall reward you
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Does a non-elect person heap burning coals on God’s head, then, by giving food and drink to “the least of these” thereby doing so to God (the parable of the sheep and the goats), who hates them?
On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 6:41 PM Considering the Bible wrote:
> doubleajwalk commented: “God showed His love for while we were yet sinners > Christ died for us. Who is the us? The called out ones, The assembly, Jesus > said I will build my assembly ( of called out ones ) and the gates of hades > shall not prevail. Does He love from an eternal persp” >
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The non elect person doesn’t care about the true God of the Bible He doesn’t think He exists
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That’s not what I asked. You don’t have to “think he exists” to feed the hungry.
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It seems the issue always boils back to Does God love everyone? Did He die and pay for the sins of everyone without exception. If he was punished for all without exception paying their debt by having their sins paid for through His effectual atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness punished through the substitutionary perfect sacrifice; then, why isn’t everyone saved.
If he loves everyone; meaning propitiated justified, redeemed and reconciled all without exception to God? Then, if true why isn’t everyone saved?
Then, they, free Will advocates, say it is because man has “Free Will to choose to believe the Gospel or not believe the true Gospel of Grace.
So, then they can hold on to God loving everyone and claim He has desire to save everyone; but cannot complete His desire to save all; even though the Bible says He does all His desires and no one can resist His will.
They the free Will advocates also say it is because He can’t interfere with man’s (biblically unfounded)“ Free Will”
This is convoluted unbiblical nonsense that appeals to natural man’s emotional appeal to desire to create an imaginary unbiblical God that cannot save without the help of natural man.
So, if this is true Jesus Christ could have possibly died for no one; since salvation is dependent on natural man who doesn’t seek after the True God, not even one person seeks after the true God.
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If it’s God’s will that none perish, does it mean that God is decreeing in his “secret council” that things happen against his own will?
If God hates non-Christians, Does a non-elect person heap burning coals on God’s head, by giving food and drink to “the least of these,” thereby doing so to God (the parable of the sheep and the goats), who hates them?
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It is not God’s will that none perish, if it were His Will, none would perish
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If it was God’s will that none perish, then none would perish because no one can resist his will
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If you reference Romans 9:11 God’s Love and Hate are used unconditionally in determining election before the creation of Jacob and Esau and have nothing to do with giving a cup of soup to your enemy in need that would heap burning coals on his head. Only God can determine who the elect are and it is done unconditionally according to purpose according to the counsel of His Will.
Isaiah 55:8
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You dwell on Romans 9:11 to your own detriment. Try to find balance in your study instead of riding your hobby horse.
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I don’t need balance I have the scripture If it says something different then tell me what it says
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When I do you refuse the plain meaning. I’m done. Nothing worse than a blind man that refuses to see.
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It must not have stuck please give me the interpretation again
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He means that the desire that none perish means that he desires that none perish.
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Job 23:13 Psalm 115:3 Daniel 4:35 Romans 9:19 for example to prove man isn’t in control of God
If God desires every single individual to be saved and the above scriptures say He does all His desires, then every individual will be saved or your definition of All Men is not accurate or your God is a made up weakling God created after your own emotional deficiency. Your unbiblical God is letting man control Him. Sure sounds like the Serpent talking “ you will be like God”
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Or the Bible is contradicting itself. God deciding to let us play his game by his rules is not being a weakling. That’s making the rules. He can desire that you win the game but still play by his own rules. If you don’t like that, Universalism is your only choice, because God will not deny himself. Yours does, being the author of sin, but God doesn’t.
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Bible is not going to contradict itself if it is God’s word
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Then are you a universalist, or a pelagian?
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I’m neither I believe John 6:37-44,65 God does the saving
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Perhaps it’s Paul’s word, not God’s word. Your only claim to Paul’s word being inspired is 2 Peter (3:16) while any non-dogmatic scholar knows that 2Peter was not written by Peter.
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Do you believe the Bible is God’s inspired word?
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What rules?
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What rules indeed? Read John 3. The rules are to be a Christian or burn in hell. That’s how the game is played.
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You believe the law will justify or the spirit makes alive?
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What does John 3 have to do with the Spirit? The Spirit eternally abides with the Apostles, and those who had the Apostles’ hands laid upon them. If the Spirit were still on earth, there would still be spiritual gifts.
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Everything John 3:3,5,8
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That was then. This is now. The Holy Spirit makes no interaction with the world today. “Regeneration” gives no external evidence that can’t be reproduced by worldly virtue. There are no tongues, no signs and wonders, no prophesies, and no visions. To say there are would be to deny the sufficiency of scripture, and you know you can’t do that.
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Matthew 11:26 says Christ reveals John 5:21 says The Son makes alive whom He wills. These acts are the same action as described in John 3:3,5,8 “generation from above” 2 Thessalonians 2:13
Matthew 16:16-18 “ my Father in heaven has revealed this to you
God promises to save His people
Matthew 1:21 just let Him save His people and stop arguing that man saves himself. John 6:29 This is the work of God that you believe into the whom He sent.
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Jesus’ pierced hand reaches down 10,000,000 miles down to ours, and you think it’s “saving yourself” when you repent and reach up all 2 ft to take his hand? Why doesn’t the Bible say that God repents us instead of telling us to repent?
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God grants repentance
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Why would hw demand it if granting it was all it took?
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The scripture says He grants repentance why should I question God’s word like Eve He says all the Father gives will be saved I’m ok with that
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You’re okay with the duplicity that the rest of the Bible oozes when filtered through your selective literalism, you dogmatically cling to your scriptural canon despite there being no biblically written table of contents to define “all scripture,” you insist on a regeneration that no longer happens on earth, and have decided that God’s love for you comes in a way that minimizes your need to even attempt to respond to his love? I hope you are somehow able to continue to ignore the glaring contradictions.
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God can command while knowing you can’t respond. He gave the law are you able to keep it perfectly No you can’t is that duplicity?
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Yes, I do, which is why I question Paul’s legitimacy as an Apostle instead of as a prophet sent to correct Peter who later went rogue when let among the Gentiles. His arrogance and hatred gives him a place among Clement and Irenaeus, not Peter and James.
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Unless generation from above happens, your will, will remain lost because you will never believe the Gospel of Grace the gospel that saves conditioned on Christ’s work and imputed righteousness alone without any effort from you
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Why then do you preach it? Preaching is certainly not necessary for pre-conversion regeneration, yet throughout Acts, they sure act like preaching is necessary. Like you said, it is not be human effort that regeneration happen, therefore pretending that preaching the Gospel is good, let alone necessary, is deceitful. Preaching is a man-made effort. You’re trying to take credit for what only God can do, if you ever preach the Gospel in hopes of gaining a follower. If the Holy Spirit still operated today, He wouldn’t need you, yet here you are putting so much effort into defending the honor of ot needing any desire, effort, faithfulness, or love to be part of your god’s special in-crowd. Your presence here is a mockery to a god who shouldn’t need anything, let alone you, to defend his honor.
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You need to hear the Gospel or have it communicated in some way in order to believe it Romans 11
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And do you think that Humans are necessary to do it? Perhaps the Holy Spirit needs your help doing his own job? If hearing the gospel requires human participation to preach it, why doesn’t it take human participation to accept it? If salvation is not by the effort of man, then it is not by the effort of man. The Holy Spirit could reveal everything about God much more clearly and efficiently than a human mouth could, much more surely gathering much better disciples. If belief comes by hearing, are you saying that the Holy Spirit is mute, when putting the human preacher between man and God?
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God ordains the means and the ends; He is God
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You aren’t receiving the point that regeneration is not by the effort of man
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So human effort is the means of salvation now? Maybe we have a lot more in common than we thought: God doesn’t love his enemies, and humans effort is needed for salvation.
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This is work of God that you believe ….. let him have the glory
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But now the work of God is restricted to hearing, which requires human effort to preach. That takes away from God’s glory, and gives humans credit for preaching, and becoming an essential part of evangelization. If God takes credit for ordaining the preacher to preach, then God, being the author of humanity, deserves blame for the sin he ordains in everyone else.
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Proverbs 16:4
Jehovah has made all for His purpose, yea, even the wicked one for the day of evil things.
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That passage is in both past-tense and present-tense in Hebrew. Why would God still be making the wicked conform to his purposes if he made them wicked from the beginning instead of making us upright but allowing us to stray as we please?
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Revelation 17:17
For God gave into their hearts to do
His mind, and to act in one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
Ecclesiastics 7:29
See, this only I have found, that God has made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.
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Throwing random quotations without telling me what you think they mean doesn’t help you argue anything. But we agree, human effort is requred to accelt God’s gift, that your god is hateful and doesn’t love his enemies (meaning the command to imitate God is not to be taken seriously) and that if you believe in predestination, it makes the cross a gear in the machine instead of the motor when it comes to salvation. I’ll keep looking at what you cobble together tomorrow morning. Keep going in the mean time.
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Those the Father gives will come will believe There is your effort from man
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The scripture states this promise
John 6:37-44
All who the Father gives to Me shall come to Me, and the one coming to Me I will not cast out, not ever,
38 for I have come down out of Heaven, not that I should do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
39 And this is the will of the Father send- ing Me, that of all that He has given Me, I shall not lose any of it, but shall raise it up in the last day.
40 And this is the will of the One having sent Me, that everyone seeing the Son and believing into Him should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
41 Therefore the Jews murmured about Him, because He said, I am the Bread com- ing down out of Heaven.
42 And they said, Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, of whom we know the father and the mother? How, then, does this One now say, I have come down out of Heaven?
43 Therefore Jesus answered and said to them, Do not murmur with one another.
44 No one is able to come to Me if not the Father, the One having sent Me, draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day
Then in John 6:65 it states
And He said, Because of this, I have told you that no one is able to come to Me if it is not given to him from My Father.
Comment
God is going to fulfill His promise to save His people and He begins this process starting with generation from above when the Spirit blows where it wills.
He works the willing and the doing in His people for His good pleasure and completes that work after preserving His people in this life through His atoning shed blood and His perfect imputed life lived all the way to final glorification when He makes His people without the capability of sinning.
That is the Rock that my house is built upon.
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Why does it say ‘no one may come to me’ instead of ‘no one is brought to me?’ It requires an effort to go somewhere. If no human effort is involved in salvation, there would be no preaching and no “coming,” for all would be brought to him, not drawn.
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The natural man doesn’t come doesn’t believe
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He thinks the effectual Cross of Christ is foolishness He actually thinks He died for everyone but guaranteed the salvation of no one
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The guarantee of the call does not guarantee our acceptance of that call. Those who have received their salvation can decide to go on sinning, and have their names blotted out of the book of life. https://eternalcall.com/once-saved-always-saved/3-passages-that-contradict-once-saved-always-saved/
The eternal security is a guarantee to those who really want it. It isn’t thwarting God when God is the one honoring ones choice, otherwise there would be no reason to hold us culpable for any sin at all, even the ones which he does not compel into his service as with Pharaoh’s sin.
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Very good point!
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Romans 9:23-24
But if God, desiring to display wrath, and to make His power known, endured in much long-suffering vessels of wrath hav- ing been fitted out for destruction,
23 and that ( in order that) He make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy which He before prepared for glory,
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And if you apply that passage to individual souls instead of services for major events under God’s usage (Pharaoh’s plagues, Jacob’s seed giving us the Virgin) it makes God into a pretty wasteful potter, making vessels for the sole purpose of destroying them.
You’re also forgetting that the translation is badly rendered. Paul was not asking a rhetorical question. He was speculating with an incomplete sentence, leaving the listener to complete it according to their ideas of God’s mercy. You don’t believe in God’s mercy as anything but arbitrary selection, so we all know the answer or completion of the sentence.
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He was responding to the objector’s complete understanding of God’s hardening unconditionally. That is why He is complaining “ who can resist His will?” “ why does He find fault?” “ “why did you make me like this?”
He does all according to the counsel of His Will according to purpose. Who are you to talk back to God? Just believe the Gospel of Grace that saves conditioned solely on Christ’s work without any effort from you; but I don’t think you believe salvation is by Christ’s work alone; unless you exercise some effort to generate some decision for a false gospel that you can boast about. And you can boast, if you make the difference between heaven and hell and not Christ’s work alone.
Boast in the Cross of Christ. What makes you to differ? Don’t you understand all that you have is a gift?
1 Corinthians 4:7 John 3:27
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The hardening was not unconditional. Pharaoh hardened his heart. God then finished the hardening to take Pharaoh’s services. Exodus purposely does NOT say that the first few plagues God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. God took up the role to hatch his plan in Israel’s favor, not for the purpose of damning Pharaoh.
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Nonsense, God hardened his heart.
Do you know how you can know that it Is God that hardened his heart.
Read the first scripture in the account of Pharaoh that refers to what God was going to do?
God said He would hardened his heart and God doesn’t lie. This is the first verse and God was the first to speak as always and He said exactly was He was going to do.
Exodus 4:21
And Jehovah said to Moses, As you go to return to Egypt, see all the wonders which I have put in your hand, and do them before Pharaoh. And I will make strong his heart, and he will not send the people away.
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It does say that. It also says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart first. God finished the job knowing Pharaoh’s choice, just as promised. If God were to have done all of the hardening from the beginning, the story would say so. It doesn’t,
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You are blind
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Look at v. 8:15 & 32 again. You can’t ignore the phrasing used.
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You don’t understand that in Exodus 4:21- Jehovah speaking says He will harden so any and all hardening is caused by Jehovah You are calling God a liar by saying He didn’t harden Pharaoh’s heart
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All hardening is caused by YH? Where is that written? Is says he hardens whom he may please to extract a service from evil people (Romans 9), but I see no place where God causes all stubbornness.
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We are talking about Pharaoh being hardened by God because God said He would
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True, God doesn’t harden all He shows mercy to some
He will harden whom He wills and He will mercy whom He wills
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Now hour reading-comprehension is going. I didn’t say God hardens everyone; I said that you think that God causes all hardening because you think he couldn’t possibly allow anything to happen by itself. You think God fore-ordained everything and thereby causes all sin, rather than causing some sins to continue in order to extract a service from the sinner, which is what Romans talks about, comparing the stubbornness of the Jews freeing the Gentiles, with the stubbornness of Pharaoh freeing the slaves.
You take exceptions and make them into rules because you can’t comprehend the idea of God not puppeteering everything that ever happens.
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If God hardened his heart, won’t Pharaoh harden his own heart Ansolutely Yes
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When did God harden Pharaoh’s heart before the plagues? Why should I believe that the hardening happened before the plagues when the story clearly narrates he hardened Pharaoh’s heart in the middle of the plagues?
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Man, you are stubborn Jehovah said He would harden His Pharaoh Why did he say this? So, He could justify bringing the plagues
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So God hardened Pharaoh before he hardened Pharaoh, and God did it to justify that which did not need to be justified!
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God caused all the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart because Jehovah said He would harden his heart
If Jehovah says that He will have Gordon eat a hamburger 🍔 at 2:00 on Friday and Gordon decides to eat a hamburger on Friday at 2:00 🕑 What are we to think?
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It would mean I didn’t “decide” to do anything; God decided, and fated me to do it, just as he fated that I get you to start tilting and losing control when I continually turn your reasoning on its head. Your breaking down into using emojis is slowly getting worse and worse.
But it’s okay, God ordained this argument and your reasoning being exposed by some stranger on the internet whose ‘social’ inbox is now flooded with silly and curt responses like a chatroom. It was part of the divine, secret counsel thatbhis ostensible will be thrwarted by his secret will.
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The point was even though Pharaoh hardened his heart in certain middle verses of the account, it was all caused by God
Proverbs 21:1
¶ As streams of waters, the king’s heart is in the hand of Jehovah; He extends it wherever He desires.
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Then why would the story not say that God made Pharaoh harden his own heart? Don’t you think that if Exodus wanted to emphasize God’s need to puppeteer everything that ever happened, it would repeatedly say that God did it each time, instead of starting the plagues with Pharaoh hardening his own heart? Yet scripture continues commanding people to do things. It would be pretty dishonest of God to give commands, punish people for not following them, then reveal 3500 years later that God made them not follow them, each and every command ever written, and each and every act of disobedience. Your god is the author of sin.
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Here is an non convoluted way of reading the texts.
Jehovah hardened Pharaoh’s heart so he would not let the Israelites go so he could show forth His wrath and make His power known so that He could publicize His name in all the earth and show the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy prepared beforehand
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Yet the story says he hardened his own heart at first.
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No it doesn’t say that because Jehovah said He, Jehovah, would harden his heart which means all hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is a result of Jehovah hardening Pharaoh’s heart A comes before B and produced C
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“which means all hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is a result of Jehovah hardening Pharaoh’s heart”
No it doesn’t. That just means that YH would harden Pharaoh’s heart. It does not preclude Pharaoh doing it himself first, or he would have said that he *alone* would harden Pharaoh. It doesn’t say that. A causes B does not mean that all B is caused by A. You’re adding that fallacy in and making a fool of yourself.
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Let me simplify it with scripture
Exodus 4:21 ( which comes before all the other verses where Pharaoh’s Heart was hardened)
And Jehovah said to Moses, As you go to return to Egypt, see all the wonders which I have put in your hand, and do them before Pharaoh. And I will make strong his heart, and he will not send the people away.
“As you go to return to Egypt” which means Jehovah is saying this before all accounts of interaction with Pharaoh
Jehovah said HE WILL HARDEN PHARAOH’S HEART ❤️
Who will harden Pharaoh’s heart ?
Who will harden Pharaoh’s heart? Not Pharaoh, JEHOVAH
Try finding a 2nd grader and ask him who hardened Pharaoh’s heart 10 out of 10 times he will say Jehovah hardened Pharaoh’s heart
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You can keep saying that Pharaoh didn’t harden his own heart, but the Bible directly and plainly contradicts you, and it will never not-contradict you. Neither the Bible’s explicit phrasing, nor logical soundness support your mindless Calvinism. No number of loopholes or appeals to 2nd graders can get around the text, plainly and openly telling you to your face, that Pharaoh also hardened his own heart. If Pharaoh did not harden his own heart, the Bible would not say he did. Yet it does.
You are making a classic logical fallacy, and you’re denying the word of God. And what’s far worse, you are using emojis to deny the word of God.
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I never said Pharoah didn’t harden his heart I said what the scripture said Pharaoh’s heart was hardened because Jehovah caused him to harden his heart
You just don’t see what the scripture plainly says Jehovah did the hardening He turned the kings heart in whatever direction he wanted.
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Why would God “cause him” to harden his heart one time, and then directly harden it the next? The answer is that he doesn’t, that A causing B, and B happening because of A, does not mean that B is only caused by A. Your whole outlook on Jesus’ decision to save people from God’s rage hinges on a logical fallacy. Cling to it as you please; it doesn’t change scripture’s narrative, or mathematical law.
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You just confused me
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The world and its wisdom never found God.
That makes sense since the natural doesn’t believe the Cross of Christ was effectual and that He knew who He was dying for and that He actually secured the salvation of those persons, the children He promised to save from before the foundation of the world.
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God’s threats to erase someone’s name from the book of life denies this ‘security’ unless you believe that God wrote names in for the purpose of erasing them. The paradigm you cling to has so many passages of scripture that run against it that you are being grounded against the Bible in the name of the Bible.
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He was letting them know how serious the offense would be
John 6:38-44
Says He won’t lose one the father gives to him That is security!
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And you think that happens before you die, and not after? And God puts people’s names on the book, either for the purpose of erasing them… or he threatens to erase them despite there never, ever being a case in which a name might be erased? That’s just more duplicity you ascribe to God on top of your fallacies, making the commandments fake and useless, sanctioning fatalism and backwards logic.
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What believer is going to violate that directive that God is referring to that would get your name removed Let us keep it simple God said He won’t lose one of the ones The father gives him
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And that happens when you die. Otherwise there would be no passages that imply that one can lose his salvation. I already linked an article refuting such antinomian silliness. Go on and read it. Repeating yourself does not make hou right against the prevailing winds of scripture. You turn rules to exceptions, exceptions to rules. Rhetoric into precept and precept into rhetoric. You defend this method with logical fallacies, repetition, and name-calling, and you probably have no idea you’re doing it. Every illustration you attempt to use is used for a purpose the Bible clearly does not intend.
If you want soteriology, read the parables, not Paul’s treatise on service.
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I did read it
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What is the guarantee that Christ actually or effectually died for someone?
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The guarantee is that the hand is there to be taken. The resurrection is how the hand reaches so far down. Reaching up 2 ft is nor reaching up 10M miles.
If you believe in divine mind-control, hasn’t it occurred to you yet that God has ordained that we not agree, and that I am being compelled by God’s divine puppetry to make a fool of you twice so far, and is it not divine ordainance that you deny it? Hopefully God will grant you the wisdom to stop feeling the need to defend the honor of the dishonorable and mechanical entity you worship.
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I love the way free Will advocates use emotive words to sway
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It’s not that emotive if it’s plainly the truthful conclusion of your worldview. You’re projecting your own need to deface humanity and stubbornly cling to theistic fatalism and accuse anyone who questions you of satanism (you like to evoke the snake and Eve while ignoring the fact that God didn’t tell Eve anything. Adam did, and he didn’t say the same thing God did.) That’s emotional manipulation.
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Your use of emotive words to generate anger and divert from the Gospel of Grace is what I’m referring to
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The Son makes alive whim He wills
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They aren’t conditions for your free Will to kick in it is evidence that you have been regenerated or generated from above as a new creation in christ
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Why does the Bible then issue commandments in the NT?
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Romans 3 says to bring the knowledge of sin or in other words to expose our one sided nature as being very short of the glory of God
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That’s about the old covenant. I’m talking about the new.
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You’re saying that instead of disqualifying someone to represent God and be a light unto the world, Romans 3 means that every last NT instruction needs to have in the margins, *except you actually can’t, so don’t bother; you need to be chosen to not burn in hell first*.
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I’m really not sure what you mean but I will guess I read except a man be generated from above he won’t have a clue
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Universalism is not the only choice. Realizing the definition of “ all men” is Jew and Gentile and or not just people without pre eminence compared to people with pre eminence. The poor, The rich etc from every nation, even tribes, languages and peoples; if you look at the verses related and Revelation 7:9
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It is not universalism. That would be all roads lead to heaven. The alternate biblical teaching to consider is Universal Reconciliation. You should study it before you condemn it and show your ignorance.
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Is Universal reconciliation anything except universalism with purgatory on the side?
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No it is not. You are mistaken
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Let’s see if you see the plain theme set forth in Romans 9 in verses 1-6 and onward.
The Apostle Paul said He has a never ceasing grief in his heart for his kinsmen according to flesh who are Israelites after the flesh; but were unsaved.
If we correlate his grief with his prayer for their salvation in Romans 10:1-4, we find out that the whole chapter from beginning to end in Romans 9 is contextually about salvation
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Hey guys, let’s take a section from Paul’s treatise on Jewish nationalism, isolate it from the purpose of the treatise, and filter the entire Bible through it until most of it has no meaning whatsoever, and basically recreate Judaist nationalism, except make it about churchfolk instead of synagogue-folks! That way, we can have the exact same attitude as 1st Century Jews, without Jesus condemning us for what they did!
On Sat, Dec 18, 2021 at 1:54 PM Considering the Bible wrote:
> doubleajwalk commented: “Let’s see if you see the plain theme set forth in > Romans 9 in verses 1-6 and onward. The Apostle Paul said He has a never > ceasing grief in his heart for his kinsmen according to flesh who are > Israelites after the flesh; but were unsaved. If we correlate ” >
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Not all of The Apostles Israelite kinsman after the flesh were unsaved
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Excellent comparison. Sometimes we forget the type of people we are. Always religious and wanting to read our desires into the Word to make us feel like we are better than someone else!
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Romans 9:6
It is not, however, that God’s Word has failed. For not all the ones of Israel, these are of Israel,
7 nor because they are Abraham’s seed are all children, but “In Isaac a Seed shall be called to you.” Gen. 21:12
8 That is: not the children of flesh are children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed.
Romans 9:27
But Isaiah cries on behalf of Israel, “If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.
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I did not reference Romans at all.
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The above comment using Romans 9 comment was a response to the following quote claiming that I’m blind for thinking that Romans 9 is about the salvation of the children of Promise, The unconditionally chosen elect and that the promise that All Israel will be saved is referring to spiritual Israel; not the nation of Israel, but The Children of Promise, composed of believing Jew and Gentile
“ When I do you refuse the plain meaning. I’m done. Nothing worse than a blind man that refuses to see.”
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Romans 9’s plain meaning is about which nation gets to spawn the Virgin to bear the messiah and the law, not salvation. Those who deny this deny ghe whole purpose of the book of Romans. If you think Romans is a manifesto of the Gospel, you are exegetically, historically, morally, and hermeneutically WRONG.
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Look at verse 24 and 25
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Read the rest of the book. That’s a call to service, just as Abram was called to service.
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Abrahams free Will got him in. ?
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Just because I word it in an unpleasant way does not mean I’m stopping any convesation. Your conversation stops itself when I take away all of its decorations and buzzwords to expose the core of its meaning. Prove to me that the underlying mechanism of God’s love for us is different, and I can interperet it differently. Otherwise, you’re just rewording with different euphemisms the Church’s monopoly on God’s goodness to the exclusion of all others who might seek such goodness outside the Church and its creeds because of its evil deeds.
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Yes, but that’s all restricted to the Christian faith. “faith in the Savior” and following “the Master as Lord” must mean that a Hindu who loves his neighbors and seeks after God’s goodness must somehow NOT be good at all since he’s not part of the Christian faith. In fact, he can have a character which is vastly more altruistic than the christians who took over his country for 100 years, but he must still be sent to hell to burn for all eternity because he’s not part of God’s exclusive group, despite perchance he WOULD join the church if the British didn’t plunge his land into famine and send his friends to Africa to fight a pointless war.
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Yes, that does mean the Hindu or any other person’s attempt to gain salvation by seeking to establish their own righteousness is insufficient to satisfy God’s requirement of perfect righteousness that only Jesus Christ can fulfill.
That is why The Word was God became flesh. He substituted for the people He promised to save. By the law no flesh will be justified. The Gospel is the power of God unto every believing into His propitiatory, justifying and redeeming atoning shed blood while imputing or charging or crediting His people with His perfect righteousness at the time He generates from above in the them the gift of faith unto belief of this self sacrificing Gospel of God.
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“attempt to gain salvation by seeking to establish their own righteousness” no, that’s attempting to be established in God’s righteousness. But you’re compelled to believe that all non-Christian righteousness is fake because someone told you, and you read it into the Bible”
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God does not accept anyone’s filthy righteousness as the ground of their salvation.
But only Christ’s atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness given to His people he promised to save at the time of regeneration unto belief of the gospel will be accepted by God.
Christ’s perfect righteousness is the only righteousness accepted by God for the grounds of salvation.
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“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” is a lie, I guess. You think receiving a gift is earning it, and thinking that requires you to depict every single commandment in the Bible as a tantalizing mirage. Keep such ridiculous notions to yourself, and stop trying to make Paul’s words apply to things they don’t apply to.
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It isn’t a lie
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I’m not sure either but the Gospel of Grace is simple
John 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, The one who hears My Word, and believing the One having sent Me, has everlasting life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
Believing into Jesus means believing that His Atoning shed blood and imputed righteousness are the only conditions or grounds for salvation alone without any effort from the ones He represented on the Cross. Jesus promised to save His people, The children of Promise.
None will be lost Romans 1,2,3 John 6:37-44
Your righteousness is a filthy menstrual cloth Isaiah 64:6 you can’t contribute anything to please God Romans 3
John 3:3,5,8
Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, If one is not generated from above, he is not able to see the king- dom of God.
The believer is God’s workmanship Ephesians 2:10
John 6:29
John 6:37-44, 65
Jesus saves those chosen from before the foundation of the world Please look at all the scriptures concerning the thief on the cross. He started out mocking Jesus and the Gospel then suddenly flipped I contribute that to John 3:3,5,8
It is my most cherished account in the Bible of God’s Grace 2 Corinthians 4:6
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So the beatitudes are all lies since Jesus conveniently forgot to insert that creedalism is needed for goodness instead of goodness implying one already believing Jesus’ teachings?
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I thought we already answered this issue of yours
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Nope. Not satisfactorily but if you can live with this contradiction, so be it.
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Since God, unconditionally loves and hates, to determine election (salvation and reprobation), and since, we can’t determine who God never knew ( loved) from all eternity, do we stop showing love through kindness to our enemies after God tells us He will reward us.
We temporally do not know who the reprobate are; but God does. We are not like God like the serpent said we would be.
So, I don’t think your analogy fits.
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A better way to phrase it, is God never loved temporally or eternally the non elect
John 3:36
36 The one believing into the Son has everlasting life; but the one disobeying the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Comment
All unbelievers at the time of unbelief in the Gospel have the wrath of God over them and the wrath of God remains on those non elect persons into eternity; but God set His love on His elect and died for them.
Romans 5:7-8
For hardly anyone will die on behalf of a righteous one, (for perhaps anyone even dares to die for the sake of the good one),
8 but God demonstrates His love to us in that we being yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Ephesians 2:3
among whom we also all conducted our- selvesintimespastinthelustsofourflesh, acting out the wills of the flesh and of the understandings, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest.
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Are the non-elect God’s enemies? If they are, and God does not love them, then God does not love his enemies. You can not squirm around that by throwing random scriptural references at me. Your god does not love his enemies. Calvin’s god does not love his enemies. That’s why Calvin bragged so much about putting a certain non-orthodox traveling preacher to be burnt at the stake.
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Are the children of wrath prior to conversion enemies ?
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Are the elect enemies prior to conversion ?
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If the un-elect are God’s enemies, and God does not love the un-elect, then God does not love his enemies. They are God’s enemies, and God doesn’t love them. It doesn’t matter if God loves SOME of his enemies; he makes them his friends. The rest are still his enemies from birth, and your god does not love them.
Should we only love SOME of our enemies?
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I already explained this Sinners are under the wrath of God How is the wrath removed? Christ’s work and person to those believing. Yes, those that remain in unbelief until death are unloved because Jesus died on behalf of His sheep and His sheep hear His voice. The ones not believing don’t hear His voice How do you hear His voice? Through generation from above
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Yes, his enemies that will never come to the full knowledge of the truth were never known ( loved) by Him.
If the rulers of this world would have known Jesus they would not have crucified Him according to scripture; but why didn’t they know Him Matthew 11:27 answers that
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You’re just repeatedly telling me in loops that God does not love his enemies. Message received. You can continue assuming that orthodoxy is what πίστις in Jesus is, instead of πίστις to what is righteous and good (which is what Jesus is), that doesn’t change anything about how hateful your god is. Your god is hateful. Do not be ashamed of your gospel.
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Jesus said, if you love me keep my commandments.
Comment
You will do this if you believe the Gospel of Christ that salvation is conditioned solely on His shed blood and His imputed righteousness and that your salvation is secure in Him and that your righteousness is a filthy menstrual cloth
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You make reference to Calvin. It doesn’t appear he was following this scripture and many other scriptures.
Matthew 15:14
Leave them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.
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If you believe in predestination you are a protégé of Calvin and Augustine. Read Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23. It’s not too long and it will quickly suck you in. His works are why the reformed denominations exist.
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The Bible uses the word predetermined predestined
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It doesn’t use the word “fate,” which is what you really mean.
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No, I don’t God created all things and knows what He created He can’t create anything that is unknown
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I mean theistic fate. You know that.
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Chosen from before the foundation of the world What does that mean?
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Tell me who is rejected from the foundation of the world, first. Being chosen does not force acceptance, unless it were God’s “will” that Israel did through its history that which God did not “will” for them, making you patch together new contexts for passages that refute your insisted view. The duplicity needed to interperet it as determinism is too immense to ignore.
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Please allow me to analyze this weak God that the “Free Will”advocates trust in from my perspective
Some say God desires to save every single solitary individual. Some say He loves every single solitary individual. Some say Jesus Christ died for every single solitary individual and that He removed the anger of god because of their sin for every single solitary individual. Some believe He provided justification declaring His imputed righteousness to every single solitary individual. Some say He redeemed everyone at the cross. Some say He reconciled to God every single solitary individual at the cross; but with all this love , desire and provision for mankind, God cannot guarantee the salvation of anyone because He can’t interfere with the wills of any and all of these individuals that He desires and would love to save but can’t because that would violate man’s “Free Will”.
In this scenario man is all powerful and in control of whether God can accomplish any of His desires. Doesn’t this sound like the delusion the Serpent was feeding Eve? You will be like God knowing good and evil. God is not the Potter; but becomes the clay in this scenario.
Man has the opportunity to keep God from His desire to save everyone and make the cross of Christ accomplish nothing. This is not the God of the Bible; a weak God that does not have the power to save anyone; but who can be kept from accomplishing all His desires ( even though the Bible says he does accomplish all His desires)and be held in hostage by sinful man that does not seek and has no desire to seek after the true God.
The Bible says God promises to save His people. Matthew 1:21. How can He fulfill His promise to save His people if sinful man is in control.
The “free will “weakling god who cannot save cannot promise anything because sinful man is like a god and is in control.
The Bible says All that the Father gives to Jesus will come and He will not lose one of all that come to Him that the father gives; but will raise them up in the last day; but not the “free will” god, He can’t guarantee anything because man is in control.
I can’t believe in this free will god. The biblical God controls all things and all people and guarantees that He will save His people. Natural man will not interfere with God’s predetermined plan to save His people and nothing and no one will stop Him; not even you.
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Every time your god pleads for Jerusalem to be gathered under his wings, he is lying. Your god mades hell not only continuous and permanent meaningless torture in immortality, (meaning that God is lying about death, too) but fakes his remorse for making people go there. Your god is too weak to accomplish his purposes in spite of making us in his image.
You can philosophically rant and rave against the plain meanings of multiple sections of God’s own speech, but your whole model of life and hell says your god is both weak, and a liar.
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In your understanding is death the same as ceasing to exist?
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“Every time your god pleads for Jerusalem to be gathered under his wings, he is lying. “
First, Jesus was not pleading for Jerusalem to be gathered under His wings. You have misquoted the verse.
Jesus is not pleading to gather Jerusalem under His wings. All through the chapter He is addressing the Scribes and Pharisees as self righteous false gospel preachers that are teaching their (Scribes and Pharisees) children ( students) how to seek to establish their own righteousness to gain heaven Romans 10:1-4
Jesus is telling them as a teacher that He would have gathered their children ( students) under His wings and would have taught them the truth; since He was The Way, The Truth, The Life all the well knowing that it is the Father who gives to Him the ones that will effectually come and that He will give eternal life to them.
All Jesus was doing was holding the Pharisees and Scribes accountable for not letting their students go under His wings or teaching.
He was in no way begging to save the Pharisees children; but was holding accountable for their blindness of leading the blind.
The verse shows below that the main focus of Him addressing them was not a pleading; but it was to make them accountable which they would have been anyway for keeping them away.
Jesus knew that “ All the Father gives will come and the Pharisees couldn’t stop the ones the father gives from coming; so, your accusation of God lying doesn’t hold any biblical legitimacy from my interpretation of scripture
Matthew 23:37
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one killing the prophets and stoning those sent to her. How often I desired to gather your chil- dren in the way a bird gathers her chicks under her wings! And you did not desire it.
38 Behold, “your house is left to you deso- late.” Jer. 22:5
According to scripture
Numbers 22:19
God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and shall He not do it? And has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?
Hebrews 6:18
18 that through two unchangeable things, in which it was not possible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, the ones having fled to lay hold on the hope being set before us,
Matthew 15:14
Leave them alone. They are blind lead- ers of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.
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I was quoting Luke. You wish I was quoting Matthew.
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Luke 13:34 ?? It doesn’t appear to be saying anything different than Matthew 23:37
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I would have meant Luke 19, but he says something different (but not much different). My point is that it would be insane for Jesus to force his people’s wills into killing his own prophets (which were pointlessly sent, since your god fated them not to listen anyways) and then weeping over it all. Your god weeps over his own doings through others’ hands, and not just summoning their bad wills into his services (Romans 9:18ff) but causing the bad wills too when he caused the first sin.
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You sound like God creates man and then sits back wondering what the outcome will be. Then, I will ask again Could it be possible for Jesus Christ to die in vain?
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He sure died in vain for the vast majority of τῷ κόσμῳ if his death is a restricted force instead of an opening of a path the salvation, that is a gift. But since Jesus died for the world, but you believe that God has ordained human will to nullify it instead of decreeing human freedom, you find God to be the party that nullifies his own promises.
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No one seeks after the true God no not one
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My point was under your view Christ secured the salvation of no one
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That’s because you think salvation is an immaterial and nebulous regeneration with no external side-effects instead of a virtuous and ever-increasing connection with God that comes to completion upon ones physical death. Your definition of and mechanics of salvation would compel you to say that.
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And your view declares the same. You believe the predestination saves, not Jesus.
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2 Thessalonians 2:13
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I’ll take that as a “yes” then, predestination is what really saves. Jesus was only necessary because God wanted him to be.
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Just re-read Romans 8:28-30
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Why does it say, “those he foreknew, he predestined,” instead of in the reverse order?
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He knows everyone
Foreknew means fore loved
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So he foreloved the world? Which one comes first in order? If the order you have does ‘t match the Bible’s statements, you better have a good reason that the Bible would be phrased in a deceitful way.
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Yes, Jew and Gentiles not just the Jews only
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Gordon. You need to realize that if ajwalk tells you the Bible teaches something, just trust him. He only reads the text! He is the authority and all else are blasphemers, pushing a false deity.
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😂
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That does ‘t mean much when a gentile can become a proselyte and become a Jew, while Paul’s new covenant makes both Gentiles and Old Covenant Jews alike need to be proselytes into a new Judaism with a new circumcision (baptism). They aren’t really gentiles anymore. If being a Jewish is available to Gentile proselytes, being a Christian (the true Jews, or chosen people) is just another proselytization. They aren’t really gentiles. Christian creedal exclusivism requires you to stop being a gentile, just a different kind of circumcision and a different kind of Judaism that requires a different covenant and one mikvah. You still have to stop being a gentile. Not all that available.
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Galatians 3:29
And if you are of Christ, then you are a seed of Abraham, and heirs according to promise.
Romans 2:29
29 but in the secret one is the Jew, and circumcision is of heart, in spirit, not in letter; of whom the praise is not from men, but from God.
The same promised people Matthew 1:21 Romans 9 as the unconditional elect, The Seed of Christ, The Seed of Abraham The Children of Promise
All of Spiritual Israel Jew and Gentile
Revelation 7:9
After these things I saw, and behold, a large multitude which no one was able to number them, out of every nation, even tribes and peoples and languages, standing in front of the throne, and be- fore the Lamb, having been clothed with white robes, and in their hands palm branches.
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Therefore God does not save gentiles? That reading into the passage means that they have to become the second Jews. They aren’t gentiles anymore; that must mean that there is only one nation, not a multitude.
In Biblical times, a religious tradition is what constitutes a nation. Thus if you become a Jew, you are no longer Greek. If you aren’t Judaist, you are no longer of the seed of Abraham.
There can’t really be multiple nations in heaven if this is the case, or you would have to adopt inclusivism, and you can’t do that. It would make too much sense to think that Jesus saves those who believe in him are aren’t part of whatever hou believe orthodox theology. You can’t say that God wants people of all nations to be saved either, on top of your denial that God loves everyone.
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You must be premillennial
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I mean dispensational
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Pick a raging insult to throw before you throw one. You’ve reduced yourself to name-calling. Are there any other ways you wish to humiliate yourself? You deny God’s love, you contradict scripture and remove other passage from context to do so, you’ve made multiple fallacies trying to make your points, and repeat yourself as though doing so suddenly makes you right. Should I let you get in your “last word” so you can continue pretending that God approves of your horrible theology?
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I am neither; I don’t do eschatology. None of its symbolisms will make sense until it happens. Nor does your name-calling say anything about anyone except yourself and your contempt for those who don’t fall in line with your self-appointment as arbiter of all truth.
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You sounded like being a spiritual Jew meant you were necessarily part of the nation of being a Jew
Which is irrelevant to the fact that God controls His creation
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That’s what the scriptural quotes you were flinging at me end up meaning, unless you’ve decontextualized on an even more impressive level than I anticipated you were able to do. I should have guessed that. Go ahead and filter your quotes as you please, as long as you can be sure that they go against the overall message of scripture, I can’t stop you from priding it in your skills at mental gymnastics fighting the general message calling rules exceptions, and exceptions rules. There’s no fixing such a desire to control God.
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I’m losing you
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Gordon. You are starting to understand what AJ is all about
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BTW, in re Universal Reconciliation, how does it compare to Univerasalism, Pluralism, and Inclusivism?
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Except for everyone who does, which is any pious person who was not part of the Jerusalemite nobility at the time that passage was written by the prophet. Look at Hebrews for a list of those who sought after God, and found him. You have to insist that God had to puppeteer them into doing so because you take the whole book of Romans out of context and purpose.
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Amos 3:2
You only have I known of all the fami- lies of the earth. On account of this I will call all your iniquities to account.
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Explain your use of the quote, please. I can’t read your mind through the screen.
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We aren’t suppose to read minds We are suppose to read scripture
Do I have to list all the scriptures that use the word know, known, knew, knowing and foreknew?
Give me your interpretation of Amos 3:2
My first impression is He isn’t paying any attention to any other families of the earth, but them.
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So indeed, “there is none who seeks after God,” it applies to the Jews, not the gentiles? You can’t say that.
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You think it was only the Jews? That is ridiculous in my assessment of scriture
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The why did you quote Amos?
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Here we have God loving only them in the amplified version
Amos 3:2
I have known [chosen, cared for, and loved] only you of all the families of the earth;
Therefore I shall punish you for all your wickedness.”
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So when God “so loved the world,” he actually only loved “only you of all the families,” which is not the world? You’re pitting scripture against scripture for the purpose of making Rhetorics (Amos) into Generality and reduce Generalities into Rhetorics. You are running backwards.
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“God so loved the world” He was letting nicodemus that not only loved the believing Jews but the believing Gentiles as well
Then in John 17:9 Jesus says I pray not for the world; but for those you have given me Who are the ones given they are composed of Jew and Gentile Revelation 7:9
I don’t hear him praying for everyone without exception which is normally what I hear from free Will advocates definition of world in John 3:16
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So Jesus not praying for the world in one place means that he never prayed for the world at any time ever? Have you not considered that sometimes ὁ κόσμος is sometimes used for the World and somtimes used for a reference to man’s world order, i.e. the Empire, which was often known as ῷ κόσμῳ?
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Maybe God so loved the world he created that was good; and because of that, He decided to save the believing Jew and Gentile covered by the effectual atoning shed blood out of the fallen world
Hypothetically speaking since I don’t know if this is the meaning It sure sounds biblical
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Make up whatever world you’d like. I can’t stop you from living in it.
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Why did the fall in the Garden of Eden occur? I know already they ate the the fruit
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And how is that love?
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John 6:47-48
47 Truly, truly, I say to you, The one believing into Me has everlasting life.
48 I am the Bread of life.
Why don’t you believe the scripture? God predetermined Jesus Christ would die.
He predetermined when, where and How Acts chapter 2 and chapter 4
How did He do that without causing it to happen?
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Thatks not what I asked. Don’t change the subject.
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I’m losing track of who and what you responding to
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First the question would have to be answered. How did Adam and Eve acquire the nature to disobey God’s word.
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There isn’t a contradiction. You can hate your enemies but yet love them. We do not know who God’s unconditionally chosen elect are and we are to treat all unregenerate people with kindness and do no harm to them; but yet we hate them because of what they stand which is their lack of love of God in Christ in the True Gospel. In order not to make this lengthy
Please refer to Agrammatos.org and search for
“ God hates certain people” there should be an audio series on God is Love
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Explain to us how hiding from someone, letting them be lured into being a bad person, then killing them, preventing that someone from repenting only after they are allowed to clearly see tehe truth, and then torturing him for all eternity- can be done in love to that particular person. Tell me where the love is in tricking someone with temporal pleasures into infinite suffering is out of God’s infinite love.
And explain it without handwaving is as impossible to understand without denying the perspicuity of scripture.
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Gordon. I will wait on AJ to respond but it appears you also have found his comments perplexing.
Note that he may defend his position by claiming he is only reading the text or he may not answer it all, but attack you with claims of heresy or being associated with Satan.
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