Understanding God’s election

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Rufus

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2024
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Excellent, Rufus. Never thought about it quite this way before, but I think you're on to something. I'll definitely remember the
points you've raised. However, I'm sure you realize it will not register with the FWTs at all, as happens with everything
we demonstrate to them from the Bible to refute their inane statements- but thank you anyway for posting it.
You're quite welcome. But praise God for the insights he has given me! And, yes, I know that hate-filled posts will likely follow from the detractors of the Doctrines of Grace. But that's OK because I'm not seeking the praises of men -- but of my God who actually saved me and made ALL the difference in my life.
 

Rufus

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2024
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You misunderstood what I said.

All you need to do is occupy your self with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Focus Rufus.

Don't start pointing your finger.

Colossians 1:21-23
And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in
his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him,
provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel
which you heard
, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became
a minister.

Don't get distracted by men who lost focus, lost faith.
Oh...so freewillers have become distracted and lost faith? I can easily see how that's feasible.
 

Inquisitor

Well-known member
Mar 17, 2022
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You don't get it...if they didn't believe it would work, they wouldn't have looked. So they must have believed it would work.
They had to look because they would die if they did not look.

There was no decision making going on just panic.
 

rogerg

Well-known member
Jul 13, 2021
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Not a good answer....
You imposed a truth over something you can not answer. What you said was not appropriate answer.
Huh? That God wrote what is in the Bible isn't an appropriate reply? Now, that's a novel concept.
You'd better go back and rethink your post.
 

Rufus

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2024
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You said, "The Serpent was NOT offered to everyone in the camp -- only to the LIVING!"

Everyone died in the desert Rufus and that included Moses.

There never was a temporal distinction between the living and the dead, in the O.T.
Wow! That's pretty lame even for you! Did everyone die in the Num 21:4-8 narrative?

And don't you know why all of us die physically? Isn't the wage of sin death?
 

Genez

Junior Member
Oct 12, 2017
3,551
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Huh? That God wrote what is in the Bible isn't an appropriate reply? Now, that's a novel concept.
You'd better go back and rethink your post.
But the problem is this...

How could use any man as His "pen," if that person is totally corrupt?
How could He give the Prophet the words to write?

Do you blow your nose with used toilet paper?
God is not going to have the writers of Scripture be corrupt while receiving His words to write.
 

Inquisitor

Well-known member
Mar 17, 2022
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Paul is employing the rhetorical device of the royal "we"! After all, he was himself a Jew, wasn't he? Furthermore, the term "Jews" itself isn't used in Rom 3:9! However, the inference you make is correct, since Paul himself was a Jew and is using "we" in the royal sense, which I will now prove by adding additional context.

The fact that he was not directly addressing the Jews can also be seen in 3:1-3,which reads:

Rom 3:1-3
3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?


Notice he didn't say "what advantage then hath YOU Jews. Here he's asking a question about "the Jew".

2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

"Them" in the above text is a third person pronoun. A very odd pronoun to use if Paul had been directly addressing Jews. If he was addressing them directly, he would have used a second person pronoun, instead of a third person pronoun that speaks about rather than to them!

3 For what if some [Jews] did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
KJV

Here again, we have the identical situation as in the previous verses. Paul did not say, "what if some of YOU Jews did not or do not believe? And part "b" of the verse strongly clinches this fact with another third person pronoun "their". Paul did not say, "shall YOUR unbelief make the faith of God without effect?" Plus he could have never said that since he was in fact writing to believers!

One of the chief hermeneutical errors that so many believers commit when interpreting scripture is that we fail to take ourselves out of our present, 21st century circumstances and modern culture, which are thousands of years removed from the actual historical context that will be accompanied, invariably, with useless, unnecessary and damaging presuppositions, and instead consciously place ourselves into the shoes of the ancient original audience to see how they would have understood the ancient writer. We often fail to ask two extremely important questions: What did the ancient writer mean and how would his original audience have understood him? By failing to consciously adopt these highly and critically important hermeneutical principles for ourselves every time we approach the Word of God, we will almost inevitably be led far astray and misunderstand the passage under consideration. (A large passage that immediately comes to mind and is very often handled in the most irresponsible and careless manner possible is the Mount Olivet Discourse. If we students of God's Word would only place ourselves into Jesus' original first century audience (which in this case would be in the shoes of Peter, John, James and Andrew (Mk 13:3), we could never in a million years embrace the serious eschatological errors proffered by Dispensationalism and even other schools of eschatology. But I digress...Back to the immediate subject at hand.)

So...I implore you to personally adopt these two critically important hermeneutical principles and place yourself into Paul's original audience in the church in Rome. First, Paul was most defintely writing to believers (Rom 1:7). But what kind of believers: Jews, Gentiles or a mixed bag of both? Verse 11 answers this importan question to wit:

Rom 1:13
13 I do not want you to be unaware,
brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might [currently] have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the OTHER Gentiles [in the past].
NIV

Key Takeaways from the above verse:

1. Paul confirms he's addressing saints with the term "brothers".

2. Paul addreses these saints directly by using the second person personal pronoun "you" twice.

3. Lastly, Paul unmistakably and irrefutably addresses these "brothers" as being Gentile believers because he considered them to also be Gentiles.

So...do this: Pretend you're part of Paul's original audience and you're a Jewish believer. Would you not be insulted by Paul writing to YOU, thinking that you are another Gentile believer? Paul must have been thinking that or esle why would he consider you to be just like one of his Gentile believers to whom he ministered in the past? The term "other" makes absolutely no sense unless the apostle considered his original audience [you] to be just another Gentile audience to whom he is currently minstering through his letter.

Was Paul confused regarding the identity of his original audience? Or are you confused?
That's one of the fundamental error's you have made, your traditional interpretation of Romans.

You will need to read the next two verses carefully and I want to see how you read them.

Romans 3:27-28
Then what becomes of OUR boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works?
No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

Rufus, who was boasting?

Who was boasting and why were they boasting?

our : belonging to or associated with the speaker and one or more other people previously mentioned
or easily identified.
 

rogerg

Well-known member
Jul 13, 2021
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NOTE! It says that they "became" that way! Not that way by default, as you would have us to read it!

3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

Why "became" corrupt?
Everyone from the Garden onwards have "become".