Not By Works
- Thread starter dcontroversal
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Really?
So God is creating (by His own express power and will) all these billions of new people and He has no idea what they're going to do? He's looking down upon us gritting His teeth and sweating profusely waiting for someone to get saved? Thinking in His infinitely tortured omniscient mind that it is possible that He set forth the predetermined plan (from eternity past before the world began) to sacrifice his beloved Son in vain and if there are no takers no one will get saved?
And all of the codified prophecies in their overwhelming and breathtaking complexity that pertain to Christ's life, death and resurrection were not actually His plan of salvation, they were a bunch of coin flips and it just happened to work out the way it did, and then the facts got written down?
And Almighty God is not actually willfully and purposefully engaged in the miraculous re-creation and rebirth of fallen men, rather He is sitting on the sidelines handing out eternal life like Gatorade at a football game to the participants who actually won it for themselves, by their own wit and wiles?
I don't think so. I think this is what actually happened:
Phil 1:29
For it has been granted to you concerning Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer concerning Him,
Phil 1:6
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Phil 2:13
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
So God is creating (by His own express power and will) all these billions of new people and He has no idea what they're going to do? He's looking down upon us gritting His teeth and sweating profusely waiting for someone to get saved? Thinking in His infinitely tortured omniscient mind that it is possible that He set forth the predetermined plan (from eternity past before the world began) to sacrifice his beloved Son in vain and if there are no takers no one will get saved?
And all of the codified prophecies in their overwhelming and breathtaking complexity that pertain to Christ's life, death and resurrection were not actually His plan of salvation, they were a bunch of coin flips and it just happened to work out the way it did, and then the facts got written down?
And Almighty God is not actually willfully and purposefully engaged in the miraculous re-creation and rebirth of fallen men, rather He is sitting on the sidelines handing out eternal life like Gatorade at a football game to the participants who actually won it for themselves, by their own wit and wiles?
I don't think so. I think this is what actually happened:
Phil 1:29
For it has been granted to you concerning Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer concerning Him,
Phil 1:6
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Phil 2:13
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
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God's deliberate, willful, predetermined plan from eternity past my friend.
And the same goes for every single saved person that ever was, ever is, and ever will be.
Acts 4:27-30
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”
2Thess 2:13
But we should always thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth.
And the same goes for every single saved person that ever was, ever is, and ever will be.
Acts 4:27-30
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”
2Thess 2:13
But we should always thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth.
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Hello cv5, @eternally-gratefull did not state that God doesn't know what people will do. He said the opposite that God is omniscient.
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The dangerous inference is that God is indeed waiting for others to make the decisions, which in His omniscience He happens to know in advance.
An altogether too common folly.
Any thinking along those lines is utterly crushed by the reality of the Scriptures, which clearly state that in fact God willfully made predetermined plans from eternity past, made all of the decisions about what would happen before it happened, made all of the decisions about what people would say and do before they happened, and of his Own sovereign will chose every single Christian who was ever, is ever, or will ever be saved.
An altogether too common folly.
Any thinking along those lines is utterly crushed by the reality of the Scriptures, which clearly state that in fact God willfully made predetermined plans from eternity past, made all of the decisions about what would happen before it happened, made all of the decisions about what people would say and do before they happened, and of his Own sovereign will chose every single Christian who was ever, is ever, or will ever be saved.
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have you heard of something called Freewill?
Free will - Wikipedia
Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.. An action in the past was freely willed if and only if the agent could have willed differently; that is, not performed the action in question and, instead, done something else.
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