Did Jesus Die on The Cross for The Just/Elect/Saved Whose Names Are Written in The Book of Life OR
- Thread starter MerSee
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There is no in part in the verses I used.
7 What then? That which Israel seeks for, this he did not obtain, but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened,
8 as it is written: God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, till this day.
7 What then? That which Israel seeks for, this he did not obtain, but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened,
8 as it is written: God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, till this day.
But apparently God had a very good idea who this man was; for He knew him in eternity and predestined him to be one of his adopted children. Your anecdotal "Proof" (so-called) is based on the assumption that this man was dead unto God right up to his encounter with his would-be murderers; but as pointed out in my New Birth Analogy in my 1665, spiritual life very likely mirrors physical life in that in both cases life begins prior to birth! Sounds to me like this chap had his own fantastic on-the-road-to-Damascus conversion experience. And it was no accident or coincidence that this fellow had a prior encounter some Christian who had talked about Jesus.
For whatever it's worth, this fellow's skeptical prayer to God was very similar to my own when God found this lost soul. I didn't exactly pray a faith-filled prayer, if you get my drift.
For whatever it's worth, this fellow's skeptical prayer to God was very similar to my own when God found this lost soul. I didn't exactly pray a faith-filled prayer, if you get my drift.
You must apply what you say ^ in this quoted post of yours in order to fit your doctrine.
In reality, the man came from generations of atheist. So what you say has no way to connect to what your doctrine teaches. The guy never heard the Gospel, never been in Church, never had reason to even consider any type of thoughts about God. It was a last ditch effort and he had already exhausted everything else he knew. He had no real reason to ever consider God let alone asking for His help.
Bottom line, nothing you post connects to what happened in this man's life, NOTHING!
In reality, the man came from generations of atheist. So what you say has no way to connect to what your doctrine teaches. The guy never heard the Gospel, never been in Church, never had reason to even consider any type of thoughts about God. It was a last ditch effort and he had already exhausted everything else he knew. He had no real reason to ever consider God let alone asking for His help.
Bottom line, nothing you post connects to what happened in this man's life, NOTHING!
Nothing you say connects either. In fact, it wrecks the metaphor of the new birth.
This guy sounds a lot like me. So what is your point?
And this chap's "last ditch effort" reminds me of the repentant thief on his cross who had his version of a last minute deathbed conversion. Did he not?
It's utterly amazing how you keep God out of this story -- as though He had absolutely nothing to do with this guy except at the very last minute. Evidently you don't have very much faith in the providence of God, do you? For all you know, God could have been working on this guy for months or years even -- long before this guy cried out to him.
Your anecdote, while fascinating, is a big nothingburger; for it does not prove your NR theology. May I suggest that you commit to memory Isa 55:8-9, for starters? And then get over yourself -- and your "proof".
This guy sounds a lot like me. So what is your point?
And this chap's "last ditch effort" reminds me of the repentant thief on his cross who had his version of a last minute deathbed conversion. Did he not?
It's utterly amazing how you keep God out of this story -- as though He had absolutely nothing to do with this guy except at the very last minute. Evidently you don't have very much faith in the providence of God, do you? For all you know, God could have been working on this guy for months or years even -- long before this guy cried out to him.
Your anecdote, while fascinating, is a big nothingburger; for it does not prove your NR theology. May I suggest that you commit to memory Isa 55:8-9, for starters? And then get over yourself -- and your "proof".
Nothing you say connects either. In fact, it wrecks the metaphor of the new birth.
This guy sounds a lot like me. So what is your point?
And this chap's "last ditch effort" reminds me of the repentant thief on his cross who had his version of a last minute deathbed conversion. Did he not?
It's utterly amazing how you keep God out of this story -- as though He had absolutely nothing to do with this guy except at the very last minute. Evidently you don't have very much faith in the providence of God, do you? For all you know, God could have been working on this guy for months or years even -- long before this guy cried out to him.
Your anecdote, while fascinating, is a big nothingburger; for it does not prove your NR theology. May I suggest that you commit to memory Isa 55:8-9, for starters? And then get over yourself -- and your "proof".
This guy sounds a lot like me. So what is your point?
And this chap's "last ditch effort" reminds me of the repentant thief on his cross who had his version of a last minute deathbed conversion. Did he not?
It's utterly amazing how you keep God out of this story -- as though He had absolutely nothing to do with this guy except at the very last minute. Evidently you don't have very much faith in the providence of God, do you? For all you know, God could have been working on this guy for months or years even -- long before this guy cried out to him.
Your anecdote, while fascinating, is a big nothingburger; for it does not prove your NR theology. May I suggest that you commit to memory Isa 55:8-9, for starters? And then get over yourself -- and your "proof".
Most of us heard the Gospel and believed.
When he did it he had no faith, no belief, and truly believed it would not work but he had nothing else to try.
God's hardening of hearts is not a direct action by God. What God does in any moment in dealing with individuals is responded to by the individual with either hardening or softening. What God did is an indirect cause of the response, and so we can say that God hardened or opened the heart, in the same way as I can make someone angry, or make someone happy. The idea that a whole nation is intentionally and directly hardened into unbelief by God, while individuals in other nations are never hardened, contradicts the biblical revelation IMHO.
My Analogy of the New Birth is more than a plausible explanation. You look at this man's salvation experience as though God got involved with him only at the last minute when the fellow cried out to him. I look at the bigger picture because I believe in the providence of God. As stated earlier, God was very likely working in this man's life for months or years to bring him into the very set of desperate circumstances in which he found himself. Romans 8 teaches that God foreknew this man in eternity, and because he did, he called him [in temporal reality], and because he called him he justified him [in time and space], and because he justified him, he also glorified him ( which will happen at the resurrection). How can God NOT be intimately and lovingly involved in the lives of all those whom he has predestined to save in eternity? Do you think God only decrees the ends and not the means, as well? What good would it be to decree an end in eternity if the means were left to "random chance" in temporal reality? If every decision of the roll of the dice is determined by the Sovereign Lord (Prov 16:33), then how much more are the lives of God's chosen ones determined by Him (Prov 16:9)?
I know the man. He said he never ever thought about God nor did his family. So what you say doesn't seem to fit because your explanation suggests there was a time where he would have considered God. But I know for a fact that he never did.
But, for the sake of argument, God did as you suggest. It would make sense then that God does this to every human because this man describes all non-elects to the exact definition. And "we/you and myself" know you don't believe in that. But if it did happen to him it will have happened to anyone like him.
But, for the sake of argument, God did as you suggest. It would make sense then that God does this to every human because this man describes all non-elects to the exact definition. And "we/you and myself" know you don't believe in that. But if it did happen to him it will have happened to anyone like him.
New Birth Analogy (Pt 2)
This morning when I opened my bible to have my devotions, God providentially had me open to 1Peter 1. In this kind of situation when I don't intentionally open to a specific place in scripture where I have a ribbon or marker, I pay attention to God's leading; for more often than not this has proven to be an indication that the Lord wants to bless me by teaching me something that previously has gone unnoticed by me. And indeed, I was blessed greatly this morning for doing so; for the Lord had something very special to reveal to me this day. And this is what I would like to share with everyone.
There are three passages in chapter 1 that I'd like to briefly discuss and I'll quote each passage. We'll look at each in their order.
1 Peter 1:1a-2
1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To God's elect, strangers in the world... 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood...
NIV
This one short passage is bursting at the seams with soteriology! If we look carefully, we'll find this one passage affirms my earlier New Birth Analogy. Let's briefly break it down.
1. Peter is obviously writing to the saints -- primarily Jewish believers at that.
2. Order of Words or Phrases in Scripture are Usually Important Logically and/or Chronologically for Right Understanding.
A. In fact, the same must be said for how writers of scripture present their arguments, i.e. logical flow.
B. In the first part of v. 2, Peter speaks of the "forknowledge" of God in eternity. God's eternal PURPOSE for his elect.
C. The second part of v. 2 talks of the MEANS of achieiving the Father's Purpose through the agency of the Holy Spirit.
D. The third part of v.2 speaks to the ultimate OBJECTIVE of the Purpose and the Means, which is Obedience to Christ.
E. And the final thing we learn is that all three Persons of the Godhead are involved in the elect's salvation.
So, we can easily see the logical and chronological order of events here. Peter starts out with the Father's purpose in eternity, how the Father achieives that purpose in temporal reality by his Spirit, and the what the ultimate object of his purpose was in eternity past, which is obedience to his Son.
What I really want focus on here in this passage is the MEANS to obedience to obedience to Christ and he sprinkling of is blood. But first, the obedience to Christ is nothing less than obdience to Christ's Gospel. This is the obeidence of faith (Rom 16:26) at which time the elect are "sprinkled by his blood". That is to say, the elect are forgiven their sins, for their sins have been washed away by the precious blood of the Lamb. So, this part of the passage teaches us that obedience to the Gospel, obedience to the Truth is absolutely necessary for salvation.
But so is the "sanctifying work" of the Holy Spirit! What Peter is saying here is that Spirit of God was actively, intimately, personally and lovingly involved in every aspect of the elect's salvation. The Spirit actively worked to bring the elect to a state of holiness, which ultimately was achieved when they obeyed the Gospel of Jesus. The Holy Spirit was actively working IN the lives of Peter's audience (the chosen ones) to achieve the goal of THEIR obedience to the Son. And this work is ongoing! It's not just a one-time work! The Holy Spirit was in their lives from the very beginning -- before they even reached the point of obedience to the Gospel. His sanctifying work was nothing less than the indispensable means to achieve this ultimate goal, i.e. to bring them to obedience -- at which point they became new creatures in Christ, i.e. born again!
So, since the Holy Spirit was in the lives of Peter's audience from the very beginning of their salvation, it must be asked: Did the Holy Spirit quicken the spiritually dead elect to enable them to move toward Son? Was the Spirit of the Living God moving live people toward obedience to the Gospel or was he was he merely nudging spiritual zombies, hoping they would positively respond to his work so that He could finally impart life to them? Or is the Holy Spirit so impotent that He could only hope the Father's elect would respond as the Father planned in eternity? Since this passage teaches that this ministry of the Spirit was his sanctifying work -- then this tells me that he quickened the Father's elect so that they could and would willingly and freely move toward the Son. And at this point -- become born again! Otherwise, how would the dead be able to move unless they had already been made alive? And since alive, then this means they were spiritually reunited, reconnected to the Author of Life -- through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Remember: Adam came into this world as a living soul because God had breathed into the him the Breath of Life!
And this brings us to the next passage, which further nails down Peter's statement and my earlier analogy.
1 Peter 1:3
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
NIV
Peter in contemplating what God has just revealed to him, cannot help but break out in praise to God the Father and his Son. Then he succinctly sums up what he just finished saying in the first two verses by telling his audience that "he has given us NEW BIRTH....through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Can we not all see now the logical and chronological flow to Peter's words? Peter doesn't mention the New Birth until after he speaks of God's foreknowledge, the Spirit's work of sanctification and the elect's obedience to the Son.
And then finally...
1 Peter 1:22-23
22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
NIV
Here Peter confirms what I said ealier about what obeidence to the Son is about: It's obedience to His Gospel! The Gospel Truth! And obedience to this Truth, through faith, is always the final stage in a believer's regenerated soul, for it is the manifestation of Life that heretofore was concealed in the womb, in a manner speaking. It is at this stage that the believer himself becomes consicous of his new life in Christ when he cries out to the Lord to save him. (Does a living infant cry out before or after he exits his mother's womb?) And when this new life makes its entrance into the world, don't others acknowldge it, witness it and rejoice over it? And so it it is with everyone's New Birth in the Lord. There is even much rejoicing in heaven in the presence of God's angels over every such birth (Lk 15:10).
No, it does not follow logically. Why would God have to do for every single human being what he did for that man? Don' you know that in Romans 9 it teaches us that God sovereignly took from ONE lump of dead, non-elect humanity and made them into a second lump for noble purposes? The text does not say he made the entire first lump into a second lump! There is very clearly TWO lumps of clay.
P.S. God did not do for Adam what he did for Eve, did he?
P.S. God did not do for Adam what he did for Eve, did he?