Colossians 1 verse 13 ~ He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
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Colossians 1 verse 13 ~ He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
Colossians 2 v 8, Romans 16 v 18, Romans 10 v 2, Proverbs 19 v 2a ~ See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For I testify about them that they are zealous for God, but not on the basis of knowledge. Zeal is no good without knowledge.
Notice: they obeyed...the will...from the heart...the heart...that form of doctrine...the mind. How did they come to such a place where their hearts, minds, and wills aligned with God? Perhaps from a place like Acts 2:37? When they heard this...the mind...were pricked in their hearts...the heart...and said...what shall we do?...the will.
Daniel 4 verse 35~ All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’ Isaiah 14 verse 24~ The LORD of Hosts has sworn: “Surely, as I have planned, so will it be; as I have purposed, so will it stand.” Psalm 139 verse 16~ Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Proverbs 16 verse 9~ In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. Proverbs 19 verse 21~ Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.
Deuteronomy 30 v 6~ The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
Yes!
Which is why I believe there's 2 forms of response we clearly see throughout the Bible. We see people making a choice that shows personal decision and we also see choices made where God either gives them no other option or it's the only thing that can be made.
Moshe shows free will but there's other examples that show God is forcing the issue no matter what.
Moses makes a choice. Like all choices, there are a multitude of factors that impunge upon the choice. One of those factors is the nature of an individual. The fact that there are multiple factors affecting choices reveals that the will isn't free.
The choice he made for what he was doing doesn't represent Sin nor Salvation. It represents he wants a better view of what he believes he saw. So his choice is free will.
There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. Romans 3 verses 11-12; Romans 8 verses 5-8; 2 Timothy 2 verses 25-26
Whether one can choose to eat fries or salad with lunch has zero bearing on the eternal fate of one's soul,
and any such mundane matters concerning choices we make one way or another really don't have anything
to do with the conversation, such as it is, since the crux of the issue is whether the unregenerated person
is free to choose to believe with his incurably wicked heart while a slave to sin and lover of darkness who
refuses to come into the light as a God hater. Those Biblical truths alone should be enough to answer the
question, but there are actually quite a few more, all of which regularly get thrown over, contradicted, and
outright denied by those whose idol is an unBiblical doctrine upholding the vain self-exalting will of man.
In 1 Cor 2 verse 14, the natural man, still unsaved, cannot comprehend the spiritual things of God. He does not understand Christ’s atoning sacrifice, for that is foolishness to him (1 Cor 1 verse 18). The Holy Spirit Himself must convict him of its reality, and of his standing before God (John 16 verses 7-11).So this natural man is unregenerated, one who does not have the Holy Spirit residing within him. As Jesus said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3 verse 6).
It came to my attention recently that when the natural man who does not comprehend the gospel is mentioned
(hearing it as foolishness), some (many more than one) of our free willers have no idea who that refers to! They
are so busy ascribing to the natural man what only the spiritual man is capable of that they completely overlook
what the Bible actually says of either of them. Overlook, contradict, and outright deny, to the point where they
claim personal spiritual revelation is not even necessary even though Jesus said otherwise.
After you repeat yourself a thousand times?
Someone should lose patience....
You repeatedly do what you do to get a reaction, so you can accuse them like you just did me.
It's a set-up game you play.
The question is whether the will is free to make choices or is impinged upon by the nature of the individual.
Watch your kids. And then tell us you are kidding....
Sure. God does this "forced marching" and "shutting in" as He chooses. Fairly often in fact (think early Church forced dispersion from Jerusalem) But it sure ain't Calvinism as they will be sure to insist.
The Exodus Route: The Etham Backtrack
Etham
Hb. šûr = “wall” and Egyptian htm = “wall, fortress”.
"Shut in by wilderness"
"Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you shall camp in front of Baal-zephon, opposite it, by the sea. "For Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, 'They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.'" Exodus 14:1-3
Introduction:
- Etham is one of the most interesting and most important locations for determining the exodus route and the crossing of the Red Sea.
- Pharaoh said: "They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has shut them in." Ex 14:3
- Philo also illustrates that at Etham, they were trapped by the wilderness:
- "and not being able to escape, for behind was the sea, and in front was the enemy, and on each side a vast and pathless wilderness" (Philo, On the Life of Moses, 1:165-171)
- " the prophet saw that the whole nation was now enclosed like a shoal of fish" (Philo Moses II 250)
- The mountains that trapped Israel are 300 meters high.
- Etham, where they camped has an area of 70 sq. km.
- These mountains "shut them in" and are the end of the 200-mile coastal plain, "on the edge of the wilderness" (Ex 13:20).
- God told them to "turn back" the direction they came and camp in front of the Migdol which was a military watch tower (Ex 14:2, Num 33:7).
- Scripture says that Israel came to a dead end at Etham, then God told them to turn back and retrace their steps and camp directly beside the "Migdol" in order for pharaoh to say, "Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you shall camp in front of Baal-zephon, opposite it, by the sea. "For Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, 'They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.' "Thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will chase after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord." And they did so." Exodus 14:1-4
Wrong! God chose all his elect before the beginning of time! You're so hopelessly time-bound because you believe that God did the "choosing" in time and space after he looked into his cosmic crystal ball to learn who going to believe and who isn't in temporal reality! That isn't the way foreknowledge, election or predestination work. If it were, then no person on this planet would be saved since scripture is very clear on the point that God gives his grace only to the humble. And humility is hardly the attribute I would use to describe this fallen world, most especially since the world has no Fear of God before its eyes. Since there is no one inherently righteous in this world, then neither is anyone inherently humble. Therefore, in order for grace to be given to the humble, that grace had to have been gifted to the elect through their Federal Head Jesus Christ who was inherently humble, even humbling himself to go to the Cross.
Also, for your info God decreed in eternity the imputation of Adam's sin to all his progeny. Likewise, God's elect were imputed Christ's righteousness in eternity but the elect never become conscious of this fact until their new birth in temporal reality.
Give me one text in scripture whereby the wicked in this life are ever characterized as being humble.
Why aren't you also equally upset by others who repeat themselves from the opposite perspective? Shouldn't you likewise be annoyed with them? Seems a little inconsistent.
Speaking of such, what is their motivation? Are they trying to get a reaction? Did you respond so that you could accuse me and impugn my motives?
I recognize it's difficult to receive correction and it's easier to deflect when one's shortcomings are in view. Just for the record, your discernment of me and my motives has been woefully in error since your original effort.
Grace and peace.