Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
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Meaning?
You can't handle it.
Or, are on a crusade to prevent the truth from being clarified.
I am glad you agree that God enables. Now if you would only agree that God loves everyone.
Paul disagrees with saying/implying/indicating that God shows favoritism.
TOP #18: Those who ignore God’s urging of repentance will reap divine wrath on the day of judgment. [Rom. 2:3-5] God’s kindness or patience with sinners is meant to lead them toward repentance, which implies that sinners are able to repent because of God’s leading, and those who do not repent but instead stubbornly resist God’s leading are storing up wrath against themselves
TOP #19: On Judgment Day God will enforce just punishment via souls reaping what they have sown or done. [Rom. 2:5-6, cf. TOP #83 & #141] Punishment is just because God does not show favoritism (TOP #22). This truth is akin to karma (Gal. 6:7-9).
TOP #20: Those who persevere in seeking God’s salvation will receive eternal life. [Rom. 2:7-8&10, cf. 3:22-24 & 6:23b] Paul explains in detail that seeking to earn salvation by obeying moral law perfectly is impossible, so we should accept God’s plan of salvation/election (s/e) via faith in the Gospel of Christ’s atonement. Seeking echoes what Jesus commanded (in Matt. 7:7) and connects with the doctrine of perseverance (cf. Heb. 10:36 & Jam. 1:3-4).
TOP #21: Those who are self-seeking, who reject God’s truth and do evil will experience divine wrath or spiritual death. [Rom. 2:8-9, cf. 6:23a] Self-seeking may be termed “I-dolatry”.
TOP #22: For Jews, obeying the Mosaic Law will serve as the basis of divine judgment. [Rom. 2:9-13&16] Verse 11 teaches that “God does not show favoritism” (cf. Eph. 6:9, Col. 3:25, 1Pet. 1:17).
Exactly! Why would He base His decisions on man in any way? If He did so, we would not be saved by Grace. . .
Romans chapter 9 verse
30 So what does all this mean? It means that people who are not Jews were made right with God because of their faith, even though they were not trying to make themselves right...
Shows free will after most of chapter 9 shows election.
30 So what does all this mean? It means that people who are not Jews were made right with God because of their faith, even though they were not trying to make themselves right...
Shows free will after most of chapter 9 shows election.
Oooohhhh. Well maybe God "treasures above others" well informed Bible scholars (with more than a 20 minute attention span) who take His Word seriously, study it (expending hours daily), and actually understand it? And then preach it accurately?
Do you, @Cameron143 and @Magenta have a list of excuses prepared to offer when found so grievously wanting at the judgement? Better get together and get one ginned up. How complete and polished it will be in less than 20 minutes I cannot say.....
(cut to save space)
Rubbish! Rom 9's focus is not on the Law (or lineage for that matter) but explains God's ELECTION and why His Word has not failed. What in the world did Ishmael, Issac, Jacob or Esau have to do with the Law of Moses? That's the context and background!
Think back to the post-Fall Garden from which Adam was unceremoniously cast out. Why was he cast out? Because taking from the fruit of the "tree of life" was not his prerogative! It was not his choice to make! That is what Rom 9 is basically teaching!
Back last December, I responded to a post by Kroogz that explained the biblical and historical contexts behind Rom 9 which follows immediately on the heels of Rom 8:28-39. Since that 12/3 post was on another thread, I will repost it here.
I'm saying that "royal lineage" isn't the topic in Rom 9. Rom 9 follows immediately upon the heels of the central passage in scripture that deals with Predestination and Unconditional Election, i.e. Rom 8:28ff. In fact, the passage is worth quoting because it tells us the reason behind what Paul wrote in the next chapter.
Rom 8:28-39
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
NIV
Facts:
The Roman world knew that the Gospel preached a JEWISH Messiah. Everyone knew that the JEWS were God's chosen people. And everyone knew that it was the JEWS who preached to Gospel to the Gentiles. And everyone knew that there are numerous messianic prophecies in the JEWISH scriptures predicting the coming of this Messiah. Yet, at the same time the Roman world also understood that the JEWISH nation largely rejected their own Messiah -- and not only rejected Him but delivered Christ up to the Gentiles to be murdered! These set of facts had to be confusing to many, most especially to Gentile converts to the Christian faith; for Paul just got done writing that no one would be able to condemn God's chosen people (vv. 33-34) and that nothing in this universe whatsoever would be able to separate God's chosen people from His love (vv. 35-39). Therefore, these facts had to be very disconcerting and upsetting to New Covenant believers (even to Jewish ones!), since God's OT chosen people had largely abandoned their God. They understood that Israel was going to be judged for their heinous crime against their Messiah and that the kingdom would be taken away from them. So, many if not most believers, of either the Jewish or Gentile stripes, had to be wondering at the seeming contradiction of what Paul wrote in Rom 8:28ff. They also had to be wondering if they, too, would wind up as the Old Covenant people of God did. Would they, too, fall away? Become apostates? Fall from His grace? Be condemned and punished by God? Separated from his love forever!? (And separation from God's love is equivalent to eternal death, which I'll support a little later.)
So, with these biblical and historical contexts as the backdrop for Rom 9, one can easily see why Paul wrote what he did in chapter 9, since he taught that man's salvation is sovereignly and ultimately in God's hands (8:28-29; 9:15-24). God is the SUBJECT of v. 29. He alone is the one doing the "foreknowing" in eternity, predestining in eternity, effectually calling in temporal reality, justifying in temporal reality and finally glorifying his people at the end of this age. In light of such a strong, forceful passage people would naturally wonder if God turned his back on his OC people. Did he abandon them? Did he reject them? Did he stop loving him? And what about all of God's promises that he had made to OC Israel? Has God failed to make good on those promises!? This is why Paul's focus is clearly NOT on Israel's failure (and fail they did!), but rather the focus and emphasis is on God who directs and controls the steps of the sons of men (Jer 10:23, etc.); hence, Paul's words in 9:6 that immediately gives blessed assurance and encouragement to NC believers that God's Word/Promises with Israel DID NOT fail. God has everything under control, and all is going according to HIS plan! In short, Rom 9 begins a more thorough explication of God's sovereign role in man's salvation and that ultimately HE is the one who determines everyone's eternal destiny -- apart from violating their free moral agency.
Now a brief word about the great significance to Rom 9:37-39 wherein it is taught that nothing in this universe will ever be able to separate God's chosen people, i.e. those in Christ from God's love. To me personally, this is one of the most precious passages in all scripture. I asked the question of someone recently (possibly GWH due to his "omnilove" theory) if God's infinite, eternal love will extend to those condemned and consigned to the Second Death for all eternity. Of course, I received no answer, so I'll let the holy Word of God answer that for us. (Thankfully, we have at least two passages upon which to reach a conclusion, so that no one can complain or whine about creating doctrine from a single passage.)
Dan 12:2
2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
NIV
And,
Isa 66:24
24 "And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind."
NIV
Interestingly, "contempt" and "loathsome" are transaltions from the same Hebrew word "dera'own (Strong's 1860), aversion, abhorence, contempt. In fact, if we look up in good secular dictionary the term "abhor" we'll find that "hate' is given as an synonymn! The term "contempt" denotes despising! Therefore, to be separated from God's love is theologiclly synonymous with being separated from His life! And to be separated from God's life is be in a state of DEATH! And we also know that God is not the God of the DEAD but only of the living (Mat 22:32; Mk 12:27; Lk 20:38).
One more thing: It is noteworthy that the redeemed, resurrected saints in the Isaiah passage will look upon the dead bodies who rebelled against their Lord and Savior in the same way as their Redeemer will. They will be on the same page as He is!
I see that you ignored TOP #18-22 and want to jump to TOP #30. Okay, here it is:
29. In Romans 9:1-5 Paul notes how sad it is that those who are part of the human ancestry of Christ reject him as Messiah, but being a member of Abraham’s spiritual children is what is crucial (#17).
30. Romans 9:6-13 states that God had chosen which one of Rebecca’s sons (through whom Messiah’s lineage would be traced) before they were born (cf. Mal. 1:2-3). The word translated as “hate” (miseo) is the same as in Luke 14:26 with reference to family, so a better translation would be “preferred”: loving Jacob/hating Esau refers to God preferring that Jacob’s descendants serve as the heritage for Messiah rather than to individual salvation.
31. Romans 9:14-16 stresses that s/e depends on God’s mercy rather than being achieved by human effort (#12), although the preceding context has shown that (the non-meritorious condition of) faith is involved, which truth can be stated as “God initiates; sinners cooperate—or not”, because of MFW.
God and humans alike only rescue the helpless -- not the self-reliant or self-sufficient people. What "rescued" you was your "freewill". Why can't you be man enough to own what you truly believe? After all, how could God have rescued anyone AFTER the fact -- after a sinner first chose to elect God, chose to repent and chose to trust in Christ? What is there to rescue after the fact?
Nope. You've got that all wrong. Calvinists always flunk out of Romans. The whole book remains an impenetrable mystery to them.
As you have abundantly demonstrated.
No excuses...nothing but the blood of Jesus.Oooohhhh. Well maybe God "treasures above others" well informed Bible scholars (with more than a 20 minute attention span) who take His Word seriously, study it (expending hours daily), and actually understand it? And then preach it accurately?
Do you, @Cameron143 and @Magenta have a list of excuses prepared to offer when found so grievously wanting at the judgement? Better get together and get one ginned up. How complete and polished it will be in less than 20 minutes I cannot say.....
The teachers that he has relied on have led him down the wrong path in the maze, and he can't find his way out.
Nah, you don't have it little buddy.
Rather you will plead "pre-birth election chosenite-ism" similar to bad Pharisees of old.
I mean that is what you have unequivocally declared along with the other super-determinists around here. Sure you have tried vainly to throw a wet blanket on your views many times. But that's why I'm here little buddy. To MAKE SURE everybody knows what doctrine you hold. You @Rufus @Magenta and the rest, yes all hold vociferously to chosenite-ism.
And it will prove to be a spectacular and eternal failure at the judgement.