predestination vs freewill

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.


These disciples who came to Him, being drawn by the Father, did turn away from Him and followed Him no more.


Being drawn to His does not = eternal salvation.


Eternal salvation is for those who obey Him.


And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Hebrews 5:9




JPT

No one can "obey" until they become saved/born-again - to do so is a fruit of the Spirit. Until they do become born-again, the eyes of their understanding remains darkened.

[Eph 1:17-18 KJV]
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

They may have been with Him but they hadn't been drawn to Him - that's why they left Him. Walking with Him is not the same as having been drawn to Him. Spiritually speaking, they were unable to hear or to learn. The "therefore" in verse 65 makes this
clear because by verse 65, Jesus is excluding those who left from those who were truly drawn.

[Jhn 6:64-66 KJV]
64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
66 From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

[Jhn 6:45 KJV] 45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

No I did not overlook Rom.8:29. Please read my previous post #331. In this post I went into great detail about the Greek word translated "Foreknow".

While I agree with the points you are making, you stepped on one of my pet peeves. The subject of "free will".

Your post actually proved that man does not possess a free will. Yet, you said it any way. Perhaps a hard habit to break. In order to exercise a "free" will, by excepted definition of the word, one must be able to exercise his/her will without any incumbrance. As soon as one says that a persons "will" can be overridden by another or by the exercising of that will, cannot change the order of events, the concept of "free" will is dead.

The better understanding, is to say man has an ability to make "personal choices".

Note the contradiction in your post:
B. God doesn’t always restrain evil, though He could, therefore there is a measure of human freedom. We have a free will, but God can override our will when and if He chooses.

This is a bit nitpicky, perhaps, but as I said it is a pet peeve of mine.

On a more personal note, unfortunately they know charge users for personal conversations. If you like to read the works of other men - men solidly based in Scripture - I have a suggestion for you. I only share this with individuals that I think will benefit from it and can receive it. There is a website you might like to check out.

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It stands for the "W. E. Best Book Missionary Trust" I knew this Pastor for a number of years and he published over 15 books. He was a great "Grace" man. He is now home with the Lord.

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Go to the website and click on the "book list" button - then scroll down the page to the book titles. I would suggest you start with the one titled "Honoring The True God". It is a short pamphlet and a quick read. If you find you agree with it - then you might want to read some of the others. My favorites were:

Regeneration and Conversion.
Christ could not be tempted.
Justification before God - (not by faith).
Eternity and Time.

God bless.

I think our disagreement is semantic. Perhaps we differ in what constitutes a free will. For example, even our most mundane personal choices are limited by things like circumstances, ability, etc, but that doesn’t mean we are not free to choose. Rather it means that we have limited freedom. God on the other hand is free to do as He pleases in heaven and on earth.

PS. I do believe in moral inability of the unregenerate ( cannot please God) . My point was that the unregenerate choose to make immoral choices, but even that is limited, as God restrains and limits if He wishes.

Certainly God is in ultimate control, and by HIS omnipotence can will things to happen and not happen. But there is an innate desire in unregenerated man to do the sorts of things that displease God because they are spiritually dead. So, yes, the unregenerated do nothing spiritual because they are unable.

rogerg said: There is only one election...

Or, IF your prefer solid "studies" that are Rightly Divided (2 Timothy 2:15):

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PS Not to sure IF I would like to "get into" stuff like "supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism"?

I prefer: “Simplicity” in CHRIST! (2 Corinthians 11:3 KJB!) Amen?

Correct. God does not tempt man with evil, never. But He is able to permit or restrain evil, ( which comes from man’s sinful heart) according to His Purpose. “ what you intended for evil, God intended for good to save many lives”. Joseph (Genesis 50:20)

Yes you are right, it is not for everyone. These weighty Doctrines are difficult to study and equally difficult to become settled upon. However, if God has revealed the subject in His Word, I personally want to know about it. As far as the views of Lapsarianism are concerned - I would be lying if I said I was completely settled on the issue. I guess I lean towards the Infralapsarian point of view.

AMEN - Let no man say he is tempted by God or any say God can be Tempted. But what about those verses of Scripture that say that Christ was tempted? Could His sinless nature be tempted? If He could, would not that fact disqualify Him as a sacrifice "without spot or blemish". or is "temptation", as it relates to our Lord Jesus Christ, just a really bad choice of an English word?

I vote the later. The Greek word translated "tempt, tempted or temptation" when it comes to Jesus Christ - should have been translated with the English word: "tried or tested". If Christ, as the God-man, had a temptable nature, I think we are all in trouble.

The flesh of the fully-God/fully-man, Jesus Christ, was tempted. His fully God nature can not be tempted. The incarnation is indeed a mystery.

I think Hebrews 4:15 indicates that the purpose of Christ’s temptation was related to His ministry as our High Priest.

Also, when Jesus said that He “ did not know the day or the hour”, it was not a denial of the perfect Omniscience of the Eternal Logos, but rather He allowed His Divine attributes to be veiled. He also ( as a man) grew in wisdom and knowledge as a child, though in His essence as the Logos he knew, knows,and has always known all things and is the very wisdom of God.

You are correct. There the Incarnation is in some ways incomprehensible, but wonderfully true.

Here is some food for thought, that you might add to your end times theological collection.
When Jesus said that "no man or the Son of Man", knows the hour........He said that on earth, as the Lamb who was under the law, and about to be slain for the sin of the world.
He is not longer that situation.
He is now King, in Heaven, "having been given all authority in Heaven, and on Earth" who is coming back to bring "vengeance".
So, there is no reason to think that He does still does not know.. when He's coming back.

What the NT tells us, is what He didn't know as a man on earth, prior to the Cross.
Christ is not in that same situation now.

@awelight, with what do you disagree.

I agree with this. This post is fully compatible with what I said I’m my previous post.

Jesus existed with the Father in eternity past, coexistence and coequal. In order to redeem the Elect, He humbled Himself in the incarnation. Having finished His Redemptive work, He was glorified with the Father which glory He had before the earth was made.

Are you teaching that if you are not the "elect" , then you are born without a freewill option to believe in Jesus, be born again, and go to Heaven?