Predestination is misunderstood...

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Dec 18, 2023
6,402
406
83
#81
Why could not someone chose to reject Christ if grace made them free to choose?
Choose like Satan and his angels were free to do?

If someone did that? Satan and his angels would see how they were without excuse when they rejected...

God is also dealing with angels, not just man.
Some do not yet realize that...
well I've said it all along and Ill say it again,

Your own free will, will take you to hell,

The gifts of the holy spirit are a better state of free will 😃
 

Genez

Junior Member
Oct 12, 2017
3,467
542
113
#82
personaly speaking by the looks of things youve saved yourself

How could believing in Jesus be saving oneself?

How is granting a surgeon to operate on you for an emergency be saving yourself?

To believe in Jesus? And to boast about oneself as for being great for believing?
Would be like someone accepting a check for a million dollars, and then claiming how great they were for doing so.

The very thought that you are someone special for believing in Christ is a ludicrous.
For it should be a normal and sane thing to do. How can accepting the Lord of Glory make you look great?
That's crazy.

It would be like a thirsty person boasting about how great he was for accepting a free glass of spring water.

We are saved by grace...

It would be absolutely impossible to believe in Christ without God's grace holding down your flesh.
Our flesh is diametrically opposed to the Spirit of God!

Our soul is not our flesh, and the flesh is not our soul.

Our soul that was a slave under the flesh until God's grace saved us from not being able to believe!
 
Dec 18, 2023
6,402
406
83
#83
How could believing in Jesus be saving oneself?

How is granting a surgeon to operate on you for an emergency be saving yourself?

To believe in Jesus? And to boast about oneself as for being great for believing?
Would be like someone accepting a check for a million dollars, and then claiming how great they were for doing so.

The very thought that you are someone special for believing in Christ is a ludicrous.
For it should be a normal and sane thing to do. How can accepting the Lord of Glory make you look great?
That's crazy.

It would be like a thirsty person boasting about how great he was for accepting a free glass of spring water.

We are saved by grace...

It would be absolutely impossible to believe in Christ without God's grace holding down your flesh.
Our flesh is diametrically opposed to the Spirit of God!

Our soul is not our flesh, and the flesh is not our soul.

Our soul that was a slave under the flesh until God's grace saved us from not being able to believe!
 

Genez

Junior Member
Oct 12, 2017
3,467
542
113
#85
Obviously you wanted to go off on a nonsensical tangent to distract others away from concentrating on what I said.....

Interesting side note... Back in the 60's Christine McVie and I used to date.
 
Dec 18, 2023
6,402
406
83
#86
Obviously you wanted to go off on a nonsensical tangent to distract others away from concentrating on what I said.....

Interesting side note... Back in the 60's Christine McVie and I used to date.
Thomas i said the gifts of the holy spirit are a better state of free will, and not your interpretation of it, 😊
 

Genez

Junior Member
Oct 12, 2017
3,467
542
113
#87
well I've said it all along and Ill say it again,

Your own free will, will take you to hell,

The gifts of the holy spirit are a better state of free will 😃
I'm talking about "freed" will. You keep talking about free will.
There is no such thing as naturally having free will in relation to knowing God.

It must be a "freed" will. Freed by God's power of grace.

Since Adam's fall man can not have a free will in relation to seeking God.
Grace saves us from our plight, by empowering our soul to make free our soul's will from bondage to the flesh.
 
Dec 18, 2023
6,402
406
83
#88
I'm talking about "freed" will. You keep talking about free will.
There is no such thing as free will naturally in relation to knowing God.

It must be a "freed" will. Freed by God's power of grace!

Since Adam's fall man does not have a free will in relation to seeking God.
Grace saves us from our plight, by empowering our soul to make free our will from bondage to the flesh.
there's a gift of rhw holy spirit called self control, could you see how that might be a better state of free will for you 😄
 
Dec 18, 2023
6,402
406
83
#89
Let me explain it for you

A fruit of the spirit called self control, is the active effort to help you to resist temptation and going back to your old ways when you had your own free will.

So this fruit is a better state of free will 👍
 

Genez

Junior Member
Oct 12, 2017
3,467
542
113
#90
Let me explain it for you

A fruit of the spirit called self control, is the active effort to help you to resist temptation and going back to your old ways when you had your own free will.

So this fruit is a better state of free will 👍
Since you can't think straight and now think I am someone named Thomas....

You are going on Ignore.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,505
468
83
#91
Looks like you missed the point also, and I already know you disagree about this, although having the
ability to make choices does not nullify the fact that the will is constrained by many factors. In fact,
Scripture teaches, in the words of Jesus:
"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."
You are still completely ignorant of what the will (theEma) and to will (thelein) are biblically. Coming is an action not a desire. Now, if if you can show that no one can want to come unless the Father makes them want to come, you could say the will is constrained. Your will is not constrained by anything. You can want the most ridiculous and impossible things, and no one can stop you wanting them, if you want to keep on wanting them.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
61,160
30,309
113
#93
You are still completely ignorant of what the will (theEma) and to will (thelein) are biblically. Coming is an action not a desire. Now, if if you can show that no one can want to come unless the Father makes them want to come, you could say the will is constrained. Your will is not constrained by anything. You can want the most ridiculous and impossible things, and no one can stop you wanting them, if you want to keep on wanting them.
You present logical fallacies. Does God make us, or enable us? There is a difference, but such distinctions escape you.

Did you circumcise your own heart? I doubt it very much. You were made alive when you were DEAD.


Jesus’ words in John 6:65
:)
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,505
468
83
#95
You present logical fallacies. Does God make us, or enable us? There is a difference, but such distinctions escape you.
God enables everyone to come. He has made the gospel very easy, even a child can understand and be saved. And He has commanded that the gospel be proclaimed to every creature. Whoever has ears to hear, he is commanded to listen. So, only the deaf are possibly excluded from that command. But then they could read, which is a kind of hearing, as far as the gospel is concerned.

If God enables everyone, why don't all who hear come? Answer... They don't want/will to come.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,505
468
83
#96
You present logical fallacies. Does God make us, or enable us?


Jesus’ words in John 6:65
:)
Do you think that "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him" means that all who are drawn come?

Do you think that "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him" excludes all those people who came to Jesus to argue with Him about the things the Father was giving Him to say and do, but refused to believe in Him?
 
Dec 18, 2023
6,402
406
83
#97
Obviously you wanted to go off on a nonsensical tangent to distract others away from concentrating on what I said.....

Interesting side note... Back in the 60's Christine McVie and I used to date.

Tell me lies Thomas 😃

Tell me sweet little lies 😁😊🌈😋



 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
26,074
13,778
113
Jesus was chosen and so were we, in Him.
That statement needs to be clarified. And this verse makes it clear: Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. (1 Peter 1:2)

So the ones who were chosen in Christ are the ones whom God foreknew as being believers. These believers would be (1) washed in the blood of the Lamb, (2) sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and (3) made obedient to God and Christ. They would be elected and predestined to be transformed into the the likeness of Christ.