Understanding God’s election

I think the problem, Rufus, is that they just can't bring themselves to accept that it is actually God who is the Savior and not man.
The fact that He refers to Himself throughout the Bible as the Savior(singular) is completely irrelevant to them.

What the Calvinites cannot fathom is that God provided a certain degree of sovereignty to his creation as well.
You know.....like Adam. Who was gifted with the responsibility to oversee, manage and keep what God created.

Satan too. He definitely holds a certain degree of authority and sovereignty.

Cuz you know......God is big enough to allow for that.

Thank goodness the inquisition is no longer a problem today.

Not even deserving of a reply - at least not one that I'm allowed to post

Happy Birthday to all the Jarheads that may be out there and Semper Fi.

Ooh-rah.

I have a question for you, Mr. Genez: When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, do you believe that was a gracious act by the Savior? If not, why?

Yeah, you did miss the point entirely because the prodigal's "free" will is not the point to the parable. You made a huge deal of all the prodigal's "I wills' when the real point is that God welcomes, receives and delights in humble, repentant sinners -- a truth that the self-righteous religious elite of Jesus' day largely dismissed or at the very least discounted. Also, all your highlighting of the "I wills" and your interpretation of them contradict several scriptures that teach that repentance, like faith, is a gift of God as I pointed out earlier.

Dodging shucking and jiving and bafflegab. Thats what I see.
Anybody else agree?

There is no degree to Sovereignty. As in,a certain degree of.

Satan has no degree of Sovereignty. He can only do what God permits because God alone has Dominion and is Sovereign.

The Calvanist bigotry blinds people to the truth.

Jesus said,no one can come to him unless....

And in context to that condition , God calls whom he will, his call is his choosing us. Just as Jesus told his Disciples they did not choose him,he chose them.

When Jesus said the natural (sinful,worldly) consciousness/mind cannot understand the things of God,as in the Gospel,because it is spiritually discerned that means we cannot choose Jesus because to our worldly mind the Gospel,the things of God,are thought to be foolishness to us.

When God tells us he wrote the names of those he redeemed through his grace before the creation, foundation,of the world,and the lamb that would take the sins of the world upon itself was also slain before the world was founded,created, predestination is Scripture.

When God tells us we do not save ourselves,we are saved by grace of God ,not of ourselves so we cannot boast, we cannot then insist we do choose Salvation and therein boast. Nor can we say we believe the scriptures when in insisting we choose to be saved we contradict them.

Calvinism is Reformed Theology that predates John Calvin. His TULIP is a culmination of everything Jesus taught as to why ,what,and how we are and need Saving.

Jesus predated John Calvin. Those who taught the same thing prior to Calvin garnered their teachings from Jesus teachings in scripture.

And the reason "they just cannot bring themselves to accept" the plain truth is due to their self-deceived hearts and their pride. Christianity aside, the rest of the religious world has deceived itself into believing they they can merit God's favor in one way or another.
It's no wonder that John wrote that the whole world is under the power (control) of the evil one (1Jn 5:19), and Paul taught that Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers (including purveyors of false gospels) so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God (2Cor 4:4). These people don't understand that the gospel of forgiveness, the gospel of the kingdom, etc. is also the gospel of the grace of God (Act 20:24). Therefore, man cannot add anything to it, otherwise it ceases to be grace once it becomes polluted, corrupted and defiled with man's works -- works that are as dead as the world itself!

To ignore the first 2 parts of the parable allows for different understanding than the context of the parable allows.

The Shepherd clearly goes after the sheep. The Spirit enlightens and cleanses that the coin is found. Then...and only then is the wayward child received home and celebrated.

Father, Son, and Spirit are all involved in the salvation of the sinner.

If it'll make you feel any better just take a vote to gain the approval of men. You can learn much from the Pharisees in the NT. They were experts in backslapping and coveting the approval of men.

I do know the meaning of Sovereignty.

I also know the meaning of absolute Righteousness.

Know that God can not change.. He is immutable.

Know that God is love. There can be no love without free volition.

TULIP's version of God's sovereignty amounts to we being players in God's video game.

At the time it was a way to answer a question that mystified the ones asking.
Trouble is. Theodore Beza did just like the Catholic church was known for doing.
His sect made up it's own definition to explain something.
And, Calvinists accepted what was proclaimed as if it were ex cathedra..

The rigid mind set of TULIP exchanged places with the rigid mind set of the Vatican's.
They were used to going along with that kind of religious locked-in kind of thinking at that time.

Our way of knowing freedom in Christ was not known in the religious culture at that time.
It took many years of growing in the Word to eventually bring us to finally achieving a solid grasp
on the Freedom in the Spirit with Truth some know today.

God sovereignly had me proclaim that to you...
It was decreed that I would.

grace and peace ..............

Tell me...

How do you come up with such ______ ideas?

Do you know the difference between an 'ideal' solution?
And, an 'idealistic' solution?

They are not the same things!

God's grace, and God being gracious, are not the same thing.

.......

Sarcasm posing as self righteousness is a bad example.

On that theme, it is apparent to some (if not many) that the Calvinistas could be the Pharisees of today!

You are saying that Paul was not righteous?

Paul's epistles in the Greek are loaded with sarcasm when it was needed....
Paul was filled with the Spirit while he wrote.

I did not sense any sarcasm in what I wrote.
That's between you and the Lord.

You got it brother.
The Bible confirms this from cover to cover.

Nothing I stated would cause someone to infer I stated that.

No,they aren't.
needed.... He was indeed. It is wrong for you to compare your behavior to Paul's.

You wouldn't be conscious of your sin now would you? As Paul told us,that is the condition of the natural mind.