Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
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I'm going to explain this to you in Jesus' terms so maybe it's easier to see:
"though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad —in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—" -- Romans 9:11 (ESV)
A letter written about the Jews and Gentiles as two groups, concerning the election to God's purpose and service, not individual salvation.
It was a very simple question. And that comment wasn't made until after the dodge. So it couldn't have been the cause.
We're called to be Disciples and fulfill Matthew 28 Great Commission set forth by Jesus.
God was keeping His oath He made with Abraham.
Our role is to fulfill the Great Commission by being Disciples of God.
Did God unilaterally make that oath to Abraham? If so, and again when God unilaterally chose Jacob over Esau, this doesn't support freewill arguments, but speaks counter to it.
Your second comment is a nonsequitur. Examining how God has chosen in the past does help us to understand the subject of election.
It speaks about more so about how God viewed Enoch seeing that ultimately via Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob the Lineage chosen to bring forth Jesus leads to Enoch who has never physically died.
All of them are important. God gave revelation progressively through each.
Okay...I'm going to give my revised take on what exactly happened in the Garden the day Adam disobeyed. How did Adam die on that day? And for the record, I do believe that Adam literally died on that day! Just because his death wasn't physical doesn't mean that it wasn't a real death with real consequences. I believe God literally exists even though I have no empirical (physical, observable) evidence of his existence.
Also, for the record, I formerly believed for many years that Adam spiritually died after he disobeyed God because God removed his Holy Spirit from him the way He did from king Saul after he disobeyed. While there may still be some truth to this understanding, I think it misses what the core of the text says.
As stated previously, I strongly believe that the Garden that God Himself planted in the east of Eden ( Gen 2:8) was nothing less than His sanctuary (temple). God planted the garden, He walked in it, he put Adam in it, He communed with Adam in it and He brought all the animals to the Garden so that Adam could classify and name them.
More evidence for the Garden temple can be gleaned from the fact that cherubim were also in God's presence in the Garden, and God commanded Moses and others after him to carve out images of cherubim first for the Ark,then later for both temples. Also, the artwork for the Ark and subsequent earthly temples all had strong arboreal motifs to them, which very likely reflected back to the original temple in the Garden not built with human hands.
And last but not least, we learn in Rev 21-22 that in the Eternal New Order, God picks up where he left off in the original Garden, and that one more final temple will exist not made with human hands -- that temple being God and the Lamb Himself which will be their holy dwelling place in which the redeemed will dwell with their Creator and Redeemer (Rev 21:8; 22-27).
As stated yesterday, there is an excellent work available by G.K. Beale called The Temple And The Church's Mission that lays all these facts out for whoever is interested. Now...for a very quick overview of all God's dwelling places or more importantly His Holy Presence which inhabited all those holy places; for it was His Holy Presence that made those spaces sacred, e.g. the Holy Land, Holy Place, Holy of Holies, etc.. We, of course, start with the microscopic dwelling of God in a section of Eden. This eventually evolved into the Tent of Meeting in which the Ark of the Covenant was kept. And this evolved into Solomon's first temple and then eventually into the second temple, then that morphed into the Body of Christ being the dwelling place of His Holy Presence by virtue of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and then finally into the macroscopic at the end of this age, i.e. God and His Son both being the Holy Dwelling Place that will extend throughout the entire new earth in which the saints will also dwell with them for all eternity.
In the next post, we'll see exactly how Adam literally died spiritually on the day of his disobedience.
Also, for the record, I formerly believed for many years that Adam spiritually died after he disobeyed God because God removed his Holy Spirit from him the way He did from king Saul after he disobeyed. While there may still be some truth to this understanding, I think it misses what the core of the text says.
As stated previously, I strongly believe that the Garden that God Himself planted in the east of Eden ( Gen 2:8) was nothing less than His sanctuary (temple). God planted the garden, He walked in it, he put Adam in it, He communed with Adam in it and He brought all the animals to the Garden so that Adam could classify and name them.
More evidence for the Garden temple can be gleaned from the fact that cherubim were also in God's presence in the Garden, and God commanded Moses and others after him to carve out images of cherubim first for the Ark,then later for both temples. Also, the artwork for the Ark and subsequent earthly temples all had strong arboreal motifs to them, which very likely reflected back to the original temple in the Garden not built with human hands.
And last but not least, we learn in Rev 21-22 that in the Eternal New Order, God picks up where he left off in the original Garden, and that one more final temple will exist not made with human hands -- that temple being God and the Lamb Himself which will be their holy dwelling place in which the redeemed will dwell with their Creator and Redeemer (Rev 21:8; 22-27).
As stated yesterday, there is an excellent work available by G.K. Beale called The Temple And The Church's Mission that lays all these facts out for whoever is interested. Now...for a very quick overview of all God's dwelling places or more importantly His Holy Presence which inhabited all those holy places; for it was His Holy Presence that made those spaces sacred, e.g. the Holy Land, Holy Place, Holy of Holies, etc.. We, of course, start with the microscopic dwelling of God in a section of Eden. This eventually evolved into the Tent of Meeting in which the Ark of the Covenant was kept. And this evolved into Solomon's first temple and then eventually into the second temple, then that morphed into the Body of Christ being the dwelling place of His Holy Presence by virtue of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and then finally into the macroscopic at the end of this age, i.e. God and His Son both being the Holy Dwelling Place that will extend throughout the entire new earth in which the saints will also dwell with them for all eternity.
In the next post, we'll see exactly how Adam literally died spiritually on the day of his disobedience.
When Seth was born it plainly states man began to think about God (free will).
Then we see the first part of Enochs life that he didn't follow God but his last part it says he CHOSE to follow God. And God used his lineage to bring forth the Messiah.
I am more closely aligned with this understanding.
studier said:
Rather than "Death of the Human Spirit — Fallen man is Dichotomous = body and soul", I see it as body and soul + spirit without the presence of the Holy Spirit (as I explained at Post 7627). Functionally, it is closely aligned with dichotomous, but I think if we remove spirit altogether, do we then contradict verses in Scripture which speak of the spirit of man? Could it be that rather than "spiritually dead" what occurred in Adam was more in line with "spiritually disabled" ... or "spiritually incapacitated" ... "spiritual paralysis" ... we see people who have physical disabilities ... could Adam and Eve's sin result spiritual paralysis ... the part is there, just functioning so far below what God initially created due to God having removed His Spirit?
The heart of man is what God desires ... the whole heart. Could it be that when Adam sinned and God removed His presence from the heart of Adam what remained was the work of the law being written in [the] heart (Rom 2:15) without the presence of the Holy Spirit to direct and guide the actions?
Under New Covenant, God creates a new heart within upon which is not written the work of the law ... God writes His law upon our hearts and puts His law in our minds (Heb 8:10) ... the mind of Christ which is also part of the new birth (1 Cor 2:16) is designed to hold all God gives.
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there's also this ...
Romans 15:
4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
5 Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:
6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
the bolded verse was the verse I wanted to share ... just added the additional verses as a reminder as to how we are to treat one another ... no extra charge
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I see that we are beginning to return to salvation hinging on MFW vs Grace. Therefore, I will offer the following comments by Moreno Dal Bello which points to grace alone:
ONLY the spiritually dead could be deceived into not seeing the simplicity and clear teaching of the doctrinal and spiritual truth that man, though once alive to God, is now, in his natural state, spiritually dead to God, eternally separated from God because of sin. In this corrupted state man has attempted to form numerous ways to ‘get back with God’. All of these bizarre, twisted, and utterly profitless ways to salvation include at their epicenter the teaching that a man must, therefore, that he can, do something to make himself right with God, in order to restore a right relationship with Him. In other words, man’s ‘ways to salvation’ are all predicated on the lie that man is not dead, and that he can work his way back to God by his own will and effort.
Salvation simply cannot be acquired by anything a man can do, for there is nothing any man can do. Jesus said: “No man can come to Me…” (Jn. 6:44). No man has the inherent ability to come to Jesus. This simple, yet profound, statement shuts down every man-made religion in existence, and reveals all their ways to salvation to be nothing but a collective sham. “No man can…” means no matter what a man does, he can never come to the true Jesus by what he, the man, does. No man can will himself to Jesus, no man can work his way to Jesus. No man, by nature, knows the Father or the Son, “…no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27 cf. Jn. 1:18). Whatever is necessary, whatever must be done for a man to come to the glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, CANNOT be done by any man. Jesus continues in John 6:44 to reveal precisely what can bring a man to Him, by saying: “No man can come to Me, EXCEPT THE FATHER which hath sent Me draw him…” (Jn. 6:44). The whole of salvation is conditioned on the Father drawing whom He will to the Son! Anyone who tells you anything which dares to differ from this, which dares to condition salvation on man—thereby, saying that man CAN come to Jesus, is a liar and knows not the true God. God is the Saviour, means salvation can only come from God, therefore, only by what God does.
ONLY the spiritually dead could be deceived into not seeing the simplicity and clear teaching of the doctrinal and spiritual truth that man, though once alive to God, is now, in his natural state, spiritually dead to God, eternally separated from God because of sin. In this corrupted state man has attempted to form numerous ways to ‘get back with God’. All of these bizarre, twisted, and utterly profitless ways to salvation include at their epicenter the teaching that a man must, therefore, that he can, do something to make himself right with God, in order to restore a right relationship with Him. In other words, man’s ‘ways to salvation’ are all predicated on the lie that man is not dead, and that he can work his way back to God by his own will and effort.
Salvation simply cannot be acquired by anything a man can do, for there is nothing any man can do. Jesus said: “No man can come to Me…” (Jn. 6:44). No man has the inherent ability to come to Jesus. This simple, yet profound, statement shuts down every man-made religion in existence, and reveals all their ways to salvation to be nothing but a collective sham. “No man can…” means no matter what a man does, he can never come to the true Jesus by what he, the man, does. No man can will himself to Jesus, no man can work his way to Jesus. No man, by nature, knows the Father or the Son, “…no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27 cf. Jn. 1:18). Whatever is necessary, whatever must be done for a man to come to the glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, CANNOT be done by any man. Jesus continues in John 6:44 to reveal precisely what can bring a man to Him, by saying: “No man can come to Me, EXCEPT THE FATHER which hath sent Me draw him…” (Jn. 6:44). The whole of salvation is conditioned on the Father drawing whom He will to the Son! Anyone who tells you anything which dares to differ from this, which dares to condition salvation on man—thereby, saying that man CAN come to Jesus, is a liar and knows not the true God. God is the Saviour, means salvation can only come from God, therefore, only by what God does.
BillyBob ... all agree that salvation is wholly by grace through faith ... no need to resurrect an issue which has been dealt with ad nauseum for close to 400 pages ... moving on ...
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