Predestination is misunderstood...

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maxwel said:
Agree.

If we're talking about the tax collector in Luke 18:13, I think the implication is that by acknowledging his sin, and asking forgiveness of the one true God, he was engaging in an act of submission to God.

Genuine repentance is inherently an act of submission.


HOWEVER, I don't think this passage has anything to do with a Calvinism debate.
It simply fails to clearly support either side.
Either side can claim the passage supports their view, and there is just nothing in the passage to show us what caused his repentance.... it doesn't address this issue.
I can't see that it's a relevant passage for a debate on Calvinism.... for either side.

Either side can say he repented "due to this or that"... but it simply isn't in the text.
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Men by nature are unwilling and at enmity against God, will not and cant submit to God. So if a person becomes willing, then that's indicative God has changed them, saved them and given them a new heart.

Rom 8:7

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
 
Charlie_2024 said:
I can't make any sense of this, you say we were predestined to be holy and adopted as sons and all this applies to unbelievers. So now unbelievers are the predestined to be the Holy sons of God. This is beggars belief, it's not found anywhere in the bible.

My bible tells me that those predestined elect holy sons of God, are given everything required for salvation as a gift. god freely draws them to Himself, then He freely regenerates, them, then He freely gives them the gift of faith/belief, then he gives them the gift of repentance, the He gives them the free gift of sanctification, then He gives them the free gift of perseverance, then He gives them the free gift of salvation, then He gives them the free gift of transformation into the image of His Son.

You need to show me, which stage of the process of salvations wasn't predestined before the world began, and why those names in Gods book of life were written before the foundation of the world.

Which part of salvation does man chose or wok to bring about, you can't simplify it and say "I'm saved, because I choose to believe", the choice was never yours and neither was any other part of the work of salvation. It is all of God and nothing of man so we can boast about how smart we are and deny God His glory.
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Here's what the holy bible states about predestination.

Ephesians 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Paul is speaking to believers, the body of Christ. Paul is telling them that they have been predestinated unto the adoption. What is the adoption? The adoption is not salvation or believing. The adoption is the future redemption of the body. The bible is so clear about this.

Romans 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
 
brightfame52 said:
Its not spamming, its the Truth,

Men by nature are unwilling and at enmity against God, will not and cant submit to God. So if a person becomes willing, then thats indicative God has changed them, saved them and given them a new heart

Jn 5 40 shows men naturally aren't will ing to come to Christ, and Rom 8:7-8 shows man naturally isnt able to submit to God and in fact is enmity against God in our minds. Nothing changes this but a new birth. Sorry
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It is spamming because all you have been doing is cut and pasting without any dialogue regarding the verses you are shown that say different to what you espouse.

John 5:40 Jesus is talking to the religious leaders. It is they he is referring to when He says "you are unwilling", He is not referencing all men.

Rom. 8 deals with the mind governed by the flesh. This is exactly what I and others have tried to get through to you that you are unwilling to see. God enables the mind to be free of the flesh control to see and respond to the truth according to their own preferences for light or for dark. (Jn.3:20&21) Volition is a function of the soul, not the body. The law of sin (sin nature) is in the flesh. If it was in the soul, no-one could be saved. The soul becomes corrupt, it does not start that way nor does it necessarily desire corruption (Rom.7:15), but the sin in the flesh ensures everyone walks down that path whether they want to or not.

I just showed you Paul was willing to do good without the new birth. You continue to confuse unwilling with unable. Grace enables what man cannot do. God does not make willing, He makes able. If He made willing there would be no division amongst believers. Wake up.
 
brightfame52 said:
Men by nature are unwilling and at enmity against God, will not and cant submit to God. So if a person becomes willing, then that's indicative God has changed them, saved them and given them a new heart.

Rom 8:7

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
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Hey Brightfame,
If you look over my last post carefully (post # 6140), I think you'll find I didn't say anything either for or against Calvinism.
I was simply pointing out that Luke 18:13 doesn't act as an evidence, a proof text, for either side.

To make it support either side, we must inject a foregone conclusion (from outside of that passage) and then reason in a circle back to that forgone conclusion.
Whichever side in the debate is correct, Luke 18:13 does not seem to contain the evidence to lead one to either side.



You take care brother.

.
 
Charlie_2024 said:
My bible tells me that God elected to save His children before He made the world. Maybe you reject those things God said, which don't line up with your view. This is called cherry picking the bible, to create a false doctrine.
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You're reading the wrong Bible then cos mine says he chose to adopt believers as sons and to make holy, nothing about choosing who would believe and who would not. He puts the onus to believe squarely on our shoulders. To those who do believe? He saves and those whom He has saved, He predestines. The doctrines of predestination and election apply only to believers so cannot have anything to do with who believes and who doesn't.
 
Charlie_2024 said:
Precisely, only the elect can choose to believe the gospel. Those God has chosen to leave in their sin are sealed for destruction, they can only chose to reject the gospel as they have no other option.
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Then I don't have a choice to believe do I as according to you it is God who decided I should believe so your earlier post was incorrect about me being able to believe what God says about Himself.

Ergo, you must think I am not saved otherwise I would think as you think as God cannot lie and he would not tell me something different about Himself than what He told you.

I don't think you understand just how divisive your doctrine is. :(
 
Charlie_2024 said:
I merely connected the dots, and found the contradiction in what you stated about faith. One the one hand you claim the faith is not a work, and I agree with that because the bibles teaches that faith is a gift from God. so you can't claim you employed your faith in order to obey the gospel message and be saved.
If Gods word is to be believed, then you never had faith but it was gifted to you without you asking for it to later use, to effect your salvation. The bible says that salvation is of the Lord, and not by anything man does lest he boast.

If you haven't freely received salvation, without adding any of your own faith or will or any other kind of effort than it was received freely and you have something to boast about.
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You are a Charlie who does not believe the Bible. The Bible clearly says that faith is not work, but you contradict the Bible and insist that faith is work. Calvinists don't believe the Bible. They believe Calvinism, and reject whatever in the Bible disagrees with Calvinism.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith … not of works …” (Eph 2:8-9).
And, “to him who does not work but believes” (Rom 4:5).

These texts are complete nonsense, if works are part of the definition of the words faith and believe. Faith is not an effort. Faith is resting in the expectation of something being true. If you insist on rejecting what the scriptures say, you are hardening your heart against God. If you are being repeatedly shown that God says faith is not work (as in Rom. 2:8-9 and Rom. 4:5), but you refuse to accept that truth because of your allegiance to the traditions handed down to you by your theological Fathers Calvin and Beza, you are blocking your ears and shutting your eyes to God's word, and unless you repent you will perish in your hard-hearted unbelief. Believe what the scriptures says, not what men teach in their Word-denying traditions..
 
Genez said:
He chose us how? "In" Him.
Not, for Him. Not, by Him.

Its an odd way of saying something...
For it means something many keep on missing to see.

Where was Eve's body before Adam was given his helpmate? Her body was "in" Adam.
And, the Bride of Christ?
We are going to become Bone of His everlasting bones, and Glorious flesh of His Glorious flesh.
We are right now "in" Him. In Christ!

Ephesians 1:4-6 means?
The people in the Body of Christ - the Church - was chosen before the Foundation of the world to be the Church!

Moses was not chosen before the foundation of the world to be found IN Christ when he believed. Nor was David...
Or any OT believer for that matter.





God chose out of all He knew would believe to be in Him.. Us, to be the Church! The Body of Christ!
To do so?

God predestined us to be living during the Church age when it came time for us to believe.

That's our predestination.......

In Christ, GeneZ
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My bible teaches the opposite. It tells me that every Elect Saint of God was chosen and given to Christ before time began. There is no such thing as the OT, all of Gods Elect Saints were given to Jesus, both from the OT and the NT. The whole Bible is about Jesus from cover to cover.

The OT Saints believed in Jesus, they put their trust in Him the same way every other believer does regardless of which time they lived in. We look back to the time Jesus walked the earth and the OT people looked forward but we are all saved the same way, by the same Jesus.

Jesus proves, we're all the same when He said, "all that the Father has given Me shall come to me and nothing can snatch them out of my Fathers hand". All means OT and NT Saints, and there is no other group to be saved
 
Charlie_2024 said:
I can't make any sense of this, you say we were predestined to be holy and adopted as sons and all this applies to unbelievers
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????????

I said ....

sawdust said:
God predestined believers. The doctrine only applies to believers ergo,
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... no idea how you come up with thinking I said it applies to unbelievers.

I suggest you try reading without your blinkers and maybe it will make sense to you. The very fact it doesn't apply to unbelievers, ought to alert you to the fact that God is not choosing who believes and who doesn't. Predestination is about God choosing what to do with believers, not whether they will be believers. He prepared a specific destiny for a specific people ie. believers. These are the same He determined to save which is why He then went ahead and prepared a destiny. Predestination is based on foreknowledge, not on a Divine lottery.
 
Thunderrr-mental said:
What about this road where the lord met someone half way



The Damascus Road: Saul Converted
9 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Acts 9

3 As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?”

Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. [a]It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?”

Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
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The problem is, God doesn't do this anymore. There have never been any Apostles or people who received the gifts they did, in the past 2000 years. Since the Lord ascended to heaven no man has ever has any special powers given to them as those in the Lords time were given.

All we have is the same old bible to instruct us and no special power or gifts. We have to make do with the Bible and simply trust and obey. No man was ever given the power to heal people or perform and miracles like the Apostles and Paul and some other in the old testament. All of that stopped when the Lord ascended to heaven and we've never seen any of it since.

So we can't use them as examples of how we can change, because nobody has changed like that in 2000 years.
 
Charlie_2024 said:
The problem is, God doesn't do this anymore. There have never been any Apostles or people who received the gifts they did, in the past 2000 years. Since the Lord ascended to heaven no man has ever has any special powers given to them as those in the Lords time were given.

All we have is the same old bible to instruct us and no special power or gifts. We have to make do with the Bible and simply trust and obey. No man was ever given the power to heal people or perform and miracles like the Apostles and Paul and some other in the old testament. All of that stopped when the Lord ascended to heaven and we've never seen any of it since.

So we can't use them as examples of how we can change, because nobody has changed like that in 2000 years.
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Well Charlie that would be limiting God.
 
Everlasting-Grace said:
which is why Your god can not be called a God of love.. A god of love would never do this
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My God is a good God. He has every right to leave sinners in their sin and choose to save some like me. So I'm extremely grateful He chose me as I'd hate to be in the shoes of the non elect.

My God is the God of the bible, I don't know which god you're talking about but it's not my God. All of us Elect Saints of God love Him for choosing us. We don't curse Him for leaving others in their sin, because that's His right and nobody has any right to judge Him for it.

I've never met an Elect Saint of God who has a problem with God not choosing the whole world. We simply trust and obey and love Him. We allow Him to be God and we His Saints. The reprobate are not our problem so we don't pity them or have anything to say about them. It's like they don't exist.
 
brightfame52 said:
Again:
Men by nature are unwilling and at enmity against God, will not and cant submit to God. So if a person becomes willing, then that's indicative God has changed them, saved them and given them a new heart.
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If a car has a dead battery?
Its lifeless and will not operate?
Nothing can work as it should...

Is that entire car "depraved? "

Or, its as good as being totally depraved?
 
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