Understanding God’s election
- Thread starter dougcho
- Start date
-
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.
Total depravity doesn't mean as you suspect. It doesn't mean that man is corrupted to the uttermost. It simply means man is corrupted in all his faculties.
Being no respecter of persons also doesn't mean what you suspect. It simply means God's choices aren't based on anything concerning the individual, but His own sovereign choice. David was a man after God's own heart. Most believe this means David was like God. But that isn't what it means. It simply means that God's choice was David, while the people's choice was Saul.
I would venture that I know personally many more "chosenites" than you. My experience has found them to be amongst the most caring and loving people I have encountered.
What is the saying....if you don't believe on the big things how will you believe me on the small things.
I think I can say from my limited reading of eschatology of late, important to divide between what is a spiritual fulfillment and what is earthly/temporal fulfillment.
But think about it. Is it possible to be metaphorically wrong???
However we label it .....being morally incapable from birth, due to inherited sin nature, therefore being immobilized from responding positively to the inherent power and truth of God's words and message THEN .....wait for it....
One is well within the Calvinistic/Augustine view of total inability.
Years of moving the goal post trying to make it palatable and acceptable still the same duck.
I suspect that those whom you address are, if not incapable of understanding such things, are certainly
obstinately unwilling to and outright refuse to coherently and/or properly represent your view.
Let us see how the Calvinists/Reformed doctrine defines it.
For Strict-Calvinists, total depravity means total inability.
That is, lost sinners cannot respond to God at all, as they are spiritually unable (dead) to respond apart from God’s granting life
and ability to believe. This leads them to conclude two things.
First, God sovereignly acts by Himself to regenerate the spiritually dead and make them spiritually alive (monergism).
Second, God gives the newly regenerate a special kind of faith whereby they can and will trust in Christ as Savior.
According to Wayne Grudem, regeneration is “the act of God awakening spiritual life within us, bringing us from spiritual death to spiritual life. On this definition, it is natural to understand that regeneration comes before saving faith.
It is in fact this work of God that gives us the spiritual ability to respond to God in faith.”
[1] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 702.
retrieved from
https://thinkingonscripture.com/tag/total-depravity-does-not-mean-total-inability/
Hmm sounds very familiar to me.
For Strict-Calvinists, total depravity means total inability.
That is, lost sinners cannot respond to God at all, as they are spiritually unable (dead) to respond apart from God’s granting life
and ability to believe. This leads them to conclude two things.
First, God sovereignly acts by Himself to regenerate the spiritually dead and make them spiritually alive (monergism).
Second, God gives the newly regenerate a special kind of faith whereby they can and will trust in Christ as Savior.
According to Wayne Grudem, regeneration is “the act of God awakening spiritual life within us, bringing us from spiritual death to spiritual life. On this definition, it is natural to understand that regeneration comes before saving faith.
It is in fact this work of God that gives us the spiritual ability to respond to God in faith.”
[1] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 702.
retrieved from
https://thinkingonscripture.com/tag/total-depravity-does-not-mean-total-inability/
Hmm sounds very familiar to me.
Destroying the works of the devil includes destroying also the effects of what he has done. Since ongoing revelation was always going to be a part of creation and filling the earth, one would expect technological advancement over time. This is evidenced throughout the Bible. We also see the beginning of revelation in a garden and the end of revelation in a city. So one would not expect the restoration of all things to end back in the primitive state, but one should expect the restoration of all things.What is the saying....if you don't believe on the big things how will you believe me on the small things.
I think I can say from my limited reading of eschatology of late, important to divide between what is a spiritual fulfillment and what is earthly/temporal fulfillment.
No. Absolutely wrong. It DEFINITELY concerns the conduct of the individual.
The point being made is that God is not showing prejudiced FAVORITISM and that He is a just judge. Which again destroys the pretentions of the Calvinites.
Another total fail man. Outrageous.
[Rom 2:9-11 KJV]
9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;
10 But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:
11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
I've moved nothing. I addressed the post before me.
I believe the scripture provides ample evidence of man's fallen estate and tells why man is incapable of faith apart from the work of God on his behalf. This has been shown to you on numerable occasions. You simply choose to disregard it.
1 Tim 2:1-7
2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom [for all men the testimony given in its proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle — I am telling the truth, I am not lying and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.
NIV
I'm going to quickly run through this for passage. Paul's audience = Timothy. Timothy had a Gentile father and Jewish mother; therefore, Jews themselves would have considered him to be Jewish.
As a Jew, Paul is affirming to Timothy that Jesus is also the Savior of the Gentiles, hence the phrase "all men". I say this because of the way Jews understood their relationship to the "world", i.e. to the Gentile nations. Timothy very likely had the following mindset instilled into him by his mother: The Jews never thought of themselves as being related to the nations of the word. They thought of themselves as the chosen, covenant, clean, circumcised, privileged people of God whereas the other nations were profane, unclean, uncircumcised, paganish and, therefore, separated from the Jews. Timothy very likely had this mindset; and Paul's choice of words here does NOT leave the possibility open that he was telling his disciple that God desires the salvation of Jews AND Gentiles, i.e. "all men" in the world in the distributive sense. In v. 7 Paul limits "all men" in vv. 4 and 6 to the Gentiles to whom God appointed Paul to preach the gospel. And this is perfectly in keeping with how the ancient Jews perceived themselves and the rest of the world: Jews and all other nations, of which the Jews wanted no part (cf. 1Jn 2:2 to see how John also makes a distinction between Jewish believers and Gentiles). So, "all men" consist of the Gentiles in the limited sense for whom God appointed Paul to preach the gospel. If "all men" = each and every person in the distributive sense, then an interpreter to be consistent with him/herself would have to say that Paul was appointed by God to preach to each and every Gentile in the distributive sense, as well. But did Paul do that? Or if Paul meant "all men" in the distributive sense, then why didn't he say that God sent him to preach to the Jews and the Gentiles? The glaring omission of the Jews in this passage logically limits the extent of "all men" to only the Gentiles -- and not each and every Gentile either (cf. 1Tim 4:10 and pay close attention to the qualifying phrase, "especially of believers" and to the present tense verb "is").
2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom [for all men the testimony given in its proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle — I am telling the truth, I am not lying and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.
NIV
I'm going to quickly run through this for passage. Paul's audience = Timothy. Timothy had a Gentile father and Jewish mother; therefore, Jews themselves would have considered him to be Jewish.
As a Jew, Paul is affirming to Timothy that Jesus is also the Savior of the Gentiles, hence the phrase "all men". I say this because of the way Jews understood their relationship to the "world", i.e. to the Gentile nations. Timothy very likely had the following mindset instilled into him by his mother: The Jews never thought of themselves as being related to the nations of the word. They thought of themselves as the chosen, covenant, clean, circumcised, privileged people of God whereas the other nations were profane, unclean, uncircumcised, paganish and, therefore, separated from the Jews. Timothy very likely had this mindset; and Paul's choice of words here does NOT leave the possibility open that he was telling his disciple that God desires the salvation of Jews AND Gentiles, i.e. "all men" in the world in the distributive sense. In v. 7 Paul limits "all men" in vv. 4 and 6 to the Gentiles to whom God appointed Paul to preach the gospel. And this is perfectly in keeping with how the ancient Jews perceived themselves and the rest of the world: Jews and all other nations, of which the Jews wanted no part (cf. 1Jn 2:2 to see how John also makes a distinction between Jewish believers and Gentiles). So, "all men" consist of the Gentiles in the limited sense for whom God appointed Paul to preach the gospel. If "all men" = each and every person in the distributive sense, then an interpreter to be consistent with him/herself would have to say that Paul was appointed by God to preach to each and every Gentile in the distributive sense, as well. But did Paul do that? Or if Paul meant "all men" in the distributive sense, then why didn't he say that God sent him to preach to the Jews and the Gentiles? The glaring omission of the Jews in this passage logically limits the extent of "all men" to only the Gentiles -- and not each and every Gentile either (cf. 1Tim 4:10 and pay close attention to the qualifying phrase, "especially of believers" and to the present tense verb "is").
Arminianism teaches inability also. See? You know not of what you speak.