Are we Predestined?

[atpollard]

What more than giving us the bible, God's word of the truth, do you think He must do?

I dunno, maybe what He said He would. Something like this:

• And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. - Ezekiel 11:19-20 [ESV]
• One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. - Acts 16:14 [ESV]

 

[Presby02]

The function of the act of communion and its elements are specific to the plan, not the choice to partake of it.

Doug

You have no choice in taking communion??

 

[Presby02]

God uses our choices as he sees fit. He uses what he foresees for his purposes.
A man can shoot a gun, but God can then control the flight of the bullet as he sees fit.

Doug

So God id dependent on His foreknowledge for what He determibes to occur. Yet you scream foreknowledge is not determination?

 

[Presby02]

According to determinists, God is the cause of everything, thus even the sin that we do is according to God's own sovereign direction. And in pardoning only some, that is unjust.

Is God the uultimate cause of the universe you call home? No God there is no Jim on the Berean Apologetics Forum.

 

[Jim]

Is God the uultimate cause of the universe you call home? No God there is no Jim on the Berean Apologetics Forum.

If you think that establishes determinism, then you clearly do not understand God's creation, what God has created.

 

[FreeInChrist]

I dunno, maybe what He said He would. Something like this:

• And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. - Ezekiel 11:19-20 [ESV]
• One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. - Acts 16:14 [ESV]

Have you not had this happen to you yet?

 

[atpollard]

Have you not had this happen to you yet?

Why would you ask that?

I was asked what more God would do for the unsaved than offer them a Bible!
Here, again is my response:

I dunno, maybe what He said He would. Something like this:

• And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. - Ezekiel 11:19-20 [ESV]
• One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. - Acts 16:14 [ESV]

 

[FreeInChrist]

Why would you ask that?

I was asked what more God would do for the unsaved than offer them a Bible!
Here, again is my response:

Because you answer Jims question about what more then give us a bible.... with this and you have it worded in such a way
that seemed like it was almost a guess.

I am sorry if I offended you in some way

 

[TibiasDad]

You have no choice in taking communion??

Is this a question or a statement? Does one have to take communion to be saved? If I don’t take communion am I lost?

Doug

 

[TibiasDad]

So God id dependent on His foreknowledge for what He determibes to occur. Yet you scream foreknowledge is not determination?

God doesn’t determine meticulously. He simply knows what we will choose to do of our own volition.

Doug

 

[TedT]

@atpollard or maybe FreeInChrist
said:
He foreknew your willing faith, and because He saw it, He predestined you to become exactly like His Son.

But all are equally evil in this life and no one can come to HIM without grace:
Ephesians 2:8-9, which says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
so what HE is seeing by HIS foreknowledge is the results of HIS own work, not any decision of theirs.

Why did HE not give grace to all if HE loved them so much and

why did HE create those HE foreknew would end in hell when HE tells us in various scriptures that HE does everything for HIS pleasure but takes no pleasure in the death of anyone and wants everyone to repent...?

 

[atpollard]

He foreknew your willing faith, and because He saw it,

... no bible verse says this.
Scripture comes closer to saying "just because" as the reason God does things [as if it is not for us to know WHY].

 

[Presby02]

God doesn’t determine meticulously. He simply knows what we will choose to do of our own volition.

Doug

Right. The Bible nowhere teaches such a thing. But lets go with it for fun. He looks into the future and knows our choices and works His plan into what He determines to occur. So foreknowledge is determinitive then.

 

[Presby02]

Is this a question or a statement? Does one have to take communion to be saved? If I don’t take communion am I lost?

Doug

Is communion eating and drinking? Part of Gods plan for the church?

 

[FreeInChrist]

@atpollard or maybe FreeInChrist
said:
He foreknew your willing faith, and because He saw it, He predestined you to become exactly like His Son.

But all are equally evil in this life and no one can come to HIM without grace:
Ephesians 2:8-9, which says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
so what HE is seeing by HIS foreknowledge is the results of HIS own work, not any decision of theirs.

Why did HE not give grace to all if HE loved them so much and

why did HE create those HE foreknew would end in hell when HE tells us in various scriptures that HE does everything for HIS pleasure but takes no pleasure in the death of anyone and wants everyone to repent...?

That has been my statement and I stick by it.

I so feel like I should tell you if you dont understand why as me why He did not "give" grace to all.

I came out of the Predestined cult. My church still is... Why do I still go there? Because there is no single church without it's flaws
and I can get preached to and prayed for and take Holy Communion and all the other stuff without embracing the Calvin teachings that my church follows with the Westminster Confession of Faith.

I came out of it once I learned that Calvin and the WCF (which followed Calvin both say III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels[6] are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.[7]

So there was never a chance for God to give grace to all. But he will give grace to those who chose him, and that comes by the
faith we get, and that faith is not "given" to us but come ... as told in Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The scripture that is at the core of all predestined believers "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." is equally applicable to predestined as welll as to free will believers.

 

[FreeInChrist]

@atpollard or maybe FreeInChrist
said:
He foreknew your willing faith, and because He saw it, He predestined you to become exactly like His Son.

NOT me he did not

But all are equally evil in this life and no one can come to HIM without grace:
Ephesians 2:8-9, which says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
so what HE is seeing by HIS foreknowledge is the results of HIS own work, not any decision of theirs.

Why did HE not give grace to all if HE loved them so much and

why did HE create those HE foreknew would end in hell when HE tells us in various scriptures that HE does everything for HIS pleasure but takes no pleasure in the death of anyone and wants everyone to repent...?

 

[FreeInChrist]

God uses our choices as he sees fit. He uses what he foresees for his purposes.
A man can shoot a gun, but God can then control the flight of the bullet as he sees fit.

Doug

Erie PA.

 

[dwight92070]

Those in Eph 2:3 the children of wrath by nature, they were not the vessels of wrath created for destruction. They instead were chosen in Christ before the foundation, to be holy and without blame, in love Predestined to the adoption of children Eph 1:3-5

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

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

But with the vessels of wrath in Rom 9, God made them for His wrath and destruction for their sin

Christ is the true Chosen One and the true Elect. But the body of Christ is, as it implies, a corporate body, made up of many members.
When we are saved or born again by faith in Jesus, we are put into one body, the body of Christ. That is what it means to be "in Christ". All those in Christ automatically become part of the body of the Chosen One, Christ, and therefore they too are considered "chosen" and "elect". What did they do to become part of the "chosen"? They believed in Jesus.
If God only chose some for salvation and others for destruction, without them having any input whatsoever, then God does not love the whole world - He only loves PART of the world. The other part - He hates.
If that is true, and the Calvinists say that it is, then the Bible is filled with lies, like John 3:16.

 

[TibiasDad]

Erie PA.

Amen!

Doug

 

[TibiasDad]

Christ is the true Chosen One and the true Elect. But the body of Christ is, as it implies, a corporate body, made up of many members.
When we are saved or born again by faith in Jesus, we are put into one body, the body of Christ. That is what it means to be "in Christ". All those in Christ automatically become part of the body of the Chosen One, Christ, and therefore they too are considered "chosen" and "elect". What did they do to become part of the "chosen"? They believed in Jesus.
If God only chose some for salvation and others for destruction, without them having any input whatsoever, then God does not love the whole world - He only loves PART of the world. The other part - He hates.
If that is true, and the Calvinists say that it is, then the Bible is filled with lies, like John 3:16.

Amen!

Doug