The Issue of Limited Atonement

Do you deny that God cannot lie? Do you deny that God approved of an angel's plan to lie?
I came across this Bob Enyart piece some two years ago. While it it's the only bit of his work I ever remember reading, it still gives me pause. This is as I found it except I separated it into paragraphs.

Bob Enyart

Lying and Legalism: This seems like as good a place as any to list the places in the Bible where, with God's approval, the righteous lied to the wicked. In the process, they received God's blessing. This is a legalism issue.

Legalists tend to struggle with the Lord's teaching that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man. Thus, even though God prohibited Israel from doing work on the Sabbath, because of the nature of the Sabbath law, of course there would be exceptions. For example, even though the prohibition extended even to the gathering of sticks, if an Israelite came upon a child freezing in the wilderness, if lighting a fire to save the boy required the man to pick up sticks, of course he should do so even if it were the Sabbath. The actual sin against God would be in letting the child die to avoid working on Saturday.

Using actual historical examples, legalistic Christians get confused about the morality of lying to a German Gestapo agent who asked whether or not you were hiding Jews. Lying to the wicked to save the innocent does not violate God's prohibition against bearing false witness against your neighbor.

As a general rule, of course, it is a sin to tell countless kinds of lies. But there are plenty of examples in the Bible of God's servants, and even of God Himself, deceiving the wicked by lying to them. For example, when the Syrian army came to arrest Elisha, by the power of God the prophet blinded them and told them that they had arrived at the wrong house, and that he would lead them to the man they were searching for, yet instead, he led them into a trap, at which time at the request of Elisha God restored their sight, and then they saw that they had been deceived.

The Hebrew midwives not only disobeyed the government's command that they kill the male infants, but they also lied to the king, and God blessed them by giving them children of their own. Rahab lied to the government to protect the Jews who were hiding nearby, and God then included her in the geneaology of Jesus Christ.

God deceives the wicked in the Scriptures, and instructs His people on how to deceive them, for example, by laying a trap in the ambush of Ai. In World War II the allies created a fake cardboard army to deceive the Germans regarding the location of the invasion at Normandy. Praise God!
 
@TomL

Christ died for all

All the seed Rom 4:16

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

All The seed of Abraham Heb 2:16

16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
 
My point is that God can ordain things to occur without He Himself doing them. God does not tempt anyone, but God is the ultimate cause that temptation will occur.
No the first cause is God the responsible party. No escaping determinism and who is responsible for all that comes to pass.
 
In Calvinist he is the first cause of everything. Hence the responsible one.

hope this helps !!!
He only sent Christ to die for the seed of Abraham Heb 2:16

16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things

pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Eternal life through Christ is promised to one seed Gen 17:8

8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land

wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
 
My point is that God can ordain things to occur without He Himself doing them. God does not tempt anyone, but God is the ultimate cause that temptation will occur.
Whether “he himself” does it is not the point! The point is that God’s decision that X is going to happen makes it necessary! All that follows is the result of that decree. That decision is foundational cause of all things in the process.

Doug
 
Whether “he himself” does it is not the point! The point is that God’s decision that X is going to happen makes it necessary! All that follows is the result of that decree. That decision is foundational cause of all things in the process.

Doug
Spot on
 
Whether “he himself” does it is not the point! The point is that God’s decision that X is going to happen makes it necessary! All that follows is the result of that decree. That decision is foundational cause of all things in the process.

Doug

Yes, that's right. God's decision that X will happen does make it necessary. My point was that there's a difference between what God does and what God ordains to be so. God does not and cannot lie, but he can approve of an angel lying.
 
Yes, that's right. God's decision that X will happen does make it necessary. My point was that there's a difference between what God does and what God ordains to be so. God does not and cannot lie, but he can approve of an angel lying.
Either way it would be from God contradicting scripture
 
Exactly. Ask Tom.
and so how do you avoid contradicting scripture.

If determinism is true all these verses are false

James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

temptation happens it is not from God

1John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

these things are not from the father therefore he did not determine them

Jer. 32:35 They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

this was not from God

Is. 30:1 “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the LORD,
“who carry out a plan, but not mine,
and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit,
that they may add sin to sin;

Again, it's not God's plan they were following. Had God determined it, then it would be God's plan

Gal. 5:7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

Clearly, the hindering did not come from God. Had he determined it, then it would have come from God


1Cor. 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

God provides a way to avoid temptation. Had he determined it, there would be no way to avoid it

Rom. 11:23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

Clearly God leaves it to them
 
@TomL



All the seed Rom 4:16

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

All The seed of Abraham Heb 2:16

16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Why did you omit the scripture


1 Timothy 2:4–6
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the 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 a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Romans 5:18
Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
Hebrews 2:9
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
Isaiah 53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one to his own way; And the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
1 Timothy 4:10
For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.
John 6:51
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
2 Corinthians 5:14–15
14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
John 11:51
And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;
1 John 2:2
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
2 Corinthians 5:19
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
 
I don't see any contradictions in that post. Did you just give me a post link because it's so obvious you don't have a real contradiction?
You are in deep denial

If those things are not from God as scripture states then Calvinism claim that God determined everything is false

God's determinism = from God
 
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