Free Will?

[epistemaniac]

Quote (942767 @ Nov. 08 2008,12:59)

Quote (epistemaniac @ Nov. 08 2008,09:30) early on… page 4 or so in this topic, it was brought up by Timothy that God hardened Pharaoh's heart… other counters were made that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, but before any miracle was presented to Pharaoh, before Moses had ever left to confront Pharaoh, God said Exodus 4:21-23 (ESV) Ex 21 And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’ ”   So whatever one thinks on this topic, chronologically at least, God had decided to harden Pharaoh's heart prior to Moses ever going to confront him in the first place. blessings, Ken Hi Ken: Is what you are saying consitent with the following scripture? Quote 2Pe 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. God Bless

well since I quoted scripture, namely Ex. 4:21-23, and since scripture does not contradict itself, then yes is the answer to your question, it is completely consistent with 2 Peter 3:9. In your view, does Peter contradict Moses?

As far as God being not willing that any should perish, there are numerous things to say. since God is omnipotent, if He was willing in an absolute sense that none perish, none would, and you would have Universalism. Since we know that not all are saved, then it must be the case that God's “willing” in this passage is a different sort of willing. As it is, it reflects God's moral character, and we see this moral reflection in God's not taking any pleasure in the death of the wicked: Ezekiel 18:32 (ESV) For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” and Ezekiel 33:11 (ESV) Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
So theologians usually distinguish between different kinds of willing. You can read more about this in an excellent excerpt from a 2 volume set of books called “The Grace of God, The Bondage of the Will”, a chapter written by John Piper entitled “Are There Two Wills in God?” available in its entirety for free at http://www.desiringgod.org/Resourc…._in_God

blessings,
Ken

[epistemaniac]

Thanks for quoting Acts 17:26 in context…. however, I have no idea at all why you did…. lol…. Is there some reason you did this? After all, I can easily read the verse in context within the bible program I used to quote the verse in the first place.

blessings,
Ken

[epistemaniac]

All Samuel's post does is describe God's prescience. Yes, of course God knows the future. But the Bible describes God has much more than a glorified seer gazing into a crystal ball, able to see the future. Samuel says

Quote

The fact of the matter is we just can not understand this concept.

Oh? Then if Samuel doesn't understand this concept, then why is he writing about it? Basically all he is doing is asserting:

1) we have free will
2) God knows the future

These points are, for most, indisputable. HOW God can know, for sure, with absolute certainty, what we will do in the future, and that we will not do otherwise, and how this fact affects our so-called “free will” is not really dealt with at all. But then again, i guess that is because he doe snot understand this concept. All fun aside, of course no one FULLY understands how man's will, in what sense it is “free”, and how God's sovereignty all intersect, but we are not totally left in the dark, we have the Scriptures, and they tell us a lot about the extent of God's sovereignty, but we do not see “free will” discussed much. But have a look at some of the biblical data on the extensive nature of God's absolute sovereignty, and how it affects or intersects with man's will:

“OLD TESTAMENT ILLUSTRATIONS
1. All of the main characters of Genesis—Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph—God, according to his gracious purpose, chose to their positions of blessing (Gen. 6:8; 12:1–3; 17:19–21; 21:12–13; 25:23; 45:7–8; see Neh. 9:6–7).
2. Are we to believe that it was only an accident that brought Rebekah to the well to welcome Abraham’s servant (Gen. 24:12–27), or that guided Pharaoh’s daughter to the ark in which the infant Moses lay (Exod. 2:1–10)?
3. Joseph declared that the wicked treatment he had received at the hands of his brothers had been an essential part of the divine plan to save the family of Jacob during the intense famine which was to come some years later:
Genesis 45:7 “God sent me ahead of you [his brothers] to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.”
Genesis 50:20: “You [his brothers] intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
4. Job, living most likely during the patriarchal age, affirms God’s sovereignty over men and all of life when he responds to his “worthless physician” friends in Job 12:10–23:
In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.… To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his. What he tears down cannot be rebuilt.… To him belong strength and victory; both deceived and deceiver are his. He leads counselors away stripped and makes fools of judges. He takes off the shackles put on by kings.… He silences the lips of trusted advisors and takes away the discernment of elders. He pours contempt on nobles and disarms the mighty.… He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them.
5. According to Job 36:32, the Lord “commands [even the lightning] to strike its mark.” And the some seventy to eighty questions God later addresses to Job in chapters 38–41 are staggering in their depth of penetration, and the number of spheres over which he claims to exercise his sovereignty is awesome (see Job 42:2).
6. During the events leading up to the exodus from Egypt God represented himself as the One who makes man “dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind” (Exod. 4:11). He also arranged every detail of the exodus event to highlight the great salvific truth that it is he who must take the initiative and save his chosen people if they were to be saved at all, because they were incapable of saving themselves. During his conversation with Moses before Israel’s exodus from Egypt, God declared that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart throughout the course of the ten plagues precisely in order to (see the לְמַעַן, lema˓an, “in order to,” in Exod. 10:1; 11:9) “multiply” his signs so that he might place his sovereign power in the boldest possible relief, so that both Egypt and Israel would learn that he is God. This repeated demonstration of God’s sovereign power, the text of Exodus 3–14 informs us, God accomplished through the means of his repeatedly hardening Pharaoh’s heart.
In order to claim that God’s hardening activity in this story is to be viewed only as a reactionary, conditional, and judicial hardening rather than a more ultimate, discriminating, and distinguishing hardening, some theologians have argued that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart only after Pharaoh had already hardened his own heart. A careful assessment of the biblical data will show, however, that there is nothing in the entire Exodus context to suggest that this is the proper approach to this crux interpretum.17 It is true, of course, that Pharaoh would already have had a sinner’s heart prior to the event, and it is also true that three times we are informed that Pharaoh hardened his heart,18 but these facts alone do not require that we must say that Pharaoh would necessarily have hardened his heart against Israel after the first confrontation (Exod. 7:6–13). He could just as easily and readily, in God’s providence, have been convinced by the first confrontation that the better part of wisdom dictated his letting Israel go. A careful examination of the biblical text will show not only that ten times is it said that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart,19 but also that God twice declared to Moses, even before the series of confrontations between Moses and Pharaoh began, that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart “and [thereby] multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 4:21; 7:3). The first time then that it is said that Pharaoh’s heart was hard, the text expressly declares that it was so “just as the Lord had spoken” (Exod. 7:13), clearly indicating that Pharaoh’s hardness of heart had came about due to God’s previous promise to harden it. And the first time it is said that Pharaoh “made his heart hard,” again we are informed that it was so “just as the Lord had spoken” (8:15; see also 8:19; 9:12, 35). Paul would later declare in Romans 9 that in his hardening activity God was merely exercising his sovereign right as the Potter to do with his own as he pleased (Rom. 9:17–18, 21). In the Exodus context, God, in fact, declared to Pharaoh that the reason behind his raising Pharaoh up and placing him on the throne of Egypt (or “preserving him” upon the throne, as some translators construe the Hebrew) was in order to show by him his power and in order to proclaim his own name throughout the earth (Exod. 9:16; see also Rom. 9:17). It is evident from both Exodus and Romans that Pharaoh and Egypt were at the disposition of an absolute Sovereign.20
7. God declared that he would so control the hearts of men that none would desire an Israelite’s land when the latter appeared before him three times a year (Exod. 34:24).
8. During the conquest of Transjordan, Moses again represented God as the hardener of kings’ hearts: “Sihon … was not willing for us to pass through his land; for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to deliver him into your hands” (Deut. 2:30).
9. On the eve of Canaan’s conquest, Moses informed Israel that God had chosen them to be a people for his own possession by an election (see Amos 3:2) based not upon Israel’s merit but upon God’s condescending love and grace:
Deuterono
my 4:37: “Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength.”
Deuteronomy 7:6–8: “The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand.”
Deuteronomy 9:4–6: “After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
Deuteronomy 10:15: “The Lord set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today.”
10. During the conquest of Canaan, “there was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel except the Hivites living in Gibeon; they took them all in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, just as the Lord had commanded Moses” (Josh. 11:19–20). Here again the hardness of people’s hearts is traced to the Lord’s providence.
11. Samson’s infatuation with the Philistine woman of Timnah “was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines” (Judg. 14:4).
12. Eli’s wicked sons did not listen to their father’s sage advice which would have saved them, “for it was the Lord’s will to put them to death” (1 Sam. 2:25).
13. During Absalom’s rebellion against David, although Ahithophel’s counsel to Absalom was militarily superior to Hushai’s, Absalom nonetheless decided to follow Hushai’s advice, “for the Lord had determined to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel, in order to bring disaster on Absalom” (2 Sam. 17:14).
14. According to Proverbs 8:22–31, God, acting under the guidance of his eternal wisdom which “he possessed in the beginning of his work,” framed “from everlasting” an all-inclusive plan embracing all that is to come to pass, in accordance with which plan he governs his universe down to the least particular so as to accomplish his perfect and unchangeable purpose.
15. Rehoboam’s failure to heed the people’s plea for relief from the yoke of heavy taxation and oppressive labor resulted in the division of the united kingdom, and “this turn of events was from the Lord” (1 Kings 12:15).
16. Amaziah of Judah did not heed the warning issued to him by Joash of Israel “for it was from God, that he might deliver them into the hand of Joash because they had sought the gods of Edom” (2 Chron. 25:20).
17. Such passages as the above illustrate the truth of Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” (See Judg. 7:22; 9:23; 1 Sam. 18:10–11; 19:9–10; 2 Chron. 18:20–22; Ezra 1:1–2; 7:27.)
18. The Psalmist declares that the number of a man’s days is ordained by God before he is born (Pss. 31:15; 39:5; 139:16).
19. The Psalmist traces the blessings of salvation to divine election when he sings: “Blessed is the man you choose and bring near to live in your courts” (Ps. 65:4).
20. The Psalmist also exclaims: “Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases” (Ps. 115:3). Again, he declares: “The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths” (Ps. 135:6).
21. The wise man of Proverbs 16 acclaimed God’s sovereign rule over men when he declared: “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue” (Prov. 16:1); again, “The Lord has made everything for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil” (v. 4); yet again, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (v. 9); and finally, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord” (v. 33). See also in the same vein the following statements:
Proverbs 19:21: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
Proverbs 20:24: “A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?”
Proverbs 21:30: “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.”
22. Isaiah declared God’s awesome sovereignty over Assyria when he wrote that under God’s sovereign governance Assyria would come against Israel because of the latter’s transgressions, even though Assyria “does not intend nor does it plan so in its heart” (Isa. 10:6–7).
23. The same prophet declared that all things happen in accordance with God’s eternal and irresistible decree:
Isaiah 14:24, 27: “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.… For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?”
Isaiah 46:10, 11: “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.… What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.”
24. Through the same prophet God declared that it is he, the Lord, who forms and creates darkness: “I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things” (Is. 45:7).
25. Echoing the same theme, Amos rhetorically queried: “When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” (Amos 3:6).
26. Through Habakkuk God revealed to Judah that he was going to bring the Neo-Babylonians into the land to chasten Judah for her sins (Hab. 1:5–6), again pointing up his sovereign governance of the hearts of kings and of nations.
27. Daniel informed Nebuchadnezzar on the basis of a heavenly vision (Dan. 4:17) that “the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind; and bestows it on whomever he wishes” (4:31–32). Then after his humbling experience, the chastened Babylonian king blessed the Most High with the following words: “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’ “ (vv. 34–35).
28. Perhaps no declaration sums up the attitude of the Old Testament witness to God’s awesome sovereignty over men and nations more majestically than Isaiah 40:15, 17, 22, 23:
Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.…
Before him all the nations are as nothing;
they are regarded by him as worthless
and less than nothing.…
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.…
He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
These Old Testament statements make it abundantly clear that God is absolutely sovereign in his world, that his sovereignty extends to the governance of all his creatures and all their thoughts and actions, and that his governance of people in particular down to the minutest detail is in accord with his most wise and holy purpose for both the world and the rational
creature whom he created.

NEW TESTAMENT ILLUSTRATIONS
The New Testament is even more didactically explicit than the Old in its insistence upon God’s sovereignty over life and salvation:
1. Jesus teaches that the minutest occurrences are directly controlled by his heavenly Father. It is he who feeds the birds of the air (Matt. 6:26) and clothes the fields with flowers (Matt. 6:28). Not a sparrow is forgotten by God or falls to the ground apart from his will, and the very hairs of our heads are all numbered (Matt. 10:29–30).
2. Immediately after being rejected by certain cities of Galilee, Jesus prayed: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure” (Matt. 11:25–26).
3. He also said: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots” (Matt. 15:13).
4. On another occasion Jesus expressly taught that no one can come to him unless the Father savingly acts first in his behalf:
John 6:44–45: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.… It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught of God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.”
John 6:65: “No one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”
5. In the same vein Jesus declared in his high-priestly prayer in John 17:
John 17:2: “For you [Father] granted him [the Son] authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.”
John 17:6: “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.”
John 17:9: “I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.”
John 17:12: “None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”
6. John traced Israel’s rejection of Jesus to God’s work of blinding and hardening: “For this reason they could not believe, because … ‘He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts, nor turn” (John 12:37–40; see Isa. 6:9–10; Mark 4:11–12; Rom. 9:18–24; 11:32). Here we see in the New Testament the same “hardening” doctrine that we noted in the Old Testament.
7. Again, Jesus said: “You did not choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last” (John 15:16). And on another occasion he said: “Many are invited, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14).
8. Before Pilate Jesus declared: “You could have no authority against me, except it were given you from above” (John 19:11).
9. Peter declared unequivocally that the treatment and death by crucifixion perpetrated on the Son of God by wicked men were in accordance with “the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23)—evidence from Scripture that God’s eternal decree included the foreordination of evil (see also in this connection Matt. 18:7; 26:24; Mark 14:21; Luke 17:1; 22:22.)
10. The entire early church in Jerusalem gladly affirmed God’s sovereignty over all of life, and specifically reaffirmed that all that Herod, Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and the Jewish religious leaders had done to Jesus was “what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen” (Acts 4:28).
11. Three times in Acts Luke points to the election and prevenient work of God in the salvation of individual Gentiles:
Acts 13:48: “And all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”
Acts 16:14: “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”
Acts 18:27: “On arriving, [Apollos] was a great help to those who by grace had believed.”
Accordingly, Luke ascribes the church’s growth to the hand of the Lord (Acts 11:21) or to the direct act of God (Acts 14:27; 18:10).
12. James notes that God, the source of “every good and perfect gift,” “chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits to all he created” (James 1:17–18) and “chose those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him” (James 2:5).
13. In the extended passage in Romans 8:28–39 Paul traces all redemptive blessing ultimately to God’s sovereign foreknowledge (to be understood as God’s covenantal love, not mere prescience) and predestination: “those whom God foreknew [foreloved], he also predestined.… Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?”
14. In Romans 9, in view of Israel’s high privileges as the Old Testament people of God and the lengths to which God had gone to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah, Paul addresses the anomaly of Israel’s official rejection of Christ. He addresses this issue at this point for two reasons: first, he is aware that, if justification is by faith alone (as he had argued earlier), with race being irrelevant, one could ask: “What then becomes of all of the promises which God made to Israel as a nation? Have they not proven to be ineffectual?” He knows that, unless he can answer this inquiry, the integrity of the Word of God would be in doubt, at least in the minds of some. This in turn raises the second possible question: “If the promises of God proved ineffectual for Israel, what assurance does the Christian have that those divine promises implicit in the great theology of Romans 3–8 and made to him will not also prove to be finally ineffectual?” Accordingly, he addresses the issue of Israel’s unbelief. His explanation in one sentence is this: God’s promises to Israel have not failed, because God never promised to save every Israelite; rather, God promised to save the elect (true) “Israel” within Israel (Rom. 9:6). He proves this by underscoring the fact that from the beginning not all the natural seed of Abraham were accounted by God as “children of Abraham”—Ishmael was excluded from being a child of promise by sovereign elective divine arrangement (9:7–9).
Now few Jews in Paul’s day would have had much difficulty with the exclusion of Ishmael from God’s gracious covenant. But someone might have urged for the sake of argument that Ishmael’s rejection as a “son” of Abraham was due both to the fact that, though he was Abraham’s seed, he was also the son of Hagar the servant woman and not the son of Sarah, and to the fact that God knew that he would “persecute him that was born after the Spirit” (Gal. 4:29; see Gen. 21:9; Ps. 83:5–6). In other words, it could be argued, God drew the distinction between Isaac and Ishmael not because of a sovereign divine election of the former, but because they had two different earthly mothers and because of Ishmael’s (divinely foreknown) subsequent hostility to Isaac. The fact of two mothers is true enough, and indeed this fact is not without some figurative significance, as Paul himself argues in Galatians 4:21–31.21 But Paul sees clearly that the principle which is operative in Isaac’s selection over Ishmael is one of sovereign divine discrimination and not one grounded in human circumstances. Lest the elective principle which governed the choice of Isaac (and all the rest of the saved) be lost on his reader, Paul fortifies his position by moving to a consideration of Jacob and Esau. Here there were not two mothers. In their case there was one father (Isaac) and one mother (Rebekah) and, in fact, the two boys were twins, Esau—as Ishmael before him—even being the older and thus the one who normally would be shown the preferential treatment reserved for the firstborn son. Moreover, the divine discrimination was made prior to their birth, before either had done anything good or bad. Note Romans 9:11–13:

Before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose according to election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is wr
itten: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Clearly, for Paul both election (“Jacob I loved”) and reprobation (“Esau I hated”) are to be traced to God’s sovereign decree of discrimination among men.22
Because Romans 9:13 is a quotation from Malachi 1:2, 3, which was written at the end of Old Testament canonical history, the Arminian theologian contends that God’s election of Jacob and his rejection of Esau are treating of nations here and are to be traced to God’s prescience of Edom’s sinful existence and despicable historical treatment of Israel (Ezek. 35:5). But for the following three reasons this interpretation introduces the element of human merit that is foreign to Paul’s entire argument in Romans 9 and totally distorts his point.
a. The Malachi context is against it. The very point the prophet is concerned to make is that after his election of Jacob over Esau God continued to love Jacob, in spite of Jacob’s (Israel’s) similar history to that of Esau (Edom) as far as his covenant faithfulness is concerned, and to reject Esau because of his wickedness.
b. To inject into Paul’s thought here to the slightest degree the notion of human merit or demerit as the ground for God’s dealings with the twins is to ignore the plain statement of Paul: “before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose according to election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told .… ”
c. To inject into Paul’s thought here the notion of human merit or demerit as the ground of God’s dealings with Jacob and Esau is also to make superfluous and irrelevant the following anticipated objection to Paul’s argument which he captured in the questions: “What then shall we say? Is God unjust?” No one would even think of accusing God of injustice if he had related himself to Jacob and Esau strictly on the basis of human merit or demerit. But it is precisely because Paul had declared that God related himself to the twins not on the basis of human merit but solely in accordance with his own elective purpose that he anticipated the question: “Why does this not make God unjust and arbitrarily authoritarian?” It is doubtful whether any Arminian will ever be faced with the question that Paul anticipates here simply because the Arminian doctrine of election is grounded in God’s prescience of men’s faith and good works. It is only the Calvinist who insists that God relates himself to the elect “out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace” (WCF, III/v) who will face this specific charge that God is unjust.
We also learn from Romans 9:11–13 that the elective principle in God’s eternal purpose serves and alone comports with the grace principle which governs all true salvation. Note Paul’s expression, “in order that God’s purpose according to election might stand: not according to works but according to him who calls.” Here we see the connection between God’s grace and his elective purpose dramatically exhibited in God’s discrimination between Jacob and Esau, which discrimination, Paul points out, occurred “before [μήπω, mēpō] the twins were born, before either had done anything good or bad” (see Gen. 25:22–23). Paul then explains the reason for the divine discrimination with the words: “not by [ἐκ, ek] works but by [ἐκ, ek] him who calls [unto salvation]” (Rom. 9:12).23 This is equivalent to saying “not according to works but according to electing grace.” Paul teaches here that God’s elective purpose is not, as in paganism, “a blind unreadable fate” which “hangs, an impersonal mystery, even above the gods,” but rather that it serves the intelligible purpose of “bringing out the gratuitous character of grace.”24 In fact, Paul refers later to “the election of grace” (Rom. 11:5). The upshot of all this is just to say: “If unconditional election, then grace; if no unconditional election, then no grace!” Stated another way: To say “sovereign grace” is really to utter a redundancy, for to be gracious at all toward the creature undeserving of it requires that God be sovereign in his distributive exhibition of it.
In Romans 9:15–18 and 9:20–23 Paul responds to two objections to his teaching on divine election which he frames in question form: (a) “What then shall we say? Is God unjust?” (9:14)—the question of divine justice (or fairness)—and (b) “One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?’ ” (9:19)—the question of human freedom. In response to both objections he simply appeals to God’s absolute, sovereign right to do with men as he pleases in order to accomplish his own holy ends.
In Romans 9:15–18, in response to the first question (the question of divine justice or fairness), contrasting Moses—his example of the elect man in whose behalf God had sovereignly determined to display his mercy (v. 15; see also v. 23)—and Pharaoh—his example of the nonelect man whom God had sovereignly determined to raise up in order to (ὅπως, hopōs) show by him his power and to publish his name in all the earth (v. 17; see also v. 22), Paul first declares: “[Salvific mercy] does not depend on man’s will or effort, but on God who shows mercy” (9:16). By this remark Paul makes it clear that God’s salvific dealings with men are grounded in decretive, elective considerations with no consideration given to human willing or working (see also John 1:13). Then Paul concludes: “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (v. 18), answering the question concerning the justice of God in view of his elective and reprobative activity (see 9:11–13) by a straightforward appeal to God’s sovereign right to do with men and women as he pleases in order that he might exhibit the truth that all spiritual good in man is the fruit of his grace alone.
Then in Romans 9:20–23, in response to the second question (the question of human freedom), after his rebuke: “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God,” Paul employs the familiar Old Testament metaphor of the potter and the clay (see Isa. 29:16; 45:9; 64:8; Jer. 18:6) and asks: “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay [mankind viewed generically] some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?”
Paul, of course, expects an affirmative response to this rhetorical question. He is teaching (1) that the potter sovereignly makes both kinds of vessels, and (2) that he makes both out of the same lump of clay. The metaphor clearly implies that the determination of a given vessel’s nature and purpose—whether for noble or for common use—is the potter’s sovereign right, apart from any consideration of the clay’s prior condition. This suggests in turn that God sovereignly determined the nature and purpose of both the elect and the nonelect in order to accomplish his own holy ends, apart from a consideration of any prior condition which may or may not have been resident within them (see 9:11–13 again). Proverbs 16:4, in my opinion, aptly expresses the intention of the metaphor: “The Lord has made everything for his own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.” So here Paul simply appeals again to God’s sovereign right to do with men and women as he pleases in order to accomplish his own holy ends. And Paul registers his appeal to God’s sovereignty without qualification even though he fully understands that the “man who does not understand the depths of divine wisdom, nor the riches of election, who wants only to live in his belief in the non-arbitrariness of his own works and morality, can see only arbitrariness in the sovereign freedom of God.”25&#
65279; This feature of the potter metaphor then lays the stress on the divine will as the sole, ultimate, determinative cause for the distinction between elect and nonelect.
God’s Word has not failed regarding Israel, Paul argues in sum, because God’s dealings with men are not ultimately determined by anything they do but rather by God’s own sovereign discriminating purpose. Therefore, Christians too may be assured that, God having set his love upon them from all eternity by his sovereign purposing arrangement, nothing will be able to separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:28–39).
For many people, even Christians, this teaching raises the question of arbitrariness in God. Even Geerhardus Vos, commenting on Romans 9:11–13, acknowledges “the risk of exposing the divine sovereignty to the charge of arbitrariness”26 which Paul was willing to run in order to underscore the fact that the gracious election of Jacob (and the corresponding reprobation of Esau) was decided before (indeed, eternally before) the birth of the brothers, before either had done good or bad. Arminian theologians would spare Vos’s readers the words “risk of” and simply charge that the Reformed understanding of election does in fact expose God to the charge of arbitrariness in his dealings with men. What may be said in response to this charge? Does the Reformed understanding of election (which we would insist is the Pauline understanding of election as well) impute arbitrariness to God when it affirms that God discriminated between man and man before they were born (is this not what Paul says?), completely apart from a consideration of any conditions or causes (or the absence of these) in them (is this not what Paul means by his “not by works” and his “before either had done good or bad”?)?
As Paul would say (9:14): “Not at all!” God’s dealings with men are never arbitrary if Arminians mean by the word “arbitrary” to choose or to act one way at one time and another way at another, that is to say, willy-nilly or inconsistently, or to choose or to act without regard to any norm or reason, in other words, capriciously. Reformed thinkers deny that they impute such behavior to God. They insist that God always acts in a fashion consistent with his prior, settled discrimination among men, and that his prior, settled discrimination among men was wisely determined in the interests of the grace principle (see Rom. 9:11–12; 11:5). Because Paul recognized that the degree, however small, to which an individual is allowed to be the decisive factor in receiving and working out the subjective benefits of grace for his transformation “detract(s) in the same proportion from the monergism of the divine grace and from the glory of God,”27 he calls attention to God’s “sovereign discrimination between man and man, to place the proper emphasis upon the truth, that his grace alone is the source of all spiritual good to be found in man.”28 Which is just to say that if God chose the way he did, out of the infinite depth of the riches of his wisdom and knowledge (11:33), in order to be able to manifest his grace (9:11), then he did not choose arbitrarily or capriciously. In other words, the condition governing the reason for his choosing the way he did does not need to lie in the creature. (Indeed, from the very nature of the case the condition could not lie in the creature. If it did, the creature would be the determining agent in salvation and become thereby, for all intents and purposes, God.) If there was a wise reason in himself for choosing the way he did (and there was, namely, that he might make room for the exhibition of his grace as alone the source of all spiritual good in men), then he did not choose capriciously. Of course, “there may be many other grounds [that is, reasons] for election, unknown and unknowable to us,” it is true. But, as Vos reminds us, “this one reason we do know, and in knowing it we at the same time know that, whatever other reasons exist, they can have nothing to do with any meritorious ethical condition of the objects of God’s choice.”29
Paul concludes his discourse on predestination by saying “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36).
15. In another context Paul writes: “By [God’s] doing you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:30), which effectual work he views as the outworking of divine election (1:23–28).
16. Paul enunciated God’s sovereignty over and predestination of men unto adoption as sons in doxological form in Ephesians 1:3–14:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestinated us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved.… In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestinated according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will, in order that we … might be for the praise of his glory. (emphasis supplied)
17. Paul insists still further that “God has chosen [the Christian] from the beginning for salvation” (2 Thess. 2:13), and that God saved the Christian “not according to works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was granted [the Christian] in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (2 Tim. 1:9).
18. As a final example, Peter contrasts those who disobey, “unto which disobedience,” he says, “they were appointed,” with those who believe, whose faith he traces to the fact that they are “a chosen generation” (1 Pet. 2:8–9).
Scores of other examples could be cited (e.g., 2 Thess. 2:11; Rev. 17:17) all to the same effect, showing that God is represented in Scripture as both the sovereign Ruler over the world and all its creatures and the sovereign Savior of sinners.” (Reymond, R. L. (1998). A new systematic theology of the Christian faith. Lectures delivered at Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Mo. and Knox Theological Seminary, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (358). Nashville: T. Nelson.)

blessings,
Ken

[david]

Quote

Then I guess you can't tell very much at all It seems you haven't been around many in the Reformed camp have you….?

It's just I never ever hear anyone on here mention it.  And yet, it is more important than most anything on here.

Quote

So while many times, while we usually disagree, it seems your posts are well thought out (or at least well thought out copy and paste from JW sites, which is important since it shows you are reading and applying the proper material to the issue at hand) in this case, you are far from the mark in thinking that the JW's are the only ones who preach the sovereignty of God.

Well if that's the case, I stand corrected.  But thus far, you're the only one on here I've even heard give any response related to it.

We usually refer to it as God's “universal sovereignty.” I typed that into Google, and a JW's related topic was on the very top.

[Proclaimer]

david, it is pointless trying to preach truth and then doing it in the name of Jehovah Witnesses.

It is in the name of Jesus,Yehsua that opens the way to YHWH.

[GeneBalthrop]

EP…..I do agree with your post on Free Will, and Predestination, and GOD”S GRACE saving Us. God's SOVEREIGNTY is a issue, a grate issue in all Christianity Today. He is sovereign over all things including our salvation. He saves whomsoever He will and Hardens whomsoever He will. Our Salvation is truly a work of GOD ALONE> Understanding a predetermined Salvation shuts all mouths, leaving no room to boast.

peace to you and yours…………………….gene

[942767]

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Nov. 09 2008,05:45)

EP…..I do agree with your post on Free Will, and Predestination, and GOD”S GRACE saving Us. God's SOVEREIGNTY  is a issue, a grate issue in all Christianity Today. He is sovereign over all things including our salvation. He saves whomsoever He will and Hardens whomsoever He will. Our Salvation is truly a work of GOD ALONE> Understanding a predetermined Salvation shuts all mouths, leaving no room to boast. peace to you and yours…………………….gene

Hi Gene:

And not understanding God's plan for the salvation humanity and the fact that He has seen every thing from the beginning to the end including who will believe and be saved, leads to false teachings. The central message of salvation is:

Quote

Jhn 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jhn 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. Jhn 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Jhn 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Jhn 3:20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Jhn 3:21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

God Bless

[942767]

Quote (epistemaniac @ Nov. 08 2008,16:46)

Quote (942767 @ Nov. 08 2008,12:59) Quote (epistemaniac @ Nov. 08 2008,09:30) early on… page 4 or so in this topic, it was brought up by Timothy that God hardened Pharaoh's heart… other counters were made that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, but before any miracle was presented to Pharaoh, before Moses had ever left to confront Pharaoh, God said Exodus 4:21-23 (ESV) Ex 21 And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’ ”   So whatever one thinks on this topic, chronologically at least, God had decided to harden Pharaoh's heart prior to Moses ever going to confront him in the first place. blessings, Ken Hi Ken: Is what you are saying consitent with the following scripture? Quote 2Pe 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. God Bless well since I quoted scripture, namely Ex. 4:21-23, and since scripture does not contradict itself, then yes is the answer to your question, it is completely consistent with 2 Peter 3:9. In your view, does Peter contradict Moses? As far as God being not willing that any should perish, there are numerous things to say. since God is omnipotent, if He was willing in an absolute sense that none perish, none would, and you would have Universalism. Since we know that not all are saved, then it must be the case that God's “willing” in this passage is a different sort of willing. As it is, it reflects God's moral character, and we see this moral reflection in God's not taking any pleasure in the death of the wicked: Ezekiel 18:32 (ESV) For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” and Ezekiel 33:11 (ESV) Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” So theologians usually distinguish between different kinds of willing. You can read more about this in an excellent excerpt from a 2 volume set of books called “The Grace of God, The Bondage of the Will”, a chapter written by John Piper entitled “Are There Two Wills in God?” available in its entirety for free at http://www.desiringgod.org/Resourc…._in_God blessings, Ken

Hi Ken:

This is reference sounds like someone is intelligent, but it is a total misrepresentation of God's Word. It will take me some time to go over all of this and get back to you, but I will get back to you with the help of my Father and my God.

God Bless

[Kupchuk]

Quote (942767 @ Nov. 09 2008,09:48)

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Nov. 09 2008,05:45) EP…..I do agree with your post on Free Will, and Predestination, and GOD”S GRACE saving Us. God's SOVEREIGNTY  is a issue, a grate issue in all Christianity Today. He is sovereign over all things including our salvation. He saves whomsoever He will and Hardens whomsoever He will. Our Salvation is truly a work of GOD ALONE> Understanding a predetermined Salvation shuts all mouths, leaving no room to boast. peace to you and yours…………………….gene Hi Gene: And not understanding God's plan for the salvation humanity and the fact that He has seen every thing from the beginning to the end including who will believe and be saved, leads to false teachings.  The central message of salvation is: Quote Jhn 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jhn 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. Jhn 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Jhn 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Jhn 3:20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Jhn 3:21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. God Bless

Matt.15:24 …Now He (Jesus), answering, said, “I was not commissioned except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Ro.15:8 … For I am saying that Christ has become the Servant of the Circumcision, for the sake of the truth of God, to confirm the patriarchal promises.

Ro.15:16 …for me (Paul) to be the minister of Christ Jesus for the nations, acting as a priest of the evangel of God, that the approach present of the nations may be becoming well received, having been hallowed by holy spirit.

We must “correctly cut the word of truth”. (2Tim.2:15)

Quoting scripture that was to the “Jews”, is not the ” central message of salvation” for all.

Blessings.

[GeneBalthrop]

942767…..John 3:18……> For God so loved the world that he gave his uniquely begotten Son, that (whosoever) believes in (him) might be saved. First is who is the (whosoever), the answer to that was answered by Jesus, ” NO man (CAN) come unto me (UNLESS)the Father (DRAW) Him. These are the ones who truly believe they are the ones God opens up their minds to truly recognize Jesus, as God did Peter when Jesus ask Him ” who do you say I am and Peter responded tho art the son of the living GOD, Jesus responded Blessed are you Simon Barjona because flesh and blood did not reveal that unto you (BUT) my Father in Heave Has, and then He went on to say (UPON THIS ROCK) I shall build the Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail. The ROCK was the POWER of GOD to REVEAL TRUTH to a person in their mind, and that was the power that would build the church. Again A WORK OF GOD. ALONE.

peace to you and yours…………………..gene

[GeneBalthrop]

To All……….EP best described “Free Will” in his article dated Nov 8/ 2008, 17.07, Please read it completely it's pretty much right on i think.

love and peace to all……………………….gene

[942767]

Quote (Kupchuk @ Nov. 09 2008,14:20)

Quote (942767 @ Nov. 09 2008,09:48) Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Nov. 09 2008,05:45) EP…..I do agree with your post on Free Will, and Predestination, and GOD”S GRACE saving Us. God's SOVEREIGNTY  is a issue, a grate issue in all Christianity Today. He is sovereign over all things including our salvation. He saves whomsoever He will and Hardens whomsoever He will. Our Salvation is truly a work of GOD ALONE> Understanding a predetermined Salvation shuts all mouths, leaving no room to boast. peace to you and yours…………………….gene Hi Gene: And not understanding God's plan for the salvation humanity and the fact that He has seen every thing from the beginning to the end including who will believe and be saved, leads to false teachings.  The central message of salvation is: Quote Jhn 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jhn 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. Jhn 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Jhn 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Jhn 3:20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Jhn 3:21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. God Bless Matt.15:24  …Now He (Jesus), answering, said, “I was not commissioned except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Ro.15:8   … For I am saying that Christ has become the Servant of the Circumcision, for the sake of the truth of God, to confirm the patriarchal promises. Ro.15:16   …for me (Paul) to be the minister of Christ Jesus for the nations, acting as a priest of the evangel of God, that the approach present of the nations may be becoming well received, having been hallowed by holy spirit. We must “correctly cut the word of truth”. (2Tim.2:15) Quoting scripture that was to the “Jews”, is not the ” central message of salvation”  for all. Blessings.

If that is the case, what then is the central message of Christianity?

[942767]

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Nov. 09 2008,14:24)

942767…..John 3:18……> For God so loved the world that he gave his uniquely begotten Son, that (whosoever) believes in (him) might be saved.  First is who is the (whosoever), the answer to that  was answered by Jesus, ” NO man (CAN) come unto me (UNLESS)the Father (DRAW) Him.  These are the ones who truly believe they are the ones God opens up their minds to truly recognize Jesus, as God did Peter when Jesus ask Him ” who do you say I am and Peter responded tho art the son of the living GOD, Jesus responded Blessed are you Simon Barjona because flesh and blood did not reveal that unto you (BUT) my Father in Heave Has, and then He went on to say (UPON THIS ROCK) I shall build the Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.  The ROCK was the POWER of GOD to REVEAL TRUTH to a person in their mind, and that was the power that would build the church. Again A WORK OF GOD. ALONE. peace to you and yours…………………..gene

Hi Gene:

The gospel is to be preached to every creature, but not all will believe. Jesus explains why he made the statement that “no man can come to the Father except He draw them”, saying:

Quote

Jhn 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. Jhn 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. Jhn 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

God Bless

[942767]

Quote (epistemaniac @ Nov. 08 2008,16:48)

Thanks for quoting Acts 17:26 in context…. however, I have no idea at all why you did…. lol…. Is there some reason you did this? After all, I can easily read the verse in context within the bible program I used to quote the verse in the first place. blessings, Ken

Hi Ken:

God does not intervene with a person's “free will” to repent and be reconciled to Him through the gospel. Therefore, how is this under God's sovereign control? God knows has seen every thing from the beginning to the end and knows when we come into the world and where we are in the world and when we will leave this world, and the hope is that we will be reconciled to Him sometime between the time we come into the world and leave it.

And so, perhaps now you may understand why I posted this in context. It is easy to pull one verse out and say that this proves that God is sovereign. God can do anything He chooses to do, and He does all that He can do to lead a man to repentance, but it is still up to the individual to make that choice.

God Bless

[chosenone]

Quote (942767 @ Nov. 10 2008,06:18)

Matt.15:24  …Now He (Jesus), answering, said, “I was not commissioned except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Ro.15:8   … For I am saying that Christ has become the Servant of theconfi Circumcision, for the sake of the truth of God, to rm the patriarchal promises. Ro.15:16   …for me (Paul) to be the minister of Christ Jesus for the nations, acting as a priest of the evangel of God, that the approach present of the nations may be becoming well received, having been hallowed by holy spirit. We must “correctly cut the word of truth”. (2Tim.2:15) Quoting scripture that was to the “Jews”, is not the ” central message of salvation”  for all. Blessings.[/quote] If that is the case, what then is the central message of Christianity?

We are saved by “The Gospel of the Grace of God.”

Blessings.

[NickHassan]

Hi CO,
Who is WE?
Which of your gospels is that of the grace of God?

[942767]

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Nov. 09 2008,05:45)

EP…..I do agree with your post on Free Will, and Predestination, and GOD”S GRACE saving Us. God's SOVEREIGNTY  is a issue, a grate issue in all Christianity Today. He is sovereign over all things including our salvation. He saves whomsoever He will and Hardens whomsoever He will. Our Salvation is truly a work of GOD ALONE> Understanding a predetermined Salvation shuts all mouths, leaving no room to boast. peace to you and yours…………………….gene

Hi Gene:

I realize that it is difficult to understand what the Apostle Paul is saying when he states that “God has mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he wills he hardens”, but the issue here is that God calls people into a relationship with Him and he does not save them on the basis of their works whether good or bad. Their salvation is based on the fact that when they heard the gospel they believed God's testimony.

God does not arbitrarily save some and harden others otherwise what is the purpose of preaching the gospel.

In the series of scriptures to which you refer the Apostle Paul states in referring to Israel:

Quote

Rom 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they [are] not all Israel, which are of Israel: Rom 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Then he continues saying:

Quote

Rom 9:10 And not only [this]; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac; Rom 9:11 (For [the children] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)

And so, the rest of the discussion hinges on what has been said prior to the verses that follow. Pharaoh was an unbeliever and God did harden his heart through judgments, and God ultimately destroyed him and his army.

Through these judgments God showed His power to Moses and the children of Israel delivering them from slavery Pharaoh. Thus they and the inhabitants of the Land would believe and fear the Lord. This relates symbolically to a born again believer being delivered from bondage to sin when he is born again.

God Bless

[942767]

Quote (chosenone @ Nov. 10 2008,11:09)

Quote (942767 @ Nov. 10 2008,06:18) Matt.15:24  …Now He (Jesus), answering, said, “I was not commissioned except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Ro.15:8   … For I am saying that Christ has become the Servant of theconfi Circumcision, for the sake of the truth of God, to rm the patriarchal promises. Ro.15:16   …for me (Paul) to be the minister of Christ Jesus for the nations, acting as a priest of the evangel of God, that the approach present of the nations may be becoming well received, having been hallowed by holy spirit. We must “correctly cut the word of truth”. (2Tim.2:15) Quoting scripture that was to the “Jews”, is not the ” central message of salvation”  for all. Blessings. If that is the case, what then is the central message of Christianity?[/quote] We are saved by “The Gospel of the Grace of God.” Blessings.

Hi CO:

Can you explain what the “gospel of the grace of God is” please. Thanks.

God Bless

[942767]

Hi Ken:

In the article to which you referred this forum, “chapter written by John Piper entitled “Are There Two Wills in God?” , the author speaks of UNCONDITONAL ELECTION of the saved.  Do you agree with this statement, and if so, what does that mean to you? Thanks.

God Bless

[epistemaniac]

Quote (david @ Nov. 08 2008,17:14)

Quote Then I guess you can't tell very much at all It seems you haven't been around many in the Reformed camp have you….? It's just I never ever hear anyone on here mention it.  And yet, it is more important than most anything on here. Quote So while many times, while we usually disagree, it seems your posts are well thought out (or at least well thought out copy and paste from JW sites, which is important since it shows you are reading and applying the proper material to the issue at hand) in this case, you are far from the mark in thinking that the JW's are the only ones who preach the sovereignty of God. Well if that's the case, I stand corrected.  But thus far, you're the only one on here I've even heard give any response related to it. We usually refer to it as God's “universal sovereignty.”  I typed that into Google, and a JW's related topic was on the very top.

yeah david… I guess I can see that…. here, at this forum…. I do not get to get into as many discussions as I would like regarding election, predestination, God's sovereignty, those sorts of issues…. as I do on other boards… here it is the deity of the Son and the Trinity, and the deity of the Son and the Trinity, over and over and over and……. lol….

I do not usually hear or see the the phrase “universal sovereignty”, so maybe that particular phraseology is distinctive to the JW camp… however, I did mention that I said to do a search of “the sovereignty of God” on google, and not “universal sovereignty”…. and this was in response to you saying

Quote

As far as I can tell, JW's are the only ones that speak of God's sovereignty on a regular basis. I guess my answer is yes.

which did not say anything about “universal sovereignty”

…. but as I am in the habit of checking things like this out… not that its that a big a deal or anything, but I did do a search for “universal sovereignty” (including the parentheses) and the first hit is from a Baptist site http://grace-for-today.com/149.htm while it looks like a JW resource for definitions was hit number 2… the 3rd hit was an anti RC article…

but my overall point is that God's sovereignty is a HUGE issue for those of us who consider ourselves to be some flavor of Reformed or another….

blessings,
Ken

[Author]

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