Hello Christ4Ever,
You literally just chopped off the Word of God detailing God's will:
I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me
I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do
I have given you an example
In stark contrast to Christ's words of "
I can do nothing on My own initiative", you say you do choose God in your own initiative/will.
You just blew right past all of this with:
Do you want me to start typing the entirety of scripture to you, if so all that say is that you did not understand what I said in my post when I said "Scripture, is not meant to be seen in bits and pieces to decide upon questions of great conjecture and no sure standing. " That concept leaves you creating your theology when holding that Bible in your hands as proof is insufficient.
You base your position on scripture that shows that God chooses the believer, then make everything else fit to that,
The entirety of Holy Scripture reveals:
- the Sovereignty of the good God,
- man is evil (evil Adam disobeyed God's only commandment with a punishment),
- the loving God redeems man by Christ's finished atonement.
even when scripture shows that man has to make decisions when it comes to this free gift of salvation. So, you wind up doing the very thing you would accuse me as being "free-willian" does. (Where did you come up with that word anyway)
So, instead of attempting to reconcile what appears at face value as being conflicting, "God choosing" and "God requiring man to decide", you choose to reject the very thing that reconciles it, which is free-will, and choose compulsion instead.
Your "
even when scripture shows that man has to make decisions when it comes to this free gift of salvation" is false.
No Holy Scripture states man was imparted a free-will to choose God.
Never does the Word of God say "choose Me". Not once. You are coming from a no Word of God position.
God made you? An interesting way of putting it.
Christ4Ever, I'm sure you've heard of fruit of the Spirit. Let's review this bountiful blessing of the Living God:
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control
Your souls having purified in the obedience of the truth through the Spirit to brotherly love unfeigned, out of a pure heart one another love ye earnestly" (
1 Peter 1:22, YLT),
You might want to think about what the Apostles say.
I don't ever see where any of the Apostles ever stated it in that way.
Christ's love controls us Christians (
2 Corinthians 5:14). The Apostle Paul wrote profound Truth (
John 14:6), here!
You might want to think about the conversation between Jesus & Peter, when Jesus told Peter that He would deny Him. This is what one would call foreknowledge. He knew what Peter would do, even though Peter said he would not.
Christ4Ever, you wrote "
He knew what Peter would do, even though Peter said he would not", so you convey it wasn’t Peter's free-will to deny Christ.
Oh, and you convey the opposite that Peter free-will chose to deny Christ.
You are trying to have it both ways.
A crucial point is this, no Holy Scripture states that Peter chose Jesus before nor after Peter denied Christ.
Jesus sent messengers to Peter and the apostles (
Matthew 28:10) after Peter denied Christ but Peter and the apostles would not believe those messengers (
Mark 16:9-14).
Later, Jesus went Himself to Peter and the Apostles in the locked room saying "
Peace be with you" (
John 20:19)!
Evil man does not seek the good God, but the good Word of God says that He "
has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (
Luke 19:10)!
You can focus on the mechanism of Peter's denial all that you want, but I focus on the Redeemer redeeming the redeemed Peter.
See Redeemer Jesus atoned for the redeemed Peter.
For me the conclusion is that Peter of his own free-will later denied Jesus, while I'll assume that you believe that God made Peter deny Jesus by creating the situations that made him do so, even though Peter when everything is said and done, would still have to follow through with the denial for the foreknowledge to be true.
Christ4Ever, I'm sure you've heard of fruit of the Spirit. Let's review this bountiful blessing of the Living God:
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control
Your souls having purified in the obedience of the truth through the Spirit to brotherly love unfeigned, out of a pure heart one another love ye earnestly" (
1 Peter 1:22, YLT),
Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP OF THE FLOCK SHALL BE SCATTERED.’" (
Matthew 26:31), so, according to your "
For me the conclusion is that Peter of his own free-will later denied Jesus" means that you believe any one of the Apostles, even Peter, could have thwarted God's Prophecy "
Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, And against the man, My Associate,” Declares the LORD of hosts. “Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered; And I will turn My hand against the little ones" (
Zechariah 13:7).
Or, maybe this is the prophecy of God that you believe the disciples could have thwarted "
Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors" (
Isaiah 53:12).
Of this, I am certain about You, Lord God Almighty, "
no purpose of Yours can be thwarted" (
Job 42:2)!
I fully believe in the Sovereignty of God and have no issue with it. However, I disagree with your conclusion that the existence of free will would negate God's Sovereignty.
Here's the blockage for free-willian philosophy tryimg to marry with the Sovereignty of God, you say "here is free-will right here in this verse" such as you are doing with
Deuteronomy 17:8,
but free-will is not there, and the Son of God says “
you did not choose Me, but I chose you” (
John 15:16) and “
I chose you out of the world” (
John 15:19, includes salvation), so believe the Son!
Deuteronomy 17:8 - "Suppose a case arises in a local court that is too hard for you to decide--for instance, whether someone is guilty of murder or only of manslaughter, or a difficult lawsuit, or a case involving different kinds of assault. Take such legal cases to the place the LORD your God will choose,
God is the Master, and there is none greater than God! Hallelujah!
So, this means there is none that can have God in bondage, so there is no one for God to be "free" from incarceration -
which means God does not have a free-will, but God does have God's will.
For man to say God has a free-will implies that God has a superior one to God.
Man has a will - just not a free-will (
2 Peter 2:9-10;
Philippians 2:13).
What you have stated here does not negate free-will! The verses you quote only show that God has foreknowledge!
Man cannot thwart that which God foreknows; therefore, free-will exists not.
Christ4Ever, Lord Jesus uses past tense in his sayings about which you exclaimed "
The verses you quote only show that God has foreknowledge". Here is the Word of God to which you referred:
you did not choose Me, but I chose you
I chose you out of the world
Of course man is helpless apart from God, but man decides on who He will follow, and causes his own separation not God, for he gives each a measure of faith to decide. God's foreknowledge as mentioned before allows Him to know who those are to be and His Atonement complete because God is the one who gave a measure of faith to all.
God did not give belief (faith) in Christ to unbelievers (unfaithful / no faith). None. Zero. Zilch.
You advocate for faith inside of people in hell, so you convey that faith fails to save from the wrath of God.
There is
one faith (
Ephesians 4:5), and this glorious faith is explained by Christ “
This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (
John 6:29).
Sorry not "controls" but "constrains".
Analogy notwithstanding
In the passage "
Christ's love controls us (
2 Corinthians 5:14) which aligns with “
it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (
Philippians 2:13).
Christ4Ever, do realize, you can use the word
constrains, but you still end up with that which you try to escape of
Christ's love constrains us to good and from evil.
The word
controls derives from a Greek word with two root words, one word with the meaning "holds" and the second word with the meaning "together"; in other words,
holds together is the Greek word from which the English word
controls is translated, and
holds together should sound familiar to you because of (
Colossians 1:17).
controls =
Strong's Greek: 4912. συνέχω (sunechó) -- To hold together, to constrain, to compel, to press
holds =
Strong's Greek: 2192. ἔχω; (echó) -- To have, to hold, to possess
together =
Strong's Greek: 4862. σύν (sun) -- with, together with, in company with
This is a very intimate depiction! Praise Jesus!
Not true, because faith comes from God.
You conveyed that the "believe" (faith) recorded in
John 3:16 and
John 3:36 are a function of man's free-will.
Please explain precisely your meaning since you wrote that my interpretation of your writing is false.
Which contradicts that none have done good. So, again how do you answer my question?
Romans 3:10, 12 - 10 As the Scriptures say, "No one is righteous--not even one. ... 12 All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one."
We Christians do
good because of the fruit of the Spirit (
Galatians 5:22-23).
Christ4Ever, see that “
no one is good except God alone” (
Mark 10:18), so the indwelling Holy Spirit puts goodness in us Christians.
That which God controls me to write contains no contradiction, but your "
If that is the case that there is no moral responsibility for humanity within God's Will" contradicting "
those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment" (
John 5:29) remains.
Actually, your non-free-willian philosophy means you have no say in the matter.
Praise the Lord! You are getting my relationship with my Father in Heaven!!!
If man has free-will then Romans 12:2 makes sense, but if he does not as you non-free-willians believe, then it doesn't. - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
With the Love of Christ Jesus.
YBIC/Moderator
Nick
\o/
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God is the one who transforms the mind, think repentance, so "
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect" (
Romans 12:2). Free-will does not make sense with
Romans 12:2.
Self-willed Tyler Robinson (
2 Peter 2:9-10), the self-confessed murderer of Charlie Kirk according to publicly released text messages, does not transform his mind to
that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Only the Sovereign God has the ability to choose to transform Tyler's mind and to have Christ's finished atonement apply to Tyler and for Tyler to become a Christ image bearer with a Christ-like will.
Without God's intervention, self-willed Tyler goes to hell.
You have confused unbiblical "free-will" with Biblical self-will. It is confusion to add free-will where free-will is absent in the Word of God.
Love,
Kermos