Christ died for them not appointed to Wrath.

[Clete]

This was an interesting outlook. Never seen it before.

In Christian theology, conditional election is the belief that God chooses for eternal salvation those whom he foresees will have faith in Christ. This belief emphasizes the importance of a person's free will.

Conditional election - Wikipedia​

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Conditional_election

Infallible foreknowledge and free will are contradictory concepts.

Exhaustive divine foreknowledge is little more than a philosophical trick that lets people feel like they can keep most of the Greek ideas about God intact while still believing that we choose our actions but it doesn't work when you look at it closely.

T = You answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am

​

1. Yesterday God infallibly believed T. [Supposition of infallible foreknowledge]
2. If E occurred in the past, it is now-necessary that E occurred then. [Principle of the Necessity of the Past]
3. It is now-necessary that yesterday God believed T. [1, 2]
4. Necessarily, if yesterday God believed T, then T. [Definition of “infallibility”]
5. If p is now-necessary, and necessarily (p → q), then q is now-necessary. [Transfer of Necessity Principle]
6. So it is now-necessary that T. [3,4,5]
7. If it is now-necessary that T, then you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [Definition of “necessary”]
8. Therefore, you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [6, 7]
9. If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not act freely. [Principle of Alternate Possibilities]
10. Therefore, when you answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am, you will not do it freely. [8, 9]

Source​

Besides, the bible doesn't teach that God exhaustively knows the future any more than it teaches that He predestined it all.
We are predestined IN CHRIST. It is Christ that is predestined. His destiny simpy becomes ours when we become His. It's not about God peaking into the future but about God predestined what Christ (i.e. Himself) would accomplish and set it in place, in advance. (i.e that all those who are found in Him will be saved.)
The best analogy I've heard likens it to an airplane that has been scheduled by those who own the plane to fly from Houston to Tulsa. Those in Houston who get on board are destined for Tulsa and since the destination was set in advance, you could say they were "predestined" to arrive in Tulsa with that plane. But it is the plane that it predestined, not the list of people who are going to buy a ticket. Its just that if you buy the ticket then the plane's destiny becomes your own.

Clete

 

[Bradley D]

Infallible foreknowledge and free will are contradictory concepts.

Exhaustive divine foreknowledge is little more than a philosophical trick that lets people feel like they can keep most of the Greek ideas about God intact while still believing that we choose our actions but it doesn't work when you look at it closely.

T = You answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am

​

1. Yesterday God infallibly believed T. [Supposition of infallible foreknowledge]
2. If E occurred in the past, it is now-necessary that E occurred then. [Principle of the Necessity of the Past]
3. It is now-necessary that yesterday God believed T. [1, 2]
4. Necessarily, if yesterday God believed T, then T. [Definition of “infallibility”]
5. If p is now-necessary, and necessarily (p → q), then q is now-necessary. [Transfer of Necessity Principle]
6. So it is now-necessary that T. [3,4,5]
7. If it is now-necessary that T, then you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [Definition of “necessary”]
8. Therefore, you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [6, 7]
9. If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not act freely. [Principle of Alternate Possibilities]
10. Therefore, when you answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am, you will not do it freely. [8, 9]

Source​

Besides, the bible doesn't teach that God exhaustively knows the future any more than it teaches that He predestined it all.
We are predestined IN CHRIST. It is Christ that is predestined. His destiny simpy becomes our when we become His. It's not about God peaked into the future but about God predestined what Christ (i.e. Himself) would accomplish and set it in place, in advance. (i.e that all those who are found in Him will be saved.)
The best analogy I've heard likens it to an airplane that has been scheduled by those who own the plane to fly from Houston to Tulsa. Those in Houston who get on board are destined for Tulsa and since the destination was set in advance, you could say they were "predestined" to arrive in Tulsa with that plane. But it is the plane that it predestined, not the list of people who are going to buy a ticket. Its just that if you buy the ticket then the plane's destiny becomes your own.

Clete

I do not believe we will ever truly understand God's knowledge of the future or how it works. I believe in the book of Revelation.

 

[Clete]

I do not believe we will ever truly understand God's knowledge of the future or how it works. I believe in the book of Revelation.

It isn't about "truly understanding God's foreknowledge" as if we could read God's mind or know more than is our place to know. It's about whether we are willing to accept contradictions as truth, which is the same as whether we are able to tell the difference between truth and falsehood. The simple plain fact of the matter is that exhaustive divine foreknowledge and free will are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be true.

All we need to know that we have free will is two things....

1. That God is just.
2. That God will hold us accountable for our actions, rewarding the good and punishing the evil.

The book of Revelation is all about the later. If you then accept the former, then your cited book argues in favor of free will rather than exhaustive divine foreknowledge.

In short, it isn't necessary for God to have an exhaustive knowledge of the future for the things in Revelation to come to pass. Neither is it necessary to believe that all of the things in Revelation will come to pass. They almost certainly will but God has changed His mind before and He Himself states explicitly that...

"The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it." (Jeremiah 18:7-10)​

​

No such statement could ever be made by God if He either predestined everything or had perfect foreknowledge. There's no way for that statement to make any sense in either case, which goes a long way toward explaining why most Christians don't even know that passage exists.

Clete

 

[Bradley D]

It's about whether we are willing to accept contradictions as truth....

I do not accept contradictions to the Word. I believe in Revelation. What Jesus said has would come upon us has.

"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places" (Mt. 24:7).

"and there will be massive earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrible sights and great signs from heaven" (Luke 21:11).

 

[JudgeRightly]

I do not accept contradictions to the Word. I believe in Revelation. What Jesus said has would come upon us has.

"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places" (Mt. 24:7).

"and there will be massive earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrible sights and great signs from heaven" (Luke 21:11).

And yet, Christ has still not returned.

 

[Bradley D]

And yet, Christ has still not returned.

"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 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" (2 Peter 3:8-9)

 

[JudgeRightly]

"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 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" (2 Peter 3:8-9)

Which has literally nothing to do with His return.

Stop ripping verses out of context.

 

[Bradley D]

Which has literally nothing to do with His return.

Stop ripping verses out of context.

Of course it does. People were wondering about Jesus' return back then also.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Of course it does. People were wondering about Jesus' return back then also.

Try reading the context of that verse. Does it say anything about Christ's return? Or is it simply describing how patient and longsuffering God is?

 

[Bradley D]

Try reading the context of that verse. Does it say anything about Christ's return? Or is it simply describing how patient and longsuffering God is?

"But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and its works will be laid bare" (2 Peter 3:10).

 

[JudgeRightly]

"But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and its works will be laid bare" (2 Peter 3:10).

Very next word: "will."

WILL COME

WILL DISAPPEAR

WILL BE DESTROYED

WILL BE LAID BARE

Last I checked, those things haven't happened yet.

 

[Bradley D]

Very next word: "will."

WILL COME

WILL DISAPPEAR

WILL BE DESTROYED

WILL BE LAID BARE

Last I checked, those things haven't happened yet.

I believe they will.

 

[beloved57]

Mal 1:1-4

The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

2 I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob,

3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.

There is a people against whom the Lord hath indignation, and that for ever: that the Lord never loved them, never intended to save them, and has made no provision for them; they are appointed not unto salvation, but unto condemnation.

These people whom God hates and appoints to wrath, He created them vessels of wrath and fits them for His just everlasting indignation !

 

[JudgeRightly]

There is a people against whom the Lord hath indignation, and that for ever: that the Lord never loved them, never intended to save them, and has made no provision for them; they are appointed not unto salvation, but unto condemnation.

These people whom God hates and appoints to wrath, He created them vessels of wrath and fits them for His just everlasting indignation !

False.

1) "Love and hate" is a hebrew idiom that means to love more and to love. It means that the one you love more, you love them so much it's as if you hate the other person!

Jesus Himself uses this idiom, where He said "love your neighbor as yourself" in the Old Testament, but says "love me and hate your parents . . . even yourself." Jesus wasn't contradicting the law He gave Moses, He was saying you cannot be His disciple unless you love Jesus more than them, to the point where it's as if you hate them, even though you love them.

2) "Jacob" and "Esau" here is NOT referring to the individuals named Jacob and Esau, but to the nations, Israel and Edom, as a synecdoche, which is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa.

This is supported by the fact that, if you look at the those verses, you'll notice that it uses terms like "we" and "us", and the Hebrew word we translate as "you" in verse 2 is PLURAL, NOT SINGULAR. Meaning that it is addressing a group of people, named Esau (AKA Edomites), and not the individual named "Esau," and referring to a group of people, named Jacob (AKA Israel), and not the individual named Jacob.

3) Therefore, asserting that "There is a people against whom the Lord hath indignation, and that for ever: that the Lord never loved them, never intended to save them, and has made no provision for them; they are appointed not unto salvation, but unto condemnation" is not only false, but a gross non-sequitur and a complete misunderstanding of the text, as it's referring to God building up Israel over Edom.

 

[marke]

Infallible foreknowledge and free will are contradictory concepts.

Exhaustive divine foreknowledge is little more than a philosophical trick that lets people feel like they can keep most of the Greek ideas about God intact while still believing that we choose our actions but it doesn't work when you look at it closely.

T = You answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am

​

1. Yesterday God infallibly believed T. [Supposition of infallible foreknowledge]
2. If E occurred in the past, it is now-necessary that E occurred then. [Principle of the Necessity of the Past]
3. It is now-necessary that yesterday God believed T. [1, 2]
4. Necessarily, if yesterday God believed T, then T. [Definition of “infallibility”]
5. If p is now-necessary, and necessarily (p → q), then q is now-necessary. [Transfer of Necessity Principle]
6. So it is now-necessary that T. [3,4,5]
7. If it is now-necessary that T, then you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [Definition of “necessary”]
8. Therefore, you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [6, 7]
9. If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not act freely. [Principle of Alternate Possibilities]
10. Therefore, when you answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am, you will not do it freely. [8, 9]

Source​

Besides, the bible doesn't teach that God exhaustively knows the future any more than it teaches that He predestined it all.
We are predestined IN CHRIST. It is Christ that is predestined. His destiny simpy becomes ours when we become His. It's not about God peaking into the future but about God predestined what Christ (i.e. Himself) would accomplish and set it in place, in advance. (i.e that all those who are found in Him will be saved.)
The best analogy I've heard likens it to an airplane that has been scheduled by those who own the plane to fly from Houston to Tulsa. Those in Houston who get on board are destined for Tulsa and since the destination was set in advance, you could say they were "predestined" to arrive in Tulsa with that plane. But it is the plane that it predestined, not the list of people who are going to buy a ticket. Its just that if you buy the ticket then the plane's destiny becomes your own.

Clete

Because God exists in eternity not bound by time, He knows the end from the beginning. That can be crudely compared to humans watching a movie for the first time that God has already seen. in its entirety from the beginning.

1. 
   Psalm 90:9
   For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

 

[Clete]

I do not accept contradictions to the Word.

Saying it doesn't make it so, Bradley. Please don't waste my time with this sort of thing. You don't have to agree but can you please at least try to make an actual argument?

In short, if you believe that God somehow knows every detail of the future and that you have free will than you do accept contradiction in your doctrine.

Incidentally, "the Word" is used in John chapter 1 in reference to Jesus. It is a terrible English translation of the Greek word "Logos". It is the Greek word from which we get the suffix "ology" as in "biology" or "theology" and is much more related to the English word "logic" than it is "word". The best single English translation would be the word "Reason" but "Logic" works because in English the two words are basically interchangeable, depending on the context.

I believe in Revelation.

Yeah, you said this already and I responded to it already. I believe in Revelation too. I just don't accept it as prewritten history because, as I've already said, God said that it isn't (Jer. 18).

What Jesus said has would come upon us has.

I'm not certain I understand that sentence but if this was meant to imply that Revelation, Matthew 24:7 or Luke 21:11 has or is coming to pass today then I'm just going to ignore it and pretend that you didn't say it. Please just respond to where the conversation has already lead. The details of your doctrine are irrelevant if you can't think clearly enough to reject the contradictory as false.

Clete

 

[marke]

Saying it doesn't make it so, Bradley. Please don't waste my time with this sort of thing. You don't have to agree but can you please at least try to make an actual argument?

In short, if you believe that God somehow knows every detail of the future and that you have free will than you do accept contradiction in your doctrine.

Incidentally, "the Word" is used in John chapter 1 in reference to Jesus. It is a terrible English translation of the Greek word "Logos". It is the Greek word from which we get the suffix "ology" as in "biology" or "theology" and is much more related to the English word "logic" than it is "word". The best single English translation would be the word "Reason" but "Logic" works because in English the two words are basically interchangeable, depending on the context.


Yeah, you said this already and I responded to it already. I believe in Revelation too. I just don't accept it as prewritten history because, as I've already said, God said that it isn't (Jer. 18).


I'm not certain I understand that sentence but if this was meant to imply that Revelation, Matthew 24:7 or Luke 21:11 has or is coming to pass today then I'm just going to ignore it and pretend that you didn't say it. Please just respond to where the conversation has already lead. The details of your doctrine are irrelevant if you can't think clearly enough to reject the contradictory as false.

Clete

Humans have extreme difficulty understanding eternity. Time is not the same with spirits in eternity as it is with humans on earth. God is simultaneously in existence at the end of time as well as at the beginning of time. God sees the choices men make as they make them and He can tell from the beginning what those choices will be even though He does not make them do and think what they do and think.

 

[beloved57]

False.

1) "Love and hate" is a hebrew idiom that means to love more and to love. It means that the one you love more, you love them so much it's as if you hate the other person!

Jesus Himself uses this idiom, where He said "love your neighbor as yourself" in the Old Testament, but says "love me and hate your parents . . . even yourself." Jesus wasn't contradicting the law He gave Moses, He was saying you cannot be His disciple unless you love Jesus more than them, to the point where it's as if you hate them, even though you love them.

2) "Jacob" and "Esau" here is NOT referring to the individuals named Jacob and Esau, but to the nations, Israel and Edom, as a synecdoche, which is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa.

This is supported by the fact that, if you look at the those verses, you'll notice that it uses terms like "we" and "us", and the Hebrew word we translate as "you" in verse 2 is PLURAL, NOT SINGULAR. Meaning that it is addressing a group of people, named Esau (AKA Edomites), and not the individual named "Esau," and referring to a group of people, named Jacob (AKA Israel), and not the individual named Jacob.

3) Therefore, asserting that "There is a people against whom the Lord hath indignation, and that for ever: that the Lord never loved them, never intended to save them, and has made no provision for them; they are appointed not unto salvation, but unto condemnation" is not only false, but a gross non-sequitur and a complete misunderstanding of the text, as it's referring to God building up Israel over Edom.

The vessels of wrath are fitted and created for destruction.

 

[Idolater]

Because God exists in eternity not bound by time, He knows the end from the beginning. That can be crudely compared to humans watching a movie for the first time that God has already seen. in its entirety from the beginning.

1. 
   Psalm 90:9
   For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

Humans have extreme difficulty understanding eternity. Time is not the same with spirits in eternity as it is with humans on earth. God is simultaneously in existence at the end of time as well as at the beginning of time. God sees the choices men make as they make them and He can tell from the beginning what those choices will be even though He does not make them do and think what they do and think.

We shouldn't even seriously try to conceive of eternity, just because it's a waste of time. God is not subject to time, that's what His eternality means. And that God is not subject to time, is mere grammar, since God, the noun, cannot be, semantically, subject to any other noun. He may be equal to other nouns, this is scriptural, viz. e.g., 'God is love', but 'God' the noun cannot be subject to any other noun---because otherwise grammatically, that other noun would be God.

 

[JudgeRightly]

The vessels of wrath are fitted and created for destruction.

Not what the verse says.

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, - Romans 9:22 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans9:22&version=NKJV