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NASB | Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, |
Subject: Why won't Calvinists answer directly??? |
Bible Note: You're right, God elects all who believe. This is not conditioned on anything in us, it is only by grace. He is no respector of persons -- is a typical way of expressing this in the modern idioms. All the Elect are saved, none are lost. How can you read about the people in Noah’s day and Pharoah and the Philistines and Syria and on and on and not believe that God chooses some for salvation and not others? The Bible is a problematic book if not seen as God ruling in all of the world and the entire universe. What possible sense can be made of "hardening Pharoahs heart"? Is God just a meanie there in the Old Testament? Did He change later on? If a person is tempted to answer yest to both of these questions then that is the largest problem a person can have this side of judgement!!!!! The best analogy I can give you is that it might be best looked at like an author of a novel. Who made up the characters? Are they real in the book? Are they free to act in ways the author doesn't want? But they are not doing only what the author wants -- since they have consisitant personalities and they do only (their thing) what they want to do. Sure, the author uses them to tell a story and it can be about them but I would rather focus on the types of stories that are written for the purpose of the author other than to tell about a character. Many authors write for the purpose of articulating right from wrong (Dosteovsky comes to mind) rather than to merely take a slice out of time for the reader’s benefit. This is a little like the Bible’s focus from the beginning to the end. God has his own purposes. He is the main purpose of it all, not ourselves. His electing us does not make us puppets (in the negative sense--keep in mind there is a positive sense of this as well) any more than than the author’s characters are puppets. Only in poorly written works will this fail, when a story depicts someone acting out of character we resist and loose interest in the shoddy work, because the writer has “puppeted” his characters rather than keep in “character”. We are God’s creatures He is the only one who may decide what to do with us, and not the other way around. I would like to be (a puppet) upheld by his cables on my wrists and elbows and waist and knees and ankles, oh that I could stay there always in His freedom, never to to be dropped and only to know of His omnipotence! To never again worry about needing a lifeline to God! Wouldn’t you want to be a PUPPET also? All who are truly saved are there what else can be meant by Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus who has blessed us with all blessings in heavenly places in Him, Holy and blameless before Him in love... |