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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | What does Bible teach on election? | Bible general Archive 1 | kalos | 767 | ||
First, thanks for the excellent idea of setting up a temporary hotmail email account to communicate with other members of this website. Good work! . . . Second, please note: what people usually call predestination is actually the doctrine of election. The two terms are not synonymous. "Divine predestination means that God has a purpose that is determined long before it is brought to pass. It implies that God is infinitely capable of planning and then bringing about what he has planned, and Scripture speaks of him as doing this" (p. 628, Baker's Theological Dictionary of the Bible, Edited by Walter A. Elwell, Baker Books). For example, Rom 8:29 (NASB) "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;" . . . On the other hand, "Election is the act of God whereby in eternity past He chose those who will be saved. Election is unconditional, because it does not depend on anything outside of God, such as good works or foreseen faith (Romans 9:16). This doctrine is repeatedly taught in the Bible, and is also demanded by our knowledge of God. . . . . . . "In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, the apostle Paul tells his readers, "God has chosen (elected) you from the beginning for salvation." . . . "In summary, we can say that God has had a special love relationship with the elect from all eternity, and on the basis of that love relationship chosen them for salvation. The ultimate question of why God chose some for salvation and left others in their sinful state is one that we, with our finite knowledge, cannot answer. We do know that God's attributes always are in perfect harmony with each other, so that God's sovereignty will always operate in perfect harmony with His goodness, love, wisdom, and justice." (John MacArthur at www.gty.org, under Issues and Answers, "What Does the Bible Teach About Election?") (. . . For further study: John MacArthur, The Love of God (Dallas: Word, 1996); J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1961). © 2000 Grace to You) . . . Third, while all Christians do believe in election, not all Christians define election in the same way. |
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2 | What does Bible teach on election? | Bible general Archive 1 | jg8ball | 777 | ||
I do believe your interpretation of Divine Predestination. I guess where I disagree is interpretation of Election. In the verse you listed (2 Thes 2:13), I interpret this as follows: Paul is writing to a group of believers and when he refers to "God has chosen (elected) you from the beginning for salvation", he's not telling them that they are special because God had pre-chosen them individually, but God had made a provision for them to be saved and they are special (the "Elect" or in today's terms "the born-again" or "believers") because they accepted God's gift and chose to follow Christ. There are many verses in the Bible that talk about God wanting all to be saved and for us to choose to believe. When you look at the verses that talk about the elect and apply the interpretation that the elect are another way of saying believers and that predestination is refering to God's over-all plan rather than individually, then the whole bible falls together. I haven't seen any "Election" verses that can't interpreted this way. I have seen many verses and stories in the Bible that the "Election theory" doesn't hold up. I will be spending some time exploring the "Election" interpretation in greater detail and hope you will also spend some time exploring the "Free Will" interpretation in an unbiased study. |
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3 | What does Bible teach on election? | Bible general Archive 1 | Michael T. | 197096 | ||
Hi, You said: “I do believe your interpretation of Divine Predestination. I guess where I disagree is interpretation of Election. In the verse you listed (2 Thessalonians 2:13), I interpret this as follows: Paul is writing to a group of believers and when he refers to "God has chosen (elected) you from the beginning for salvation", he's not telling them that they are special because God had pre-chosen them individually, but God had made a provision for them to be saved and they are special (the "Elect" or in today's terms "the born-again" or "believers") because they accepted God's gift and chose to follow Christ.” My comments: You may wish to consider Acts 13:48 which “puts the horse before the cart and in doing so, totally reverses your idea that Election is the * result * or the effect of faith. Acts 13:48 - “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Note the order in Acts 13:48n. It does NOT say “ . . . as many as believed were ordained to eternal life.” Instead, what Acts 13:48b DOES say is: “ . . . as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Thus believing on Christ unto salvation is the Effect – not the Cause – of God’s Election and Pre-destination. Christ’s statement in Gospel of John 10:26 is also very relevant to this issue because Christ Himself in His full Divine authority, makes it very clear that Faith and thus salvation is the effect of God’s Election, not the cause, as you’ve incorrectly assumed. Gospel of John 10:26 - “But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you.” The Bible teaches that the good news that Salvation in all of its aspects, is always entirely by God’s grace. To put it another way, whether we know it or not and whether we accept it or not, we are always dependent upon God at every step. Personally, I wouldn’t want it any other way because although I know that GOD is always infinitely worthy of trust and altogether reliable in every way, I myself am not. So I'm most grateful that my salvation always depends, not on me, but only on Him; i.e. on GOD through Jesus Christ. The bad news is that if our salvation depended on us, then we’d all end up in Hell. Even though we may disagree, I'm willing to talk this topic through with you on a friendly basis if you wish. Michael |
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4 | What does Bible teach on election? | Bible general Archive 1 | azurelaw | 197098 | ||
Dear Michael, Welcome to the forum. Very well stated. Thank you for the sharing. Since you are new to the forum, let me try to navigate you to the functions of it if you don't mind. Click on the title line and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will find past posts from various users attached to the thread. On the right hand side, you will see date of the posts and name of the posters. So, in this case you are responding to a post date back to 2001 and the poster is no longer active since 2003. How do you get to know if the poster active or not? Just click on the name then a box shows the registration date and the date of the last post the user made. Therefore in your case, I doubt you would get a reply from the user. I look forward to seeing more of your sharing on the forum. Shalom Azure |
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5 | What does Bible teach on election? | Bible general Archive 1 | Michael T. | 197112 | ||
Greetings Azure, Thanks for helping me in my navigation of the Forum. It's much appreciated. Michael |
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