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NASB | Romans 1:18 ¶ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Romans 1:18 ¶ For [God does not overlook sin and] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness suppress and stifle the truth, |
Subject: response |
Bible Note: You wrote: "You throw out passages many of which are taken out of context which means they are a proof text for you belief." As far as Romans 8:28 goes, then am I to understand that you are saying that God does not include the sinful acts of human beings into the "all things" which work together for good? And let's look at the following verses: those God FOREKNEW...who are these people (and they are people, not events)? He predestined people, not "pre-determined something" as you say. Go back and read the verse again. He also CALLED these same people, JUSTIFIED and GLORIFIED. Romans 8:29 talks about God's action toward a specific group of individuals. Foreknowing, calling, justifying, and glorifying are acts of God toward a specific group of individuals (unless you think that all will be glorified), not in regard to a specific set of actions. I took nothing out of context. Isaiah 55 has nothing to do with Israel's impending judgment. Go back and read it again. A lot of the verses in the chapter are some of the most quoted in Christianity. Are you to say that everyone who has said to a group of listeners, "Seek the Lord while He may be found" has been a false teacher, because God was only talking to Israel specifically and didn't mean that to apply to anyone or anything else? Isaiah 55:11 is a statement of how God operates in a universal way, not how He will act in this one itty-bitty situation. How did I take Proverbs 16:9 and 19:21 out of context? What about Ephesians 2:10? You zoomed in on two of the passages and yourself provided faulty exegesis of them. One last thing: you seem to be under the common misunderstanding that Calvinists believe that the sovereignty of God means that man does not make his own decisions. That cannot be farther from the truth. Man will make his own decisions, based on his own nature (which is why an unregenerate human being will never please God -- Romans 8:7-9). He also is limited in his capacity to carry out his decisions by the life-situation in which God has placed him. In other words, we are all constrained in our free will (whether it is based on our desire to sin or to honor God) by power, ability, and opportunity. In addition, there are aspects of our personality which are formed by our immediate surroundings. Therefore, a sinner can be greedy or a homosexual or a murderer or a liar or a gossip, all while they condemn those whose sinfulness expresses itself in another of these ways. Our upbringing does not make us sinners, but it certainly can be influential in determining how our sinfulness manifests itself. And who decrees that we will be born in our specific environments? You wrote: "I believe he moved on pharohs heart enough to fulfill his purposes and that is all." Two questions: 1. What is the Biblical basis for your belief here? 2. If he moves just enough to fulfill His purposes, what ISN'T part of His purposes? God does orchestrate all of his creation. Those who are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3) will use their free-but-constrained will to displease God, and God will use those actions to glorify Himself. Those whom God has regenerated are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6), so their wills are no longer constrained by their innate sinfulness. Therefore, some acts of the believer. will please God, and others won't. Both will be used to God's glory. God lets everything fall into place so that two terrorists manage take 6500 lives, for His purposes; he keeps another from fulfilling his mission, crashing in PA, also for His purposes. Either God is sovereign or He isn't. To say that He is sovereign but just takes a back seat to the affairs of men in any way is leaning toward partial Deism and makes God just someone who reacts to us rather than acts upon us. --Joe! |