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Bible Questions and Spiritual Discussion
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PREDESTINED TO BE SAVED OR DOOMED? ROMANS (9:1-24 JUL 25 DAB READING)
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I just posted this on DAB FB so Im just going to copy and paste. I might add to it as well.....Someone help me understand this. Todays reading (July 25) in Romans has made me nervous and upset me. So God has predestined us to either be loved or hated, blessed or cursed, saved or doomed by Him? So then I might could say, we are predestined to go to Heaven and some to Hell? I thought God gave us choice? I thought He offered salvation to every one? I thought He loves everybody?
To add, this thought isnt what I was taught. To think God creates people to show His wrath and others to show His mercy really upsets me and rocks my spiritual world! Why would God create someone to hate? Why would He create someone to prove how powerful His wrath is? What happen to John 3:16? To me, the way Im thinking now, For God so loved some of the world that He gave His only Son that who is chosen to believe in Him will not parish but have everlasting life. For God so hated some of the world that He created you to punish you, and condemn you. Is this true?
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 SCOTT CARPENTER 07/25/2012 20:58 |
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Craig from Illinois
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07/25/2012 21:27 |
Hard questions that have been the source of church splits throughout history. You're going to find scripture that will support both sides of the Sovereignty of God vs. Free Will of Man continuum.
A good place to start before making any conclusions about God would be to read the ancient book of Job. Then read the Psalms, especially the texts and songs that David wrote. There is a contrast and a similarity in their experiences with God and His sovereignty. Even before Christ made his presence known to man, these struggles of faith existed.
Where ever this leads, I just hope the 5pt Calvinists and the Armenians are gentle with you through your search for reconciliation of this conundrum. Perhaps the teachings of a non-reformed or (even better) a non-protestant will help point you to truth.
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Bibleman
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07/26/2012 07:25 |
now, I don't mean this verse in criticism, but it is a verse to wrap your mind around. It is a question we have all grappled with as believers. "Who are you, a mere human being, to argue wtih God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, 'why have you made me like this?'"(Romans 9:20).
as for me, I have thought about it like this for some time - in hindsight, we were predestined to receive our faith and grace. I believe in fate, but I believe in it in the sense that we can see what was fated to happen in the past.
I also believe that our happiness in this life comes when we are compelled to act out the role God has given us to play on the stage of life. I just hope my life is not destined to be the role of an 'extra'!
So then, I would say that in hindsight God has predestined some to live and some to be destroyed.
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Catholica
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07/26/2012 13:30 |
To correctly understand Romans 9 one has to take into account the whole of scripture. Only then can one properly understand it. After all, the Bible says that Paul is hard to understand.
I think that one reason you might be having a hard time with this passage, Scott, is that you sense in your nature that you do have free will. You choose whether to get up in the morning, you decide what to eat. You also choose whether to sin or not to sin. Now God does give you his grace so that you are ABLE to choose not to sin, but you don't have to comply.
I can provide a more Biblical argument, but take heart; Though God predestines some to heaven, he wills that ALL would be saved, and so he offers everyone his grace. God predestines no one to hell. The idea that he does is a great heresy.
For example, take the woman caught in adultery. Jesus tells her to "go and sin no more". What does that statement imply? That the woman has the ability to sin OR not sin. That is free will. There are many more examples in scripture that we can go into. But the God who is love doesn't create anyone to predestine them to damnation.
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TRWord
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08/05/2012 06:32 |
SCOTT
Though the Bible is written entirely in our earthly language we must realize it’s also about spiritual things which are not earthly. Therefore we can never read the Bible the same way we read the newspaper.
You have no idea how much trouble I have gotten into trying to tell fellow Christians that we are not suppose to interpret the scriptures literally. At first I didn’t understand why they got so upset, but I have come to realize that this means to many that I’m saying that the Bible is not real.
I grew up in the Caribbean. Our parents and grandparents spoke to us many times in parables. We assumed that they were saying something important that we were yet to understand and we expected to grow into understanding what they had said.
Many years later when I tried to speak to my American born children in parables they protested. They assumed that they can understand everything I had to say it’s just that I chose to speak in riddles as they called it.
This is what happens when we interpret the scripture literally. By assuming that we can understand everything that’s written we debase the scriptures to our human understanding.
We have to approach the scripture in the frame of mind that we do not yet understand. This gives the spirit the opportunity to reveal the understanding to us.
This is what Christianity is all about “SPIRIT.” This is the teaching of Jesus Christ; the journey from human understanding to spiritual understanding. Without the spirit we’ll always be perplexed and confused, bouncing back and forth from a God of love and forgiveness to a God of wrath and vengeance.
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Ted C
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08/06/2012 01:07 |
Recently a friend on Facebook wrote about Jesus mentioning hell, and here is a part of my response to her: "....Some people go so far these days as to teach against substitutionary atonement. This school of thought has been in the seminaries for over one-hundred years and in some denominations has finally become so pronounced that they are being torn in two between those who accept the Bible as the authoritative Word of God and those who see it only as a series of allegories ultimately pointing towards man's responsibility to improve himself. I believe the Bible is entirely authoritative, and while I don't understand how God does it I believe both that the Son only sovereignly shows Himself to those He chooses to reveal Himself to -and- that each of us has, will or would have been given a chance to accept or reject relationship with God and God honors what He knows our choice is or would have been. I believe that if we choose separation from God - separation from the One who is Life, Love, Peace, Joy, Comfort, etc. - that God honors this choice and lets us ultimately exist in a state we have chosen, completely cut off from Him. I believe Scripture teaches that somehow both of these thoughts are absolutely true, and that God has worked it out this way to His glory. Furthermore, I believe the Gospel, that God so loved the world He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, who was both 100% man and 100% God concurrently, to die on the cross in our place for our sins, for the things we have done or will do that are contrary to God's nature - and that He rose again conquering death and making the Way for us to have relationship with Him."
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TRWord
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08/07/2012 06:22 |
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1:29KJV)
The doctrine of substitutionary atonement takes the position that Jesus Christ took our place. It’s the belief that God needed a payment for breaking His law. The death of Jesus Christ is seen as that payment, and an example of how much God loves us. It’s also the belief that the sacrifice was made to God.
But John the Baptiste totally refuted this belief by describing Jesus as “the Lamb of God.”
The Lamb is the sacrifice and John is saying here that Jesus Christ is God’s Lamb. In other words it’s God that’s offering the sacrifice. God is sacrificing His Son as “the way” to nullify the cause of sin and to reconcile us unto Himself. (SEE 2 Corinthians 5:18)
Jesus confirm this by making a clear distinction between “His blood” and the blood of the old testament:
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:28KJV)
Because we don’t understand how “the knowledge of good and evil,” could be the cause of our downfall. We believe that God forbade Adam from partaking of it, but God warned Adam against it for this very reason.
This has left us with a forbidden fruit, and the idea that God was just testing Adam’s obedience. Our failure to accept “the knowledge of good and evil,” as the cause of our problems, is also responsible for us misinterpreting the consequences it brings, as punishment from God, hence the belief in “disobedience and punishment.”
It’s written: Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. (Exodus 20:7KJV)
This does not mean, don’t say “Oh God” as many believe.
The scripture is saying here, the name or “image” that we assign to God, is not done in vain. In other words a false image of God is not without consequence. When we harbor a false image of God, we become unrighteous, or we are not right with God.
This is the cause of sin, and what Jesus called blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
Jesus came to undo what Adam did, so we must understand what Adam did, if we are to understand what Jesus came to undo.
Jesus mission was to free us from “the belief in good and evil” and to demonstrate the supremacy of spirit over “the things of the flesh.”
So He taught us not to resist evil. (SEE Matthew 5:38-40) If we resist not evil, resolute in the belief that it has no power over us, then we affirm that God is the only power; The Almighty. The scripture says, then heaven rejoices; “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth:” (SEE Revelation 19:6)
Heaven rejoices because we are finally free of “the belief in good and evil.”
It’s important to note that Jesus did not teach us only through His words, He also demonstrated His teaching through His works and actions. Example: He taught us not to resist evil and He then demonstrated it on the way to the cross.
For many who believe in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the question is; Then why Jesus had to die?
As much as Jesus taught and demonstrated during His life, there were still those things that He could only demonstrate through His death and resurrection.
Through His death and resurrection He demonstrated His power over death, “the proof of the supremacy of spirit over the flesh,” (SEE John 10:17-18 & Romans 8:11) and He also supplied “the proof that He was, whom He said He was.” (SEE Matthew 12:39-40)
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Ted C
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08/08/2012 12:00 |
If sin is believing in good and evil, why did Jesus have so much to say about good and evil? Luke 6:45, "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart." If what you are teaching is true then Jesus would have simply said, as you are saying, "You're all good and you don't know it. Evil doesn't really exist." If evil didn't exist, believing in evil wouldn't be evil, would it?
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Kelley
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08/08/2012 18:10 |
Scott, I would urge you to simply spend all the time you possibly can getting to know God and walking out an apprentiship relationship with Jesus Christ. There is no short cut to understanding the mysteries of God, they are not known but lived. You will hear many arguments, and people who DO know Him can try to explain to you from their varied perspectives, but nothing will make sense short of knowing Him, intimately, increasingly, up and down, trial and glory, fullness and emptiness, a life enmeshed in His no matter what. Your heart has to know Him first before your mind can trust Him beyond your present understanding. Jesus, draw Scott close. Whisper Yourself to him, open his eyes to the wonder of mystery. Amen.
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