DID YOU CHOOSE GOD ! ,OR DID HE ALREADY CHOOSED YOU ?

[ghtan]

2 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

Jesus gave up, for the duration of his earthly ministry, the independent use of his attributes/authority.  

Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. (Joh 5:19-20)

Jesus was fully human, fully God and fully submitted to the Father.   He did and said that the Father told him to do and say.  Jesus was fully God, but in many places we see Jesus operating in His humanity so that He could serve as a righteous model that we can emulate.   If Jesus did everything in His deity, we could not emulate Him.

It is strange that you should quote John 5:19-20, because I think it actually works against your position. The passage says "the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him ALL THINGS (emphasis mine) that himself doeth." So why did he not show Jesus the timing of his return if it had already been fixed?

By the way, if the date had been fixed, it was fixed in the PAST. By admitting that he did not know the date, Jesus was thereby admitting that he did not know a PAST event. How does an omniscient God not know a past event?

[OakWood]

6 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

Again, how can an all-knowing God who is not capable of error say, "Oops, that doesn't work, I will have to try something else?"  The only reason God would have to change his mind is if he made a bad or erroneous decision.    If you know everything, and are incapable of error, then you don't do things you have change your mind about later.

It says that God was sorry He made man in Gen. 6:6, but that doesn't mean that God changed his mind.   Man's sin didn't take God by surprise and he already had a plan in place to deal with it.   He wasn't up there in heaven saying, "Why did I make man?  What was I thinking?"  God would have to break his promises in order to change his mind.   That is exactly what would have happened if God had destroyed Israel in the wilderness and started over with Moses.   He would have violated his promises.

God doesn't have to be "flexible" when making decisions and if he flexible about that, it is not a good thing for us.   We don't want God second guessing his decisions about our eternal future.   We don't want any flexibility in that at all.    And that doesn't make Him a robot.   It makes him faithful; it makes him trustworthy and it means that we anchor our lives to His word.  

I am not putting limitations God.    I have already proven that there are limitations on God and there are things He cannot do.   The limitations are there and it wasn't me to put them there.   The idea that God can change his mind is based on a human view that can't conceive of God being able to operate outside of the limitations of human understanding of who he is and how he operates.    It is a failure to hermeneutically understand when an anthropomorphism is in play when it says that God "changed his mind."

Now you're clutching at straws. God regretted making a decision which destroys your argument immediately, but now you're saying that it doesn't mean to say that he changed his mind. Well no, it doesn't, you're right but the very premise for him being unable to change his mind according to you is that all his decisions are perfect..... but if they're perfect then why regret one of them?

You're still going on about the promises thing. A promise is only a promise if you tell somebody. God has probably got lots of plans that he hasn't told us about. He's free to change his mind about those things without breaking any agreements.

I'm sorry but even a dog or cat is intelligent enough to be able to change its mind over certain things but according to you, God can't. You accuse me of shallow thinking yet if you only thought about it logically and step-by-step you will see that your understanding of God excludes free will.

[FresnoJoe]

On ‎11‎/‎25‎/‎2015‎ ‎11‎:‎31‎:‎41‎, SINNERSAVED said:

IS IT FAIR TO SAY THAT GOD ALREADY KNEW WHO WAS TO FOLLOW HIM AND WE JUST HAPPEN TO GET THERE?

 

sorry about the caps, I am not yelling I just love caps, its a habit I am working on.

~

God Says

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Whosoever Will

I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Revelation 22:16-17

~

And All Dinosaurs Who Used To Hand Labor Over Inked Engineering Drawings
Know All Caps Are A-OK

And Most All Young Whippersnappers
Know No Caps Are a-ok

Yet Some Remain Offended???

Love, Your Brother Joe

[OakWood]

51 minutes ago, simplejeff said:

"If we choose God then how does being called by God work? "

"Many  are called,  few are chosen. "

The few give up their lives completely willingly and JOYOUSLY .  The many don't.

Many are called. Few are chosen because they refuse to accept God......  not because it is pre-ordained.

[FresnoJoe]

1 hour ago, Cletus said:

If we choose God then how does being called by God work? 

Follow me.... Now where have I read that one before? 

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
 

All we do is choose to follow and obey.  Its the Holy Spirit working in our hearts that draw us to Him and the bible says so.

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

James 1:18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

 

Indeed Beloved, Indeed

"Suppose someone has a servant who is plowing fields or watching sheep. Does he tell his servant when he comes from the field, 'Have something to eat'? No. Instead, he tells his servant, 'Get dinner ready for me! After you serve me my dinner, you can eat yours.' He doesn't thank the servant for following orders. That's the way it is with you. When you've done everything you're ordered to do, say, 'We're worthless servants. We've only done our duty.'" Luke 17:7-10 (GOD'S WORD® Translation)

~

God Calls All Men

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Mark 16:15 (English Standard Version)

Yet Most Still Choose To Walk Away

Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, Proverbs 1:24-26 (English Standard Version)

Yet, The End Can Be

If I say, "I won't mention Him or speak any longer in His name," His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones. I become tired of holding it in, and I cannot prevail. Jeremiah 20:9 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Striking

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11 (King James Version)

[Guest shiloh357]

5 hours ago, ghtan said:

Any translation? NKJV: "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority." This is one of the most literal translations. The greek word is tithemi, which Strong's says generally means "to place." Check it out for yourself. 

Yes and the ESV from which I quoted, which is a formal translation uses the word "fixed."   The same Greek is synonymous with establish, set, etc.   Fixed is as good as any other word  and it fits the context just as much as "placed."    The point here in this passage is not that the future isn't fixed or established.   The point is that God has the prerogative not to reveal that date to us.   God has revealed as much as we need to know.   The context clearly agrees with the use of the word "fixed."

[Guest shiloh357]

5 hours ago, OakWood said:

Now you're clutching at straws. God regretted making a decision which destroys your argument immediately, but now you're saying that it doesn't mean to say that he changed his mind. Well no, it doesn't, you're right but the very premise for him being unable to change his mind according to you is that all his decisions are perfect..... but if they're perfect then why regret one of them?

You're still going on about the promises thing. A promise is only a promise if you tell somebody. God has probably got lots of plans that he hasn't told us about. He's free to change his mind about those things without breaking any agreements.

I'm sorry but even a dog or cat is intelligent enough to be able to change its mind over certain things but according to you, God can't. You accuse me of shallow thinking yet if you only thought about it logically and step-by-step you will see that your understanding of God excludes free will.

God didn't regret the decision to make man the same way you and I regret a mistake.   God's regret wasn't, "I made a mistake in creating man."   This is again, an anthropomorphism expressing grief over man, but not an admittance by God that making man was a regrettable mistake.

God's decision to make man was not an imperfect decision.   What you're doing is you projecting our carnal expression of certain emotions on to God.  If we regret a mistake, apparently it follows in your way of thinking that God regretting something means that he is capable of error and did in fact make an erroneous decision in creating man.  That opens up a whole Pandora's box of bad theology if we were to go down that road.

Yes, but the problem is that for God to change His mind as in the case of Moses, God would have to violate promises in order to start over with Moses because Messianic promises/prophecies about the Messiah coming through Judah already existed.     I am not speculating on what God has not told us.

You have not explained how an all-knowing God would even need to, or be able to change his mind, given that he already knows every possible outcome of every possible decision.  That precludes a change of mind.    He already knows the perfect way to handle everything and thus no need to change his mind.    God doesn't change his mind at all and there is example of a genuine change of God's mind in the Bible.  

Nothing I have said excludes free will at all, because it is pretty easy to understand the difference between knowing the future and predetermining the future.  The difference between those two concepts is fairly elementary.

[Your closest friendnt]

1 hour ago, Cletus said:

If we choose God then how does being called by God work? 

Follow me.... Now where have I read that one before? 

Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
 

All we do is choose to follow and obey.  Its the Holy Spirit working in our hearts that draw us to Him and the bible says so.

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

James 1:18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

 

From the beginning God new that he will have children and those children will be with him in the heavens, for his children to be with him in the heavens they must have a heavenly inheritance.

That could not be Adam the earthly one, or his offspring, because as Adam was so they were. Adam was created on the earth and became separated from God, he is not one with God. At the beginning  he was one with God but latter he became one with the one who took him from God or the one he choose to follow. Or if you want to be politically correct, Adam follow Eve when Eve found herself with the desire to have the knowledge of Good a evil. 

That moment it was determine the inheritance of mankind and that's not a heavenly one and not an earthly one, but they receive the inheritance of the one they follow the one bellow not above but bellow the earth. They belong to Hades. When the died, they are harvest and taken to the storehouse of hades. 

Then we have Noah, God said no to him. Then God chose Abraham to have children. The children of God with righteousness, but without the life of God, still separated from God, and without a heavenly inheritance. 

That makes it clear, that there were two more things that God had to give to man. He needed to find a way to give to people a) righteousness, b) remove the separation from them by giving them life, and c) he must give them also a heavenly inheritance so they can be with him in Heavens when their time comes to leave their earthly tent. 

There was the need of someone with righteousness and the life and also with heavenly inheritance.  And who will be able to give all of the above three qualifications to his offsprings.

Someone from the offspring of Adam like Abraham could only give his offspring what he had, only righteousness, but not the other two because he did not have them, and the same with the Law of Moses, it became very clear for the need not only to remove the separation from Man, but also the need for a heavenly inheritance.  

No seed of any man even within the family of Abraham had those qualities as to fullfiled the requirements in Jeremiah 1:5, only someone out of the seed of man, who will enter our world as the seed of the woman, heaving the rightsneounesh of God, the Life of God and a heavenly inheritance before he enter our world, because he had to leave his heavenly inheritance and take up the inheritance of Man,  to be found as a man born with the rightsneounesh  and the life of God but having the inheritance of man and the specific inheritance of the children of God under the Abrahamic covenant and also the inheritance of man out of the Abrahamic covenant. He died to save all or both. That's why when he died he follow the way to the children of Abraham, but he did not stop there he continiun, to all the rest and he preach the Gospel to all who had died before him till the first man who had died and that's ABEL. 

And God did not leave Jesus down there and without a heavenly inheritance, he call him out from there and he raise him from the dead and gave him the heavens for his inheritance and not only for him but also his children by faith in him beginning from those who had believed in him when he preached the Gospel to them in those three days before he was raised from the dead, who believed and like us received his righteousness, his life and their heavenly inheritance. 

[OakWood]

3 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

God didn't regret the decision to make man the same way you and I regret a mistake.   God's regret wasn't, "I made a mistake in creating man."   This is again, an anthropomorphism expressing grief over man, but not an admittance by God that making man was a regrettable mistake.

God's decision to make man was not an imperfect decision.   What you're doing is you projecting our carnal expression of certain emotions on to God.  If we regret a mistake, apparently it follows in your way of thinking that God regretting something means that he is capable of error and did in fact make an erroneous decision in creating man.  That opens up a whole Pandora's box of bad theology if we were to go down that road.

Yes, but the problem is that for God to change His mind as in the case of Moses, God would have to violate promises in order to start over with Moses because Messianic promises/prophecies about the Messiah coming through Judah already existed.     I am not speculating on what God has not told us.

You have not explained how an all-knowing God would even need to, or be able to change his mind, given that he already knows every possible outcome of every possible decision.  That precludes a change of mind.    He already knows the perfect way to handle everything and thus no need to change his mind.    God doesn't change his mind at all and there is example of a genuine change of God's mind in the Bible.  

Nothing I have said excludes free will at all, because it is pretty easy to understand the difference between knowing the future and predetermining the future.  The difference between those two concepts is fairly elementary.

Logically, there can be no free will if God cannot change his mind. I've explained this already.

1/ God creates man. Man falls. It is God's desire to save as many as possible.

2/ God knows the future and knows that some are not saved and will not choose him. Therefore there is no point ever trying to save these people because the future cannot be changed and God cannot change it. Therefore God's desire has failed from the outset. God is a failure.

3/ Therefore God too is prisoner of destiny. He cannot change it and he cannot change his mind.

Logically, your stance is a contradictory one. Yet because you fail to see this you accuse me of anthropomorphism which I believe is just a word you are using to try make me sound as if I am giving human qualities to God, but I am not, I am using logic. This is logic that you fail to see.

God has already expressed regret for a decision that he made. Genesis 6:6 clearly explains this but instead of accepting this you keep backpedaling and making further claims. Do you not accept the word of scripture? It does not matter whether God made the right decision or not. For a time he believes that he didn't, therefore he changed his mind. It doesn't matter whether he changed it back or not, he still changed it. You do know what the word 'repented' means don't you? If you don't then look it up. If you believe that the word 'repented' means something different than to what the dictionary says then your definition must apply to mankind too. What does it mean when Jesus asks us to repent? Do we not change our minds or do we carry on as we were in our sins knowing that our sins were the right decision in the first place?

God was willing to change his mind when he spoke to Abraham about whether he should destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He did not change his mind because Abraham's conditions were not met. Now I expect you'll say that God knew this all along and would never have changed his mind anyway, but if you do then you are adding to scripture and making assumptions. There is nothing in scripture that says that God cannot change his mind, only that he never lies. If God cannot change his mind then he is not all-powerful and is merely an scripted actor in the line of destiny.

I'm not going to explain this anymore, I'm just repeating myself. If you can't grasp the logic here then repeating myself again will be a fruitless task.

As I've said already, if God cannot change his mind there is no free will. That is inescapable logic and if don't believe that you have thought this through at all.

 

[hmbld]

16 minutes ago, OakWood said:

Logically, there can be no free will if God cannot change his mind. I've explained this already.

1/ God creates man. Man falls. It is God's desire to save as many as possible.

2/ God knows the future and knows that some are not saved and will not choose him. Therefore there is no point ever trying to save these people because the future cannot be changed and God cannot change it. Therefore God's desire has failed from the outset. God is a failure.

3/ Therefore God too is prisoner of destiny. He cannot change it and he cannot change his mind.

Logically, your stance is a contradictory one. Yet because you fail to see this you accuse me of anthropomorphism which I believe is just a word you are using to try make me sound as if I am giving human qualities to God, but I am not, I am using logic. This is logic that you fail to see.

God has already expressed regret for a decision that he made. Genesis 6:6 clearly explains this but instead of accepting this you keep backpedaling and making further claims. Do you not accept the word of scripture? It does not matter whether God made the right decision or not. For a time he believes that he didn't, therefore he changed his mind. It doesn't matter whether he changed it back or not, he still changed it. You do know what the word 'repented' means don't you? If you don't then look it up. If you believe that the word 'repented' means something different than to what the dictionary says then your definition must apply to mankind too. What does it mean when Jesus asks us to repent? Do we not change our minds or do we carry on as we were in our sins knowing that our sins were the right decision in the first place?

God was willing to change his mind when he spoke to Abraham about whether he should destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He did not change his mind because Abraham's conditions were not met. Now I expect you'll say that God knew this all along and would never have changed his mind anyway, but if you do then you are adding to scripture and making assumptions. There is nothing in scripture that says that God cannot change his mind, only that he never lies. If God cannot change his mind then he is not all-powerful and is merely an scripted actor in the line of destiny.

I'm not going to explain this anymore, I'm just repeating myself. If you can't grasp the logic here then repeating myself again will be a fruitless task.

As I've said already, if God cannot change his mind there is no free will. That is inescapable logic and if don't believe that you have thought this through at all.

 

When were we told to consider God using man's logic?  I also do not agree with your logic here, you have not proven anything other than you attempt to use logic to understand an all-knowing God.  God is all knowing, why would He change His mind?  He also exists outside our own little timeline, figure that into your logic!