Everything has been pre-determined

[Justin Adams]

1 minute ago, Yeshua153 said:

There will still be folks who just don't want to accept the definitions, well that's life!

Incoherent...

[johnthebaptist]

6 hours ago, Neighbor said:

Hi,

Fairly? Hopefully not, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

It is only by God's mercy and grace that any are saved out from His wrath against his creation. He creates what he will create for the purpose He has made  each.

He has given His son, our Lord, those that will be saved and His Son loses not a one of them. Each that are to be saved have been foreknown and predestined by God from before the beginning.

By "fairly," I mean God doesn't play favorites.

[ravindran]

On 1/14/2020 at 12:02 AM, alaric_w said:

God did not decide our destiny. It is our choice to choose or reject Jesus that determines our destiny. God only see the future and knows who are the Sons of light and Sons of darkness. The future that God predict does not change. In this sense, everything is already fixed from the beginning.

Every generation, there are Sons of light and Sons of darkness being born. God is waiting patiently every single Son of light to be born, come to repentance and be saved. His salvation for the Sons of light is total and not a single one will be lost. Jesus will appear swiftly once this is fulfilled.

I don't believe a spiritually dead person is able to choose Jesus and reject Jesus. God has to regenerate a person so that the person can 'freely' choose Jesus. Because of original sin, we all were spiritually dead. God is the initiator when it comes to faith and not us.

God is simply not having a view of everyone's choice. He is the primary cause of everything that happens. God did not just set the universe in motion and defined gravity, etc and let things unfold itself. He is the Orchestrator.

[Neighbor]

49 minutes ago, johnthebaptist said:

By "fairly," I mean God doesn't play favorites.

God does "play" favorites! He has His chosen as example. He has created all as He has desired to create them.

From  Pharaoh's  born to be oppressors of God's chosen people to  Saul made Paul, God has created them all.

God the Father has foreknown and predestined all that will be given to His son Jesus. Jesus does not lose a one given Him by His Father. He is the Good Shepherd. it is by Jesus alone that any are made perfect in the sight of God the Father, and all individually called by God the Holy Spirit.

All of humanity  is born depraved from the getgo, all as result of God's wrath, and His anguished sorrow over having made this creation, especially man who fell away from fellowship with God. It is God that has decreed man's plight. It is God that has redeemed some out of many. It is God who has suffered in orde rot redeem whom He will. Redemption itself being favoritism, for it took Gods favor to overcome God's absolute  requirement  of perfection because all most be holy for He is perfect and Holy. God cannot abide sin. Yet He did what is impossible to do. He favored man by way  of Himself taking on the price of sin which is destruction, death. He conquered death itself out of His love for that which  is depraved and he made it so that depraved may be seen by Him as perfect covered by the Shed Blood of Jesus  who is God. 

Redemption, salvation is not universal not at all  few will be chosen though many may be called. All by the power and the glory that is God and by God alone.

so unfair? well that is the way it is, God plays favorites all are not to be saved and all are not seen as perfect. Praise God that he has called many to be exempted from his wrath against  his fallen creation. Without His mercy grace and yes even favoritism all would perish destroyed to eternal distruction not to be saved ever.

 I give thanks to God for his favor! I give thanks for His favor to me a man that denied His very existence. He saved me in spite of myself. He did so in answer to prayer  of a person he favored. I pray that he will favor many that I know personally and I also pray for entire groups of people that at least some will heed the specific call to them individually.

[ravindran]

1 hour ago, johnthebaptist said:

By "fairly," I mean God doesn't play favorites.

It is unfair to say God plays favorites when it comes to election. Actually He is fair with everyone whom He is not electing. Because hell is what everyone deserves. That's fair. Then He shows His grace and mercy by going out of fairness and choosing people as His children. Calling them, regenerating them, sanctifying them and glorifying them. Yes, God is not fair with people whom He elects. He goes above fairness.

[johnthebaptist]

6 minutes ago, Neighbor said:

God does "play" favorites! He has His chosen as example. He has created all as He has desired to create them.

From  Pharaoh's  born to be oppressors of God's chosen people to  Saul made Paul, God has created them all.

God the Father has foreknown and predestined all that will be given to His son Jesus. Jesus does not lose a one given Him by His Father. He is the Good Shepherd. it is by Jesus alone that any are made perfect in the sight of God the Father, and all individually called by God the Holy Spirit.

All of humanity  is born depraved from the getgo, all as result of God's wrath, and His anguished sorrow over having made this creation, especially man who fell away from fellowship with God. It is God that has decreed man's plight. It is God that has redeemed some out of many. It is God who has suffered in orde rot redeem whom He will. Redemption itself being favoritism, for it took Gods favor to overcome God's absolute  requirement  of perfection because all most be holy for He is perfect and Holy. God cannot abide sin. Yet He did what is impossible to do. He favored man by way  of Himself taking on the price of sin which is destruction, death. He conquered death itself out of His love for that which  is depraved and he made it so that depraved may be seen by Him as perfect covered by the Shed Blood of Jesus  who is God. 

Redemption, salvation is not universal not at all  few will be chosen though many may be called. All by the power and the glory that is God and by God alone.

so unfair? well that is the way it is, God plays favorites all are not to be saved and all are not seen as perfect. Praise God that he has called many to be exempted from his wrath against  his fallen creation. Without His mercy grace and yes even favoritism all would perish destroyed to eternal distruction not to be saved ever.

 I give thanks to God for his favor! I give thanks for His favor to me a man that denied His very existence. He saved me in spite of myself. He did so in answer to prayer  of a person he favored. I pray that he will favor many that I know personally and I also pray for entire groups of people that at least some will heed the specific call to them individually.

God is just, and that forbids him from playing favorites. We will be rewarded for righteous living, but that isn't favoritism.

[johnthebaptist]

3 minutes ago, ravindran said:

It is unfair to say God plays favorites when it comes to election. Actually He is fair with everyone whom He is not electing. Because hell is what everyone deserves. That's fair. Then He shows His grace and mercy by going out of fairness and choosing people as His children. Calling them, regenerating them, sanctifying them and glorifying them. Yes, God is not fair with people whom He elects. He goes above fairness.

Why does God create people that he knows are going to spend eternity in hell?

[ravindran]

1 minute ago, johnthebaptist said:

Why does God create people that he knows are going to spend eternity in hell?

Great question and honestly, I don't know. And to be honest, we can ask all sorts of questions for which we won't have answers. Why would God create humans in the first place if God was not so sure if they would actually sin or not? When Adam and Eve first sinned, why let them continue living instead of finishing it then and there? Why not destroy the creation and start all over again, may be this time a better creation who would always make the right choice? Lot of people try to deny God's sovereignty by trying to answer the exact question you asked. But it only opens up lot more question and not solve anything.

[johnthebaptist]

2 minutes ago, ravindran said:

Great question and honestly, I don't know. And to be honest, we can ask all sorts of questions for which we won't have answers. Why would God create humans in the first place if God was not so sure if they would actually sin or not? When Adam and Eve first sinned, why let them continue living instead of finishing it then and there? Why not destroy the creation and start all over again, may be this time a better creation who would always make the right choice? Lot of people try to deny God's sovereignty by trying to answer the exact question you asked. But it only opens up lot more question and not solve anything.

I believe the answer to my question is that God DOESN'T create people and send most of them to hell.

Hell isn't a place, I don't believe. It is what life is before we repent of our sin. Heaven is what our lives turn into when we repent of our sin (Matthew 4:17). We all can repent of our sin and enter heaven.

[Justin Adams]

Hell is real. Heaven or Eden is also real. The Divine Council is also real and Yahweh's throne is real.

I do not want anyone to think otherwise. There is much more to the Cosmos than just Adam and Eve.

God already had a heavenly family and wanted a human one too. A blended family.

Gen 6 shows us about heavenly beings that sinned greatly and put humanity on a crash course towards horrendous evil.

Babylon indicates God's abandonment of the post flood people to their own devices under the failing auspices of other divine beings that fell down on the job badly. (70 of them; Psalm 82 and Deut 32)

To understand the apostles' repurposing of the Tanakh, you must read the Tanakh thoroughly and then their writings will be better understood. God had a plan for everyone and if they resist His Salvation then it is up to them. They are already condemned because ha-satan has them in his fallen kingdom of the abyss or gehenna or sheol or hell.
People choose heaven or hell, it is that simple.

 Hell is a definite COSMIC space that bridges earth and the underworld.

God made us humans as imagers of Him and therefore believers are His representatives on earth. We have reason, intelligence and skill. Not in the amounts that God has, but very much like Him we also have freedom of choice.

God is a free being and can do whatever He wills and to whomever He wills it. He is beyond reproach and question. Yahweh can not and will not be controlled or contained.

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Justin Adams