Deep and sobering! Why I must always do as my GOD says for me, Proverbs 3:5-6, Trust HIM with all my heart and do not lean unto my own understanding, in all my ways acknowledge HIM and HE will direct my paths. AND Micah 6:8, I am to act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with my GOD. Thank you Tony and Dr. Piper.
There are truths that are for human understanding and there are truths that gives a glimpse of God’s purview and are stumbling blocks for those who don’t want to follow Christ. 1 Timothy 2:4 is a truth for Man to hold to. Also God’s answer to job is another instance that there are things we can glimpse but cannot know. Faith is not contingent on the truth making sense to us.
I think we all have a picture in our mind of God, His word and how we understand it. I’m convinced of double predestination because it’s biblical whereas the vast majority reject it not because it’s not in the Bible but it’s very uncomfortable for them to even think about a God who chooses some and not others. They force plain scriptures which say we are chosen based on nothing we do, to say God sees what we do and chooses us because of something we did.
@@mountainman78629 Amen. Child like faith. It’s emotional reasons and also the perverse human nature desiring to hang on to the idea that there is some good in them deep down somewhere that would choose God. It takes grace to love grace.
thank you Lord for using brother Piper to teach and help us to learn even though we can't fathom everything there is to know about you help us to learn as much as we can for the sake of your gospel and glory
Looking back at Romans 9 it looks like Paul is really grappling with the fact that the nation of Israel as a whole has rejected the gospel of Christ. He remembered the times that jews would stir up trouble from town to town, trying to drive him out and silence him. He has done all that he can to reach them, what would it take "I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people". Though he said to the reader, "who are you to talk back to God" he probably first said it to himself. In so far as the nation of Israel and the promise to Abraham, he saw that the the acceptable relationship with God was through faith. He acted in sovereignty with Israel, saying though I give you the law, the temple, the covenants you still must come to me in Faith and through Jesus all people will continue to come to me in Faith. Romans 9 though it gives a glimpse at divine sovereignty, the emphasis of it is regarding the national of Israel and Paul reconciling what God had done in the past and what he is doing in Christ. I don't see that this contradicts 1 Timothy 2:4. Imagine you could ask God, "Do you want some people to go to hell?" What do you think he would say. I think he would say something like 1 Timothy 2:4 and we would walk away content with that.
As somebody who adheres to what I call “biblical universalism”, I would have to kindly disagree with Mr Piper’s reasoning concerning 1 Tim 2:4. In my opinion, God’s choosing and purpose for his elect isn't to the detriment of all others, but for the eventual gain and blessings of all others. In 1 Tim 2:4, Paul points out that the “all men” is the same as the “all men” in verse 6 who Christ gave himself a ransom for, which the scriptures further make clear was the “whole world” 1 John 2:2. Note, not only did John say Christ was a propitiation for “our” sin [ie] the believer/elect, but for the whole world [ie] those outside of being the elect. I see no restrictive qualifiers in 1 Tim 2:4. Paul is simply saying that he wants Timothy to pray for “all people”, which “includes” but isn’t “limited” to kings etc. 1 Tim 2:4: - who doth [will/thelō] all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth; Lexicon: Strong's - thelō:- Outline of Biblical Usage:- to will, have in mind, intend, to be resolved or determined, to purpose, to desire to wish to love, to like to do a thing, be fond of doing, to take delight in, have pleasure. The word thelō is in verb form, and it doesn’t lend itself to some form of wishful thinking, it speaks of action and purpose [ie] God intends to save [all] men, or purposes for [all] men to be saved. Apostle Paul then goes on to explain exactly what he meant in 1 Tim 2:4:- 1 Timothy 4:10:- For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of “all mankind”, >[especially]< of believers. I fail to see how the context doesn’t fit with universalism. Paul simply states that God is the saviour of “all mankind”, and “within” that “all” are believers. The word “especially” is an adverb of the word “special” and it is used in the following context: - especially: - adverb: - used to single out one person or thing over [all] others. [ie] “he despised them [all], [especially] Jeremiah” In the example above, Jeremiah is part of the [all] that is despised yet he is singled out for an even stronger despising than the rest. So for me personally 1 Tim 4:10 in context is saying, God is the saviour of [all] mankind yet believers are being singled out for a special kind of salvation [ie] the elect. To make this reasoning clearer:- Gala 6:10. :- So then, while we have opportunity, let’s do good to “all people” and >[especially]< to those who are of the household of the faith. Paul isn’t saying only do good to those that believe, he is saying that believers are to do good to “all men”, yet whilst doing this, believers are to treat other believers with “special” goodness. This is another example of why I reason it’s the same context at 1 Tim 4:10, Paul isn’t saying God is only going to save believers, but that he is going to save “all men” whilst giving his chosen [ie] the elect “special” salvation. [ie] They are saved, being saved and will be saved, they will be transformed at Christ’s coming, 1 Corinth 15: 52, they will be spared the wrath of God, 1 Thess 5:9, they will be “inheritors” of the kingdom, they are made into a kingdom of priests Rev 1:6, and they will Judge/rule with Christ in his Fathers coming kingdom Rev 20:4. Only a few are “chosen” to share in these “special” privileges, therefore, I reason it’s only the elect in this age who will be given such positions in the next. Yet, Paul focusing on the elect being called and chosen in this present age doesn’t mean he didn’t acknowledge God's plan to save “ALL” in the ages to come. Peace
This seems like a small thing, but you guys may want to think about rendering your background animation again, the quality is pretty low probably from being compressed and reused so many times.
The ultimate disposition of human souls still seems, somehow, to be not only unequal but also unfair. We are all sinners and all deserving of eternal damnation but, through no act of our own, freely selected only some of us to avoid the punishment that we deserve by shifting it to Jesus on the cross. So, if it's the case that only some of us are saved but none of us deserve it and those who are not saved seem to have a legitimate gripe that they would have been saved had it been there in their own power to do so. But it wasn't in anyone's power it was only in God's control. Ultimately, I understand pastor John's answer and appreciate the gravity of the coherence of God's justice and how it works with predestination but there is, in some niggling sense, dissatisfaction in me. I still want to understand because the apparent Injustice is hard to answer when people question it.
Your curiosity is sincere and reverent rather than cynical, and I praise the Lord for that! I hope this makes sense and helps when you analyze and compare it with what you read in Scripture, especially Ezekiel 18, Isaiah 45, and Romans 9. My attempt at answering what I think your question is is that it is not a legitimate argument that if our salvation was left in our hands that more of the unelect might be saved, and this is even with or without and inherent sin nature. Here's why: It is not possible that there could exist such a world where God is a passive Creator and Sustainer and therefore did not predetermine everything because God in his nature is omniscient, loving, and just, therefore he created the universe with VERY SPECIFIC purposes and not just to sustain human life and watch as we orchestrated history with him only intervening occasionally. Therefore, from his position as sovereign and his character traits that are filled with undying passion, rigid, unchangeable decisions had to be made in order to establish and ensure the fulfillment of all of his purposes which MUST BE good because he is good and could not possibly be wrong because for one, he owns everything, and additionally, he is completely satisfied with all that he needs in himself and hence cannot be tempted to do evil and would have no need to be inconsistent or malicious without cause. God created from a heart of love and a place of eternal happiness for the purpose of sharing his love and happiness with lesser, dependent creatures who are somewhat like him so that they would have the capacity to enjoy it. Also, Adam and Eve did not have a sin nature initially so there was nothing within them that was bent toward disobedience, yet when they were tempted, seemingly with little to no fight at all, they chose to sin, which is mind-boggling, aweful, and unrelatable considering no one since them has ever lived in paradise and not had to resist internal temptation to sin. Of course, they were predestined to sin, but how did that come about without God making them sin and them not having a sin nature and thus hypothetically being actually able to resist the temptation from a place of moral neutrality? The question of questions I think the answer is connected to my conclusion about how and why Lucifer was able and inclined to sin in Heaven when he did not initially have a sin nature, and of course while God planned it he did not directly cause it. I have observed and read in the Bible that the hearts of creatures were made to be satisfied for as long as they exist and thus they will seek it, yet since God is the only one eternal enough and worthy enough to satisfy us due to his infinite glory and beauty, if God were ever to withdraw himself from us so that we are not conscious of him and we are unable to locate and access him to enjoy him then we would be left by default to look around at the beautiful, enticing things that he has made, and our hearts would cling to those things in hopes that something, someone, ANYTHING would just keep us increasingly happy forever while protecting us from potential danger. The implication of this is that a sin nature is not the only cause of sin and even if we were not born inclined to sin WE STILL WOULD EVENTUALLY END UP THAT WAY. That's an awesome reality!!!! Therefore, no human being will stand before God at the judgment and rightfully say, "Well God you can't judge me for not obeying you because you yourself claim to have all authority and power even over my destiny and will plus I had a sin nature that I could not free myself from, so if you had left the power of my will and destiny to me then I could have and probably would have lived up to what you required. Insufficient moral, decisive power in my hands means no accountability from you; anything besides that is unjust." I fear such logical thought, yet without reverence! God could then answer back to them, "You did evil not just because I predestined you to but because you actually enjoyed it and you actually would not wish to desire me even without a natural inclination for worshipping other things unless I brought my glorious presence near to you and captured your affections so much that nothing else could compete." If they then say God, "Well why didn't you do that? You can't hold me accountable for that," God could tell them "I chose for my own purpose of maximizing my love upon my unworthy elect not to love everybody in the same way, yet you cannot condemn me for this because the elect are no more worthy of salvation than you essentially are so I'm not being partial by giving you a disadvantage that I did not also give them, and also there is not fault in my purposes just because you did not benefit from them because I don't owe any of my creatures anthing. Yet you did commit real evil while enjoying it and harming others and at no point did I control you or make you do it against your will and I even warned you of what was to come but you didn't want to listen and you did not care about all the mercy and grace that I gave you in the meantime. You are a sinner that did not deserve mercy and grace, did not appreciate it in the measures that you received it from me, and didn't care to look further into it and desire it when it was offered to you in my general revelation through creation or in my special revelation through my word and the Gospel." Gavel slammed, justice accomplished, prideful unrepentant sinner's mouth shut.
@@phieble "I chose for my own purpose of maximizing my love upon my unworthy elect not to love everybody in the same way" utter lunacy. God is love. For God so loved the world. Where do you get the idea that he loves some more than others?It's always a bad idea to put words in God's mouth.
That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him. But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc. All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election. Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏 Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32 James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
@@phieble I donno if this was a response to me or continuing your long-winded response to OP, but..I know your strategy is to write so, so much text that it's impossible to parse your opinion. Then when people throw up their hands at the immensurable wall of text and its ponderous lack of punctuation, you can feel like you won the argument. I can't spend an entire week reading this carefully, so I am only going to pick out the points that are easy to find fault with (well, especially easy). "while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end"Shall we do evil that good may result?"pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God" This is just the pot calling the kettle black. What you mean is "rather than based on my particular view of God"... but it's your view of God that defines good and evil in an arbitrary way, not mine."God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect"I really feel God's love when he rejects, hates, and even destroys my unbelieving family members."You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. "I agree with this wholeheartedly, but if you follow this logic you might end up being hoist by your own petard.Finally, I just want to point out that you had to write an entire book to wind and contort around a very simple objection... if this is even a response to me at all.
To interpret 2 Timothy 2:24-25 (The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth) as somehow God is a control freak, managing double predestination, is totally erroneous. Disagree with Dr. John Piper on this. 2 Timothy 2:24-25 merely means God is active even as we are active in determining our destination. This is similar to how God dealt with Pharaoh, hardening his heart even as Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God set Pharaoh as an example for us so that we may fear God and never harden our hearts.
14:43 those destined to be damned didn’t ask to exist. If you gave them a choice to end up in eternal conscious torment or simply to not have existed in the first place, they would choose the latter. Instead, they are thrust into existence, damned before they breathe their first breath or committing their first sin. Tell me how someone is culpable for actions they haven’t yet committed? That’s an incoherent position. If you had a lever to pull which would save a conscious being the torment of eternal hell, wouldn’t you pull it? I know what it feels like to be separated from a loved one (death) and what physical pain feels like (e.g. burning my hand on a stove) so multiply the physical and emotional experience of pain by infinity and you have hell. I would be a maniacal supervillain if I wanted someone to experience that forever. I would be criminally negligent if I had the knowledge and ability to spare someone from that destiny, but didn’t.
I pray that this gives you clarity and that God grants you the grace to accept it because God's sovereignty in justice and in grace CANNOT WILL NOT be embraced apart from God's intervention in our hearts and minds. That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him. But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc. All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election. Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏 Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32 James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
Everyone gets a fair chance - no matter how unfair it seems - so not asking to exist is not an excuse. If you understood the depths of what your sin deserves you would send yourself to hell... as it appears you are doing bro. God is more gracious than we can understand. Literally... 12All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous. 14Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them 16on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Christ Jesus, as proclaimed by my gospel. Romans 2
@@phieble I appreciate your thorough response. I'll get down to the essence of my disagreement: You wrote:"The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling r[o]bots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God" 1. Basically, the evil ones are the ones that would't have asked for forgiveness anyway. But they were destined to be evil before they made the first choice to sin. You can only make your assertion (that they wouldn't even want mercy, and they don't view their evil as evil) post facto, after they have lived their life. But-- there was a time, before the foundation of the world, where their eternal soul (which didn't have a body to sin with yet) was decided to be damned to hell. 2. The reprobate were intended to be vessels of wrath before the world was even created, before they were created in their mothers wombs. Moral culpability comes from our conscious choice - we decided to sin. You only punish those who should have known better. If a person is born with a destiny to sin, they didn't choose to have that destiny - they were thrust into it. Whatever happens after... well they're just along for the ride at that point, right? You can't have a choice and not have a choice simultaneously. You can't be culpable for something you didn't do yet. One might say "well they become culpable when they do it!" but it wasn't their choice to make, really. They are automatons, bereft of their own ability to make the choice of the Good, because it was disallowed for them from the start. Why? As Piper puts it, it's not a contradiction (*because definitionally this can't be possible!!!*)... it's a PARADOX! That seems to be a distinction without difference. It seems to be a game of semantics. You say potatoe, I say po-taa-to. Ultimately this is where logical consistency breaks down.
@@radicalDeparter I know that you will not accept any of my arguments if you don't believe that the Bible is the only authoritative, infallible revelation from God himself through human writers and that it defines wisdom and trumps human philosophical logic. I also know that you can't accept those facts on your own as I could not, therefore I pray that God will help you and help us all. Your claim that I can only make my assertion that (the reprobate wouldn't want mercy and don't view evil as evil) post facto is not correct. The reprobate don't want mercy and don't view their evil as evil because of the pride in human hearts that refuse God's terms for mercy and justify whatever we enjoy doing. People tend to define good and evil arbitrarily and subjectively rather than objectively and based in God's supreme, eternal existence as if the concept of what good is is seperate from God's eternal essence from whence all things and concepts come. I'm not sure why people have a problem with this except maybe it's the fact that if good is defined by God himself then you can't hold God accountable, but that is the only thing that makes sense because God defines what words mean and how they apply, he does this consistently, and creatures could not possibly hold God accountable anyway because they don't have the wisdom, authority, preeminent presence, or power to do so, which is another thing that makes God's decrees righteous by defaut. God has said that the reprobate would never want mercy and they don't view evil as evil, therefore according to his statement along with my observation inwardly and outwardly, I can claim the same with confidence. The rebrobate, while conscious, willful, and not puppets, do not care about their rebrobation and the mercy God gives them before the Judgment. Your claim that moral culpability comes from our conscious choice, is not entirely correct and I say that because it's not strictly found in Scripture but is a philosophical claim. We are held accountable for our decisions because we make them willfully and not by another's direct, physical force, and because God cannot punish the sins of human beings without punishing human beings. Whether or not God predestined the sin and the measure of freedom in our will is irrelevant because God is not a sinner to predestine sin but we are always sinful when we commit sin, and we choose to do so while enjoying it, all the while knowing better and having access to knowledge of right and wrong. Also, you CAN indeed have a choice and not have one simultaneously. Jesus is God and he planned out everything including his own crucifixion, so he HAD to come to earth as a human being and suffer it, yet nobody physically forced him to do so, and in fact he prayed to God the Father for help all throughout his human life. It's a paradox, yes, but it is true. God knows and has determined what I am doing today, yet I am consciouslly, willfully deciding myself with no tangible feeling of God's presence and influence to do what I'm doing, and when I am influenced that is not the same as force like with a will-less, inanimate object, nor is his preordination direct force to do something. Our wills are intact, we have access to knowledge of God's existence and right and wrong, and we commit actual sin, therefore we should and will be held accountable.
““For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
The difference between RC Sproul’s, John Piper’s and John MacArthur’s answers is making think and I probably need to study it further. The difference maybe small but I think it is there. Has anyone analysed the three views yet? Can someone help?
Here is an honest question: How would saving all diminish the value of God's grace? I don't understand the perspective that God designed some (most) people as vessels of his destruction so that his mercy would be shown to the elect. For starters, creating people to be born into sin (and making sinlessness impossible for humans) just so that he can show wrath/mercy seems analogous to setting someone's house on fire just so you can use the water hose. Sure, it is good to have the water hose available if a fire ever breaks out, but nobody ever actually wants to *have* to use the water hose for this purpose (especially not to the extent that they seek to start a fire just so that they can use the hose). Even if you use the hose and put out the fire, the house and the emotional state of the homeowner will be much more damaged than they would be if there was never any fire in the first place. In the same way, I feel like allowing sin/suffering to exist in the world just so that God can show wrath and mercy still results in a much worse outcome than if everyone was just saved to begin with. Furthermore, I don't see how the elect will see God's goodness and mercy more just because of the destruction of the non-elect. If anything, the destruction of sinners will make the elect fear God even more than they already did, and they might worship him out of fear and terror, but I don't see how people will actually genuinely worship him in rejoicing and happiness (unless they have some kind of sadist fetish and just enjoy seeing the pain and despair of the sinners, so they are worshipping God in their happiness at people's pain).
On the contrary, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7 ESV). I answer that God in His wisdom created a world in which He sovereignty decided to save some and not others. You may think it does not make sense, but there is the distinct possibility that you are wrong about what is best, however there is no possibility that our omniscient and omnibenevolent God could be wrong about the best way to manifest the richness and fullness of His glory. Your analogy doesn’t hold up. If you said instead that we as humanity collectively and deliberately committed arson and God in His mercy decided to save some and not others, that would be a more fitting Biblical situation. In your analogy you have made God the author of the evil which He then saves us from, which if anyone actually believed that it would be blasphemous. The only proper response to this mercy is thankfulness and an acknowledgement of Gods wisdom. We trust that Gods decision to condemn the wicked is for us to better understand His mercy. If everyone indiscriminately received mercy, we could not have a real understanding of Gods holiness
That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him. But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc. All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election. Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏 Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32 James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
@@osmundsindland4596 _I answer that God in His wisdom created a world in which He sovereignty decided to save some and not others_ Why do you doubt and downplay the power of Christ to save? The Father commissioned His Son to be the Savior of the world (John 3:17) and scripture tells us that God's Word will not return void (Isaiah 55:11) Do you believe Christ will fail to redeem, save and deliver every soul to His Father? Do you not believe that He is the Savior of the world? Will Christ "save some" or will He save all? What do the scriptures tell us? *1 Timothy 2:4* Who will have *all men to be saved* and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. _If everyone indiscriminately received mercy, we could not have a real understanding of Gods holiness_ Indiscriminately? God gives us what we need when we need it, and one of the greatest needs we will ever have is the need for mercy, and make no mistake, everyone will receive mercy at the time they need it. *Romans 11:32* For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
@@Joel-Serra ah I see now that you are a universalist. I don’t downplay at all the power and merit of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. In fact, I affirm it. In that respect we are alike. However, unlike you, I am bound by conscience to consider the clear teaching in Scripture that there will be some who are sent into outer darkness and everlasting torment. And God is perfectly just to do that. There are plenty of passages which demonstrate that the atonement, while unlimited in its power and merit, is limited in the design of its scope. Here are a few samples: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”” Matthew 1:21 ESV If all people were His people, the use of exclusivist language would be inappropriate. Again we see the words of our Lord: “Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”” Matthew 25:45-46 ESV It feels unwise to assume that Christ was speaking of an event that will never actually take place. The plain reading of the text demands we take it at face value: some will go away into eternal punishment. In the garden during His high priestly prayer our Lord included in His prayer the following: ““I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word… I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours…. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,” John 17:6, 9, 20 ESV So He prays for those whom the Father has given Him (exclusivist language again), He notes that He is NOT praying for the world (overtly exclusivist language) and later prays for those who WILL believe in the future (again exclusivist language implying that there will be those who don’t believe in the future). Interesting to also note that the word “world” is clearly understood to have a meaning other than “every person without exception” in this passage. In fact, very rarely does anyone ever use the word “world” to mean every single person or place without exception, such as when Paul said of the Gospel: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing-as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,” Colossians 1:6 ESV. So unless we are willing to affirm Paul traveled to the Americas, the far reaches of Asia, and perhaps even to Australia and Antarctica, not to mention every square inch of land and water in between, we have a clear example that the word “world” is not universal. And the Apostle confirms again that [pray for us]…that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.” 2 Thessalonians 3:2 ESV It is difficult to read the Bible and ignore the clear indications that Hell is real and it will be occupied. It would take a mountain of evidence to overturn what otherwise seems like the clear and plain teaching of our Lord and His apostles. Thanks and God bless!
I'm not going to stress out about all this predestination stuff, people just need to believe in Jesus, and not worry about the fine details as though it has anything to do with their salvation, or losing it. Remember, God's Word also indicates that we should not be debating on a lot of these issues that generate questions. But still, there will be those that say, "The Bible is pretty clear on this...", ...though I've never ran across a scripture that says, God is not clear on this subject don't discuss it amongst yourself. God is CLEAR concerning His Plan, but God's plan is not clear to even believers, least of all those that do not believe for no one knows the "work" that God does from beginning to end, and where has God declared this work, within His Word, so no one understands God's Word from beginning to end. God gives us each day our daily bread, and we should not dwell on these topics because they do not win souls, but only contribute more confusion.
Appreciate, if any Calvinist could furnish me with bible verses on Calvin's teaching on decreed of God in relation to double-predestination? Thank you.
The great think about Predestination is u don't need Jesus Christ. It's not required, because it was already determined. Besides Jesus Christ's human nature had no free will. U also have no choice in u being able to choose a personal lord abd savior.
What you are saying is predestination supersedes justice, atonement and God's nature. This is quite an irrational thing to say. When someone talks about predestination, they include everything, which is necessary, is also predestined
@@shikyokira3065 the mystery of predestination paired with free will is one, double predestination is a vile heresy that creates god the author or evil Christianity as a villain.
@@captainmarvel76927 Funny how you can don't understand one thing but is confident that that mystery does not include or won't lead to double predestination. I'm not saying it does, just that you jumped the conclusion without knowing the mystery yourself Moreover, theologically we all can agree that evil in essence is the lack of good. It is a negative. double predestination supporters can easily use this to explain how God didn't and doesn't create evil. Can God not create something? Obviously God can. God didn't create teleportation device, God didn't create warp drive and so on. There are so many things God didn't create. So why can't something lack of good? Assuming God created sin is assuming a light bulb created darkness (aka the shadow). So you are essentially using a heretic view that you assume they hold but in actual they don't, and then use that to justify how their view is a heresy. This is a classic strawman If you come in good faith and spirit, even tho you don't agree nor understand how double predestination would not contradict A, B, C and so on.. you name it, you could have just asked. If you don't buy the reasoning, cool. The truth will be revealed eventually, so no need to be like the Pharisees assuming only your interpretation is the correct interpretation because you know, even the Pharisees, the religious leaders, accused Jesus of blasphemy. I'm sure you don't want to be like the Pharisees, right? Right??
@@shikyokira3065 No we diagree completely, particularly evil being the absence of good, all that is left is a neutral void. Like in the beginning per Genesis. You reek of John Calvin, and ur long winded trio-tribe is most amusing, and like a shot gun, blasts small pebbles not truth. Do u claim to have divine knowledge and authority to interpret, funny how it always comes down on "your side." You have no authority for anything, u are a strawman.
I think the supposed paradox can be simpler to understand with this: “The mind of a man plans his way, but the LORD devises his steps.” Proverbs 16:9. I understand man’s accountability as we devise our sin in our heart, this is congruent with the teaching of Christ, sin is a heart problem always, but God ordains what actions we take. The initial hardening of the heart comes from the sin in us that God has placed upon all in Adam, but only some will have removed. As a person turns more and more to sin, God will give them over to their desires, this matches with Romans 1 talking about the judgement of many from God being they become more depraved. Even Esau, whom God hated, seemed to live more freely than Jacob. It’s that as we devise more evil in our heart, God holds us back from the chains of sin less and less. But for those whom are predestined to salvation, Christ has shattered these chains so we may be truly free. Pure self-determination is actually impossible, not just because of the sovereignty of God, but because sin keeps our heart from choosing God and choosing good. Another point about what keeps God from saving all is His glory in being just and righteous. He would not be truly just or righteous if He didn’t judge and hold responsible anyone. Being truly just and truly merciful seem almost contradictory, but God is both and cannot deny Himself, so if He is both they are not contradictory. This reasons that if someone is to be merciful, than they would have to be just. Upon further pondering this becomes obvious, because if someone was only merciful and never held anyone accountable, than they would not be merciful, they would be lackadaisical, unjust, indifferent to, and promoter of evil. God is not so. If He was purely just, and devoid of mercy, Christ would not be God. And who am I to deny the deity of Jesus? If Christ is God, as He is, then for the fullness of God’s glory to be met, He would have to be merciful. So He must be just to be counted merciful, and He must be merciful to be God and therefore glorified. If He saved the majority and let only a few go to Hell, then they would be able to bring against Him being unjust and choosing those few just to spite. And we wouldn’t call this mercy since His normal action would be not to judge. But God has not done this. He has made the straight and narrow the path of salvation in Christ. Only the few will be saved so that He can therefore rightfully be glorified as just, which allows for Him to be rightfully glorified as merciful. As the brightness of light cannot be fully understood without the dark, so too can the mercy of God not be fully understood without His justness. How great is this plan? If a man had done this, it would not be so. Praise to our LORD, only He would have willed such a universe. Only He can be glorified in this. Only He would send His son so that He may die to redeem the people given to Him, the people given to Him so that His grace and mercy may be on display to all of creation along with His justness. Forever and always be all of the glory to Him, and to Him alone.
@@343jonny Yeah, you’re right. I don’t think my sentence structure fully conveyed what I was trying to say. What I meant is that the heart of a sinner is hardened against God. God has ordained that sin nature is passed down from father to child. This hardening God has ordained to be upon all. I was not trying to say that God makes a person sin despite their wishes to do good. What I meant was God permits, or ordains, a person to carry out a sinful desire that they have formulated with their sinful heart. As Proverbs 16:9 says, the sinful plan comes from the man, but for His own glory and purpose God permits men to carry out some of the countless sins that are planned in the heart.
For whom did Jesus die? John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Who are the sheep? John 10:24-30 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Where the rubber meets the road is I don’t believe that if someone cried out to God and surrendered, that God would turn this person away just because he didn’t choose them. I think the purpose of the verses of faith being a gift is to guard against boasting in it. One thing that I think we do bring which is of our free will is surrendering, and simultaneously God meets us and fills us with faith as a gift, not because he is controlled by us but that he is the ultimate Good.
Even the Council of Orange declares, "We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema." Double predestination has historically been condemned by the church and does not have its roots in the teachings of the church fathers or Scriptures.
That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him. But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc. All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election. Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏 Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32 James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
God is all loving and it is not in His Nature to cause eternal torment to His created beings if they have not willingly chosen to reject Him and His law. We are responsible for rejecting Him, not He. He has created us with free will. Stop blaming God for people ending up in Hell. With all due respect
@@Mary_QQQ The idea of free will is a belief that is preferred over the sovereignty of God and I understand the emotional "cover" it can bring and how it can preserve pride which feels good to the flesh, but all that matters is whether Scripture supports what we believe. Do you have any Scripture within its proper context and grammar that can support your claims and refute mine? Also, I know that my comment was lengthy, but if you read it, while I appreciate that, it appears that you didn't understand me rightly. I don't believe the things that you insinuated that I do-God is responsible for us going to Hell rather than us, God causes torment to those who have not willingly rejected him, etc. I agree that those things are not true, but still, the concept of free will is not biblical.
@@phieble Sure "free will" isn't in the bible. But neither is "limited atonement", "unconditional election", "irresistible grace" and the like. Each of these phrases is just a theoLOGICAL attempt to understand the Scriptural data on these things. I know many calvinists like to think that their view is literally taught by Scripture, but there is logic reasoning involved in establishing TULIP. Same for any other soteriology like Arminianism. Throughout Scripture it is clear than man chooses his actions and that nothing outside of himself is coercing or forcing him to do what he does (whether unrighteous or righteous). If this is true, then that's literally the definition of free will. Yes, the words "free will" are not in the Bible, but the concept that man is ultimately at fault for whether or not he chooses or rejects God (free will) is all throughout.
@@343jonny I'm not a Calvinist. The Bible is clear that God's application of salvation is predeterministic, monergistic, and infallible, which means that he has chosen in advance all who will be saved, mankind is unable snd unwilling to obey the requirements of receiving salvation so the Lord has to move in their hearts and compel them, and once he does man cannot nor would they want to resist his compelling and once a person is saved God keeps them saved. (Words don't have to be explicitly in the Bible for the meaning of those words to be described and claimed as true.) Scriptural support for this is in the Old Testament and New Testament, but I'll just list a few verses: Ephesians 1:3-11 Romans 9:6-23 Romans 8:1-8 John 12:37-40 John 6 Genesis 8:21 Jeremiah 32:36-41 Isaiah 43:1-13 Isaiah 53 While it true that we are responsible for our choices and not puppetered by God, that is not incompatible with the truth that God has predetermined all that takes place and sometimes he moves in human hearts or sends the devil and demons to move in our hearts to influence us to do things or not do things, yet he holds us accountable for our sin.
@@phieble Monergism means that our salvation is not dependent upon us receiving the gift of grace and that salvation is solely dependent upong God's desire. Monergism would mean that we can be saved even if we do not make a choice to follow God which is a heresy. Scripture is filled with examples of how man's response to God's free gift of grace is REQUIRED for salvation. Yes, putting one's faith in Christ is a necessary action for salvation. So this would mean that salvation is synergistic (God plays the role of purchasing and offering salvation and we play the role of simply receiving this grace). I don't think you are prepared to say that we play absolutely no role in whether or not we receive salvation. You would then be saying that you never put your faith in Christ. On your second part, I never denied that God predestines everything that happens. I affirm that God is in control of human history, predestines his elect and that God gives significant human freedom to men such that they are responsible for either accepting or rejecting his Son. I'm simply showing you that monergism won't get you that.
Interesting that you didn't quote Romans 8.29 : Those he foreknew, he also predestined... God's election is conditional on foreknowledge of believers' future faith.
Hmm... interesting. What if, just because "foreknew" comes before "predestined", Paul didn't mean that God predestined His elect only after foreknowing them. I think verse 30 helps confirms this. In v. 29, Paul says we are predestined to be confirmed to the image of His Son, but then v. 30 says that those predestined are justified. Assuming we agree that justification is when we are saved, and sanctification is confirming to the image of His Son, then if we assume that the order of what Paul writes here corresponds the order of God acting these events, then that would mean that we are foreknown, then predestined, then we have to conform to Christ's image, and *then* we are saved. If this is the case, then we aren't saved by faith alone; we are saved by works alone- the works of confirming to Christ. I don't believe this is biblical. Therefore, I cannot believe that the order Paul talks about in verse 29 proves that God predestines us conditionally, based on what He knows we will do.
@@SaltyGamer777 Being conformed to the image of Christ is evidence of our faith. It is God who is working in us, He began a good work and will complete it. This is still consistent with God's predestination based on His foreknowledge of us having faith.
No John don't go down that road! 2 Tim 4 has nothing to do with election, predestination, calling ect. God's desire and what He does are two different things. 2 Tim 4 doesn't contradict anything.
Exactly! God is pursuing His ultimate level of glory via his meticulous sovereign will rather than pursuing his moral will. This fact that God desires for everyone to be conformed to his image doesn’t not even start to contend with the fact that it is a sheer IMPOSSIBILITY to have both everyone go to heaven and God to be most glorified! Amen!
If anyone is still curious about this verse or other verses that seem to contradict predestination James White did a remarkable job going through them in "Objections to Calvinism" - James White th-cam.com/video/kx551k78YPs/w-d-xo.html
Does Jesus become angry and punish a sinner who believe in him because he sin, while He died for him , when he was enemy? He die for him when the man was his enemy , and rise for his righteousness, but when the man is justified and sin again then what? Does he punish him or save him? God doesn’t spare his son fore our salvation when we was sinners, and he rose him again for our salvation, when we become justified, then if we sin while we are counted justified, then saved or lost?
Hear me now could it be our father Adam had a free will to choose and choose wrong. After the fall, men don't have the right to self-determination. We lost the right to choose. In return, God gave some eternal life so all men kind don't perish.
The doctrine of double predestination is a misunderstanding and heresy. With all due respect we have all been given free will and choice. Deuteronomy 30:19,20 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life...
You have to understand. God doesn’t know the future because he looks ahead of time to see things which did not happen yet. If it didn’t happen, it doesn’t matter exist. He knows the future because he writes it.
With all due respect, Christ loves, and sacrificed himself for all, of humankind. 1 Timothy 2 : 1-7 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle-I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying-a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
If God honestly desires all men to be saved and by “all” you mean everyone who ever lived, then your God failed. Nowhere in scripture is God called a failure and there’s nowhere in scripture where it’s recorded God failed. If His word does not return to Him void without accomplishing what He intends and some are actually lost, then you have to conclude He never intended to save them. God is omnipotent. Let that sink in. He turns a kings heart wherever He(God) wants. God is sovereign, man is not
@@mountainman78629 Our Creator may desire us all to be saved but that doesn't mean He tries to force this upon us to happen and fails when it doesn't. Instead He has given us the free will to choose whether we love Him and accept His gift of salvation, or hate Him and reject it. That is no failure on God's part. If you read the New Testament with an open heart and mind, you will understand.
@@Mary_QQQ so I guess I’m your mind God is a failure? How many people die daily who go to hell God wished went to heaven but was powerless to do anything? I bet He’s depressed
Hello there, may I ask you, what is your understanding of the biblical Gospel of our salvation? If an unbeliever was to ask you, “How do I go to Heaven?”, what would you tell them?
John Piper says that the non Calvinist view. or free will. means that people ultimately determine their own destiny. This is not a true representation because the unsaved don't get to determine r their destiny, God does. They may say there is no he'll, but they will know their e=or. God is still sovereign. On the other hand, those who have believed God for His gracious redemption are not exercising ultimate authority because they say I trust You and the way You have ordered things, and believe that You have offered Jesus for my sins. There is no other way but Your way. God is Sovereign.
Because of the *fallacious Augustinian paradigm,* people misunderstand predestination. -There’s no such thing as double predestination.- The only reason people think it’s a thing is because of their fallacious *Augustinian paradigm.* This is for anyone who wants to understand predestination: th-cam.com/video/B9KSdqfxHJA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=KxTFs5Lo_6p80kZU
God is not to blame We all have been created with free will to choose. God is all loving Deuteronomy 30:19,20 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life...
John should at the minimum be able to describe the views of other biblical scholars in such a way that those scholars would say "yes, that is what we believe". With all due respect, he apparently can't do that (I have read a number of his books and have watched very many of his videos). I was a member of Grace Community Church (John MacArthur) for twenty years and taught Fundamentals of the Faith classes there. I have since (through four years of intense study learning all views from those that hold them) come to believe that Calvinism is tragically unbiblical. I encourage everyone that hears this view, to also explore all four views on this issue until you can describe them correctly (Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism, and Provisionism). There is no downside to doing this. You will either change your view (I hope 🙂), or you will at least know your own view (and all the others) better-as well as the Bible in general. No down side. 🙂One of my favorite sources is Soteriology 101. www.youtube.com/@Soteriology101
Believers, Romans 8, are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, Jesus Christ. It does not say lost, unsaved people are predestined to salvation or damnation. Salvation is conditional on man’s response to the Gospel with their faith.
I think the traditional view is that salvation includes justification, sanctification (conforming to the image of Jesus) and glorification. It doesn't quite make sense to say we were predestined to sanctification from eternity, but NOT to justification. Of course, justification is conditional on our faith. Nobody argues that, I hope not.
Whereas I would agree that we cannot go nuts branding random people about whether they are saved or not, the 'criteria' for Salvation are clear. So for the lost, they are not meeting the criteria, thus they are damned. As the believers are predestined to be saved, the unbelievers are predestined to damnation. This statement is consistent with Romans 9. Yes, you are not wrong in saying Salvation is conditional on man's response to the Gospel with their faith - however, what makes some men believe while some others do not? By and through the grace of God upon those who believe. It is true that "A PERSON BELIEVES THUS HE/SHE IS SAVED" but it is also true that "GOD SAVES A PERSON THUS HE/SHE BELIEVES."
Faith is the necessary condition for justification. God provides the necessary condition of faith to us by way of gifting it. He provides faith to those whom He predestined. It is a reasonable inference to deduce that those whom are passed over could be described as “predestined to hell,” especially given the content of Romans 9 describing vessels of wrath created for destruction, in addition to various other passages throughout the Bible. However, it’s vital to note that though God creates belief in the heart of the unbeliever to save him or her, He does not act with equal ultimacy in creating unbelief in the hearts of those who would otherwise believe, and with the understanding from Romans 3 we understand that nobody is seeking after God apart from divine intervention. They don’t believe because they do not want to believe. On the other hand, the Christian believes because God saves them from their wicked desire to not believe by giving them a new heart, and a new spirit (see Ezekiel 36:24-27)
““No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” John 6:44 When did Saul choose Christ ? It was God who chose him and not his companions on the road to Damacus
Christ's Atonement - Universal intent, universal extent but Limited application. The salvation gift was purchased for all but received by those especially who believe. Christ died for His sheep. His death was not in vain, His death came to save not to merely make salvation possible in that everyone that He died for will come to faith. Definite Atonement. 😢🙏😃
Just a reminder that Double Predestination was declared a heresy at the Council of Orange. for if God predestined people to not be saved, God would have predestined it so that a person would sin, thereby making God the author of sin. This is unfathomably sick, demented and twisted. you can't handwave away the implications by appealing to "goDs dIvIne mystery", that is illogical and intellectually lazy. The Eastern Orthodox are right to condemn and anathemize such people
God chose us. Who is us? - by name or who will believe? Obviously, He chooses those who will believe in His Son for salvation. This the WORK and COMMAND of God, not of men: John 6:29 KJV Jesus answered and said unto them, *_This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent._* 1 John 3:23 KJV And *_this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ,_* and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
10:55 John Piper reveals that he hasn't read Phillipians ch 2 Piper would have you believe God would go so far as to give us his Son as a sacrifice, but not so far as to give us the ability to believe in Him. 14:00 Some positions don't need to be refuted, they just need to be clearly stated... looks like you decided to give Soteriology101 the day off 🤣
@@HearGodsWord I know he has read it, I wasn't writing literally. I'm sure Piper would have made the same mistake. The reason I bring up Phillipians 2 is because it clearly shows that Christ's glory is preceeded by and predicated by his love and his humility. Piper would have it go the other way around.
@@josephbrandenburg4373 I didn't mention anything about reading. I suggested that he has taught it and you'd find it on the DG website. That way you can find out what he thinks rather than assuming.
Salvation is conditional. You must respond with your faith to God’s grace of sending Jesus. You must accept the clear meaning of Scripture. Jesus truly God and man came to die for all as a ransom, but we must respond to God’s grace with our faith, just as the passage states. Blessings
@@theresaread72 What you say is true about the fact that we must decide to follow God, but not true in that all can do this. Some are destined for other ends.
@@judethree4405 We, who already believe are predestined to be conformed to the Image of Christ, not for heaven or Hell Romans 8. In Ephesians 1 believers who are already IN HIM are predestined to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ. Ephesians is written to the Saints, the Faithful of those in Christ Jesus, also addresses those who are in Him 12 times. We have the Holy Spirit of Adoption but true adoption happens at the resurrection Romans 8. There is no place in scripture that says God predestines us to heaven or hell but predestines those who are already in Him to have spiritual blessings forgiveness, to be holy and blameless, Blessings
@@theresaread72 I understand that passage, and you are right about it. However, this is a very large discussion which covers much ground, which I don’t feel like getting into. My view is based off of decades of reading scripture. Could I be wrong? Sure.
@@judethree4405 My view is also based off decades of reading Scripture. You have said you agree with my interpretation of Scripture. Augustine 400 AD was the first person to bring in theistic determinism. Even Bavinck and Boettner 2 Reformed Scholars say Augustine was the first person to bring in theistic determinism.Calvin was an Augustinian Catholic Priest who took Augustine’s writings into the 1500s, that God chooses the eternal destinies of men, found nowhere in Scripture!Blessings!
Terrible. This is the doctrine of men cleverly woven into the text of sacred scripture. Jesus loves all and died for all. Men love darkness rather than light and they end up rejecting Christ and remaining condemned. This is not God’s doing. This is man’s choice. We all have a choice to respond once we hear the gospel.
@@tannerr247 how can I give biblical evidence when it's literally nowhere in the Bible? "Show me the biblical evidence that calculators aren't mentioned in the Bible!"
I think the people who (incl. myself) get confused about predestination do so because we forget that humans are to blame for the condition they (we) are in and that God doesn't owe it to us to save us so it's not really all that unfair to people who dont make it to heaven and because of God being omniscient that it would actually be hypocritical not to call it predestination... My dad used to say God wants us to be His children out of free will... otherwise we wouldn't be children but actually more like slaves... to sum it up... I' dont think we really understand ourselves as we should and it makes sense that there is a specific path to follow GIVEN by Jesus ahead of time that only the "chosen" few are able to walk until the end. Hence - the destination predetermined - for us all. Our futures are ahead of us - not somewhere in the future. And our future belongs to God - NO ONE else.🦾
Deep and sobering! Why I must always do as my GOD says for me, Proverbs 3:5-6, Trust HIM with all my heart and do not lean unto my own understanding, in all my ways acknowledge HIM and HE will direct my paths. AND Micah 6:8, I am to act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with my GOD. Thank you Tony and Dr. Piper.
There are truths that are for human understanding and there are truths that gives a glimpse of God’s purview and are stumbling blocks for those who don’t want to follow Christ. 1 Timothy 2:4 is a truth for Man to hold to. Also God’s answer to job is another instance that there are things we can glimpse but cannot know. Faith is not contingent on the truth making sense to us.
I think we all have a picture in our mind of God, His word and how we understand it. I’m convinced of double predestination because it’s biblical whereas the vast majority reject it not because it’s not in the Bible but it’s very uncomfortable for them to even think about a God who chooses some and not others. They force plain scriptures which say we are chosen based on nothing we do, to say God sees what we do and chooses us because of something we did.
@@mountainman78629 Amen. Child like faith. It’s emotional reasons and also the perverse human nature desiring to hang on to the idea that there is some good in them deep down somewhere that would choose God. It takes grace to
love grace.
thank you Lord for using brother Piper to teach and help us to learn even though we can't fathom everything there is to know about you help us to learn as much as we can for the sake of your gospel and glory
I remember the very day that the Lord of Glory opened my eyes to this doctrine, and He manifested His Glory in all of it's fullness.
It's not biblical
Piper is a Calvanist so is a biased towards his doctrine. The versus are a problem becuase the theology is wrong.
Nice.
Very well explained.
Fully committed to the glory of God and not the glory of man.
Looking back at Romans 9 it looks like Paul is really grappling with the fact that the nation of Israel as a whole has rejected the gospel of Christ. He remembered the times that jews would stir up trouble from town to town, trying to drive him out and silence him. He has done all that he can to reach them, what would it take "I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people".
Though he said to the reader, "who are you to talk back to God" he probably first said it to himself. In so far as the nation of Israel and the promise to Abraham, he saw that the the acceptable relationship with God was through faith. He acted in sovereignty with Israel, saying though I give you the law, the temple, the covenants you still must come to me in Faith and through Jesus all people will continue to come to me in Faith. Romans 9 though it gives a glimpse at divine sovereignty, the emphasis of it is regarding the national of Israel and Paul reconciling what God had done in the past and what he is doing in Christ. I don't see that this contradicts 1 Timothy 2:4. Imagine you could ask God, "Do you want some people to go to hell?" What do you think he would say. I think he would say something like 1 Timothy 2:4 and we would walk away content with that.
As somebody who adheres to what I call “biblical universalism”, I would have to kindly disagree with Mr Piper’s reasoning concerning 1 Tim 2:4. In my opinion, God’s choosing and purpose for his elect isn't to the detriment of all others, but for the eventual gain and blessings of all others.
In 1 Tim 2:4, Paul points out that the “all men” is the same as the “all men” in verse 6 who Christ gave himself a ransom for, which the scriptures further make clear was the “whole world” 1 John 2:2. Note, not only did John say Christ was a propitiation for “our” sin [ie] the believer/elect, but for the whole world [ie] those outside of being the elect. I see no restrictive qualifiers in 1 Tim 2:4. Paul is simply saying that he wants Timothy to pray for “all people”, which “includes” but isn’t “limited” to kings etc.
1 Tim 2:4: - who doth [will/thelō] all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth;
Lexicon: Strong's - thelō:-
Outline of Biblical Usage:- to will, have in mind, intend, to be resolved or determined, to purpose, to desire to wish to love, to like to do a thing, be fond of doing, to take delight in, have pleasure.
The word thelō is in verb form, and it doesn’t lend itself to some form of wishful thinking, it speaks of action and purpose [ie] God intends to save [all] men, or purposes for [all] men to be saved.
Apostle Paul then goes on to explain exactly what he meant in 1 Tim 2:4:-
1 Timothy 4:10:- For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of “all mankind”, >[especially]< of believers.
I fail to see how the context doesn’t fit with universalism. Paul simply states that God is the saviour of “all mankind”, and “within” that “all” are believers. The word “especially” is an adverb of the word “special” and it is used in the following context: -
especially: - adverb: - used to single out one person or thing over [all] others. [ie] “he despised them [all], [especially] Jeremiah”
In the example above, Jeremiah is part of the [all] that is despised yet he is singled out for an even stronger despising than the rest. So for me personally 1 Tim 4:10 in context is saying, God is the saviour of [all] mankind yet believers are being singled out for a special kind of salvation [ie] the elect. To make this reasoning clearer:-
Gala 6:10. :- So then, while we have opportunity, let’s do good to “all people” and >[especially]< to those who are of the household of the faith.
Paul isn’t saying only do good to those that believe, he is saying that believers are to do good to “all men”, yet whilst doing this, believers are to treat other believers with “special” goodness. This is another example of why I reason it’s the same context at 1 Tim 4:10, Paul isn’t saying God is only going to save believers, but that he is going to save “all men” whilst giving his chosen [ie] the elect “special” salvation. [ie] They are saved, being saved and will be saved, they will be transformed at Christ’s coming, 1 Corinth 15: 52, they will be spared the wrath of God, 1 Thess 5:9, they will be “inheritors” of the kingdom, they are made into a kingdom of priests Rev 1:6, and they will Judge/rule with Christ in his Fathers coming kingdom Rev 20:4. Only a few are “chosen” to share in these “special” privileges, therefore, I reason it’s only the elect in this age who will be given such positions in the next. Yet, Paul focusing on the elect being called and chosen in this present age doesn’t mean he didn’t acknowledge God's plan to save “ALL” in the ages to come.
Peace
Did something happen in Christian TH-cam circles this week? This is the second video in twos day I am seeing addressing this topic
Please pray for me in Australia
This seems like a small thing, but you guys may want to think about rendering your background animation again, the quality is pretty low probably from being compressed and reused so many times.
God bless you so much brother
The ultimate disposition of human souls still seems, somehow, to be not only unequal but also unfair. We are all sinners and all deserving of eternal damnation but, through no act of our own, freely selected only some of us to avoid the punishment that we deserve by shifting it to Jesus on the cross. So, if it's the case that only some of us are saved but none of us deserve it and those who are not saved seem to have a legitimate gripe that they would have been saved had it been there in their own power to do so. But it wasn't in anyone's power it was only in God's control.
Ultimately, I understand pastor John's answer and appreciate the gravity of the coherence of God's justice and how it works with predestination but there is, in some niggling sense, dissatisfaction in me. I still want to understand because the apparent Injustice is hard to answer when people question it.
That's why Piper just handwaves it away without even attempting to answer it.
Your curiosity is sincere and reverent rather than cynical, and I praise the Lord for that! I hope this makes sense and helps when you analyze and compare it with what you read in Scripture, especially Ezekiel 18, Isaiah 45, and Romans 9.
My attempt at answering what I think your question is is that it is not a legitimate argument that if our salvation was left in our hands that more of the unelect might be saved, and this is even with or without and inherent sin nature. Here's why: It is not possible that there could exist such a world where God is a passive Creator and Sustainer and therefore did not predetermine everything because God in his nature is omniscient, loving, and just, therefore he created the universe with VERY SPECIFIC purposes and not just to sustain human life and watch as we orchestrated history with him only intervening occasionally. Therefore, from his position as sovereign and his character traits that are filled with undying passion, rigid, unchangeable decisions had to be made in order to establish and ensure the fulfillment of all of his purposes which MUST BE good because he is good and could not possibly be wrong because for one, he owns everything, and additionally, he is completely satisfied with all that he needs in himself and hence cannot be tempted to do evil and would have no need to be inconsistent or malicious without cause. God created from a heart of love and a place of eternal happiness for the purpose of sharing his love and happiness with lesser, dependent creatures who are somewhat like him so that they would have the capacity to enjoy it.
Also, Adam and Eve did not have a sin nature initially so there was nothing within them that was bent toward disobedience, yet when they were tempted, seemingly with little to no fight at all, they chose to sin, which is mind-boggling, aweful, and unrelatable considering no one since them has ever lived in paradise and not had to resist internal temptation to sin. Of course, they were predestined to sin, but how did that come about without God making them sin and them not having a sin nature and thus hypothetically being actually able to resist the temptation from a place of moral neutrality? The question of questions
I think the answer is connected to my conclusion about how and why Lucifer was able and inclined to sin in Heaven when he did not initially have a sin nature, and of course while God planned it he did not directly cause it. I have observed and read in the Bible that the hearts of creatures were made to be satisfied for as long as they exist and thus they will seek it, yet since God is the only one eternal enough and worthy enough to satisfy us due to his infinite glory and beauty, if God were ever to withdraw himself from us so that we are not conscious of him and we are unable to locate and access him to enjoy him then we would be left by default to look around at the beautiful, enticing things that he has made, and our hearts would cling to those things in hopes that something, someone, ANYTHING would just keep us increasingly happy forever while protecting us from potential danger. The implication of this is that a sin nature is not the only cause of sin and even if we were not born inclined to sin WE STILL WOULD EVENTUALLY END UP THAT WAY. That's an awesome reality!!!!
Therefore, no human being will stand before God at the judgment and rightfully say, "Well God you can't judge me for not obeying you because you yourself claim to have all authority and power even over my destiny and will plus I had a sin nature that I could not free myself from, so if you had left the power of my will and destiny to me then I could have and probably would have lived up to what you required. Insufficient moral, decisive power in my hands means no accountability from you; anything besides that is unjust." I fear such logical thought, yet without reverence!
God could then answer back to them, "You did evil not just because I predestined you to but because you actually enjoyed it and you actually would not wish to desire me even without a natural inclination for worshipping other things unless I brought my glorious presence near to you and captured your affections so much that nothing else could compete." If they then say God, "Well why didn't you do that? You can't hold me accountable for that," God could tell them "I chose for my own purpose of maximizing my love upon my unworthy elect not to love everybody in the same way, yet you cannot condemn me for this because the elect are no more worthy of salvation than you essentially are so I'm not being partial by giving you a disadvantage that I did not also give them, and also there is not fault in my purposes just because you did not benefit from them because I don't owe any of my creatures anthing. Yet you did commit real evil while enjoying it and harming others and at no point did I control you or make you do it against your will and I even warned you of what was to come but you didn't want to listen and you did not care about all the mercy and grace that I gave you in the meantime. You are a sinner that did not deserve mercy and grace, did not appreciate it in the measures that you received it from me, and didn't care to look further into it and desire it when it was offered to you in my general revelation through creation or in my special revelation through my word and the Gospel."
Gavel slammed, justice accomplished, prideful unrepentant sinner's mouth shut.
@@phieble "I chose for my own purpose of maximizing my love upon my unworthy elect not to love everybody in the same way" utter lunacy. God is love. For God so loved the world. Where do you get the idea that he loves some more than others?It's always a bad idea to put words in God's mouth.
That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him.
But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts.
I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc.
All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election.
Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏
Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32
James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc
Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
@@phieble I donno if this was a response to me or continuing your long-winded response to OP, but..I know your strategy is to write so, so much text that it's impossible to parse your opinion. Then when people throw up their hands at the immensurable wall of text and its ponderous lack of punctuation, you can feel like you won the argument. I can't spend an entire week reading this carefully, so I am only going to pick out the points that are easy to find fault with (well, especially easy).
"while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end"Shall we do evil that good may result?"pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God" This is just the pot calling the kettle black. What you mean is "rather than based on my particular view of God"... but it's your view of God that defines good and evil in an arbitrary way, not mine."God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect"I really feel God's love when he rejects, hates, and even destroys my unbelieving family members."You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. "I agree with this wholeheartedly, but if you follow this logic you might end up being hoist by your own petard.Finally, I just want to point out that you had to write an entire book to wind and contort around a very simple objection... if this is even a response to me at all.
To interpret 2 Timothy 2:24-25 (The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth)
as somehow God is a control freak, managing double predestination, is totally erroneous. Disagree with Dr. John Piper on this.
2 Timothy 2:24-25 merely means God is active even as we are active in determining our destination.
This is similar to how God dealt with Pharaoh, hardening his heart even as Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
God set Pharaoh as an example for us so that we may fear God and never harden our hearts.
14:43 those destined to be damned didn’t ask to exist. If you gave them a choice to end up in eternal conscious torment or simply to not have existed in the first place, they would choose the latter. Instead, they are thrust into existence, damned before they breathe their first breath or committing their first sin.
Tell me how someone is culpable for actions they haven’t yet committed? That’s an incoherent position.
If you had a lever to pull which would save a conscious being the torment of eternal hell, wouldn’t you pull it? I know what it feels like to be separated from a loved one (death) and what physical pain feels like (e.g. burning my hand on a stove) so multiply the physical and emotional experience of pain by infinity and you have hell.
I would be a maniacal supervillain if I wanted someone to experience that forever. I would be criminally negligent if I had the knowledge and ability to spare someone from that destiny, but didn’t.
I pray that this gives you clarity and that God grants you the grace to accept it because God's sovereignty in justice and in grace CANNOT WILL NOT be embraced apart from God's intervention in our hearts and minds.
That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him.
But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts.
I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc.
All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election.
Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏
Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32
James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc
Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
Everyone gets a fair chance - no matter how unfair it seems - so not asking to exist is not an excuse. If you understood the depths of what your sin deserves you would send yourself to hell... as it appears you are doing bro. God is more gracious than we can understand. Literally...
12All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous.
14Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them 16on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Christ Jesus, as proclaimed by my gospel. Romans 2
@@phieble I appreciate your thorough response. I'll get down to the essence of my disagreement:
You wrote:"The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling r[o]bots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God"
1. Basically, the evil ones are the ones that would't have asked for forgiveness anyway. But they were destined to be evil before they made the first choice to sin. You can only make your assertion (that they wouldn't even want mercy, and they don't view their evil as evil) post facto, after they have lived their life. But-- there was a time, before the foundation of the world, where their eternal soul (which didn't have a body to sin with yet) was decided to be damned to hell.
2. The reprobate were intended to be vessels of wrath before the world was even created, before they were created in their mothers wombs. Moral culpability comes from our conscious choice - we decided to sin. You only punish those who should have known better. If a person is born with a destiny to sin, they didn't choose to have that destiny - they were thrust into it. Whatever happens after... well they're just along for the ride at that point, right? You can't have a choice and not have a choice simultaneously. You can't be culpable for something you didn't do yet. One might say "well they become culpable when they do it!" but it wasn't their choice to make, really. They are automatons, bereft of their own ability to make the choice of the Good, because it was disallowed for them from the start. Why?
As Piper puts it, it's not a contradiction (*because definitionally this can't be possible!!!*)... it's a PARADOX!
That seems to be a distinction without difference. It seems to be a game of semantics. You say potatoe, I say po-taa-to. Ultimately this is where logical consistency breaks down.
@@radicalDeparter
I know that you will not accept any of my arguments if you don't believe that the Bible is the only authoritative, infallible revelation from God himself through human writers and that it defines wisdom and trumps human philosophical logic. I also know that you can't accept those facts on your own as I could not, therefore I pray that God will help you and help us all.
Your claim that I can only make my assertion that (the reprobate wouldn't want mercy and don't view evil as evil) post facto is not correct. The reprobate don't want mercy and don't view their evil as evil because of the pride in human hearts that refuse God's terms for mercy and justify whatever we enjoy doing. People tend to define good and evil arbitrarily and subjectively rather than objectively and based in God's supreme, eternal existence as if the concept of what good is is seperate from God's eternal essence from whence all things and concepts come. I'm not sure why people have a problem with this except maybe it's the fact that if good is defined by God himself then you can't hold God accountable, but that is the only thing that makes sense because God defines what words mean and how they apply, he does this consistently, and creatures could not possibly hold God accountable anyway because they don't have the wisdom, authority, preeminent presence, or power to do so, which is another thing that makes God's decrees righteous by defaut. God has said that the reprobate would never want mercy and they don't view evil as evil, therefore according to his statement along with my observation inwardly and outwardly, I can claim the same with confidence. The rebrobate, while conscious, willful, and not puppets, do not care about their rebrobation and the mercy God gives them before the Judgment.
Your claim that moral culpability comes from our conscious choice, is not entirely correct and I say that because it's not strictly found in Scripture but is a philosophical claim. We are held accountable for our decisions because we make them willfully and not by another's direct, physical force, and because God cannot punish the sins of human beings without punishing human beings. Whether or not God predestined the sin and the measure of freedom in our will is irrelevant because God is not a sinner to predestine sin but we are always sinful when we commit sin, and we choose to do so while enjoying it, all the while knowing better and having access to knowledge of right and wrong.
Also, you CAN indeed have a choice and not have one simultaneously. Jesus is God and he planned out everything including his own crucifixion, so he HAD to come to earth as a human being and suffer it, yet nobody physically forced him to do so, and in fact he prayed to God the Father for help all throughout his human life. It's a paradox, yes, but it is true. God knows and has determined what I am doing today, yet I am consciouslly, willfully deciding myself with no tangible feeling of God's presence and influence to do what I'm doing, and when I am influenced that is not the same as force like with a will-less, inanimate object, nor is his preordination direct force to do something. Our wills are intact, we have access to knowledge of God's existence and right and wrong, and we commit actual sin, therefore we should and will be held accountable.
““For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9
The difference between RC Sproul’s, John Piper’s and John MacArthur’s answers is making think and I probably need to study it further.
The difference maybe small but I think it is there.
Has anyone analysed the three views yet? Can someone help?
Here is an honest question: How would saving all diminish the value of God's grace? I don't understand the perspective that God designed some (most) people as vessels of his destruction so that his mercy would be shown to the elect. For starters, creating people to be born into sin (and making sinlessness impossible for humans) just so that he can show wrath/mercy seems analogous to setting someone's house on fire just so you can use the water hose. Sure, it is good to have the water hose available if a fire ever breaks out, but nobody ever actually wants to *have* to use the water hose for this purpose (especially not to the extent that they seek to start a fire just so that they can use the hose). Even if you use the hose and put out the fire, the house and the emotional state of the homeowner will be much more damaged than they would be if there was never any fire in the first place. In the same way, I feel like allowing sin/suffering to exist in the world just so that God can show wrath and mercy still results in a much worse outcome than if everyone was just saved to begin with.
Furthermore, I don't see how the elect will see God's goodness and mercy more just because of the destruction of the non-elect. If anything, the destruction of sinners will make the elect fear God even more than they already did, and they might worship him out of fear and terror, but I don't see how people will actually genuinely worship him in rejoicing and happiness (unless they have some kind of sadist fetish and just enjoy seeing the pain and despair of the sinners, so they are worshipping God in their happiness at people's pain).
On the contrary, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7 ESV).
I answer that God in His wisdom created a world in which He sovereignty decided to save some and not others. You may think it does not make sense, but there is the distinct possibility that you are wrong about what is best, however there is no possibility that our omniscient and omnibenevolent God could be wrong about the best way to manifest the richness and fullness of His glory.
Your analogy doesn’t hold up. If you said instead that we as humanity collectively and deliberately committed arson and God in His mercy decided to save some and not others, that would be a more fitting Biblical situation. In your analogy you have made God the author of the evil which He then saves us from, which if anyone actually believed that it would be blasphemous.
The only proper response to this mercy is thankfulness and an acknowledgement of Gods wisdom. We trust that Gods decision to condemn the wicked is for us to better understand His mercy. If everyone indiscriminately received mercy, we could not have a real understanding of Gods holiness
That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him.
But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts.
I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc.
All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election.
Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏
Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32
James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc
Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
@@osmundsindland4596 _I answer that God in His wisdom created a world in which He sovereignty decided to save some and not others_
Why do you doubt and downplay the power of Christ to save? The Father commissioned His Son to be the Savior of the world (John 3:17) and scripture tells us that God's Word will not return void (Isaiah 55:11) Do you believe Christ will fail to redeem, save and deliver every soul to His Father? Do you not believe that He is the Savior of the world? Will Christ "save some" or will He save all? What do the scriptures tell us?
*1 Timothy 2:4* Who will have *all men to be saved* and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
_If everyone indiscriminately received mercy, we could not have a real understanding of Gods holiness_
Indiscriminately? God gives us what we need when we need it, and one of the greatest needs we will ever have is the need for mercy, and make no mistake, everyone will receive mercy at the time they need it.
*Romans 11:32* For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
@@Joel-Serra ah I see now that you are a universalist.
I don’t downplay at all the power and merit of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. In fact, I affirm it. In that respect we are alike.
However, unlike you, I am bound by conscience to consider the clear teaching in Scripture that there will be some who are sent into outer darkness and everlasting torment. And God is perfectly just to do that.
There are plenty of passages which demonstrate that the atonement, while unlimited in its power and merit, is limited in the design of its scope. Here are a few samples:
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.””
Matthew 1:21 ESV
If all people were His people, the use of exclusivist language would be inappropriate.
Again we see the words of our Lord:
“Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.””
Matthew 25:45-46 ESV
It feels unwise to assume that Christ was speaking of an event that will never actually take place. The plain reading of the text demands we take it at face value: some will go away into eternal punishment.
In the garden during His high priestly prayer our Lord included in His prayer the following:
““I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word… I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours…. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,”
John 17:6, 9, 20 ESV
So He prays for those whom the Father has given Him (exclusivist language again), He notes that He is NOT praying for the world (overtly exclusivist language) and later prays for those who WILL believe in the future (again exclusivist language implying that there will be those who don’t believe in the future). Interesting to also note that the word “world” is clearly understood to have a meaning other than “every person without exception” in this passage. In fact, very rarely does anyone ever use the word “world” to mean every single person or place without exception, such as when Paul said of the Gospel: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing-as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,”
Colossians 1:6 ESV. So unless we are willing to affirm Paul traveled to the Americas, the far reaches of Asia, and perhaps even to Australia and Antarctica, not to mention every square inch of land and water in between, we have a clear example that the word “world” is not universal.
And the Apostle confirms again that [pray for us]…that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.”
2 Thessalonians 3:2 ESV
It is difficult to read the Bible and ignore the clear indications that Hell is real and it will be occupied. It would take a mountain of evidence to overturn what otherwise seems like the clear and plain teaching of our Lord and His apostles. Thanks and God bless!
Calvinism is not Biblical. For more Soteriology 101 TH-cam. Blessings!
I'm not going to stress out about all this predestination stuff, people just need to believe in Jesus, and not worry about the fine details as though it has anything to do with their salvation, or losing it. Remember, God's Word also indicates that we should not be debating on a lot of these issues that generate questions. But still, there will be those that say, "The Bible is pretty clear on this...", ...though I've never ran across a scripture that says, God is not clear on this subject don't discuss it amongst yourself. God is CLEAR concerning His Plan, but God's plan is not clear to even believers, least of all those that do not believe for no one knows the "work" that God does from beginning to end, and where has God declared this work, within His Word, so no one understands God's Word from beginning to end. God gives us each day our daily bread, and we should not dwell on these topics because they do not win souls, but only contribute more confusion.
So good.
Proverbs 16:4
The Lord has made all for Himself,
Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.
Deep!
Appreciate, if any Calvinist could furnish me with bible verses on Calvin's teaching on decreed of God in relation to double-predestination? Thank you.
The translation of Ephesians 1:4 got completely misinterpreted.
The great think about Predestination is u don't need Jesus Christ. It's not required, because it was already determined. Besides Jesus Christ's human nature had no free will. U also have no choice in u being able to choose a personal lord abd savior.
What you are saying is predestination supersedes justice, atonement and God's nature. This is quite an irrational thing to say. When someone talks about predestination, they include everything, which is necessary, is also predestined
@@shikyokira3065 the mystery of predestination paired with free will is one, double predestination is a vile heresy that creates god the author or evil Christianity as a villain.
@@captainmarvel76927 Funny how you can don't understand one thing but is confident that that mystery does not include or won't lead to double predestination. I'm not saying it does, just that you jumped the conclusion without knowing the mystery yourself
Moreover, theologically we all can agree that evil in essence is the lack of good. It is a negative. double predestination supporters can easily use this to explain how God didn't and doesn't create evil.
Can God not create something? Obviously God can. God didn't create teleportation device, God didn't create warp drive and so on. There are so many things God didn't create. So why can't something lack of good?
Assuming God created sin is assuming a light bulb created darkness (aka the shadow). So you are essentially using a heretic view that you assume they hold but in actual they don't, and then use that to justify how their view is a heresy. This is a classic strawman
If you come in good faith and spirit, even tho you don't agree nor understand how double predestination would not contradict A, B, C and so on.. you name it, you could have just asked. If you don't buy the reasoning, cool.
The truth will be revealed eventually, so no need to be like the Pharisees assuming only your interpretation is the correct interpretation because you know, even the Pharisees, the religious leaders, accused Jesus of blasphemy. I'm sure you don't want to be like the Pharisees, right? Right??
@@shikyokira3065 No we diagree completely, particularly evil being the absence of good, all that is left is a neutral void. Like in the beginning per Genesis. You reek of John Calvin, and ur long winded trio-tribe is most amusing, and like a shot gun, blasts small pebbles not truth. Do u claim to have divine knowledge and authority to interpret, funny how it always comes down on "your side." You have no authority for anything, u are a strawman.
I think the supposed paradox can be simpler to understand with this: “The mind of a man plans his way, but the LORD devises his steps.” Proverbs 16:9. I understand man’s accountability as we devise our sin in our heart, this is congruent with the teaching of Christ, sin is a heart problem always, but God ordains what actions we take. The initial hardening of the heart comes from the sin in us that God has placed upon all in Adam, but only some will have removed. As a person turns more and more to sin, God will give them over to their desires, this matches with Romans 1 talking about the judgement of many from God being they become more depraved. Even Esau, whom God hated, seemed to live more freely than Jacob. It’s that as we devise more evil in our heart, God holds us back from the chains of sin less and less. But for those whom are predestined to salvation, Christ has shattered these chains so we may be truly free. Pure self-determination is actually impossible, not just because of the sovereignty of God, but because sin keeps our heart from choosing God and choosing good.
Another point about what keeps God from saving all is His glory in being just and righteous. He would not be truly just or righteous if He didn’t judge and hold responsible anyone. Being truly just and truly merciful seem almost contradictory, but God is both and cannot deny Himself, so if He is both they are not contradictory. This reasons that if someone is to be merciful, than they would have to be just. Upon further pondering this becomes obvious, because if someone was only merciful and never held anyone accountable, than they would not be merciful, they would be lackadaisical, unjust, indifferent to, and promoter of evil. God is not so. If He was purely just, and devoid of mercy, Christ would not be God. And who am I to deny the deity of Jesus? If Christ is God, as He is, then for the fullness of God’s glory to be met, He would have to be merciful. So He must be just to be counted merciful, and He must be merciful to be God and therefore glorified. If He saved the majority and let only a few go to Hell, then they would be able to bring against Him being unjust and choosing those few just to spite. And we wouldn’t call this mercy since His normal action would be not to judge. But God has not done this. He has made the straight and narrow the path of salvation in Christ. Only the few will be saved so that He can therefore rightfully be glorified as just, which allows for Him to be rightfully glorified as merciful. As the brightness of light cannot be fully understood without the dark, so too can the mercy of God not be fully understood without His justness.
How great is this plan? If a man had done this, it would not be so. Praise to our LORD, only He would have willed such a universe. Only He can be glorified in this. Only He would send His son so that He may die to redeem the people given to Him, the people given to Him so that His grace and mercy may be on display to all of creation along with His justness. Forever and always be all of the glory to Him, and to Him alone.
A little scary when you said "sin in us that God has place upon all". God doesn't put sin in us.
@@343jonny Yeah, you’re right. I don’t think my sentence structure fully conveyed what I was trying to say. What I meant is that the heart of a sinner is hardened against God. God has ordained that sin nature is passed down from father to child. This hardening God has ordained to be upon all. I was not trying to say that God makes a person sin despite their wishes to do good. What I meant was God permits, or ordains, a person to carry out a sinful desire that they have formulated with their sinful heart. As Proverbs 16:9 says, the sinful plan comes from the man, but for His own glory and purpose God permits men to carry out some of the countless sins that are planned in the heart.
For whom did Jesus die?
John 10:11
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
Who are the sheep?
John 10:24-30
So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Where the rubber meets the road is I don’t believe that if someone cried out to God and surrendered, that God would turn this person away just because he didn’t choose them. I think the purpose of the verses of faith being a gift is to guard against boasting in it. One thing that I think we do bring which is of our free will is surrendering, and simultaneously God meets us and fills us with faith as a gift, not because he is controlled by us but that he is the ultimate Good.
I think the Calvinist argument is that no one would reach out to God and surrender if they weren’t chosen by him and drawn to himself.
@@currie175Convenient.
@@currie175 ah yes, so god is the cause of their sin
Even the Council of Orange declares, "We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema." Double predestination has historically been condemned by the church and does not have its roots in the teachings of the church fathers or Scriptures.
That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him.
But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts.
I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc.
All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election.
Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏
Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32
James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc
Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'
God is all loving and it is not in His Nature to cause eternal torment to His created beings if they have not willingly chosen to reject Him and His law.
We are responsible for rejecting Him, not He.
He has created us with free will. Stop blaming God for people ending up in Hell.
With all due respect
@@Mary_QQQ The idea of free will is a belief that is preferred over the sovereignty of God and I understand the emotional "cover" it can bring and how it can preserve pride which feels good to the flesh, but all that matters is whether Scripture supports what we believe. Do you have any Scripture within its proper context and grammar that can support your claims and refute mine? Also, I know that my comment was lengthy, but if you read it, while I appreciate that, it appears that you didn't understand me rightly. I don't believe the things that you insinuated that I do-God is responsible for us going to Hell rather than us, God causes torment to those who have not willingly rejected him, etc. I agree that those things are not true, but still, the concept of free will is not biblical.
@@phieble Sure "free will" isn't in the bible. But neither is "limited atonement", "unconditional election", "irresistible grace" and the like. Each of these phrases is just a theoLOGICAL attempt to understand the Scriptural data on these things. I know many calvinists like to think that their view is literally taught by Scripture, but there is logic reasoning involved in establishing TULIP. Same for any other soteriology like Arminianism.
Throughout Scripture it is clear than man chooses his actions and that nothing outside of himself is coercing or forcing him to do what he does (whether unrighteous or righteous). If this is true, then that's literally the definition of free will. Yes, the words "free will" are not in the Bible, but the concept that man is ultimately at fault for whether or not he chooses or rejects God (free will) is all throughout.
@@343jonny I'm not a Calvinist. The Bible is clear that God's application of salvation is predeterministic, monergistic, and infallible, which means that he has chosen in advance all who will be saved, mankind is unable snd unwilling to obey the requirements of receiving salvation so the Lord has to move in their hearts and compel them, and once he does man cannot nor would they want to resist his compelling and once a person is saved God keeps them saved. (Words don't have to be explicitly in the Bible for the meaning of those words to be described and claimed as true.)
Scriptural support for this is in the Old Testament and New Testament, but I'll just list a few verses:
Ephesians 1:3-11
Romans 9:6-23
Romans 8:1-8
John 12:37-40
John 6
Genesis 8:21
Jeremiah 32:36-41
Isaiah 43:1-13
Isaiah 53
While it true that we are responsible for our choices and not puppetered by God, that is not incompatible with the truth that God has predetermined all that takes place and sometimes he moves in human hearts or sends the devil and demons to move in our hearts to influence us to do things or not do things, yet he holds us accountable for our sin.
@@phieble Monergism means that our salvation is not dependent upon us receiving the gift of grace and that salvation is solely dependent upong God's desire.
Monergism would mean that we can be saved even if we do not make a choice to follow God which is a heresy.
Scripture is filled with examples of how man's response to God's free gift of grace is REQUIRED for salvation. Yes, putting one's faith in Christ is a necessary action for salvation. So this would mean that salvation is synergistic (God plays the role of purchasing and offering salvation and we play the role of simply receiving this grace).
I don't think you are prepared to say that we play absolutely no role in whether or not we receive salvation. You would then be saying that you never put your faith in Christ.
On your second part, I never denied that God predestines everything that happens. I affirm that God is in control of human history, predestines his elect and that God gives significant human freedom to men such that they are responsible for either accepting or rejecting his Son.
I'm simply showing you that monergism won't get you that.
Interesting that you didn't quote Romans 8.29 : Those he foreknew, he also predestined...
God's election is conditional on foreknowledge of believers' future faith.
Hmm... interesting. What if, just because "foreknew" comes before "predestined", Paul didn't mean that God predestined His elect only after foreknowing them.
I think verse 30 helps confirms this. In v. 29, Paul says we are predestined to be confirmed to the image of His Son, but then v. 30 says that those predestined are justified.
Assuming we agree that justification is when we are saved, and sanctification is confirming to the image of His Son, then if we assume that the order of what Paul writes here corresponds the order of God acting these events, then that would mean that we are foreknown, then predestined, then we have to conform to Christ's image, and *then* we are saved.
If this is the case, then we aren't saved by faith alone; we are saved by works alone- the works of confirming to Christ. I don't believe this is biblical. Therefore, I cannot believe that the order Paul talks about in verse 29 proves that God predestines us conditionally, based on what He knows we will do.
@@SaltyGamer777 Being conformed to the image of Christ is evidence of our faith. It is God who is working in us, He began a good work and will complete it. This is still consistent with God's predestination based on His foreknowledge of us having faith.
@@Barri-rj9vt*Receiving faith. From God.
No John don't go down that road! 2 Tim 4 has nothing to do with election, predestination, calling ect. God's desire and what He does are two different things. 2 Tim 4 doesn't contradict anything.
Exactly! God is pursuing His ultimate level of glory via his meticulous sovereign will rather than pursuing his moral will. This fact that God desires for everyone to be conformed to his image doesn’t not even start to contend with the fact that it is a sheer IMPOSSIBILITY to have both everyone go to heaven and God to be most glorified! Amen!
Why would God's sovereign grace not align with his own desire?
Hallelujah.
Amen.
Well isn't this the coolest thing?
If anyone is still curious about this verse or other verses that seem to contradict predestination James White did a remarkable job going through them in "Objections to Calvinism" - James White
th-cam.com/video/kx551k78YPs/w-d-xo.html
Does Jesus become angry and punish a sinner who believe in him because he sin, while He died for him , when he was enemy? He die for him when the man was his enemy , and rise for his righteousness, but when the man is justified and sin again then what? Does he punish him or save him? God doesn’t spare his son fore our salvation when we was sinners, and he rose him again for our salvation, when we become justified, then if we sin while we are counted justified, then saved or lost?
Wow I read the title of that so wrong lmao
Lol
Hear me now could it be our father Adam had a free will to choose and choose wrong. After the fall, men don't have the right to self-determination. We lost the right to choose. In return, God gave some eternal life so all men kind don't perish.
The doctrine of double predestination is a misunderstanding and heresy. With all due respect we have all been given free will and choice.
Deuteronomy 30:19,20
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life...
You have to understand. God doesn’t know the future because he looks ahead of time to see things which did not happen yet. If it didn’t happen, it doesn’t matter exist. He knows the future because he writes it.
With all due respect, Christ loves, and sacrificed himself for all, of humankind.
1 Timothy 2 : 1-7
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle-I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying-a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
Thank you for this scripture. It always brings me great peace!!
If God honestly desires all men to be saved and by “all” you mean everyone who ever lived, then your God failed. Nowhere in scripture is God called a failure and there’s nowhere in scripture where it’s recorded God failed. If His word does not return to Him void without accomplishing what He intends and some are actually lost, then you have to conclude He never intended to save them. God is omnipotent. Let that sink in. He turns a kings heart wherever He(God) wants. God is sovereign, man is not
@@mountainman78629 Our Creator may desire us all to be saved but that doesn't mean He tries to force this upon us to happen and fails when it doesn't. Instead He has given us the free will to choose whether we love Him and accept His gift of salvation, or hate Him and reject it. That is no failure on God's part.
If you read the New Testament with an open heart and mind, you will understand.
@@Mary_QQQ can you get a chapter and verse proving we have free will?
@@Mary_QQQ so I guess I’m your mind God is a failure? How many people die daily who go to hell God wished went to heaven but was powerless to do anything? I bet He’s depressed
Calvinist: This verse here is talking about 16th century predestinationism
I believe in God I have faith but my life is one minute aways from destroyed. So where is God when my prayers are not answered?
Hello there, may I ask you, what is your understanding of the biblical Gospel of our salvation? If an unbeliever was to ask you, “How do I go to Heaven?”, what would you tell them?
@@easybeliever7 John 3:16 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your savior. ( In short)
@@karen-nr5qy Do you believe that you can lose your salvation?
No.
@@karen-nr5qy Why do you believe that your life is one minute away from being destroyed?
John Piper says that the non Calvinist view. or free will. means that people ultimately determine their own destiny. This is not a true representation because the unsaved don't get to determine r
their destiny, God does. They may say there is no he'll, but they will know their e=or. God is still sovereign. On the other hand, those who have believed God for His gracious redemption are not exercising ultimate authority because they say I trust You and the way You have ordered things, and believe that You have offered Jesus for my sins. There is no other way but Your way. God is Sovereign.
Calvinists believe in it, but the doctrine is straight from the devils mouth to their ears. ☦️
John 6:47
47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes [a]in Me has everlasting life.
Because of the *fallacious Augustinian paradigm,* people misunderstand predestination. -There’s no such thing as double predestination.- The only reason people think it’s a thing is because of their fallacious *Augustinian paradigm.*
This is for anyone who wants to understand predestination:
th-cam.com/video/B9KSdqfxHJA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=KxTFs5Lo_6p80kZU
God is not to blame
We all have been created with free will to choose.
God is all loving
Deuteronomy 30:19,20
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life...
No
John should at the minimum be able to describe the views of other biblical scholars in such a way that those scholars would say "yes, that is what we believe". With all due respect, he apparently can't do that (I have read a number of his books and have watched very many of his videos).
I was a member of Grace Community Church (John MacArthur) for twenty years and taught Fundamentals of the Faith classes there. I have since (through four years of intense study learning all views from those that hold them) come to believe that Calvinism is tragically unbiblical.
I encourage everyone that hears this view, to also explore all four views on this issue until you can describe them correctly (Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism, and Provisionism). There is no downside to doing this. You will either change your view (I hope 🙂), or you will at least know your own view (and all the others) better-as well as the Bible in general. No down side. 🙂One of my favorite sources is Soteriology 101. www.youtube.com/@Soteriology101
I'd also add the view of synergism which was held by the church fathers
Simple.
No.
God is not willing that any should perish but all come to repentance.
God also said he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Believers, Romans 8, are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, Jesus Christ. It does not say lost, unsaved people are predestined to salvation or damnation. Salvation is conditional on man’s response to the Gospel with their faith.
I think the traditional view is that salvation includes justification, sanctification (conforming to the image of Jesus) and glorification. It doesn't quite make sense to say we were predestined to sanctification from eternity, but NOT to justification.
Of course, justification is conditional on our faith. Nobody argues that, I hope not.
Whereas I would agree that we cannot go nuts branding random people about whether they are saved or not, the 'criteria' for Salvation are clear. So for the lost, they are not meeting the criteria, thus they are damned. As the believers are predestined to be saved, the unbelievers are predestined to damnation. This statement is consistent with Romans 9. Yes, you are not wrong in saying Salvation is conditional on man's response to the Gospel with their faith - however, what makes some men believe while some others do not? By and through the grace of God upon those who believe. It is true that "A PERSON BELIEVES THUS HE/SHE IS SAVED" but it is also true that "GOD SAVES A PERSON THUS HE/SHE BELIEVES."
Faith is the necessary condition for justification. God provides the necessary condition of faith to us by way of gifting it. He provides faith to those whom He predestined. It is a reasonable inference to deduce that those whom are passed over could be described as “predestined to hell,” especially given the content of Romans 9 describing vessels of wrath created for destruction, in addition to various other passages throughout the Bible. However, it’s vital to note that though God creates belief in the heart of the unbeliever to save him or her, He does not act with equal ultimacy in creating unbelief in the hearts of those who would otherwise believe, and with the understanding from Romans 3 we understand that nobody is seeking after God apart from divine intervention. They don’t believe because they do not want to believe. On the other hand, the Christian believes because God saves them from their wicked desire to not believe by giving them a new heart, and a new spirit (see Ezekiel 36:24-27)
““No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
John 6:44
When did Saul choose Christ ? It was God who chose him and not his companions on the road to Damacus
Christ's Atonement - Universal intent, universal extent but Limited application. The salvation gift was purchased for all but received by those especially who believe.
Christ died for His sheep. His death was not in vain, His death came to save not to merely make salvation possible in that everyone that He died for will come to faith. Definite Atonement. 😢🙏😃
Just a reminder that Double Predestination was declared a heresy at the Council of Orange. for if God predestined people to not be saved, God would have predestined it so that a person would sin, thereby making God the author of sin. This is unfathomably sick, demented and twisted. you can't handwave away the implications by appealing to "goDs dIvIne mystery", that is illogical and intellectually lazy. The Eastern Orthodox are right to condemn and anathemize such people
God chose us. Who is us? - by name or who will believe? Obviously, He chooses those who will believe in His Son for salvation. This the WORK and COMMAND of God, not of men:
John 6:29 KJV
Jesus answered and said unto them, *_This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent._*
1 John 3:23 KJV
And *_this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ,_* and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
10:55 John Piper reveals that he hasn't read Phillipians ch 2
Piper would have you believe God would go so far as to give us his Son as a sacrifice, but not so far as to give us the ability to believe in Him.
14:00 Some positions don't need to be refuted, they just need to be clearly stated... looks like you decided to give Soteriology101 the day off 🤣
I bet you can find teaching from Philippines 2 on the DG website.
@@HearGodsWord I know he has read it, I wasn't writing literally. I'm sure Piper would have made the same mistake.
The reason I bring up Phillipians 2 is because it clearly shows that Christ's glory is preceeded by and predicated by his love and his humility. Piper would have it go the other way around.
@@josephbrandenburg4373 I didn't mention anything about reading. I suggested that he has taught it and you'd find it on the DG website. That way you can find out what he thinks rather than assuming.
@@HearGodsWord I am not assuming, though. He presents the opinion I am arguing against in this video.
@@josephbrandenburg4373 all I'm saying is that if you want to know what he thinks about Philippians 2 then you might find teaching on the DG website.
The short answer is yes, double predestination is the only biblical and logical conclusion.
Salvation is conditional. You must respond with your faith to God’s grace of sending Jesus. You must accept the clear meaning of Scripture. Jesus truly God and man came to die for all as a ransom, but we must respond to God’s grace with our faith, just as the passage states. Blessings
@@theresaread72 What you say is true about the fact that we must decide to follow God, but not true in that all can do this. Some are destined for other ends.
@@judethree4405 We, who already believe are predestined to be conformed to the Image of Christ, not for heaven or Hell Romans 8. In Ephesians 1 believers who are already IN HIM are predestined to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ. Ephesians is written to the Saints, the Faithful of those in Christ Jesus, also addresses those who are in Him 12 times. We have the Holy Spirit of Adoption but true adoption happens at the resurrection Romans 8. There is no place in scripture that says God predestines us to heaven or hell but predestines those who are already in Him to have spiritual blessings forgiveness, to be holy and blameless, Blessings
@@theresaread72 I understand that passage, and you are right about it. However, this is a very large discussion which covers much ground, which I don’t feel like getting into. My view is based off of decades of reading scripture. Could I be wrong? Sure.
@@judethree4405 My view is also based off decades of reading Scripture. You have said you agree with my interpretation of Scripture. Augustine 400 AD was the first person to bring in theistic determinism. Even Bavinck and Boettner 2 Reformed Scholars say Augustine was the first person to bring in theistic determinism.Calvin was an Augustinian Catholic Priest who took Augustine’s writings into the 1500s, that God chooses the eternal destinies of men, found nowhere in Scripture!Blessings!
Actually, it's double heresy.
So gross
Terrible. This is the doctrine of men cleverly woven into the text of sacred scripture. Jesus loves all and died for all. Men love darkness rather than light and they end up rejecting Christ and remaining condemned. This is not God’s doing. This is man’s choice. We all have a choice to respond once we hear the gospel.
No the Bible does not teach double predestination. Repent, John Piper.
How so?
Oh ok thanks random TH-camr I believe you.
@@MrAndyhdz you should! And you're welcome!
@@wareaglejf yeah because you haven’t given any Biblical evidence yet
@@tannerr247 how can I give biblical evidence when it's literally nowhere in the Bible?
"Show me the biblical evidence that calculators aren't mentioned in the Bible!"
I think the people who (incl. myself) get confused about predestination do so because we forget that humans are to blame for the condition they (we) are in and that God doesn't owe it to us to save us so it's not really all that unfair to people who dont make it to heaven and because of God being omniscient that it would actually be hypocritical not to call it predestination... My dad used to say God wants us to be His children out of free will... otherwise we wouldn't be children but actually more like slaves... to sum it up... I' dont think we really understand ourselves as we should and it makes sense that there is a specific path to follow GIVEN by Jesus ahead of time that only the "chosen" few are able to walk until the end. Hence - the destination predetermined - for us all. Our futures are ahead of us - not somewhere in the future. And our future belongs to God - NO ONE else.🦾
God bless you so much brother