Calvinist Question

If Jesus only died for His sheep; and those who currently do not believe are not His sheep, then He didn't die for those who currently do not believe. Therefore they are not of the elect in Calvinistic thinking; and therefore they cannot ever come to Christ because they are not of His elect. They cannot be saved because they don't believe.

Thus the only ones who can be saved are those who already believe.

Thus Jesus' statement that "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost;" is rendered null and void.

CoreIssue said:

How can God punish anyone for being chosen to go to hell?

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He won't, if He did then He would not be "just" and we KNOW that He is.

Its hard, I will admit. But what do you do with those verses that say its true? The answer is it is rationalized away to say, "God didn't mean it the way the Bible says!" I believe he meant what he said!

What we can take comfort in is that God only knows who is chosen. Even a "filthy rapper" like DMX can be chosen from the foundations of the world. So it is not for us to proclaim... God has that privilege. If God said he foreordained some to damnation, who am I to argue?

FHII said:

If God said he foreordained some to damnation, who am I to argue?

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Unless He did not say it.

Enoch111 said:

Unless He did not say it.

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He did.

Jde 1:3, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Jde 1:4, For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

justbyfaith said:

...who were before of old ordained to this condemnation...

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Do you even understand what is being said? Why were they ordained to condemnation? Because God arbitrarily decided this, or because God saw in His divine foreknowledge that they would never repent of their evil ways? God does NOT arbitrarily consign anyone to Hell. They bring damnation on themselves. At the same time, God gives all repeated opportunities to repent.

Enoch111 said:

Do you even understand what is being said? Why were they ordained to condemnation? Because God arbitrarily decided this, or because God saw in His divine foreknowledge that they would never repent of their evil ways? God does NOT arbitrarily consign anyone to Hell. They bring damnation on themselves. At the same time, God gives all repeated opportunities to repent.

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Of course biblical predestination is according to foreknowledge (Romans 8:29, 1 Peter 1:2 (kjv)).

Enoch111 said:

Do you even understand what is being said? Why were they ordained to condemnation? Because God arbitrarily decided this, or because God saw in His divine foreknowledge that they would never repent of their evil ways? God does NOT arbitrarily consign anyone to Hell. They bring damnation on themselves. At the same time, God gives all repeated opportunities to repent.

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And there we have yet another episode of "Let me tell you why the Bible doesn't really mean what it said!"

CoreIssue said:

How can God punish anyone for being chosen to go to hell?

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I lean Calvinist, but also believe in Free Will. I believe that due to Man's freedom *apart from God's word,* people were brought into the world who God did not originally want. But having given Man the freedom to live without His word, He allowed Man to create people their own way, apart from His word.

This doesn't exterminate free will. It just means that people are born into this world that God did not originally propose, and the people thus born by independence *from* God naturally lean towards independence *from* God. Those God originally proposed to create naturally incline towards the very word that created them.

Jesus said that those who do not incline towards God will have to spend eternity serving God dislocated from God's presence and from the presence of those who serve God intimately. It is just getting what they wished for.

I don't believe Hell to be Dante's Inferno. It begins with a Lake of Fire, but that Lake of Fire is a symbol of destruction of the Person, meaning that they failed to achieve glorification as a Person. Just as a person loses everything they own in a house fire, so a person thrown into the Lake of Fire forever loses who they could've been.

So Hell is just the end of who people could've been. It isn't being toasted with a literal fire forever and ever. It is *losing* who they could've been forever and ever.

Jesus said some people will be punished lightly and some more heavily. What does that tell you, that all who go to Hell will suffer the flames of a furnace forever and ever?

No, it means that all men will serve God, whether with Christ or separate from Christ. But those separated from Christ will "gnash their teeth," knowing that they chose to live apart from Christ. It is, in fact, the just desserts of the choice they not only incline towards, but make.

Men will be thrown into the furnace of fire (Matthew 13:41-42, Matthew 13:49-50, Matthew 25:41, Matthew 25:46).

FHII said:

And there we have yet another episode of "Let me tell you why the Bible doesn't really mean what it said!"

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No. That is "Let me tell why you THINK the Bible says something which it does not say". Christians must take all Scripture into account, as well as the character of God and Christ into account, in order to hold to any belief. If the Bible clearly commands all men everywhere to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (which it does) that automatically means that God does not arbitrarily condemn to some to Hell. That means that God will have ALL MEN to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

justbyfaith said:

Of course biblical predestination is according to foreknowledge (Romans 8:29, 1 Peter 1:2 (kjv)).

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And biblical predestination is for the perfection and glorification of the saints, never for salvation or damnation. God has ordained that those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be "conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom 8:29,30). If God were to pick and choose whom He would save, He would be violating His own Gospel and His own character.

FHII said:

And there we have yet another episode of "Let me tell you why the Bible doesn't really mean what it said!"

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Not quite. Let us go to that quote from scripture again...

justbyfaith said:

Jde 1:3, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Jde 1:4, For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

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God did not arbitrarily fore-ordain anyone to condemnation...God had a reason, and that reason is explained in the scripture itself...
they were ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, denying God, and denying Jesus, therefore God fore-ordained people to condemnation because of sin in their lives.
God fore-ordained that Adam would die, because Adam would eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God also fore-ordained that Christ would die, because God so loved the world He desired all men to be saved. If one is finally condemned to perdition, it isn't because God has arbitrarily chosen this one to live, and that one to die. That removes any and all responsibility of sin from every individual. God has ordained that certain ones shall die because they are unrepentant and refuse to take advantage of the salvation offered them in the name of Christ. It is ultimately unbelief that condemns sinners.

FHII said:

If God said he foreordained some to damnation, who am I to argue?

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complete rubbish

CoreIssue said:

How can God punish anyone for being chosen to go to hell?

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God did not create any one only to send him to hell. It is Adam who chose to disobey God, ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God said in the day he eats of it, he will surely die. And so, in Adam all die.

Tong
R2663

Tong2020 said:

It is Adam who chose to disobey God

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Eve first...