/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>Just as it is written,

>“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;

>We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

A reference to Psalm 44. The implication being that, no, none of the hardships and troubles that Paul mentioned in the previous verse can separate God from his elect, just as they did not separate God from Israel in the psalm.

>But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

"We" refers to the same object that "us", which is Paul and his audience in Rome. No change in pronoun object. Through Jesus, the church overcomes death and all hardships.

>For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

>nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

NONE OF THE THINGS™ can separate us (Paul and his audience in Rome) from the love of God provided through Jesus.

Chapter 9

>I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit,

>that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.

What could possibly make Paul so sad?

>For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,

Paul loves his people, as we all should. However the implication here is that most of his nation is not among those being joined to Christ.

>who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises,

>whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

>But it is not as though the word of God has failed.

Again, most of national Israel didn't make the cut and are not joined to Jesus. So what's going on?

>For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;

Just because you're born of earthly Israel does not mean you're a part of the true Israel.

>nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “through Isaac your descendants will be named.”

Reference back to Genesis 21:12. Paul is bringing out the fact that God's promise to Abraham included his "seed" being named through Isaac, not merely Jacob. The promise God was making involved something more than just Jacob's biological offspring.

>That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.

It's not enough to claim being descended of Abraham or Jacob. That means nothing, spiritually speaking. What made Abraham special was his faith, and the children of the promise, Abraham's true children, are those who live by the same kind of faith that Abraham had.

>For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.”

Abraham had faith in God's promise, and so Isaac was born.

>And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac;

And Isaac had faith in God's promise to his father, and so Jacob and Esau were born…

>for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,

>it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.”

>Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Why was Jacob chosen to be greater than his brother? Because God, in his wisdom, decided it was the most fitting way to fulfill his promise to Abraham. It was entirely based on God's purpose for creating Jacob in the first place, not upon anything Jacob or Esau did. God's purpose was always the same for them.

>What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!

God is fully justified in all of his choices, and Paul is going to demonstrate that.

>For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

God asserts His right to do what He wishes with his mercy and compassion. God cannot be obligated to be merciful.

>So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

It does not depend. What is it? God having mercy or compassion. They are dependent upon God's choices and God's purposes as to what he will do with each person, not upon your desires or actions.

>For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”

One man, Pharaoh. Here is God's purpose for this man's creation, which obviously had to have been decided before Pharaoh ever existed. Remember the preceding section… "For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad" must be applied to Pharaoh as well, because this is all part of the same argument that Paul is making about those Jews whom God did not choose. It's all about God's purposes.

>So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

God has absolute autonomy to do as He wishes with His creations. As a side note: For God to show someone mercy, they must first be guilty of something. We know from Romans 3 that all of humanity is guilty of sin, and so out of humanity, God can choose on whom He will have mercy. He is also free and justified to harden someone's resolve so that their existing depravity will steer them along the path of fulfilling their role for their existence.

>You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”

The objection of a person who either hasn't gotten Paul's point yet, that God has the right to assign purposes to individuals, or can't accept it because they want to be the one in control.

>On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?

It is absurd that a created thing should defy its very purpose for having been created. This analogy is dripping with sarcasm.

>Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

One lump, two vessels, two very different purposes. Yes the potter has the right to make a pretty vase for a flower and then a clay pigeon for target practice out of the same lump of clay. The potter is the potter and the potter can do whatever he wants with his clay. You are the clay and God is the potter. Whether you're a flower pot or a piddle pot, God has done nothing wrong. You have a purpose for which you were created.

>What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

God would be quite happy to take all his clay pigeons and commence target practice, but He is waiting patiently for the right time… And yes, God enjoys target practice. He's not sad about blasting the clay pigeons to bits. That's why they exist. That's their purpose. So what is God waiting for?

>And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,

God is prettying up all his flower pots and vases and elaborate drinkware, which before He had ever created them, He had intended them to be put on display as marvelous examples of his master craftsmanship. And who are these vessels of mercy, destined for glory?

>even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

Us. Who is us? It's the same audience that Paul has been addressing this entire time. Himself and the Christians to whom he's writing. He uses the language of "called", which harkens directly back to Romans 8:30. Who did God call? Those whom He foreknew. Those whom he predestined (according to purpose) to become conformed to the image of His Son. And every individual that God foreknew inevitably became glorified. The vessels of mercy are all predestined for glory. You see? Paul is still describing the same thing.

Additionally, the called are composed of both Jews and gentiles… Individuals from many nations. These individuals being created by God for the purpose of glory.

>As He says also in Hosea,

>“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”

>“And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’

>There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

So way back centuries before Jesus took on flesh, God had already told the world that He was going to be onboarding the gentiles. This was always the plan. The gentiles are not plan B. There never was a plan B. God's promise has not failed, because his promise was always about the spiritual seed of Abraham, not the physical seed. That spiritual seed is found among all the nations of the earth.

>Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved;

The majority of national Israel was never supposed to be among the called. Only a minority of them were intended to. (And if Elijah's story is any indicator, it's probably a very small minority.) They were to be vessels of wrath. This was always God's intention.

>for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.”

That word being one of judgment against national Israel.

>And just as Isaiah foretold,

>“Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity,

>We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.”

Like I said before, most of national Israel gets wiped out as God intended for them from before the beginning.

>What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith;

The same kind of faith that Abraham possessed.

>but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.

Righteousness does not come by the law. The law is good, but to be declared righteous by the law, you must observe the whole of the law. To break any part of the law is to break the entirety of the law, and no man can perfectly keep God's law. So the Jews, thinking themselves righteous by the law, are declared unrighteous by it.

>Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,

Only by faith can the law be satisfied. To the Jew, that idea is foolishness. And so they stumbled over the stumbling stone which is YHWH of hosts, Jesus, and they were dashed to pieces, just as was prophecied in Isaiah 8.

>just as it is written,

>“Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,

>And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

A reference to Isaiah 28, which includes a prophecy referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. He who has faith in Jesus, the stumbling stone, that offensive rock, will be quite glad that he did.

I'm the one who made the /christianity/ thread. Not to outsource my thinking, there are videos on this specific topic made by Mr. Flowers which succinctly articulate the position and it's what persuades me. I don't think it's necessary to do a counter commentary line by line.

Have you already come across these?

This one goes into the end of Romans 8. The argument is that the "golden chain" section is a word of comfort to the Roman Christian readers about God's grace to the Israelites of the past who he "foreknew", as in, he knew in the past.

>So what was Paul's intention in this passage? I believe he simply is saying "Christians, don't worry we know (from past experience) that God always works out everything for those who love God and are called to follow Him. if you want proof, look at those God previously knew, loved, and called in the past, He determined them to be conformed to the image of his Son so that his son would become the firstborn of many brethren.

This one centers almost entirely on the Jacob - Esau question.

>>827804

>what is his doctrine of original sin?

I have not seen or read everything of his but my answer is that original sin either the literal first sin in the garden or it's the condition of natural man to choose sin in the fallen world. It is not an inherited guilt that needs to be atoned for.

To elaborate with an application, aborted babies certainly go to heaven because we know they have not sinned and so do not need an alien righteousness put upon them. This seems to be David's presumption when his son dies.

I believe this is the same as Leighton Flowers's answer but I don't have a reference.

>it will tell me with certainty what I want to know about how he views man's nature.

I hope that doesn't mean you're going to start throwing accusations of pelagianism. He's had to talk at length about this and it's a lot to do with James White's caricatures

>>827814

>He's had to talk at length about this and it's a lot to do with James White's caricatures

You realize that White didn't invent the term semi-Pelagian, right? That's been around for awhile, obviously in Calvinist circles because Free Will was the basis of Pelagius's position and it wouldn't make sense for Arminians or whoever to draw attention to him. If White hadn't said it, someone else certainly would have.

>I hope that doesn't mean you're going to start throwing accusations of pelagianism.

He kind of does have an article defending Pelagius on his website. (The first I've ever seen of anyone trying to do this, actually.) Basically saying that Pelagius was misrepresented by Augustine, which he credits with inventing the idea of individual election in the 5th century, (which I find jaw-droppingly audacious) and wasn't such a bad guy because he actually taught the same thing that Leighton and many Southern Baptists do today.

https://soteriology101.com/2018/02/11/pelagianism-the-boogie-man/

Which… Okay… But am I to believe that all of the ancients that condemned Pelagius were clueless about what he actually believed? That Augustine was such a powerful figure that he was able to control the conversation and deprive the world of the truth? Or could it be that the ancients knew exactly what Pelagius was teaching and still condemned it anyway? And if that's the case, and if Leighton is right that Pelagius's actual teachings agree with his, then what does that tell you? To me it just looks like he's playing some pretty elaborate word games to try to get the stigma off his position. But it doesn't really matter to me what this viewpoint is called. My objection is that I consider the view sub-biblical, so let's focus on that.

>>827813

>I'm the one who made the /christianity/ thread.

Aha, I had a feeling it was you.

Funny thing, I had a reply literally the size of a small book written out a better part of a month ago where I dissected one of Leighton's longer videos… But one of my video cards died before I finished it, and I hadn't saved it because I apparently ate a big bowl of stupid for breakfast that morning. Frankly, my original reply would have been less than charitable because Leighton really does make me angry, so it's probably for the best. But I really have put some effort into this.

At 1:45 in your first video he tries to get all Greeky in order to make the point that, like you said, the golden chain is

>about God's grace to the Israelites of the past

Okay, but the Greek is entirely unnecessary here because whether Paul was referring to Israelites or whether Paul was referring to the elect before creation, I'd expect the same tense for the verbs. It lends no support to his position, so other than trying to make himself sound authoritative, why does he bother bringing it up?

2:52 He says that modern scholars see proginosko as meaning either to "foresee" or to "foreordain", which is a mischaracterization of the Calvinist interpretation. I've never heard anyone interpret that specific word as meaning God's foreordination. That's just a weird way of putting it.

Continuing >>827838

3:00 He asserts proginosko means, flat out, to know before in the simplest sense. Then immediately leaves Romans 8 to try to justify this view by jumping ahead to Romans 11 where Paul is talking about Israel by name. Which the amusing thing is, it isn't arbitrary that Paul is using the same word in 11:2 as he did in 8:29, because he is talking about the exact same thing. So since we've skipped ahead to 11:2, let's look at the context of the next two verses, shall we?

<“Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.”

<But what is the divine response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”

7000 what? 7000 elect men out of the entirety of the nation of Israel. Literal people. It's still talking about individual election. And given that Romans 11 is built on the foundation of Romans 8, why wouldn't it also mean individual election there?

And I know, "individual election of Israelites", okay. I'll humor that for a moment. Even if that's the case, why would God only elect people from Israel, but then deal with the gentiles in an entirely different manner? Why would this principle not be extrapolated out to the nations? There's no basis for that. Bringing Israel into this doesn't actually solve the problem that he's is trying to solve. I would still breeze right through Romans 9 with the same interpretation.

4:06 He arbitrarily brings up Acts 26:5 to try to justify proginosko in Romans 8:29 only meaning to know before in the most basic way. Not that it would make it any better if it weren't the case, but Acts is written by an entirely different author… Again, jumping out of the context and into an entirely new one as if it is somehow relevant. This is not a valid way of interpreting language.

6:35 Other "viable" non-Calvinistic interpretions.

>Some classical Arminians have understood foreknown as to mean foreseen.

That's… A very dead horse. If Leighton actually thought that position was defensible, he wouldn't have come up with this new position.

7:32 "Omniscient" not "Omni-deterministic." When Calvinists talk about Arminians believing that God "looks down the corridors of time", yes, people actually teach that in a lot of Southern Baptist churches. I've had Arminians unironically quote that phrase to me on a bunch of different occasions, so we didn't invent it just to mock. It's a meme that originated with Arminians, not us. Besides, how would that be an unfair characterization when the whole basis of the position is that God is responding to man's choice? You can't just assert that there's no causal relationship when there's a logical order of events that are directly connected to each other. And that raises all kinds of troubling questions about the nature of God.

7:48 "Foreknown = Known to be in Christ through faith" / Corporate Election This is already refuted by my previous arguments.

I'll come back and deal with the second video tomorrow.

>>827838

Pelagius does deserve some credit because the popular understanding of him is from the writings of his opponent, who likely didn't articulate his doctrine in the way he would have.

That's unrelated though. The point is that this soteriological position does not constitute pelagianism or semi pelagianism. It's a dumb false association. White is a nasty person who unfortunately lives up to the calvinist stereotype.

>>827839

>whether Paul was referring to Israelites or whether Paul was referring to the elect before creation .. It lends no support to his position .. why does he bother bringing it up?

It is relevant to the position, didn't you hear his rephrase of the passage? I copied it in the above post.

Rather than expounding on a doctrine of unconditional election to salvation or damnation, Paul is giving comfort to the readers in reference to their ancestors in faith.

>Then immediately leaves Romans 8 to try to justify this view by jumping ahead to Romans 11

He goes to Romans 11 and Acts 26 to get a picture of Paul's use of the term because the argument is that it only implies knowing in the past.

>why would God only elect people from Israel, but then deal with the gentiles in an entirely different manner?

I don't think I'm following your own objection to yourself. If individual election isn't true, why did foreign proselytes interact with God differently from Israelites?

I don't object the the claim that election happens to individuals and you don't claim that God doesn't have purposes with aggregate groups. The point of contention is whether God arbitrarily chooses some for salvation and others for damnation, effectually causing their belief, or if the individual has libertarian free will so as to become an elect by his own statement of faith.

>but Acts is written by an entirely different author

the verse in question is a quotation of Paul

>That's… A very dead horse. If Leighton actually thought that position was defensible, he wouldn't have come up with this new position.

He's just showing other sides of the argument. I'm glad he does, because if one isn't persuaded to provisionism they can still hold arminiamism which preserves the justice of God.

>how would that be an unfair characterization

because it's not what their theologians argue

>This is already refuted by my previous arguments

I'm really not following your train of thought and I think it's because of the scattered format. It would be more helpful if you organized the arguments for my sake.

>>827853

Sorry for the late reply, been very busy.

>Pelagius does deserve some credit because the popular understanding of him is from the writings of his opponent

I can understand that. I think the simplest explanation for why that would be is that his writings were intentionally destroyed, if there were ever that many to begin with. I've been looking and I can't find it, but I heard somewhere that Pelagius actually recanted later on?

>He goes to Romans 11 and Acts 26 to get a picture of Paul's use of the term because the argument is that it only implies knowing in the past.

Whether in Greek or English, the usage of a word is generally defined by its immediate context. Leaving the context does not usually help anyone understand the meaning of a word. Let's do a direct analogy.

Your famous great great grandfather who fought in WWI wrote a very long letter to you and your siblings before you were born. In it, he mentions the Austrians having charged in France. Would you consider it a valid way of determining the meaning of charged to go to a book written about your grandfather by a biographer and to select a random instance of the use of the term charged from out of the book? How about going to where your grandfather mentioned the word charged 3 pages later, where he's moved on to a different topic?

This is literally what Leighton did with foreknew in Romans 8. So how do you justify his using this peculiar method of interpretation for a letter in the bible, when we wouldn't use it to interpret a normal letter?

Not that any of this matters with regards to Paul's use of the term in Romans 11. Coincidentally, it still supports a Reformed interpretation in both sections. How else would God have kept exactly 7000 men of Israel for Himself? Did exactly 7000 men, with no interference from God, choose to remain faithful?

>I don't object the the claim that election happens to individuals

Individual election and libertarian will are mutually exclusive concepts. If God is "electing" a person on the basis of what someone will do in the future, then the individual is the one who has the final say in the matter. They elected to join the "saved" group, not God. Paul's entire argument in Romans 9 is that God's choice is the determining factor in whether or not someone is the seed of Abraham, and that this is why most of Israel isn't participating in the New Covenant. God is fulfilling His will.

>the verse in question is a quotation of Paul

I still don't see how it's relevant. It's a completely different context. Words can be used many different ways, even by the same author, and the context determines their usage.

>I'm glad he does, because if one isn't persuaded to provisionism they can still hold arminianism which preserves the justice of God.

Yes, I realize that's why he's doing it. This is the kind of thing that convinces me that his goal is simply to destroy Calvinism by any means necessary. Any position is okay, as long as your interpretation doesn't lead you to Calvinism, from his perspective. That's the impression that I've gotten from his videos I've seen.

Also I could just as easily argue that the idea of man having libertarian will malign's God's character, and indeed that's exactly how I feel about it. I don't see how a good and just God could create purposeless evil. What's loving about that? I find that idea horrifying.

>>827963

no offense my friend but I just don't care to go through all the points you're bringing.

> Could we say the inherited curse of original sin? Or the inherited effects of original sin? Would you agree with me on that much, that original sin has effects which are inherited by all of Adam's children?

Yes I agree entirely. My point is that committing your own sin is what damns you, nobody is damned for the sin of Adam but Adam. We all end up sinning because he sinned first.

>>828016

do not use the german blackletters unless you use the long s correctly.

arriving late, i must just comment that there are some choice meats being proffered in this conversation