Hi, Charlie:
        You said,
|And He cannot know this unless He also predetermined and decreed it--He is
|King and Sovereign over every event.  In fact He sustains the universe by
|His power (see Hebrews 1:3).
        Yup, we agree.
        Up to,
|I agree up to the last sentence, Randg.  The grace of God cannot be
|resisted by the elect because grace is only given to the elect and only
|the elect respond to God's call.  (See Ephesians 2:8-9; John 6:37, 44-45,
|65).
        Who had more grace of God than the Israelites who
resisted it and made a golden calf to worship?
        IMO, God in His sovereignty permits us to resist His
grace.  I know He let me resist it for many years, wasted
years, until I cried out to Him to take over!  Even now we are
exceedingly dis-satisfied with our level of fruitfulness-- we
still are not living up to all God wants us to be; i.e., we
still must be resisting His grace, ROMANS 7 all over again!
        Now, I realize that great men of God have differed on
this topic.  The Scriptures I read say Christ died for all, and
that all have the opportunity of being saved.
        But as I said before, since we cannot discern who are
elect and who are reprobate, it is only a theoretical matter
anyway.  Very significant theory, to be sure, but not one that
makes a practical difference in carrying out the Great
Commission, since we still have to preach the gospel to everyone.
 IXTHUS<<
        You suggested,
|The apparent paradox is that God's decree seems to contradict human
|freedom.  But our minds are limited...  God's is not.  He is infinitely
|wise.
        Oh, I don't have any illusion that there is such a
thing as human freedom.  Seems to me the whole point of the 10
commandments was to prove to us we are not free to chose what
is good, to convict us of sin so we'd turn to Christ for
salvation.
 IXTHUS<<
        Oh, how true,
|That's what happened when confessional churches lose their traditions and
|their confessions of faith.
        We used to be in a mainline denomination, equivalent to
United Methodists in the U.S..  They were deathly sick with
liberalism. Yet their statement of faith, which in effect is
their actual constitution (all else being by-laws), is powerful
conservative theology.  But I never heard about it until I was
about to go to seminary; it had just been forgotten.
 IXTHUS<<
        You mentioned,
|No, I believe he was right.  Read Romans 9-11 sometime.  God loved Jacob
        Yes, that's strong on predestination all right.  But is
it a proof-text for predestination to salvation, the way
EPHESIANS 1 certainly is?  Even if it is, it doesn't negate
other Scriptures which show Christ died for all, or that God
wants all to be saved.  Or so it seems to me, anyway.
        You continued,
|a matter of achieving salvation.  However, from a Calvinist perspective
|this prevenient grace must be a dismal failure because if it is supposed
|to enable human choice it doesn't do the job because many, many are
|actually lost.  Calvinism, on the other hand, teaches that Jesus never
|fails and actually saves all of the elect--not one of them is lost!  And
|only those who actually receive grace will actually respond.  (John 6:37,
|10:27).
        Well, the two thieves on either side of Christ were
occupying places reserved for them by God.  They both observed
the same events, they knew the same facts about Christ.  Both
received the same grace, yet one accepted and one resisted.
God did not fail, the unrepentant thief failed.  The
sovereignty of God is not diminished because He permitted this.
        Nevertheless, if this is still a subject of debate
after so many centuries, especially for me, when I see no
practical difference in how we carry out the Great Commission,
one way or the other, and it obviously does not hinder our
fellowship one with the other, I see this thread as an
opportunity for growth, rather than for polemical apologetics,
if you will.   |-)}+
    ||        Praise the wonderful name of Jesus!   --Ralph
    ||        Ralph & Gene Ann Wood
    ||        randg.wood@encode.com
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