One of the many mistakes made by Calvinists is how they overlook the grammar of certain passages. In the case of Ephesians 1, a passage that deals with the issue of "Predestination", when we pay close attention to the personal pronouns we discover something that does not support the Calvinistic view of Predestination. What we find is that it is the nation of Israel that was "predestined", not Gentiles, not Christians. Notice in verse 3-12 Paul's exclusive use of "First Person Plural pronouns". This is significant and if you do not comprehend the grammar you will misinterpret this passage and it's proper application like Calvinists do.
Ephesians 1:
1 � Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 � Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed US with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
4 just as He chose US in Him before the foundation of the world, that WE should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
5 HAVING PREDESTINED US to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made US accepted in the Beloved.
7 In Him WE have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace
8 which He made to abound toward US in all wisdom and prudence,
9 having made known to US the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself,
10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth��in Him.
11 In Him also WE have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,
12 THAT WE WHO FIRST TRUSTED IN CHRIST should be to the praise of His glory.
Now notice the change in the FIRST personal plural pronouns from we and us to SECOND person plural pronouns of "YOU" and "YOUR". This shows us that in the previous verses Paul was including himself among a group of people that were not Gentiles. There is a separation between these two groups. Verses 3-12 indicate that Paul is referring to the nation of Israel. Then below Paul addresses another group. The Gentiles.
13 In Him YOU ALSO TRUSTED, after YOU heard the word of truth, the gospel of YOUR salvation; in whom also, having believed, YOU were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
15 � Therefore I also, after I heard of YOUR faith in the Lord Jesus and YOUR love for all the saints,
16 do not cease to give thanks for YOU, making mention of YOU in my prayers:
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
18 the eyes of YOUR understanding being enlightened; that YOU may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. NKJV
The simple conclusion is that this passage in no way supports Calvinism but actually proves them to be in serious error. It is the Nation of Israel that was "Predestined" not Gentiles.
For a thorough scholarly exegesis of this passage go here: http://www.pfrs.org/calvinism/eph1_3.html
Abedjau God does not send innocent people to hell. Every person born from Adam deserves hell and it would be right if God did send everyone to hell. The fact He chose to save a few is amazing.
We all start with the wrong conclusion that there are good people.
Answer me this, can I go to a grave yard with a book on how to raise yourself from the dead and get any customers? We are dead in our sins we cant choose to go from death to life as a dead person, it has to be from something outside of us that chooses to raise us from the dead and that would be God. And that brings me to this, if we had a dramatic life changing moment in our life like we was in a car going off a cliff and some miracle happen and the car was put back on the road you would know every tiny detail of the ordeal and how many Christians don't even know the gospel rightly. If you pass from death to life you would know every detail of it. And yet we still argue over mans fee will or God's sovereign choice.
I was once dead, now I am alive, lost and now found. A true Christian (the elect) is taught by the Holy Spirit and they understand the writings in the Bible. This is not about Calvin and Arminian it is about doctrine and theology from the Bible and the Bible is full of doctrine and theology. The 2 groups are so sharply divided somebody is wrong and will suffer the consequence because both cant be right and there is no middle ground to meet on. But to take an oh well attitude we'll see when the time comes is the most scary thought to go through my mind. I love that God gives us assurance when we rightly divide the Word and diligently study it.
I love these debates to hash this out cause it will either strengthen my position or correct an error in my understanding but if you have to do fancy foot work to get your presupposition smashed in then I have a problem with that. And I have yet to to hear a sound Biblical argument for man's free will. It is people acting like people have from the beginning they want to be in control of their own lives and the thought that God should send everyone to hell and he choose to save a few does not set well with them.
You're a master of mystery to me. Your answers are often short enough to not let me get your point, sorry...
How am I supposed to understand "not all do not belong to the church?"
@DarrellO:
I'm all on your side in this, the innocent people to hell sentence was only what I thought those opposing election believe...
It is not my believe and I am aware that we all deserve hell. But I like your picture of going to a graveyard with a book on how to raise the dead to life... Maybe I'm gonna use this in a sermon one day, it's really good and gets exactly to the point.
I understand what you want to say with the "oh well" approach, but what I wrote wasn't for being indifferent. The thing is: Either we are saved or not. There might be some poeple who describe things with other words, understand the terms believe, faith and works differently and so misnderstandings come up. I see some of the people here arguing against election as taking God seriously, and I cannot say they were not saved, though I also cannot say otherwise. All I can say is: I think of the whole thing in this or that way. If they are saved is a thing between them and God. If they are not saved, they will not understand or believe a word we say on election, if they are saved and we misunderstand each other there is no reason to go bashing each other over election, as in different threads here (I confess I have my share too).
All I wanted to do is to call people to calm down a bit. After all, there is still the theoreticl chance that we who speak in favor of election are wrong. But again, who is going to teach us right but the Holy Spirit?
I also like such debates, but I like them to take place in a calm way. I like to provoke myself, but what I want to is to provoke the mind, not the person I speak with, I miss this again and again here...
As for free will I am still not sure myself. We sure have no free will when it comes to salvation, and we cannot do anything about it. But in the question whether to have steak or pizza for lunch, I think there could be something like free will, though this would speak against modern natural science, but I'm not too deep into this...
I think we decide things based on reasons (that's why I like Bultmann's saying that if you believe in God for a reason, you haven't yet understood what God is), though the reasons we get from outside, they are not up to ourselves to set forth...
Darrello.........excellent point!Its hard to beleive that all the verses that so blatently state gods providence are so emotionally argued,with very little substance,unless you count walters unnhhhh theological acrobatics.Gods grace and unconditional election are so clearly spelled out for anyone to see that it makes me wonder if "free Willys" are spiritually regenerated or not!yet,Im in no position to judge someones salvation,but it does make you wonder.I do enjoy the debate however,sometimes it weighs heavy on my soul and I would love to sit around and sing kum-by-yah with my christian brothers but I strongly feel that in romans Pauls whole point is to explain to people that this free mercy is entirely from god,for his glory,and no one elses,even saying"Well I made a decision for"or I opened the door for or I chose to allow christ or ect.......takes away the incredible merciful,undeserved,act of our glorious savior....who was tortured,and murdered in the most amazing act in human history.......to display his glory........to creatures that deserve DEATH AND HELL FOR ETERNITY,
Calvin disciples have made it real clear they have no idea what is truth!! Those are very kind words for those that have posted their comments on here, It is not calvinist verses armenians, it is light and darkness, God and Satan, I know who's family I am in.
whatever philipjohn,you talking about kind words?really?You my friend are one of the most negative people on here,and you never have much of a point or much of anything to back it up with so dont even go there.!Also all of you who call me self rightous are guilty of the exact same smug little thing so lets be real!if you want to have a discussion Im capable but lets be adults and quit acting like we all have the christianity market cornered.or this will go nowhere.if my song offends you,then Im sorry,we all beleive what we beleive to be true and go to great lengths to proove it,we can keep it civil,but im not going to accept people ganging up on me or berating me in any manner,yes Garrett,i do always bring up this issue,It is a very important debate.as a matter of fact its one of the most common debates on christian websites on the entire web!Lets throw out facts gentelemen.or you can pretend like the doctrines of grace dont exist,remember,god is not who you want him to be,but he is who he is.....not some americanized,grandfatherly version you would like him to be.There are a lot of stark cold realities about our lord that you need to accept,starting with helll,and the fact that god is (according to his word going to send a whole lot of people there,people he either created for hell,or people he knew would go there anyway.so this God we are dealing with is a very serious entity,Id like to discuss this with maturity,civil engagement,and without language gymnastics,I think we all agree that god did not write the bible so that only graduate shcool greek students could interperate it........Kapeeesh!
"I think we all agree that god did not write the bible so that only graduate shcool greek students could interperate it" i don't know about that, but paul exhorts us to study to show ourselves approved... pure academics will not lead to rightly dividing the word of truth however!
we must be careful of our motives for searching the bible. if we look for scripture to prove a point that we thought up, or heard someone we trust say, more often that than not we will do anything to try to prove it true. PJ encouraged in the beginning of this thread(?) that if we find contradicting scripture that we must take a step back and adjust, he is so right! i pray that we all examine our motives, and ask the Lord to help us see the Truth(Jesus). and we all say.... amen!
I walked into room saw people fighting over rubbish. Dennis said,
ouch!!!!!
I's just follow Jesus not no mans teaching. I's confused. Golley sargent!!!!!!! Why we don't all just follow jesus instead of some guy that says calvin is right or Armen or me.
Thanks for the link. I think that is the best Arminian website I have ever seen. It is hard to find any decent Arminian websites.
There just isn't much scholarship at all on that side of the debate.
You guys have Geisler and that is about it!
Anyways, I plan to post some of that website on my group and refute it.
my group is NOT about the calvinist/Arminian debate, but about having a Christian worldview. But, I am a Calvinist, so that issue DOES come up from time to time on my group.
If you wish to check out the group, please stop by and read the home page, as it explains the purpose of the group pretty good.
We have a good mix of people, and good conversations on all kinds of subjects.
the world would be wiped out because of your judgment and you would be the only one standing. Mostly because there would be no one left to argue your points with, which usually dont make sense anyway.
(actually directing this at one person, he knows who he is)
I always wonder why people dont feel bad by accusing/condemning others for their beliefs or being "deceived". It's really hard for me to say anything against someone because my concern is for everyone's heart and I dont want to add to their pain. It's the nurturer in me.
When people say, "judge not lest ye be judge." I say, "twist not scriptures least ye be like Satan."
So what do you do with all the scripture that tell you to judge?
How are you to discern between false teach, heretical teaching and true teaching if you do not judge? How are we to fellowship with other believers if we do not judge their beliefs? No one here has passed judgment on anyone else. God "will" do the final judgment. Everyone every day judges things and people but you don't pass judgment as in condemnation on them.
Another Paul Washer quote that helped me the most was in a sermon he was preaching called "The Meaning of the Cross". He was talking about Benny Hinn and how Benny would say the reasons why he does the things he does fly in private jets, stay in 5 star hotels, eat at the most expensive restaurants, is because it is in the Bible. Paul would reply, you are wrong! And so you ask Paul why do you think he is wrong and Paul will say it is in the Bible. So now there is a problem you have 2 men saying what they believe is are polar opposites and both claim their view comes from the Bible. Paul says I got one other thing. 2,000 yrs of church history! If you can't find it in the Bible and 2,000 yrs of church history you are wrong. There have been great men of the past that the Holy Spirit has lead and taught and we would be foolish to ignore that. The Holy Spirit has been teaching men since Jesus ascended in to Heaven in case anyone has forgotten that piece of information. Calvin is not a doctrine or denomination he was a man who read the Bible an was taught by the Holy Spirit. In fact the 5 points "TULIP" didn't even come about until a 100 yrs after his death. So if you come up with some new doctrine that hasn't been seen before by Christians of the past, who were way smarter than any of us, you are wrong, plain and simple.
I do love debating this and many other theological topics with men, and here is why. You tell a woman she is wrong and she gets all emotional and plays the "don't judge" card. Tell a man he is wrong and he'll roll up his sleeves and dive in and when it is over, even if we don't agree we can shake hands and walk away still being friends. Most men are like that, the others will say, "just follow Jesus not no mans teaching" or "I read the Bible only and not what man says". Both of those arguments are just weak and useless in figuring out the truth.
PS: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Start using a capital letter when referring to God! It drives me nuts to see people (that claim they are Christian) use a small case letter "g". In some Bibles, at least all the ones I own, when God the Father is referred to it is all caps. The Jews would stop writing wash hands get a new pen write the name of God and then throw the pen away and wash hands again cause they feared blaspheming His Holy name. Just a small request thank you!
