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Did God predestine ISIS & Boko Haram to rape, torture, behead, kill the Christians?
1) Did God predestine Mohammed to invent the religion of Islam?
2) Did God predestine the Popes and RCC to organize the Inquisitions and torture and kill His Christian Believers?
3) Did God predestine Mafias to commit so many crimes in the world?
4) Did God predestine the Al-Shabab to kill Christian students in Kenya ?
5) Did God predestine 99% of the people not to believe the Gospel and to reject Jesus and thereby to go to the Hell even though He as the Almighty God could make them believe only if He wanted?
My God never did so!
But He foreknew the wickedness of human beings and prepared the Hell for the unbelievers as the sins come from the Unbelief.
I do understand the questions and arguments by the supporters of Predestination Theory and therefore want to answer shortly as follows:
1) John 17: 9, 20
9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
This is the prayer by Jesus for the further protection of His Believers after they believe in Him. This is not the prayer for the salvation of the unbelievers.
Here is the prayer by Jesus for the salvation of the Unbelievers:
Luke 23: 34
34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
Jesus prayed for the Unbelievers.
There were Priests, High Priests, Soldiers, Pharisees, Sadducees, elders, scribes
But Jesus prayed Father to forgive them all! Though they didn’t know what they were doing.
God so loved the world that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but has everlasting life ( John 3:16)
So, John 17 cannot be the proof that Jesus atoned only for the Elect.
No sin of the world was left unatoned at the Cross.
His Blood paid all the price for all the sins of the world.
2) Why then there are many people who are going to the Hell?
Because they don’t believe what Jesus has done for them at the Cross.
John 16:9
Of sin, because they believe not on me;
Heb 3
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Heb 4 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it
It is because of Unbelief!
Faith is the Bridge between the Grace of God by virtue of Jesus Christ at the Cross and the Sinner.
3) Acts 13:48
And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
On this verse, KJV was leaning onto Predestination theory.
ἀκούοντα δὲ τὰ ἔθνη ἔχαιρον καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν λόγον τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον
τάσσω
1. to put in order, to station
1. to place in a certain order, to arrange, to assign a place, to appoint
In other words, as many as were prepared for the eternal life believed.
In other words, as many as were humbled, broken-hearted believed the Gospel.
Bible doesn’t teach the human predestination theology.
4) Ephesians 1
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
God predestined all human race to believe in Jesus.
But only the Believers accept it and confess such predestination by God.
Therefore the Predestination here in Ephesians is the one planned by God indiscriminately applicable to all human beings, which is different from that of Calvinism.
Here are the proof:
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. ( Original Predestination by God)
1 John 2
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. ( Universal Atonement)
I would call Unlimited Atonement at the Cross.
5) Ephesians 2:8
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Which is first, Grace or Faith?
Grace is first!
Even before we were born on this earth, 2000 years ago, God showed His Grace thru His Son at the Cross.
If anyone believe it, he or she will be saved by Faith.
Even in that process, the Grace works again because God reacts to the faith of the people and therefore He gives the Holy Spirit to dwell in him or her.
It is a continuous process of interaction and reactions between God and Man.
Faith is the Bridge between the historical fact of Grace at the Cross and the Sinner
6) Does Foreknowledge and Faith mean the works?
Nope! Faith is not a work. Faith is distinguished from Works as we read in Romans 4
Romans 4
5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
Believing is not Work.
7) Total Depravity
On this Calvinists and Arminians differ quite a lot!
Calvinists equalize the Total Depravity with Total Inability or Total Impotent.
However I believe that human beings are totally corrupted, but they can hear and listen to God thru their conscience ( Rom 2:15, Acts 17:27, 30)
God created Man in that way!
ACTS 17
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
8) Does Foreknowledge mean that human destiny is decided by human beings and human beings become God?
No!
The Destiny of Human beings are decided by the interaction between God and Man, which result in either God-Man Cooperation or God-Man Conflict.
9) Romans 3:11
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
This is the overall situation and status of human beings before the Gospel is preached.
This is not the situation of the interaction and reaction between God and Man.
People can seek God and therefore Paul asked people of Athens to seek God ( Acts 17:27)
Some would respond to the calling by God positively and the others negatively.
As the result, some will go to the heaven and the others to the hell.
10) Misunderstanding by Calvinists
They misunderstand and ignore that Almighty God cannot do several things because of His own Attributes.
God cannot commit suicide, cannot coerce the people to believe, cannot forgive the sinners without punishing their sins.
Calvinists misunderstand Believing is not Works.
11) Questions to the Calvinists.
If God predestined only 1% people to believe in Jesus and to go to the Heaven and 99% not to believe and thereby to go to the Hell even though He could all to believe only if He was willing to,
Is your preaching Gospel to the people who were not predestined to believe in Jesus by God a rebellion against God? Or a waste of time?
If someone is predestined to be saved by God, then do you think you need to preach the Gospel to such person at many risks because he will be saved by any means even if you don’t preach?
Is it necessary for you to pray for the Christians persecuted by Muslims because God will do whatever He predestined before the Creation?
Does God need to ask people to repent because He already predestined all
the destiny of the people?
Isn’t it God of Predestination Theory that
should repent?
Can you ask your God about the Lists of the People who were predestined to believe in Jesus and accept the Gospel so that you may not waste time to preach the Gospel?
12) Comments by John Wesley
- Predestination is a doctrine full of "blasphemy."
- The doctrine represents Christ as a "hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common sincerity."
- The doctrine "destroys all" God's "attributes at once. It overturns both his justice, mercy, and truth."
-
- http://staffordsgreenhouse.blogspot.ca/2011/09/free-grace-john-wesley-sermon-summary.html
To me the Theory of Predestination is full of Blasphemy to God too!
Human destiny is decided by the interaction and reaction between God and Man.
Either people believe or reject will lead them to the Heaven or Hell while God appeals and tries to help the people to repent, believe, and obey Him.
Sorry, I will not spend much time on this issue hereafter.
Eliyahu
John Wesley :
http://staffordsgreenhouse.blogspot....n-summary.html
Calvinism is a Heresy.
Predestination theory is a Blasphemy to God.
Calvinists ignores the exceptions:
Men are depraved totally with the exception to hear the voice from God.
Almighty God cannot do certain things because of His own Attributes.
No sin was left unatoned at the Cross ( Universal Atonement)
The Praeyer in John 17:9 was about the further protection after the Salvation
which has nothing to do with Limited Atonement.
God never predestined ISIS to kidnap, rape, torture, and kill the Christians
and the other people, but He foreknew that and prepared the Hell.
God of Predestination theory is wicked, sinful, and must go to the Hell
Calvin was never re-baptized after the infant baptism, teaching the infant
baptism, baptismal regeneration, replacement of Baptism with Sprinkling, Clergy
system, and commited the intended murder of Servetus.
HUman destiny is not of God alone or of Man alone, but the result of the
interaction and reactions each other.
God does not coerce any human being to believe, because such faith by coercion
is not the true faith.
I am proud that I have got out of CAlvinism, Predestination Theory to which I
had adhered to since my high school days in 1960's
Eliyahu
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