TO THE FORUM: (from Ray)
The answer your questions regarding why God holds accountable and judges those who merely do what they are inclined to do, is found in Rom. 9:
"For the children being not yet born, neither have done ANY good OR evil, that the purpose of God according to election [divine selection, divine chosen] might stand, not of works, but of him that calls; It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there UNRIGHTEOUSNESS WITH GOD? God forbid... So then it is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but OF GOD that shows mercy... Therefore has He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will be hardens" (Rom. 9:11-18).
And so here is where your discussion revolves. Yes, it is so, that God chooses whom He will have mercy on and whom He will harden. It is God Himself Who not only chooses whom He will, but it is also God Himself Who BRINGS ABOUT the condition of the two parties in question (a vessel of honor versus a vessel of dishonor--one upon whom mercy is bestowed, and the other upon whom hardness is bestowed). And so, as this IS the way things are, does this not make God Himself UNRIGHTEOUS? And Paul also emphatically answers his own question it "GOD FORBID!"
But Paul realizes that his readers will find fault with this line of teaching and reasoning, and so Paul presents the question that naturally comes to our minds when we first hear these strange teachings: "You will say then unto me [or unto Forum members] WHY DOES HE [GOD] YET FIND FAULT? For [because] who has [EVER] resisted His will [purpose, plan, or intentions]?"
Yes, since God is Sovereign and no one can go against His foreknowledge of WHAT MUST BE, why then does God find fault with those who are merely doing what they with their evil and carnal minds MUST DO?
Okay, here is Paul's answer:
"Nay but, O man, WHO ARE YOU that replies against God? Shall the thing formed [the man doing merely what he was designed to do] say to Him that formed it [God the Potter] WHY have you made me thus [this way?]" (Rom. 9:19-20).
We as God's "Pots" have no right to ask God WHY He does what He does. HE IS GOD!!
But, for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, God, nonetheless, does tell us WHY.
"What if God will to show His wrath, and to make his power known, endures with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He has BEFORE prepared unto glory."
God is going to show how GOOD the good are by contrasting them with how BAD the bad are. And God has this right, since He is the Potter, and we are merely the clay. It is GOOD that we all LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS (Isa. 26:9). One group (the chosen elect) just learn it earlier than do the vessels of dishonor. They will not be left out:
"For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of ALL MEN [vessels of dishonour], especially [now] of those that believe [the vessels of honour]" (I Tim. 4:10).
But remember, we also were like the vessels of dishonour fitted for wrath, in "times past":
"Among whom also WE ALL had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh [vessels of dishonour] and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:3).
We are ALL "marred in the Potter's hand" sometime in our lives, and must be refashioned after the likeness of His Son. So God is no respecter of persons, He merely has a schedule for which vessels get saved first. It is good that we learn righteousness by the evils that God imposes upon us, even if we are "NOT WILLING" that He should operate in this way (Rom. 8:20).
God be with you all,
Ray
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Topic: Free Will is an Oxymoron. (Read 13694 times)