Last night I finished Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World
Does anyone have any thoughts about predestination? If you do have thoughts, support it with a few bible verses when you leave me a comment.
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 | Author: Brian Stevenson
Category: Book Reviews, Religion
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses
Thursday, 2. March 2006
For every scripture that seems to indicate predestination, there is corresponding scripture that points to free will. Off the top of my head, and from my reading in the last day, look at;
2 Peter 1:10, “make your calling and election sure.” If you calling and election is predestined, why do anything to make it sure?
2 Peter 2:20, why would it be worse to know Christ and fall away? If your election was predestined, you would not be able to fall away.
2 Peter 3:9, which echoes much scripture, “God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” — importantly, in order for predestination to be entirely correct, then God MUST IN FACT be willing that many should perish, for He would have predestined them to do so.
1 John 2:2, which also echoes other scripture, Christ died for the sins of the world. If predestination is true, the Christ only died for those whom God predestined, and none others are capable of coming to Him.
You must take it as a whole to grasp the most difficult concepts in scripture. I have no doubt that MacArthur makes a compelling case, using much scripture in valid context — I also have no doubt that while he may be partially correct, he must be partially wrong. Truth often walks the knife edge between extremes. Group predestination is a much better overall application of scripture. God IS sovereign — but so also, by His divine decree, is man. I have a good summary of the problems with Calvanism and Armeniansim called “The Sovereignty of Man” that you might find worthwhile.
Thursday, 2. March 2006
Steve, I completely agree when you said, “Truth often walks the knife edge between extremes.” I believe free will and predestination are no exception. I’d love to read the material you have on The Sovereignty of Man. Thanks!