The ‘fullness of the Jews’ is a topic near to my heart. The mystery of Israel’s redemption is that, though there is but one remnant, it is saved in two stages, two time periods. And this is pictured by the two houses of Jacob, Judah and Israel.
Messiah came and established the foundation of the Church by ‘calling-out’ His chosen in Judah. He made His disciples ‘fishers of men’ (Jer16). But after thant the Gentiles began to come into the Body, Jews faded. And for some 1900 years they have been all but ‘lost’, with God doing no great work among them.
But now, in these end of days, God is again visiting the Jews to ‘call-out’ the ‘rest’ of ‘all Israel’. So today He makes His ‘cyrus church’ to be ‘hunters of men’ (Jer16), to gather His elect in Israel into His House. So the command is ‘search for the lost sheep of the house of Israel; gather the scattered seed of Jacob.’
This, as spoken of in Joel chapter 2, is the time of Israel’s fullness, the time of blessing when the Lord restores blessing to His elect, His remnant in Israel. And we, His Witness, are given as a ‘teacher of rightuousnes’ (joel2), and as a light to those who sit in darkness.

God keep you,
Michael

The ‘fullness of the Jews’ is a topic near to my heart. The mystery of Israel’s redemption is that, though there is but one remnant, it is saved in two stages, two time periods. And this is pictured by the two houses of Jacob, Judah and Israel.
Messiah came and established the foundation of the Church by ‘calling-out’ His chosen in Judah. He made His disciples ‘fishers of men’ (Jer16). But after thant the Gentiles began to come into the Body, Jews faded. And for some 1900 years they have been all but ‘lost’, with God doing no great work among them.
But now, in these end of days, God is again visiting the Jews to ‘call-out’ the ‘rest’ of ‘all Israel’. So today He makes His ‘cyrus church’ to be ‘hunters of men’ (Jer16), to gather His elect in Israel into His House. So the command is ‘search for the lost sheep of the house of Israel; gather the scattered seed of Jacob.’
This, as spoken of in Joel chapter 2, is the time of Israel’s fullness, the time of blessing when the Lord restores blessing to His elect, His remnant in Israel. And we, His Witness, are given as a ‘teacher of rightuousnes’ (joel2), and as a light to those who sit in darkness.

God keep you,
Michael

Steve, I read the above article as you recommended, and I am amazed! I have to say I agree with most of what you said here. and I think you would be surprised that the interpretation of Romans 9 you gave is actually an interpretation most knowledgeable Calvinists would agree with! Bet you didn’t expect that! lol

Actually, I’m not at all surprised. My contention is not that Calvinism is completely inane, but that it is missing a crucial part of the picture. What I wrote affirmed the part of the picture that the Reformed typically get.

Not only that, but if Romans 9 proves that Israel as a nation was elected alone out of all the nations of the earth for the purpose of redemptive history, that does not refute the case for individual election, it only strengthens it! Why? Because the nation of Israel is made of individuals, and the rest of the entire world in the Old Testament, also made up of individuals, with individual, eternal souls, was completely passed over and left in the darkness, left to their own devices and pagan idolatry, to experience God’s justice and wrath.

As I have said, individuals participate in the election of a group.

When you get down to the nitty gritty, individuals are at stake here, and you know as well as I do that God was ultimately sovereign in determining *who* those individuals would be.

No. The gift of God has been opened up to all. Election has been fulfilled.

That being said, when we come to Romans 9 and Paul is explaining why Jacob was chosen over Esau for certain things, Paul explicitly says that God’s choice of these men was not in light of their works (for both men were knuckleheads).

I’m not arguing that God couldn’t or even wouldn’t elect the saved and damn others individually but, as argued in the above post, that He had a particular, finite goal in doing so.

Our sins, as a human race, deserve, and have earned, God’s just hatred of us.

It is this talk that makes me recoil from Reformed circles the most. God’s “hatred” can only be justified if we are responsible, not He, for our transgressions. The fact that we are born naturally estranged from Him is not our fault, as He knows. If all mankind was that “hateful” such that He loathed us all, there could never have been a reason for Him to love any of us enough to reconcile us to Him. Does He hate the wicked? That’s what the Bible says. But what does “wicked” mean? I submit that it is someone who willfully does what is wrong, not those who try their best and fail. The latter are not necessarily justified, but neither are they “hated”.

Ultimately, since all are sinful, separated from God, and “hostile towards God”, unable to please Him (Rom 8:7-8), God’s grace to work on men’s hearts, change them, and effectually bring them to faith and repentance, must be unconditional, because none can earn this or in any way persuade God to do this, as all men, by nature, are “in the flesh”, and while in the flesh, “cannot do anything to please God” (Rom 8:7-8)

Two words here: “prevenient grace.”

If you disagree, ask yourself this. If you’re saved, who saved you, God, or yourself? You’d answer “God did”. Then ask yourself, “Did He save you on purpose, or was it an accident?” You’d have no answer but “He saved me on purpose”, and that, Steve, is the doctrine of election

Au contraire, Joe! Salvation isn’t membership to a privileged country club; it’s a life preserver thrown into the churning water we are born in. We are all privileged enough to receive the grace of God, and those of us who respond are not “better”, but merely more desperate than others — hardly a badge of honor.

The phrase “as many as” dictates that not one less, and not one more, did a particular thing.

No argument.

The idea that this is just casually implying that “Since all Gentiles are now ordained to eternal life, some of them believed” is nonsense and the text does not allow it.

It will require more than handwaving to dismiss my argument. How in the world does the text not allow it? It’s as clear a parallel with Romans 11 as we might have expected.

“As many as”, not one more, and not one less, that were ordained to eternal life, believed. This is in accordance with John 6:37 where Christ says “All that the father gives me, will come to me” (or believe in me)

Here again, I am at a loss to understand how my view contradicts this. You have to be able to make the case that God still cherry picks the elect, despite the fact that the elect were already “gathered from the four winds” (Mat 24.31) after the completion of redemption that followed the return of Christ in AD 70 (Lk 21.28; Heb 9.28; cf. the state of affairs following the establishment of the New Jerusalem in Rev 22.17).

Now, a couple things I wanted to comment on from your previous comment:

Yet God explicitly says, several times: “I will have mercy on whomever I will, and I will have compassion on whomever I will” (or have love). Let it be known that “mercy” and “love” used in this way are verbs. (See Rom 9:15 concordance) It is not merely that God has a passive, romantic “feeling” of compassion or mercy towards people, but literally, God “mercies” and “compassions” whomever He will.

Have you read Jeremiah and the Potter?

There is no reason to need to explain away clear verses such as “God chose you from the beginning for salvation” 2 Th 2:13 or “In love he predestined us..according to the good pleasure of His will” Eph 1, or “Whom He foreknew, He predestined…” Rom 8, or “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed” Acts 13:48

Gosh, I can’t imagine how you can characterize my position as “explain[ing] away” those verses. It’s well within the exegete’s responsibility to determine who the “we, us, you”, etc. are when we’re reading Scripture. The principle of audience relevance, recall? Buy it or don’t, but there’s no reason to make my position out to be other than exegetically determined.

There is nothing in those verses, or in the entire NT, that even hints that God’s choosing is grounded on the foreseen faith of people . . . Yes, men are commanded to believe, but it is by unaided logic that it is assumed by non-Calvinists that the belief must be the first cause of God’s choice and the salvific mercy extended by it.

Even (for sake of argument) conceding this, this does not alone call into question my view that election was a time-bound state of affairs.

Again, both faith and repentance are the results, and not the cause, of regeneration (being born again), for until then, we are “hostile towards God” who are “unable to obey him (Rom 8:7-8) and we “cannot see” and we “find the gospel foolishness”. Would you ever expect a man who finds something foolishness and literally hates it to embrace it with his entire might? Surely not!

God reveals Himself to humanity. I don’t see why we should believe He doesn’t do so for every individual, especially if He’s going to judge them as if He had. It’s when the Holy Spirit moves on someone that they have the opportunity to see their need and God’s willingness to provide. This encounter was recorded in the case of Saul of Tarsus, whereas if his conversion depended on nothing but the Lord’s election, why should the Lord have gone through all the fireworks?

And in the interests of pruning this unwieldy subject, which has been discussed but never truly settled in the innumerable volumes written since the Reformation, I will not even begin to broach the topic of the “faith/faithfulness” question.

Regarding the idea that election is conditioned on faith (hence, Arminianism’s conditional election), the Synod of Dordt, where Arminianism was branded heresy, says this:

Heresy, huh? Yeah. Conversation stopper, Joe!

Thanks again for your time. I hope you found me respectful. I hope you understand that I’m passionate about this subject hehe, and that is the reason for my assertiveness.< .blockquote>
I understand assertiveness; truly I do. But when people start throwing the “h” word around among professing believers, I start looking for cover…

Steve, I read the above article as you recommended, and I am amazed! I have to say I agree with most of what you said here. and I think you would be surprised that the interpretation of Romans 9 you gave is actually an interpretation most knowledgeable Calvinists would agree with! Bet you didn’t expect that! lol

Actually, I’m not at all surprised. My contention is not that Calvinism is completely inane, but that it is missing a crucial part of the picture. What I wrote affirmed the part of the picture that the Reformed typically get.

Not only that, but if Romans 9 proves that Israel as a nation was elected alone out of all the nations of the earth for the purpose of redemptive history, that does not refute the case for individual election, it only strengthens it! Why? Because the nation of Israel is made of individuals, and the rest of the entire world in the Old Testament, also made up of individuals, with individual, eternal souls, was completely passed over and left in the darkness, left to their own devices and pagan idolatry, to experience God’s justice and wrath.

As I have said, individuals participate in the election of a group.

When you get down to the nitty gritty, individuals are at stake here, and you know as well as I do that God was ultimately sovereign in determining *who* those individuals would be.

No. The gift of God has been opened up to all. Election has been fulfilled.

That being said, when we come to Romans 9 and Paul is explaining why Jacob was chosen over Esau for certain things, Paul explicitly says that God’s choice of these men was not in light of their works (for both men were knuckleheads).

I’m not arguing that God couldn’t or even wouldn’t elect the saved and damn others individually but, as argued in the above post, that He had a particular, finite goal in doing so.

Our sins, as a human race, deserve, and have earned, God’s just hatred of us.

It is this talk that makes me recoil from Reformed circles the most. God’s “hatred” can only be justified if we are responsible, not He, for our transgressions. The fact that we are born naturally estranged from Him is not our fault, as He knows. If all mankind was that “hateful” such that He loathed us all, there could never have been a reason for Him to love any of us enough to reconcile us to Him. Does He hate the wicked? That’s what the Bible says. But what does “wicked” mean? I submit that it is someone who willfully does what is wrong, not those who try their best and fail. The latter are not necessarily justified, but neither are they “hated”.

Ultimately, since all are sinful, separated from God, and “hostile towards God”, unable to please Him (Rom 8:7-8), God’s grace to work on men’s hearts, change them, and effectually bring them to faith and repentance, must be unconditional, because none can earn this or in any way persuade God to do this, as all men, by nature, are “in the flesh”, and while in the flesh, “cannot do anything to please God” (Rom 8:7-8)

Two words here: “prevenient grace.”

If you disagree, ask yourself this. If you’re saved, who saved you, God, or yourself? You’d answer “God did”. Then ask yourself, “Did He save you on purpose, or was it an accident?” You’d have no answer but “He saved me on purpose”, and that, Steve, is the doctrine of election

Au contraire, Joe! Salvation isn’t membership to a privileged country club; it’s a life preserver thrown into the churning water we are born in. We are all privileged enough to receive the grace of God, and those of us who respond are not “better”, but merely more desperate than others — hardly a badge of honor.

The phrase “as many as” dictates that not one less, and not one more, did a particular thing.

No argument.

The idea that this is just casually implying that “Since all Gentiles are now ordained to eternal life, some of them believed” is nonsense and the text does not allow it.

It will require more than handwaving to dismiss my argument. How in the world does the text not allow it? It’s as clear a parallel with Romans 11 as we might have expected.

“As many as”, not one more, and not one less, that were ordained to eternal life, believed. This is in accordance with John 6:37 where Christ says “All that the father gives me, will come to me” (or believe in me)

Here again, I am at a loss to understand how my view contradicts this. You have to be able to make the case that God still cherry picks the elect, despite the fact that the elect were already “gathered from the four winds” (Mat 24.31) after the completion of redemption that followed the return of Christ in AD 70 (Lk 21.28; Heb 9.28; cf. the state of affairs following the establishment of the New Jerusalem in Rev 22.17).Now, a couple things I wanted to comment on from your previous comment:

Yet God explicitly says, several times: “I will have mercy on whomever I will, and I will have compassion on whomever I will” (or have love). Let it be known that “mercy” and “love” used in this way are verbs. (See Rom 9:15 concordance) It is not merely that God has a passive, romantic “feeling” of compassion or mercy towards people, but literally, God “mercies” and “compassions” whomever He will.

Have you read Jeremiah and the Potter?

There is no reason to need to explain away clear verses such as “God chose you from the beginning for salvation” 2 Th 2:13 or “In love he predestined us..according to the good pleasure of His will” Eph 1, or “Whom He foreknew, He predestined…” Rom 8, or “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed” Acts 13:48

Gosh, I can’t imagine how you can characterize my position as “explain[ing] away” those verses. It’s well within the exegete’s responsibility to determine who the “we, us, you”, etc. are when we’re reading Scripture. The principle of audience relevance, recall? Buy it or don’t, but there’s no reason to make my position out to be other than exegetically determined.

There is nothing in those verses, or in the entire NT, that even hints that God’s choosing is grounded on the foreseen faith of people . . . Yes, men are commanded to believe, but it is by unaided logic that it is assumed by non-Calvinists that the belief must be the first cause of God’s choice and the salvific mercy extended by it.

Even (for sake of argument) conceding this, this does not alone call into question my view that election was a time-bound state of affairs.

Again, both faith and repentance are the results, and not the cause, of regeneration (being born again), for until then, we are “hostile towards God” who are “unable to obey him (Rom 8:7-8) and we “cannot see” and we “find the gospel foolishness”. Would you ever expect a man who finds something foolishness and literally hates it to embrace it with his entire might? Surely not!

God reveals Himself to humanity. I don’t see why we should believe He doesn’t do so for every individual, especially if He’s going to judge them as if He had. It’s when the Holy Spirit moves on someone that they have the opportunity to see their need and God’s willingness to provide. This encounter was recorded in the case of Saul of Tarsus, whereas if his conversion depended on nothing but the Lord’s election, why should the Lord have gone through all the fireworks?And in the interests of pruning this unwieldy subject, which has been discussed but never truly settled in the innumerable volumes written since the Reformation, I will not even begin to broach the topic of the “faith/faithfulness” question.

Regarding the idea that election is conditioned on faith (hence, Arminianism’s conditional election), the Synod of Dordt, where Arminianism was branded heresy, says this:

Heresy, huh? Yeah. Conversation stopper, Joe!

Thanks again for your time. I hope you found me respectful. I hope you understand that I’m passionate about this subject hehe, and that is the reason for my assertiveness.

I understand assertiveness; truly I do. But when people start throwing the “h” word around among professing believers, I start looking for cover…

So I ask; Why does God create souls “fitted for destruction”, upon whom God’s wrath comes? If there is no possibility for their redemption, then is God not doing things “in vain”, seeing as their birth and death serves no purpose, other than (according to you) to be created and then to die (or live forever, depending on your concept of the immortality of the soul) in hell?

By your definition, the family of God has a limit, and that limit is predetermined by God, and it cannot grow beyond that limit. I understand that there are evil people, and that truly, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and not one deserves grace. I also understand that God bestows grace upon whom He wills. Yet, to assert that the evil that deserves eternal punishment is the same as the evil that is common to all men because we are ALL sinners means that God is doing things in vain. Namely, that God creates grass just so that it will grow up and then be fit for nothing better than to be burned. In addition, you are also stating that this grass was pre-ordained to be burned, and that there is no hope at all for them. It leads to the inevitable conclusion that a)man has no truly free choice and b)there is no point in evangelization.

Such a bleak view of the purpose of life makes those who are “chosen” feel really good, but those who are not really, really bad. In addition, it makes the message of the gospel repellent to those who may be initially attracted to it. It also can make those who ARE called and chosen stay in doubt of their own salvation, because one cannot know for sure if they are saved until that final moment when God welcomes them in. That surely isn’t grace, that is a works-based religion and isn’t too far removed from Judaism or Islam. Judaism says that our good works have to outweigh our bad. Islam is even worse, because it contends that one can NEVER know if God will save us – it all depends on the whim (sovereignty) of God. How is your definition of sovereignty different than that of the Muslim version – they both maintain that God is unknowable and that it is really all based on the whim of an inscrutable God. That doesn’t make God greater, it makes God lesser because grace based on no particular choice of the recipient will trump love every time. I maintain that love trump grace because the grace is secondary. The love of God comes first, and then the grace follows.

Your system says that grace is just a cold, sterile calculation based on some preordained numbers that only God undertands. You say love is something that comes later, but grace has to be the reason we are even loved at all.