A Poor Reflection

[dave c]

simpletruth #138r Revisited 12May10 salicart@msn.com

HOSEA 10:12—Part Eighteen: A Poor Reflection

by rev. dave c

Hosea 10:12, Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you (NKJV).

Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory (Ro 9:13-23; NIV).

Reading Romans 9:13-23 leads us to questions that are fundamental to our belief of how and why people come to Christ and whether or not our salvation is irrevocable. Put another way, “Do we choose Jesus (we each exercise freewill), or does He choose us (each of our futures has been predestined)...and is it possible to lose salvation, once it is granted (do we hang onto salvation through self-effort, versus our efforts are of no ultimate consequence)?” These issues have been the source of friendly in-house discussion and heated debate among Christians for hundreds of years.

At present there are two basic positions espoused within Western Church that form the poles of opposing thought. Most believers find themselves somewhere between these extremes. Those who believe that God created some people to go to Heaven are called Calvinists. Because His call or election is irresistible, a Calvinist believes it is impossible for those whom God has chosen to “lose” their salvation. Armenians, on the other hand, maintain that everyone is called to salvation by God, but that each person exercises the freedom to choose Christ, or to reject Him. Because God is omniscient, He knows before hand who is going to come to Him and this foreknowledge is what is meant when Scripture refers to God preordaining and/or predestining individuals to be objects of mercy. An Armenian holds that since we choose to believe, then it is also possible to choose to stop believing—that is, we can reject our salvation, even after it has been granted.

Can someone who has truly accepted Jesus Christ lose his, or her, salvation? A traditional Calvinist might answer, “God has preordained each person’s eternal state of existence. There is nothing the individual can do to gain salvation; the elect can not resist His call to salvation; and there is nothing that the saints can do to lose salvation.” On the other hand, a traditional Armenian might say, “Although God, in His omniscience, is fully aware of how the individual will freely answer His call, each of us is personally responsible to respond to that invitation. Salvation requires continued affirmative cooperation through our obedience to the written and living Word in order to fulfill Christ’s proffered covenant of grace. As a consequence, it is possible for someone who has been saved to cancel the covenant of grace within his own life by consciously denying and terminally rejecting personal salvation.” Could any other question generate two answers that are any more contradictory, and yet each still be considered within “the pale of orthodoxy”?

Please understand that the previous paragraphs are simplistic in the extreme as descriptive explanations of Calvinism and Armenianism. There are countless books and articles available for those who are interested in pursuing more in depth information about these teachings. The truth is, there are many verses throughout the Bible that lend support to each of these beliefs, even though they appear to be contradictory in nature. Like all apparent contradictions in Scripture, however, these verses actually form a paradox...that is, with prayer, study and meditation some of these mysteries can come to be understood (although others remain too wonderful for us to understand).

I believe that the Bible simultaneously provides repeated evidence that God loves all of humanity—desiring everyone to be saved—AND that He preordains and predestines some to come to Him. As always the bottom line is, “God is Big and I’m (we’re) not Him.” How I, or you, or “they” interpret Scripture changes not a whit the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth of God’s Word. I pray God that we none of us become so arrogant as to believe that we hold all the answers to the wonders of God’s love and proffered grace and mercy. Let us take to heart Paul’s exhortation in First Corinthians 13:12, Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known (NIV). Amen.

[MacUser]

Understand and study Covenant. That answered it for me.

[dolfan]

I would submit that Romans 9 offers nothing to either the Calvinist's belief in irresistable grace and eternal security OR to the Arminian view of foreknowledge and personal choice.

Paul's point in Rom. 9-11 is Israel's relationship with God under the new covenant. It has nothing to do with individual predestination. It answers questions that Paul artfully set up in earlier chapters. It is the perfect subject after closing the gospel-intensive arguments of chapters 1-8 because it says, "Okay .... if all that is true about the good news and Jesus and Israel, why isn't Israel saved? What IS going on with Israel in this new covenant context?" Paul just flat out states it in chapters 9-11. And, it HAS to be dealt with here because why should Gentiles believe God is faithful instead of feckless if, after all that happened in their history, God just washed His hands of them?? What if something really CAN separate us from the love of God in Christ (since Paul had said nothing could in Rom. . He didn't. These chapters explain very concisely what God DID do, though, regarding Israel.

Now, that said, Dave's observations are wonderful:

I pray God that we none of us become so arrogant as to believe that we hold all the answers to the wonders of God’s love and proffered grace and mercy. Let us take to heart Paul’s exhortation in First Corinthians 13:12, Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known (NIV).

That's precisely why I don't really care who, if any, is right on the Calvinist-Arminian questions. I know what I believe, and I'm confident in my reasons for it, but I'm also keenly aware that I am abjectly ignorant, even knowing what I know by the grace of God.