First, I'm gonna ask y'all to bear with my writing style. I don't normally do a lot of Scripture-quoting when I write. But I'll try to quote the passages and indicate their locations as I go along. Where I neglect to, please do not fear to call my attention. I also beg pardon for my digression. Andromida, this post will also serve as a response to your position.

The matters of predestination, foreordination and election are only one of those doctrinal issues that polarize the Church and experienced believers appear not to take them on some times to teach others, not because of some kind of spiritual arrogance that they are privy to some special secret that lesser mortals should be denied but that they are careful not to overburden the younger ones with "strong meat". But I perceive that there is more than one experienced believer here so I'll speak freely.

These matters were a thorny issue for me because

- they bore on the definition of God's omniscience;

- they touched the issue of the Fall, what really happened to Adam back at the garden;

- they brought God's fairness and sovereign rights into question;

- they bore on the security of a believer's salvation.

Because of this thread, however, I have been forced to face these issues squarely. I think that now I understand these things a little more. So I'm going to lay out my understanding as I believe the Spirit has afforded me.

First,
GOD

God, being God, has certain abilities among which is omniscience. Also God, being God, has certain rights over His Creation including the sovereign right of ownership.
Omniscience in a word, albeit a compound one, means all-knowing. How this all-knowing works is probably the question here. I think that however we tweak it or imagine it, it'll work out to God possessing all knowledge, even knowledge of the future. We humans are pretty good at predicting the future too, even if we're not always right. The reason is that things tend to occur in cycles and therefore repeat themselves even though in different colors and flavors. And these cycles have more or less fixed results, as if they respond to some sort of law. Now, part of God's work in creating should reasonably include establishing Principles upon which Creation would run, a perfect standard to which Creation must adhere to be what He intended. This would mean that He would know what would result from deviation from that Standard and what He would have to do to bring it back to His original intention.
We go on to His creation of sentient, intelligent beings. Their possession of intelligence implies their ability to choose. Father, by Nature, is Love and His reason for creating as we know from Paul's letters to the Ephesians and Colossians was to share Himself with beings other than Himself. Because He is Love, it is an impossibility for Him to create these beings without intelligence. The passage in 1 Corinthians 13 that describes Love's behavior says that Father's Moral Nature could not allow Him to create beings that had no choice but to accept His Gift of Himself. He must make them able to refuse the Gift as well to be true to His Own Nature. But being omniscient, He would know what choices they had (remember the principles upon which He establishes Creation) and because He knows their make-up, genetically and every other way (remember that He made them), He would know what choices they would gravitate to, and what they would ultimately choose. It is only consistent with His place as Creator that He knows how His Creation behaves under every possible condition. However, God's knowing how an intelligent being will choose in this regard or another does not at all mean that He fixed their choice. It only means that He knows what their choice would be. I'll come back to this.

Father's rights of sovereignty and ownership over creation are the next issue. I am really unwilling to harvest Scriptures from all over the Bible to show how God has again and again indicated that He has such rights. Suffice to say that if a man makes/produces/creates a thing, he usually has sovereign rights over it. He can unmake it, improve it, damage it without committing an immorality because it is his. Father, being God, also has this right over all the works of His Hands. He can wipe out all creation or preserve it or destroy a part and preserve another without committing an immorality in any way. The only law He would be violating would be His Own Nature of Love that the Scriptures insist is His Very Own Identity. But as God, if God decided that He would save only A and Y alive and destroy everybody else, He would be within His right as God, Creator, Owner. This is unquestionable. However, our Father has been represented in the Bible as Love and we were told in 1 Corinthians 13 that Love is not self-seeking, that is, that Love seeks the good of the Loved even at cost to Itself. Therefore, God can, because He is Love, give up His right of ownership...

...
If Love dictates Father's doings, then we can be sure that He can give up rights that would conflict with Love's purposes. This does not mean that those rights do not exist.

Next, I'll address
THE QUESTION OF MAN'S TOTAL DEPRAVITY

This concept holds that because of Adam's sin in the garden, man has a natural bent toward evil and a total disinclination from God. This means that all men are bound in evil and are so comfortable in it that they do not want to be saved out of it. This means that if God would save a man, then He would have to practically open his eyes to his condition and make him want to be free (violating his free will in the process) and then save him.
Just the fact that this concept plays out in the violation of man's free will, it cannot be true. But if it is not true, what really happened when Adam sinned? What do the Scriptures mean when they speak of a nature of sin or a law of sin operating within us? Is it not total depravity? There are passages like "all have sinned..." (Romans 3:23), "...ye were the servants of sin..." (6:20), "...bringing me into captivity to the law of sin..." (7:23), and "...free from the law of sin..." (8:2) which seem to say that man indeed is a slave of sin. This is true, but none of them says that he doesn't want to be free. All of them describe how man is a slave straining against his bonds. I can't stop to quote the parts that show that. I hope that you can read them for yourselves. There is an interesting bit of Ecclesiastes that actually puts it quite succinctly: "...God created man upright, but they have sought out many devices." (Eccl 7:29).
God created men intelligent. Man has by nature a moral compass. This is why even though he leans toward evil, he keeps trying to do good! Something in him reaches for the light and that simply because he is man, fallen man albeit, but man nonetheless. So, what happened in the Garden was not the loss of a moral compass, the establishment within man's nature of an incapability of discerning evil and good and an unwillingness to seek after good. No. Rather, it was a disconnect from the source of the ability to do and be good. And that disconnect resulted in all the running around we see with man trying to fill up that vacuum so that he can capture the true dignity of his nature.

Finally, we come to
THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER'S SALVATION

This is, I think, the most knotty for us Christians. God's omniscience is revered and all, but it does not worry us as much as the fear of losing our salvation does. Man may be totally depraved or utterly saintly and while we would muse about it, we could never lose as much sleep over it as we do over the fear that something we did or said might have cost us our salvation. This makes it the most immediate issue of importance. Tied into this issue generally is the question of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit being unforgiveable.
Can a Christian lose his salvation? What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? I will take the second on later in a separate segment.

The question, "can a Christian lose his salvation?" provokes another one: what does it mean to be saved? The Scriptures say things like, being given "the power to be called children of God", being "born again (or, anew or, from above)", believing "on the Lord Jesus". And all of them are right, but what they mean is another matter. One thing we know that runs as a common thread through all of them is this: "receive ye the holy spirit". It does not matter what any given servant of God called it, it was always attended with the Spirit. Jesus's baptism was said to be of the Spirit rather than water. I think that I have the Lord in saying that being saved or being born anew or from above is having the Spirit of God come into your spirit and make a home within your own being. It is truly being born all over again only this time into the House or Family of God. The first of this kind was the Lord Jesus Christ (He wasn't born again though, lol He was just the first born into this family in this manner). As Luke 1:35 recorded, Gabriel said to Mary that "the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you [like a shining cloud]; and so the holy (pure, sinless) Thing (Offspring) which shall be born of you will be called the Son of God." Salvation is (but is not limited to) an actual birth into the Family of God. The "born again" Jesus told Nicodemus is, as far as I know, not a parable or a metaphor but an actuality. It means that to become a Christian, the spirit of a person (which is that which the Bible says was dead in sin) is reborn (that's where "anew" and "again" come from) by the impartation of the Life of Christ, that is the entry of the Holy Spirit into it (that is, I believe, where "from above" comes from). If this is so, how does the Life of Christ, which has proven itself above the power of death (of all kinds) die?
...(continuing in another post,sorry guys)...

...
Again, if the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Romans 11:29), how can God recall the gift of eternal life (a.k.a the Life of Christ, a.k.a the Holy Spirit, a.k.a salvation, a.k.a the Divine Nature) for any reason? Here is where I beg to point out to you, my sister Andromida, that grieving the Spirit does not equate losing the Spirit.
I must point out before going on that irresistible grace is most definitely inconsistent with Father's Nature of Love so I cannot accept it as evidence for the impossibility of loss of salvation. I also point out that salvation is not limited to spiritual birth into the family of God, so the warnings issued concerning being careful not to lose our salvation may not be proof that birth into the Family of God can be revoked.

Moving on. We know that a complete and a normal human being is a trinity of body, soul and spirit. It is not true that the spirit is the real you and your body is just some tent you wear and your soul an apparatus you use. No. I submit that the real you is the perfect marriage of all three. You are not you without your body even if you had your soul and spirit, nor are you you if you had another combination of two of those three yet lacking one. When God said He was going to make man in His Own Image, believe me, He wasn't sniffing around. He meant it and He did it and man's trouble until Christ was that he was not complete. 1 Cor 15:45 says that "the first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam (Christ) was made a life-giving spirit."
Adam was made a sentient, individual personality apart from God. His life was in his soul, where intelligence (will, emotions and intellect) lies. This was not God's ultimate purpose for him. He was made a creature of choice. He was meant to intelligently decide to obey God everytime God asked Him to. This means that he was an utterly free agent, alive in his spirit for input from God, alive in his physical (or soulical, as a dear brother would put it) body to the world around him upon which his obedience or disobedience to God would act, alive in his soul to himself to connect the two. Upon disobedience, he severed the spiritual connection to God and all that remained was his sentience and his physical relevance. This does not mean that he could no longer know God, but I don't want to get into that. The thing I'm pursuing is that it was this state of spiritual death that Jesus Christ came to lift us out of.
When a man has received the Spirit of God into his own spirit, his spirit is brought back to life, but this time with not only a revitalized connection to God to know Him spiritually, but also with a very strong positive bias to God's Will and God's Desires. The natural Adam was morally neutral, capable of good and evil, but with a leaning toward good because of his Progenitor. He was dependent on God only as of choice. He was not married to God, he was a free moral agent capable of choosing to disobey God. Jesus Christ is different. Please understand that like any other human being, Jesus did have free will but unlike Adam He of His own choice and desire gave up His Right to it so that He was truly incapable of iniquity. His life on earth was meant to test the reliability of that choice He made: would He in any instance choose to do His Own Thing apart from God? He never ever did! And the Cross fully and finally confirmed that so that God was finally sure to get a new kind/race of human beings using Jesus Christ as the new Progenitor instead of Adam.
Let me bring this back to the issue on hand. The difference between Adam and Christ is the location of their life or the place where they draw their sentience from. Adam's life or sentience was in his soul, himself, a being apart from God. God was an external input and influence from him which he could accept or reject. Jesus's life and sentience, on the other hand, was in His Spirit, which had God fully at home, not as guest but as house-owner in it. From there, his soul and body received nourishment and guidance. Around His spirit, the other two elements of His human make-up revolved. Evidently, the two human beings, Adam and Jesus Christ were as different from each other as light from a match. Adam was created to become like that. Jesus was born like that.
Now what happened when we got born into God's Family? A new human being was made who is the counterpart of the natural Adamic us. Salvation is actually a process that began with getting born from above. It is possible to lose it in the sense that one fails to come into its fullness and all that God intended by it, but I do not believe that it is possible to get [b]un[/b]born again. You're either born into the House and that's it, or you're not. The Life we receive when we get saved is not something that is external to us that we can drop at will. It is a whole new being created. The only way we could lose it would be death which has lost power over Christ...

...
This person born with Christ's "genetic" information cannot suffer what Christ cannot suffer: death. So loss of salvation in the sense of becoming unChristian after one has truly been born anew is impossible. But loss of salvation in another sense is possible. I have already mentioned that.
The view with which God set about making man was, "...let them have dominion...", in other words, government over His Creation. At the point of creating Adam who was to be probated, it was only the earth that was put under his authority. We know how that worked out. But after Christ had been tested and proved, God "raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, NOT ONLY IN THIS WORLD, BUT ALSO IN THAT WHICH IS TO COME: and hath put ALL THINGS under his feet..." (Ephesians 1:20-22). Salvation is onto that. We're born into the House of God with all that in view. But while we can never get un-born again, we can lose completely the fullness described up there in those verses. And believe me, my brothers and sister, that would be a more tremendous loss than I could begin to enumerate. This is where the 144,000 of Rev 14 and the man-child of Rev 12 come in, but that'll be a bit much to handle with the subject under study. What I'm saying is that we are saved or born from above so that God can build out of us men of ability and maturity to whom He can commit government over all of Creation with Jesus Christ. And we can fall far short of that so much so that it'll, like Paul says in 1 Cor 3:10-15, be like we were saved from a fire in which we lost absolutely everything (v.15). In other words, we are saved, but we lost everything. The possibility of that loss and the greatness and significance of it warrants all that warning about making sure to make our calling and election sure. But as I hope I have shown, the warnings could not have been about losing the Life of Christ completely. They were about losing the Purpose of It.


WHAT IS THE SUM OF ALL THE FOREGOING?

From the first segment, God's omniscience does not rob man of his power of choice. But it did predestinate man once God carried out the act of creation because even though man may have a hundred choices and has equal ability to choose any, God's foreknowledge that that man would choose this and not the other 99 options before He created him turns into predestination once He created him. It does not mean that by creating him, God marked him for death or life, it just means that by creating him, Father gave him an opportunity to pick whichever He wanted and, knowing Who Father is, provided or made available to him every encouragement in His Power short of violating this man's will to choose life, but ultimately the choice is totally, completely, the man's without any compulsion from God at all. Thus, we make, by ourselves and for ourselves, our own destinies which God knew beforehand that we would given all the conditions in which we find ourselves.

Also, God does not generally exercise His right of sovereignty to make men do this or that. He only creates or permits conditions that encourage certain choices and not others. But He never violates our free will.

It is impossible to lose the Life of Christ once one has really got it. But it is possible to lose all that it means such that it is practically meaningless that we were even saved in the first instance.

As a last word on this, I add that grace is essentially God arranging our circumstances and conditions such that we are encouraged to choose Life all the time. Should we accept grace and choose Life, we find somehow that He boosts us up to the choice we have aspired to. Grace never makes us do this or that. It always enables us to do that which is according to Life if we choose Life.

Cyrexx, as for your question about the unforgiveable sin, consider 1 Timothy 1:13. For that sin to truly be unforgiveable, you have to commit it completely conscious of what you are doing. And let me assure you, if you are, you will not be repentant any time from here till eternity. God is incredibly merciful. His mercy used to piss some of His messengers off, consider Jonah as an example. So, He's always looking for a way to save a soul, never a way to destroy it. So were someone to commit that sin wide-eyed and repent of it, God would still forgive. The reason it is unforgiveable is that the offender can no longer repent, seeing that it is the Holy Spirit Whom he insulted and refused to have any dealings with that alone can convict him of his sin and enable him to repent. It's really hard to cure someone of a sickness they don't want to be cured of especially if they hate the doctor's guts too.

Please forgive me, you guys. I really did not know I would write so much. It just came pouring out. I hope that you can try and read it and perhaps contribute to it to further build us all up in the Love of the Lord.

I'm also sorry I didn't get into the unforgiveable sin thing in-depth like I said I would. It seems unnecessary to do so given my response to Cyrexx. But if you've got contributing thoughts or questions, fire away when you can.

@ truthislight, and
@ihedinobi

thank you guys for your answers, its highly appreciated. it meant a lot to me, though i am 80% satisfied.

if you check my questions very well, you will see that what i meant is that if those people eventually repented, has predestination mandated that they will never be forgiven?

in the example that truthislight gave, the pharisees knew that Jesus was the messiah and they rejected him because of greed and selfish reason. what if they repented of of their greed and selfish reason later in the future, does it mean that they will still go to hell, no matter what they do? that is the crux of my question.

ihedinobi seem to misunderstand my position, you think i hate god. it will be foolsih and totally dishonest of me if i find a convincing evidence for (Christian) god and i still deny him. that is not my position. it is religion and their concepts of god that i hate, not god if he exists, i hate religion for deceiving us that someone answers prayers when in actual fact, nobody is there to answer prayers and you are supposed to pretend as if your prayers are answered. i dont want to derail this thread but these questions meant a lot to me.

cyrexx: @ truthislight, and
@ihedinobi

thank you guys for your answers, its highly appreciated. it meant a lot to me, though i am 80% satisfied.

if you check my questions very well, you will see that what i meant is that if those people eventually repented, has predestination mandated that they will never be forgiven?

in the example that truthislight gave, the pharisees knew that Jesus was the messiah and they rejected him because of greed and selfish reason. what if they repented of of their greed and selfish reason later in the future, does it mean that they will still go to hell, no matter what they do? that is the crux of my question.

ihedinobi seem to misunderstand my position, you think i hate god. it will be foolsih and totally dishonest of me if i find a convincing evidence for (Christian) god and i still deny him. that is not my position. it is religion and their concepts of god that i hate, not god if he exists, i hate religion for deceiving us that someone answers prayers when in actual fact, nobody is there to answer prayers and you are supposed to pretend as if your prayers are answered. i dont want to derail this thread but these questions meant a lot to me.

**groaning** Cyrexx na, how did I allude to such a thing? It was part of my answer to you! I said that it takes full cognizance of what one is doing for that sin to be unforgiveable when it is committed. Then I said that the reason that the sin is unforgiveable is that the one who commits it would, by their own choice, reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit which would have softened their hearts and made them repentant so that they could seek forgiveness. The analogy of the sick person who hates his doctor was to further explain that. It was not directed at you.

Please, I beg you to read my posts or at least the last one summarizing my entire position on the matter of predestination to see how it affects the sin. Also read again my answer to you.

Sum: predestination does not mean that you MUST go to hell no matter what you do even if you repented of the unforgiveable sin. If you can repent of it, it will be forgiven you. If you reach for Life, you will be given Life. God has not sealed your fate and made it unchangeable. He's handed you a blank slate, and at every turn gives you another one, to write and rewrite your story as you please. Please don't send me to start running around to repeat over and over what I have said. Just reread it and show me where I don't make sense or where you find anything difficult.

Ihedinobi: Please forgive me, you guys. I really did not know I would write so much. It just came pouring out. I hope that you can try and read it and perhaps contribute to it to further build us all up in the Love of the Lord.

Wow, don't worry you don't require forgiveness. I know the feeling when the fire stirs inside you and you just have no other choice than to pour it out. (Jeremaiah 20:9)I enjoyed the post.

Ihedinobi: I quite agree with you bro even with my difficulty in the issue. However, the reason of my difficulty with that possibility of loss of salvation is something like 1 John 2:19 and Hebrews 10:39. What are your thoughts on those passages?

I think those verses are quite simple. When someone leaves the fold, it is either the person didn't really know God in the first place or the person is deliberately deriding the Holy Spirit. No one can become unborn again. so if someone who was thought to be a Christian starts blaspheming, then it is either he was never born into God's family or he has disowned himself from it by purposely going against his belief (you cannot un-believe your beliefs).
Christianity is an identity. Apostasy is just like you insisting that you are no longer yourself but someone else: It is either you were never ihedinobi in the first place or you are just denying you identity for purposes best known to you.

Ihedinobi: Please forgive me, you guys. I really did not know I would write so much. It just came pouring out. I hope that you can try and read it and perhaps contribute to it to further build us all up in the Love of the Lord.

Forgive you? I will rather commend you, the posts were so insightful.

cyrexx: hello, guys, pls on a more seroius note:

can someone explain this thing about sin against Holy Ghost; they say it is unforgivable.

what does it mean?

if the person repents, does it mean he has been predestinated to perish forever in hell no matter what he does, even if he eventually repents.

that question used to bother me when i was still a christian long time ago.

infact it was one of the major absurdities in Christianity that makes no sense to me, because then i felt i have committed this sin.

pls no sarcasm intended, i'm seroius.

any concerned christians in the house?

Hmmm, very touchy subject. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit that convicts us itself. To blaspheme Him after full knowledge and revelation of who He is would mean that He will cannot convict the person anymore but give him over to a reprobate mind.......and that's a terrible place to be. Such a person cannot repent because the Holy Spirit that would have convicted him/her has been thrown out. Usually, the conscience of such a person is no longer stirred up at all when he/she hears the truth. The person just feels nothing.
This is exactly the sin of the devil himself, after having full revelation of God, he knowingly and purposely rebelled and now he cannot repent.

Also, I think Ihedinobi has answered you quite well and the verse he quoted would show you that blasphemy committed in ignorance can be forgiven. You can study Luke 11:15-24,(as well as Matthew 12 and Mark 3) you'll see that the pharisees here, committed the "unpardonable sin" because they knew full well that Christ's power was from God and yet they said it was baalzebub. (From the passage, it was even evident that their sons were also casting out demons at the time.)

For more on this and if you've got good internet; here's a video you might be interested in


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcxL6dNQ5kk&feature=related

Mr_Anony:
I think those verses are quite simple. When someone leaves the fold, it is either the person didn't really know God in the first place or the person is deliberately deriding the Holy Spirit. No one can become unborn again. so if someone who was thought to be a Christian starts blaspheming, then it is either he was never born into God's family or he has disowned himself from it by purposely going against his belief (you cannot un-believe your beliefs).
Christianity is an identity. Apostasy is just like you insisting that you are no longer yourself but someone else: It is either you were never ihedinobi in the first place or you are just denying you identity for purposes best known to you.

But, Anony, isnt that the same apostasy you are demanding from muslims, not long ago when you are telling them to accept Christ. You were asking them to "un-believe their belief" that Allah is the Almighty god and Mohammed is his prophet. i'm not insulting you but stating an objective fact when i say this is being two-faced i.e. judging others wrong for exactly the same thing one is doing that one judges as right.

do you forget that other religious beliefs too are an identity. if an ex-muslim becomes a christian, muslims will be quick to say he was never really a muslim. Christians will even go further and say that an ex-christian has committed an unpardonable sin. (but truthislight and ihedinobi has shed some more insight to it for me, thanks)

This to me is an effort to keep one from leaving his religion which is common to every major religion.

NOTE: if you feel i am derailing this thread will you respond as promised if i create a new thread to thoroughly address this issue?

5solas:
You assume here that we have freewills, we have wills, yes, but not free ones.

Not quite sure what you mean by this.

You have rightly observed above, God knowing the end from the beginning, this militates against what you are saying now.
I will simply state that it is clear that God chose some people. Why else would the scripture talk of anyone being chosen at all. Is it not laughable to say God chose all? If He chose all, then He chose none.

I think you may be misunderstanding me a bit here. Perhaps a study of the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22:1-14. The master calls everyone to a feast, a few eventually respond (a very unexpected group). Among these "elect" is one who isn't dressed properly for the purpose to which he was called. This one is thrown out.
........and verse 14 says "many are called but few are chosen". I think you were confusing the called with the chosen. God calls all of us, It is our response that says if we are chosen and also from your replies from Ephesians, even after we have been sealed by the Holy Ghost, we are still not to grieve Him (we must put our wedding clothes on)
Irresistible grace says something along the lines of "once sealed, the Holy Spirit will compel you to wear your wedding garments". This is not true. The Holy Ghost will give you your party clothes but it is up to you to wear them.
Have you ever asked how come that in the parable, everyone else were dressed appropriately except this one guy? remember they were all brought in from the streets with no formal protocol, and besides the man was speechless when the Master asked him how he came in with no wedding garment.

I am impressed by your understanding and sincerely hope to learn a thing or two from you at least.

Thanks I appreciate, but remember it is God that teaches us both. Don't take my word for it. Let the Bible always be our reference point.

@ Anony,

ok i have not watched the video when i wrote my last post.

i'm using a phone to post this. when i'm chanced i will watch the video.

thanxx

cyrexx: hello, guys, pls on a more seroius note:

can someone explain this thing about sin against Holy Ghost; they say it is unforgivable.

what does it mean?

if the person repents, does it mean he has been predestinated to perish forever in hell no matter what he does, even if he eventually repents.

that question used to bother me when i was still a christian long time ago.

infact it was one of the major absurdities in Christianity that makes no sense to me, because then i felt i have committed this sin.

pls no sarcasm intended, i'm seroius.

any concerned christians in the house?

You should read Mark 3 from vs 26-30 it better explains it. After the miracles,the testimony of Jesus to the pharisees and despite the fact that they were well, masters of the scripture and the OT prophesied the coming of Jesus they ascribed the miracles being done to the Devil this is the blasphemy against the spirit of God calling its works those of the devil. Will it be forgiven Jesus clearly said NO however somethings will remain a mystery.

We can never fully explain God.

@ihedinobi do you think everyone who has accepted Jesus as their lord and saviour will enter into his rest? if they fail to enter into his rest have they lost their salvation or not? just so i know if we are on thesame page.

Ihedinobi: ...
Again, if the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Romans 11:29), how can God recall the gift of eternal life (a.k.a the Life of Christ, a.k.a the Holy Spirit, a.k.a salvation, a.k.a the Divine Nature) for any reason? Here is where I beg to point out to you, my sister Andromida, that grieving the Spirit does not equate losing the Spirit.

I completely agree with you grieving the holy spirit is different from losing the holy spirit.

Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me (psalm 51:11)

This is my thought if a child of God sins and remains adamant in his sin, does not return to God in sincerity and truth he is liable to lose his salvation. The walk in christ is not of fear but of returning the love showed to us by choice not in fear that we are doomed. "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry,Abba Father". Romans 8:15

This is why we have the example of the prodigal son. He is a son but went out of the fold temporarily abandoning his heritage, at that point he was cut off from his father did this make him not be a son again? NO he remained a son in the eyes of the father but by choice he walked out of it,the good news is he can come back to it if he repents but if he remains adamant in his sin would he not have lost everything? This is my position not one of fear of everything and thought but a walk of joy, freedom, abundance,obedience and faith but we should not be like Esau whos sold his birthright because he took it for granted that it will always be there.

Mr_Anony:

Wow, don't worry you don't require forgiveness. I know the feeling when the fire stirs inside you and you just have no other choice than to pour it out. (Jeremaiah 20:9)I enjoyed the post.

Boy, am I glad you did. I was worried sick that it was too long

I think those verses are quite simple. When someone leaves the fold, it is either the person didn't really know God in the first place or the person is deliberately deriding the Holy Spirit. No one can become unborn again. so if someone who was thought to be a Christian starts blaspheming, then it is either he was never born into God's family or he has disowned himself from it by purposely going against his belief (you cannot un-believe your beliefs).
Christianity is an identity. Apostasy is just like you insisting that you are no longer yourself but someone else: It is either you were never ihedinobi in the first place or you are just denying you identity for purposes best known to you.

I understand you. And I agree that one can't lose one's identity except if it is an assumed or put-on one. The real thing can never truly be forsworn, the only possible way to stop being oneself (and I think it still falls short) is to kill oneself. It's an impossibility to really become somebody different from oneself.

My thoughts on both passages are conjoined. I think of them now as sufficient explanation for assurance of salvation and apostasy. When I posted them, I was still very unsure how they formed a unity with such passages as Heb 10:26-38. Heb 10:26-38 does speak of the fate of such as receive the knowledge of the Truth and fail in obedience to it. I think the parallel of that is Hebrews 3:7-19 and the verdict is 4:2. These are such as constitute the mixture in the multitude of people that left Egypt, the equivalent of those that attach themselves to the Family of God without ever truly being born into it. Because of their religiosity they easily appear to be Christians. They do have knowledge of the Truth, but not onto salvation. The difference between them and the Christian is not the lack of the knowledge of the Truth, I think that is what 10:39 addresses: that the Christians are not such as shrink back and are destroyed whereas the "subscribers", for want of a better word, are. The reason is seems to me to be that you could never dial life back so that a person becomes unborn and even if a son were to leave home and end up among swine, he is no less son and will, without doubt, one day lift up his head and head home. He cannot but do so, because nobody can truly deny their identity however much disguise they put on themselves. I think that the fact that one cannot get unsaved is not because of irresistible grace, but because of the bias of the Nature of Christ according to which one has been born.

Those who are apostate are not such as were ever truly saved but such as never took on the Nature of Christ. They could take on His teachings, or His morality. In fact, I believe that Acts 20:29-30 explains how Christianity was taken hold of and turned into a religion. It is such people as that passage along with Heb 10:29, 2 Peter 2 (I like their description in vv 17-21 particularly v.17 that alludes to their lack of substance), 1 John 2:18-19 and Jude 4-19 (look closely at v 19, oh my God!) who turned the salvation of the Lord into sets of ceremonies, tenets and rules and regulations exchanging the Grace of God for the strength of the flesh and pulling children of God after themselves.

My point is that it is impossible to lose the Life of Christ once you have got it. It is also very possible to think that one is saved without having the Life of Christ and positively rejecting that it is not how well one adheres to the teachings of Christ that determines one's salvation but that it is accepting Christ's righteousness as utterly sufficient for oneself that guarantees right standing with God. It is also possible for one to take the sacrifice of Christ as licence for all manner of wickedness. And just like the previous state, this is also not a position of faith because it rejects the sinfulness of sin and therefore the need for Christ's righteousness to cover the sinner's inadequacy.

People like those passages described are anti-christ. They are the elements that constitute mixture in the multitude, they have knowledge of the Truth but are without the Spirit. They are such as Heb 6:4-8 describe. Their partaking in the Holy Spirit is on the order of 2 Pet 2:13 and Jude 12.

andromida: @ihedinobi do you think everyone who has accepted Jesus as their lord and saviour will enter into his rest? if they fail to enter into his rest have they lost their salvation or not? just so i know if we are on thesame page.

I bolded that phrase to point out that I have great difficulty receiving that as the definition of being saved. The best way I can define a Christian is as a human being in whom the Spirit of Jesus Christ dwells. He that is the same as saying that a Christian is one who has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior then, yes, I fully believe that such a person will enter into His rest. Yes, I believe that failing to enter His rest implies falling short of salvation. And no, I don't believe that that could happen to a Christian.

cyrexx:

But, Anony, isnt that the same apostasy you are demanding from muslims, not long ago when you are telling them to accept Christ.. i'm not insulting you but stating an objective fact when i say this is being two-faced i.e. judging others wrong for exactly the same thing one is doing that one judges as right.

do you forget that other religious beliefs too are an identity. if an ex-muslim becomes a christian, muslims will be quick to say he was never really a muslim. Christians will even go further and say that an ex-christian has committed an unpardonable sin. (but truthislight and ihedinobi has shed some more insight to it for me, thanks)

This to me is an effort to keep one from leaving his religion which is common to every major religion.

NOTE: if you feel i am derailing this thread will you respond as promised if i create a new thread to thoroughly address this issue?

As for the question of apostasy, It is well within the thread. What I don't want us to do however is to move from talking about God's grace to a muslim vs christian debate.
Just real quick: One thing you have to understand is that I believe my faith to be the truth. The muslim believes the same thing but then two of us cannot be equally true. It is either one of us is wrong or we are both wrong.
Also my grouse with the muslims earlier was not apostasy but the punishment for apostasy which is death in islam. As christians we don't go around killing people for blasphemy. If something is true, you don't have to physically force someone to accept it. The consequences will usually catch up with the person.

If you want us to talk about this further, I will respond on a new thread if you so wish.

@Ihedinobi

Glad I got here at last. I don't lean either way, bro.

Hmm.It remains to be seen.

But I have an understanding concerning it. But before I set about it, I wish to say that it really is a dangerous issue to handle therefore I might at some points refrain from dealing with matters that crop up relating to it.

Our Father is omniscient. That means He knew before He even set about creation those who were His. Did He somehow mark them in order to know them or know them and therefore mark them? Hehe...not important. As far as I know, if God chose to save some and not others, it's entirely His prerogative. If He chose to save everyone, His prerogative too.


However, I think that He chose before time such as would be saved. He, to use a provocative word, destined some to salvation and not others. But to safeguard that, I must go on to say that God never handed out a list telling any of us, "only such and such among you shall be saved", no. So even if He did mark some people out for Himself, only He knows who they are. We don't.

I think you are right on point at the bolded. God was not under any obligation to save any man and He could have justly chosen to save none as to save some.

How does that affect us? Well, in a sense it doesn't. We weren't told that only these people and not those will be saved. But we were certainly told that "if any man will..." he will be saved. As far as we know, from our own end, it's a question of choice. If we want to be saved, we will be. That simple. If we don't we won't be. Period.
[/quote}
It affects us this way, if we are in faith, we are assured of our salvation and do the good works required of us willingly not out of compulsion. We give all the glory of our salvation to Him .
If however we are not in faith, we are brought to the humble realization that our salvation is not “in our hands’’if we believe the truth about predestination. It is when we are thus humbled that we can put our faith in God.
Some people however may deride the teaching of predestination and other tenets of The Bible, their lot is clear (John 3:16, 18,36).
To buttress what you say, we don’t know who the elects (chosen) are and are to therefore preach the Word to everyone and everyone is expected to fall at His feet for mercy, confident that He would have mercy on them-not deny His existence.
[quote]

How does predestination enter it from Father's end? I am really very afraid to say it so that those among us who are easily beguiled will not get caught in a snare. But perhaps I will brave it and trust them to the Lord. Predestination enters by grace. All of us without exception are sold under sin. We both do not know how to be free nor do we want to be free. This is our default state. For any of us to start reaching for God, something extraordinary has to happen to us. That stirring, that hunger that awakens us to more is God's grace at work to set us after Him.


But my observation is that it is only one part of the whole matter. Some will take hold of that grace and go on to know salvation. Others will trod it underfoot and pick a fight with God for waking them to their need for Him. What it is that sets one apart from the other is hard for me to say, but I dare to think it's further grace. How we respond to the first outpouring of grace determines how much more we receive.

It is grace that does it. That which makes us to defer from those who would be lost, is to be found in God , not ourselves (1 Cor. 4:7).

From childhood, I spent 21yrs trying to be a Christian. Read everything I could, behaved as well as I could, answered all the altar calls, fought all of Christ's battles (lol, really?) and all that, but shortly before my 21st birthday, I was tired and weary. Told God then to either save me Himself or leave me well enough alone to be whatever I wanted. Even though I said that, I told Him I really wanted to be His, but that I'd exhausted all my know-how and energy on the matter and had got nowhere so I didn't wanna try again. If I really was gonna get saved, it was gonna have to be Him entirely, with no help from me. I quit trying and essentially planned my life along the line of a hopeless sinner, but 11 days before my 21st birthday God broke in and I got born anew.

Was there input from me? Yeah. I'd decided not to ever again attend a Christian gathering because I knew so much scripture and was prone to debate, so if I went the assumption would be that I was a Christian too and all that moral burden would fall on me again. But the day I got saved, I found myself walking to the venue of a gathering of believers. I was way too early because I hadn't even intended to come so I hadn't tried to find out the time for the meeting. Seated there about a full hour before the meeting started, something switched on inside and I knew my Father'd found me. Have lived in that since then. Been in a number of crazy places since but never once worried that He'd left me.

I told the story to show that perhaps I was marked, I don't know, but I certainly wanted God and tried every way I knew how to get Him...and failed. But once He took hold of my own reaching hand, everything became perfect. So, as much as He predestinates we ourselves must choose. And like I tell my brothers and sisters, if you say you don't think you have the grace, well, ask for it, and if you lack grace for that, ask for grace to ask for grace. Grace reaches further back than our need goes.

Father has probably marked some people, at least, I think the Scriptures say so, but He also says that anyone who wants will have. And since we don't know whether or not we're marked, we should as much as possible reach for what He offers. It'd be against His character to refuse us.

That's my take.

To sum up we are saved because we believe in Christ. Those who believe were given to Christ, before the foundation of the world and in time,they are drawn to Him.

I'm so loving this thread. I'm actually doing a real bible study instead of arguing over unnecessary stuff.
By the way guys, pls look up Romans 9 (especially verses 10 - 16). I think it bears strong on this discourse. Share what you think.

cyrexx: @ Anony,

ok i have not watched the video when i wrote my last post.

i'm using a phone to post this. when i'm chanced i will watch the video.

thanxx

No worries mate. You can check out this video as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWltz3TWzJ0&feature=related quite lengthy but on point

Cheers

Why do we always attach "free" to "will" when talking about our wills.We end up with "freewill". Invariably, when one contends there is no "freewill" we are surprised and accuse them of denying that man has a will.

What is your understanding or definition of "freewill"? The question is for those who use the term in particular.

On predestination, to understand it properly i think we need to gain some understanding from the OT. The isrealites who left egypt were all predestinated to see the promise land but a whole generation were not allowed to see it because of unbelief despite Gods constant reassurances through signs and wonders, save a few who had faith in God and chose to trust in him.

My point here is they were predestinated but did not enter the promise land because of their choice of unbelief. Soon after the kingdom was thrown to all and sundry who would believe in Jesus christ as the promised messiah and obey his teachings.Jesus spoke many parables to buttress this point You can imagine how hard his teaching would have been for them they were waiting for a man of war to establish them as the chosen race instead they got a carpenters son telling them that the Kingdom is not of this world. This is the choice and rebellion of the pharisee they wanted God to enforce their own idea of how the kingdom should be established. Instead we have a new covenant.
Also see Romans 10:20.

Nevertheless the Bible says this in Rom 11:32 for God has committed them all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. The mysteries of God.

andromida: On predestination, to understand it properly i think we need to gain some understanding from the OT. The isrealites who left egypt were all predestinated to see the promise land but a whole generation were not allowed to see it because of unbelief despite Gods constant reassurances through signs and wonders, save a few who had faith in God and chose to trust in him.

My point here is they were predestinated but did not enter the promise land because of their choice of unbelief. Soon after the kingdom was thrown to all and sundry who would believe in Jesus christ as the promised messiah and obey his teachings.Jesus spoke many parables to buttress this point You can imagine how hard his teaching would have been for them they were waiting for a man of war to establish them as the chosen race instead they got a carpenters son telling them that the Kingdom is not of this world. This is the choice and rebellion of the pharisee they wanted God to enforce their own idea of how the kingdom should be established. Instead we have a new covenant.
Also see Romans 10:20.

Nevertheless the Bible says this in Rom 11:32 for God has committed them all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. The mysteries of God.

You got the meaning of predestination wrong.

According to the Encarta Dictionaries, it can be:

1. advance decision by God about events: in some religious beliefs, the doctrine that God, a deity, or fate has established in advance everything that is going to happen and that nothing can change this
2. God's decision who goes to Heaven: in some religious beliefs, the doctrine that God decided at the beginning of time who would go to heaven after death and who would not
3. act of foreordaining: the human or supposedly divine act of deciding the fate of people or things beforehand

Microsoft® Encarta® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The fact that the thing predestined cannot be changed is the overriding idea.

Ihedinobi:

Omniscience in a word, albeit a compound one, means all-knowing. How this all-knowing works is probably the question here. I think that however we tweak it or imagine it, it'll work out to God possessing all knowledge, even knowledge of the future. We humans are pretty good at predicting the future too, even if we're not always right. The reason is that things tend to occur in cycles and therefore repeat themselves even though in different colors and flavors. And these cycles have more or less fixed results, as if they respond to some sort of law. Now, part of God's work in creating should reasonably include establishing Principles upon which Creation would run, a perfect standard to which Creation must adhere to be what He intended. This would mean that He would know what would result from deviation from that Standard and what He would have to do to bring it back to His original intention.
We go on to His creation of sentient, intelligent beings. Their possession of intelligence implies their ability to choose. Father, by Nature, is Love and His reason for creating as we know from Paul's letters to the Ephesians and Colossians was to share Himself with beings other than Himself. Because He is Love, it is an impossibility for Him to create these beings without intelligence. The passage in 1 Corinthians 13 that describes Love's behavior says that Father's Moral Nature could not allow Him to create beings that had no choice but to accept His Gift of Himself. He must make them able to refuse the Gift as well to be true to His Own Nature. But being omniscient, He would know what choices they had (remember the principles upon which He establishes Creation) and because He knows their make-up, genetically and every other way (remember that He made them), He would know what choices they would gravitate to, and what they would ultimately choose. It is only consistent with His place as Creator that He knows how His Creation behaves under every possible condition. However, God's knowing how an intelligent being will choose in this regard or another does not at all mean that He fixed their choice. It only means that He knows what their choice would be. I'll come back to this.

If you are alluding that God chose those who He knew would choose Him, I think you are mistaken. This is because, in that regard, it cannot be that He chose anyone.

5solas: What is your understanding or definition of "freewill"? The question is for those who use the term in particular.

Freewill = freedom to choose

@Ihedinobi

Therefore, God can, because He is Love, give up His right of ownership...

If Love dictates Father's doings, then we can be sure that He can give up rights that would conflict with Love's purposes. This does not mean that those rights do not exist.

It is not so said however that He gave up any of His rights. He has rules to govern His creatures, but He Himself is governed by none. That is why He is the Creator.

I'll get to your submissions on predestination in a bit, Andromida. In fact, this Scripture that Mr Anony mentioned might help. I'm addressing that now.

Mr_Anony: I'm so loving this thread. I'm actually doing a real bible study instead of arguing over unnecessary stuff.
By the way guys, pls look up Romans 9 (especially verses 10 - 16). I think it bears strong on this discourse. Share what you think.

You know, my full discourse on the matters of predestination and election, four very long posts too (sorry ), were actually an untangling of my thoughts so they were probably loose in some ways. That may be why things I think I've addressed there are still being raised even though nobody has highlighted any part of that discourse and questioned it. Anyway, to Romans 9:10-16.

Amazing scripture. Probably conceivable as a strong argument for Calvinism. But no! Many times no! This cannot be an argument for man's helplessness because of some unwavering decision God made about him in eternity past. But before I head into that battle, I must say two things. One, no matter what it is we examine in the Scriptures we must never allow ourselves to get away from this: God is Love. The instant our focus shifts from this, doctrine becomes terrible and twisted. We will find backing for the most absurd beliefs in the Bible then. Two, every book and letter in the Bible is one coherent document addressing one central issue depending on which book or letter it is. The chapterization and versifying of Scripture was for convenience of study, but it is easy to lose sight of that and divorce bits of a given book or letter from the central theme it addresses. For example, this text under scrutiny is from Paul's letter to the Romans. The correct approach to studying it would be to first ask why the whole letter was written and what Paul was capturing in it, then we can ask how that bit we're studying relates to the overall theme. That way, we are safe from wresting the Scriptures out of their correct meanings and creating ism's in the process.

Ok. Finally, I can talk about Romans 9:10-16. The first thing that comes to my mind about this letter to the Romans is how similar it is to the letter to the Hebrews. The similarity is not really thematic, it's more the purpose. Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians to show them how Christ superceded Moses and his law, that Christ was the sum of all the law and greater than it. Romans was written to Roman Christians addressing also the supremacy of Christ over something (will tell what in a bit). Both addressed Faith very vehemently, warning again and again that it was the way of Christ. For the Jew, the stumbling block was his obligation to the law. For the Roman, the stumbling block was his own sense of responsibility (need I call to mind the iron discipline of Rome back then). Hebrews addressed that stumbling block of the Mosaic Law and Romans addressed the stumbling block of self-strength. It is in the light of this that I will pursue the meaning of Rom 9:10-16.

That place might have seemed to make man's destiny a fixed thing independent of his choice but that very thought takes away from "God is Love". A fearful thing. If God is Love, would it not be consistent with His Nature to let people choose to love Him back or not? I think that it would be. And the Scripture is one so Rom 9 cannot contradict 1 Cor 13 and 1 John 4:16. So what did Paul mean? God indeed said that He had loved Jacob and hated Esau and that before they ever did anything whether good or bad. In another place, He said that He softens whom He will and hardens whom He will. None of this means what Calvinism holds: that man's will is not free. Why? Because God will become something other than Love. I'll change that mantra when it is shown to me how Love's incapability of seeking its own benefit agrees with such things.

Rather these things mean what I said about predestination and foreknowledge. I'll reiterate here. God knew before He ever created that this intelligent thing he would create and present with an array of choices would pick this choice and not those without any compulsion from Him too. This knowledge does not in any way fate a man to pick that choice. It only means that God knows what the man would pick. And how would He not when He is the manufacturer of that man? We know that the thing that characterizes the manufacturer or producer of a thing is his complete, unassailable knowledge of that thing. God knows beforehand, and that does not take away from the man's ability to choose nor does it negate Love. This is foreknowledge.

Predestination. With His possession of the before-hand knowledge I've just described, if God creates, in a sense He "fates" the man or fixes his destiny. Still without violating his will in any sense or negating Love...

Sorry another long post...

I am sorry, 5solas, I can't stop to address your objections separately now. I hope that my current posts will clear some of the difficulties up for you but I'll come back to them when I'm done.

...The argument that crops up here tends to be if God knew a man would choose evil and therefore go to hell (hell = another huge but relevant discourse in itself), why then did He go on to create him? Where is the Love in doing so? That question answers itself. Creation was an act of Love. God set about Creation in order to share Himself with intelligent beings outside His Own Self. But these beings could not be intelligent if they could not choose by themselves to accept or reject Father's offer of fellowship. And by Love's very nature, the beings had to be able to reject that offer. Therefore they had to be created intelligent and capable of independence. So God's creating the man in question was an act of Love (one of Whose characteristics is Hope). He created the man in hope that he would choose differently. That is not a contradiction of His Omniscience at all. Hope operates independent of certainty of knowledge. I may know that my little boy is sick with a fatal illness and that, by all medical knowledge, he would die and yet I hope that somehow he will defy death and live. Of course, in this analogy I'm probably counting on a miracle from Father. Well, the equivalent of that in this man's case is that our wills are free of God! That man still has, undeniably, the ability to choose good and live. Please believe that Father does believe in miracles, they're an integral part of Love's Nature. They are those totally unexpected but extremely pleasant surprises just like the faith of the Gentile centurion that surprised our Lord Jesus in Matt 8:10. And just like they happen to us, they happen to Father no less even though He knew about them from eternity past.

Father created that man knowing what he would choose and hoping that he would pick differently. That the man went on to pick the wrong choice because God created him (well, if he didn't exist, he wouldn't be choosing hell, would he?) does not at all indicate a failure of Love, in fact it proves out that Love is extremely tolerant and hopeful (still agreeing with 1 Cor 13).

However, my point is that God's creating while possessing foreknowledge is the same as predestinating every creature. Because if He had not created, nobody would be making any choices, would they? Predestination then is not that Father marked A, G and Q to go to heaven and the rest to go to hell. No! That would be inconsistent with Love. Instead, it is the fact of His creating everything when He knew what they would do.

Now, how this applies to the passage in Rom 9. Imagine that you were Father. As the Scriptures say, you do not want any of your precious human creation to perish however terrible their sin. But you knew before you created anything that Esau would choose independence of you. You don't want him to. What would you do? Interfere with his environment constantly, changing things to encourage him to accept your offer of yourself to him. What would be your reaction if you knew beforehand that all that tweaking and resetting would still not succeed in capturing his heart? Frustration. Father's rejection of Esau before Esau was born was because He knew that even though He'd give him all the advantages, Esau would still choose wrong. But Jacob was going to have a hard time and yet he would embrace Father as his God. Yes, Father's hating Esau and loving Jacob was still because of His foreknowledge. But let's put it in context in the letter to the Romans.

Like I said, the letter was addressing self-strength. Paul attacked that because it is a position that undermines Faith, that thing by which we are saved. His use of the story of Esau and Jacob was meant to say just like v 16 stated, that this whole salvation matter is on God not us. However much we strive and reach and desire and pant for God, if He does not by Himself reach for us and in mercy save us it will all come to nothing. But keep in mind that Jesus said that no man could come to Him except the Father drew him. And we know God says that He does not want the sinner to perish. Therefore we can rightly say that Paul was not saying that we might as well forget about reaching for salvation, but that he was saying that it was not a thing of self-strength and -ability. We are saved because we lay hold upon God's mercy not because we try so hard. That is the message there. Please indicate where you have difficulty in all this.

andromida: On predestination, to understand it properly i think we need to gain some understanding from the OT. The isrealites who left egypt were all predestinated to see the promise land but a whole generation were not allowed to see it because of unbelief despite Gods constant reassurances through signs and wonders, save a few who had faith in God and chose to trust in him.

My point here is they were predestinated but did not enter the promise land because of their choice of unbelief. Soon after the kingdom was thrown to all and sundry who would believe in Jesus christ as the promised messiah and obey his teachings.Jesus spoke many parables to buttress this point You can imagine how hard his teaching would have been for them they were waiting for a man of war to establish them as the chosen race instead they got a carpenters son telling them that the Kingdom is not of this world. This is the choice and rebellion of the pharisee they wanted God to enforce their own idea of how the kingdom should be established. Instead we have a new covenant.
Also see Romans 10:20.

Nevertheless the Bible says this in Rom 11:32 for God has committed them all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. The mysteries of God.

First of all, dear sister, let me assure you that Father wants very much for these "mysteries" of His to become common knowledge for us believers (Matt 13:11). We are strong and can do exploits because we know God (Daniel 11:32). David in so many psalms kept asking to be shown God's Ways and Jesus said in His prayer in John 17 that eternal life is knowing God. These things ought not to remain in the realms of mystery for us because it is by them that we war a good warfare.

As to the substance of your post, I would like to separate two things: predestination and foreordination. Every thing God created has a very certain destiny that only He knows and they discover by the choices they make and those that are made with respect to them by such as have authority over them. That is predestination. Foreordination is that some are chosen to be saved and not others. The latter is what I think you addressed in your post.

I agree that some were chosen to salvation and not others. But this choosing or fore- or pre-ordination was entirely because God, because of His omniscience, knew what their choice would be.

At this point, I address you 5solas. I have already warned in the first part of my last long post that we should never interpret God's doings outside the Light of His Nature and Identity and Character which is Love. Without Love, Father would no longer be Himself. He would be someone other than Yahweh, I AM. Therefore, we must see to it that what beliefs we hold concerning Him must be completely consistent with His Character or else we will be found in error.

You questioned free will. And you posited that Father did not give up His rights of sovereignty. These two positions are not agreeable with the Bible.

FREE WILL.

Love cannot enslave the thing it loves. In fact, everywhere that we have seen Love in action it has been in service to the object of its Love. It doesn't matter whether you're reading the Old Testament or the New, the fact is borne out. Father creating men whose wills are not free to reject Him is an impossibility. The will of the man must be able to both accept Father and to reject Him for creation to be meaningful.

GOD'S RIGHTS.

I said that as Creator God had rights of proprietorship over His creation. But His place as Creator would not become questionable if He chose not to exercise those rights. He will still be Creator and Owner even if He allowed men to reject Him. And the Scriptures show by His long-suffering that He does lay down those rights and ignore them sometimes. Of course He has exercised them before and will do so again, but He only exercises them when it is consistent with His Nature of Love to do so.

These are only such issues as I caught at a careless glance. I am going back to read through the new portions of the thread again. Then I'll see if I need to answer again.