This exact topic is one which put me through a crisis: I could not reconcile God's holiness with men's free will (as I understood it to be). Here was the "sledge" used to beat down the wall of my arminianism.
Rom 9:11 ...(for the children not yet being born, not having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls)...
...here Paul does not leave
the purpose of God hanging in mid air, but he defines it... or better put, he refines the definition by stating what this
purpose and election is
NOT. Thus he goes on saying that "...not of
works (present works, past works, or future works) but of
Him who calls..."
Arminianis states on the contrary:
1. works occur
2. God sees works
3. God calls according to thoes works
Getting back to Romans 9... Paul was not stupid... so, after having stated these words (verse 11) and given refference to that event (verses 12, 13),
he knew exactly what the basic human out-cry will be and thus, he deals with it...
14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15. For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." 16. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
Something to note here... expecting the human outcry to be: THATS NOT FAIR, he goes on to refute that, and by doing that, Paul did not start talking about God's fairness but he immidietely refferenced God's holiness (He does what He wants to do because He got ultimate authority)...
20. But indeed, O man, who are you to reply agains God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" 21. Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
...So the next human objection is: WELL... IF HE CAN SHOW MERCY TO WHOM HE WANTS TO SHOW MERCY, WHY DOES HE NOT JUST SHOW THAT MERCY TO ALL MEN? Paul "punches the lights out on that one as well
...
22. What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessles of wrath prepared for destruction, 23. and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessls of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called..."
...before when I was an Arminian I was appauled reading verse 22. Then, realising that we all
deserved what was written in verse 22, I praised God more excedingly, more abundently because
He was not obligated to designate thoes to whom applied verse 23.
If God would show only justice; be without mercy; condemning all of human kind to hell, I fear that there would be no outcry from the Free Will thinkers. But, should a Holy God show even a tad-bit of goodness, all hell breakes loose... "Why?! If He gave a "stick of gum" to one person, then it is only fair that He gives a "stick of gum to all people"!!!"
We cannot make our human idea of fairness lord of The LORD.
delvanis, I understand that this is not an easy topic to deal with and that this strikes right at the heart of what makes up the human ego. God made us in His own immage, therefore just as God desires to be in controll, so it is ony propper that men should also desire to be in controll. But when God created men He defined thoes areas of controll...
Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
...but as sin entered men it distorted that definition thus our lordship, in-stead of being sub-mission to God's Lordship, now competes against it.
Study God's Word, bro. Nothing, absolutely nothing lies outside of God's Lordship (including our wills), thus He is... Holy Holy Holy.
