Pilgrim wrote:

[Again, individuals are specifically mentioned as being hated by God. And, their end has been set; damnation.


Romans 9:11,13 (ASV) "for [the children] being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."]

Did Esau serve Jacob? Their descendants served the descendants of Israel. But I don't think any mention of Esau serving Jacob is found in scripture.

Furthermore, the election mentioned in these verses clearly refer to wordly tasks. Do you equate "serving" with damnation?

[This phrase, which Christ issues against those who "work iniquity", is equivalent to, "I never loved you", i.e., I hated you.]

You go from "never knew" to "never loved" to "hated." Never have I seen a theology based so much on turning words into something they are not. First off, not loving someone is clearly not the same as hating them! Second, I'm not so convinced that "yada" as used in reference to the relation Adam had with Eve can somehow tell us how a word written thousands of years later in another language means, simply because they have the same English translation.

[Does this sound far-fetched?]

Yes.

[It shouldn't because the Bible uses the word "know" in this way in many places.]

And I'm sure the Bible uses the actual word for love in many places, too. It must be very hard to read the Bible and have to constantly change simple words like "world" or "know" into things they are not!

To build a theology around God's hate of individuals would require some very strong evidence, since God is love. You do provide some verses from the OT that I'll have to look at, to be sure. As you keep repeating, we should look at CONTEXT. Psalm 5, for example, is - a psalm. It's not a clearly delineated treatise or argument on the nature of God. I think we should be careful about how David characterizes God, and not be too hasty to draw theological conclusions from a song. The way you have twisted Matthew 7 tells me all I need to know about this doctrine of "hate".

Tom writes:

[Do you support the view that this verse and its context talk about the character of the chosen, rather than the chosen themselves?

Could you please exegete this verse?]

Eph 1:4 is not talking about salvation, but being holy and blameless. The way I tell this, is that the verse says "holy and blameless" and it doesn't use the word "salvation." To make it say "salvation", you have to add something to the verse, I'm sure it's called CONTEXT. But as I look around at other verses, I don't see the word their, either. In which case, if you want to see salvation there, you have to impose a meaning on the text that isn't there. And the other side of the coin - damnation - isn't anywhere to be found at all. That's another meaning you have to put into the text to make it work there.

Kyle writes:

[Outside of John's Gospel, Acts 13:39 is another place where the word pisteuwn is used in the same manner as John 3:16; likewise Rom. 9:33, Rom. 10:11, I Pet. 2:6 (these quoting Isa. 28:16); and I John 5:1,5,10.]

I don't follow you here. All of these are translated "whosoever believes" or something like that. You can turn that into "believing ones" via the participle if you want, but none of them are translated "elect", as far as I can tell. So what is your issue here? I think I was asking if pisteuo is translated as elect in the Bible. I only looked at a few of them, so maybe I missed one, please let me know.

Tom asks:

[Suppose you are correct about Esau representing Edom and Jacob Israel.
I might be missing something, but are not both Edom and Israel made up of individuals?]

Yes, but you'd be hard-pressed to defend the position that every single descendant of Jacob is saved, and every single descendant of Esau is damned. I *really* don't think that's what Paul is getting at there. And again, it says the elder shall serve the younger - it doesn't say anything about damnation or salvation.

Pilgrim admonishes:

[ It also states that inflammatory messages are not allowed. I would recommend that you re-read those Guidelines and make the necessary changes to your participation here.]

Can you please point to a few of my posts that have been inflammatory? I have to be honest with you: your rhetoric is very demeaning. Here are a few of the ways you have characterized me: hypocritical, willingly ignorant, obnoxious, etc. Where have I characterized you, or anyone else in like manner?

You, sir, have been maligning my character for quite a while. Please follow your own guidelines, and I will do the same.

If you are willing to distance yourself from Calvin, then when I call into question his credentials neither you nor anyone else should feel personally insulted.

Mike