I am trying to get back on track with my Bible reading plan and by the grace of God am in Romans - particularly Romans 9.

I was once again struck by the clear teaching of God's election - that He glorifies Himself through His expression of mercy for the elect and His exercise of justice for the "vessels of wrath".

It is with great fear and trembling that I consider, but for the grace of God, I would justly be a "vessel of wrath"!

Praise be to Him whose mercy endures forever!

Praise be to Christ, who gave Himself so that many may escape the Father's just wrath! Hallelujah!

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-JD
[URL="http://www.greeknewtestament.com/B52C005.htm#V21"]1Thess5:21[/URL]
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving on Ministry Staff, SBC
MS

[url=http://www.christianskepticism.org]Team blog: ChristianSkepticism.org[/url] | [URL="http://mbbchurch.com"]Martin Bluff Church [/URL] | Personal:[URL="http://jdlblog.blogspot.com"]...a Longmire rambles[/URL]

this is the most scariest and most beautiful of doctrines. Sometimes I look back over my life and see the heinous sins that God kept me from even in my unbelief. Much and many of these sins could have ended up with me being dead. But for His grace He kept me and brought me to repentence.

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~Keon Garraway~ Brooklyn, NY

Love for God demonstrated by the love for our children in giving them a God centered education is the only hope for our country. by David Morrow
Pslam 71:20 [Thou], which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

But seriously, how much clearer could it be?? I don't see how the doctrine of election could possibly be more clearly spelled out. This is why I sometimes wonder whether "Arminians" who look this passage square in the face and deny God's sovereign power can actually be Christians, not because they deny Calvinism, but because they're basically rejecting the authority of scripture by denying the ridiculously clear and obvious meaning of the passage. They hate the reality of God's nature and refuse to acknowledge it. (I'm just throwing that out as a thought I've had.)

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Davidius
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

And though the really inspired artist may complain that, with the majority, piano-playing is mere strumming, and painting little more than daubing, yet, the exuberant feeling of having a share in the privileges of art is so overwhelming, that the scorn of the artist is preferred to the abandonment of art training in education. To have laid a production of your own, however poor, upon the altar of art becomes more and more the characteristic of an accomplished civilization. - Abraham Kuyper

The doctrine of election is clearly spelt out from the beginning of Genesis. Poor Cain, poor Nimrod. Blessed Abel, blessed Noah.

After discussion my Calvinism and a good friend's open theism, I showed him Romans 9, and he exclaimed "Dan, if you're right about that, then I don't think this is a God I think I want to know!"

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Dan Pemberton
Member, First Baptist Church
San Luis Obispo, CA, soon to be in Vacaville, CA

In college studying to be an astronaut.

Exactly. Isn't that what it comes down to? I still don't want to make any categorical statements, but I don't see how a person can be regenerate who hates God in some of his most basic, foundational attributes and blatantly rejects and/or twists the plainest of scriptures like Romans 9. In other words, not a person who has never really looked at Romans 9 (in my older churches I never heard a sermon preached on it and when I first discovered it I was wondering how I could've missed it!), and who might be willing to consider it along with all the other clear evidence, but someone who outright rejects it when it's so clear.

Personally, I think Ephesians 1 is a pretty powerful election text and equally clear.

Non Calvinist scholars (particularly those schooled in our post-modern era) say that we only see election in Romans 9 because we "privilege" the election verses over the free will verses. They argue that if we privileged the free will verses we would explain "away" the apparent predestinarian Paul of Romans 9 the same way we currently explain "away" the apparent free will emphasis of the NT in favor of infra or supralapsarian decretial theology.

[Yech! I can't stand post-modern thinking!!!]

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Dennis E. McFadden
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

[quote=danmpem;386405]that's the existential crisis that everyone who comes across this doctrine goes through. At least the guy is honest. In our natural state this is not the God we want to know. Its the Holy Spirit that has to change our heart to see the beauty and the loveliness of God.