“You did not choose me, but I chose you” – John 15:16 (ESV)
Sounds to me like God is the one who chooses us first, then, on the basis of His choice of us, we “choose” Him (Unconditional Election anyone?)…
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Todays Memory Verse for Arminians
21 Thursday Aug 2008
Posted in Uncategorized
Excellent verse! Isn’t this found in the context of Jesus speaking directly to his disciples? How exactly does this support Unconditional election?
Yep, the context of this verse is Jesus talking to His disciples.
Well, Unconditional Election being that God has chosen to save some, and this choice is based solely on His own sovereign will… and that is basically what I get out of this verse, God chose to save the disciples (and all who are saved), they did not “choose” to be saved.
I also think that this verse does a good job at providing Scriptural evidence against the idea that God looked into the future to see who would accept His offer of salvation, and then, based on that foreknowledge, He chose those people to be elect.
Yes, the context is Jesus speaking to his disciples, specifically preventing their human propensity for pride given that he now labels them as friends. He is reminding them that He called them as his disciples, they did not volunteer to join his ministry.
Sorry, but this does not speak to personal salvation.
You mention that this verse “does a good job at providing Scriptural evidence against the idea that God looked into the future to see who would accept His offer of salvation, and then, based on that foreknowledge, He chose those people to be elect.” Who proposes this idea of salvation? Can you cite some sources so I can follow up on this?
In regards to your statement: “He is reminding them that He called them as his disciples, they did not volunteer to join his ministry.”
Aren’t all Christians disciples of Christ? And, just as Christ chose the first 12 disciples, He has chosen all of His disciples….
That idea about foreknowledge is (from my understanding) held by some (all?) Arminians. I believe it would officially be called, “Conditional Election.”
Here is the url for a wikipedia article about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_election
You don’t have a foundational knowledge of what Arminian theology believes? How can you present a verse for Arminians to accept when you’re going to refer me to Wikipedia of all things to support it?
God’s word is not something to be toyed with.
My apologies for the Wikipedia article, though I do feel that the first couple sentences of that article do a good job of summarizing the idea of Conditional Election. I was not trying to use the Wikipedia article to support my exigesis of the verse.
Actually, you said best what I was trying to communicate in your article “Views on Diving Election: Classical Arminian” when you said, “their election from eternity past is conditioned upon their free-will acceptance of God’s predetermined conditions for salvation.”