Is Double Predestination Biblical? 

I think we all have a picture in our mind of God, His word and how we understand it. I’m convinced of double predestination because it’s biblical whereas the vast majority reject it not because it’s not in the Bible but it’s very uncomfortable for them to even think about a God who chooses some and not others. They force plain scriptures which say we are chosen based on nothing we do, to say God sees what we do and chooses us because of something we did.

@@mountainman78629 Amen. Child like faith. It’s emotional reasons and also the perverse human nature desiring to hang on to the idea that there is some good in them deep down somewhere that would choose God. It takes grace to love grace.

It's not biblical

Piper is a Calvanist so is a biased towards his doctrine. The versus are a problem becuase the theology is wrong.

I prayed for you brother And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Matthew 14:28-32 No matter how bad it looks to you,always focus on the Lord. Only when you focus on the storm will you then start to sink. All storms are created by The LORD to help you learn to focus.

That's why Piper just handwaves it away without even attempting to answer it.

Your curiosity is sincere and reverent rather than cynical, and I praise the Lord for that! I hope this makes sense and helps when you analyze and compare it with what you read in Scripture, especially Ezekiel 18, Isaiah 45, and Romans 9. My attempt at answering what I think your question is is that it is not a legitimate argument that if our salvation was left in our hands that more of the unelect might be saved, and this is even with or without and inherent sin nature. Here's why: It is not possible that there could exist such a world where God is a passive Creator and Sustainer and therefore did not predetermine everything because God in his nature is omniscient, loving, and just, therefore he created the universe with VERY SPECIFIC purposes and not just to sustain human life and watch as we orchestrated history with him only intervening occasionally. Therefore, from his position as sovereign and his character traits that are filled with undying passion, rigid, unchangeable decisions had to be made in order to establish and ensure the fulfillment of all of his purposes which MUST BE good because he is good and could not possibly be wrong because for one, he owns everything, and additionally, he is completely satisfied with all that he needs in himself and hence cannot be tempted to do evil and would have no need to be inconsistent or malicious without cause. God created from a heart of love and a place of eternal happiness for the purpose of sharing his love and happiness with lesser, dependent creatures who are somewhat like him so that they would have the capacity to enjoy it. Also, Adam and Eve did not have a sin nature initially so there was nothing within them that was bent toward disobedience, yet when they were tempted, seemingly with little to no fight at all, they chose to sin, which is mind-boggling, aweful, and unrelatable considering no one since them has ever lived in paradise and not had to resist internal temptation to sin. Of course, they were predestined to sin, but how did that come about without God making them sin and them not having a sin nature and thus hypothetically being actually able to resist the temptation from a place of moral neutrality? The question of questions I think the answer is connected to my conclusion about how and why Lucifer was able and inclined to sin in Heaven when he did not initially have a sin nature, and of course while God planned it he did not directly cause it. I have observed and read in the Bible that the hearts of creatures were made to be satisfied for as long as they exist and thus they will seek it, yet since God is the only one eternal enough and worthy enough to satisfy us due to his infinite glory and beauty, if God were ever to withdraw himself from us so that we are not conscious of him and we are unable to locate and access him to enjoy him then we would be left by default to look around at the beautiful, enticing things that he has made, and our hearts would cling to those things in hopes that something, someone, ANYTHING would just keep us increasingly happy forever while protecting us from potential danger. The implication of this is that a sin nature is not the only cause of sin and even if we were not born inclined to sin WE STILL WOULD EVENTUALLY END UP THAT WAY. That's an awesome reality!!!! Therefore, no human being will stand before God at the judgment and rightfully say, "Well God you can't judge me for not obeying you because you yourself claim to have all authority and power even over my destiny and will plus I had a sin nature that I could not free myself from, so if you had left the power of my will and destiny to me then I could have and probably would have lived up to what you required. Insufficient moral, decisive power in my hands means no accountability from you; anything besides that is unjust." I fear such logical thought, yet without reverence! God could then answer back to them, "You did evil not just because I predestined you to but because you actually enjoyed it and you actually would not wish to desire me even without a natural inclination for worshipping other things unless I brought my glorious presence near to you and captured your affections so much that nothing else could compete." If they then say God, "Well why didn't you do that? You can't hold me accountable for that," God could tell them "I chose for my own purpose of maximizing my love upon my unworthy elect not to love everybody in the same way, yet you cannot condemn me for this because the elect are no more worthy of salvation than you essentially are so I'm not being partial by giving you a disadvantage that I did not also give them, and also there is not fault in my purposes just because you did not benefit from them because I don't owe any of my creatures anthing. Yet you did commit real evil while enjoying it and harming others and at no point did I control you or make you do it against your will and I even warned you of what was to come but you didn't want to listen and you did not care about all the mercy and grace that I gave you in the meantime. You are a sinner that did not deserve mercy and grace, did not appreciate it in the measures that you received it from me, and didn't care to look further into it and desire it when it was offered to you in my general revelation through creation or in my special revelation through my word and the Gospel." Gavel slammed, justice accomplished, prideful unrepentant sinner's mouth shut.

@@phieble "I chose for my own purpose of maximizing my love upon my unworthy elect not to love everybody in the same way" utter lunacy. God is love. For God so loved the world. Where do you get the idea that he loves some more than others?It's always a bad idea to put words in God's mouth.

That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him. But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc. All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election. Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏 Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32 James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'

@@phieble I donno if this was a response to me or continuing your long-winded response to OP, but..I know your strategy is to write so, so much text that it's impossible to parse your opinion. Then when people throw up their hands at the immensurable wall of text and its ponderous lack of punctuation, you can feel like you won the argument. I can't spend an entire week reading this carefully, so I am only going to pick out the points that are easy to find fault with (well, especially easy). "while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end"Shall we do evil that good may result?"pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God" This is just the pot calling the kettle black. What you mean is "rather than based on my particular view of God"... but it's your view of God that defines good and evil in an arbitrary way, not mine."God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect"I really feel God's love when he rejects, hates, and even destroys my unbelieving family members."You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. "I agree with this wholeheartedly, but if you follow this logic you might end up being hoist by your own petard.Finally, I just want to point out that you had to write an entire book to wind and contort around a very simple objection... if this is even a response to me at all.

I think the Calvinist argument is that no one would reach out to God and surrender if they weren’t chosen by him and drawn to himself.

A little scary when you said "sin in us that God has place upon all". God doesn't put sin in us.

@@343jonny Yeah, you’re right. I don’t think my sentence structure fully conveyed what I was trying to say. What I meant is that the heart of a sinner is hardened against God. God has ordained that sin nature is passed down from father to child. This hardening God has ordained to be upon all. I was not trying to say that God makes a person sin despite their wishes to do good. What I meant was God permits, or ordains, a person to carry out a sinful desire that they have formulated with their sinful heart. As Proverbs 16:9 says, the sinful plan comes from the man, but for His own glory and purpose God permits men to carry out some of the countless sins that are planned in the heart.

Lol

On the contrary, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs‬ ‭1:7‬ ‭ESV‬‬). I answer that God in His wisdom created a world in which He sovereignty decided to save some and not others. You may think it does not make sense, but there is the distinct possibility that you are wrong about what is best, however there is no possibility that our omniscient and omnibenevolent God could be wrong about the best way to manifest the richness and fullness of His glory. Your analogy doesn’t hold up. If you said instead that we as humanity collectively and deliberately committed arson and God in His mercy decided to save some and not others, that would be a more fitting Biblical situation. In your analogy you have made God the author of the evil which He then saves us from, which if anyone actually believed that it would be blasphemous. The only proper response to this mercy is thankfulness and an acknowledgement of Gods wisdom. We trust that Gods decision to condemn the wicked is for us to better understand His mercy. If everyone indiscriminately received mercy, we could not have a real understanding of Gods holiness

That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him. But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc. All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election. Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏 Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32 James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'

@@osmundsindland4596 _I answer that God in His wisdom created a world in which He sovereignty decided to save some and not others_ Why do you doubt and downplay the power of Christ to save? The Father commissioned His Son to be the Savior of the world (John 3:17) and scripture tells us that God's Word will not return void (Isaiah 55:11) Do you believe Christ will fail to redeem, save and deliver every soul to His Father? Do you not believe that He is the Savior of the world? Will Christ "save some" or will He save all? What do the scriptures tell us? *1 Timothy 2:4* Who will have *all men to be saved* and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. _If everyone indiscriminately received mercy, we could not have a real understanding of Gods holiness_ Indiscriminately? God gives us what we need when we need it, and one of the greatest needs we will ever have is the need for mercy, and make no mistake, everyone will receive mercy at the time they need it. *Romans 11:32* For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

@@Joel-Serra ah I see now that you are a universalist. I don’t downplay at all the power and merit of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. In fact, I affirm it. In that respect we are alike. However, unlike you, I am bound by conscience to consider the clear teaching in Scripture that there will be some who are sent into outer darkness and everlasting torment. And God is perfectly just to do that. There are plenty of passages which demonstrate that the atonement, while unlimited in its power and merit, is limited in the design of its scope. Here are a few samples: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭1:21‬ ‭ESV‬‬ If all people were His people, the use of exclusivist language would be inappropriate. Again we see the words of our Lord: “Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭25:45-46‬ ‭ESV‬‬ It feels unwise to assume that Christ was speaking of an event that will never actually take place. The plain reading of the text demands we take it at face value: some will go away into eternal punishment. In the garden during His high priestly prayer our Lord included in His prayer the following: ““I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word… I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours…. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,” ‭‭John‬ ‭17:6, 9, 20‬ ‭ESV‬‬ So He prays for those whom the Father has given Him (exclusivist language again), He notes that He is NOT praying for the world (overtly exclusivist language) and later prays for those who WILL believe in the future (again exclusivist language implying that there will be those who don’t believe in the future). Interesting to also note that the word “world” is clearly understood to have a meaning other than “every person without exception” in this passage. In fact, very rarely does anyone ever use the word “world” to mean every single person or place without exception, such as when Paul said of the Gospel: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing-as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,” ‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1:6‬ ‭ESV‬‬. So unless we are willing to affirm Paul traveled to the Americas, the far reaches of Asia, and perhaps even to Australia and Antarctica, not to mention every square inch of land and water in between, we have a clear example that the word “world” is not universal. And the Apostle confirms again that [pray for us]…that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.” ‭‭2 Thessalonians‬ ‭3:2‬ ‭ESV‬‬ It is difficult to read the Bible and ignore the clear indications that Hell is real and it will be occupied. It would take a mountain of evidence to overturn what otherwise seems like the clear and plain teaching of our Lord and His apostles. Thanks and God bless!

Calvinism is not Biblical. For more Soteriology 101 RU-vid. Blessings!

Hmm... interesting. What if, just because "foreknew" comes before "predestined", Paul didn't mean that God predestined His elect only after foreknowing them. I think verse 30 helps confirms this. In v. 29, Paul says we are predestined to be confirmed to the image of His Son, but then v. 30 says that those predestined are justified. Assuming we agree that justification is when we are saved, and sanctification is confirming to the image of His Son, then if we assume that the order of what Paul writes here corresponds the order of God acting these events, then that would mean that we are foreknown, then predestined, then we have to conform to Christ's image, and *then* we are saved. If this is the case, then we aren't saved by faith alone; we are saved by works alone- the works of confirming to Christ. I don't believe this is biblical. Therefore, I cannot believe that the order Paul talks about in verse 29 proves that God predestines us conditionally, based on what He knows we will do.

​​@@SaltyGamer777 Being conformed to the image of Christ is evidence of our faith. It is God who is working in us, He began a good work and will complete it. This is still consistent with God's predestination based on His foreknowledge of us having faith.

I pray that this gives you clarity and that God grants you the grace to accept it because God's sovereignty in justice and in grace CANNOT WILL NOT be embraced apart from God's intervention in our hearts and minds. That double predestination is biblical is both a result of logical deduction and clear scriptual texts, and the fact that it is controversial is saddening particularly among professing Christians because it appears to indicate that they do not fully understand or embrace what it means for God to be who he is and that we only deserve wrath from him and never mercy and grace, but even worse that they may not be fully trusting in God to save and keep them but rather in their own moral strength and intelligence to produce faith for themselves and keep that faith strong, which the Bible is clear that we cannot. Faith is required of us but it is a gift that we cannot produce, nor does it make Jesus our Savior, but rather the salvation that he purchased with his death and resurrection provides our faith for us to then receive and place in him. But to Piper's point that God restrains himself from doing what he would desire to do for some reason, either his valuing human self-determination or his valuing his free sovereign grace which would diminish human self-determination is a good point that a lot of people look over. You can't use unclear texts to ignore or contradict texts that are clear about God predestining people just because you'd prefer that he didn't because of the implications. Instead, you should accept what the Bible clearly says and keep asking questions and reading ALL OVER THE BIBLE to try to reconcile the vague with the clear texts. I would add this though: It is my conclusion from several texts that God is so loving, so wise, so authoritative, and so powerful that he could have and would have saved EVERYBODY through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus if not for the fact that he did not just want to share his love, but he determined to share his love to the maximum degree not just by taking salvation out of the hands of us and choosing an elect that would be saved only by his own power, provision of the Gospel, and grace in salvation's application, but also by making the election both unaroused by anything in the elect and exclusive to whomever he chose to save. Where do I get this? Several places actually: Deuteronomy 7:1-9, Isaiah 43:1-13, Malachi 1:1-5, and Romans 9:21-26, etc. All of these passages talk about how God shows his love to his elect by rejecting, hating, and even destroying others who are not his elect, which is very interestingly because he DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF his purpose is simply to love. God could love me individually irregardless of whether he loved my neighbor and I would still feel his love, but if he desired to MAXIMIZE his love and make me feel as HUMBLED BY AND GRATEFUL FOR his love as possible then what HE MUST do is firstly make sure that I know that I do not deserve it nor could I ever earn it or arouse it from him, and ALSO that I appreciate that others who were just as evil as I am were rejected just so that I could feel special in God's love but yet NOT BECAUSE I MYSELF AM SPECIAL, because I AM NOT!! This is what God chose to do and while it is sobering within time while we still have our sinful pride and righteous compassion for the lost along with a marred sense of justice, ABSOLUTELY, it is much more so a marvelous, ecstasy-inducing demonstration of the not reckless but unfathomably AWESOME LOVE of Yahweh, and one day none of God's people will argue about this, detest it, or mourn it, but we will be captured in bliss and our minds will be comformed to embrace all truth and see things and feel them the way that God does, and we will praise him for his justice and mercy upon us through election. Lastly, that it is not explained in the Bible how we are morally accountable even while God is totally sovereign and our will is not free, is not entirely true, THANKFULLY, because it is important to be clarified for the sake of quieting the objection of the proud and satisfying the curiosity of the genuinely, reverently curious. So then, we are still accountable even though our will is not entirely free because God is not wrong to decide in advance what our destiny is as our Creator for whose purposes alone we exist, and also because while God plans evil he himself NEVER COMMITS the evil or COMMANDS us to do evil, nor does he ever take delight in it, but he simply ALWAYS intends it as a means to a glorious, righteous end. He ALWATS DETESTS IT, therefore he must ALWAYS punish it if not immediately then in full at the Judgment. Meanwhile, everyone who does evil, even while a slave to sin and unable to choose otherwise, actually delights in the evil they are committing and do not even care or tremble about God's justice or his sovereignty over their lives which most people reject. The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling rebots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God. The elect would not rather be the non-elect even though we did not choose be the elect or desire to before we were made born again, and the reprobate would not rather be the elect regardless of how much revelation of God they receive because they love darkness rather than light and they don't want to be free from it, just totally free to indugle in it. Does God HAVE TO pardon such people, NO! Should he pardon such people, not any more than I would dare say that he SHOULD'VE pardoned the elect. God does not have to be merciful nor do we have a right to his mercy and this is not only because God is sovereign and cannot do wrong in whatever he decides by virtue of his inherent goodness and his right to everything, but also because we do not want mercy until after we have already received it anyways-That's how wicked we are apart from his sovereign grace upon us! So we are accountable because 1) God cannot be unjust and because 2) even in the bondage of our wills we are not puppets, but we are consciously, pleasurably evil while unbothered about truth and where we stand with the Lord, even with a depth knowledge, until his intervention. May God help us all! 😭🙏 Reference verses: Isaiah 45, Psalm 5:4-6, Jeremiah 19:5, Psalm 7:11-16, Iasiah 10:5-18, Isaiah 26:10, Romans 2:4-11, Romans 1:18-32 James 1:13-15, Romans 9:6-21, etc Lastly, if all of this stll sounds evil to you, the idea of God being defined as loving while choosing to discriminate and limit his love for the sake of maximizing it, then I would urge that you examine yourself and also pray that you stop making the crucial mistake of defining good and evil arbitrarily rather than based in God. God is everlasting and supreme, so whatever his character is inherently is perfect and good, therefore whatever is contrary to his character and opposed to his decrees and commands is evil. Good does not equal 'whatever makes creatures feel the most pleasant, ' and evil does not equal 'whatever makes us feel uncomfortable or doesn't seem like the best way to do something from the perspective of all human welfare.'

Everyone gets a fair chance - no matter how unfair it seems - so not asking to exist is not an excuse. If you understood the depths of what your sin deserves you would send yourself to hell... as it appears you are doing bro. God is more gracious than we can understand. Literally... 12All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous. 14Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them 16on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Christ Jesus, as proclaimed by my gospel. Romans 2

@@phieble I appreciate your thorough response. I'll get down to the essence of my disagreement: You wrote:"The reprobate are not unconscious, unwilling r[o]bots or puppets in the hand of either God or the devil, but rather they do not care whether or not they are reprobate, and in fact they would argue that their decisions are all their own and they would justify their evil not fear that it is predestined and ask for mercy because they don't want mercy and they love their evil and not want to worship God" 1. Basically, the evil ones are the ones that would't have asked for forgiveness anyway. But they were destined to be evil before they made the first choice to sin. You can only make your assertion (that they wouldn't even want mercy, and they don't view their evil as evil) post facto, after they have lived their life. But-- there was a time, before the foundation of the world, where their eternal soul (which didn't have a body to sin with yet) was decided to be damned to hell. 2. The reprobate were intended to be vessels of wrath before the world was even created, before they were created in their mothers wombs. Moral culpability comes from our conscious choice - we decided to sin. You only punish those who should have known better. If a person is born with a destiny to sin, they didn't choose to have that destiny - they were thrust into it. Whatever happens after... well they're just along for the ride at that point, right? You can't have a choice and not have a choice simultaneously. You can't be culpable for something you didn't do yet. One might say "well they become culpable when they do it!" but it wasn't their choice to make, really. They are automatons, bereft of their own ability to make the choice of the Good, because it was disallowed for them from the start. Why? As Piper puts it, it's not a contradiction (*because definitionally this can't be possible!!!*)... it's a PARADOX! That seems to be a distinction without difference. It seems to be a game of semantics. You say potatoe, I say po-taa-to. Ultimately this is where logical consistency breaks down.

@@radicalDeparter I know that you will not accept any of my arguments if you don't believe that the Bible is the only authoritative, infallible revelation from God himself through human writers and that it defines wisdom and trumps human philosophical logic. I also know that you can't accept those facts on your own as I could not, therefore I pray that God will help you and help us all. Your claim that I can only make my assertion that (the reprobate wouldn't want mercy and don't view evil as evil) post facto is not correct. The reprobate don't want mercy and don't view their evil as evil because of the pride in human hearts that refuse God's terms for mercy and justify whatever we enjoy doing. People tend to define good and evil arbitrarily and subjectively rather than objectively and based in God's supreme, eternal existence as if the concept of what good is is seperate from God's eternal essence from whence all things and concepts come. I'm not sure why people have a problem with this except maybe it's the fact that if good is defined by God himself then you can't hold God accountable, but that is the only thing that makes sense because God defines what words mean and how they apply, he does this consistently, and creatures could not possibly hold God accountable anyway because they don't have the wisdom, authority, preeminent presence, or power to do so, which is another thing that makes God's decrees righteous by defaut. God has said that the reprobate would never want mercy and they don't view evil as evil, therefore according to his statement along with my observation inwardly and outwardly, I can claim the same with confidence. The rebrobate, while conscious, willful, and not puppets, do not care about their rebrobation and the mercy God gives them before the Judgment. Your claim that moral culpability comes from our conscious choice, is not entirely correct and I say that because it's not strictly found in Scripture but is a philosophical claim. We are held accountable for our decisions because we make them willfully and not by another's direct, physical force, and because God cannot punish the sins of human beings without punishing human beings. Whether or not God predestined the sin and the measure of freedom in our will is irrelevant because God is not a sinner to predestine sin but we are always sinful when we commit sin, and we choose to do so while enjoying it, all the while knowing better and having access to knowledge of right and wrong. Also, you CAN indeed have a choice and not have one simultaneously. Jesus is God and he planned out everything including his own crucifixion, so he HAD to come to earth as a human being and suffer it, yet nobody physically forced him to do so, and in fact he prayed to God the Father for help all throughout his human life. It's a paradox, yes, but it is true. God knows and has determined what I am doing today, yet I am consciouslly, willfully deciding myself with no tangible feeling of God's presence and influence to do what I'm doing, and when I am influenced that is not the same as force like with a will-less, inanimate object, nor is his preordination direct force to do something. Our wills are intact, we have access to knowledge of God's existence and right and wrong, and we commit actual sin, therefore we should and will be held accountable.

““For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55:8-9‬ ‭

God is all loving and it is not in His Nature to cause eternal torment to His created beings if they have not willingly chosen to reject Him and His law. We are responsible for rejecting Him, not He. He has created us with free will. Stop blaming God for people ending up in Hell. With all due respect

@@Mary_QQQ The idea of free will is a belief that is preferred over the sovereignty of God and I understand the emotional "cover" it can bring and how it can preserve pride which feels good to the flesh, but all that matters is whether Scripture supports what we believe. Do you have any Scripture within its proper context and grammar that can support your claims and refute mine? Also, I know that my comment was lengthy, but if you read it, while I appreciate that, it appears that you didn't understand me rightly. I don't believe the things that you insinuated that I do-God is responsible for us going to Hell rather than us, God causes torment to those who have not willingly rejected him, etc. I agree that those things are not true, but still, the concept of free will is not biblical.

@@phieble Sure "free will" isn't in the bible. But neither is "limited atonement", "unconditional election", "irresistible grace" and the like. Each of these phrases is just a theoLOGICAL attempt to understand the Scriptural data on these things. I know many calvinists like to think that their view is literally taught by Scripture, but there is logic reasoning involved in establishing TULIP. Same for any other soteriology like Arminianism. Throughout Scripture it is clear than man chooses his actions and that nothing outside of himself is coercing or forcing him to do what he does (whether unrighteous or righteous). If this is true, then that's literally the definition of free will. Yes, the words "free will" are not in the Bible, but the concept that man is ultimately at fault for whether or not he chooses or rejects God (free will) is all throughout.

@@343jonny I'm not a Calvinist. The Bible is clear that God's application of salvation is predeterministic, monergistic, and infallible, which means that he has chosen in advance all who will be saved, mankind is unable snd unwilling to obey the requirements of receiving salvation so the Lord has to move in their hearts and compel them, and once he does man cannot nor would they want to resist his compelling and once a person is saved God keeps them saved. (Words don't have to be explicitly in the Bible for the meaning of those words to be described and claimed as true.) Scriptural support for this is in the Old Testament and New Testament, but I'll just list a few verses: Ephesians 1:3-11 Romans 9:6-23 Romans 8:1-8 John 12:37-40 John 6 Genesis 8:21 Jeremiah 32:36-41 Isaiah 43:1-13 Isaiah 53 While it true that we are responsible for our choices and not puppetered by God, that is not incompatible with the truth that God has predetermined all that takes place and sometimes he moves in human hearts or sends the devil and demons to move in our hearts to influence us to do things or not do things, yet he holds us accountable for our sin.

@@phieble Monergism means that our salvation is not dependent upon us receiving the gift of grace and that salvation is solely dependent upong God's desire. Monergism would mean that we can be saved even if we do not make a choice to follow God which is a heresy. Scripture is filled with examples of how man's response to God's free gift of grace is REQUIRED for salvation. Yes, putting one's faith in Christ is a necessary action for salvation. So this would mean that salvation is synergistic (God plays the role of purchasing and offering salvation and we play the role of simply receiving this grace). I don't think you are prepared to say that we play absolutely no role in whether or not we receive salvation. You would then be saying that you never put your faith in Christ. On your second part, I never denied that God predestines everything that happens. I affirm that God is in control of human history, predestines his elect and that God gives significant human freedom to men such that they are responsible for either accepting or rejecting his Son. I'm simply showing you that monergism won't get you that.

Hello there, may I ask you, what is your understanding of the biblical Gospel of our salvation? If an unbeliever was to ask you, “How do I go to Heaven?”, what would you tell them?

@@dylansheridan2892 John 3:16 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your savior. ( In short)

@@karen-nr5qy Do you believe that you can lose your salvation?

No.

@@karen-nr5qy Why do you believe that your life is one minute away from being destroyed?

Thank you for this scripture. It always brings me great peace!!

If God honestly desires all men to be saved and by “all” you mean everyone who ever lived, then your God failed. Nowhere in scripture is God called a failure and there’s nowhere in scripture where it’s recorded God failed. If His word does not return to Him void without accomplishing what He intends and some are actually lost, then you have to conclude He never intended to save them. God is omnipotent. Let that sink in. He turns a kings heart wherever He(God) wants. God is sovereign, man is not

@@mountainman78629 Our Creator may desire us all to be saved but that doesn't mean He tries to force this upon us to happen and fails when it doesn't. Instead He has given us the free will to choose whether we love Him and accept His gift of salvation, or hate Him and reject it. That is no failure on God's part. If you read the New Testament with an open heart and mind, you will understand.

@@Mary_QQQ can you get a chapter and verse proving we have free will?

@@Mary_QQQ so I guess I’m your mind God is a failure? How many people die daily who go to hell God wished went to heaven but was powerless to do anything? I bet He’s depressed

John 6:47 47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes [a]in Me has everlasting life.

I think the traditional view is that salvation includes justification, sanctification (conforming to the image of Jesus) and glorification. It doesn't quite make sense to say we were predestined to sanctification from eternity, but NOT to justification. Of course, justification is conditional on our faith. Nobody argues that, I hope not.

Whereas I would agree that we cannot go nuts branding random people about whether they are saved or not, the 'criteria' for Salvation are clear. So for the lost, they are not meeting the criteria, thus they are damned. As the believers are predestined to be saved, the unbelievers are predestined to damnation. This statement is consistent with Romans 9. Yes, you are not wrong in saying Salvation is conditional on man's response to the Gospel with their faith - however, what makes some men believe while some others do not? By and through the grace of God upon those who believe. It is true that "A PERSON BELIEVES THUS HE/SHE IS SAVED" but it is also true that "GOD SAVES A PERSON THUS HE/SHE BELIEVES."

Faith is the necessary condition for justification. God provides the necessary condition of faith to us by way of gifting it. He provides faith to those whom He predestined. It is a reasonable inference to deduce that those whom are passed over could be described as “predestined to hell,” especially given the content of Romans 9 describing vessels of wrath created for destruction, in addition to various other passages throughout the Bible. However, it’s vital to note that though God creates belief in the heart of the unbeliever to save him or her, He does not act with equal ultimacy in creating unbelief in the hearts of those who would otherwise believe, and with the understanding from Romans 3 we understand that nobody is seeking after God apart from divine intervention. They don’t believe because they do not want to believe. On the other hand, the Christian believes because God saves them from their wicked desire to not believe by giving them a new heart, and a new spirit (see Ezekiel 36:24-27)

““No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” ‭‭John‬ ‭6:44‬ When did Saul choose Christ ? It was God who chose him and not his companions on the road to Damacus

Christ's Atonement - Universal intent, universal extent but Limited application. The salvation gift was purchased for all but received by those especially who believe. Christ died for His sheep. His death was not in vain, His death came to save not to merely make salvation possible in that everyone that He died for will come to faith. Definite Atonement. 😢🙏😃

I'd also add the view of synergism which was held by the church fathers

Salvation is conditional. You must respond with your faith to God’s grace of sending Jesus. You must accept the clear meaning of Scripture. Jesus truly God and man came to die for all as a ransom, but we must respond to God’s grace with our faith, just as the passage states. Blessings

@@theresaread72 What you say is true about the fact that we must decide to follow God, but not true in that all can do this. Some are destined for other ends.

@@judethree4405 We, who already believe are predestined to be conformed to the Image of Christ, not for heaven or Hell Romans 8. In Ephesians 1 believers who are already IN HIM are predestined to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ. Ephesians is written to the Saints, the Faithful of those in Christ Jesus, also addresses those who are in Him 12 times. We have the Holy Spirit of Adoption but true adoption happens at the resurrection Romans 8. There is no place in scripture that says God predestines us to heaven or hell but predestines those who are already in Him to have spiritual blessings forgiveness, to be holy and blameless, Blessings

@@theresaread72 I understand that passage, and you are right about it. However, this is a very large discussion which covers much ground, which I don’t feel like getting into. My view is based off of decades of reading scripture. Could I be wrong? Sure.

@@judethree4405 My view is also based off decades of reading Scripture. You have said you agree with my interpretation of Scripture. Augustine 400 AD was the first person to bring in theistic determinism. Even Bavinck and Boettner 2 Reformed Scholars say Augustine was the first person to bring in theistic determinism.Calvin was an Augustinian Catholic Priest who took Augustine’s writings into the 1500s, that God chooses the eternal destinies of men, found nowhere in Scripture!Blessings!

I bet you can find teaching from Philippines 2 on the DG website.

@@HearGodsWord I know he has read it, I wasn't writing literally. I'm sure Piper would have made the same mistake. The reason I bring up Phillipians 2 is because it clearly shows that Christ's glory is preceeded by and predicated by his love and his humility. Piper would have it go the other way around.

@@josephbrandenburg4373 I didn't mention anything about reading. I suggested that he has taught it and you'd find it on the DG website. That way you can find out what he thinks rather than assuming.

@@HearGodsWord I am not assuming, though. He presents the opinion I am arguing against in this video.

@@josephbrandenburg4373 all I'm saying is that if you want to know what he thinks about Philippians 2 then you might find teaching on the DG website.

How so?

Oh ok thanks random RU-vidr I believe you.

@@MrAndyhdz you should! And you're welcome!

@@wareaglejf yeah because you haven’t given any Biblical evidence yet

@@tannerr247 how can I give biblical evidence when it's literally nowhere in the Bible? "Show me the biblical evidence that calculators aren't mentioned in the Bible!"