Predestination and prayer

theophilus · #1 14-01-2019, 05:46 PM

Those of us who are saved were chosen for salvation before the world was even created.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Ephesians 1:3-6 ESV

Since God has already decided who will be saved and who won’t there is no point in praying for the salvation of another person. If he has been predestined for salvation he will be saved; if he hasn’t been predestined he won’t be. Our prayers will have no effect. This seems like an unanswerable argument against praying that someone be saved. But Paul, the author of the above quote, wasn’t persuaded by it. He prayed for the salvation of his fellow Israelites.

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Romans 10:1-3 ESV

Why would Paul pray for their salvation if God had already determined whether they would be saved? He understood that God doesn’t experience time the same way we do. We only experience one point in time. Some events are in the past and we can do nothing to change them. Some are in the future and the choices we make now can affect them. God doesn’t experience time this way. To him the past, present, and future are all the same. One of his attributes is omnipresence. His omnipresence is temporal as well as spatial. He not only exists everywhere at the same time, he also occupies all of time.

The things we do can only affect the future. Our prayers can affect the past. If you know people who are unsaved, pray for them. God can answer the prayer you make now by selecting that person to be saved before the creation of the world.

Before they call I will answer;
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
Isaiah 65:24 ESV

Zigzangle · #2 14-01-2019, 06:17 PM

Another shed load of unverifiable nonsense, which is stated as fact!

neil · #3 14-01-2019, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theophilus

Those of us who are saved were chosen for salvation before the world was even created.

Since God has already decided who will be saved and who won’t there is no point in praying for the salvation of another person. If he has been predestined for salvation he will be saved; if he hasn’t been predestined he won’t be.

Why would Paul pray for their salvation if God had already determined whether they would be saved

theophilus..The true meaning of your query was lost in the many transcribings of the bible.

GOD CREATED all souls in his image..invisible & all equal in potential & quality, "but" not in Gods essence (divine)...they can become divine in the essence of God after they receive an identity & choose for themselves to be christed by the God entity

& God created untold amounts of them & all of these many created souls, were created blank, without an identity or sence of "self being", because the giving of an identity is the work of ANY male & female parents that will sometime in the future "draw/attract" to themselves, one of these many blank souls & to give it, it's own identity in the essence of the parents that drew/attracted it to them.

& so after God created these many blank souls, he then took two of them & gave them each a personality, & they became known as the first parents on planet Earth.

& when the first parents (Adam& Eave) choose to create offspring for them selves, they to will attract/draw to them, one of the many blank souls, & the first parents very "OWN ESSENCE DNA" will become this blank soul's first & only identity for eternity...& THE process will continue.

AND THEOPHILUS... THE MANY BLANK SOUL'S WERE CREATED BEFORE THE EARTH WAS FORMED...AND THEY ARE THE CHOSEN ONES WHO WILL BE SAVED ( GIVEN SALVATION), the true meaning of this was lost in the many transcribings of the bible.

The chosen ones to be saved, were created before the the world was created & are these blank souls, & all can receive salvation.
& that is why Paul prayed for all.

THE GOD ENTITY... PREDESTINED ALL OF THOSE BLANK SOULS, TO BE ADOPTED FROM THEIR FUTURE "ONE & ONLY EVER PARENTS", INTO BEING HIS/GODS CHOSEN CHILDREN & OF GODS KINGDOM, THROUGH THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CHRIST ESSENCE..(WHICH IS NOT JESUS HIMSELF)..THE BELOVED SON OF GOD IS GODS CHRISTING ESSENCE OF & FROM HIMSELF, "IT IS NOT JESUS".

JESUS WAS JUST ONCE ONE OF THE MANY BLANK SOULS, & OF WHOM DISCOVERED THE WAY...
JESUS' HISTORY WAS ALSO LOST IN THE MANY MANY TRANSCRIBED FORMS OF THE BIBLE...BELIEVE IT OR NOT I TRUELY DO NOT MIND.

& as usual, for your considerations...Neil.

AND PS..IT IS ALSO A VERY SAD THING FOR "ZIG" TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS ALL A "SHED LOAD".
BECAUSE BELIEVING SO WILL BE "ZIG'S" STUMBLING BLOCK AFTER THE TRANSITION FROM THE FLESH...OH WELL TO BAD...NOT TO WORRY "ZIGGY".

davidmartin · #4 15-01-2019, 12:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theophilus

Those of us who are saved were chosen for salvation before the world was even created.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Ephesians 1:3-6 ESV

ah, yes indeed
It is the case that Jesus taught his followers were predestined to follow him
The Ephesians quote is from the older stratum in the scriptures
But this does not mean the rest are without hope, just that they are not so called
It is fascinating to me that Jesus had this view
It's almost as if he wanted a certain 'type' of person as lights on the world
And he knew people would come along who claimed to follow him, but they were not really ever predestined to
This is literally asking for trouble in a way, elitism and them and us thinking is going to emerge from this, but for Jesus it was the truth and he did warn against these things strongly
It is as if the parables were him calling to his own, rather than trying to convince or preach and change minds
The conflicts came later, when the faith became more traditional in approach. In the middle ages the reformers like Calvin grappled with this but didn't have the tools to understand the original idea
It remains really interesting to think about a spiritual path or God that choose who it wants... but then, that is kind of logical too

And God appears to be able to change his mind, but it is still really interesting

theophilus · #5 15-01-2019, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neil

GOD CREATED all souls in his image..invisible & all equal in potential & quality, "but" not in Gods essence (divine)...they can become divine in the essence of God after they receive an identity & choose for themselves to be christed by the God entity

& God created untold amounts of them & all of these many created souls, were created blank, without an identity or sence of "self being", because the giving of an identity is the work of ANY male & female parents that will sometime in the future "draw/attract" to themselves, one of these many blank souls & to give it, it's own identity in the essence of the parents that drew/attracted it to them.

God created two souls, Adam and Eve. He gave them the power to reproduce others like them. They were created with spiritual as well as physical life. They lost that spiritual life when they sinned and so they couldn't pass it on to their offspring.

Jesus was not just another soul but was God himself in human flesh. His death atoned for our sins and made it possible for us to be forgiven and live a life of fellowship with God. The offer of life is made to all but God knew before the beginning of creation who would respond to this offer.

SearchingFreedom · #6 15-01-2019, 10:34 PM

You are absolutely right that Jesus is God himself. But when you focus on scripture you dictate God qualities he is not limited with!!! That's the mostly often fault of bookreligion fanatic people (look at islam!).

God knows that someday everybody will be saved. He knows when who will respond to what. That does not mean that only a part of peoples destiny is to be saved.

SearchingFreedom · #7 15-01-2019, 10:37 PM

[quote=theophilus]Those of us who are saved were chosen for salvation before the world was even created.

[i]

Since God has already decided who will be saved and who won’t there is no point in praying for the salvation of another person. If he has been predestined for salvation he will be saved; if he hasn’t been predestined he won’t be. Our prayers will have no effect. This seems like an unanswerable argument against praying that someone be saved. But Paul, the author of the above quote, wasn’t persuaded by it. He prayed for the salvation of his fellow Israelites.

___________________

This is also wrong. God knows before you pray and ask what you are about to ask. He can fullfill your desire if you choose to pray because he knows you WILL pray about it. So he waits until you pray and then fullfills your desire. Than it is in God's will that you first pray and THEN get.

Also God may try to educate you through prayer, don't forget that.