Peter McKenzie

I will comment on each one in order to bring clarity. If this is your understanding of my view (on some of the points), you are quite confused! 1. You accept much of the Scriptural argument that I made for John the Baptist, although you don’t know if John died as a believer or an unbeliever. Correct. But I don’t think it is relevant either way. I see where you are going with your premise but your point is made whether he was saved or not. The issue of his salvation (for me) has nothing to do with unconditional election – just whether or not the expression of his doubt qualifies as being being a total lack of faith. So its a textual issue for me an not something that is based on unconditional election. IOW is that one verse enough to portray him as an unbeliever or is just a matter of him wavering a bit? We can leave this for the sake of our argument. 2. You did not agree with my Scriptural article on Judas and you do not know if Judas was a believer or an unbeliever. I did not disagree with your article for the most part. Its just that I am somewhat agnostic as to Judas’ role in our argument. It seemed to me like you pulled him into our argument – but I am not sure why. Perhaps you think if you can show that there is one unbeliever that Jesus did not try to chase away, it is therefore proof that my premise fails? We could go round and round on the question of whether or not Judas believed – but I don’t think we will get anywhere. We will both agree that he did not have the type of belief that saved him. Does that mean he never believed in a way that could save him if he had persevered? I don’t know. It is a conjecture filled argument. I don’t believe in OSAS – but perhaps you do. If so that will affect how we see things – each differently. 3. Jesus was unhappy that one unbeliever (Judas) kept following Him. You like to reframe things in a way that tends to misrepresent my view. Happiness or unhappiness is not the issue. To repeat what I said earlier, Jesus would have been most happy to have each and every Jew believe in Him. But given free will, many Jews rejected His teaching. They had also been rejecting the Father’s teaching as well – prior to Jesus’ arrival. It is not difficult to see that Jesus often made effort to escape the crowd and resist their efforts to make Him king etc. These ones who were not true disciples and not interested in true bread, were counter-productive to Jesus’ ministry. He did not want this group of people who were following Him for the wrong reasons, to follow Him everywhere He went. So, this is not a matter of perfect-world-happiness as you seem to be framing it. It is a matter of Jesus’ desire in that setting – GIVEN everything that is happening. In that setting, given the role of Judas’ betrayal, Jesus understood the situation and the need for Judas to remain with Him. I don’t know how else to explain this. 4. Jesus spoke a particular teaching to the crowd in order that they would abandon Him and leave and it was Jesus’ will and what makes Him happy, that unbelievers would not follow Him. This again misrepresents me. Jesus merely spoke the truth. He knew that some would not believe and would leave because of the truth. But what He said also provided truth for them to be saved – because they could be saved if they believed. You seem to feel that they could hear the truth, not believe – and Jesus would still be fine with them following him around the country side in large crowds. Again, happiness is nowhere on the radar here – and it seems like I have not been able to adequately convey this scenario to you. 5. Judas had a purpose to follow Jesus and not leave because he wanted to betray Jesus. There is much that I don’t know – because I am not told in the scriptures. So it would be conjecture to lay out an exact time line depicting his motives and whether or not he believed or not – or if he believed, when he stopped believing and when Satan entered his heart. I do believe that Jesus was not unaware of his heart went he chose him to be a disciple. But as I said it, all of this is irrelevant to my premise. Its more your thing. 6. Conditional election is solely accomplished by men and not God.,/blockquote> Conditional election is your term and not mine. But again, this is a misrepresentation. When you say “solely” are you implying that I don’t factor the role of the Holy Spirit into the equation? But beyond that, from God’s perspective (which is the only one that matters here) election is a matter that He settled before creation. He pre-decided that a category (believers) would be chosen to shine forth HIs glory to the world. The condition was that they would believe. Is that conditional election? <7. There is a “moving categorical process” in election. I do not know what you mean by this so I am going to take a stab at it. Does this mean “individuals” move to the “category” of elect which is not no longer “individual” in nature but “corporate” thus no one is an elect individual but there is only an elect corporate body? Election is corporate, meaning is irrespective of individuals – as far as it relates to any choosing of individuals by God in their becoming part of the elect. BTW I don’t think much in terms of election. It is not a huge deal for me and it is only necessary to harp on it because the Calvinists do. It is a grossly misunderstood term – and it gets muddled even in our conversation. To answer you here, the category is corporate, an individual can call himself/herself elected – but that conjures up notions of being selected individually. Refer to the school band analogy I gave you to help gain understanding of how I think in this regard. 8. No individual is pre-elected before faith. This is an interesting point. It seems that John the Baptist was pre-elected before faith because he was chosen before he was born. But he was chosen for a purpose. Election is primarily about a mission and a purpose per se. As such, it is helpful to not think of election in terms of “election for salvation”. God chose before time that the elect would be predestined to show forth his glory (Eph 1:12). So it was an election to service. Of course, it should be a logically accepted notion that the witnesses should model the message – and, in the end, gain the reward that the message espouses. But no individual is chosen to be saved before they are born. 9. Individuals self determine to join themselves to the ELECT which is a corporate body and not individual members. In some ways yes. That self determination entails that it is their free will choice that is the final move. There is no coercing force and no one acts outside their will. But by saying that, it doesn’t mean that they make that decision extemporaneously without the wooing of the Holy Spirit and the power present in the gospel. But the decision to follow Christ puts them in the category of the ELECT and they now have work to do. That work does not save them – but if they have no works they may not be saved. Saving belief is accompanied by evident fruit. “Produce fruit in accordance with repentance”. 10. The condition is set by God in how an individual may come into the elect. Yes. Although I would word it “how individuals” – lest one misunderstand me to be conveying that there are different conditions tailor made for each individual. Sorry to get pedantic, but it is so easy for words to be misconstrued in this type of format. There is one condition that all individuals must meet – that being BELIEF. 11. Individuals are not elected by God either before or after they respond in faith. Jesus is the only one who was elected but the corporate body is the ELECT. Jesus Himself is not the ELECT. If this is what you think I believe – it shows what a poor job I have done in trying to explain myself. First of all I don’t believe individuals are elected by God – if you mean by that that He is selecting individuals to be saved. A better way to say it would be “individuals become part of the elect group”. It can create sort of a straw man to infer that God is electing individuals because it really confuses and distorts the matter. A good way to understand it is that God pre-set (before time began) a process whereby one could join the elect. In that sense, it is not helpful to try to imagine a one-by-one election process where God is doing a unique “electing” thing for each individual. Re Jesus, He is the chosen one and we participate in His chosen-ness. Similarly, you could say He is the ELECT one and we participate in His ELECTED-NESS. 12. Individuals self determine whether they will join themselves In some ways yes – although I would be careful to omit any involvement by the Holy Spirit. But in the end, the deciding factor is the free will choice of the individual of whether to follow Jesus or not. Some will have revelation of the truth of the gospel (believe its truth claims even!) – but still choose not to follow because they understand the cost. They are unwilling to give up the pleasures of sin for a season. 13. God does not elect anyone before or after they have faith, and individuals do not elect themselves. Thus there is no individual election at all. It is a myth promoted by Calvinists. It muddies the water to say it the way you do. It is a highly confusing matter if one does not understand the concept of corporate election. But yes, I would agree with this. God conceived a concept of corporate election. Individuals are joined to the category by faith. 14. Conditional election is only applicable to a thing called the ELECT and never to individuals. As it relates to the notion of a condition, how one comes to be joined to the ELECT is conditional upon their faith. The term “conditional election” is vague and problematic. It needs extensive unpackaging before one knows exactly what is trying to be conveyed. 15. Any other biblical term that would be associated with the term election must be interpreted to mean corporate and not individual. Whosoever then is not “any individual” but a corporate non-individual entity. WHOSOEVER, of course, does not carry any kind of non-individual notion – so I would not categorize it in that way. In much of this kind of thinking, it is important to keep in mind the vantage point of the setting being depicted. WHOSOEVER carries a “looking ahead” connotation. So it just means that, as far as individuals are concerned, they are as yet unidentified – and exactly who they are is not important. The critical part is that, whoever they are, they must believe. When reading the Bible, we need to consider the vantage point as well. The point there is that individuals in passages and settings there, are speaking from a vantage point of their “present day” and looking backwards. So there are specifically identifiable people who are the elect – because those ones have come to make their faithful decision and can now self-identify as the elect. Therefore, Peter can now say things like “for the sake of the elect” – and have identifiable individuals in mind. It is critical to plot the settings of then and now on a time line to be able to make sense of this. I alluded to this in the article I sent you.