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The natural man cannot receive the things of God, yet God will send a strong delusion on men who will not receive him. | |
| Conform to Christ User ID: 1343995  United States04/18/2011 12:36 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 1347671 United States04/18/2011 08:57 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: The natural man cannot receive the things of God, yet God will send a strong delusion on men who will not receive him. God Hardens Whom He Wills "Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him..." (John 12:37) "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him." (John 2:11) Firstly, note the contrast between the two above verses. One group, the disciples, saw the signs of Jesus and because of what they saw believed in Him. The other, the crowd (as indicated in John 12:34), likewise saw signs, yet in spite of what they saw they did not believe in Him. Secondly, note the identity of the ones that did believe: the disciples. This will clue us in as to why some believed and the others did not. In order to better grasp these things, we first have to lay some ground work. The first bit of ground work would be to establish word meaning and association of particular words and those words used in particular verses. For example, the words hear, understand, receive, and believe are almost synonymous terms: Mar 4:20, Mat 13:23, 7:21, 24. Therefore, to believe in Jesus means to hear Him, understand Him, and receive Him. But, according to Paul in 1Corinthians 2:14 and others, the natural man cannot receive the things of God because he believes them to be too moronic for him to possibly take seriously. Therefore, something more was involved in the ability of the disciples to believe than the normal, everyday human ability to choose something more mundane--for example, why someone likes the color red over blue, etc. "Then the disciples came and said to him, 'Why do you speak to them in parables?' And he answered them, 'To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.'" (Matthew 13:10-11) The word given used in the above verse is the same used in John 6:65 where Jesus states that not even one person has the ability to believe in Him unless that ability were given to them by God. And at verse 45 Jesus uses another interesting word. He uses the word draw by stating that not even one person has the ability to come to Him unless God draws them to Him. The word draw is one of my favorites in the Greek because it basically means to drag. In other words, God has to drag us to Christ in order for us to come to Him. This is probably not only a picture of new birth, but also a picture of the saving faith all elect experience throughout their lifetime as believers which would include fiery trials and the like. Check it out for yourself: [link to www.blueletterbible.org] [link to www.blueletterbible.org] (~Continuing from the first verse in this post~) "....so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 'Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said" (John 12:38-39) Now pause for a moment. Notice the phrase "therefore they could not believe" and give it some thought before proceeding to the next verse... "'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.' Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him." (John 12:40-41) Some will say that God blinded these people because they were too disobedient to the call of God, and not because He did not desire to have mercy on them. There is a degree of truth to this line of thinking. However, the problem with that statement lies in it's presumptuousness. It assumes that those who were not blinded were in someway better than those who were blinded. In other words, the ones who weren't blinded by God had some good which God recognized in them that wasn't present in the ones He blinded. For those of you who understand the Bible's view on sin and the fallen nature of man, you can probably immediately understand the problem which arises from such a conclusion. Many verses like Ephesians 2:1-3, Matthew 15:19, Romans 3:10-18, etc, thoroughly dismantles such notions as Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. Both of which teach there is something good within man and that original sin has not entirely corrupted his nature. Such views are exposed for the lie they are in verses like Romans 7:14-24. Man's blinding, therefore, is a coupling of both man's wicked desire to fulfill themselves and God's sovereign choosing. But mostly, and most assuredly, man's blinding is first and foremost based upon God's sovereign choosing: "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the sophisticated and cunning, and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight." (Matthew 11:25-26) "What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day." And David says, "Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever." (Romans 11:7-10) "Therefore He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardens." (Romans 9:18) |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 1352119 United States04/22/2011 04:55 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
