jbotkin
Puritan Board Freshman
1 Thess 4:3-7 - For this is the will of God, your sanctification: [2] that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body [3] in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
Well, I can say that our sanctification is occurring, and will be certainly completed when we are raised again.
Certainly, sanctification as a theological category is occurring. But my point is that exegetically this passage is about more than a process of holiness. God's will is that his people abstain from sexual immortality. Yet, that doesn't always happen. God wills this such a way that he desires it, calls us to it, but does not ensure that it happens the same way he wills the elect are saved.
I say this as committed Calvinist in regards to election and limited atonement. But in reading certain texts (like those that have been cited above), I have to think that there is some sense in which God's love for his creation means that he doesn't delight in the death of the wicked and in some way desires them to be saved even as a human father desires his children to always obey him. Yet, in the mystery of his perfect character, God still chooses to save only a select group for himself out of all humanity.
.I do not think the wicked are children of God, though. We become children only through his gracious adoption, and we know He does not adopt all men, so I don't think the second part of your argument fits. I do not understand why God would not fulfill His own desire, when He is fully capable. And I don't think He'd have a wicked desire, so if He did desire something, it would be righteous. And I think that He would make every righteous choice
I never said the wicked were God's children. I simply used an analogy from human parentage.
I agree that we will not be able to know all things. But I'm not sure that we will know which things will be understood before we try to understand them. (Nor will we know which things are incomprehensible before we attempt to comprehend them.)
I agree and hope that goes without saying for every Christian.
So, I think it is too soon for me to claim mystery on this certain thing.
That's why we're here - to discuss and cause one another to think! At least, that's why I come. I'm not saying don't think it through, just don't allow larger theological paradigms to skew your exegesis. Read the text to build theology, don't read theology into the text - that's how I moved from where I was to where I am now, Reformed in my understading of God's word. We have nothing to fear from the Bible!