Eze 33:8

[coramdeo]

8"When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand.

One of my friends often offers up this verse when we are discussing divine election. He claims it refutes election. What do ya'll think it means and how does it relate or not to election? How can the watchman be guilty if the person to be warned is elect? or not elect? How do I answer?

 

[Skyler]

The passage makes it clear that the watchman's guilt doesn't depend upon the hearer's response, but the watchman's. Whether the person responds or not is irrelevant. I don't see how this has anything to do with election.

 

[rbcbob]

Have your friend demonstrate exegetically how that verse disproves election; that ought to keep him busy for a while.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Here's another question:

How can one verse (or a dozen...) in the Bible "refute" a biblical concept? Is ELECTION in the Bible, or isn't it? So, I want to know what so-snd-so does with the verses in the Bible that actually speak of "election."

What I hear people say who dispute our understanding of election is, God "chooses" us (elects us) once we "elect" him (choose him). In other words, God doesn't have "free choice," or rather he subordinates his "election" of us to our "election" of him. He doesn't elect sinners of his free grace and mercy, he elects the sinners smart or brave enough to elect him.

In their view, God may have "loved" humanity first in some sort of vague, general, non-specific sense, such that in consequence some love him (hence the text, "we love him because he first loved us"). However, they say, "he elected me because I first elected him." God, the Great Reactionary in the Sky. His love for me didn't move him to elect me; no, MY election moved him to love ME.

When I go in a Dunkin's, and I choose a jelly-filled from the slate; or better still, I choose the third row, third doughnut from the left, on a sheet of essentially identical glazed; who in their right mind thinks that that pastry "chose" me first?


The Bible places God in "another category" entirely from us. The potter is closer to the clay he makes the pot out of (both made of the dust of the ground), than the divine Potter is to we dirt-machines. Correction: to we rebellious dead-dirt-machines. How can we "who are accustomed to doing evil" ever hope to elect God?

God acts for us and upon us, so that we may act in response. And what he begins in us, he finishes. Any theology that teaches "God waits (at any point) for us to do our part so he can finish saving us" is a theology of self-salvation, another gospel.

 

[coramdeo]

The passage makes it clear that the watchman's guilt doesn't depend upon the hearer's response, but the watchman's. Whether the person responds or not is irrelevant. I don't see how this has anything to do with election.

How can the person's blood be on anyones hands unless the are indeed lost?
Why would God charge it to the watchman if the person is non-elect anyway?
If the person is elect, God would , no doubt use other means: so again why is there any blood to charge to the watchman? Confusing.

 

[rbcbob]

The passage makes it clear that the watchman's guilt doesn't depend upon the hearer's response, but the watchman's. Whether the person responds or not is irrelevant. I don't see how this has anything to do with election.

How can the person's blood be on anyones hands unless the are indeed lost?
Why would God charge it to the watchman if the person is non-elect anyway?
If the person is elect, God would , no doubt use other means: so again why is there any blood to charge to the watchman? Confusing.

If an elect man kills a non-elect man through irresponsible driving would the dead man's blood be on the elect man's hands in some sense of the phrase?

 

[greenbaggins]

The passage doesn't have anything to do with election. The passage has to do with whether the evangelist/watchman has done his duty or not in proclaiming the warning to the lost. The passage is equally clear in affirming that the person who has not been warned will be lost on the basis of his own guilt. The guilt of the watchman is distinct, however. The passage has to do with assigning blame for the lack of certain watchman duties. It has nothing to do with who is saved and who is not.