Does God Choose or does Man...


Can God, being omniscient, choose those who will be saved or does man out of his on free will choose to be saved.


2 Thessalonians 2:13
But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:


Prov 19;21 "many plans are in the hearts of man, but its the Lords purpose that prevails"

God is not a respector of persons. He chooses all to be saved, and He has chosen a means by which one can be saved, which is through Christ. So in Christ God has chosen all.

Here's a nice SOP statement which touches upon this theme:



One more:



From Scripture, the following is very nice:

God chose to make salvation available to everyone, and those who choose to be saved will be saved. By faith we choose Jesus as our personal Savior, and through faith we are empowered to imitate His sinless example. It is true, though, that God also knows, because He is omniscient and knows the end from the beginning, who will choose to be saved and who will not choose to be saved.

But why not lead all on earth to be saved, why some are chosen and the others are left to their fate, or is this what Paul was getting at when he came across on whether we can question God...

God's Sovereign Choice
1I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— 2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised![a] Amen.
6It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."[b] 8In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. 9For this was how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."[c]

10Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger."[d] 13Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."[e]

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."[f] 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "[h] 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25As he says in Hosea:
"I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one,"[i] 26and,
"It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people,'
they will be called 'sons of the living God.' "[j]

27Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
"Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality."[k]

29It is just as Isaiah said previously:
"Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah."[l]

ROMANS 9:1-29

God does lead all to be saved. Paul isn't discussing the same issue you are asking about. Paul is discussing why God was just in rejecting Israel.

But the premise on can man question God is the same....

If you look at Jeremiah 18, from which this illustration is being drawn, you will see that the following is the situation.

Jeremiah had prophesied against the people. The people were arguing, "Well, if God has prophesied against us, then there's nothing we can do." The Lord responded, "I am the Potterer. I can do anything I desire with the pot. If you will repent of the evil you are doing, then the bad things I prophesied against you will not happen. Similarly, if I tell a nation good things will happen to it, but it changes its actions from doing good to doing evil, then these prophesies can change as well."

So God was saying the idea that one's destiny is fated by an arbitrary choice was completely false, because God was able to undo (and would undo) His prophecies, if the conditions upon which they were set were undone.

The people to whom Paul was arguing were saying that there was no way God could reject Israel, because they had been specially chosen by God. So Paul takes them back to Jeremiah 18, where a similar argument was made, and argues that God can do whatever He wants, because He is God. Just because God at one point said the He would bless Israel, does not mean that at another He could not do something different.

Basically Paul was telling them, "Who are you to tell God what He can and cannot do." God could, and would, reject Israel because of their unbelief.

How God chooses to save people or nations is not for us to question - it is for us to understand and appreciate. In Romans 9 Paul is talking about the status of Israel's chosen status as a nation. He explains, as much as we can know, how God chose Israel to be His chosen people and nation.

Given their history, one might well wonder why God chose them and not another. But who are we to question what God chooses to do? Is He obligated to explain Himself to us? Or, is it our duty and privilege to believe God is holy, just, and true, and that whatever He chooses to do is also right and righteous?

When God chooses to explain to us why He did/does this or that then it is for our own good; but when He chooses not to explain to us why He did/does this or that it is also for our own good. He wants us to focus on those things He has revealed, and not to focus on those things He has not revealed.

There's only one way God saves either nations or individuals, and that's by faith. God certainly wants us to appreciate how He does things, but He has no problem with our questioning how He does things. That's why He invites us to "reason together."

Jesus said, "I call friends, and not servants, because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing." God wants us to know what He is doing, and invites us to ask Him about it.

Amen!

When God chooses to explain to us why He did/does this or that then it is for our own good; but when He chooses not to explain to us why He did/does this or that it is also for our own good. He wants us to focus on those things He has revealed, and not to focus on those things He has not revealed.