this is what I get ...

Blue raja, that pericope-sniffing Desideratter, said this at BHT:

I know its probably a centuries-old suggestion which has been roundly condemned since its appearance on the wood-pile, but - just for the sake of argument - could it be that the doctrine of election is given as the guarantee of a persevering corporate people of God, and is therefore out of place in discussing the ordo salutis of any individual Christian? i.e. take the plurals seriously in Romans 8:29, and see the “us” as the Church, in contrast to the “us” of Israel in the surrounding context. By the same token you could see the election in Ephesians 1:3-12 as speaking of the “new administration” of the “mystery” elucidated elsewhere in the book, i.e. the existence of the Jew/Gentile Church as the people of God. None of that rules out the eternal security of the individual believer, or even eliminates the possibility of individual election - it just takes those primary prooftexts off the table.

It's what I get for using that blasted password iMonk sent me.

Here's what I think about that: everybody always wants to take "the other guy's verses" off the table. In that, of course someone who wants to get individual election though the corporate thing wants to take Rom 8 and Eph 1 off the table. Let's say we do that just to be sporting.

What do you do with Romans 9? Of course: you have to say that the election of Jacob and Esau are elections of nations, sticking to your corporate theme. But problematically, the election of each side is an election before "they" (the children) were born -- before they could do anything good or bad.

In that, Christ is the firstborn among many brothers. That is, He is one in a series, not one in a set. I wouldn't try to make this argument too pat, but Christ is the first of those to come, not just one or an exemplar of all that come.

By the way, amen and all that on the fact that God condemns people AND people condemn themselves - but the I guess that doesn’t really answer the question of the BASIS of God’s condemnation (i.e. is it primarily a matter of God’s choice, man’s rejection, etc.).

Why can't it just be both? I mean, ontologically, it can't be both -- a man who fails to ever seek God's salvation cannot have been born again, amen? But in terms of going to hell, God judges man's disobedience. I don't think men trod willinging into hell (they are, after all, "cast" into the fire which is the second death), but I think they ultimately know they got what they deserve.

Such high-brow. Be with the Lord's people in the Lord's house on the Lord's day, readers. A blog is not sunday school: it's a blog. And it's certainly not corporate worship.