Dr Paul Allen

THE ARMINIAN REPLY Some Arminians will reply to my treatment of this text with indignation. They agree that the passage teaches a strong view of divine sovereignty. Their objection will focus on another point. They will insist that Paul is not even talking about the predestination of individuals in  Romans 9. Romans 9 is not about individuals but about God’s electing of nations. Paul is here talking about Israel as God’s chosen people. Jacob merely represents the nation Israel. His very name was changed to Israel and his sons became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel. That God favoured Israel over other nations is not in dispute. It was out of Israel that Jesus came. It was out of Israel that we received the Ten Commandments and the promises of the covenant with Abraham. We know that salvation is for the Jews. That much is indeed true of Romans 9. We must consider, however, that in the electing of a nation God elected individuals. Nations are made up of individuals. Jacob was a

John Calvin (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Probably Romans 8:16 is the greatest assurance text in the entire Bible. It is appealed to by Reformed and Arminian evangelicals alike, though they have conflicting ideas of assurance. Romans 8:16 reads, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” Arminians say this means that true Christians do have true assurance of a present, but, losable salvation. The Reformed view says that what the Holy Spirit and the Christian’s spirit testify to is a present assurance of unlosable eternal life . One of these views certainly is false and one may be true. The text, itself, on the surface does not settle this difference . It only says that His spirit and our spirit testify to our being (at the moment) children of God . Arminian and Calvinist agree on that: the text itself only asserts a present experience. So we agree on what the text says and differ on the context and what follows from what it says. Let us consi