(Maybe I’ll have to make another thread for this.)
Ok, a slight correction, I’m listening to that debate right now. At around 37.8 minuets on the tape, Brian did make a response, but only by saying that Jer.18 was a national election not individual election, the visible church (Israel) being His chosen elected people, wheat and tares, so you handle Jer 18 completely differently than you do Romans 9.
Did God finish the first vessel, or did He have to make a second vessel?
Why did God not finish the first vessel, why did He have to make another vessel?
That is nearly half an answer, but specifically it did not answer the particular question, he never answer if the potter finished the first vessel! Brian missed the implication of the notion about how God’s election works! Brian posits that there are two very different sorts of election, basically 1) corporate and 2) individual, but, Jer 18 demonstrates that God responds to what man does in order to determine how God will treat man! That is a description of operation; it explains God’s action reaction dependency. Yet, that is the exact opposite of what Brian says throughout his entire presentation! He even said that it was NOT God’s plan that Israel would obey Him saying that ultimately Christ would be killed at the cross through their unbelief. You see, He denies man’s free will, and asserts that God does it all, so by Brian’s view, God was the cause making the vessel into another vessel, not the mar in the clay in the Potter’s hand which God says was Isreal! So by these consistent responses, Brian’s answer must be that no, God did not make a second vessel because of responding to the clay, God makes no mistakes, He just did what He did.
But the Bible is crystal clear, that God responded to what man did, and that was why God had to make another vessel, Israel did not conform to God’s will and plans to make her into an honorable vessel, so He had to make her fit as a vessel for dishonor. The Potter responds after man responds to God and His response is formed in accordance to man’s response. It is synergism personified. Brian’s view of God (Calvinism, individual predestination) denies the true God of the bible.
- (Jer 18:1-10 NKJV)
The Potter and the clay
The Vision, figurative speech
“1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the
LORD, saying: 2 "Arise and go down to the
potter’s house, and there I will cause you to
hear My words." 3 Then I went down to the
potter’s house, and there he was, making
something at the wheel. 4 And the vessel that
he made of clay was marred in the hand of the
potter; so he made it again into another vessel,
as it seemed good to the potter to make.
God’s explanation of the vision, literal application
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me,
saying: 6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with
you as this potter?" says the LORD. "Look,
as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you
in My hand, O house of Israel!
The general principle of divine repentance, literal
didactic truism
7 "The instant I speak concerning a nation
and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up,
to pull down, and to destroy it,
8 "if that nation against whom I have spoken
turns from its evil,
(then) I will *relent of the disaster
that I thought to bring upon it.
9 "And the instant I speak concerning
a nation and concerning a kingdom,
to build and to plant it,
10 "if it does evil in My sight
so that it does not obey My voice,
then I will *relent concerning the good
with which I said I would benefit it.
* nacham = Strongs #5162 = repent
“(then)” supplied in verse 8 for emphasis on
the “if then” conditional arrangement.
So in summery, Brian was asked twice in the debate, wow, strike that THREE times this same question was specifically asked each time calling Brian by name emphasizing his attention to this question, including a dramatic historical build up because of Brian’s unresponsiveness from a debate from 3 years prior, and he still did not directly answer the question!!! Calvinists are afraid to address the very heart of their supposed proof texts, the mechanism of the Potter and the Clay, as they say, is all by God’s will and not man’s, yet the Bible does not support that view, in fact, the NT reference is derived from the OT first use principle, which establishes a synergistic relationship between God and man, where God waits for man to respond to know how God will respond to man in return.
Another note is that Bob asked pointed questions of Brian, and during the first entire half of the debate, (I’m pretty sure) Brian asked NO questions of Bob, certainly none on the onset or end of his segments like Bob did.
A very interesting debate “Bob debates Calvinist”. Individual predestination and a God who exists outside of time, is wrong.
That really cracks me up, Bob said
“Brian, ,,, did God finish the first vessel? or not?...?”
3 times!!! With NO "direct" response. :shocked: :freak: