Part 2:
Tired and frustrated from having fished and caught nothing. That's frustrating enough when fishing for sport - much more so when one's livelihood depends on the catch.
So imagine what it was like for Peter to watch Jesus command fish into the nets and so many fish where previously there had been none that the nets began to tear. Peter certainly wanted fish. He and his fellow fishermen got more than they asked for, so much more they could not physically handle it and so much more psychologically it was overwhelming. No record of him asking. We have Peter standing in the boat (something all fishermen know NOT to do, take a momentary "time out" to survey what is happening before his very eyes and his response has NOTHING to do with the number oof fish.
Please depart, Lord. I am sinful.
Does anyone like the knowledge of their own sinfulness?
Can we manipulate the elements of creation to bring such knowledge to another in so profound a manner that they wish us to leave? Keep in mind the fish weren't asked if they wanted to be summoned, caught, or die for the sake of four men's eventual conversion to Christ
.
Arguments from silence say, "
Because the scripture is silent then X might be true" (even though many leave out the word, "
might," and insert "
is." The accounts of Peter's conversion there is plenty. It's not silence; it's a wealth of information. This is important because any appeal to silence that ignores what IS stated is something much worse than a mere logical fallacy. It is a denial of scripture. Scripture gives us what God wanted us to have and what God wanted us to have is a written record of what Jesus did and not what went on in the mind, emotions, and will of Peter. While I have asked the setting be imagined beyond what is stated, I could easily have left that out and pointed to the plain, simple, blunt and undeniable fact scripture speaks to what Jesus did and is silent to what Peter did or did not do.
There is a reason for that.
Yes, we could imagine or hypothesize what went on inside Peter's mind, but anything we imagined or hypothesized would be extra-scriptural. Anything we might imagine or hypothesize contrary to what is written MUST be avoided.
Jesus commanded those men. He did not ask a single one of them if they wanted to come, and on at least one occasion the episode appears so psychologically coercive we could rightly wonder whether the matter was fair at all. As a Jew, the existential moment standing on the boat in blunt awareness of his sin is intolerable. He must ask Jesus to leave because he's got to get out of the boat and go see a priest with an animal sacrifice in hand.
Or not.
Which brings me to another, larger, more global point that is very op-relevant:
God, and God alone, is the initiator of all His covenants. God did not ask Noah if Noah wanted to be part of God's covenant. Noah was not asked if it was okay for God to kill everyone (but eight people). Noah was not asked if he wanted to be called. Noah was not asked if he wanted to be chosen. Noah was not asked if he wanted to be commanded, or whether he wanted to build a boat and put his family at risk while a flood turned the earth into a kill zone. Noah was chosen, then called, and then commanded and he was not given a choice until after that had happened. The same is true of Abram. The same is true of Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Israel.
Go study these first meetings and verify what I just wrote. All the opportunities to choose come ONLY after God has already acted. God, and God alone is the initiator in ALL of His covenants. In the covenant with Abram/Abraham, the vision of the fiery furnace amidst the divided carcasses is
a covenant between God and God. God is the sovereign for whom the animals were sacrificed, and the fiery furnace is imagery symbolizing God. All Abraham had to do was remove his foreskin
, and that came long after his covenant vision. The same proves true of the "Choose today life or death," asked of Israel. Their enslavement, liberation, deadly wandering in the wilderness, the gift of the promised land and their entrance therein had ALL been decided before they had any knowledge of it, much less before any of them were asked to choose. Most of it was decided before any of them were born.
One last point. Synergisms teach God saves if and when a still sinfully dead and enslaved, unregenerate person makes a choice in their flesh, and the synergisms holding that belief do so because the events where sinners choose God are assumed to occur prior to regeneration even though the scripture never say any such thing (an argument from silence). What they do not also ever say is, "
I choose now to be regenerated." Plenty of occasions where "
I choose to believe in Jesus," most of them occurring without the person having any idea who or what is Jesus. None of them are anywhere reported to say they are choosing regeneration.
So.....
- All the covenants with God are God initiated, and never a covenant initiated by the sinner or by both God and sinner.
- Scripture tells us the covenant in and through Christ is wholly monergistic in origin.
- Jesus commanded his disciples to follow him and scripture is silent about the twelve's thoughts, emotions, and volition (because Jesus is the emphasis and not the twelve).
- Only after inclusion in the covenant is established are any choices provided and even then obedience is expected.
- Despite constant disobedience the covenant is maintained by the Sovereign who initiated and not the one chosen, called, and commanded.
- The flesh profits nothing.
Ask why it is necessary to infer things that aren't written and whether or not any of those inferences conflict with what is plainly stated.
Do we really know that, though?
We know a great deal, and the reason we know what we know is because it is plainly stated AND plainly stated for the purpose of being known and believed.
We get into trouble when we infer things not stated.
Jesus said the flesh profits nothing. He was speaking to an unregenerate audience who had only the flesh.
That is what we know because that is what the text tells us. Apart from him we can do nothing. Even Arminius understood that.