Here is an excerpt from a Myspace post in response to "pez", a fellow who AT LEAST had the insight after all these years of me challenging people on this, to note that a closer quote to the paraphrase exists in 2 Peter (3:9). :-) However...watch what unfolded on him next:
------------------------9/30/08
It is actually II Peter that tell us it is God’s will that none should perish. Your understanding of that verse is flawed.
-----I say
Romans 8 certainly carries that message in a powerful way. Let’s dissect a few IN DETAIL.
First 8:1-11 pretty much just notes that God performed the sacrifice of his own son ’in the likeness of sinful flesh’. As a general offering for sin. The default understanding being that this is up for grabs for any who will believe of course so...right there he willed that none would perish to the degree of making it possible for anyone who didn’t want to perish..not to perish by simply receiving his sacrifice and being filled with his spirit.
But a more direct article occurs in 8:20-21. Look carefully here where it says
" For the creation was subject to futility; not of it’s own will, but because of him who subjected it IN HOPE that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God"
!!
So right there it says that the created beings were subject to ’futility’. WHAT IS FUTILITY? Futility is living without the spirit’s leading. Agreed? Or do we imagine something else here? I can’t imagine anything else. Let’s get that down first though.
If you agree, then surely you see that this separation from God’s direction was caused NOT by the creation initially..but by GOD! (This being the separation from him because of Adam’s sin from conception. We are born into that scenario which Adam simply showed would happen *even* if we initially had a built in relationship with God)
With me so far? Ok soooo...then it says God *did this* IN HOPE...
HOPE
HOPPPPEEE.
See a calvinist has to start changing the verse RIGHT THERE or it makes no sense in their framework. It has to be changed to "Knowing that certain people would be set free..."
See? But no..GOD HOPES! What’s he HOPING for if he already knows who will choose and who won’t? What’s to hope? That’s utter non-sense!!
Anyway this verse absolutely says that God has this will FROM the purposing of this act in the beginning..that the creation would be set free from it’s slaverty to corruption INTO the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Hence, this is precisely the same as saying "God is willing that none would perish".
NEED VERIFICATION on this ’hope’ thing I’m saying above? Well..just look at verse 24.
It says right there "For in hope we have been saved, but HOPE THAT IS SEEN IS NOT HOPE; for why does one hope for what he sees.