Ah, and now we see what (I) sort of suspected; "serpent seed" applied to the bikers across the street; another means of condemnation, which I personally have never heard preached in a treatment of serpent seed, and would have to disagree with.
I find "God gene" inaccurate for the same reason. It strikes me as a counterfeit for "the elect," for the purpose of...what? Personal aggrandizement? The end result seems to be so that a sect may outline the qualities of those who might possess this gene, and so exclude anyone not possessing those qualities.
This strikes me as a naivete of "earth ages," and an ignorance of
Genesis 1:28
"
replenish the earth," after the earlier "the earth
became void," et al, pointing to an earlier earth age (wherein God hated Esau...), and a pretty sound reasoning, imo, of the "elect" as being those who had already proved themselves in the first earth age, and removing most or all of the arbitrary-sounding selection by God of the elect for undiscoverable reasons. I have yet to find that any Scriptural principle required any secrecy like this suggests.
I find the hardened hearts of
Romans 9 to be similar to Pharoah's heart, wherein we are told that God says "I will harden his heart," which we translate as God actively doing the hardening, when in fact God didn't need to do anything but exist to harden these hearts. Therefore, it seems at least probable to me that "I will harden his heart" should actually be interpreted "His heart will harden in response to My Spirit, and I could not change that if I wanted to--it inevitably happens, and here is what will happen as a result."
The alternative seems to be a denial of God's stated desire in scripture that all would come to God?