NewLifeInChrist
Member
- Sep 3, 2011
- 340
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Romans 1 tells us plainly that those who reject God do so with full knowledge of the things that can be known about God. They are without excuse because God personally showed them those things. They knew the things God told them were true, but they chose to reject them. Calvinism says their choice to act in adverse opposition to their own intersts is pre-ordained and they have no ability to act otherwise. I have not known Calvinism to say that God is unable or unwilling to reveal Himself and His Godhead to everyone.That doesn't say what you want it to.
1 Corinthians 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
It just says that God decided to save people by having them hear the gospel and believe it.
Again, it is a fact that most people in the last 2,000 years have not heard that preaching.
That doesn't seem like a wise plan if you want every human being to be saved.
Concerning the spread of the gospel, God is involved in every salvation experience because no one can go to Jesus unless the Father draws them (Jn 6:44). He is the lead evangelist, and everyone who hears Him and learns from Him goes to Jesus for salvation (Jn 6:45), and Jesus saves everyone who goes to Him (Jn 6:37). Calvinism adds to God's gospel message which He preaches to everyone the false concept that only those chosen beforehand by God are able to hear and believe what God is telling them. Those chosen ones have no ability to refuse to hear or believe and those not chosen have no ability to hear or believe.
So, in reality, what we have here is God benevolently broadcasting to all human beings His offer of salvation in Christ, and God saving those who trust Him. It is indeed a wise plan. And it is available to all people.
It is a matter of God's longsuffering that He tolerates people who reject His wooings over a lifetime but then turn to Him in the dawn of their lives. That's the essence of 2 Peter 3:9...We think that God chose those He wanted to save before the foundation of the world, and then makes sure they hear the gospel and believe it. The rest of the people He just passes over.
Philippians 1:29 For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, . . .
John 6:37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, . . .
That verses needs to be changed into "all that the Father saw would believe in me the Father gives to me."
Also, not just those the Father saw would believe in Jesus, but it has to be those who endured to the end.
The Father wouldn't give somebody who starts to believe and then falls away to Jesus.
And this gets into the "once saved always saved." Nobody is given to Jesus that the Father sees fall away. Therefore, only those who endure to the end are given and thus the only ones that are saved and saved forever.
You mean reject it one time? A 20 year old who rejects the gospel can't change his mind 20 years later and accept the gospel?
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Pe 3:9)