Posts Tagged ‘Unconditional Election’
Free-Will Salvation Discriminates
It Also Denies The Sovereignty Of God
Basically they who preach Free-Will Salvation will tell you that God has done all He can do to save you but, now you must do your part and use your free-will to choose to accept or reject His offer.
That is basic humanism at its best, and it discriminates against many people who are unable to make such a decision. What if you have a mental disorder and are incapable of making an informed decision. How are you supposed to be able to even decide whether or not you need to be saved? In addition, what if you never hear the gospel in the first place. In this case you are not even given a chance to make any decision to accept or reject God’s offer of forgiveness.
In that case everyone who falls into one of those categories are all destined for Hell because they can’t make a decision. These are the people upon which Free-Will Salvation discriminates.
One thing you will never hear from these preachers or teachers is John 6:43 – 44, “Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Not only did Jesus say this just once, but He also said it a second time in the same chapter in John, in verse 65, where He says, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
Not only does Free-Will Salvation discriminates against various groups of people but it also denies the sovereignty of God and it hides the fact that “NO ONE” can come to Jesus unless they are given the ability to do so.
Free-Will Salvation gives man the pre-eminence in the salvation process in being able to make the final decision on whether or not they will be saved. In short Free-Will Salvation says that man has the ability to save himself of his own volition.
In addition, Free-Will Salvation teaches that God will draw all men to Himself so that they can make a decision for being saved. However, we have already seen how many people will never be able to make any decision let alone be able to even understand the gospel or even hear the gospel. In that case, God then lies to us by telling us that He will draw everyone to Jesus because not everyone will be drawn.
Not only that but in John 6: 37 Jesus says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”
You notice Jesus tells us that everyone that the Father gives, or draws, to Him “WILL” come to Jesus and be saved. Since that is the condition, then this tells us that not everyone will be drawn because, if they were, then everyone would be saved; and we know that is not going to happen.
So, Free-Will Salvation not only discriminates against certain groups of people, it also denies the sovereignty of God in the salvation process. It also leaves out the biblical teaching that NO ONE can come to Jesus unless the Father gives him the ability to do so, and everyone that the Father draws to Jesus will be saved.
Jesus says this quit succinctly in John 5:21 when He says, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.”
Did you get that? Jesus said that He gives life to whom HE wills. Maybe that is why scripture, in speaking of the salvation of man, says in John 1:13, “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
And, in addition, in Romans 9:16 we read, “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.”
These verses clearly states that salvation in man does NOT depend on mans Free-Will but on the sovereign will of God. It is God who chooses who will be saved and not man. Humanistic man does not even have the ability to choose of his own free-will and in saying that he does also unfairly discriminates against people who would never be able to make such a decision.
The only way any of us have any chance of salvation is by God’s will in deciding on, not only who will be saved, but the means by which that salvation will take place. They who are mentally unable to know or understand salvation, or anyone who will never be put in a position of hearing the gospel message and so be saved, can be saved, if it is God’s will.
God, in His sovereignty and by His will, saves whom He chooses. By His will they, whom He chooses, will be drawn to, and saved by, Jesus. He will give life to those who are drawn by the Father to Him, and in the end salvation comes to those whom God wills to be saved.
Apart from God’s will, no one can be saved, nor will they be saved. Not only does Free-Will Salvation discriminate but it also denies the clear teaching of the Bible that no one even has the ability to be able to do so.
In the end, by who’s will, anyway, would you trust in being saved – your’s or God’s?
The 5 Points Of Calvinism
Part Two: Unconditional Election
As we found out in the last post, no one can come to Jesus unless drawn by the Father. So, if no one can come to Jesus of their own will, who can come? The answer is simple – only those whom the Father draws.
In drawing one to Christ does the Father use a litmus test in doing so? There are those who will say that God chooses those whom He sees accepting Him, but that is not found anywhere in the Bible. What is seen is that in Romans 9 we are told that God chose to love Jacob and to hate Esau before they had done anything good or bad so that His purpose in election would stand. In other words God chooses whom He wills according to His purpose and for His own pleasure, and not because of what He sees that man will do or not do.
In Ephesians 1 we find that God chooses whom He wills according to the kind intentions of His will. So it is not of him who wills or runs but of God Who shows mercy. How then, does this fit in with John 6?
In John 6 we read the following, 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.
So, those whom the Father draws to Jesus, and He does so by making them alive in their spirit, He will teach them the sinfulness of man, their condemnation because of the sinfulness and the salvation that is found in Jesus.
Now we know from these verses, 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”, that ALL whom the Father draws will come to Jesus. Because of that then, God chooses whom will be saved unconditionally because salvation is conditioned on what Jesus has done for us and not on what man has done to receive salvation.
God does not base this election on what He sees in man because man is nothing but dirty rags in the sight of God. Only when Jesus is in man does God accept Him based on what Jesus has done for man. Since man cannot come to Jesus unless drawn by the Father, there are no conditions that God puts upon man in order to be saved. Salvation is all of grace, and it is through faith that man is saved. However the faith by which man is saved is the faith of Jesus imputed to man. Man cannot generate any faith towards God for salvation.
So, man is totally depraved and un-able to come to Jesus of his own will in order to be saved, and because of that God unconditionally chooses whom He wills to save, and ALL that He draws to Jesus will come and will be saved.
If God did not do this for us there would no one be saved. That is what Unconditional Election is all about; God saving man when man cannot save himself.
In our next post we will take a look at the ” L ‘ of Tulip and that is Limited Atonement. Here we will see that the sacrifice of Jesus was only for those whom the Father has willed to be saved, and no one else.
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