What ever happened to being a Christian? Not good enough? God's Word stands alone and needs no outside influence.
A Calvinist is a Christian. It is just one that believes what the Bible says about God being sovereign over *everything*, including salvation.
There is a great problem when Christians go outside God's Word and find what they believe to be more true, and that is what they follow.
I agree. Thankfully, Calvinists do not do that - non-Calvinists(Arminians) do.
I worship God, I do not need any man telling me what God says. "Thou shalt not have no other gods before Me."
Amen! We should trust the Bible alone for our doctrine - have you done this with your statements here?
It is God's desire that everyone will spend eternity with Him in heaven, so therefore we all are His elect, but it is still our choice of which we select.
You are making a statement that sort of clouds the issue and blurs the distinction between things. Your statement doesn't really add to the 500 year long debate between Arminianism and Calvinism.
First of all, you are confusing God's decretive will (His decree), also called His sovereign will, with his "will of disposition"
God's decretive will *always, always, always* happens. God always decrees whatsoever comes to pass. He is the Alpha and the Omega, declaring the end from the beginning, doing His good pleasure, accomplishing His purposes. For example, God decreed the universe would be created. God decreed Christ would die on the cross. God decreed Pharaoh's heart would be hardened.
However, God's will of disposition is different in that it does not determine whatsoever comes to pass, but merely reveals how God "Feels" about something. For example "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his evil ways and live." But, do all the wicked do this? No, because it is not God's decree. God instead allows most of the wicked to perish, because it serves His greater, mysterious will, it glorifies His justice, it brings him more glory to let most perish and only save a small few than it does to save one more person, or let one more person perish. It happens exactly in the way God decreed it.
This is what the Bible means when it talks about predestination. Paul lays this out in Romans 8
Whom He predestined, he called, and whom he called, He justified, and whom he justified, He glorified. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies!" Rom 8:30, 33
Salvation is not a game of chance to God. God is not crossing His fingers hoping mankind will somehow exert his will and "choose him" or "let him save them". God is sovereign over salvation. God has a plan. God did not merely make "all men savable", but instead, He
literally and
actually saved
some. He predestined
some, guaranteeing that some would be saved, rather than justly letting all perish.
Christ did not merely die on the cross to make all men "redeemable", failing for the great majority of mankind, but rather, He literally and actually
redeemed some. Christ Himself says this in John 17.
"I do not pray for the world, but for those that you have given me" Jn 17:9
"I will give eternal live to all those you have given me" Jhn 17:2
This debate has one answer: God is sovereign over salvation, and does not fail to save anyone. Everyone that is saved is saved on purpose. Everyone that is saved is exactly whom God intended to save. Heaven is not full of empty mansions because of people that God tried to save, but couldn't. Christ blood was not wasted "attempting" to save men that end up in hell.
To think these things is utter blasphemy.
Secondly, you make the statement "it is our choice".
Excuse me? What choice and ability and power does the Scripture tell us we have? Absolutely none. You have stated this out of ignorance at best, or a denial of the doctrine of the Fall and Total depravity at worse.
There is a difference between what man
must do and what man
cannot do, in and of himself, with his own power.
The Bible tells us what men MUST do to be saved: repent and believe
But, the Bible also tells us, repeatedly, what man CANNOT do. The great "cannots" of the Bible.
Man cannot see the kingdom until he is born again - Jn 3:3
Man cannot come to/believe in Christ unless the Father grants it - Jn 6:44
But, everyone that the Father grants it to/draws WILL come to/believe in Christ! Jn 6:37
The natural, un-born again man cannot understand spiritual things and finds the gospel foolishness. 1 Co 2:14
Man is a hater of God who cannot do ANYTHING pleasing to God until he is born again - Rom 8:8, Rom 1:30
Where do you find a doctrine of "man's ability to choose" in light of these scriptures?
Friend, man DOES choose for Christ, but only because God first chose/elected him. Predestination results in being saved, not vice versa. We love Him because He first loved us. We only believe because we are Christ's sheep who were predestined. We only believe because we are ordained to eternal life.
Acts 13:48 - And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed
John 10:26, 27-29 - You (the pharisees) do not believe
because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and follow me. I give them eternal life. My Father gave them to me.
Yes, you choose Christ, but only after God predestined you to do so, enables you to, grants it to you, draws you, and effectually calls you.
"Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven" - Spurgeon
"I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, "If any man doth ascribe aught of salvation, even the very least, to the free-will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright." It may seem a harsh sentiment; but he who in his soul believes that man does of his own free-will turn to God, cannot have been taught of God, for that is one of the first principles taught us when God begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that he gives both; that he is "Alpha and Omega" in the salvation of men." - Spurgeon
Friend, all you can do with your own will is go straight to hell, hating God the entire way there.
It takes
God's will to get you into heaven. It takes God to redeem you, resurrect you from spiritual deadness, predestine you, elect you, quicken you, draw you, and enable you to believe.
We are born in sin, hellbound, guilty before God. We have no power to approach God. Christ declares it himself. We cannot come unless God pulls us to Christ, and when that happens, we WILL come, without a doubt. God is sovereign.
