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 Answer:
God’s Word teaches predestination and election which
is the reason a person should believe these doctrines.
Three times in Ephesians 1 where the Apostle Paul discusses
God’s plan of salvation, which includes predestination and election,
he pauses three times to worship God by giving praise to his glory for
this salvation. Therefore,
if we do not praise God for predestination and election, we do not
understand the doctrines as Paul did.
God calls sinners with the offer of salvation through faith in Jesus
Christ. This offer comes to
all men where the gospel is preached and is a good faith offer by God
that all who repent and believe will be saved to eternal life. This is known as the external call and God would like that
all men would accept this invitation.
However, Jesus in the book of Matthew tells us that, “For many are invited, but few are
chosen.” This
indicates that men on their own do not accept this invitation or
external call, but that some are chosen.
The ones that are chosen respond because of an internal call that
comes from the Holy Spirit and makes the external call effective.
Jesus states this in John
6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and
I will raise him up at the last day.”
Jesus explains how this is accomplished in John 3:3
“I tell you the truth, no one can see
the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
This process of regeneration is not initiated by man, but by God
as Jesus explains in John 3:5-8 and leaves no doubt in John 6:65 "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father
has enabled him." Quite
simply this means that God must enable and equip a person to respond to
the gospel due to man’s inability and unwillingness to do so on his
own. The Bible also tells
us that God does not choose on the basis of anything he sees in a person
as shown in 2 Timothy 1:9:
“who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we
have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given
us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time…”
This Biblical doctrine is often
wrongly stated as meaning that God turns away people who sincerely want
to come to Jesus because they are not one of his elect.
The truth is Scripture teaches that man is spiritually dead and
is both incapable of coming, and unwilling to come to Jesus on his own.
That is what Jesus meant in the verses already mentioned above
and is what the Apostle Paul means in Eph. 2:1 when he says,
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,”
and further when he says,
“But
because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us
alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by
grace you have been saved.” Romans 8:7 states this truth as
follows: “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit
to God's law, nor can it do so”.
This is further seen in the fact that both
repentance and faith are gifts from God as Acts 5:31 states, “God exalted him to his
own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and
forgiveness of sins to Israel.” Therefore, salvation
is entirely from God and comes through the power of God.
This power is seen in Acts 14:48 “When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the
word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life
believed”.
Jesus speaks of this power when he says,
“All
that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will
never drive away.“ Jesus further explains
the extent of this power when he says in John 10:28
“I
give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch
them out of my hand.” The
bottom line of this awesome power is that all (100%) of God’s elect
will respond to the gospel (and this of their own choosing, once God
opens their eyes to the truth) and no one can prevent them from being
secure for all eternity. God
doesn’t just make salvation possible (i.e. doesn’t save anyone), but
actually saves sinners (the elect) and all this to the praise of his
glory.
Concerning the relationship between predestination and evangelism, the
Bible teaches that God not only determines the end (personal salvation),
but also determines and works through the means to the end (preaching
and evangelism). For this
reason God’s people who believe in predestination and election are
motivated to participate in evangelism, having the confidence that as
the church is obedient to Christ and proclaims the gospel, all the elect
will come to faith in Christ; whereas, those who do not hold to
predestination, evangelize with only the confidence of their own
abilities and persuasiveness. However,
as J.I. Packer points out, what we find in practice is that most
Arminians practice practical Calvinism in that they pray for God to
change the heart prior to witnessing.
For
further verses concerning election and predestination >CLICK
HERE
For Sermon by Charles Spurgeon on
Calvinism > CLICK
HERE
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