Ask Mr. Religion
☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) 	
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
The Good News is that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved and never lost to Him (John 6:37, in the context of John 6:44,65). That is the duty of all mankind. No one knows who is elect and who is not elect, so hiding behind this is a chimera. All men know of God. Period. That they have rejected what they know for a lie about Who they know is no fault of God.
Our Lord stands ready to receive any who come to Him. But sinners hate Him and do not come. They slam the door in His face, not vice-versa. But does this frustrate God’s plan? Not at all. God has chosen to go one step further with those whom He has chosen. He not only offers them Christ, but Christ goes and fetches them. The Good Shepherd calls His sheep and gathers them in Himself.
Your position is along the lines “If election were true, then the non-elect never have a chance of salvation.”
In one sense, this is exactly what Scripture teaches. No man has a chance of salvation for the simple reason that there is no such thing as chance. God has foreordained whatever will come to pass. There are no coincidences or chance. Furthermore, this can be taken in another way. God offers salvation to all who hear the Gospel, but let's not forget that no one deserves salvation. No one—neither the elect nor the non-elect—deserve a “second chance” (after Adam's fall), as it were.
At its root, this objection of yours insinuates that God cheats. He stacks the deck. Well, you have a false picture to paint. Your view pictures an unelected person chiding Our Lord and excusing himself at Judgment Day, “You can’t send me to Hell. I never had a chance. You cheated.” That’s blasphemy. The unelected never wanted to come to Christ, so they will get exactly what they did want.
God’s ordaining of the reprobate does not prohibit them from acting according their desires and intentions. Per the very decree of God, they are morally free agents, with the liberty of spontaneity. They choose to hate God. Their ability to choose according to their greatest inclinations when they so choose was decreed by God, else no such ability to choose would even exist. No one is going to hell who wants to be in Heaven. Try to absorb this important point: God's decree includes the moral ability to choose according to one's greatest inclinations. The decree of God includes this moral ability, not precludes it.
God has left the remainder of the fallen mass of humanity to their own means and their justly deserved ends. These are the reprobate. From the total inability of their sinful natures, the very efficient cause of reprobation, the reprobate will reject the Good News, all the while using the very same free moral agency that the elect possessed. Again, God is not forcing people who want to go to Heaven to go to Hell.
And to the unstated notion in your objection that election means God is showing privilege, let me state that no man deserves privileges. Is it wrong for a parent to leave an inheritance to his child? Is it wrong for God to bestow the free gift of salvation on someone, when no man deserves it? Such an objection is not just against election but against grace (unmerited favor). The objection preys on guilt and sentiment rather than truth. It overlooks the wonderful truth that election and salvation are privileges, free and undeserved gifts.
There is much warrant from Scripture that teaches us that God is free to not extend mercy to everyone. For example, Paul speaks to the matter in Romans, and we need only look to God speaking to Moses. God makes it plainly clear that He is not a universally merciful God for everyone, for He retains His prerogative to distribute mercy, without any pre-conditions other than the counsel of His own will, that is, where He sees fit to do so: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I think it is quite clear that when God spoke these words, He was also claiming being merciful does not mean He must extend mercy to everyone. A holy God confronted with fallen mankind owes it nothing but His justice of eternal damnation. God could have extended mercy to but one person, refusing all others, and yet we would still call Him merciful. This is because there is nothing about being merciful that requires mercy to be always or universally dispensed.
Before we are saved we are but criminals against God, caught with weapons in our hands. Sinners deserve to be punished, not pitied. God owes election and salvation to no man. God does indeed love all men as creatures made in His image, but He has justly reserved His special grace for the elect. Is a man unloving towards all men because he has a special love for his wife? Hardly, in fact, quite the opposite. Such a man would be unloving if he loved her the same as all others.
Focus on the revealed will of God and your duty. Leave the secret things of God to Him alone. When God shuts His mouth so should we all.
Yes, your erroneous conclusion is often used as a rationale for failing to do one's duty is dangerous, eternally so. :AMR:
A good final question to wrap up the topic and bring it to closure.
If we define good as seeking the righteousness of God, then, no, a non-elect person cannot lead a good life. All the unbeliever's acts of civil good, such as giving to charity, walking the old lady across the road, feeding the poor, and so on are never done with the goal of bringing glory to God. These acts are but manifest examples of the hatred of God by the non-believer borne of their own self-serving motives. The moral law of God serves to limit the depravity of mankind and in that sense, performing acts that comply with these laws are good for the world around us. None, however satisfy God's demands upon each and every person such that would bring merit to the unbeliever's situation before the throne of judgment.
AMR
