Deuteronomy 32:6 Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
When you buy something, you establish ownership. What i beleive he is saying here is God owns you, yet you still disobey him.

And yes i do agree whole heartedly with what your writing. I have been a Calvanist for about a year, before i was a four pointer i guess. As soon as i found this doctrine, i, to say the least, acted foolishly. I pushed it in people’s face. I’ve learned the most important thing to remember is love. Now yes, depending on what doctrine you have will greatly change who God loves, but still, in any doctrine, Love must come first. “Knowledge puffs up” so you must be incredibly careful
I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
Search all day long, just don’t become puffed up.

the question is: does God save those he sets out to save, or is any potential salvation at the “mercy” of our wills? I say he saves all He sets out to save. The instrumental means he has ordained in that process is faith. You say he sets out to save everybody, but does not. I believe in an accomplished salvation, and you seem to hold to a potential salvation.

I’m not interested in beating a dead horse. Have you read John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ? If not, please do (or at least Packer’s introductory essay). Owen has not been refuted, but ignored.

Why does He want to have a genuine relationship with us? And the answer is because of who He is! We love Him because He first loved us!

There is nothing about us that makes God want to love us. We have no merits. God chose to love us by His own Self and for His own reasons.

I would argue that the Bible teaches that in John 3:16. “Whosoever believes…” and all that.

Christ’s death affords salvation to all who choose to believe.

This power of choice is given to us by God’s grace–we don’t muster it up of ourselves.

God’s sacrifice is not useless because some people reject it? Who are we to judge uselessness? What percentage of people must be saved, under a “free-will” system, for God not to be deemed a failure?

Both Calvinists and Arminians agree that God doesn’t have to save anybody and that His decision to offer a means of salvation was purely of His own making.
However, Calvinists believe that human autonomy reduces God’s sovereignty. Arminians believe that the idea that God’s sovereignty can be reduced is pure nonsense.

And the difference is in how both define “sovereignty”.

Calvinists believe that God does what He wants, when He wants and how He wants and that everyone else just has to deal with it. Any deviation from that path is supposedly a sign of weakness and subservience on His part.

Arminians believe that God can do what He wants, when and how he wants but that He doesn’t always do that because He’s secure in His own identity. He made us and could control us like puppets but He wants to have a genuine relationship with us and is willing to risk rejection for it. True worship and praise comes form a heart of genuine gratitude not someone who has been programmed to do so.

Ultimately God will put a stop to all the nonsense and so in that sense the offer is not open-ended. in the end God’swill will be done. He alone will reign supreme and sin will be stamped out but He graciously gives us an opportunity to choose (and the commensurate ability to do so as well).

I get your point about how Calvinists (Reformers) can be somewhat legalistic in what we want others to believe, which is why I have tried to shift my focus on what I hear my fellow believers say about Christ when discussing our faith. Any time we discuss our faith, we should be looking to the cross and the work that Jesus performed there in His death. There at that one moment in history we clearly see the whole of God – His justice, His mercy, His forgiveness, His jealousness, His wrath, and His love. And when talking with a fellow belier, I look for balance in what is said and try to guide the discussion accordingly. The ultimate outcome of Calvary (mercy) is incomplete without both love and wrath.

As to your comments about distinctives – sadly, in this day and age, the “distinctive” of Reformed theology is its willingness to preach sin and salvation together as its central tenet. I see no other system of theology that’s willing to point the finger of blame at man while simultaneously acknowledging God for His good work of salvation. We desperately seek a way for man to redeem himself, whether it’s by choice or good works. Neither is able to save. Only the blood of Christ that was freely shed on our behalf can do that.

In your response to the post made by “Jesus and then me” you note the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross for the salvation of the sinner. Let me add to what you said by noting that if Jesus died for someone who is going to Hell then God would be punishing two people for the sins of just one man.

Thanks for your post.

Has that ever given you pause also?

Arminians teach that if even one person is saved then Jesus did not die in vain.

We don’t get to grade God’s ‘performance”–He does.

However, I feel that it is intellectually dishonest to say that “If Jesus died for people who end up in hell, then his death is in vain: inefficient and impotent.” I truly feel that this is only a man-made reasoning tool that tricks people into believing Calvinism, not by the truth in Scripture, but by making people feel that they will be somehow be less holy / obedient to God / etc. if they do not believe it. The same thing goes with the whole “people in their spiritual immaturity believe that man (insert non-calvinist doctrine here)”

I say this because if you look at 2 Peter, you can clearly see that people will reject Christ, even though He bought them…unless we are to believe that false prophets are among the elect….

1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Anyways, I dont want to be negative, cause I actually really…and I mean really enjoyed your post.

With love
YBIC