What is your explanation on predestination, election, and free will as it pertains to salvation?
We will do our best to give you some basic views on these subjects. Please keep in mind that Christians disagree on these topics, and that’s okay.We’re not debating the nature of salvation, which is by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ alone. Rather, these are topics that deal with how these things came about, and honestly, we may not know for sure until we see Jesus face to face. Still, it is important to form views on these crucial issues, because thinking Christians are concerned about these things, and it’s good to have an informed opinion.
Our view would follow along the lines of Reformed theology. That is, we hold to the view that God, who is completely holy and just and sovereign, initiates the process of salvation. This is based on the biblical idea that all have sinned and come short of God’s perfect standard (Romans 3:23). In fact, sin has affected and infected humanity to the extent that no person seeks God (Romans 3:11). It is only through the work of God through the Holy Spirit to convict us or our sin and to bring us to a point of realizing that we need a Savior, and we move toward God. Mostly, we’re running away from God. To repent of sins means more than being sorry. It literally means to stop going in the direction we have been going (away from God), and then turning completely around and going in the opposite direction (toward God). In our view, this doesn’t happen until God does a work in our lives and gives us the faith to believe.
The idea of election — that God chooses those who will respond to Him — is a pretty big idea in Scripture (see Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 for starters). Yet election doesn’t automatically eliminate free will. Even though God initiates salvation in our lives, we must respond by an act of our wills. The responsibility is ours.
Why God chooses some and not others is a mystery. It certainly isn’t on the basis of good works, or ethnicity, or geography. It’s completely God’s sovereign work. And it isn’t that God simply looks ahead in time to see who will respond to Him, and then elects those people. According to Ephesians 2:8-10, God saves us so that we can do those things He planned for us long ago.
Evangelism is still important in this view, because none of us knows who will respond to God’s election. We need to follow Christ’s commission to take the good news message of the gospel throughout the world. God is the one who saves, but we have been commissioned to be His witnesses.
If God saves us in this way, then it’s clear from Scripture that there’s nothing in heaven or earth that can separate us from His love (Romans 8 again). The idea that we can somehow “lose” our salvation means that God isn’t powerful enough to save and keep us. Honestly, people who wrestle with this issue — and believe us, a lot of people do — don’t have a proper view of God’s sovereignty. They believe that salvation is completely up to us. God is just hoping that we respond to the gospel, but has nothing to do with our choice. Well, if our salvation is up to us, then probably we can lose it. But our salvation is not up to us. It’s up to God. If He is the one who saves us, then we can have complete confidence that He will not let us go.
Like we said, these aren’t easy issues to wrestle with, but it’s good that you are. Don’t expect to get everything down to a neat little package of understanding. Trust God for His perfect love and grace, do your best to work through these issues, and then be loving in the way you discuss them with others.
thanks so much for your explanation of this tough subject. How do you respond to catholics who claim at the communion table is where we receive salvation? and also Catholics seem to believe that Mary is partly to rteceive credit for our salvation. One more thing, in reference to catholics explanation of receiving salvation they quote John 6:53-56 as scripture reference, thanks again, yours in Christ, Douglas K Sowter.
As a Wesleyan Arminian our denomination stresses holiness as the appropriate protection against backsliding. Backsliding (sinning habitually and without remorse) is an unfortunate reality for many people. Holiness is not our holiness gained by effort or striving. It is the convergence of all the scriptures we have read with the realization that God’s Holy Spirit is not only with us but in us at sanctification when we are “filled with all the Holy Spirit” . . . i.e. the fullness of God. Many in our camp call this “full salvation.” That may be a misnomer because if God saves us we are adopted into the family of God and some would say that an adoption is an irrevocable covenant of ownership. I don’t believe that God will reject us in an easy manner after we are saved. But someone who willfully disbey God repeatedly can be lost. I don’t believe that salvation takes away our free will. Examples include Judas Iscariot, Annanias and Saphira, and numerous others who fell out of favor with God and, in my opinion, lost their salvation and went to hell. Some would argue that God’s transcendent love overlooks these sins and thereby we will go to heaven on Christ’s merits. While I believe that this is true for a child before the age of accountability, I do not believe this holds for people who are in their right mind while in a state of disobediance.
Curtis–
Well thought-out response. We respect the classic Wesleyan Arminian viewpoint in this area, and we have friends in theological circles who would agree with your viewpoint. Our view (the classic Reformed view) is that God is the one who saves. It is His gift, and there’s nothing we can do to earn our salvation (Eph. 2:8-9). There is consequently nothing we can do to “lose” it. If we can lose our salvation our works, then why can’t we earn it as well? As for the people you mention (Judas, Annanias and Saphira), they had knowledge of God, but had not received God’s salvation gift by faith.
Stan