[[I am not a Universalist, or Arminiean]]
Me either, but I do lean towards election- but it’s not important enough an issue that I will fall on my sword if it turns out, or that I discover that election isn’t true- The Good News is the most important biblical issue to me- and even if election is true, we don’t know who the elect are and who aren’t (But I lean towards the idea that those who are elect WILL be saved no matter what- which means they will be saved even If I fail to preach salvation to them simply because none of Christ’s sheep will be lost- so if I fail to give them the word of salvation, they will someday find it somehow, perhaps just a song they hear passing a church, or a flier that hits home to them or whatever- but this is a whole different lengthy topic with good arguments for both sides of the issue
[[But even those elect were sinners...]]
Yep- but they are sinners who’s hearts God knows will accept Him- whereas the unelect have Hearts He knows will never accept Him therefore He can’t love them
there are good arguments for both sides- and I’ve seen deep well thought out arguments from both camps- but for now I’m a bit more persuaded by the argument that “For God so loved HIS OWN” argument, as apparently the original greek seems to indicate that as do various verses throughout His word, but again, strong arguments can be made for the idea that “God so loved ALL the world” too-
It’s hard to know for certain
[[We do not know who are the tares and who are the wheat,]]
God actually does tell us how to know in many cases and tells us we need to test the spirits so that we will not be duped by those pretending to be Christians but who aren’t.. But when it comes to who ‘might be saved In the future’ you are correct, we can’t in most cases know, however, we CAN know when someone becomes an apostate- and those folks are never given another chance to be saved Because they were ‘almost to the point of salvation’ Yet at the last second they rejected it and turned to the evil one and blasphemed the Holy Spirit in so doing.
Amen !
But those who almost, but never accepted salvation, rejected the Gosple and turned back into Judaism were never ordained to salvation in the first place.
OK, this is turning into a discussion for the religious forms..
The book of Acts says it best: Those who were ordained unto salvation believed.