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How do you explain the free will offers? Are they real or only apparent? Is God deceiving us, with words like 'all' and 'whosoever'? I think that you make both too little and too much of the TULIP. Most people on both sides of the issue do. Christ is our Saviour, our perfect Sacrifice, our High Priest, our King and our Judge. You and I can both be content in that. My opinion is that your rejection of the TULIP leaves you poorer and more exposed to our ancient Enemy. I think you may experience discouragement because of your easy-believerism. I think you may not enjoy the full devotional fruits of the scripture. But I am content to leave that in the Lord's hands if I can't persuade you. I actually believe these doctrines are fully comprehended only in a spiritual sense, not intellectually. But, whatever you believe about the TULIP, if you are His, you will Persevere. And I know that you will and accept that. If Arminius himself, the great opponent of the TULIP, was Elect, God did save him (and then corrected his error in heaven). And if you are not His, God never granted me the power to help you. And in any event, His plan is good and His plan is just. I don't question it. Nor would I take any joy in assaulting your personal faith, not knowing how I might carelessly do you an injury for which I might one day have to answer.

My ambition is not to emulate the example of FR's other Calvinists, a position most notable for its harshness and condemnation, its gnostic claims on scripture's secret and multiple meanings, strange claims of irony in the Word of God and certain novel and unorthodox readings which build a Tower of Babel upon certain short and simple verses. My passion is far stronger toward the classic spirituality I find in Calvin and in Spurgeon and in Whitefield (Darby, Henry, Owen, etc.). I find in them both the full teachings of the doctrines of grace and the simple and sweet invitation to Christ, an encouragement and exhortation to the faith, to true repentance, to God's forgiveness of my frailties and weaknesses toward sin. I hope you don't judge Calvinism solely by what you read on these message threads. There are some extremely poor examples here that masquerade as exemplars of the faith and of Calvinism. As we know from scripture, Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world but it's just as clear that some of the local Calvinists obviously did. It's apparently their special calling from God. In short, their condemnation is their Christian love. I'm glad that I'm not called to such service. What a heavy burden it must be to hide anonymously on a right wing message board and discern and broadcast the extent of others' damnation, a neverending task apparently. One wonders how they bear the strain of it.

How do you explain the free will offers? Are they real or only apparent? Is God deceiving us, with words like 'all' and 'whosoever'?

The offer is sincere inasmuch as Christ's Atonement is sufficient for all and inasmuch as man's wicked refusal to repent for real and believe for real is man's own fault.

On the other hand, it is patently obvious that the free offer is made to people who are wickedly contemptuous of God and Truth in ways that are very deceptive, even profoundly self-deceptive (Jeremiah 17:9). As it turns out, the entire race is in this mess. So, God has to regenerate people in order to have any proper respondents.

It's a very strange set-up from our point of view. But it does establish a sincere free offer made by an angry Creator who is determined to save a remnant of the wicked race and renew/re-create His beloved kosmos with them to populate it. And the entire set-up is fully predestinarian.

So, your objections mean nothing. You'd better go back and read #14.