Posted on 10/15/2004 1:04:27 AM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Are persons who die in infancy saved? Holy Scriptures do not directly address this subject. But various indirect declarations give us every reason to rest assured that they are indeed saved.
The goodness of God suggests the salvation of those who die in infancy. We read in Job 38:41 that He provides food for newborn ravens when they cry unto Him. Surely He will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of infants and permit them to be cast from His presence! We read in Psalm 145:15f that He provides food for "every living thing," even the most loathsome of creatures. Surely He will provide salvation for those made in His own image who die in infancy!
In various passages, the number of the redeemed in glory is so large as to suggest the salvation of those persons who died in infancy. For example, they are described in Revelation 7:9 as "a great multitude which no man could number." It is thought by many theologians that the number of souls in glory will be greater than that of the souls in the regions of the damned on the grounds that Christ must have the preeminence. This certainly will be true if the number of the redeemed in glory will include all those who died in infancy and childhood, which was a vast part of humanity in former times when a great percentage of children did not live long enough to reach adulthood. This number would also include the untold millions who today are snatched from their mothers' wombs and sacrificed by abortionists.
In Ezekiel 16:21, God called the children sacrificed to heathen gods "My children": "you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire." God's children are received in glory, not consigned to hell.
In Jonah 4:11, we read that God had great pity on the citizens of Nineveh, especially upon its "more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left." Such pity suggests these infants would be received into glory if they died in infancy.
In Mark 10:14, Jesus Christ said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He then admonished adults in the next verse, "Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."
In 2 Samuel 12:23, David expressed his own assurance that his own departed infant was received into heaven, and that he himself would later be forever reunited with him there: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
The great question before us not is not whether persons dying in infancy are saved and received into glory. Holy Scriptures would seem to assure us that they indeed are. Rather, the question before us should be whether the parents and loved ones of those who die in infancy will be reunited with them in glory.
How are persons who die in infancy saved?
Arminians err when they aver that persons dying in infancy are saved because of their supposed innocence. Arminians are driven to this view because of a fatal flaw in their scheme of salvation. Arminians believe that God has done all He can to save sinners, and that the success of His desire and endeavor rests solely upon those sinners exercising their supposed "free will" in making what they call a "decision for Christ." Arminians declare that if sinners do not make such a conscious and deliberate decision to let God save them, God cannot do so.
This Arminian heresy mercilessly shuts the door of salvation to infants who are in every way incapable of their own will to make a "decision for Christ." Arminians admit this fatal flaw to their scheme of salvation, but they are not willing to concede that persons dying in infancy are forever lost and damned. Arminians therefore must devise another scheme by which God saves infants, thereby averring that God saves adults in one way, and infants in another.
This Arminian dilemma is compounded for Campbellites, the disciples of Alexander Campbell (1788-1866). Campbellites are not only Arminian, but also among the most strident proponents of the heresy of baptismal regeneration. They emphatically deny that anyone can be saved apart from baptism. This Campbellite heresy also mercilessly shuts the door of salvation to unbaptized infants — unless another scheme of salvation can be devised for them.
Arminians generally believe the scheme for the salvation for infants involves their innocence and/or the fact that they have not reached the age of accountability – whatever that is!
This Arminian scheme for the salvation of infants contradicts Holy Scriptures in at least two ways. First, it denies that God has but one plan for salvation, and posits instead that He saves adults in one way and infants in another.
Second, this Arminian scheme for the salvation of infants denies the Biblical doctrine of the sinfulness of the whole human race, including infants.
Romans 5:12-19 teaches us that we all, infants included, sinned and died in the fall of Adam, the first man.
Job (14:4) declared the sinfulness of infants when he said, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!"
The psalmist David declared the sinfulness of infants when he, speaking for us all, said in Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me."
And he poignantly declared the sinfulness of infants when he said in Psalm 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies."
Solomon includes infants when he teaches us in Ecclesiastes 7:20 that "there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin."
And Jesus Christ includes infants when He teaches us in John 3:1-7 that "That which is born of the flesh is flesh" and in need of being "born again" by the Holy Spirit if he or she is to see or enter God's kingdom.
Another flaw of the Arminian view is that it in reality denies infant salvation. There is no need of salvation for those who are innocent! "Infant salvation" is a misnomer for Arminians.
Roman Catholics err when they aver that persons dying in infancy are saved if they are baptized. One of the first great heresies to plague the church of Christ was the mistaken belief that salvation is obtained through baptism. Since those who embraced this heresy wished to prevent their children from dying unbaptized, and therefore unsaved, they baptized them as soon as they were born. Scriptures deny both the heresy of baptismal regeneration and of the baptism of infants.
Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church emphatically declares that infants and young children dying unbaptized are forbidden to enter heaven. According to the article "Infants, Unbaptized" in A Catholic Dictionary, "The Church has always taught that unbaptized children are excluded from heaven .... Heaven is a reward in no way due to their human nature as such."
Calvinists rightly teach that persons dying in infancy are saved in the same manner as are saved adults. God has only one plan of salvation. It teaches that sinners are saved by God's free and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ, totally apart from any works of righteousness they perform or any supposed virtue in them. Everyone who is saved — including all persons dying in infancy — is saved through being elected to salvation by God the Father, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and regenerated or born again by the Holy Spirit (as set forth in preceding messages).
Calvinists believe persons dying in infancy are saved in this manner. Contrary to the slanders of Arminians and Romanists, Calvinists do not believe any persons dying in infancy are damned.
One of the most glorious aspects of the Calvinist doctrine of infant salvation is that it magnifies the goodness and grace of God in salvation and in no way contradicts Holy Scriptures. To the contrary, Arminianism denies the need of God's grace for the salvation of infants. And Romanism exalts the work of parents in having their infants baptized, and bars from heaven the departed infants of those parents who did not do so.
We Calvinists alone can rightly assure the parents and friends of departed infants that they are saved and received into glory.
But we also exhort these same parents and friends to trust in Jesus Christ for their own salvation. None but such persons can say with assurance the words of David regarding his own departed infant, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
Most Calvinists whole-heartedly affirm that all persons dying in infancy are saved, even though they acknowledge the Bible has no definitive doctrine on this subject. Some Calvinists will go only so far as to acknowledge that the Bible definitely teaches that at least some persons dying in infancy are saved. But no representative Calvinist theologian declares that any person dying in infancy is damned. (See the preceding message, #171.)
Arminians nevertheless deliberately misrepresent Calvinists as believing persons dying in infancy are damned. Let the following quotations from some of the most renown Calvinists suffice to show that the Arminian accusation is false.
John Calvin, the sixteenth-century Reformer for whom Calvinism is named, asserted, "I do not doubt that the infants whom the Lord gathers together from this life are regenerated by a secret operation of the Holy Ghost." And "he speaks of the exemption of infants from the grace of salvation 'as an idea not free from execrable blasphemy'" (cited by Augustus Strong in Systematic Theology). He furthermore declared that "to say that the countless mortals taken from life while yet infants are precipitated from their mothers' arms into eternal death is a blasphemy to be universally detested" (quoted in Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Oct. 1890: pp.634-51).
Charles Hodge was a 19th-century professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, which was in those days a foremost American bastion of Calvinism. He wrote: "All who die in infancy are saved. This is inferred from what the Bible teaches of the analogy between Adam and Christ. 'As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.' (Rom. v.18,19.) We have no right to put any limit on these general terms, except what the Bible itself places upon them. The Scriptures nowhere exclude any class of infants, baptized or unbaptized, born in Christian or in heathen lands, of believing or unbelieving parents, from the benefits of the redemption of Christ. All the descendants of Adam, except Christ, are under condemnation; all the descendants of Adam, except those of whom it is expressly revealed that they cannot inherit the kingdom of God, are saved. This appears to be the clear meaning of the Apostle, and therefore he does not hesitate to say that where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded, that the benefits of redemption far exceed the evils of the fall; that the number of the saved far exceeds the number of the lost" (Systematic Theology, vol.I, p.26)
John Newton, author of the favorite hymn "Amazing Grace," became a Calvinistic Anglican minister in 1764, serving the English parishes in Olney, Buckinghamshire, and London. In a letter to a friend he wrote, "Nor can I doubt, in my private judgment, that [infants] are included in the election of grace. Perhaps those who die in infancy, are the exceeding great multitude of all people, nations, and languages mentioned, Revelations, vii.9, in distinction from the visible body of professing believers, who were marked in the foreheads, and openly known to be the Lord's" (The Works of John Newton, vol.VI, p.182)
Alvah Hovey was a 19th-century American Baptist who served many years in Newton Theological Institution, and edited The American Commentary. He wrote in one of his books: "Though the sacred writers say nothing in respect to the future condition of those who die in infancy, one can scarcely err in deriving from this silence a favorable conclusion. That no prophet or apostle, that no devout father or mother, should have expressed any solicitude as to those who die before they are able to discern good from evil is surprising, unless such solicitude was prevented by the Spirit of God. There are no instances of prayer for children taken away in infancy. The Savior nowhere teaches that they are in danger of being lost. We therefore heartily and confidently believe that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by His Spirit, so that when they enter the unseen world they will be found with the saints" (Biblical Eschatology, pp.170f).
Lorraine Boettner was a 20th-Century Presbyterian who taught Bible for eight years in Pikeville College, Kentucky. In his book The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination he wrote at some length in defense of the Calvinist doctrine of infant salvation. We here quote from his remarks: "Calvinists, of course, hold that the doctrine of original sin applies to infants as well as to adults. Like all other sons of Adam, infants are truly culpable because of race sin and might be justly punished for it. Their 'salvation' is real. It is possible only through the grace of Christ and is as truly unmerited as is that of adults. Instead of minimizing the demerit and punishment due to them for original sin, Calvinism magnifies the mercy of God in their salvation. Their salvation means something, for it is the deliverance of guilty souls from eternal woe. And it is costly, for it was paid for by the suffering of Christ on the cross. Those who take the other view of original sin, namely, that it is not properly sin and does not deserve eternal punishment, make the evil from which infants are 'saved' to be very small, and consequently the love and gratitude which they owe to God to be small also.
"... Calvinism ... extends saving grace far beyond the boundaries of the visible church. If it is true that all of those who die in infancy, in heathen as well as in Christian lands, are saved, then more than half of the human race up to the present time has been among the elect."
B.B. Warfield, born in Kentucky in 1851, was along with Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck one of the three most outstanding Reformed theologians in his day. He wrote concerning those who die in infancy: "Their destiny is determined irrespective of their choice, by an unconditional decree of God, suspended for its execution on no act of their own; and their salvation is wrought by an unconditional application of the grace of Christ to their souls, through the immediate and irresistible operation of the Holy Spirit prior to and apart from any action of their own proper wills... And if death in infancy does depend on God's providence, it is assuredly God in His providence who selects this vast multitude to be made participants of His unconditional salvation.... This is but to say that they are unconditionally predestinated to salvation from the foundation of the world" (quoted in Boettner's book).
Charles Haddon Spurgeon is perhaps the most-widely recognized name among Calvinists next to John Calvin. He served many years in the 19th-century as pastor in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England. He preached on September 29, 1861, a message entitled "Infant Salvation" (#411 in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit). In this message, Mr. Spurgeon not only convincingly proved from Holy Scriptures the belief of Calvinists that all persons dying in infancy are saved, but also soundly rebuked those Arminians and others who wrongly accuse us otherwise:
"It has been wickedly, lyingly, and slanderously said of Calvinists, that we believe that some little children perish. Those who make the accusation know that their charge is false. I cannot even dare to hope, though I would wish to do so, that they ignorantly misrepresent us. They wickedly repeat what has been denied a thousand times, what they know is not true.... I know of no exception, but we all hope and believe that all persons dying in infancy are elect. Dr. Gill, who has been looked upon in late times as being a very standard of Calvinism, not to say of ultra-Calvinism, himself never hints for a moment the supposition that any infant has perished, but affirms of it that it is a dark and mysterious subject, but that it is his belief, and he thinks he has Scripture to warrant it, that they who have fallen asleep in infancy have not perished, but have been numbered with the chosen of God, and so have entered into eternal rest. We have never taught the contrary, and when the charge is brought, I repudiate it and say, 'You may have said so, we never did, and you know we never did. If you dare to repeat the slander again, let the lie stand in scarlet on your very cheek if you be capable of a blush.' We have never dreamed of such a thing. With very few and rare exceptions, so rare that I never heard of them except from the lips of slanderers, we have never imagined that infants dying as infants have perished, but we have believed that they enter into the paradise of God."
Whom will you believe: Calvinists speaking for themselves? or Arminians deliberately misrepresenting them?
If not, would that mean that everyone who actually and sincerely does pray to be regenerated already has been regenerated?
No. That would be God-pleasing, and the Scriptrues state that while a Man is Unregenerate, he never does that which is God-pleasing.
If not, would that mean that everyone who actually and sincerely does pray to be regenerated already has been regenerated?
Yes. (Incidentally, there's no real problem with a Regenerate Believer asking for "more regeneration" -- Christ is our Life [Col. 3:4], and every Christian should pray for more of the Life of Christ in their hearts).
OP: Yes.
So if someone goes forward at a Billy Graham Crusade and really wants to have his sins forgiven and really wants to please God and really wants to walk with Jesus, really wants to be born again and sincerely prays for salvation, then you would have to conclude that he is, in fact, already regenerated, as no one could possibly do those things unless they were regenerated?
The best gifts are free!
Yes.
If a man's heart truly inclines towards God, it is because God in His regeneration has caused the man's heart to incline towards God.
The unregenerate heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and some will self-deceivingly seek "fire insurance" from a verbal "profession of faith" without genuine, regenerate, God-created True Faith in their hearts. (This is not only true of Billy Graham crusades, of course, and is not meant to single him out; False "professors of faith" are common to Churches and Evangelistic crusades of all sorts).
How does one "yield" if not by his own will? What your references say is true, but they do not provide proof that man, once aware of God, does not choose thereafter to serve God or to turn away from Him. Free will is not a choice between God and evil, because when God created free will for angels and man, he did not create evil as a choice opposite of God. You either choose Light or darkness. Life or death. We are either slaves or we are not. There is no other possibility. We are slaves to sin, not to God. God frees us from slavery and only if we choose to follow God's path can we remain free. Sin gives us no choice. God does.
Calvinists do not say that Man does not have Free Will, nor that Believers do not yield to God by their own Free Will.
Calvinists acknowledge that Man does have Free Will, and do agree that Believers do Freely Will to co-operate with God in their Sanctification (in this much, and to this extent, we can sometimes agree with Eastern Orthodox concepts of "Synergy" and "Theosis" in the Christian Life).
For Calvinists, Fallen Man's problem is not really in his "Free Will", but rather in his depraved, dead, God-hating unregenerate spirit. (His problem in in his innermost "heart", not so much in his "arms" by which he prosecutes actions, to use a Physical analogy). While a Fallen Man's spirit remains unregenerate -- depraved, dead, and God-hating -- he freely wills to Reject God. ONCE the Holy Spirit has Regenerated that Man's dead, depraved spirit unto spiritual life, he then freely wills to co-operate with God in his Sanctification unto Glorification.
Well, he's dead now (RIP), so we'll never know.
And I make no comment as to any scurrilous rumors that he had begun growing a long beard and crossing himself right-to-left prior to his passing. ;-)
So, where do we not agree then?
"For Calvinists, Fallen Man's problem is not really in his "Free Will", but rather in his depraved, dead, God-hating unregenerate spirit."
And herein lies a very major difference between Orthodoxy and Calvinism. Am I correct in my assumption that this perception stems from Calvin's interpretation of +Augustine?
"So, where do we not agree then?"
Well, for starters, right here: "For Calvinists, Fallen Man's problem is not really in his "Free Will", but rather in his depraved, dead, God-hating unregenerate spirit."
Their belief in the "depraved, dead, God-hating unregenerate spirit" that came out of Paradise is Augustinian, which is why the Orthodox Church rejected his "Original Sin" theory when it reached the eastern Christianity (about a millennium after he died).
Orthodox view of the man's fall from God is very much in tune with the Old Testament interpretation of Genesis in Judaism. As far as Judaism is concerned, the fall was good, allowing mankind to mature.
It does make a difference in how you interpret the gospel and how you understand the nature of God. If we are to be holy and blameless before God, we better know what we’re doing and can give a good defense. Ignorance is no excuse.
Job 42:7 It came about after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.
Job’s friends thought they had their theology all in place and their theology was very flattering to God. But their poor doctrine did not correctly speak of God. God wants correctness, not nice words. For differences in the two views I would refer you to the following article:
Thank you for including me in your ping. Please continue to do so if you would.
You have clarified some confusing passages for us all. I agree that the point of a person's regeneration is inconsequential, mainly because we have a God who inhabits eternity. Speaking in practical, experiential terms, regeneration seems to come after receiving the gift of Salvation.
God Bless
Regeneration is the gift of Salvation.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" -- Ephesians 2:8.
God's Grace saves. Faith is the evidence of election, not the cause of it.
Dr. E point is well taken. Look at what you've just said. You're saying you have "regeneration" AFTER receiving the "gift of salvation". What is the "gift of salvation" if not regeneration.
Under your plan, (said in the drone of Algore) you have a God that throws so hard and precise it lodges the ball in the receivers face mask. Then He yells, "I am that good, Yeah!!! Oh, Adam, yeah I made him drop the ball. Then I made him and his little lady take laps for the rest of their lives. Hush up, you're just lucky to be picked to be on the team."
Which view gives God the Glory?
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Synergism
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Monergism
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Cause of Regeneration
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| Faith is the cause of regeneration | Regeneration is the cause of faith. |
| Faith and affections for God are produced by the old nature. | Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature. It is the immediate and inevitable product of the new nature. |
| God and Man work together to produce the new birth. God's grace takes us part of the way to salvation, man's unregenerate will must determine the final outcome. | God, the Holy Spirit, alone produces regeneration with no contribution from the sinner. (A work of God) |
| God is eagerly awaiting the sinner's will. | God effectually enables the sinner's will. |
| The persons of the Trinity have conflicting goals in accomplishing and applying salvation: The Father elects a particular people; The Son dies for a general people and the Holy Spirit applies the atonement conditionally on those who exercize their autonomous free will. | The persons of the Trinity work in harmony - The Father elects a particular people, Christ dies for those the Father has given Him and the Holy Spirit likewise applies the benefits of the atonement to the same. |
| Restoration of spiritual faculties comes after the sinner exercizes faith with his natural (innate) capacities. Has the ability to see spiritual truth even before healed. (see 1 Cor 2:14). Has spiritual capacity to receive the truth, prior God's granting any spiritual ability. | "Light" itself is not enough for a blind man to see, his vision must first be restored. (John 3:3,6). Needs spiritual ability to receive truth prior to receiving it. |
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View of Humanity
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| The fallen sinner has the ability and potential inclination to believe even prior to the new birth | The fallen sinner has no ability or inclination to believe prior to the new birth. |
| There is enough good left in fallen man to turn his affections toward Christ. | Fallen Man has a mind at enmity with God; loves darkness, hates the light and does not have the Holy Spirit. "There is no one who seeks God" (Rom 3:11); Sinner would never turn to God without divine enablement and new affections. |
| Sinner needs help, is spiritually handicapped. | Spiritually dead sinner needs new nature (mind, heart, will), regeneration. |
| Natural man is sick and disabled like a drowning man so God would be unfeeling if He didn't help by casting a rope. | Natural man is spiritually impotent and morally culpable for both original sin and actual sins committed. Our inability is not like a physical handicap or a drowning man for which we would not be culpable but, rather, it is like a man who cannot repay a squandered financial debt. Inability to repay, therefore, does not relieve us of the moral responsibility to do so. |
| Needs salvation from the consequences of sin - unhappiness, hell, psychological pain | Needs salvation to remove the offense we've made against a holy God and from the power and bondage of sin. |
| The natural man is sovereign over his choice to accept or reject Christ - God conditionally responds to our decision. | The natural man can contribute nothing towards his salvation. Faith is a response rendered certain following the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit. We respond to God's unconditional decision. (Acts 13:48) |
| Some fallen men either created a right thought, generated a right affection, or originated a right volition that led to their salvation while some other fallen men did not have the natural wherewithal to come up with the faith that God required of them to obtain salvation. Therefore salvation is dependent on some virtue or capacity God sees in certain men. | No Fallen man will create a right thought, generate a right affection, or originate a right volition that will lead to his salvation. We would never believe unless the Holy Spirit came in and disarmed our hostility to God. Therefore salvation is dependent on God's good pleasure alone (Eph 1:4, 5, 11), not something He sees in us. |
| Man's nature & affections do not determine or give rise to his choices. He can still make a saving decision prior to the new birth while still in his unregenerate state. In this scheme God gives enough grace to place man in a neutral position which can swing either for or against Jesus. (An act of chance?) | Man's nature determines his desires/affections and give rise to the choices he makes. "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit." Luke 6:43 Only Christ can "make a tree good and its fruit will be good." (Also see John 8:34, 42-44; 2 Pet. 2:19). |
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View of the Gospel
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| The Gospel is an invitation | The Gospel is not merely an invitation but a command (1 John 3:23) |
| Christ died for all our sins except unbelief | Christ died for all our sins including unbelief |
| Sinners have the key in their hands. Man's will determines whether or not Christ's death is efficacious. | God has the key in his hand. God's eternal counsel determines to whom the benefits of the atonement apply. |
| It would be unjust of God to not give everyone an equal chance. | If God exercized His justice then none of us would stand since each of us has rebelled against an infinitely holy God. He owes us nothing and is under no obligation to save any person. Regeneration is, therefore, an act of pure, undeserved mercy because the justice we deserved, He poured out on His Son (thereby turning His wrath away from us). |
| After God makes one's heart of stone into a heart of flesh the Holy Spirit's call to salvation can still be resisted. | After God makes one's heart of stone into a heart of flesh, no person wants to resist. By definition our desires, inclinations and affections have changed so we willingly and joyfully turn in faith toward Christ. |
| Salvation is given to fallen sinners (unregenerate) who choose and desire Christ of their free will. | Apart from grace, there is no fallen sinner (unregenerate) who fits that description. A desire for God is not part of the old nature. |
| The grace of God is conferred as a result of human prayer | It is grace itself which makes us pray to God (Rom 10:20; Isa. 65:1) |
| God has mercy upon us when we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, apart from his regenerative grace. | To desire and seek God prior to the new birth is an impossible supposition. (Rom 3:11; 1 Cor 2:14) It is the infusion and quickening of the Holy Spirit within us that we even have the faith or the strength to will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock and believe in the finished work of Christ. |
| Commands to repent and believe the gospel imply the ability of the sinner to do so. | The Command toward sinners to repent and believe does not imply ability. Divine intent is to reveal our moral impotence apart from grace (Rom 3:20, 5:20, Gal 3:19,24). The Law was not designed to confer any power but to strip us of our own. |
| God helps those who help themselves. | God only helps those who cannot help themselves. (John 9:41) |
| Unregenerate man contributes his little bit. | Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy Cross I cling. |
| Repentance is considered a work of man. | Repentance is a gift of God. (2 Tim 2:25) |
| One of the greatest gifts God gives humans is to never interfere with their free will. | The greatest judgment which God can inflict upon a man is to leave him in the hands of his own free-will. If salvation were left in the hands of the unregenerate sinners, we would indeed despair of all hope that anyone would be saved. It is an act of mercy, therefore, that God awakens the dead in sin to life since those without the Spirit cannot understand the things of God at all. (1 Cor 2:14) |
| With Man's will salvation is possible. |
With man's will salvation is impossible but with God all things are possible. (Matt 19:26; Rom 9:16; John 6:64,65) "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." John 3:6 |
Man was created to glorify God. True, Biblical soteriology will always glorify God, and God alone.
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