Replies

And just to be very clear: the over-arching story of the Bible is quite obviously that salvation is a combined effort.

That is the antithesis of "the story of the Bible."

It is God who first gives eyes to see and ears to hear and a new heart with which to believe. It is God alone who rebirths the fallen sinner and gives him the ability to repent and believe. All men are fallen and none seek His face unless and until God gives that man His Holy Spirit to make him into a new creature who has been covered by the blood of Christ.

Without God's gift of grace through faith which washes our sins by His regeneration and renews our minds in order to believe and be saved, we are all lost.

Read Ephesians 1. It's all there.

"Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee" -- Psalm 65:4

"In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth" -- 2 Timothy 2:25

"And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." -- Acts 13:48

"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." -- Romans 9:16

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" -- Titus 3:5

You're just not stepping back far enough. Yes, all men are responsible for obeying God. But the only men who will be able to please God are those whom God has first given grace through faith to know the truth and believe.

All of God.

No man is restrained from seeking God except by his own fallen nature. But only those who have been born again by God alone will even want to come to Him. And all those who ask, will receive. But they ask by the will and purpose and predestining plan of God which He ordained from before the foundation of the world for His glory.

It's not an open story. It's already finished.

"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" -- Isaiah 46:10