Since you dragged my here kicking and sreaming, I'll give a quick reply. (c;
I glanced at this thread a while ago, but have not read through it completely, because I kind of suspected where it was headed.
My view of such matters is to remain in the center of Biblical tension. I have been accused of being a liberal interpreter of the Word for such a posture, but this is actually very far from the truth.
The Bible teaches both the free will of man and the fact of God choosing His elect. With that in mind, I need to simply accept His Word as the end of the matter. However, there have always been men who desire to hold on to one side while dismissing the other side.
The Soveriegn God is outside our time and space, for He created our time and space, yet we too often try to place Him inside this time and space in trying to understand Him. The lessons of Job and the rebuke he heard in the closing chapters of his story reminds us that we will never know all the ways of the LORD, for they are indeed unsearchable. So let us not personify the Soveriegn and limit His abilities through our rather tiny understanding of Him.
Is it possible that man has the personal responsibility to choose God for salvation and at the same time also possible that only God chooses those who will be saved?
Yes indeed...for the Bible tells us so.
Most importantly, God loves the whole world and desires that none should perish. To proclaim anything less is to make God out to be something other than a loving and just God, full of mercy and grace.
Jesus died for the whole world, to reconcile all of the creation to the Father.
Want to know if you are one of those whom God has chosen to be saved?
Turn your heart and your life over to Jesus, with full trust in His promises. Believe in and follow Him and you shall be saved.
...and then will know that God chose you from the foundation of the creation of the world!
(c:
an excellent resource for further reading on this perspective