Normally, I start at the beginning of another's post, but in this case, I'll begin at the end. While I appreciate your words and the call to rejoice, I am not aware of any place in the Scriptures that says that Christ died ONLY for a very specific group of sinners. As a matter of fact, the Scriptures clearly tell us that Jesus died for the sin of the world. For ALL men. Everyone. No exceptions. God loves all and wants them to be saved. Thus, the act of salvation is made AVAILABLE to ALL men. Everyone. Without exception.
This is where your theology falters (on this subject). You make an artificial wall when Jesus came to tear it down. Paul says that there is NO distinction between Jew or Gentile - and Christ came to destroy the wall raised by the Law and those Judaizers who kept Gentiles out. You intend on rebuilding that wall by restricting God's catholic and universal salvation plan to only a select few. Your theology is a return to Judaizers.
You note Romans 5:17-18. I agree that Christ's atoning work was perfect, complete and irreversible. Unfortunately, your idea of justification is incorrect. You think that once justified, the individual cannot lose this justification. To accomplish this, you place the ENTIRE issue on God ALONE. This does not solve the problem, however - HOW IS JUSTIFICATION APPLIED TO THE INDIVDIUAL?
How can you make God TOTALLY responsible for justification, if it can ONLY be applied when the individual has met the conditions of making faith an instrument worthy of receiving divine justification?
In other places, the Reformed mind will claim that a person who sins without repentance, falls from faith, or does not provide saving works, was "never justified to begin with". Ironically, all this does is preserve the idea of "irreversible justification" but not the individual's salvation.
Thus, the whole concept collapses. An individual's salvation is NOT secured irreversibly. Salvation is dependent upon man's response to and by God's graces. Jesus CONSISTENTLY makes our salvation contingent upon our obedience to God. He makes end-time judgment that determines one's eternal destiny - which forces the Protestant concept of "one-time justification" in the past an acute contradiction to the words of Jesus Himself.
For example: "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Mat 12:37
Paul says the same thing...
For not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Rom 2:13
Clearly, Scriptures have a different idea of final justification then the "reformers" have. As such, I will rejoice, but I will not presume to know the mind of God and His future judgment of me.
Regards
Then the god you speak of is duplicitous because he does not give all men the same amount of grace to believe, and he is weak because he does not get what he wants -- the salvation of all men which we know does not occur.
If God wanted all men to be saved, all men would be saved.
You intend on rebuilding that wall by restricting God's catholic and universal salvation plan to only a select few. Your theology is a return to Judaizers.
Salvation plan? Here's where we differ. You believe "God's plan" is merely a suggestion; a nudge in the right direction. Not even a blue-print but merely a how-to list of suggestions.
The Reformed know that "God's plan" was established from before the foundation of the world and every jot and tittle of it will be accomplished as He has ordained.
"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
the act of salvation is made AVAILABLE to ALL men. Everyone. Without exception.
Sufficent for all the world; efficient for only the elect.
We do here announce, declare, and proclaim that this assumption is false. It is unbiblical. It commits one to a teaching that deviates from the gospel, fundamentally. The word, world, in John 3:16 does not mean 'all men without exception.' ""The one who thus appeals to John 3:16 intends to assert that God loves all men without exception and that God desires to save all men without exception. The basic assumption underlying this appeal to John 3:16, as an argument against election, is that the word, world, in John 3:16 means 'all men without exception.
Unfortunately, your idea of justification is incorrect. You think that once justified, the individual cannot lose this justification.
How does a man become "unacquitted?" It is impossible to condemn a man once he has been pardoned of the sin.
To accomplish this, you place the ENTIRE issue on God ALONE.
Yes! Praise God. All of it! It is God alone who justifies the sinner.
"Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth."-- Romans 8:33
How can you make God TOTALLY responsible for justification, if it can ONLY be applied when the individual has met the conditions of making faith an instrument worthy of receiving divine justification?
An excellent question. And the answer is because it is God who gives faith. Faith is the instrument God uses with which to channel His grace to His children. "Saved by grace through faith."
"Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?" -- Job 38:36
As the link above continues...
"The love treated of in John 3:16. .. cannot be universal towards all and every one, but special towards a few... because the end of that love which God intends is the salvation of those whom He pursues with such love.. . If therefore God sent Christ for that end, that through Him the world might be saved, He must either have failed of His end, or the world must necessarily be saved in fact. But it is certain that not the whole world, but only those chosen out of the world are saved; therefore, to them properly has this love reference... Why then should not the world here be taken not universally for individuals, but indefinitely for anyone, Jews as well as Gentiles, without distinction of nation, language and condition. that He may be said to have loved the human race, inasmuch as He was unwilling to destroy it entirely but decreed to save some certain persons Out of it, not only from one people as before, but from all indiscriminately, although the effects of that love should not be extended to each individual, but only to some certain ones, viz, those chosen out of the world? (Theological Institutes)"This was the explanation given by Frances Turretin, Reformed theologian in Geneva (1623-1687):
And this from Arthur Pink...
"Turning now to John 3:16, it should be evident from the passages just quoted that this verse will not bear the construction usually put upon it. "God so loved the world." Many suppose that this means, The entire human race. But "the entire human race" includes all mankind from Adam till the close of earth's history: it reaches backward as well as forward! Consider, then, the history of mankind before Christ was born. Unnumbered millions lived and died before the Savior came to the earth, lived here "having no hope and without God in the world," and therefore passed out into eternity of woe. If God "loved" them, where is the slightest proof thereof? Scripture declares "Who (God) in times past (from the tower of Babel till after Pentecost) suffered all nations to walk in their own ways" (Acts 14:16). Scripture declares that "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient" (Rom. 1:28). To Israel God said, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth" (Amos 3:2). In view of these plain passages who will be so foolish as to insist that God in the past loved all mankind! The same applies with equal force to the future . . . But the objector comes back to John 3:16 and says, "World means world. "True, but we have shown that "the world" does not mean the whole human family. The fact is that "the world" is used in a general way.. . Now the first thing to note in connection with John 3:16 is that our Lord was there speaking to Nicodemus, a man who believed that God's mercies were confined to his own nation. Christ there announced that God's love in giving His Son had a larger object in view, that it flowed beyond the boundary of Palestine, reaching out to "regions beyond." In other words, this was Christ's announcement that God had a purpose of grace toward Gentiles as well as Jews. "God so loved the world," then, signifies, God's love is international in its scope. But does this mean that God loves every individual among the Gentiles? Not necessarily, for as we have seen the term "world" is general rather than specific, relative rather than absolute. . . the "world" in John 3:16 must, in the final analysis refer to the world of God's people. Must we say, for there is no other alternative solution. It cannot mean the whole human race, for one half of the race was already in hell when Christ came to earth. It is unfair to insist that it means every human being now living, for every other passage in the New Testament where God's love is mentioned limits it to His own people — search and see! The objects of God's love in John 3:16 are precisely the same as the objects of Christ's love in John 13:1: "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His time was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." We may admit that our interpretation of John 3:16 is no novel one invented by us, but one almost uniformly given by the Reformers and Puritans, and many others since them." (The Sovereignty of God)
In other places, the Reformed mind will claim that a person who sins without repentance, falls from faith, or does not provide saving works, was "never justified to begin with".
No, that is a consistent statement by all Reformers. No one can "unjustify" what Christ has justified. If Christ died on the cross to pay for a man's sins, his debt to God has been paid in full for all eternity. Hebrews 10.
Salvation is dependent upon man's response to and by God's graces.
If that were true, the rest of Scripture would be a lie. Salvation is by grace alone and not through men's efforts in the slightest.
Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." -- Titus 3:5-7"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;
"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Mat 12:37
And what "words" are those?
The words of salvation are "By His stripes we have been healed."
And the words of the foolish are "I did it myself."