Notice: no bit. If they are willing, a bit isn't needed. I don't think God wants us with bits in our mouths...and spurs on His heels! And this is the horse who spent the summer of 2008 on a ranch in Colorado, and arrived here with holes in his sides where the spurs had cut his flesh to raw meat!
Friends, not servants. And God wants sons, not friends...
Notice: no bit. If they are willing, a bit isn't needed. I don't think God wants us with bits in our mouths...and spurs on His heels!
I agree with you. The Gospels agree with you. The Calvinists depend mostly upon a strange brew of OT and snippets of unrelated Paul. The Gospel proofs of the WCF are few and mostly relegated to unrelated secondary commentaries. If we were predestined to salvation or to hell, the Bible would be unnecessary. Jesus would be unnecessary. The only thing required would be the Holy Spirit leopard dropping down on unsuspecting individuals and making robot slaves of them.
Therefore the Gospel of Matthew, all by itself, not to mention major portions of the other three, puts the theory of predestination to hell to be wrong. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus wants us willingly to participate in our salvation that is offered by Him. The whole bit about Judgement is on our deeds. As you have done to the least of my brothers...
The plain fact is they won't be your slaves unless they are willing to be your slaves. Horse have enough power to resist you. Humans have no such power compared to God (theoretically speaking). More on the earthly level, it would be silly to say that we are "willing companions" of nature; we have no way to resist it. But we can pretend that we are "cooperating."