[Mr Rogers]

“Summary. Concerning election and predestination, we might use the analogy of a great ship on its way to heaven. The ship (the church) is chosen by God to be his very own vessel. Christ is the Captain and Pilot of this ship.

All who desire to be a part of this elect ship and its Captain can do so through a living faith in Christ, by which they come on board the ship. As long as they are on the ship, in company with the ship’s Captain, they are among the elect.

If they choose to abandon the ship and Captain, they cease to be part of the elect. Election is always only in union with the Captain and his ship. Predestination tells us about the ship’s destination and what God has prepared for those remaining on it. God invites everyone to come aboard the elect ship through faith in Jesus Christ. [Life in the Spirit Study Bible, pp. 1854-1855]”

http://evangelicalarminians.org/A-Concise-Summary-of-the-Corporate-View-of-Election-and-Predestination/

The Captain of the ship is responsible for taking his passengers safely to the destination promised. He is NOT responsible if someone decides they want to jump overboard. Nor does he chain them to the ship...

[kosciusko51]

To use your analogy, are you saying that God doesn’t know who is going to get in the boat and stay in the boat? And that His Will is secondary to man’s will?

Not to mention how they get in the boat, being dead to their trespasses and sin.

[metmom]

That still doesn’t reconcile what you are claiming to the verses that I posted about the assurance of our salvation and the guarantee of it that the deposit of the Holy Spirit is.

[boatbums]

The problem with that analogy where the "church" is the ship is that BELIEVERS are the church. It is not some monolithic ethereal "thing" that believers climb aboard.

As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men, but chosen and precious in God’s sight, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame." (I Peter 2:4-6)