Lesson 76: Universalism or Election
One pastor’s understanding — God has made salvation available to everyone. “For by grace you have been saved by faith, and not of yourselves, it is a free gift of God not a result of works, that no one may boast”. Abraham was justified by faith in God’s promises; because he believed, it was credited to him as righteousness and not a result of any works he did. Faith is given by the Holy Spirit, which is made available to all people. People, as a matter of the free will God gave them, can accept or resist the Holy Spirit. Steven, before he was stoned, said to the Jews that they were resisting the Holy Spirit as their fathers had done. The Calvinist doctrine claims that God elects only certain people. In the Gospels Jesus says some people He will turn away because they didn’t give Him food or drink, or visit Him in the hospital, etc.; “Whatever you have failed to do for the least of mine, you have failed to do for me.”
It is clear that turning away from helping someone when we have the means is sin. God has the ability to give each of us what we need, the Holy Spirit, which will lead us to faith. To deny anyone this is sin, which God cannot do. If one had the means to take in all the kids in an orphanage but only took in one or two, this would be like God giving the Spirit to only a few, which would be sin. But He makes the Spirit available to all. Calvinists will say that man is too depraved to come to God on his own; he needs to be called (elected), because he is dead. Many people are dead as far as resisting the Spirit, yet obey God’s commands and do more good than many Christians. God says “Those not hearing the law obey my commands because I have written my law on their hearts”. On the other hand, the Christian is supposed to be dead to sin yet still sins. The point is, that no one is so dead as to not be capable of having the faith to believe; accepting or rejecting the Spirit is a matter of choice.
Calvinists will say that unless God gives us the ability to believe then it is a work on our part. As shown by Abraham, believing is not a work. God says those He foreknew he elected. This means He knew who would come to Him. To make our salvation sure we need to struggle with sin and not allow it to characterize our lives. We cannot lose our salvation as long as we are not allowing sin to rule us and render our faith not genuine. Christ will reward each of us according to how well we have done with what He has given us. If we die while committing a sin, we won’t lose our salvation so long as we have held firm to believing in Christ and trying to conquer our sins and repent. To do this and to find joy in God, we need to constantly pray, read the Bible and go to church. It is not God’s will that any should perish. Read Romans and Galatians.