Mel: Brought up again in your Calvinistic views
Er, Mel, if you are speaking of Five Point Calvinism or where God provides some salvation and deliberately denies or withholds it from all others, meaning he has predestined their decision to REJECT God/they were created INCAPABLE of desiring to know God - that is both unBiblical and I have spoken prolifically on this forum AGAINST such a view.
Mel: ...that we have discussed previously and you know I don't agree with, being that millions of people have been born with Gods foreknowledge that they will perish, based on race and/or location, era ect. God does not handicap anyone. We are all born with the same grace, love and opportunity as the next.
I would just add that ALL are capable of seeking God or of rejecting Him. And that any perceived handicap of time, place and remote distance is NO barrier for God. His only barrier is Self-imposed - that is, He will not force love on anyone determined to resist Him, to avoid Him, to not seek the God that the Creation has made His existence known to ALL. NO matter one's remoteness, they CAN seek God, and He will always respond to those who do!
Mel: I take my salvation with up most humility.
I am not exclusive.
Gods love is not exclusive.
I do not view my 'Christianity' as anything I have earned because God knows I don't deserve it. Every single person I come across despite their background, their religious persuasion, their outward appearance is just as 'unworthy' as me. But God loves us anyway. He see's past what man's eyes can see,. He see's what could be, what can be, He see's our heart, our humility.
Yes, God does love ALL. But while salvation can in no way be earned, God did tell us there is only one way to that - through faith in Christ. And that all who do not seek this will die in their sins, separated from God for an eternity. Because if they wanted to know the path to salvation, they would seek and not attempt to avoid Him, pretend He doesn't exist, settle on a false/man-made construct of who others say He is. Of course, through unfathomable grace and mercy, He HAS revealed Himself to all. But Scripture doesn't teach that mere belief in His existence will save. Nor will unobeyed knowledge of the Gospel.
Mel: God calls us to Him, in His way, in His timeframe, by His will.
The fact that I am called by His grace is a blessing that I take with a love to everyone I come across. Not as a exclusive passage into heaven but as a inclusive compassion and love to all.
SCRIPTURE teaches that there most certainly IS an exclusive path to God - through JESUS!
"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)
Romans 10: “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”[d] that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9
IF you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and
it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”[e] 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses
ALLwho call on him, 13 for, “
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”[f]
So, the above tells the conditions of one's heart, mind and ACTIONS God requires for salvation. But then it makes sense that one would reasonably ask how the above is possible
if one does not have the Gospel to do so. And so, same Romans 10 sequence (below) continues with that answer:
14
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And
how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And
how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written:
“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Mel, again, the above does not mean that the Gospel is out of reach to ANYONE - as IF they so desire to seek and know God, then He WILL reveal Himself, somehow, miraculously, through a missionary - who knows how He might do so. Missionaries can tell you all kinds of amazing, miraculous stories. I would tend to say that those that God does not miraculously reach or doesn't provide the Gospel, it's because God knows it will not profit one who will only further reject this much fuller and crucial revealing of Himself. God's plan is perfectly positioned to save ALL who want to know Him, ALL those Who are willing, ALL those who call upon His Name. And you don't have to know the details about Him to call upon Him - that's very key to understand.
Mel: The light and love of Christ is not exclusive.
No, but it is applied conditionally upon acceptance and love of Him. And so THIS is why the Great Commission is considered so urgent - and so NECESSARY! Were countless missionary lives needlessly sacrificed around the world, when they COULD have merely stayed home because God saves without people hearing the Gospel? One can believe anything they want, but the Gospel teaches that the Gospel must first be heard and accepted before one is saved.
Again, consider the Roman Centurion Cornelius, in Acts 10. Scripture tells us that "he and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly," HOWEVER,
he was not YET saved in the eyes of the Lord. But God honored Cornelius sincere SEEKING and desire to know God, as He sent an angel who told Cornelius, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter." Peter didn't even know a gentile COULD be saved, excepting that God showed him he "should not call anyone impure or unclean." Peter wasn't even totally sure why he was summoned by Cornelius: "May I ask why you sent for me?” Very key,
Cornelius and his household were not YET saved, UNTIL Peter explains about Jesus and how God "commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that
everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” And so, only SUBSEQUENT to hearing and believing Peter's presentation of the Gospel did "the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message."
We have absolutely NO references in the New Testament that anyone can be saved without first hearing and then embracing the Gospel. Period! But our faulty human reasoning deduces that this means God has handicapped people without the Gospel from being able to seek and know Him - which is totally false. But it's also completely unScriptural to believe that God saves without one first hearing and accepting the Gospel. Does He not perhaps reach many with the Gospel message, yet without sending a
human being with it? That would not surprise me a bit! We just get in trouble when we go beyond what Scripture actually teaches - which is what those insisting that people in remote areas without the Gospel are likely to be saved anyway. As, IF that were true, the missionaries could simply stay home.
