So the Calvinist drives the narrative so far to the extreme that it no longer resembles the biblical truth it was intended to represent? Just as the progressive evangelical drives the narrative so far from biblical truth that it's power is lost. Crop duster theology just make a commitment and forsake the need for repentance as seen as the new life walking in the Light with Christ.
For the cause of Christ
Roger
You mean these truths?
"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”[Matthew 1:21]
Notice, the angel proclaimed He will save
His ppl from their sins. Why He does not save everyone is because not everyone is His ppl.
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep."[John 10]
Again, the Christ plainly tells us who He, the good Shepherd, was giving His life for. He is a Shepherd of the sheep, not a goat herder.
1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; 8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. 9 I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; 10 and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. 12 While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled."[John 17]
In His High Priestly prayer, we can read that He is praying for those whom the Father had given Him out of the world, and He protected them and they also kept His word. Ppl will say He was praying only for those at that time, but not so! He also prayed
20 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; 21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me."[John 17]
So, this High Priestly prayer was not solely for those who He had been given by the Father at that time, but for al those who had been given to Him by the Father.
And the Hebrews' writer supports this by writing
Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.[Hebrews 7:25]
And with drawing, I have already covered the Greek usage of that word and that it means an effectual drawing, a literal dragging off. Not that He drags us kicking and screaming against our wills, but that when He draws, they are effectually drawn and come to Him.
