Salvation suspended upon humans actions?

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fralo4truth

Puritan Board Freshman
Hi friends,

A couple of years ago the Lord delivered me from an anti-means position in salvation. I was deeply entrenched in an order of people who are adamant in their claim that men are saved apart from any application of gospel truth to their minds. Yea, they may live their entire lives without any understanding of Christ in the mind or in their heart!

Ever since my deliverance for which I'm so indebted to the Lord, it has been my long desire that others would be rescued from their dangerous teachings.

I currently find myself in an exchange with one who adopts the premise that they all maintain: "God has not suspended the salvation of His people upon any human action whatsoever". To them, if it was, then the success of God's purpose would be susceptible to failure.

Here are his words:

"It is my contention that anyone who believes in eternal salvation by the means of the preached Gospel has to admit that he is condemning people to Hell if he is engaged in any other activity at any time during his waking hours. In short, if you believe this, why aren’t you out on some street corner proclaiming the Gospel instead of emailing me? If you only make one convert in a week’s or a month’s efforts, then so what? By your own standard that man would have gone to Hell without your intercession. That is my main problem with Gospel salvation: it puts the eternal destiny of human souls in the hands of frail, mortal, and often lazy men. I don’t buy it."

And here is my attempt at a response. I would really appreciate what you think of it. Did I answer him correctly and completely? What could I have said differently or more accurately?

I understand the objection you state, for I used to ask the very same thing. I believe your question is ultimately "Has God suspended the salvation of his people upon the actions of men?" The answer is yes and no. God has suspended it in the same way that redemption was suspended, for instance, on the decisions of men to put Christ to death. Would you not say that the salvation of God's elect appeared to be 'hanging in the balance', being dependent on whether or not Pilate chose to release Christ or not? Yes it would certainly appear that way, wouldn't it? But the decision that Pilate made was in harmony with God's decree from eternity for him to do so. Pilate did what he wanted to do, but what he wanted to do was in agreement with God's purpose.

The answer to your question lies in the very thing that you profess to be. You claim to be a predestinarian, but yet you are thinking like a conditionalist. My decision
to evangelize on the street corner, take a nap, or write an email, was ordained by God. And whereas it may appear from my perspective to be done my own free will,
it was actually done out of necessity in respect to the decree of God. Martin Luther handles this beautifully in the great work 'The Bondage of The Will' while responding to Erasmus' erroneous claims. I highly recommend it.

You see, the Bible teaches the principle of 'compatabilistic freedom'. That is to say that whatever decision we make in life at any given moment, we can be sure that whatever we do is perfectly compatabile with God's decretive will, although it may be contrary to God's moral will. Thus we find Joseph's brethren deciding to deal with him as they did, and all in complete harmony with God's purpose. Or Adam's choice in the garden being in complete harmony with God's redemptive scheme. Therefore, my decision to write you an email or to go forth and evangelize will always take the way of God's decree of election, and never otherwise. I never have to worry that my efforts are the determining factor as to whether one is added to the book of life or one's name removed. We can go forth in confidence as did Paul that preaching the gospel to the heathen is a means compatible with God' decree of election (Rom. 15:20-21).

If I choose right now to take a rest instead of evangelize, then I may certainly do so. It is one of the great marvels of God's providence that men can sleep and rise, go to work, be at play, and yet God's ultimate purpose still be met. One would think that the inclusion of men (as instruments) wound be a kink in God's plan and expose His eternal purpose to failure. Yet, God is so sovereign that he can accomplish His purpose DESPITE the involvement of instrumentality. So, when viewed correctly,
God is glorified even more in His use of means than He would without. It goes without saying that He could accomplish His purpose if He did it in an extraordinary way. But is He sovereign enough to get it done DESPITE the fact that means are incorporated? Do you see?

That being said, we can never be zealous enough about sharing the gospel. And so we are commanded to preach the gospel to all indiscriminately (Mark 16:15), casting the seed unto all sorts of hearts (Matthew 13). But yet the same Jesus gives approval to rest (Mark 6:31).

Wasn't this the case with Paul? Do we not find him resting from his labors attending to the duties of everyday life, yet express an evangelistic spirit unheard of among my friends today (Rom. 11:14, 15:20)? Certainly God understands that we are timely creatures and have bodily needs which must be attended to. In faith, we can say that God has taken these things "under consideration" in his decree.

One major problem I was once guilty of, and my friends still, is to allow such questions as this be that determines their position in regards to this matter.

'What about the American Indians before 1492?'...
'What of the people who live in China, or those in unevangelized lands?'...
'Why am I now sleeping when I could be on a street corner somewhere?...

And then I discovered the error in such thinking. If we ground our beliefs based on questions such as these then the Bible ceases to be our source of authority. Instead of allowing the sound, unbiased examination of text(s) of scripture be our authority, we instead rely upon reason and observation. And thus when we come to the scripture our minds have already determined in advance that the bible can't possibly teach gospel means. Bringing this preconception to the scripture, we now face the monumental task of interpreting those texts in the Bible which are pivotal in this issue (e.g. Rom. 1:16; Eph. 1:13; 2 Thes. 2:13-14; James 1:18; 1 Cor. 4:15, etc.). We have to come up with an interpretation which violates the analogy of faith and has no biblical or historical warrant.

This is completely backwards to how we, as bible believers, should approach God's word. The first rule is to approach a text in the bible honestly. Only until a sound interpretation has been given based on sound hermeneutics, should we then ponder those questions which are actually of a secondary nature. I would encourage you to look at some of those texts I quoted. Examine the context, look at it honestly, and see what God is there telling you.
 
It is my contention that anyone who believes in eternal salvation by the means of the preached Gospel has to admit that he is condemning people to Hell if he is engaged in any other activity at any time during his waking hours.

Your friend errs here because all men are born condemned. At no point in their life do they become condemned. We are all born in Adam, which means we are all born wicked or fallen. It is then up to the Holy Spirit to quicken man's heart and awaken it to the gospel. Does this change your friends understanding?
 
God has ordinarily tied salvation to the presentation of the salvific Word. The Gospel isn't presented in the Creation i.e. general revelation. We don't deserve to hear the Gospel.

God being omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent can and does sovereignly ordain men's free actions - in fact to the extent God wasn't sovereign our actions wouldn't be free but determined by impersonal and irrational forces.

Men's actions are metaphysically free; of course - outside of Christ - our actions are ethically bound.

Hyper-Calvinists, Arminians, and people like your friend, are not allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture but engaging in a kind of rationalism by limiting what the Bible says to what they - according to their rationalism - believe to be possible or impossible.
 
Hyper-Calvinists, Arminians, and people like your friend, are not allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture but engaging in a kind of rationalism by limiting what the Bible says to what they - according to their rationalism - believe to be possible or impossible.

You nailed it Richard! They are masters of eisegesis.
 
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