Israel is God's elect. They are His chosen people. God saves His elect. Those verses did not say that the whole world is saved.
Who is Israel other than the Church? The Jews unfortunately rejected the New Covenant, so unless one leaves Judaism and ceases to be a Jew and instead is Baptized a Christian and grafted into Christianity, then they are not a member of Israel.
And thinking about it, I don't think to say all are saved is selfless at all. I think it's selfish. What's selfless is when a man or woman of God lays down their life for the sake of their King Jesus and declares that they will serve Him and preach His truth no matter what the cost. It's selfless when a Christian sacrifices themselves in prayer, fasting, and patient discipling for the sake of bringing the person to salvation.
I disagree. Unfortunately, a lot of people do things not out of love but out of fear. A great deal of Christian traditions unfortunately have the idea that we need to install a fear of hell, the Devil, etc., into out witnessing and evangelism.
There is a huge difference between the Christian who acts out of love of God and the Christian who acts out of fear of God.
Yes. Repentance isn't a work of man, it's a work of the Spirit inside of us at the moment of our belief.
Repentance is to change one's mind; to adopt God's Will as our own will when we have decided not to follow in God's Way. This does require the Holy Spirit, but it also involves our own choice to return to our fallen cross and pick it up again.
God will not force us to do anything we don't want to do. God enables us to do that which He wants us to to. A person need only to accept God's gift and begin their new life in the Way, or, in this case, to return to the Way after stepping off the path.
Man is not saved by his own works. He can not save himself.
In himself and by himself (or herself, of course), no.
However, grace must be cooperated with. We are not mindless automatons but living creatures with a soul and spirit of our own. Yes, that spirit is impaired and our soul broken by our fallen nature, but it is obscured, not totally depraved, for Christ is the hope of all the world. One need only to hear God call and respond.
Repentance is a work of God and at the moment of belief, man is then naturally brought to repentance because he then sees his sin and desires to turn from it.
You just contradicted yourself, thereby agreeing with the rest of us. Notice the bold: "HE (here, the human person in question) then sees his sin and desires to turn from it." That is a personal choice. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, but not forced.
Of course it should be. Repentance at the moment of salvation is but seeds. As we continue to walk in our faith, we become more repentant and more humble before God.
Theosis does make it easier, but only if we continue in it. The moment we slip up, it gets hard again, as we will have taken several steps back.
The grace of God is irresistible. So I agree with you.
Grace is entirely resistible. Otherwise there would never be heresy or apostates.
