GraceSeeker
Senior Member
I just don't think that a discussion of predestination helps MystyRock with the question she has asked us here. Though it certainly can be one of those things that points to some of the differences between some Baptist theology and Methodist theology. I have to say "some", because many Baptists are "free-will" Baptists and would disagree with what you have written:
And the genuine good news is that God elected to save all. Christ's death on the cross was a gift to the whole world. Further, being aware more than even we are ourselves how depraved humanity is and the immenseness of the gulf that sin caused separating us from God, God not only acted in Christ Jesus to bridge the gap and reconcile us to himself, but he also acted in the Holy Spirit to awaken us to the need for his grace in our lives. It is true that we are so depraved, that apart from God's gift of grace we can't even ask for or receive the gift of salvation offered to every person in Jesus Christ. It is for this very reason that God extends grace even to those who do not know him, awakening our conscience to his presence through the Holy Spirit. We don't say "YES" to Jesus in our own power, but through the enablement of the Holy Spirit. The presence of God's Spirit to make this possible we Methodists term "prevenient grace" -- that is it is a grace that comes before (pre = before, veni = to come) salvation and draws us into an awareness of God and his holiness despite our utter sinfulness. Using the pictures of scripture, though we have been cast out of the garden where God once walked with us, we should not think that we have been completely rejected and abandoned left to ourselves, only to be individually pluck out of some deep pit to be redeemed. No, Jesus comes as Emmanuel, the incarnation of God with us, just as he has always been, even though we have been kicked out of the garden we were originally created for. God does not leave us on our own, but chooses some that he blesses in order to be a blessing to many (i.e. Abraham). He causes his light to shine in some places in order to become a light for all the nations (i.e. the story of Israel). Indeed, he himself enters as light into the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it, it shines everyone and on every man, calling to each person to respond to it. Now, some do not, not because they haven't been called, but simply because their deeds are evil. God did not create them to be evil; God did not choose evil for them. God's will is ever directed to his children's good. But God gives people the option of saying "NO", just as freely as he gives us the option of saying "YES." And there are people who, though God has elected to save them, refuse to respond to him as Jesus did saying "Thy will be done." Rather they say, "My will be done;" and, though he willed different for them, God grants them their request.
Notice who the subject of the last sentence is. God says to us, "Choose." Who chooses? You choose.
MystyRock, what I as a United Methodist find to be one of the bigger differences between Methodism and certain schools of Baptist theology (part of the larger school of Calvinism and Reformed theology) is this view which RisingSpirit has done a good job of articulating and, no doubt, sincerely believes to be biblical. But within Methodism such a view gets a very poor reception as we think it is more a distortion and narrow reading of isolated passages of scripture devoid of the larger context of the God who calls to each and everyone one of us to choose life, and thus implicit in the command is the reality that God does indeed give us a choice and does not choose for us.
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