hi SS... well here is my take on your question... while Jesus did indeed offer salvation to all men, be they Jew or Gentile, he did not offer it unconditionally, always implicit in the offer is the need to repent and forsake one's sins, which probably is summed in one's "believing on Christ" or more precisely, being "born again"..
(John 3:3 NNAS) Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
that is to say, for those who reject Christ, Christ clearly does not forgive them of their sins and usher them into the kingdom of heaven, (unless one believes in Universalism, which, I do not, as I do not think the Bible teaches that all will be saved)... but belief and repentance are requisite for inclusion in the kingdom...
(John 3:18 NNAS) "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
(John 3:36 NNAS) "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
(John 5:24 NNAS) "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." (of course the reverse is also true, he who does not hear, and does not believe, does not have eternal life, but passes from death into eternal death)
(John 5:39-40 NNAS) "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; {40} and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. (obviously again the reverse is true, for those unwilling to come, there is no life)
etc etc
..... does this mean that there is a lack of grace on God's part? I don't think so... here is why... it seems that even the very ability to have ever asked for forgiveness in the first place is itself a gift from God, and is totally unrelated to one's deeds and prior beliefs.... that is to say, no one would ever ask God for His forgiveness, no one would ever come to God, if God did not first grant them the ability to do so, and so it seems the following maxim is true, and this is very important to note, for so many people wrongly, I think, get this turned around and reversed...
regeneration precedes faith not;
faith precedes regeneration
(John 3:27 NNAS) John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven."
(John 5:21 NNAS) "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.
(Eph 2:8-9 NNAS) For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; {9} not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
(Rom 9:16 NNAS) So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
(Rom 9:18 NNAS) So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
(1 John 4:19 NNAS) We love, because He first loved us.
etc etc
For the Bible says that if one is not of Christ, they are of necessity, of the devil, and are dead in their trespasses and sins, unable to see the light of the glory of Christ, unless it is granted to them to be able to come, which means that salvation is all of the Lord, He is the one who gets credit for anyone at all who comes to Him, we can never say of ourselves... I had enough common sense to know to get saved.. or that I did not want to burn in Hell eternally, so thats why I became a Christian, or I am more intelligent, more spiritual, (more anything) than my neighbor who does not believe in Christ... its all of grace, salvation, is all of grace, from first to last.... so, regarding the natural man, i.e. the man outside of Christ, the Bible says:
(Rom 3:10-18 NIV) As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; {11} there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. {12} All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." {13} "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." {14} "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." {15} "Their feet are swift to shed blood; {16} ruin and misery mark their ways, {17} and the way of peace they do not know." {18} "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
(John 6:44 NIV) "No one cancome to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." (manifestly then, not everyone is drawn in the same way, as it is the case that not everyone is saved, for all that the Son draws will in fact come to Him, ie be "raised")
(Mat 22:14 NNAS) "For many are called, but few are chosen."
(John 6:65 NIV) He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." (this is, of course, a "hard saying", and just like in Jesus' day, many left Him who had been following before, because it grates against human nature to think that we are not the ones in control or the Captains of our own destinies... as the very next verse says: (John 6:66 NIV) From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.")
So the precursor to the great promise and fact that Paul gives us in Eph. 2:8-9 is not properly understood or appreciated, IMHO, until one sees that Paul, just prior to this awesome passage says :
(Eph 2:1-6 NNAS) And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, {2} in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. {3} Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. {4} But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, {5} even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), {6} and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,"
Elsewhere Paul further and clearly comments on the one who is outside of Christ as being "unable" to come because they "cannot" (read: "ability") come to Him on their own;
(1 Cor 2:14 NNAS) But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
(Rom 8:5-8 NNAS) For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. {6} For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, {7} because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, {8} and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
(John 15:5 NNAS) "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (and as Martin Luther once wryly remarked, nothing is not a little something, meaning that coming to Christ of ones own natural initiative would truly be something indeed!)
This type of man, the natural man, the follower of the prince of the power of the air, cannot please God, and it seems that if they could, on their own, come to Christ, this would indeed be pleasing to God, as it is, they are not able to even do so, and so Paul continues his discussion of the kind of man who does please God, this is one whom has the Spirit of God:
(Rom 8:9-11 NNAS) However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. {10} If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. {11} But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
So how does the Spirit come to reside in men? That is totally a sovereign act of God, and is done according to His own good pleasure. Jesus, speaking of the Spirits activities says:
(John 3:8 NNAS) "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
(Phil 2:13 NNAS) for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
And as the following verse says, everything, salvation must be included in this everything, works out according to the sovereign act and decree of God:
(Eph 1:11 NNAS) also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,
cont...
