Something higher than God wants to save everyone...

Some Calvinists believe point blank that God only loves the Elect , and He only desires their salvation , everyone else God hates and He desires their destruction...... a very tough , hard , view to hold , especially if you worship a God of Love and if you Evangelise.

Then there are more moderate Calvinists who are in line with both the creeds and the Writings of *John Calvin who say God has a varied will . * see post below*

then there is the Arminian who says He believes God wants everyone saved , but cannot obtain that which He desires.

Usually the battle ground is over 2 Peter 3:9 , 1 Timothy 2:4 and John 3:16 etc .

But has anyone noticed that God works within a framework of priorites?

Even the Arminian when pushed will have to admit that God's desire to save everyone is NOT an Absolute desire , but it has a refence point to God's higher desire " to uphold man's Free-will "

I also believe God does have a higher desire than just willing / wishing everyone is saved and that is His desire to Glorify Himself using vessels of Mercy and also vessels of wrath fitted to destruction .

So when someone points out scriptures that speak of God's Love , Longsuffering and Patience , and His desire for all to be saved , just remember they don't hold it as an unconditional , isolated desire.

This may help , it has taken me weeks to find this exact quote .......
John Calvin on Ezekiel 18:23.....


He confirms the same sentiment in other words, that God desires nothing more earnestly than that those who were perishing and rushing to destruction should return into the way of safety. And for this reason not only is the Gospel spread abroad in the world, but God wished to bear witness through all ages how inclined he is to pity. For although the heathen were destitute of the law and the prophets, yet they were always endued with some taste of this doctrine. Truly enough they were suffocated by many errors: but we shall always find that they were induced by a secret impulse to seek for pardon, because this sense was in some way born with them, that God is to be appeased by all who seek him. Besides, God bore witness to it more clearly in the law and the prophets. In the Gospel we hear how familiarly he addresses us when he promises us pardon. (Luke 1:78.) And this is the knowledge of salvation, to embrace his mercy which he offers us in Christ. It follows, then, that what the Prophet now says is very true, that God wills not the death of a sinner, because he meets him of his own accord, and is not only prepared to receive all who fly to his pity, but he calls them towards him with a loud voice, when he sees how they are alienated from all hope of safety. But the manner must be noticed in which God wishes all to be saved, namely, when they turn themselves from their ways. God thus does not so wish all men to be saved as to renounce the difference between good and evil; but repentance, as we have said, must precede pardon. How, then, does God wish all men to be saved? By the Spirit's condemning the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment at this day, by the Gospel, as he did formerly by the law and the prophets. (John 16:8.) God makes manifest to mankind their great misery, that they may betake themselves to him: he wounds that he may cure, and slays that he may give life. We hold, then, that; God wills not the death of a sinner, since he calls all equally to repentance, and promises himself prepared to receive them if they only seriously repent. If any one should object -- then there is no election of God, by which he has predestinated a fixed number to salvation, the answer is at hand: the Prophet does not here speak of God's secret counsel, but only recalls miserable men from despair, that they may apprehend the hope of pardon, and repent and embrace the offered salvation. If any one again objects -- this is making God act with duplicity, the answer is ready, that God always wishes the same thing, though by different ways, and in a manner inscrutable to us. Although, therefore, God's will is simple, yet great variety is involved in it, as far as our senses are concerned. Besides, it is not surprising that our eyes should be blinded by intense light, so that we cannot certainly judge how God wishes all to be saved, and yet has devoted all the reprobate to eternal destruction, and wishes them to perish. While we look now through a glass darkly, we should be content with the measure of our own intelligence. (1 Corinthians 13:12.) When we shall be like God, and see him face to face, then what is now obscure will then become plain. But since captious men torture this and similar passages, it will be needful to refute them shortly, since it can be done without trouble.

( emphasis mine )

http://www.ccel.org/c/calvin/comment3/comm_vol23/htm/vii.viii.htm

BWV 1080 said:

You make an excellent point and clearly summarize the Calvinist / Arminian differences. Obviously if God willed everyone to be saved they would be saved. All orthodox Christians believe the Atonement is limited in effect but argue about intent. I am more comfortable with the Arminian approach to this issue - God preserving and respecting our free will, but you state the Calvinist case well.

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Thanks for your comments BWV 1080 (is that like a video game title )

I think that some of the Arminian arguements are Biblical , but I am 99% in favour of the Calvinist understanding , because it leaves God as both the Author and Finisher of our Faith , and God gets all the Glory .

when it comes to the reprobate , I don't mind borrowing (and modifying ) a few Arminian tenets !!

Cheeky , I know , but I think it is Biblical and fair .

As C H Spurgeon said , if we get to Heaven all the thanks and Praise belong to God.
But if we go to Hell all the fault is ours entirely .

BWV 1080 said:

BWV (abbreviation for Bach Werke Verzeichnis )1080 is the catalog number for Die Kunst der Fugue, JS Bach's last and one of his greatest works.


http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/introaof.html

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Cool !! I like Bach so does my wife .


I think Bach was Reformed btw

BWV 1080 said:

Lutheran actually

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you might like to read this thread

http://www.christianforums.com/t730710-the-influences-of-the-reformation-on-bach.html

Colossians said:

. On the other hand, God is not the author of our sin which damns us to eternal hell.
Yes He is. That's what Rom 9:18-21 is all about.

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God is NOT the author of sin !

show me any Calvinistic Creed that says such a blasphamous thing.............

Romans 9 speaks of God deciding to harden (judicial) and to Save (Sovereign Mercy)

Colossians said:

God is NOT the author of sin !
Yes He is. (Ex 4:21)

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Hardening is judicial , it is a judgment .............

God didn't work sin up inside Pharoah , He didn't have to , Pharoah had such a rebellious sinful prideful heart that God merely BAKED him in his own juice!

God doesn't make men sin , He niether tempts them nor coerces them .

He permits them to sin.

But I don't suppose you believe in a permissive decree...... because you defy every Calvinistic standard and deny secondary causes....

Edwards answers, "If by 'the author of sin,' be meant the sinner, the agent, or the actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing . . . . it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin." But, he argues, willing that sin exist in the world is not the same as sinning. God does not commit sin in willing that there be sin. God has established a world in which sin will indeed necessarily come to pass by God's permission, but not by his "positive agency."

God is, Edwards says, "the permitter . . . of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted . . . will most certainly and infallibly follow."

He uses the analogy of the way the sun brings about light and warmth by its essential nature, but brings about dark and cold by dropping below the horizon. "If the sun were the proper cause of cold and darkness," he says, "it would be the fountain of these things, as it is the fountain of light and heat: and then something might be argued from the nature of cold and darkness, to a likeness of nature in the sun." In other words, "sin is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the most High, but on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances, necessarily follows on the want of his influence."

Thus in one sense God wills that what he hates come to pass, as well as what he loves. Edwards says,

God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet . . . it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all consequences. . . . God doesn't will sin as sin or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that he permitting, sin will come to pass; for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he doesn't hate evil, as evil: and if so, then it is no reason why he may not reasonably forbid evil as evil, and punish it as such.

This is a fundamental truth that helps explain some perplexing things in the Bible, namely, that God often expresses his will to be one way, and then acts to bring about another state of affairs. God opposes hatred toward his people, yet ordained that his people be hated in Egypt (Genesis 12:3; Psalm 105:25 – "He turned their hearts to hate his people."). He hardens Pharaoh's heart, but commands him to let his people go (Exodus 4:21; 5:1; 8:1). He makes plain that it is sin for David to take a military census of his people, but he ordains that he do it (2 Samuel 24:1; 24:10). He opposes adultery, but ordains that Absalom should lie with his father's wives (Exodus 20:14; 2 Samuel 12:11). He forbids rebellion and insubordination against the king, but ordained that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel against Rehoboam (Romans 13:1; 1 Samuel 15:23; 1 Kings 12:15-16). He opposes murder, but ordains the murder of his Son (Exodus 20:13; Acts 4:28). He desires all men to be saved, but effectually calls only some (1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Corinthians 1:26-30; 2 Timothy 2:26).

What this means is that we must learn that God wills things in two different senses. The Bible demands this by the way it speaks of God's will in different ways. Edwards uses the terms "will of decree" and "will of command." Edwards explains:

[God's] will of decree [or sovereign will] is not his will in the same sense as his will of command [or moral will] is. Therefore it is not difficult at all to suppose that the one may be otherwise than the other: his will in both senses is his inclination. But when we say he wills virtue, or loves virtue or the happiness of his creature; thereby is intended that virtue or the creature's happiness, absolutely and simply considered, is agreeable to the inclination of his nature. His will of decree is his inclination to a thing not as to that thing absolutely and simply, but with reference to the universality of things. So God, though he hates a things as it is simply, may incline to it with reference to the universality of things.

From: "Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?"

http://www.lebensquellen.de/themen/theology/vorsehung/01ae5193a60eac201.html

The Second Helvetic Confession
Chapter 8 - Of Man's Fall, Sin and the Cause of Sin

...............

The Sects. We therefore condemn all who have taught contrary to this, especially Pelagius and all the Pelagians, together with the Jovinians who, with the Stoics, regard all sins as equal. In this whole matter we agree with St. Augustine who derived and defended his view from Holy Scriptures. Moreover, we condemn Florinus and Blastus, against whom Irenaeus wrote, and all who make God the author of sin.
God Is Not the Author of Sin, and How Far He Is Said to Harden. It is expressly written: "Thou art not a God who delights in wickedness. Thou hatest all evildoers. Thou destroyest those who speak lies" (Ps. 5:4 ff.). And again: "When the devil lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). Moreover, there is enough sinfulness and corruption in us that it is not necessary for God to infuse into us a new or still greater perversity. When, therefore, it is said in Scripture that God hardens, blinds and delivers up to a reprobate mind, it is to be understood that God does it by a just judgment as a just Judge and Avenger. Finally, as often as God in Scripture is said or seems to do something evil, it is not thereby said that man does not do evil, but that God permits it and does not prevent it, according to his just judgment, who could prevent it if he wished, or because he turns man's evil into good, as he did in the case of Joseph's brethren, or because he governs sins lest they break out and rage more than is appropriate. St. Augustine writes in his Enchiridion: "What happens contrary to his will occurs, in a wonderful and ineffable way, not apart from his will. For it would not happen if he did not allow it. And yet he does not allow it unwillingly but willingly. But he who is good would not permit evil to be done, unless, being omnipotent, he could bring good out of evil." Thus wrote Augustine.

http://www.creeds.net/helvetic/c08.htm

OK , remind me never to quote YOU!


you have just made yourself unquotable ...