Hi, Today I read the following... It was the #2 reply to a post in General Theology titled "Pretend I'm an atheist. How would you convert me?"
"I hope you receive plenty of replies from mature believers but my two cents worth is WE humans do not convert anyone only the HOLY SPIRIT can convert after GOD THE FATHER has chosen to hover over the unbeliever. We can spend years talking to brick walls becoming disheartened over it but GOD will have compassion on those HE chooses and not everyone is chosen."
Over the years I've heard others say that not everyone is chosen. So my questions are...
1) Did Jesus' death and resurrection provide a path to eternal life for everyone, or just the chosen?
2) If we were created with a free will, is it reasonable to deduce that anyone can choose to accept Christ? Or is it only the chosen?
Thank you,
Charles
This gets somewhat complicated because there are theological disputes which exist. The quote you provided sounds Calvinist.
Calvinism, named after the French Protestant Reformer John (Jean) Calvin was also influenced by a controversy in the 17th century known as the Remonstrant Controversy; the Remonstrants were the followers of Jacob Arminius, a Dutch theologian who put forward a series of ideas which challenged some already established Calvinist ideas--the result was the Synod of Dordt which in response to the Articles of Remonstrance put forward what is today known as TULIP:
Total Depravity.
Unconditional Election.
Limited Atonement.
Irresistible Grace.
Perseverance of the Saints.
The one to focus on here is Limited Atonement; under TULIP Jesus only died for the elect--those chosen by God for salvation according to Unconditional Election and, due to the Irresistability of Grace cannot reject God's calling, and will indeed be saved and persevere until the end (that is, one cannot become "un-saved"); thus Christ did not die for everyone, Christ only died for those who would be saved according to God's election; God having passed by the rest.
So the answer to your questions are going to look a particular way if answered by a Five Point (TULIP) Calvinist then by someone else--a Lutheran, an Arminian, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.
In historic Protestantism there are, broadly speaking, three schools of thought:
1. Lutheranism
2. Calvinism (Reformed theology)
3. Arminianism
Since I'm Lutheran I'll answer your questions accordingly:
"Did Jesus' death and resurrection provide a path to eternal life for everyone, or just the chosen?"
Neither. Jesus' death and resurrection doesn't provide a path to eternal life, it achieves and accomplishes it; Christ died for everyone and everyone means
everyone. Christ's work is the forgiveness of all sin, not just some sin; His work wasn't to provide an opportunity for people to become saved--it actually saves. So for Lutherans there is no "Limited Atonement" we would instead say it is Universal Atonement. Christ died for everyone and that is objectively so. St. Paul writes, "Even as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive."
"If we were created with a free will, is it reasonable to deduce that anyone can choose to accept Christ? Or is it only the chosen?"
The will isn't truly free, while man has the capacity to make choices unburdened by exterior forces (e.g. fate) the will isn't truly free because the will is a slave to man's sinfulness; we are slaves to ourselves and thus the will is not truly free, it is bound and yoked under the burden of our own selfish and self-directed passions. So no one can choose to accept Christ of their own volition; it requires the external and exterior work of God, the Holy Spirit, to create faith in us in order that Christ's universal work might be appropriated to us. From Luther's Large Catechism:
"
For neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ, or believe on Him, and obtain Him for our Lord, unless it were offered to us and granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Gospel. The work is done and accomplished; for Christ has acquired and gained the treasure for us by His suffering, death, resurrection, etc. But if the work remained concealed so that no one knew of it, then it would be in vain and lost. That this treasure, therefore, might not lie buried, but be appropriated and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed, in which He gives the Holy Ghost to bring this treasure home and appropriate it to us. Therefore sanctifying is nothing else than bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves."
The Holy Spirit makes this happen for our own good, God acts through His Word and Sacraments to create and work faith in us by which we can believe and trust upon Christ and be benefactors of His universal work. As such, we confess as is written in the 2nd chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians,
"
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." (Ephesians 2:4-10)
-CryptoLutheran
