Predestination and Freewill How can you preach the Gospel if you believe in predestination? Predestination means that ultimately God is responsible for who is saved. While Gods grace is offered to everyone, only those who he regenerates are able to take advantage of it. So how can you honestly say to someone: Have faith, repent of your sins and you will be saved when you dont know whether God has chosen him or not ? First, we have an explicit authorization from Jesus to preach to everyone. So there is no question that we are permitted to offer salvation to everyone (indeed we are required to do so.) Second, when preaching the Gospel it is not necessary to tell each individual that God has definitely chosen them. All that we need to say is that Christ has died for his people, and if that person repents of his sins and responds in faith, he will be saved. The fact that God is responsible for the overall story does not change the fact that people are saved through faith and repentance. Yes, God knows who will be saved, and at one level he is responsible for it. He works in us to regenerate us. But God commonly works through human agents, and the result of his work is human response and change. It is a privilege to be invited to participate in Gods work of regeneration. In the Gospel according to John, Jesus uses a metaphor that may be helpful here. Several times he speaks of himself as a shepherd calling his sheep. But its clear that not everyone belongs to his flock. His sheep recognize his voice, others do not. When we preach the Gospel, we are calling in Jesus name. Those who are Jesus sheep will respond. We dont need to know in advance who they are, or how many they are. We can hope for everyone. In fact I think it can cause problems if we assume too much responsibility for the salvation of others. In Cor 3:6-7, Paul discusses a similar issue. He points out that he simply sows seeds. God makes them grow. If we assume that we responsible for saving people, we may be led into using overly emotion or coercive approaches. These can lead to the appearance of success, but their long- range effect is questionable.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 07:59:03 +0000
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