#prevenientgrace

Finally, in John 6:67, Jesus turns to His twelve hand-picked disciples and asks them the question, “Do you also want to go away?” It’s an interesting question because Jesus chose or elected the Twelve...Calvinists should truly examine John 6:67 because it doesn’t lend credence to their convictions about God and man in salvation. Here we see the divine election doesn’t eliminate the possibility of departing from Christ or falling away from the gospel. The Twelve were chosen by Jesus, yet Jesus gives them an option to depart. If Jesus handpicks them, yet says they can leave, why do Calvinists insist that modern-day disciples, the elect, cannot fall away from Christ or depart from the faith if they too, are elected by God?

"Without an open heart and mind, Lydia couldn’t hear, understand, and respond to the gospel message (Acts 16:11-15). What this teaches us is that Christ takes the divine initiative in salvation. That is, before we can respond to God, He reaches out in love and embraces us, pursues us. Without God opening our hearts, we cannot respond. This fact for Lydia and modern-day Christians reminds us of just how deep in sin we truly are. When someone says that we are “totally depraved,” it means that we are, to use Paul’s phrase, “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1, 5). We are so dead in our sins that “He made us alive” (Ephesians 2:1, 4). He is the one who causes us to come alive and understand the gospel, to see our sin and our need for Jesus to save us from sin. If we can credit anyone with our salvation, as Lydia could, Jesus is the one who gets all the credit -- not us. We see the divine initiative in the Lord opening her heart, making a response to Him possible. Had God not opened Lydia’s heart, she wouldn’t have been able to respond in faith. If God didn’t open our hearts in the context of gospel preaching, we wouldn’t have come out of sin and been saved, either. We, like Lydia, owe our salvation to God, who opens our depraved, hard hearts and minds to receive Jesus and see ourselves from the divine perspective (that is, humanity needs to be saved from its sins).

Acts 16:25-34 concerns the Philippian jailer. Paul and Silas are jailed for preaching and teaching the gospel, and they land in jail where a man from Philippi has a duty to look after them. At midnight, they were singing and praising God when all of a sudden, an earthquake came and shook off the chains of Paul and Silas. The Philippian jailer, figuring that Paul and Silas would escape and that he would be killed instead, prepared to kill himself (Acts 16:27). Once Paul saw what the jailer was about to do, he told the jailer not to kill himself. The jailer realized his plight. If an earthquake could come and free these gospel preachers from prison, then their God must be real! And at that moment, the text says that 'he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' (Acts 16:29-30) Paul and Silas respond, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household' (Acts 16:31). Paul and Silas do not respond to the Philippian jailer with the words, 'God elects believers, so there's nothing you can do in the salvation process.' They don't respond with, 'Well, it's not up to you.' No, instead, they tell the jailer to do something: believe. If he believes, he can be saved, and if his household believes, they can, too...Even the jailer's salvation shows us that faith comes before salvation.

To go from being graced by the Lord to being deserted by the Lord (Saul) shows that God’s grace is resistible and that the elect, contrary to John Calvin, can fall away. To go from being elected by God to be a disciple, then have Satan enter him (Judas) are signs that, contra John Calvin, the elect can fall away. When your theological system cannot accommodate the hardest cases of Scripture, it is a good indication that your theological system is flawed beyond repair. Calvinism can attempt to explain the salvation of others, but Saul, Judas, Demas, and other apostates in Scripture don’t find an accurate explanation in Calvinism. If God regenerates individuals who can then fall away from God, then regeneration isn’t irresistible. It is resistible, plain and simple. A resistible regeneration suggests that God is committed to human choice, genuine human freedom.

Jesus lost none of those God the Father gave Him, except for Judas. Judas was one of those given who didn’t remain. As Jesus called Judas “Friend,” He also called the other eleven disciples His friends as well (John 15:15). This tells us that Judas wasn’t just a “decoy disciple” masquerading as a real one in order to betray Jesus. And Judas didn’t become a disciple with the intention to betray Jesus from the beginning. Apostasy, or falling away from the gospel and Christ, just doesn’t happen like that. His love of money doesn’t sit well with his election to salvation, but then and again, sin never sits well with God’s calling in the lives of His children. To see Judas in proper perspective, we must see ourselves and realize that we, like Judas, have our own sin. Does that sin nullify our election? No. But sin can destroy our election if we do not cling to Christ and leave sin behind. Judas couldn’t part with his sin and, when given the choice, left Christ instead. What did it profit him to gain thirty pieces of silver while losing his own soul?

Jesus says that, of those God gave Him, 'none of them is lost except the son of perdition' (John 17:12). If the 'son of perdition,' Judas, is the only exception to the rule that 'of those that You gave Me, none of them is lost,' then that implies that Judas was one God the Father gave to Jesus, and...Judas was a believer who was eventually lost. The phrase for Judas, 'son of perdition,' refers to destruction or damnation (Hebrews 10:39)." #LydiasHeart #prevenientgrace #grace #Judas #sonofperdition #John1712 #Hebrews1039

Jesus asks the disciples if they want to depart from Him (John 6). It doesn't appear from Jesus' words that the disciples couldn't depart, but rather, that they had a free will choice and they could stay or go. When Peter, the leader of the group speaks, he asks Jesus in response to His question, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' (John 6:66). Peter assumes that he can depart from Christ, and that the disciples can too. So, his question is the logical next step: "If we disciples can leave Jesus, where, or to whom, do we go? Who can we turn to if we turn away from Jesus?' This doesn't sound as though Peter believed he couldn't depart from Jesus. Rather, Peter believed that, if he departed, no one else had the words of eternal life. He couldn't have eternal life if he departed from Christ.