"Limited" Irresistible Grace?
God has infinite love, mercy, and grace towards all, and not willing that any should perish. Calvinism, however, limits God's grace and mercy. Christ was asked whether few would be saved, and He stated that indeed there would be few (Matt. 7.13-14; Luke 13.23-28)--not because God limits His grace, but because so few are willing to repent and believe the gospel; indeed, Christ continually urged men to enter the path to eternal life. Calvinists boldly admit they did not repent or even believe to come to regeneration.
Why do Calvinists avoid these verses so much? Because they contradict Calvinism. Christ very clearly puts upon the unregenerate the responsibility of entering the kingdom. "Enter ye in at the straight gate...straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matt. 7.14).
These are very un-Calvinistic terms. Why should Christ gives such a warning if one could only come into the kingdom through having been predestined to salvation and sovereignly regenerated, without any understanding, repentance, or faith?
John Calvin admits what "mercy...illuminates God's grace by this contrast: that he...gives to some what he denies to others." God illuminates His grace by not extending it to multitudes!? Somehow, by limiting His grace, God enlarges our appreciation of the wellspring from which His mercy flows!? And we are to praise Him all the more because He gives only to some that which He could extend to all? This is Calvinism.
Imagine a man in a barge, surrounded by a thousand desperate people who have no life jackets and who can keep themselves afloat in the icy water for only a few more minutes. This man has the means of saving every one of them from a watery grave, and more than enough room and complete provisions on the barge for them all. He plucks only 150 from certain death, leaving the rest to drown because it pleased him to do so.
The next day, would the newspapers have banner headlines praising this man for being so kind, gracious, and merciful because he rescued 150 and left 850 to die--or even if he rescued 850 and left to their fate only 150, whom he could have saved? Hardly. By the conscience God has given to even those who think they were "totally depraved" and now regenerated as Calvinists, even they would condemn such despicable behavior. So why have this standard for God that differs from your own for the only reason being that you don't want to have to repent to the cross and believe in Christ to be regenerated?
No one with any sense of morals that God has imprinted upon every conscience could praise such a man for leaving anyone to drown he could have saved.
Yet we are suppose to believe that God refrains from rescuing billions whom He just as well could have saved? And we are to praise Him all the more for having limited His love, mercy, and grace? Such is the teaching of Calvinism!
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