Cheryl Schatz

Mark,

You commented on Romans 5 and the difference between the trespass and the free gift. There is a lot to comment on here but let’s leave this until we get to Romans so that we can keep the passages separated and not so confusing as we go through them.

Mark you quoted me and then replied:

“but your position has God purposely creating people whom He has chosen them to go to hell and God has chosen to withhold from them what they need to be saved”

Regarding the first point I agree, but so does an Arminian position. God ‘chose’ people according to divine foreknowledge, so he had ‘chosen’ some to be saved and ‘chosen’ others to go to hell. The second point I don’t totally agree with. God is not obligated to save anyone, that’s the first thing, so get that out of your head.

The part that seems to have been completely disregarded by Calvinists is that God is intent on guarding His own image and His own name and for God to abandon His image by failing to provide for the salvation of those whom He created with the stamp of His image would be unthinkable. God has not abandoned His image nor has He created His image to go to hell without redemption.

It is only by his mercy he chooses to save any.

It is certainly by His mercy, but His character is one of great mercy and that is revealed throughout the Scriptures. For God to be seen as one who completely fails to give mercy to most and that is to be seen as His purpose and good pleasure, really goes against the Scriptures and the value of God’s image. For if God sent His image to hell without paying the price for redemption then He has devalued Himself and made almost all that He has created in His image as a worthless piece of trash.

Second, he doesn’t withhold anything because he is not obligated to give it in the first place- he simply leaves people in their sinful state.

His obligation is to His own name and His own image and in that obligation He is abounding in mercy.

So no God does not with-hold salvation from them. He simply leaves them,

God cannot do that. He cannot create His own image in humans and then abandon them without redemption. It is for His own name and for His own image that He must love them enough to pay the price. When Calvinists appear to say that the image of God is not worthy of redemption and that God is not obligated to provide salvation so that He can created billions of humans who have His image but as worth nothing but to be sent to hell in their sins without caring about His own image within each one of them, they fail to consider the character of God and the value of God’s image.

but for his elect he bestows his gift of grace, because that is what grace is- undeserved mercy. It seems to me that you almost believe that God is obligated to save us.

If God unconditionally elected some to salvation and unconditionally elected most to eternal damnation then His own name and image would be devalued. God has spoken that it is for His own sake that He does these things. “His own sake” is far higher a purpose than merely redeeming us. He will not abandon His image.

to be continued…