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NASB | Matthew 7:14 "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 7:14 "But small is the gate and narrow and difficult to travel is the path that leads the way to [everlasting] life, and there are few who find it. [Deut 30:19; Jer 21:8] |
Subject: will most people go to hell? |
Bible Note: Immanuelsown I am a bit confused here. God does elect only some out of all whom He has given the offer to. There is the call - the few out of the many (Mathew 7:13, 14) who receive the offer get called. Calling is the result of election - election is God deciding who gets choosen, and calling is God sending the Holy Spirit out to convict the hearts of those whom God has elected. There is the general call to "all", the proclaimation of the gospel of Jesus Christ atoning death for sins. Then there is the "effectual call" which is given only to the "elect" to persuade them to accept the offer by means of the Holy Spirit working. According to Jesus in both the verse about "narrow is the way" and "many are called, but few are chosen" both are true and are therefore not in disparity to one another. It is not that in the 2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:4 verses that because God doesn't want people to perish they won't, it is that God has done something we cannot comprehend - has both said that He "wills" for all to be saved (that is what the Greek word really is in the Peter passage, and not "wish"), and that of the many only few are called. God cannot be in conflict with Himself, but this is one of those instances in which it is impossible for us to understand how both things, which from this side of finiteness, seem to be opposing, are to God not opposite, but facets of His will. God says in several places in the Bible that He has sorrow over the lost and is not happy about their destrction. But that hits on a different aspect of Him - He is Holy and requires justice for sin in the form of payment - death and eternal damnation. His holiness also requires that His love offer a way out to all. His holiness also requires that due to His mercy some will be fully persuaded to take the offer made to all, or else none would be saved. We forget too often that He has no need or reason to save any, but that He chooses to save some, and according to Him, that will not be the many who go to hell, but the few that make it to heaven. Everyone does make a choice, but God has the power to infuence that choice. God having decided who will choose Him does not relieve us of the responsibility or the right to choose, but it does place a limits on our power to choose, and our choosing does not prompt Him to choose us, but His prompting results in us choosing Him. He has the power, we do not. That is why I made such a big issue of the Sovereignty of God in the choice portion of what I wrote. If God chose us from before the foundation of the world to be saved, could we by our choice, having been chosen, abort His will? The answer is an emphatic NO. Some see this as patently unfair. I have an answer for them - Job 38 - 41 - basically who is it that thinks they can question God's decisions to do anything, seeing as how God has created everyting and owns evertything and is the only righteous ONE? (Which is the sin Job repents of.) We would like to try to understand how God's mind works and we attempt to juxtapose one part of His decision making process against another, when both are clearly in scripture as truth, because we fail as finite creatures to understand the infinite mind of God. Happy discerning of God! Go for it! You will never arrive in an eternity! blessings abound, bowler |