Subject: What are your views of once saved always |
Bible Note: John Concerning the potter and the clay. The following commentary from GodRules.NET for the most part, reflects my thoughts on this subject. I will have to post this in more that one reply due to it's length. Systematic Theology 44d Objections 1. To the idea that God rejected the reprobate for their foreseen wickedness, it is replied that "The Lord hath made all things for Himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. 16:4), teaches another doctrine; that this passage teaches, that God made the reprobates for the day of evil, or for the purpose of destroying them. To this I reply, that if He did create them to destroy them, or with a design when He created them to destroy them, it does not follow that their destruction was an ultimate end, or a thing in which He delighted for its own sake. It must be true, as has been said, that He designed from eternity to destroy them, in view, and in consequence, of their foreseen wickedness; and of course, He designed their destruction when be created them. In one sense then, it was true, that He created them for the day of evil, that is, in the sense that He knew how they would behave, and designed as a consequence to destroy them when, and before, He created them. But this is not the same as His creating them for the sake of their destruction as an ultimate end. He had another and a higher ultimate end, which end was a benevolent one. He says "I have created all things for Myself, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. 16:4), that is, He had some great and good end to accomplish by them, and by their destruction. He foresaw that He could use them for some good purpose, nevertheless their foreseen wickedness; and even that He could overrule their sin and destruction to manifest His justice, and thus show forth His glory, and thereby strengthen His government. He must have foreseen that the good that might thus, from His overruling providence, result to Himself and to the universe, would more than compensate for the evil of their rebellion and destruction; and therefore, and upon this condition, He created them, knowing that He should destroy and intending to destroy them. That destruction was not the ultimate end of their creation, must follow from such scriptures as the following: "Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezek. 33:11). "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die; saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live?" (Ezek. 18:23). "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). "He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:8, 16). "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man" (Heb. 2:9). 2. Another objection to the doctrine of this lecture is founded on: "Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to shew His wrath, and make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory" (Romans 9:20-23). From this passage it has been inferred, that God creates the character and disposes of the destinies of both saints and sinners with as absolute and as irresistible a sovereignty as that exercised by the potter over his clay; that He creates the elect for salvation, and the reprobate for damnation, and forms the character of both so as to fit them for their respective destinies, with an absolutely irresistible and efficient sovereignty; that His ultimate end was in both cases His own glory, and that the value of the end justifies the use of the means, that is, of such means. To this I reply: (1.) That it is absurd and nonsensical, as we have abundantly seen, to talk of creating moral character, either good or bad, by an irresistible efficient sovereignty. This is naturally impossible, as it implies a contradiction. Moral character must be the result of proper, voluntary action, and the moral character of the vessels of wrath or of mercy neither is, nor can be, formed by any irresistible influence whatever. New Creature |