Z Man said:
Correction:
We are depraved beyond the hope of saving ourselves. However, not beyond the hope of salvation from God.
No, this assumes that our nature has become something else. You speak of sin as if it had ontology (as if it had created an antithesis to the Creation). Sin does not have ontology but is not a distortion of reality. Thus even the unrighteous are sustained in God, not as unrighteous people but as God's Creation. Those who have life are given that life from God for good, not for evil. God declares of life in the beginning that it is good, not bad. God blesses the Creation, he does not curse it.
We cannot save ourselves, but that does not mean that God's grace is not already made available to all. Those who have life have grace from God, and in this much they have hope of salvation. All who live have hope.
Adam was not special in this way. The life of humanity from the beginning was a gift from God with a calling for humanity to be the image of God on the earth. That image was lost (as we decided to embrace an image of our own making). The image we embraced was no image at all, for we did not reflect anyone (for God had freely given of Godself for the good of the Creation; God was the servant ruler of the Creaiton). Humans reflected themselves as gods who ruled the Creation by manipulation and force. They took the Creation and tried to make it their own (rather than caring for it as they had been charged, understanding the Creation as God's and not their's). They took on an image that was no image at all (it was lacking in every way).
So Christ must come to reveal that image to us once again, and to call us to follow him in that image. Those who receive Christ will be saved. And what that takes is baptism (i.e. a repentance or turning from the false image of sin and a turning to the true of God in Christ). Baptism requires the one who enters into it to die to the world and to be raised (not raise themselves) in Christ. It is not something that can be forced on anyone. It is a gift to which we are called first, but one that we must receive freely (in faithfulness; whether we are able to be faithful or whether someone must stand for us [if we cannot speak for ourselves] to lead us in faithfulness to Christ).
God saves humanity by uniting humanity to Godself in Christ, so that the humans who in their union to Adam were destined for death,
might in Christ be united to eternal life. The two Adams remain. The Dragon and the Lamb are at odds with one another in this age. And the Dragon has really deceived humanity in following him. But the lamb has been revealed to us today, and we have hope for the future.
Depravity is in Adam (the image of humanity in humanity's own self); life is in Christ (the image of humanity after God). And this is all detailed in Romans 5, yet Paul moves to 6 declaring that it is in baptism (not election) that we have put to death the old image and have been renewed in Christ. It is the grace-filled activity of humans in the church (in the
ekklesia, where election lies) that salvation for the world is possible. Salvation is not guaranteed for the elect (even the churches whose lampstand is with Christ in the heavens can fail, though they are God's elect, just as Israel has gone astray in their election as well). Election is not about us, it is about God's faithfulness to all of humanity to the end. God will produce salvation for the world through God's elect, not simply for the sake of the elect. Election is about God's faithfulness to the end.
If you try to equate election to salvation you are in error, for Paul will speak of election for Israel in such a way as to make such an equation absurd. Election is not about salvation or damnation; election is about God's faithfulness to all the Creaiton. Election is about the fact that God will save the world (it is not about who God will save in particular). Israel is God's elect, and yet not all who are elect in Israel will be saved.
Peace,
Michael
