Is God's Grace Available to All?

JudgeRightly

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The Bible says yes:

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works. - Psalm 145:8-9 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm145:8-9&version=NKJV

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, - Titus 2:11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus2:11&version=NKJV

And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” - John 12:32 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John12:32&version=NKJV

Calvinism, on the other hand, would have you believe that God is NOT good to all, than His Grace is only available to some who were chosen unilaterally without any known reason before the foundation of the world, while the rest shall perish for His glory.

 
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nikolai_42

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I think you end up finding yourself between a straw man and a heresy. The straw man is believing that God does not extend grace to all men in Calvinism. The heresy (in reacting to a straw man) is ending up with universalism. Psalm 145:8-9 says nothing about salvation. The rain, after all, falls upon the just and the unjust. Titus 2:11 doesn't say God brings salvation to all - rather that it has appeared to all men. In other words, all people have witnessed the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean they have received (or even understood) it. Finally, the companion passage to John 12:32 is John 6:44-45 :

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

John 6:44-45

If John 12:32 is made to say that all men will be drawn, then you have to admit of universalism. John 6:45, sort of forces that conclusion. That verse defines what it means to be drawn. Therefore, John 6:44 is simply saying that He will draw men of every tribe, tongue and nation.

In closing, I would say that using a Leighton Flowers video (which I admittedly haven't watched yet) to support your post could be considered triggering to some Calvinists (of course, maybe that was intended?...😉)

EDIT : Added thought - grace being "available" is really where the issue with non-Calvinists comes in. God lavishes His grace upon people and people do receive grace because they ask for something, but the grace itself is entirely in God's hands - even when people ask for something. Grace is what God decides to give.
 
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Bradley D

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I believe one has to want that grace. It requires repentance, humbleness, and belief. Many are not willing to do that. I had to be brought to my knees by alcoholism and near death. I read Psalm 43:5 out of a Gideons Bible in a mental/detox ward.

"Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God" (Ps. 43:5).
 

nikolai_42

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I believe one has to want that grace. It requires repentance, humbleness, and belief. Many are not willing to do that. I had to be brought to my knees by alcoholism and near death. I read Psalm 43:5 out of a Gideons Bible in a mental/detox ward.

"Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God" (Ps. 43:5).

I would think that those that call upon the name of the Lord is only a subset who cry out for grace or mercy. To be able to call upon the name of the Lord requires being brought to Him. Many may cry for grace, but that doesn't guarantee they receive it.
 

JudgeRightly

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a Leighton Flowers video (which I admittedly haven't watched yet)

I recommend you watch the video then, because the question was asked TO CALVINISTS in a recorded Q&A, and Dr. Flowers replays their own words.
 

nikolai_42

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I recommend you watch the video then, because the question was asked TO CALVINISTS in a recorded Q&A, and Dr. Flowers replays their own words.
My first comment is that he has Judas clearly wrong. Jesus chose Judas knowing exactly who he was - knowing exactly what he was going to do. Without that, the plan of God would not have been accomplished.

Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
John 6:70

This plan of Redemption goes back to Genesis (and beyond) so it wasn't like God decided to choose a time when he might find the man He was looking for. God - who works all things after the counsel of His own will - foreknew each of the 12 (and knew that Judas was a "chosen devil"). Otherwise, God becomes a victim of circumstance who has to plan His way around man's choices. So I think Flowers is dead wrong on Judas.

And I also think it links in to his presupposition that God has to be a certain way to every man equally and every man has to have the same opportunity presented him. He essentially has to say that the theologians on the stage are judging God's grace but he has to judge people's hearts by alleging everyone has the same opportunity to be saved. Because at that point, their salvation hinges upon their choice and Flowers has to believe (therefore) that a man who is not saved is not saved because he decided against God in some rational process. He has to judge the heart and mind of the hearer. Nowhere (that I read) is this said - that all men everywhere have an equal opportunity to be saved and have the same grace given to them unto salvation. Psalm 145:8-9, again, is not about salvation. It is about the goodness of God to all His creation. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. But it doesn't imply that God owes every man a certain measure of salvific grace. So when reading Titus 2:11, he has to choose a translation that specifically says salvation is brought to all people (I won't argue the definition of "all" here since I don't have the Greek background, but there's nothing that I know of that requires it to say every individual without exception - otherwise, I repeat that we all need to be universalists). Remember that Paul also said that the Jews read Moses with a vail over their hearts. Christ appeared to them but they were restrained from "seeing" the truth. It appeared to them, but it didn't benefit them.

I won't revisit God's drawing (as Flowers quotes it) since I think I did so in my first response.

The point about David praying to God about whether or not Saul will kill him - I don't quite know where he is paraphrasing from, but he doesn't give any citation. Even so, he's pushing an idea that God doesn't necessarily know what the outcome of things will be - He only knows contingencies. That's the only reason I can see Flowers including this because it really doesn't have any impact on the original topic. And all God was saying was if you do X, Y will result. Just like He told the Ninevites by Jonah (who had the free choice to reject God's call, right?) that he was going to destroy them. Even Jonah sat and waited for it. But it didn't happen (not then) because they repented. God even said through Jeremiah that any people that repented would not face the judgment He promised them. And the generation of Ninevites that repented were saved from that. In the end, God still destroyed them - just gave the ones that repented a reprieve. So both happened - He repented of the evil He was going to do to them and He also eventually actually carried out the evil He promised. So it's really very simple. God knows. Otherwise, Moses should be credited with calming God down and preventing Him from wiping out Israel entirely and starting over.

This may be taking it a step away from the thread, but my personal view is that the offer is - in some sense - universal. But just because the truth is provided doesn't mean the individual will hear or accept it. And this is where one has to either decide to judge someone's heart (which I believe Flowers is doing by saying unbelievers freely and knowingly rejected the gospel) or recognize that there is something more than just objective truth needed for someone to bring someone to true faith. The Calvinists have it right in that we don't know who is saved and who isn't. That IS in the hands of the Lord. And while it may be a bridge too far to say God has to determine who will and who won't receive a certain kind of grace and/or a certain kind of mercy in order to be saved, it is absolutely true that :

...He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Romans 9:15-16

Anyone who thinks it unfair that God gets to decide who He shows mercy and grace to is just as bitter (though in a different way) as the Calvinist who is one of the "frozen chosen". That's why it is such an Amazing thing when God does show Grace - and the heart that seeks after that - seeks the Hand of God because he sees the goodness of God in the lives of men who have know the richness of His grace -- those are the men who have been granted some degree of grace to pursue Him in the light of the work He has done in select other men. The Apostle Paul was one of those men, but there have been others. John Newton seems to be the natural choice for that. He knows the Grace God lavished upon him and he was a Calvinist. And while he couldn't see any other way of viewing God's grace properly and biblically except through a Calvinistic lens, he was not so dogmatic as to enforce it on others. His letters show this clearly. I believe that much of what passes for Calvinism today is tinged because it tends to attract those who are more educated - and so it is quite likely that many such professors are really unregenerate. And truth in the hands of the unregenerate can be very ugly. Calvinism naturally tends to emphasize God's glory while Arminianism focuses a whole lot more on man. So it tends also to be more palatable (regardless of who promotes it). That's just my own observation.
 
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Idolater

"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
I see no verse of scripture stating that Grace is available to all.
John 3
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Belief is a choice. Choice is real. That's why the guy 'choiced' to invent the word.
 

JudgeRightly

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JudgeRightly

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Thats a corrupt version, its not offer salvation there, but bringeth Salvation !

When the priests in Israel offered sacrifices to God, did they leave them at the place they were raised/slaughtered? Or did they bring the sacrifices to the altar of God?

In addition, once brought, did God always accept the offering brought? Or did He sometimes reject it?
 

beloved57

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When the priests in Israel offered sacrifices to God, did they leave them at the place they were raised/slaughtered? Or did they bring the sacrifices to the altar of God?

In addition, once brought, did God always accept the offering brought? Or did He sometimes reject it?
Show me the scripture that says God makes grace available.
 

JudgeRightly

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Show me the scripture that says God makes grace available.

Not until you answer the question I asked.

When the priests in Israel offered sacrifices to God, did they leave them at the place they were raised/slaughtered? Or did they bring the sacrifices to the altar of God?

In addition, once brought, did God always accept the offering brought? Or did He sometimes reject it?
 

Lon

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I recommend you watch the video then, because the question was asked TO CALVINISTS in a recorded Q&A, and Dr. Flowers replays their own words.
The guy "flowers" interrupts RC Sproul way too often. If I'd commented on his video: "Just let the guys speak man! We don't need your commentary."
 
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