The question of election (God’s sovereign choice to save some), and especially reprobation (the corresponding consequential responsibility for effectively choosing to damn others) is a difficult position. Especially as some would argue that you cannot hold this position and believe that God honestly desires all men to repent and be saved. (As 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23 and a few others indicate).
And yet I do hold this position. Rather than attempting an article explaining how I can hold this, I will use the words of John Piper and Robert L. Dabney, who are vastly superior authors. I realize that this will have the immediate effect of loss of credibility of the argument for some (which is unfortunate). Let me assure you that this is the conclusion I have come to, prior to reading these men, and they simply state things more eloquently than I could.
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The Central Message of the Scriptures
I am currently taking a course on the unity of scripture and the biblical world view offered by BILD called “Covenants”. It is an exciting class in which we strive to discover how the two testaments of the Bible fit together.
The third assignment for the class was to take a first crack at writing what you believe to be the central message of the Bible. I thought I’d share my third draft at this attempt here for posterity, criticism, and perhaps a little humor looking back at my naive self.
I’m quite pleased with it right now. We’ll see what I think in 8 weeks.