[What follows below is a dialogue that I have composed between two people which is loosely based on questions and responses I have had over the years. Placing it in this dialogue format provides the perfect opportunity to develop some serious teaching. I hope that readers find it helpful].

Eager Young Woman: Did you know that Jesus is just waiting to bless you? But you have to allow him to do so. He loves you so much and is just waiting for you to accept him. However, he will not violate your free-will. But you first have to repent then you give him the green light and he will save you.

World-Weary Old Man: That doesn’t sound like the Lord Jesus that I know. That sounds like a very impotent Jesus who is dependent on human responses. It also sounds like it is the human who initiates the salvation rather than God, which is a totally pagan idea. If the Lord Jesus that I know wants to have you, He will have you, without a doubt. He doesn’t need to stand next to you, impotent, wringing His hands, waiting for you to “make a decision” for Him. And what’s all this nonsense about Jesus not wanting to violate my free-will? I have never heard such baloney! Humans do not have any free-will other than the will to sin and rebel against God’s law (Romans 3:10-12). They are under the power of the evil one (Satan, 1 John 5:19). They are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1,5). They are actually darkness itself, spiritually-speaking (Ephesians 5:8). Since when has someone who is a rebel against God, under the power of Satan, who is spiritually dead, who is in spiritual darkness itself ever “decided” to come to Christ? That is how those who make an idol out of free-will see it. But the reality is that if someone comes to Christ “it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10). This is why the act of coming to Christ is a miracle. God made it happen, otherwise it could not occur because it is a spiritual impossibility humanly speaking! If someone repents and comes to Christ it is because the Father has given that person to Him. As Jesus put it:

“Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but to do the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day… No one is able to come to Me unless the Father, the one having sent Me, draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day… Then Jesus said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has granted it to him’” (John 6:37-39, 44, 65).

The reality is that no one can come to Christ unless the Father allows it. We do not “allow Christ to bless us”. That is outright blasphemy, making little gods out of humans. It is God the Father who allows it. If you come to Christ, it is because God “chose you in Him before the foundation of the world for us to be holy and blameless before Him, in love having predestined us for divine adoption as sons to Himself through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:4-5). Obviously, it doesn’t initially appear that way to us, from our puny human standpoint. Therefore, in order that we don’t run around taking the credit for our salvation like a bunch of narcissists (which an awful lot of people do!), it has been recorded in the Bible that ‘no one can come to Christ unless the Father who sent Him and who gave these people to Him draws them’ (John 6:37,44; 10:29). The Greek word translated as “draws” in John 6:44 literally means ‘drags’! It is the same Greek word used to refer to Paul being “dragged out of the temple” to be killed by the riotous mob in Jerusalem which had been incited by the Jews from Asia (Acts 21:30). For that is what it takes to get someone to come to Christ. The Father has to drag them — sometimes they come into the kingdom willingly, sometimes they are kicking and screaming!

Eager Young Woman: Oh, so you are a Christian. But what you are saying there is terrible. That sounds like Calvinism which is just absolutely awful.

World-Weary Old Man: That has nothing to do with Calvinism or any other “ism”. I do not follow men. If it is any “-ism” at all, it is biblicism! Didn’t you listen to those Bible texts? Have you never read them?

Eager Young Woman:  You are taking them out of context!

World-Weary Old Man: Not in the least. You have to actually read them to see. You simply do not want to recognise the raw, naked power of these truths. The way that you think — dismissing these vital texts — has become the mainstream way of thinking in the Christian scene. Yet, it is a total aberration. Do you not realise that unless a person is “born from above” — that is reborn through the power of the Spirit — he or she cannot even SEE the kingdom of God (John 3:3). Salvation is all of God. All of it. The stark reality is that “neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Corinthians 3:7). God has chosen a people from the foundation of the world and He has given them to Christ and He is picking them out of the world. You do not choose God or Jesus. It is They who have chosen you. No one is able to come to Christ unless the Father, the one having sent Him, draws him or her (see John 6:44). The text could not be any clearer. Only an out-and-out narcissist or rebel would dispute this.

Eager Young Woman [at first standing there silent and open-mouthed, like a drowning fish, then speaking irritatedly]: This is not what I have learned and that is not what I teach.

World-Weary Old Man: That is because you have learned from people who are not deep and serious about the sovereignty of God. This is another reason why you should not be teaching at all. You need to mature in the faith for some years and have a deep grasp of God’s sovereignty before you start running around peddling falsehoods to your peers. The ragged truth is that God couldn’t care less about your free will. If He wants you, He will have you, pure and simple. Whatever you imagine happened when you came to Christ, it was primarily God who chose you, not you who chose God. Here is the shocker: You only chose to follow Him because He chose you first… from the very foundation of the world. Because if He hadn’t, you wouldn’t even consider coming to Him. This is the missing link in your and so many others’ thinking. That’s why there are so many embarrassingly fake superficial “Christians” today. They weren’t chosen by God but they followed a religio-spiritual fashion or got bamboozled by some mesmeric tricks, such as are practised in so many churches today. This is why we should not be hung up on generating so-called “revival” but rather simply concentrate on bringing in the people of God, however many or few that should be. The numbers game is not our concern but God’s. To obsess about revival is a fleshly concern. There has been so much concern about quantity that people have neglected quality. They would rather whip up a huge number of dubious superficial professions of faith through cheap gimmicks and mesmeric tricks than provide fertile evangelism for quality conversions of deep-diving souls. The reality is that all those who the Father has given to the Son will come to Him, without a shadow of doubt (John 6:37). If we think that we can bump the numbers up through fancy gimmicks, slick sales techniques, or somehow by ‘trying harder’, we are deluding ourselves. (For the Gospel is not an offer but a command, 2 Thessalonians 1:8; Acts 17:30; 1 Peter 4:17). Yet all that is what is happening in so many churches and with so many professing “Christians” today. But the reality is that Christ’s sheep will hear His voice (John 10:4,27) without the gimmicks or the tricks, or the soapflake-style sales techniques. Those who are not His sheep will not.

In the business of gospel preaching, we are God’s fellow workers. We spread around the world the fragrance of Christ through our witness with the Gospel and also with our demeanour (2 Corinthians 2:14-16), for that is evangelism too. But ultimately it is God who chooses to make the general call of the gospel become effective in a person’s heart. “He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens” (Romans 9:18). The awesome fact is that God will never fail to reach those who are His.

Eager Young Woman: But what you are saying would violate the principle of free-will. God wouldn’t do that.

World-Weary Old Man: I’m sorry, but that notion is entirely contrary to everything we know about the power and sovereignty of God. You have made an idol out of free-will and placed it on a pedestal which borders on the satanic. If you…

Eager Young Woman [Interrupting]: The Bible clearly says that God wants all people to be saved.

World-Weary Old Man [Sighing]: Do you not realise that if it was God’s actual will then every single person would indeed be saved! Well, unless you wanted to make a little ‘god’ out of the free-will of fallen Man. God’s will is always fulfilled and can never ultimately be thwarted. The idea that God can be thwarted by human will is a blasphemy and must surely be of satanic origin. For “all” are patently obviously not saved. So why would Paul write something which seems to totally contradict what he has written elsewhere about election and, worse, what the Lord Jesus plainly said, as I showed above? That would be absurd. So that we don’t become entangled in distracting contradictions, we can only assume that Paul here — at least in part — means that God’s will for salvation should be applied to all kinds of people — men and women, slave and free, rulers and ruled, Jews and Gentiles, etc. The reality is that “In love, He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:4-5). The reality is that “In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11). The reality is that “it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:8-10). When will people submit to those words which declare that salvation ‘is not from themselves’?

It can also be said that it is God’s will that all those who are His children will be saved. For that is in keeping with His decretive will. There are three primary modes of God’s will. There is His decretive will, which is the will by which He decrees whatever He wishes to come to pass. We humans do not know about that until it actually comes to pass. There is His preceptive will, which is revealed in His actual commandments. This is what God expects of us in our comportment in this world. Then there is His permissive will, by which He permits certain things to happen which are not necessarily in line with His preceptive will but they serve a higher purpose which only He knows. It is plainly not God’s decretive will that every single person should be saved otherwise they absolutely would be. “For who can resist His will?” (Romans 9:19). But His preceptive will “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). It is God’s will that this precept should be obeyed. It is in that sense that it can be said that it is God’s will that all be saved. It is His preceptive will rather than His decretive will. He commands everyone everywhere to repent. Similar can be said about 2 Peter 3:9, where it says that God is not willing that any should perish. We already know that Peter is an advocate of the teaching on election, as we see in 2 Peter 1:10 with the exhortation: “Strive to make your calling and election sure” — in other words, strive to confirm through your subsequent comportment your calling by the Gospel and your election by God to receive it. This refers to His preceptive will rather than His decretive will.

Eager Young Woman: You are digging your own grave with every word, trying to sound clever with your big explanations. What about that place in Hebrews where it says that Christ tasted death for all?

World-Weary Old Man: In fact, the Greek in Hebrews 2:9 does not say “for everyone”, it says “for all”. Surely, the ‘control text’ concerning who Christ died for occurs in what is stated by Him in the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel. The “all” in those few texts which seem to speak differently must obviously be the same “all” to whom Christ refers as His “own”, who He goes before (John 10:4). He says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” — for the sheep, not for ‘all’ (John 10:11). He reiterates this: “I lay down My life for the sheep” (John 10:15). And again, He said to the Jews who were present, “But because you are not My sheep, you refuse to believe. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:26-28). Jesus did not say, “It is my will that you all be saved”, to those around Him who constantly baited Him. Instead, He bluntly said to them, “You are not My sheep”. He says that He knows His sheep; and elsewhere He says that there will be those who He never knew at all and to whom He will one day chillingly declare it (Matthew 7:23). Surely, in John 10, we have the ‘control texts’ which must determine what is meant by Christ “tasting death for all”. In terms of general context, it cannot possibly mean all universally but rather “for all without any distinction”, as we have already seen in respect of Jew and Gentile, slave and free, man and woman, and so on. This is, after all, a Letter to the Hebrews, for whom “all without distinction” would originally have been anathema! Therefore, tasting death “for all” in Hebrews 2:9 cannot possibly mean for every single individual of humanity who ever was. The Scriptures state that there are some people for whom Jesus does not pray, as He prayed to the Father: “I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours” (John 17:9). Tasting death for “all” must plainly mean all the sheep, the Ekklesia, the body of Christ, those whom the Father had given Him. This is borne out by Jesus’ statement that “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw (drag) all to Myself” (John 12:32). Plainly Jesus will not drag every single person to Himself through His death on the cross (with the resultant resurrection and ascension), for as stated earlier ‘no one can come to Christ unless the Father drags them’ (John 6:44). Thus, the “all” there must surely refer to the “all” that He will save, namely, the sheep, the elect of God. Therefore, “tasting death for all” in Hebrews 2:9 refers to His dying for His people. That is the same “all” who He draws to Himself. Furthermore, if you look at the context in Hebrews instead of plucking the text out of its place, you will see from the verse following that the “all” is the “many” who Christ is bringing to glory (Hebrews 2:10). It is those He calls “My brothers” (Hebrews 2:12). It is, as He said, “the children God has given Me” (Hebrews 2:13), which is not absolutely everyone, for the Father did not give Him everyone, as we have seen. It is “the descendants of Abraham” (spiritually understood rather than being of the flesh), whose humanity He shared (Hebrews 2:14-16). That is the “all” for whom He tasted death. It is all right there. Do I need to remind you that the unregenerate are incapable of making a moral decision to be saved for they are “dead in their trespasses and sins” and are “by nature children of wrath”. When one has really looked at it, aside from any humanistic viewpoint, salvation is a gift of God and not the result of any human activity or working. It is not a work of Man but is part of “God’s workmanship” in the whole process of redemption (Ephesians 2:1-10). It is God who kindles in the human heart the embers of repentance. When one comes to Christ, one discovers that “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence” (Ephesians 1:4). Thus, one discovers oneself to be one of the “sheep” for whom Christ came, who were given to Him by God the Father and who that same God the Father ‘dragged’ into the kingdom of God — an utterly humbling realisation. The reality is that unless they repent, unbelievers are unpleasing to God and they are under His wrath. There is no escaping that wrath, apart from repentance and faith in Christ, otherwise ‘the wrath of God remains on them’ (John 3:36). However, we cannot know beforehand the difference between those who are the “vessels of His wrath prepared for destruction” (which is designed to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known) and those who are the “vessels of His mercy prepared in advance for glory” (Romans 9:22-23). Therefore, regardless of anything that I have written above, we must passionately proclaim the truth indiscriminately and pray for God’s will to be done. In other words, when we are evangelizing to the world we should still proclaim the truth about Christ as if it was possible for everyone to be saved. We must not compromise on that, for we cannot know who will or will not respond. That is in God’s hands, fortunately.

Eager Young Woman: You are splitting hairs, thinking you can blind me with all your many words. You love the sound of your own voice. All means all and they all have to make a decision and accept Christ’s offer out of their free-will or it is not a genuine response. What you are saying makes God out to be cruel because He only chooses certain people for salvation.

World-Weary Old Man [Sighing]: Well, my dear, when someone tries to talk back to God resenting His absolute sovereignty, the Apostle says the equivalent of “Who do you think you are, puny human, to talk back to God?” (Romans 9:20). The harsh but true reality is that “God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden” (Romans 9:18). Free-will does not come into the equation. What happened to Paul’s “free-will” on the road to Damascus? Was it violated? Sure it was! And fortunate that it was! What happened to Lydia when “God opened her heart” (Acts 16:14)? Did God violate her “free-will”? When someone comes to Christ it is because God has overcome their alleged free-will. No will is free from God! It is the horribly mistaken assumption that the will is free from God which has brought such humanistic madness into the church. Have you also considered that your teaching about God leaving people to their own devices to choose God out of their own free-will is just as “cruel” (your word) as God electing certain people to salvation. I think that Divine election is infinitely more loving by God than leaving people to wallow in their spiritually-dead ‘free-will’.

Eager Young Woman: I am outraged that you would call me “my dear”. How utterly patronizing! Misogynistic even. You old religious types are so predictable. You need to make way for those who are moving with the times and who do not create stumbling-blocks for unbelievers. Being of the older type who infect the church, I suppose you believe in eternal punishment for unbelievers too, another heresy.

World-Weary Old Man: Another heresy? [Laughing in amazement, looking at her with a mixture of compassion and bemusement]. How long have you been a believer?

Eager Young Woman: Nine months.

World-Weary Old Man: Nine months! And you are overturning centuries of healthy Christian teaching — truths which men and women have gladly died for. Everything which I am saying is basic Christianity 101 but, through decades of ‘easy-believism’, hordes have flooded into the church who have no understanding of the sovereignty of God, His might and His power, who think that Divine election is heresy, and who imagine that the enemies of God will be quietly snuffed out when the Scriptures say absolutely otherwise.

Eager Young Woman [becoming indignant]: I don’t need more than nine months to realise that unbelievers and rejectors of Christ will be destroyed rather than eternally punished. That is what the Bible says. The wages of sin is death; so they must die, be destroyed, annihilated. The concept of eternal punishment is entirely contrary to the justice of God.

World-Weary Old Man: Well, that you would reject the Bible’s teaching on eternal condemnation is no surprise given that you reject His sovereignty in election. However, we are not in a position to second-guess God’s justice on any matter. Our sentimentality gets in the way of that. You might as well say that allowing the Fall at the beginning goes against God’s justice because so many have suffered as a result — even babies being raped or born with terrible defects and all the other suffering in this world. Yet, you do not dispute the Fall.

Eager Young Woman: What do you mean by the fall? All I know is that it is embarrassing to speak about hell to unbelievers — especially my friends who are still in the New Age.

World-Weary Old Man: So you feel embarrassed about proclaiming the Bible truth about eternal condemnation. Do you believe in a Flat Earth?

Eager Young Woman: Of course I do. It’s called biblical cosmology.

World-Weary Old Man [sighs deeply]: I thought you might. Many former New Agers/Truthers do. Yet, that is something which you should feel far more embarrassed about as it is a fiction based on a complete misunderstanding of how to apply Scripture and the mistaken notion that absolutely and utterly everything asserted by NASA or any government agency must be false! That in itself is faulty logic. Coming back to what you said about “the wages of sin is death; so they must die, be destroyed, annihilated”, the death referred to in that verse in Romans 6:23 is spiritual death and is contrasted to eternal life. Spiritual death, as I will show, does not involve what one normally thinks of as destruction or annihilation for it is eternal in the same way as eternal life. It is what Daniel referred to in his prophecy about the post-tribulation general resurrection: “And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, but others to shame and everlasting contempt [which is spiritual death]” (Daniel 12:1-2). The same Hebrew word, olam, is used there to refer to everlasting life and everlasting contempt. Those who reject God in Christ will not be snuffed out but will undergo everlasting contempt. In the well-known Hebrew prayer, the Shema, the line which says “Baruch shem kevod malchuto le’olam va’ed” is translated “Blessed be the name of his kingdom forever and ever”. Olam means forever! Just like in Matthew 25, when Jesus speaks about the sheep having “eternal life” and the goats having “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46). It is the same Greek word for “eternal” being used there in both cases. So if the eternal contempt/punishment is not eternal then neither is the eternal life, which would be stupid! There is no annihilation or conditional immortality involved. The soul is immortal because it is made in the image of God, who is immortal. God Himself has an underived immortality, as only He has (see 1 Timothy 6:16). But human beings have a derived immortality. (As has been well-said: “There is nothing more conducive to immorality than a disbelief in immortality”). Both the saved and the lost will be resurrected. Resurrection is part and parcel of that immortality — for the saved, a resurrection to eternal life; for the lost a resurrection to everlasting contempt. There would be no point in resurrecting the lost if they are going to be snuffed out. They will be resurrected so that they will be in the right condition to suffer eternally. (You should read Lorraine Boettner’s great book, “Immortality”). There has also been a complete misunderstanding of the word “destroyed” in the context of the condition of the lost after death. This is because of the dire state of hermeneutics (Bible interpretation) which has come to be based on sentiment and human preference rather than context and biblical control. Yes, the lost will be destroyed but that does not mean ceasing to exist. The control text regarding the after-death destruction of the lost soul is to be found when the Apostle, Paul, speaks of “the penalty of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). All other texts which refer to the destruction of the lost soul must be seen against this context. Here the Greek word used is olethros, which means to be in a state of ruination. If you want to understand it, picture this: A policeman contacts you and tells you that your house has been destroyed in an explosion. You immediately go there and what do you see? An empty space where the house once was? Of course not! You see a pile of rubble and wrecked artefacts. The fact that it was destroyed does not mean that it no longer exists. It continues to exist but it is now in a changed state, one of ruination. So it is with the destruction of those who have rejected God in what is elsewhere called “the second death” (e.g. Revelation 20:14). It is to be in a state of ruination. The reason? Well, being “punished with everlasting destruction” is nothing whatsoever to do with being annihilated but, rather, being “shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). It is that which creates the ruination. To be spiritually destroyed is not to be snuffed out but to be conscious of being separated from God forever. That is the source of the torment. That is what it means to be destroyed spiritually, to undergo the “second death”. It is referred to symbolically as being thrown into “the lake of fire”, which is where anyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life is thrown (Revelation 20:15). In any case, not everyone in that lake of fire will suffer to the same degree. There are degrees of punishment according to how one has conducted one’s life, as I have written about in detail in my commentary on the Book of Revelation. The thing is that all this influx of belief in ‘conditional immortality’ and ‘annihilation’ has been made up by lily-livered people who think they are nicer than God. They say, “God wouldn’t do that. He is a God of love”. What they are really saying is that if they were God that’s not how they would behave. How presumptuous! But God does what He wants on His terms not ours and I wouldn’t want it any other way. This is why so many who do not believe in Divine election also do not believe in eternal punishment. They cannot accept God’s terms and make judgements based well above their paygrade. But…

Eager Young Woman [Interrupting the World-Weary Old Man]: I’ve heard enough negativity for one day. I use my free-will not to listen to you anymore. All of you will be gone soon and then the church can flourish without the millstone of old outdated beliefs around its neck. I do believe that world revival is coming soon. I see the signs of it everywhere. Demons are being cast out. People are speaking in new languages and singing new songs. They are rising up with positive thoughts for the church and its future. It is not a defeated church but a victorious one and one day it will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Your miserable teachings on election and eternal punishment will not help bring anyone into the church but will just put them off. I leave you to them and affirm my belief in an all-loving God who gave himself for the world. [She turns around with great purpose and strides away].

World-Weary Old Man [Sighing again and calling out after her]: But the victory of the church is not found in what can be seen by physical eyes — that is the flesh speaking — but in what is unseen and eternal! The truth is that comparatively few find the way to eternal life compared with the huge number whose lives will issue in destruction (Matthew 7:13-14) But that does not diminish God’s sovereignty and power or the glory of the Ekklesia. [He throws himself to his knees and mutters]. Dear Lord, I feel powerless to have any impression on such people. I leave it to You to demonstrate Your great power to this lady and all others who diminish Your might and reduce You to a mannequin of their own making. Please forgive me too for my inadequacy to reach into her heart. May I never bring Your name into disrepute. Amen.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]