In the article on
Genesis event we have seen how God dealt with the
people after the fall and demanded of them a
response which God asserted that they could. We can
certainly conclude that God being a reasonable and
just God cannot expect responsibility where there is
no ability. How can God, who is perfectly just,
'command all men everywhere to repent' (Acts 17:30),
knowing the command is impossible to obey?
It is like a
preacher preaching in a grave yard for every dead
body to get up and walk and when they do not obey
burn them for their disobedience. We would not
consider him sane. But Calvinists wants us to
consider God just as that. If God is insane, what
can you do. We know of Dictators who were insane who
did the same thing. Is our God like them?
According to
the Reform Theology Man is so corrupt, he will
not and cannot obey even the slightest
spiritual command . He cannot even understand the
language. Yet, God orders him to believe; He
punishes him for not believing and condemns him for
eternal fire which he can certainly feel and know .
Is this the character of God revealed in Christ? Is
this the picture of God of love and God who is just,
leave alone of a Father?
Gospel and Man’s
Ability
On the day of
Pentecost, 'With many other words he (Peter) warned
them; and he pleaded with them, 'Save yourselves
from this corrupt generation'' (Acts 2:40). Was
Peter 'pleading' with these people to do something
they were incapapble of doing? If he was speaking in
a language which they did not understand, the spirit
of God intervened to let them hear these words in
their own tongues. Why? So that they may understand
and will have no excuse.
Act 2: 7 Utterly
amazed, they asked: 'Are not all these men who are
speaking Galileans?8 Then how is it that each of us
hears them in his own native language?9 Parthians,
Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea
and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,10 Phrygia and
Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene;
visitors from Rome(both Jews and converts to
Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring
the wonders of God in our own tongues!'
The command is to preach and
make all people understand the Gospel.
Mat. 28: 19 Therefore go and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit,20 and teaching them to obey everything I
have commanded you.
Mark 16: 15 He said to them,
'Go into all the world and preach the good news to
all creation.16 Whoever believes and is baptized
will be saved,
Even in Jesus’ attempt to
hide his purposes from the Jews he says:
Mark 4: 11 He told them,
'The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to
you. But to those on the outside everything is said
in parables so that, 'they may be ever seeing but
never perceiving, and ever hearing but never
understanding; otherwise they might turn and be
forgiven!''
Jesus would have no problem
of outsiders whom he did not want to know and
understand him from hearing what he had to say, if
they were dead and are incapable of knowing anything
spiritual. On the other hand Jesus marvelled at the
unbelief of the hearers. What was there to marvel if
the hearers were unable to understand? We also see
that by repeated refusal and continued sinning a
person hardens his heart against the gospel.
Eph 4: 18 They (the
Gentiles) are darkened in their understanding and
separated from the life of God because of the
ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of
their hearts.
Their ignorance is not
because they are dead already, but because they
seperated themselves from the life of God and they
hardened their hearts. A heart cannot be hardened
any further unless it was at least some what soft.
Zech. 7: 12
They made their hearts as hardas flint and
would not listen to the law or to the words that the
LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the
earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very
angry.
