…Is God Genuine in His Offer of Love?

Again, Provisionism [part 1; part 2] asks: If Calvinism is true, then, isn’t God being disingenuous when he tells believers to love all people and share the gospel with all people?

• Biblical response: “By no means!”
  • ‘For [God] says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”’ (v15)

But why would God ask his children to be more loving than he is?, so the Provisionist’s thinking goes.

• Biblical response: “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?”
  • ‘Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”’ (v20-21)

Provisionists have also failed to see that Scripture does teach God’s 1) overall plan (his secret decree) and his 2) revealed will (See Isaiah 10). If we say these two ideas are contradictions that can’t be what the Bible teaches, we fail to enjoy all that God is for us in Jesus. We wrongly rely on our ability to rationalize rightly about God rather than taking the text for what it says. For instance, God tells us to love our enemies, and yet there are verses that say he, in fact, in some real way hates the wicked, like in Psalm 11:5. Can we set our rationalizing aside and affirm Scripture as the highest authority and rejoice that God is wiser than we?[3] Another example where Scripture is straightforward–but many insist that surely such can’t be the case–is the issue of husbands being the leaders at home and in the church. The biblical texts are clear–and yet modern rationalizing and objections abound. May the Lord give us grace and wisdom to say “yes” and “amen” to all that God is and does.

__

[3] Note here what one wise writer says: ‘He [God] hates wicked people from his soul, from the very depth of his being. God hates their ways (Proverbs 15:9), their thoughts (Proverbs 15:26), their worship (Proverbs 15:8), their actions (Proverbs 6:18), and their evil deeds (Psalm 5:5). He singles out as a special object of his hatred the blasphemous deeds of the Nicolaitans, those who seduced God’s people with idolatry and sexual immorality. “Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Revelation 2:6).’ https://www.challies.com/articles/god-hates-wicked-people/, written Feb 11, 2017.

-GSiV

(GSiV: If Calvinism is true…part 1; part 2; Election; Unconditional election; Salvation; Evangelism and Calvinism; TULIP)