For mankind, getting to Heaven is not a reward for the righteous but a gift for the guilty. Consider who a pardon is for. Typically, it’s not for those who have never done anything wrong. Spiritually speaking, God offers guilty mankind a free pardon. If it must be asked why one particular person gets admitted while another is turned away, the answer is because one said “yes” and the other said “no.” It’s like the two individuals on the cross next to Jesus. One rejected Christ and the other asked Jesus for a gift and was given the promise of “yes,” that He could be in paradise with Jesus.
There is a point in time when a person goes from lost to found, and dead in sin to redeemed. In summary, a change occurs. While the process of sanctification may occur over time, salvation is instantaneous. So, then, what is this instantaneous form of salvation? Whereas man does the believing, God does the saving, and the saving that God does comes in the form of the New Birth. God makes us Born Again. Therefore, a reborn person is no longer the same as they were prior to conversion.
How do we know that we are Born Again? The lesson of the parable of the Seed and the Sower of Luke chapter 8 demonstrates that while sometimes conversions do not take, true conversion results from “the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart.” (Luke 8:15) Jesus does not turn people away, at least not on this side of eternity. If you seek God in an honest and good heart, He will gladly receive you, and once He does, God sends the Holy Spirit to come and live inside of your soul/spirit.
Romans 10:8-11: “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’”
The destination of the Holy Spirit is in the soul/spirit of every believer:
John 14:23: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.’”
1st Corinthians 3:16: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
When the Holy Spirit takes up residence within a person, they are reborn and transformed. They are forgiven of their sins and given access to all of God’s predestined spiritual blessings for Christians.
What do Calvinists believe?
Charles Spurgeon: “‘Salvation is of the Lord’ in the application of it. ‘No,’ says the Arminian, ‘it is not; salvation is of the Lord, inasmuch as he does all for man that he can do; but there is something that man must do, which if he does not do, he must perish.’ That is the Arminian way of salvation.”359
Charles Spurgeon: “That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, ‘He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord.’”360
Our reply:
When a Calvinist says that “Salvation is all of God,” that is their code-word for “Irresistible Grace.” In other words, Calvinists conflate our choice to believe in Christ with God’s choice to bestow salvation, so that the whole package of salvation (our believing and God’s saving) are both wrapped up into God’s effectual action as the “complete work of God.” Hence, in Calvinism, God does the believing for us, but Calvinists strongly reject that concept in so many words, though only to affirm it in practicality. In other words, in Calvinism, God does the believing for us insomuch as it is made irresistible through preemptive regeneration, in which a person is first regenerated by God and then they are guaranteed to believe. Calvinists reject the notion that “God does the believing for us” but only by asserting first and second causes, which is the same argument Calvinists raise to reject the argument that God is the “author of sin,” even though Calvinists say that God decreed all sin.
The parable of the Prodigal Son of Luke 15:11-32 has the effect of beautifully illustrating the fact that our response to God does not merit anything of our own and shows how the grace of God is solely of Him, ultimately then erasing Spurgeon’s moral objection against “the Arminian” (or Traditionalist). From the non-Calvinist perspective, there are two distinct choices being made in salvation. There is our independent [Editor’s clarification: of irresistible causation] choice to respond to God’s call, and then there is God’s independent choice to bestow forgiveness. In the example of the Prodigal Son, the son’s return home did not merit salvation. He really only merited being stoned to death, but it was the father’s choice to instead extend forgiveness and full restoration. So, of the two choices being made, it is reasonably clear that the choice of the father to be gracious was ‘all of him’ and not compulsory. This is what non-Calvinists think of salvation being ‘all of God.’
__________________________________
359 Charles Spurgeon, Salvation of the Lord by Charles Haddon Spurgeon May 10, 1857. https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/salvation-of-the-lord#flipbook/
360 Charles Spurgeon, A Defense of Calvinism. http://www.romans45.org/spurgeon/calvinis.htm
