Does God love only a specal few?

Romans 1:1-7

Paul a slave of God was set apart for the gospel and this is the gospel that was promised beforehand by God the Father.  It only requires one to read the Scriptures and be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into truth and one will see Jesus coming as God’s Lamb to redeem mankind.  He would be a descendant from King David and yet His bloodline would come from His virgin mother.  When one tries to by pass the cross and the victories that were won over sin, and then in death on the third day the resurrection comes to the Son of God in victory over death and the grave, as was shared with us by the prophet. 

And without the resurrection we have no victory, we have no redeemer, we only have a fable.  But because Christ is raised, and the grave and death had no authority over Him, you and I have received grace.  The apostle Paul tells us it was by that act of Jesus being raised from the grave he received grace and apostleship so he could bring others to the obedience of faith, and to all the nations, and that includes you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.  And how inclusive was it?  In that Paul’s letter is addressing the house churches in Rome, it is stated; “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:7)

Some of you may be wondering, does God only love certain people?  Nothing could be farther from the truth, and it only requires one to look at the words of Jesus in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  The (whoever) is all inclusive and in John 17, our high Priest in His prayer to the Father is asking the Father to make known through you and me the love of Christ so the world will be drawn to God. 

The world even in Christian circles loves labels, where do you go to church, and then we think O’ you are one of those, or you believe such and such, where did that come from?  It comes from the spirit of one who likes division.  My doctrine seems to line up with what is referred to as Calvinism, but some have taken that doctrine and are referred to as HYPER-CALVINISM, and I would like to share these thoughts from my great uncle John R. Rice.

“Through the years there has been a conflict between the doctrine of eternal salvation by grace through faith, not of works, and the doctrine of salvation partly by God's grace and partly by man's works or by deserving it or by faithfulness. We know that all false religions teach salvation by good works, character, human merit, or rites, not the free salvation given instantly to penitent, believing sinners, wholly by grace. But many Christian groups tend to include works or mourning or faithfulness as the way to get saved and the price of keeping saved. Those who believe men must "hold out faithful" to keep saved and think they will never be surely eternally safe until they reach Heaven are of what is called the Armenian position because it was so insistently taught by Arminius. Wesley and his followers held to this position, as do all who think a saved person can be lost.” 

 WHAT IS HYPER-CALVINISM?

Those who believe in eternal salvation wholly of grace are usually called Calvinists simply because, in the Protestant Reformation, Calvin strongly emphasized that doctrine long contradicted under the Roman heresy of salvation by merit and church rites. So any person who is not Armenian in faith but rather believes in eternal security of the believer is likely to describe himself as a Calvinist. Or where Calvinism has not been carried to its more unscriptural, unevangelistic, arrogant extreme, one might probably call himself a "moderate" Calvinist. Most of those who might be called Calvinists do not believe in a limited atonement, for example, nor do they believe that some are foreordained by unconditioned election to go to Hell and so could not be saved, that salvation was never provided for nor offered for them. But they do believe in eternal salvation by grace, the principal truth Calvin emphasized.

Those who do believe a doctrine of God's limited love, limited grace, limited atonement, and unchangeable plan to damn millions, who could not be saved, are called hyper-Calvinists.

These extreme doctrines were first taught somewhat by Augustine. Then for about a thousand years no one found them in the Bible, of course, till Calvin developed such a theology. Adopting the theory men then persuaded themselves that they find it in the Bible.

Salvation by grace, eternal salvation, without works, is a Bible doctrine. I believe hyper-Calvinism is not a Bible doctrine but is a perversion by proud intellectuals who thus may try to excuse themselves from any spiritual accountability for winning souls. (By Dr. John R. Rice) Note: my dad’s second cousin.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice