Theo1689
Well-known member
I hope everyone has seen the movie, "The Green Mile". If you haven't, you definitely should. But it has a great scene (which doesn't spoil the ending) that is a picture of grace.
Paul the prison guard (Tom Hanks) delivers some corn bread to John Coffey (Michael Clark Duncan), a prisoner on Death Row. He decides to give some of the corn bread to his friend "Del", also on death row. Another death row inmate, "Wild Bill" (Sam Rockwell), who was a "really bad man", begs for some corn bread too, but Coffey decides not to give him any. "Yours to do with as you please", Paul says.
If we are to believe what the anti-Calvinists teach, Coffey would be OBLIGATED to give some corn bread to Wild Bill, just because he gave some to Del. Either he has to give some to everyone, or he can't share with everyone. But that's not how it works. We are free to give gifts to who we choose, and nobody has the right to "demand" we give them something, if we don't want to.
And how much more so does God not have any oligation to give salvation, or even "a chance for salvation" to every one of His creations, if He does not wish to? Who can demand anything of God?
Rom. 9:19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But 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?” 21 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? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
Paul the prison guard (Tom Hanks) delivers some corn bread to John Coffey (Michael Clark Duncan), a prisoner on Death Row. He decides to give some of the corn bread to his friend "Del", also on death row. Another death row inmate, "Wild Bill" (Sam Rockwell), who was a "really bad man", begs for some corn bread too, but Coffey decides not to give him any. "Yours to do with as you please", Paul says.
If we are to believe what the anti-Calvinists teach, Coffey would be OBLIGATED to give some corn bread to Wild Bill, just because he gave some to Del. Either he has to give some to everyone, or he can't share with everyone. But that's not how it works. We are free to give gifts to who we choose, and nobody has the right to "demand" we give them something, if we don't want to.
And how much more so does God not have any oligation to give salvation, or even "a chance for salvation" to every one of His creations, if He does not wish to? Who can demand anything of God?
Rom. 9:19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But 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?” 21 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? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
