Do All People Have the Opportunity to be Saved?
Salvation is of the Lord (Ps 3:8; Jon 2:9; Rev 19:1). It belongs to our Triune God — each Person of the Trinity holding the title “Lord.” All three Persons of the Godhead play active roles in the divine work of saving sinners.
Sinners are saved from God Himself. It is the wrath of God from which people must be rescued (Rom 1:18; 1 Thess 1:10). God’s wrath against the ungodly is perfect justice. All people have been a party to lawlessness, and every sinner deserves eternal punishment.
God created fiery hell as the eternal home for the legions of rebellious demons led by Lucifer. When man joined Satan’s act of cosmic treason, humanity earned its place in outer darkness, forever. Our existence in this world provides a foretaste of that loveless environment of eternal torment. The difference is that here there is a restraint to evil. Men will gnash their teeth and weep there in the lake of fire that is never quenched…ever.
So, we understand that sinners are saved, that is, they are rescued from the just consequences of their inherited sin, their sin nature, and practice of sinning. Despite their desperate need for a Savior, very few inquire, “What must I do to be saved?” There is something hindering man from seeking God as his Savior (Rom 3:11); and there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby one must be saved (Acts 4:12).
Sinners do not seek the only Savior of sinners because they are blinded by the great deceiver, the devil, the father of lies (Jn 8:44; 2 Cor 4:4). Therefore, without divine intervention, sinners earn death, judgment, and punishment (Mt 25:46; Rom 6:23; Heb 9:27; Jude 7). Apart from God, people have no hope of salvation (Eph 2:12); and apart from Christ there is no salvation (Jn 14:6; 15:5).
There is no deficiency in God’s eternal purpose to save a remnant people of His own choosing (Rom 11:5; 2 Thess 2:13). The wisdom of God and the power of God are perfectly efficient and certainly sufficient to secure those whom God the Father predestined, who are those God the Son redeemed, and to whom the blood of Christ is applied by God the Holy Spirit (Mt 26:28; Eph 1:7). Jesus promised to lose none of His own (Jn 10:28–29), who were given to Him by His Father (Jn 6:37).
Did God the Father give every single person in the world, throughout history, to Jesus? The obvious answer from Scripture is negative. Jesus assured the people that the Good Shepherd lays down His life exclusively for His own (Jn 10:11, 15). The Lord knows those who are His (2 Tim 2:19); therefore, He surely knows those who are not His — the children of the devil (Jn 8:44; 1 Jn 3:10). By nature, all people are sons of disobedience and children of wrath (Eph 2:2–3). What then produces a child of God?
It is by God’s gracious work of adoption that His elect are transferred from the domain of darkness and into the marvelous light of the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col 1:13). In this, the Holy Spirit of adoption is sent to and takes up permanent residence in those now called “children of God” (1 Jn 3:1, 10). His indwelling presence is the very token of God’s love poured out in the hearts of His elect, redeemed people.
There is a pervasive false teaching in Christ’s church that must be vigilantly corrected. It is the unsound doctrine of universal love. It communicates, “God loves everyone. Jesus died for everyone. So, everyone has the opportunity to be saved.”
The keen observer will see the fallacy of this heresy as God’s sovereignty in salvation is replaced by the proposed sovereignty of sin-filled rebels, who wrest salvation away from God by their own “free will.” They will decide whether Jesus is worthy or not. They will choose whether they will permit Jesus to save them. This, of course, is blasphemy against God, insinuating that God is a helpless bystander. In this perversion of truth, God is the one who hopes (no doubt in a cold sweat) that He will be chosen by wretched sinners as their preferred Savior. Outrageous are the Pelagian and Arminian heresies. May they never be!
Dead men do not entertain living opportunities. They either remain spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, or God makes them alive (Eph 2:1, 5). This negates the notion of opportunity to all people. The Bible is so very clear in this matter. It is neglect of the Bible that leaves room for man-centered theology.
God has predestined His elect people (Rom 8:30; Eph 1:4–5), a chosen remnant from before the foundation of the world (Rom 11:5; Rev 13:8; 17:8; 21:27), to be in covenant relationship with Him, saying in essence, “I will be your God and you will be My people (Gen 17:7).” There is nothing left to chance in so great a salvation. No accidents occur, whereby one of God’s elect is ultimately outside His eternal kingdom. None of the non-elect reprobates somehow get “lucky” by crashing the wedding party of Christ and His bride, His church (Mt 22).
Let us once and forever remove and reject the idea that unknown possibilities occupy a place in the perfection of God’s eternal salvation. If God chooses to befriend a sinner, regardless of the degree of evil in which he or she operated, then that person will be a trophy of God’s amazing grace and mercy.
Today, let us turn from the false teaching of false teachers who have promoted salvation as a crapshoot. No one has ever gambled his way into the kingdom of God with a leap of faith. Instead, we recognize those who have received the Holy Spirit, as a manifestation of God’s sovereign grace, in making salvation a reality for those born again of God…not just a mere possibility of an opportunity for dead men to judge Christ by their mythical free will.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
March 31, 2023
