NOW LET'S

LOOK AT THIS

MATTER OF

ATONEMENT:
part two

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Here are a few questions we need to answer:

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(one bookcase of books in Library)

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· Did God because of something within His own nature or something intrinsic to man have to save sinners?


· Did God's attributes of love, mercy and compassion necessitate or force Him to act?

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· Could God have left the whole human race to perish in their sins if He so desired?
Here is the answer to these questions:

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· The scriptural answer as I understand it: God's decision to save a people for Himself was a free choice that was not determined by any internal or external necessity.
> Paul says that God's predestination of the elect to salvation in Christ was "according to the good pleasure of His will" Eph 1:5. "Jesus Christ..gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, Galatians 1:4. In Colossians, Paul said, "it pleased the Father..to reconcile all things to Himself by Him."(1:19).

These verses I believe clearly show that God's decision to save sinners was a free sovereign choice

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Have you wondered why the Bible often speaks of salvation, being born again, as a "free gift" from God? So what does this mean? It doesn’t mean that achieving redemption was without cost. I Corinthians 6:20, 7:23 Christians are "bought at a price." Christ redeemed the church with His own precious blood (1 Peter 1:19). So this free gift refers to the fact that God imparts salvation to the elect freely or voluntarily.

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God was not obligated to save anyone, but out of His own good pleasure He gave "freely".

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God did not have to save anyone! What do you mean by that? But He "freely" did. As Paul said that believers are "justified freely by His grace." Romans 3:24; that God will "freely give us all things," Romans 8:32,; that the Holy Spirit enables us to "know the things that have been freely given to us by God"I Corinthians 2:12. This is what happened when the Holy Spirit enabled me at seven, I believe, to understand what Jesus Christ was freely giving to me, salvation.

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God’s free spirit in giving salvation to the elect, (that is a term I have used forever to mean that God elects people unto salvation, He personally brings people unto Himself, not by anything we do but wholly by His own free will), is directly connected with the biblical concept of grace.

What do you mean?

GRACE as I understand, is that God gives His favor and salvation to those who deserve wrath and hell-fire, to those who hate God and are His enemies. Salvation that is presented in the Bible is never given by obligation or debt. Nor given by God seeing before hand one’s faith, good works, or bloodline, or nationality. Those things have nothing to do with God’s free choice to give as He Himself is glorified. Remember that verse in Romans 9:18 "Therefore He has mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardens."

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So was this sovereign good pleasure of God just a decision that was done purely arbitrarily. No. This atonement, the means whereby God could bring one to salvation,was by an act that was rooted in His nature. That was ‘love." John 3:16 "For God so loves the world that he gave His own begotten Son." And I John 4:9-11, "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the World, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loves us, we also ought to love one another."

Here it is about atonement, the love of God is the spring from which the atonement flows. Jesus’ death was the absolute manifestation of God’s love. "But God" in Romans 5:8, "in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That is love.

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In Romans 8:29 Paul writes that God’s love preceded election. He loved us first, then elected us to Himself. "For whom He foreknew , He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son." "To love before hand."

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Why did Jesus come and die? He didn’t have to. We were all His enemies. No one, nobody loved Jesus. He loved us so, that He did come, and die on the cross.

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God so loved, that He by His free sovereign choice, freely gave grace to those who by His good pleasure, He chose to bring to Himself. Why He set His love on me, I don’t know; but I know it was He who first set His love on me.