An argument for the necessity of God's rescuing us (i.e. election-choosing us unto salvation).
We are told we will not and can not come to God unless he draws us to himself.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day...
And he (Jesus) said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." - Jesus. Joh 6:44, 65
Why are we in this condition? How did it come about?
We died spiritually when we chose to rebel from our dependence on God, who is love, life and the source and sustainer of all things.
The life (Spirit) of God left us when we rebelled. We immediately died spiritually. Evidence of this is Adam and Eve's attempt to cover their shame and hide from God and their blameshifting.
We alone are characterized as a "living being."This is due to God directly breathing his life/breath into us. Not just any life but the very life/breath of God himself.Gen 2:7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
The Holy Spirit will not and does not live inside rebellious image bearers. When we rebelled and rejected our dependence on God, he left… Or we could say his life/Spirit left. Though a residual of his life lingered, as evidenced by our not physically dying immediately, we eventually died *physically as well.
We are real beings with real choices that have real consequences.
God honors us, our dignity, our being in his image, when he honors our **choices.
Because of these realities, we not only died spiritually but this led to our dying physically as well. We remain in this spiritually dead condition unless something is done to reverse it i.e. unless God intervenes. Without God's intervention all men and women go into eternity separated from God spiritually and physically.
When we consider the angels, this is exactly what happened to them i.e. we have no indication that any of the fallen angels turned, can turn or ever will turn back to God. The only difference between them and us appears to be God's intervention (i.e. his mercy).
The fact that our choosing to rebel from God was so complete/final, has nothing to do with the justice of God (at least it was not as final as that of the angels). God clearly warned our first parents (Adam directly and Eve via Adam) that the day they eat (a choice to no longer depend on God) they would die. They cut themselves off from God. It was their choice and they were warned of the consequences.
Whether they understood the full significance of this is neither here nor there. In fact not fully understanding the significance only affirmed the importance and necessity of the complete trust of Adam and Eve in God's promise/warning. God requiring they trust him is simply expecting them to be who they were; dependent creatures in his image. God was only asking them to believe he was all wise and knew what was best.
Why would and did God create us in such a way this could even happen. Because love forced is no love at all and a choice forced is not a choice. In other words, if I follow you because I am programmed to do so, it would not be me choosing you out of trust and love for you, it would be the program directing me to do so. Without real trust there is no real love or real choice.
If a husband is programmed to bring flowers to his wife, how does his wife feel (knowing his programming was the reason)?
When God reveals himself to us, he is overriding our fallen (self imposed and deserved...after all they were clearly warned) condition/blindness. He's not violating our choice, he's awakening our hearts again to his love. Once awakened, we naturally go after him who is all lovely and beautiful. It is in fact our response to seeing his beauty. But it is God in his mercy opening our eyes so we might see him as he truly is again. A blind man can not heal his own blindness.
To illustrate, what if you were blind and deaf (better yet what if you were dead) and someone placed a pot of gold in front of you and told you this is yours and it's value is approximately 250 million dollars. How would you respond? What would you do? Well, you would do nothing simply because you wouldn't be aware this had just occured. Now, what if by some miracle all your senses were restored (or somehow you came back to life) while this pot of gold was there in front of you and the offer was made again. How would you respond? Well, I dare say you would say YES and thank you.
Now what changed? We're you forced to take the gold. Were you somehow given the will to choose the gold that you didn't previously have. No, you were now able to see what was there and responded (chose) based on how you were already designed to respond i.e. you were draw to that which is valuable and choose it.
Christ tells us unless we are born again we can not see the kingdom of God (the beauty, glory and joy of being reunited with the King). Sight comes before life (rebirth). The sight of the beauty of God revealed to us by the Spirit of God brings us from death to life. The capacity for life was always there but dormant (dead). We just needed God's breath, breathed into us again, just as the original Adam did after being formed from the ground.
Given this set of conditions/ circumstances, if God were to do nothing to remedy the problem created by the rebellious choice of Adam and Eve, it would have been perfectly just. To do anything to remedy the problem they created is rather an act of mercy by God. He was and is in no way obligated to resolve the dilemma they had created. Adam and Eve's choice was clearly a violation of trust on their part. A choice that totally ruined and destroyed their trust through which their relationship with God was sustained, alienating themselves from him, themselves, each other as well as the rest of creation.
Thank God our choice was not the final word, his mercy was.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11.
Thank God our choice was not the final word, his mercy was.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
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*Some have questioned the warning from God as untrue since man did not physically die immediately upon eating the forbidden fruit. But possibly this is because physical death is all we can relate to (we are now born spiritually dead so we have nothing to compare it to), when in fact spiritual death was the primary caution God was giving which lead to his death physically.
This also may say something very significant regarding what is the more vital form of life: spiritual life or physical life. Both are certainly important but spiritual death (the loss of God's life/Spirit) was more vital as everything else (physical death, the curse upon the ground, pain in child bearing etc) flowed out of our disconnect (death) to God.
** God still honored our choice when he called us back to himself. He simply opened our eyes to see his beauty resulting in our choosing him again. He did not override our choice in so doing he simply removed our blindness so that we might choose rightly.
