|
Nothing hinders or prevents the salvation of the reprobate, but their perverse perseverance in sin and rebellion against God, and their willful resistance of all the means that can be wisely used for their salvation.
The doctrine of reprobation is not the election of a part of mankind to damnation, in the same sense that the elect unto salvation are elected to be saved. The latter are chosen or elected, not only to salvation, but to holiness. Election, with those who are saved, extends not only to the end, salvation, but also to the conditions or means; to wit, the sanctification of the Spirit, and the belief of the truth. This has been shown. God has not only chosen them to salvation, but to be conformed to the image of His Son. Accordingly, He uses means with them, with the design to sanctify and save them. But He has not elected the reprobate to wickedness, and does not use means to make them wicked, with the ultimate design to destroy them. He knows, indeed, that His creating them, together with His providential dispensations, will be the occasion, not the cause, of their sin and consequent destruction. But their sin and consequent destruction are not the ultimate end God had in view in their creation, and in the train of providences that thus result. His ultimate end must in all cases be benevolent, or must be the promotion of good. Their sin and damnation are only an incidental result, and not a thing intended as an end, or for its own sake. God can have no pleasure, in either their sin or consequent misery for its own sake; but on the contrary, He must regard both as in themselves evils of enormous magnitude. He does not, and cannot therefore elect the reprobate to sin and damnation, in the same sense in which He elects the saints to holiness and salvation. The elect unto salvation He chooses to this end, from regard to, or delight in the end. But the reprobate He chooses to destroy, not for the sake of their destruction as an end, or from delight in it for its own sake; but He has determined to destroy them for the public good, since their foreseen sinfulness demanded it. He does not use means to make them sinful, or with this design; but His providence is directed to another end, which end is good; and the destruction of the reprobate is, as has been said, only an incidental and an unavoidable result. That is, God cannot wisely prevent this result.
Complementary study:
God_has_a_plan
For more information, please consider
The Eternal Plan of Salvation - First Edition
By Marie M. Buchanan, M.Psy
|
