A Classic Illustration of God's Sovereign Electing Freedom

Alan Kurchner continues to post thought provoking articles on the Alpha and Omega Ministries blog. Here he gives a classic illustration of God's grace and his sovereignty. I wasn't raised in Reformed circles so this illustration is new to me.

You have 100 criminals on death row. They are all equally guilty and deserving of death. Every single one of them hates the governor of the state. So much so, that all of them conspired together and successfully killed his only son. One of these death row criminals is you. The governor has the freedom and right to pardon and give clemency to any of them. It could be one person, ten, all of them, or just none of them. If he chose to pardon none of them, would he be perfectly just to do so? Yes. And he is not obligated to choose between a dilemma of bestowing mercy either on all 100 of them, or none of them---he could choose any number in between, if he wills. He can do whatever he wishes because of his right as governor. But let us say he chooses to have mercy on 10 of the 100 justly deserved death row criminals. The ten are just as guilty and deserving of death as the other 90. And one of those ten to be graciously pardoned is you. You are free! You are pardoned! You have been granted mercy! Now as you are stepping out of that prison into freedom, are you going to look back and point your finger at the governor and utter, "How dare you pardon me, and not everyone else." You would be an ungrateful halfwit.

From scripture, I would have to say I agree. Of course being pardoned does include a change of mind and nature. Such a one pardoned would not say "How dare you pardon me, and not everyone else." God changes us from being ungrateful halfwits. I'd say that such a one who does not recognize the grace of God as being just and in God's control is either deluded or not pardoned.




A Classic Illustration of God's Sovereign Electing Freedom

Related articles

• Pardoned By God (samuelatgilgal.wordpress.com)

Did Christianity Steal from Mystery Religions? MP3 Audio - Apologetics 315

Brian Auten has posted a link to a four part response by Lenny Esposito of Come Reason Ministries to the question Did Christianity Steal from Mystery Religions?

Lenny responds to the charge that "There were many resurrected messiahs in ancient religions," "Christianity ripped off other faiths," and the like.

I know that this has been answered over and over again, but it needs to continue being brought up as long as skeptics and enemies of God want to keep bring it it up. There are people who base all of their objections against Christianity on these "points". Follow the links to listen.

Did Christianity Steal from Mystery Religions? MP3 Audio - Apologetics 315

Calvinists are Now Theological Racists

Alan Kurschner, one of the awesome contributors to the Alpha and Omega Ministries blog posted the following

Ergun Caner has stated that Calvinists are worse than Muslims. This week Norman Geisler has added to this vitriolic rhetoric calling Calvinists theological racists. Wait a minute, I thought it was Calvinists who are the mean nasty people?

Geisler said: "These people [meanie Calvinists] teach that Christ only loved the elect and only died for the elect. And I think that's some kind of theological racism."

At 30:30 into this radio show you can listen to human tradition in all its glory.

I liked the whole interview. It helped me remember that Norman Geislet is a great scholar although I think he really got the points on divine election and human free will wrong.  Calvinism is not about believing that does not love everyone. I also don't understand how he can argue that his critics have been cruel when he equated Calvinism with racism.


Calvinists are Now Theological Racists