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Point #2: I came to understand the distinction between the doctrine of Original Sin (depravity) and the Calvinistic concept of "Total Inability."
 
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Point #2: I came to understand the distinction between the doctrine of Original Sin (depravity) and the Calvinistic concept of "Total Inability."


Point #2: I came to understand the distinction between the doctrine of Original Sin (depravity) and the Calvinistic concept of "Total Inability."
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Calvinists teach that "the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel,"[2] but I learned that is the condition of a judicially hardened man, not a natural condition from birth (Acts 28:27-28; John 12:39-41; Mark 4:11-12; Rom. 11). Instead, God's gracious revelation and powerful gospel appeal is the means He has chosen to draw, or enable, whosoever hears it to come. Thus, anyone who does hear or see His truth may respond to that truth, which is why they are held response-able (able-to-respond).


At the time while Christ was on earth the Israelites, in John 6 for example, were being hardened or blinded from hearing the truth. Only a select few Israelites, a remnant were given by the Father to the Son in order for God's purpose in the election of Israel to be fulfilled. That purpose was not referring to God's plan to individually and effectually save some Jews, but His plan to bring the LIGHT or REVELATION to the rest of the world by way of the MESSIAH and HIS MESSAGE so that all may believe (John 17:21b).

The vine the Jews are being cut off of in Romans 11 is not the vine of effectual salvation, otherwise how could individuals be cut off or grafted back into it? The vine is the LIGHT of REVELATION, the means through which one may be saved that was first sent to the Jews and then the Gentiles (Rom. 1:16). The Gentiles are being granted repentance or “grafted into the vine” so as to be enabled to repent. The Jews, if provoked to envy and leave their unbelief, may be grafted back into that same vine (Rom. 11:14, 23).

KEY POINT: God DOES use determinative means to ensure His sovereign purposes in electing Israel, which includes:

(1) the setting apart of certain individual Israelites to be the lineage of the Messiah, and
(2) the setting apart of certain individual Israelites to carry His divinely inspired message to the world (using convincing means like big fish and blinding lights to persuade their wills)
and
(3) temporarily blinding the rest of Israel to accomplish redemption through their rebellion.
However, there is no indication in scripture that:

(1) all those who DO believe the appointed messenger's teachings were likewise set apart by such persuasive means (especially not inward effectual means).
(2) all those who DO NOT believe the appointed messenger's teachings were likewise hardened from the time they were born to the time they died.
As a Calvinist I did not understand the historical context of the scriptures as it relates to the national election of Israel followed by their judicial hardening. When the scriptures spoke of Jesus hiding the truth in parables, or only revealing Himself to a select few, or cutting off large numbers of people from seeing, hearing and understanding the truth; I immediately presumed that those were passages supporting the “T” of my T.U.L.I.P. when in reality they are supporting the doctrine of Israel’s judicial hardening.
 

 
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