The second thing that sets you and I apart is the part of the quote I bolded. God has told us plainly that He is willing for none to perish, but all to come to repentance (as it says in my sig). This is the verse that most often gets me accused of being a universalist! However, I don't believe all will be saved in the end. I'd like it, but just as I can't get past the verses that deal with free will, I also can't get past the verses that deal with the consequences of dying as an unbeliever.
Welcome to the universal struggle! Every believer who has sat down with the Scriptures and contemplated the actions of God, the sinful life they have lived, and the marvelous expression of free grace offered by the Father through Christ and delivered by the Holy Spirit, has wrestled with all of the above if they are intellectually honest. Nothing about God is so "cut and dried" that we can just take it for granted! In fact, if don't reason through "why me instead of him" sort of questions, we are probably not authentic in our faith, nor have we spent much time in the Word.
Further, if we fail to ask questions like, "What of those yet lost in their sin?" we are in all likelihood not God's sons, for "sons" ask questions like that of their "Father." As a note: We are called "sons" for a reason that is not completely "sexist." According to the promise of Romans 8 and elsewhere, we are "co-heirs with Christ." God, there, caused Paul to use the term "sons" because "sons" inherit," but daughters do not. God is making us "all" {those in Christ} equivalent in our inheritance! Isn't He amazing!
About the "God has told us plainly that He is willing for none to perish, but all to come to repentance..." issue, how do you resolve to reconcile Scripture on this issue? Was it not Christ who said, "
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matt 7:21-23)
Either we make Jesus a liar, or we work harder to understand what is really being said in passages like 2 Peter 3:9. Let's look at that passage and see if Jesus is a liar, or if God may have meant something other than "all" when He caused the verse "none to perish" to be written.
2 Pet 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
I note first that you cite the last half of that verse, and seem to place the emphasis on the word "none." But, that is not the main clause in that passage, and the word "none" needs to be seen in context of both the passage itself, and the letter that Peter is writing.
In the passage, Peter writes that God is not slack concerning His promise... To whom? To "us" (us-ward in KJV). Who is the "us" of this passage? It is the church to whom Peter is writing, in other words, Peter is writing this passage concerning people who are already believers (and indeed he has just finished warning the believers of "scoffers" (false teachers or those who would lead the congregation astray) who would enter their midst with (in essence) Satanic lies about God's promises. Peter tells us that God does not desire that "none of us" (the congregation, and by inference, the believers in Christ as this passage is handed down for posterity and future generations of "us") should perish, but that "all of us" should come to repentance.
This understanding does not lead to a universal application, as it is intended for believers, and in fact, speaks more of perseverance than it does of atonement and a universal application of the effects of the atonement. And note, I have not "twisted" this passage in any way in order to arrive at this conclusion. All I have done is identified, very simply, who is speaking and to whom. No fancy Greek, etc., just the plain understanding of the passage IN CONTEXT.
Drawing out one phrase of this passage and suggesting that it implies Christ's atonement to all men, when it is not even speaking of such, is where the "twisting" occurs.
About the consequences of dying in sin... You are very right to be concerned about that issue! I said as much above! Those who are not concerned are yet in their sin, for one cannot know God and not be concerned with others who do not know God. But God offers a remedy and a means for those who do not know of Christ and the gospel to find out, and we are not all that worried about that. We would rather make God a universalist -- a failed theology for any number of reasons -- instead of DOING what God plainly said for us to do. Five times, Jesus gave a form of the Great Commission, at the end of each gospel account and in Acts 1:8. Further, the book of Acts is the church obeying the mandate of Christ to carry the gospel to all parts of the world, as were Paul's efforts, recorded in his epistles, John's efforts recorded in his epistles, and Peter's efforts recorded in his epistles. The general concept in the NT is that WE go and do likewise!
Sadly, down through the ages, we've spent a WHOLE lot more time arguing (and killing each other) over doctrines that really have nothing at all to do with obeying God and fulfilling the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. We're really not interested in taking the gospel to all people, we would rather wrangle Scripture to make that unnecessary! Shame on us! God forgive us! As Paul said, "How can they hear without a preacher?"
The admission God makes in 2 Peter 3:9 doesnt make him less of a God or impotent in the least. It makes Him more, more everything, because in essence this admission makes Him capable of giving way to our will. Most gods are dictators, but our God is capable of allowing us to decide if we want Him. He doesn't need to force us into belief or ease us into thinking we want to believe (which strikes me as a form of deception and God cannot decieve) and He is grieved when we don't believe, but He allows us our rebellion and the very grave consequences thereof.
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I'd suggest that your entire take on this, based on a faulty reading of 2 Pet 3:9, is a non-issue. None of what Peter wrote in either of his epistles leads one to hold the sort of free will that you profess. Peter is perhaps the most staunch of all the NT writers concerning the elect and God's sovereignty. He was one who experienced God's election power in his own life and he never forgot it.
But, our God is NOT a dictator. In fact, I keep hearing this as the "antidote" to Calvinism, but NO Calvinist would even suggest that God is a dictator! He is a loving Father, who promises to lead, guide, and discipline His "sons" (see above). He draws us to Himself! Allah is a dictatorial god. Even if he (Allah) says "Go and kill yourself and all these people with you..." his followers go and do without question (even if they don't hear from Allah himself, which is 100% likely!). Our God allows people who are not the elect to turn and go away. He even allows the elect to turn and go away -- for a time -- until He decides the time is right to DRAW them to Himself. That is not dictatorship, that is LOVING RELATIONSHIP by a God who gave His only Son to insure that His will would be done -- for OUR benefit! Can't hardly get more loving than that...
Can God "force" our belief? I'd say, yes, but He mostly doesn't. That's why I suggested that you ask Paul, 10 minutes after his Damascus Road incident... Of course, I guess that some would say that Paul had a choice (I doubt it) but from what I've seen in Scripture, all those who "see" God for who God is have no reservations in coming to Him. Indeed, are we not promised that one day "Every knee will bow and every tongue confess...?" Even those who do not believe will believe once the "see" God.
Our "consequences" are there whether we know them or not. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and "The wages of sin is death." Christ came to save certainly dead sinners (John 3), not to help those who were already alright with God. We are born doomed and damned, and after that, nothing else we do will make a difference. That is a fact of the Bible that cannot be erased by wishful or emotional thinking. It is only those who are "new creation(s)" in Christ that have hope.
Here again is a difference between us. It isn't about God's ability. None of us, I hope, believe that God doesn't have the ability to do exactly what He wants! But what He wants is us to chose Him as He has chosen us.
But, that is exactly what people make of God who suggest that He can only act based on OUR reaction. They make God a God of no ability. Again, we cannot "chose" whom we cannot know, and we cannot know God, nor Christ, unless God reveals Himself to us, which the Bible says is the grace of God.
(SEE NEXT)
