Originally posted by standingfirminChrist:
God is not going to force His Son on anyone.
You quite correctly state that:
"God is not going to force His Son on anyone." What God does is by an act of Grace through the Holy Spirit change the nature of man and give man the faith so that he will believe in Jesus Christ. This truth is clearly shown in Ephesians 2:1-9. I quote from the NKJV.
1. And you
He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
2. in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
3. among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5. even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6. and raised
us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus,
7. that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in
His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9. not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Please notice in Verses 1 and 5 we are told that God made us alive even when we were dead in tresspass and sin. No action is indicated on man's part before this action takes place.
In fact one who is spiritually dead can take no action relative to God and Salvation. This truth is taught in the following Scripture:
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. This passage confirms the statement made above that the natural man, the unsaved man, is incapable of taking any action relative to God and Salvation.
Also please note that in Verse 8 we are told that God gives us the faith through which, we who have been made alive, can then believe.
John Dagg, a Baptist preacher, teacher, and theologian of the 19th century writes of the change wrought in man, which precedes the gift of faith, as follows:
Dagg notes [
Manual of Theology, pages 277ff]: “So great is the change produced, that the subject of it is called a new creature as if proceeding, like Adam, directly from the creating hand of God; and he is said to be renewed, as being restored to the image of God, in which man was originally formed”
2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV
17.
Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Dagg further notes:
“The change is moral. The body is unchanged; and the identity of the mind is not destroyed. The individual is conscious of being the same person that he was before; but a new direction is given to the active powers of the mind, and new affections are brought into exercise. The love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. No love to God had previously existed there; for the carnal heart is enmity against God. Love is the fulfilling of the law, the principle of all holy obedience; and when love is produced in the heart, the law of God is written there. As a new principle of action, inciting to a new mode of life, it renders the man a new creature. The production of love in the heart by the Holy Spirit, is the regeneration, or the new birth; for he that loveth, is born of God.”
