Geisler Book Review on the Elect

The issue of the elect versus free will has been a huge debate between Calvinists and those who oppose them. I find it hard to agree that with the point of unconditional election. The Calvinists point is that because of certain verses in the Bible that Jesus among others point to the idea that there are certain people who have been chosen to go to Heaven even before they were born while others were eternally condemned to Hell. I find that hard to agree with because God did not choose only certain people to become members. One reason why is because Christ would not have come to Earth to die if He had already known that they would come to Heaven regardless of Jesus’ sacrifice. The fact that Jesus came to Earth and sacrificed Himself for the sake of sinners shows that He came to save all of His people. And when I say all people, I mean all the people that God created so everyone on Earth. That leads to my next point. If God created everyone in His own image and formed each individual person in the womb then why would He just decide to condemn those He didn’t elect. The only explanation is that those verses that talk about those who were chosen according to God’s will includes all in the world and that we all have the choice to follow Christ or deny Him. Even John 3:16 says that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life because God gave His only son to be killed on a cross so I find it hard to believe that God would choose some to be condemned to Hell because the sacrifice that Christ gave would be useless because it didn’t save everyone, only the elect. I like that Geisler says in his book that salvation is justified by faith so regardless of whether we are “elect” we are still responsible for bringing others to Him as well as growing closer to God ourselves. Basically he says that even if we are the elect it doesn’t matter unless we are living in a way that shows we are pursuing God’s elect call on our lives. But that also brings up the question of whether the elect can choose to not follow Christ or if God even provides the free will for the elect to choose not to follow Him. This brings me to the conclusion that unless God is more of a tyrant in His love for us, He must allow all of His creations (humans) to either choose to follow in His plan for salvation or to deny Christ and condemn ourselves to eternity without Him. But I believe that God is a loving God that allows us to choose or not choose Him for ourselves.