Jeremy L. Berg

A very “meaty” article today at Jesus Creed navigating the tough theological topics of God’s “election,” “salvation,” and “judgment” interacting with the views of Calvinism, Arminianism, Barth’s third way and a newer concept called “missional election.”  Go check it out HERE.  Here’s a snippet:

We, the Church, have been elected for mission.  But this emphatically does not mean that those outside the visible Church are forever outside the reach of God’s grace.  Barth’s approach is helpful here:  God has already said “yes” to all of humanity in Christ.  The eschatological victory over sin, evil and death is sealed.  In my view — given what I know of God’s character revealed in Christ –  at the final judgment, only those who persistently reject God’s grace will remain outside the Kingdom. Karl Barth, C.S. Lewis, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Leslie Newbiggin, Donald Bloesch, Dallas Willard, and the like, were right:  it is wrong to suggest that all people who do not (as far as we can see) have access to the Gospel in this life are simply cast off by God.  (Whether God’s salvation encompasses an ongoing post-mortem “harrowing of Hell,” as many Eastern Church Fathers and contemporary Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic theologians suggest, I do not know, though I personally suspect something like this is so. )  Yet, as always, it is not for me to pretend to constrain what God can or cannot do, or to pry too deeply into His mysteries.  Judgment and salvation belong to God alone.

Read full article HERE.