gpatton{at}bayou.com wrote:
>
> It is not just most Calvinist, but a lot of Christians get upset with
> the Universalist's idea that God may save everybody.  Don't you think
> it would be nice if all were saved?  Scripture does say that with God
> all things are possible.  If it is possible for God to save all, then
> who knows, God may save everybody.
>
Just a quick addition.  The NT account of "believing"  is that it is an
action rather than a state or quality.   In John's gospel, where it is
used 98 times (yet never its cognate -faith) it is used as a positive
committal to a person or principle.  It may be manifested in varying
degrees, or even negatively in disbelief.   John, however, never
describes it as a neutral acquiescence in some popular concept.

Since belief is connected with action, it involves also progress. The
various instances which John has selected to illustrate the rise and
growth of belief indicate the stages by which it develops in the normal
relationship between an individual and Jesus. These illustrations may
give a historical picture of the development of belief in some specific
group like the disciples, or in an individual such as the Samaritan
woman, or they may represent also the negative aspect of confusion and
retrogression in unbelief.

The reason I point this out is that when one turns away from the
"light" given to him, he only falls into greater darkness.  And the
more often one turns from the light, more callause/hardened he becomes.
Those who never come to accept the light given to them in this life
time, whether it be general revelation (Rom 1:20) or special revelation
(Rom 3:2), only solidify their state of unbelief at the time of
judgment.  With outer darkness awaiting them and the glory of heaven
before them, it is not that they desire the darkness, it is that they
would rather "rule in hell than serve in heaven."

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