truths. No writer insists more strenuously
than the Apostle Paul on the sovereign election of God, yet none presents
with greater fervour the free offer of salvation. In his ethical
teaching, at least, Paul is no determinist. Freedom is the distinctive
note of his conception of life. Life is a great and solemn trust
committed to each by God, for the use or abuse of which every man will be
called to account. His missionary zeal would have no meaning if he did
not believe that men were free to accept or refuse his message. Paul's
own example, indeed, is typical, and while he knew that he was 'called,'
he knew, too, that it lay with him to yield himself and present his life
as a living sacrifice to God. Jesus, too, throughout His ministry,
assumed the ability of man freely to accept His call to righteousness,
and though He speaks {95} of the change as a 'new birth,' a creation from
above, beyond the strength of man to effect, He invariably makes His
appeal to the will--'Follow Me,' 'Come unto Me.' He assumes in all His
dealings with individuals that they have the power of decision. And so
far from admitting that the past could not be undone, and no chain of
habit broken, the whole purpose of His message and lifework was to
proclaim the need and possibility of a radical change in life. So full
of hope was He for man that He despaired of none, not even of those who
had most grievously failed, or most utterly turned their back on purity.
The parables in the Third Gospel of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and
the lost son lay emphasis upon the possibility of recovery, and, in the
case of the prodigal, specially on the ability to return for those who
have gone astray.
The teaching of Scripture implies that while God is the source of all
spiritual good, and divine grace must be present with and precede all
rightful action of the human will, it rests with man to respond to the
divine love. No human soul is left destitute of the visiting of God's
spirit, and however rudimentary the moral life may be, no bounds can be
set to the growth which may, and which God intends should, result
wherever the human will is consentient. While, therefore, no man can
claim merit in the sight of God, but must acknowledge his absolute
dependency upon divine grace, no one can escape loss or blame if he
wilfully frustrates God's design of mercy. Whatever mystery may attend
the subject of God's sovereign grace, the Bible never presents it as
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