Why are not all Saved?
1st Timothy 2:3-4: “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
2nd Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
Obviously, God desires and wishes that everyone become saved (1st Timothy 2:4; 2nd Peter 3:9), so why are not all, therefore, saved?
Arminianism teaches that all are not saved because God wants man to make a genuine decision for Him so that He can have genuine fellowship with Him, through the Prevenient Grace that He offers which enables a man to repent and become saved. Arminianism insists that God is not looking for robots.
Calvinism teaches that all are not saved because God wants to display His attributes, mercy and wrath, that is, mercy for some and wrath for others, so that some will become saved and some will perish. Calvinism insists that Irresistible Grace does not make men into robots, but means that they simply get a different heart than the one that they had before which resisted God. Both belief systems agree that those in Christ receive this “new heart” (2nd Corinthians 5:17), though just when a person becomes in Christ, is an area of debate. Do people become preemptively in Christ, unconsciously and involuntarily, or do people become in Christ only after being sealed in Him by the Holy Spirit by first believing in the Gospel, as Ephesians 1:13 teaches?
The bottom line is that Arminianism squares well with John 3:16, in terms of God’s love for the world, and squares well with Matthew 23:37 in which God allows His will to be thwarted. Only Arminianism makes God’s universal offer of salvation, a genuine bona fide offer. Although Calvinism is functionally sound, it is otherwise, not biblically sound, and hence, ought to be rejected.
Question: Why isn’t everyone saved?
Answer: Because God’s plan of redemption for fallen-man wasn’t unconditional, but as per John 3:16, conditional upon looking to Christ as Savior, and God, for His part, is willing that all come to know Him, just as He has provided salvation for all men, through His sacrificial gift at Calvary.
