In other words not believing in a "Jesus" who provides an "opportunity" for all to be saved if only they will make their free will decision for him.
The Pelagian "Jesus" is not Jesus. I think that conclusion is inescapable from Scripture.
Some, most famously including R.C. Sproul, have argued that Arminians can be saved via the "blessed inconsistency" of simultaneously believing that God is Sovereign, and also that He is not.
I don't know what to think about this argument. It is a very common position within my church. However, I can't really see the difference between the "Jesus" of the typical Arminian, easy-believing, antinomian, world-loving, demoncrat-voting, special-direct-revelation-hearing, sodomite-affirming, egalitarian, Sunday-morning-only, evolution-believing evangellyfish on one hand, and that of the Pelagian on the other. Both, in the end, believe in a weak and powerless "Jesus" unable to save anyone, and both insist on giving the glory mainly to man, rather than all of it to God Alone.
(Sorry . . but this describes an awful lot of the professing Christians I know.)
Yet I know people who seem to have a lot of the evidences of conversion, including a life devoted to glorifying and serving God and making Him known, and yet still do not fully grasp His sovereignty in all things including salvation. I want to believe that perhaps this is the "blessed inconsistency" Sproul and many others posit. But I have no way to be sure. Is their "God" really God? I hope so. But I can't fully make that case through Scripture. Some new believers in Acts were unaware of whether there even is a Holy Spirit. I'm sure that once taught properly they acknowledged that He Is. Similarly, perhaps a new believer may not fully grasp the Solas, or TULIP. But I'm fairly sure that once properly taught, he or she should. To deny these is to deny Scripture, which I am very sure no true believer would knowingly do.
As usual, I'm a bit confused. But also committed to standing firmly on Scripture, regardless of how easy or how popular that might be.
What do others here think?
