I mentioned earlier in this series that because of God’s predestination of unbelievers, that there are none in heaven today that should be in hell. But at the same time I also mentioned that God’s predestination of believers, compared to His predestination of unbelievers, is substantially different. And so sadly, it is precisely because of the difference in the predestination of believers, that there are some in hell today that could have been in heaven. So why is that? The reason is the difference in the involvement of the free will of men. What do I mean by that statement? As we have seen earlier, all unbelievers already believe the lie that the gospel is not true, and so God does not have to open their understanding to the truth so that they can change their thinking and repent from believing the lie and thus believe and act on the truth. As far as believers are concerned however, the reverse is true, because they have to repent of their wrong thinking, and that involves the use of their free will. And so, even though God opens their understanding to the truth, He does not force them to repent and now believe and act on the truth. In other words, even though they now understand the truth, they still have to exercise their free will to either act on or reject, the truth that is revealed to them. As we will see in this section, there are numerous reasons why it is that some who have been predestined for salvation, and are thus given understanding of the truth of the gospel, nevertheless still reject it of their own free will.
Michael E.B. Maher
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