Thus I think we need to get back to Paul’s bigger perspective and God’s bigger plan which includes everybody and everything. Yes, our personal sins are a problem but God’s redemptive plan is bigger.

Perhaps if we understood properly what Jesus came to inaugurate we would find far more non-Christians eager and willing to get onboard.

Thanks for featuring Iain Murray on your site! I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this post, as I know that you have intentionally not identified as “Reformed” for quite a while.

The Banner of Truth Trust has published so much material over the years that could help to positively reshape evangelicalism– if evangelicals only knew about it and/or would simply give it the time of day! The “Puritan Paperbacks” series contains some real treasures. The Puritans certainly had many problems (the American ones especially; I like that the Banner of Truth focuses more on the English ones), but they had a high view of God and a serious view of sin that evangelicals today desperately need!

What if we *won’t* love God unless He changes our hearts? This seems to be the Bible’s testimony about us– at least until God intervenes in our lives, personally, individually. Paul says that no one seeks God, which means that He is the one doing the seeking.

Also, do hearts of stone love God, until they are changed to hearts of flesh– or perhaps a better question is, *can* they love God? What you describe as coercion may be like a blind man being given sight, after which he “sees” a Sight so beautiful that he cannot refuse, or wouldn’t *want* to refuse.

Dana

“Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved … They deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”
- G.K. Chesterton

God may not “override” our wills and choices (I’m not sure how you mean that though), but He does say that He will take hearts of stone and make them hearts of flesh. If this is not overriding our wills, it is most certainly *transforming* them– which *results* in our cooperation with God for our *sanctification.* Calling and justification, on the other hand, are purely His work. Romans 8:30.

Dana

I’m probably more in line with the Christus Victor descriptions of the Cross. I grok recapitulation and ransom both better than the perspective of this post.

And I’ve just mentally run the Damascus Road scene through my mind. I’m not sure where I see ‘conviction of sin’ as a significant facet of it at all. Paul was abruptly and dramatically told that he was following the wrong path and need to drop everything in his way of doing life and perceiving reality and start following Jesus. In other words — repent and believe in Jesus. And he did so. I’m not sure many of us get something as dramatic as Paul did. But again, I don’t see a straight line connection to your conclusion. I can sorta see how, if I squint and look sideways and make several assumptions and logical leaps, I might get there. But it’s not how the story naturally reads to me.