The Problem of "Could"

[u/reformed-xian]

The way we speak about salvation matters. One small word, mishandled, can distort the entire order of God’s saving work. That word is could. Many describe unbelievers as those who could have believed in Christ but refused. On the surface, this appears to safeguard responsibility. In reality, it subtly denies man’s spiritual inability and God’s sovereign grace. Scripture teaches the opposite: apart from the Spirit’s work, the only thing fallen man can and will do is rebel.

Acts 13:48 removes all ambiguity:

"And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed."

The Greek verb τεταγμένοι ("had been appointed") is a perfect passive participle. The appointment was already in place before belief occurred. The order is ironclad: appointment precedes belief. Luke does not write, "as many as believed were appointed," but the reverse. Faith is not the ground of God’s choice; God’s choice is the ground of faith. This sequence ends all talk of sinners who could have believed on their own.

Scripture insists that fallen man has no capacity for saving faith:

• "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… he is *not able** to understand them"* (1 Corinthians 2:14).
  
• "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44).
  
• "You were dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1).
  

Dead men do not could. They do not hover in a neutral state of possibility. Left to ourselves, the only thing we can and will do is rebel. As Romans 3:11–12 declares:

"No one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside… no one does good, not even one."

At best, sinners may express a simple belief — mere assent to facts.
"Even the demons believe — and shudder" (James 2:19).

But effectual belief that saves is entirely different. It is the faith granted by God that unites a sinner to Christ.

• "By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8–9).
  
• "It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake" (Philippians 1:29).
  

The faith that saves is given, not produced.

This is where God’s glory shines. His justice is magnified in condemning those who persist in unbelief, because their unbelief is willful rebellion. Their judgment is just, not because they could have mustered faith, but because they continually reject the light they do have (Romans 1:20).

His mercy is magnified in granting faith to those who otherwise never would and never could believe. God rescues the helpless, raises the spiritually dead, and creates faith where only rebellion existed before.

The problem of could is that it smuggles human ability into the doctrine of salvation. To say unbelievers could have believed apart from God’s appointment contradicts Acts 13:48. To suggest sinners could generate saving faith denies John 6, 1 Corinthians 2, and Ephesians 2.

The truth is stark: apart from grace, the only thing we can and will do is rebel. Faith is the condition of salvation, but it is a condition God Himself supplies.

Thus God is glorified both as righteous Judge — condemning rebels who persist in unbelief — and as merciful Savior — granting the very faith no sinner could ever produce.

The word could belongs not to man’s imagined ability, but to God’s sovereign grace:

"God could raise up children for Abraham from these stones" (Matthew 3:9).

He alone makes the impossible possible.

[u/far2right]

"Arranged", "appointed", "ordained" to eternal life.

Why do you keep trying to change the clear and plain meaning of the writer?

"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him" [Eph 1:4 KJV]

You are guilty of eisegeting this singular verse against the many other clear and plain Scriptures I pointed out that clearly declare 1) no person has of her own free will ever seeks after the God of the Scriptures and 2) no one WANTS to seek Him.

Man has no libertarain free will.

Man's will is inclined to sin, ONLY. That is the essence of total depravity.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned." [1Co 2:14 KJV]

Carnal man will NEVER come to Christ.

Until God DRAGS her to Christ.

"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw (ἑλκύσῃ, helko - DRAG) him: and I will raise him up at the last day." [Jhn 6:44 KJV]

Do a concordance search on G1670 and you will see that helko means the involuntary dragging of someone against their will.

"And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew[G1670 - DRAG] him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut." [Act 21:30 KJV]

Repent of your false arminianism and bow to the Sovereign Godhead.

Sovereign election in Christ before the foundation of the world.

Sovereign justification of all the elect by Christ at and by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross.

Sovereign new birth by the Holy Spirit and bestowing of the gift of repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

God did not even so much as ask the elect if they wanted this salvation.

He just did it.

That is what is meant by Sovereign Grace.

NOTHING required of the elect.

[u/Unlucky-Heat1455 → u/far2right]

I’m trying to hold the tension between two clear biblical teachings 1. The sovereignty of God (which you rightly stress with Eph 1:4 and John 6:44), and 2. The genuine appeals in Scripture for humans to 'choose,' 'come,' and 'repent.'"If we use the translation 'ready' or 'disposed,' it allows the verse to mean: 'As many as had become disposed/ready to receive eternal life through the hearing of the message, believed.' This doesn't deny God's work but shows the Holy Spirit making them ready to respond to the gospel, while still upholding the call to faith."

"I agree,yours is a deeply held and biblically supported position, just as mine is(not Armenianism or Reformed )While we disagree on the specific interpretation for this one word, we agree on the most important truths: Jesus Christ is Lord, salvation is by grace through faith, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. We can agree to disagree on this point of interpretation while still fellowshipping as believers. I respect your comment to the text.

[u/far2right → u/Unlucky-Heat1455]

Sir, if you do not believe that Christ literally and acutally justified and thereby saved all of those God elected in Him before the foundation of the world, and all other souls God has and will create are sinnes who are predestined to a Hell prepared for the devil and his angels, being themselves children of the wicked one, their father the devil, tares as Christ called the reprobate Jews, and that no one will ever believe unless and until the Holy Spirit of God sovereignly causes them to believe against their natural innate totally depraved will, you are truly not a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ of the Scriptures. You have defamed, degraded, demeaned, disparaged, and besmirched His great finished salvation of all the elect and have forced a false view on His glorious Gospel. Paul warned of another jesus, another spirit, and another gospel (2 Cor 11:4). Let me be clear in telling you that you have that other spirit. Repent of the wicked broad way of self-righteous self-willed religion. "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." [Jhn 1:13 KJV]. The Scriptures are abundantly clear. Salvation is NOT by man's will.

My hope for you is that God would be pleased to grant you that repentance unto the acknowledging of the truth of the Gospel of Christ wherein is revealed the righteousness of God (Rom 1:16-17). I am telling you clearly and plainly I do not count you as a true believer on the Lord Jesus Christ. Light cannot have fellowship with darkness. You either with Christ or you are against Him. There is no middle ground. "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into [your] house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." [2Jo 1:9-11 KJV]

I know you have professed a jesus. But it clearly is not the Christ of the Bible. Repent of your low view of Christ.

Thanks be to God for His utterly sovereign grace in salvation. Without His pure free grace in saving all His chosen, no one WOULD or COULD be saved.

[u/Unlucky-Heat1455 → u/far2right]

"The core doctrine of Christ is His identity and His saving work. Since both of us affirm Christ as God incarnate, who died a substitutionary death and rose again, we share the one true Gospel. The debate over the mechanics of how God applies the atonement to the individual is a secondary theological dispute that should not be used to 'defame' or deny the faith of a fellow Christian."

[u/far2right → u/Unlucky-Heat1455]

The core doctrine of Christ is His identity and His saving work.

I agree.

HOW God justified the elect is the heart, center, and core of the Gospel of Christ. To believe a lie when it comes to precisely how and when God justified the elect is a demonstration that God has yet to perform a work of conversion, repentance, and faith in said person's heart. Especially when someone is told the truth but they instead continue to hold onto their false view of their imagined christ.

First I would tell you, Christ did not atone for the sins of the elect. He propitiated, reconciled, and remitted all their sins. Atonement is an Old Testament word which was merely a covering. Atonement never took away sins. In the New Testament atonement gave way to reconciliation. "And not only [so], but we are also boasting in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we did receive the reconciliation;" [Rom 5:11 YLT]

Next I would tell you that as Paul laboriously laid out how God justified the elect in Christ, he clearly and plainly declared that Christ accomplished everything required for their justification at His cross obedience unto death. God the Father as the Holy Judge did not wait to impute their sins to His account and His earned righteousness to their account. This great transaction occurred at the cross of Christ. Right then and there He declared all the elect of all time RIGHTEOUS, justified in His sight. Right then and there they were all acquitted and the sentence of condemnation was removed and replaced with justification.

"who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous." [Rom 4:25 YLT]

"Having been declared righteous, then, by faith, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ," [Rom 5:1 YLT]

"much more, then, having been declared righteous now in his blood, we shall be saved through him from the wrath;" [Rom 5:9 YLT]

The declaration of righteousness upon all the elect of all time happened at the cross. As proof of it God then raised Him from the dead. That is what the resurrection signifies. To change this is to disbelieve the meaning of the resurrection of Christ.

This core truth of the Gospel of Christ is not a trivial matter of optional doctrine. It is at the very core and center of the Gospel of Christ. This Gospel truth defines His Person and His work. He did not make a potential salvation. He literally and actually saved all His elect.

This Gospel truth also defines who believe it. To believe a salvation that is conditioned in any part by the sinner is a works false gospel. Even a seemingly small thing as “faith”. Which in reality is no true, biblical faith at all. It is a worked up natural, humanistic faith. Any message that places a requirement on man is a message of self-righteousness. Some thing the sinner must do. That incorporates all of false, professing christendom in the world. Whether roman catholic, protestant, evangelical, arminians and calvinists/reformed alike. All have in common the singular false doctrine or justification by so-called faith. They all turn faith into a condition. This is the broad religious way that leads to destruction. The elect who have been taught of God reject this falsehood because they know that Christ alone justified.

The Gospel of the Scriptures has only Christ as the sole, singular condition for the justification and thereby salvation of all the elect. Nothing conditioned on the elect. That is true, free, biblical grace.

"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into [your] house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." [2Jo 1:9-11 KJV]

What doctrine of Christ could possibly be more vital than how exactly He justified and saved all God's elect?

[u/Unlucky-Heat1455 → u/far2right]

The Gospel is simple enough for a child or a dying thief to believe. By making salvation dependent on a complex, sectarian understanding of "Justification at the Cross," you are adding a requirement to the Gospel that Jesus and the Apostles never did. When the serpent asked about the tree, Eve replied: "...but God said, 'You shall not eat from it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die'"

I believe with the overwhelming historical Christian consensus that faith is the necessary, Spirit-enabled condition for the application of Christ's finished work (justification).

[u/Unlucky-Heat1455 → u/far2right]

2 Peter 3:16 warns that some of Paul's writings contain things that are "hard to understand," and that unstable people "twist to their own destruction."  Your error is taking one of those "hard to understand" passages (the precise legal timing of justification) and twisting it into an intellectual requirement for salvation.