Can God Be Baffled? by Calvin P. Bollman

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 28, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 29.

Can God Be Baffled?

By Calvin P. Bollman

Is It Possible for Him to Save a Man Against His Will?—Can All Be Saved Who Desire It?

By CALVIN P. BOLLMAN

THIS is a question that is agitated to some extent from the standpoint of the Universalist argument that "since omnipotence can not be baffled, and since God would have all men to be saved, all men must of necessity be saved."

The reasonable, the logical, and the all-sufficient reply to this so-called argument is that the Bible nowhere tells us that God has willed that all men shall be saved. On the contrary, the Bible does tell us that many men will be lost, not because God so wills, but because they themselves so will.

Salvation consists primarily not in escaping hell-fire, but in escaping sin. The angel's words to Joseph concerning his wife were, "She shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins." Matt. 1:21.

"The wages of sin is death." Rom. 6:23. The only salvation promised in the Bible is, first, salvation from sin; and secondarily, from the wages of sin. But salvation from sin itself is fundamental. Man can escape the wages of sin only by first escaping sin. It follows that he who refuses to be saved from sin can not hope to escape the wages or penalty of sin.

God is omnipotent, yet there is one thing which even He can not do. He can not deny Himself. 2 Tim. 2:13. God must be true to His own nature and to the principles of the government which He has ordained. He created man a free moral agent. He can not violate that freedom of choice without denying Himself and impugning His own wisdom. It is for this reason that God can save only those who will to be saved not only from the wages of sin, but from sin itself, its power and guilt as well as its penalty.

We think altogether too much of being lost at some point of time in the future. The fact is we are lost now unless, because we have willed to be saved from sin, the Lord has saved us, and is saving us moment by moment, from the dominion of sin. "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God."

Mark you, man is not condemned primarily for his unbelief; but since the world was already in sin, and since the Son was sent to save from sin, those who reject the proffered salvation remain in that state of condemnation, or in that lost condition. God could and did give up His Son to die, "the just for the unjust," that He might save us from sin; but God can not surrender His own righteousness. He can not cease to be what He is.

The principle may be illustrated in this way: A man falls overboard from a ship in mid-ocean. So far as his ability to help himself is concerned, he is lost when he falls. He may swim for a short time, possibly for an hour or even more; but unless he receives help from some source, he must drown. But the life-buoy is thrown to him, the ship puts about, and a rope is let down. If he refuses the proffered aid, he perishes, not because he fell overboard, but because he refuses to be saved.

The ocean into which we have fallen is sin. If we remain in it, we shall perish. The rope that is thrown out is the merit, the victory, and the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the hand that grasps this life-line, and the great Captain Himself lifts the believer out of sin and into righteousness. But the sinner who refuses or even neglects to grasp the line that is thus thrown to him, can no more be saved than can the man be saved who, falling overboard from an ocean liner, refuses the life-buoy and disdains the rope cast to him by those who are anxious to rescue him from a watery grave.