[the lone haranguer]

At the risk of offending, I would say you are misstating Calvin’s position. By virtue of the fact that Calvin’s view offers only a limited atonement, some people are unable to be saved. If there is a limit on the number atoned for by Christ’s death, God, therefore, MUST have created some people with the intention of sending them to hell. If that is so, that poses a MAJOR problem, making God the author of evil, (creating people for hell’s fires) and conflicting with Holy Scripture. (not wishing one to be lost). God’s divine foreknowledge is vastly different from His divine will. Because I know a thing, that does not mean I like the thing or will make it happen.

For example, I know that an outlet will shock you if you stick a fork in it. If my kid sticks a fork in an outlet, my knowledge doesn’t necessarily make me guilty of causing it. At worst, I am guilty of allowing it to happen for a purpose that is my own. The same is true of God. He wants no one to be lost, but he knows some will deny Him. That’s not the same thing as causing people to be lost.

Finally, to your point about being dead in sin, we were all dead in sin before our Baptism. What does your argument say about the efficacy of the Sacraments? IMHO, it says that they do not work as a means of grace, because as you say, anyone who is dead in sin is not of the elect. So, how can anyone else can be saved?

Thanks in advance for a reply

[P8riot]

Finally, to your point about being dead in sin, we were all dead in sin before our Baptism.

Baptism doesn't save. It is an outward sign of the covenant, the same as circumcision was. The only sacraments that the reformed church recognizes are baptism and communion.

[PAR35]

You started out OK. Then you got off track. Everybody in the world will get, at the worst, justice. No one will get any less than he deserved. God has, however, chosen some for mercy, rather than justice.

Limiting God to foreknowledge sounds good to sinful man, but it isn’t Biblical.

With regard to your question about Baptism, baptismal regeneration is neither Reformed, nor Biblical. While it is a sin (in the reformed formulation, ‘a great sin’) to neglect that sacrament, it is not determinative of salvation. Omitting baptism won’t cost you your salvation, and a baptism without a profession of faith won’t save you from condemnation.

The two protestant sacraments ARE recognized as means of grace.

Are you aware that the Reformed faith teaches that there is a real, if spiritual presence in the elements of communion?
“Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.”