It is inconceivable that the God who gives Himself in His Son to save us, should have created some people ordained to evil and damnation. There can only be one predestination to salvation. In and through Jesus Christ all people are predestined to be saved. Our free choice is ruled out in this regard. God wants free people, except in relation to this last and definitive decision. We are not free to decide and choose to be damned.
Interpretation
This quote explores the concept of predestination versus free will in the context of salvation.
Jacques Ellul reflects on the theological paradox of predestination, asserting that a benevolent God would not create individuals destined for evil and damnation. He emphasizes that salvation is intended for all through Jesus Christ, suggesting that while humans have free will, they are not free to choose eternal damnation, as God's ultimate desire is for everyone to be saved.
In practice
In a sermon discussing God's grace, one might quote this to illustrate the nature of divine love.
The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.
There is one act par excellence which profanes money by going directly against the law of money, an act for which money is not made. That act is giving.
Education no longer has a humanist end or any value in itself; it has only one goal, to create technicians.
We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.
Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress.
Human life as a whole is not inundated by technique. It has room for activities that are not rationally or systematically ordered. But the collision between spontaneous activities and technique is catastrophic for the spontaneous activities.
To get rid of an enemy one must love him.
Even with the best intentions, you can have a nuclear war, a nuclear holocaust, through miscalculation, through accidents.
The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it.
History or custom or social utility or some compelling sense of justice or sometimes perhaps a semi-intuitive apprehension of the pervading spirit of our law must come to the rescue of the anxious judge and tell him where to go.
Culture is just a shambling zombie that repeats what it did in life; bits of it drop off, and it doesn't appear to notice.
There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.
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