We now get a list of those who returned with Ezra. It amounted to about 1500 men and included 40 Levites. We need to realise how few of the Israelites actually returned to Jerusalem in total (approx 50 000). God had opened up the way of "salvation" but few chose to take it. In a sense it is no different today. On the cross Jesus made the way of salvation, but still few choose to take it.
Can I go on a wee aside here on Calvanism. Calvanism is often summarised by the acronym TULIP. The L stands for limited atonement, this means that Christ died on the cross not for the sins of all but for the sins of the elect. (This is just a rather crude summary, please accept all its imperfections, there isn't time to go into the whole doctrine of Calvinism!) The strengths of the arguments for this view are mainly twofold. The first is that it stresses the personal aspect of Christ's sacrifice. It wasn't just a general thing, Christ really did die for you and for me, personally. We weren't just included in a general collection. It was a deliberate act of love. In fact, it would be far better for "limited atonement" to be replaced by "specific atonement". Limited atonement paints God as mean and nasty, that is most definitely not what the doctrine is saying. It is stressing the particular, the personal, and the effectiveness of Christ's death and resurrection. However, TUSIP doesn't have the same ring as TULIP, so we are stuck with limited.
The second aspect is the effectiveness of the cross. Under an Arminian view the cross provided the means or the way of salvation, but it doesn't actually save (again apology for deficiencies in this summary). Calvinism stresses the effectiveness, Christ's death on the cross actually did win my salvation, not just the possibility of my salvation.
So what has all this got to do with Ezra? You may well ask! Well I find many aspects of Calvinism attractive and true to the Bible, but here, in Scripture, we see that God has made a way of salvation but few have chosen it, and there was much urging and persuading trying to get people to take up the way (see Zechariah 2, also remember Jesus' parable on the banquet). So the Arminian perspective is not as unbiblical as Calvinists sometimes seek to make out!
It seems to me that both are declaring part of the truth, and they cannot see how if their part is true the other bit can be true as well. Or, rather, if the other bit is true, how can their bit be true. So we have the "war" between Arminianism and Calvinism. Can we square the circle? Well maybe we can, a little. God knows the beginning from the end, so when Christ died on the cross He knew who He was dying for (by the way, I am not going into Molenism here). Yet from our perspective we hadn't made the decision yet. You see part of the problem is eternity. God is eternal (and that means much more than just going on forever), we are temporal. We see one event happening after another, God sees them all at once. Now I am fully aware that there are holes in what I have just said, but it us 6.30am in the morning and I have to go to work (what a wonderful way to start the day, thinking about the cross!). But what I am confident of is that some of the contradictions are not real. Eternity and all its consequences are too big for us to understand, and we need to remember the limited perspective from which we see things (1 Cor 13:12). We need to be absolutely bold about what we do see, but we also need to beware of thinking that we see everything.
Back to Ezra proper tomorrow!
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