Predestination And Free-Will

What About The Life-Preserver Analogy?

 
Have you been told that the salvation process is analogous to a man drowning? The rescuer (i.e. God the Father) throws the drowning man a life-preserver (God the Son – Christ) but the man must do ‘his part’ to be rescued. He must reach out and take the life-preserver in order to be saved, or in other words, he must ‘accept’ Christ after hearing the Gospel. This analogy has a huge flaw to it. How does a dead man grab a life-preserver? According to the Word of God, fallen men are not drowning – they have already drowned – they are dead (spiritually) and at the bottom of the ocean:
 

Matthew 8:22 – “But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”

Romans 11:15 – “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”

John 11:25 – “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live “

Luke 15:24 – “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”

 
Summary: This article is a section of a much larger article on the Bible doctrines of Election and Predestination called “Who accepts Whom?“. You are urged to check out that larger article for many other thought provoking questions pertaining these “Doctrines of Grace”. — RM Kane