Author: Flowers, Leighton
Genre:
Tags:
Series:

Rick Shrader‘s Review:

Leighton Flowers calls himself a “Provisionist.” By this he is describing a view that says, God is good, man has a free will, and all lost people have the ability to come to God by faith without added supernatural working from God. He sees his view different from Calvinism and Arminianism. Whereby Calvinists believe a lost person must first be regenerated secretly by the Holy Spirit in order to believe, and Arminians believe there must be a prevenient work of the Holy Spirit on the lost nature in order for a man to believe, Flowers says that Provisionists believe God’s “means” of presenting the gospel with the Word of God, the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of the gospel, are sufficient for any lost man to believe. Here is his explanation. “God’s gracious words need not a magical working (i.e., infused with some supernatural inner grace) to have their intended effect. They simply must be clear and understandable. The supernaturally inspired words of the gospel are sufficient to accomplish their biblically stated purpose without an additional supernatural working. Mankind has been created by God with the basic capacity to hear, understand and respond to clearly revealed truth. Those who do respond negatively to the clearly revealed truth of the gospel are not somehow morally restricted from doing otherwise. The natural man who deems the things of the Spirit foolish do so by their own free moral choice, not be an innate necessity which is beyong their control” (p. 65-66). “We believe that no one perishes for a lack of provision, but agree with Paul who said, ‘They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved’ (2 Thess. 2:10). Those who end up eternally separated from God cannot rightly say, ‘No provision was made for me,’ or ‘My Creator did not really love or want me.’ No, they have no such excuse because they willfully rejected the sincere appeals of a gracious Father who lovingly provided all they needed to believe and repent so as to be saved.What better label for a soteriological worldview is there than one that highlights God’s provision for everyone He has created?” (p. 124).  

Quotes from this book:

No items found