Many Preachers Have A Penchant For Trying To Make The Bible Say Only What Agrees With Their Belief

Common Sense Commentary: Jesus spoke the best known verse in the Bible. With complete openness and simplicity, He gave us, in 25 words, all a person needs to know to be saved. If there had been the slightest possibility that John 3:16 would confuse anyone, He would have more fully defined the verse. Read it for what it actually says ...without need of special  interpretation.

Here is what Jesus said: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
He did not say, "whosoever is predestined to believe ...", but "whosoever believeth"

If Jesus didn't mean exactly what He said, in that verse, or knew that some would misunderstand or be confused by it, He would have added whatever further comment was needed to make it clear. So what did He mean when He said, "For God so loved the world...."?  If God truly loved the whole world of people, all of them, and gave Jesus to die for their sins, He surely would not, then, reject most of them before they were ever born and pre-condemn the majority of the world's population, without reason.  If that, in fact, was what Jesus really meant to say, then God did not love them all in the first place if He had predestined them to unbelief.  Yes, of course, as He foreknows everything, He foreknew whether we would believe or not believe; But if He simply rejected some, and chose others, without consideration of each one's belief or unbelief in Jesus Christ as their Savior, and sent those He predestined to unbelief to hell, and those He predestined to believe to heaven, How can it be said that, "God so loved the world...."?

So why does He accept, forgive and save some of us and reject others ... if we are all sinners alike? The clear, full answer to that is in the second half of the verse. "...that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Again, Jesus said exactly, clearly and fully what He intended. "that whosoever believeth in him ..." does not have some deeper theological meaning that some pre-convinced, predestined, elected and foreordained, Calvinist, theological professor must explain how that "whosoever" does not include those who will not believe because they can not  believe because they were predestined not to believe by God, who "loved" them but did not want them even if they wanted Him????

That interpretation of predestination turns a straight line into a circular saw which keeps coming back to where it started and destroys reason , consistency and personal accountability with every turn.

The Calvinistic (word not in the Bible) Professor would counter that we are saved by grace not by works, to which I would agree, but, he would argue that "the prayer of faith, if not faith itself, is a work and we are not saved by works".  Paul admonished Timothy not to strive about words in 1 Tim.6:14 & 2 Tim.2:14.   Faith is that mustard seed which germinates when exposed to the word of God...  "So then faith cometh by hearing ... the word of God." Rom.10:17.    In this verse, both "faith" and "hearing" are gifts from God, one spiritual and one physical. It is a result not a work.  Faith does not come from works; works come from faith.  Accepting Christ's salvation invitation,  ".... whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved", is not a work.  A Calvinist believes this prayer is a work. It is not a work, it is a spiritual prayer of faith. And why would God even  give the invitation to "whosoever", if it were not possible for every person to reject Christ and remain lost or to accept Him and be saved? Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved and is  "destined" for heaven and whosoever does not call upon the name of the Lord shall not be saved and is destined for hell.   Since God "Foreknew" it, that alone makes it "pre-destined". Rom. 8:29.

Accepting Christ's invitation to "Come unto me" is neither work nor physical action. It is a spiritual response to a spiritual invitation. Christ did all the work, took all the action and offered the results to me freely .... without charge of any kind. My spiritual choice was to accept or reject His spiritual, free gift ... spiritually not physically. He does not force those invited to respond positively or negatively... No choice.  The spiritual choice is yours. The gift is fully paid for. You cannot lift a finger, pay a penny or say a word to earn it or pay for it. Your spirit, not your body, responds or does not respond to an eternal, spiritual invitation. Your spirit thinks "yes" or "no" to God. If your spirit says "yes", it sets in motion a lifetime series of repentance, faith and good works ... "because" you are forgiven and born again, not "in order" to be forgiven and born again. Those good works are after the fact of salvation and neither saved you nor keep you saved.  The same free grace that saved you keeps you secure in Christ...
not your good works in this weak, fleshly body. RB