Salvation

God’s Call to Everyone

10 passages, 5 quoted here · Broad agreement in this library · Against: Gnostic Natures

God calls everyone to salvation, but some refuse to come.

Where they stood

Each row is one claim. Each name is a writer, placed at the date of the passage. Select a name to read what they said.

4 of the 5 writers here teach: “God gives the good; some who could work it will not.” Call, refusal, and Origen's end.

teaches it partly rejects it later writer, summary only

God gives the good; some who could work it will not4 teach

Diognetus Justin Irenaeus Clement

The whole rational nature will at last come under the Word1 teach

Origen

What each writer said, earliest first

Letter to Diognetus Teaches: God gives the good; some who could work it will not

c. 150 AD · Epistle to Diognetus 10.2

For God loved human beings — the ones for whom he made the world, to whom he subjected everything on the earth, to whom he gave reason and mind, whom alone he allowed to look upward toward him, whom he formed from his own image, to whom he sent his only-begotten Son, to whom he promised the kingdom in heaven — and he…

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Greek

ὁ γὰρ θεὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἠγάπησε, δι’ οὓς ἐποίησε τὸν κόσμον, οἷς ὑπέταξε πάντα τὰ ἐν τῇ γῇ, οἷς λόγον ἔδωκεν, οἷς νοῦν, οἷς μόνοις ἄνω πρὸς αὐτὸν ὁρᾶν ἐπέτρεψεν, οὓς ἐκ τῆς ἰδίας εἰκόνος ἔπλασε, πρὸς οὓς ἀπέστειλε τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, οἷς τὴν ἐν οὐρανῷ βασιλείαν…

Justin Martyr Teaches: God gives the good; some who could work it will not

c. 100–c. 165 AD · First Apology 40

and that he would be believed by people from every race, and that God calls him Son and has promised to put all enemies under him,

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Greek

καὶ ὅτι πιστεύεσθαι ἔμελλεν ὑπὸ τῶν ἐκ παντὸς γένους ἀνθρώπων, καὶ ὅτι αὐτὸν υἱὸν καλεῖ ὁ θεὸς καὶ ὑποτάσσειν αὐτῷ πάντας ἐχθροὺς ἐπήγγελται, καὶ πῶς οἱ δαίμονες, ὅσον ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς, τήν τε τοῦ πατρὸς πάντων καὶ δεσπότου θεοῦ καὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐξουσίαν φυγεῖν πειρῶνται, καὶ…

Irenaeus of Lyons Teaches: God gives the good; some who could work it will not

c. 130–c. 202 AD · Against Heresies 4.37.4

God gave the good, as the apostle also testifies in the same letter. Those who work it will receive glory and honor, because they worked the good when they were also able not to work it. Those who do not work it will receive God’s just judgment, because they did not work the good when they were able to work it.

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Clement of Alexandria Teaches: God gives the good; some who could work it will not

c. 150–c. 215 AD · Miscellanies 1.11.51

For the Word, like the herald’s call at Olympia, calls whoever is willing, and crowns whoever is able.

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Greek

ὁ γάρ τοι λόγος καθάπερ τὸ κήρυγμα τὸ Ὀλυμπίασι καλεῖ μὲν τὸν βουλόμενον, στεφανοῖ δὲ τὸν δυνάμενον.

Origen of Alexandria Teaches: The whole rational nature will at last come under the Word

c. 185–c. 254 AD · Against Celsus 8.72

Celsus thinks it impossible that those divided across Asia, Europe, and Libya — Greeks and barbarians to the ends — should ever agree in one law, and says that whoever thinks so knows nothing.

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Other passages filed here (5)