In Matthew 11, Jesus invited all who are weary and heavy laden to come to Him, and He would give them rest. But in John 15, Jesus says, “you did not choose me, but I chose and appointed you.” So does Jesus invite us to choose Him in salvation, or does He choose us in salvation? We know that the Bible teaches that God is sovereign over all things, but does that mean we don’t have free will? How does the sovereignty of God work with humanity’s responsibility to obey God’s commands?

Calvinism and Arminianism are two systems of theology that attempt to explain the relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in the matter of salvation. Calvinism is named for John Calvin, a French theologian who lived from 1509-1564. Arminianism is named for Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch theologian who lived from 1560-1609.

For the past 500 years, Christians (mainly protestant evangelicals) have continued to debate these systems of theology related to salvation and how exactly it works. The dispute centers around an understanding of what the Bible means when it talks about concepts such as depravity (or the sinfulness of man), predestination (or the divine foreordaining of all that will happen and all who will be saved), and atonement and who will be included in the atoning work of Christ.

So which one is right? Is it that God is absolutely sovereign and ordains some people to be saved and others to be sent to hell? Or is it that God invites all human beings to place faith in Christ and be saved?