Mike,

I had even heard a Calvinistic explanation of total depravity, where it likened being saved to Lazarus being raised from the dead.

The explanation of total depravity was that a lost man is so dead in his trespasses and sins, that he is not able in that condition to make a freewill choice to be saved, that the LORD has to do that for them, like how Lazarus was not able to make a freewill choice to come alive when Jesus called him, because he was dead, so that Jesus had to do it for him.

I do not believe that salvation is like that! There are too many references in the scriptures to repent, and even more to believe, which are not the functions of someone too dead to hear it, but rather a call to choose to do so, by grace through faith in Jesus.

The Calvinistic thinking, taken to its logical conclusion, is that Jesus considers lost people too dead to repent (change their mind about their sin, the Saviour, and whether they want Jesus to save them), and too dead to believe on him, so if that person is one of the "elect", Jesus makes him believe and then that person is saved, but if he is not one of the "elect", then Jesus won't make him believe, so that he will die in his sins to be eternally damned.

A friend of mine used to shake up those who may have leaned somewhat in that direction, by saying that he was, "predestined from the foundation of the world to not be a Calvinist."

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