Objection 53

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

The fewness sayings. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way... and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:14); "Lord, are there few that be saved?" (Luke 13:23). An optimistic account of a worldwide elect multitude contradicts Christ's own arithmetic.

Answer. Warfield's treatment remains the best. In both sayings Christ describes the situation confronting His hearers: the pressing question in Luke receives not a statistic but a summons, "Strive to enter in," and the narrow way of Matthew is narrow as His own generation experienced it, with the broad way of national self-confidence beside it. Neither text purports to state the final proportion of the redeemed, and the visions that do address the final assembly describe "a great multitude, which no man could number" (Revelation 7:9), a seed of Abraham as the stars for multitude, and a Christ who "shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). The fewness sayings govern the visible response to the ministry in time; the multitude sayings govern the harvest at the end. Reading the first set as the final census requires the same collapsing of time and eternity that Part VI-C identified as the attainment system's signature error, and it sets Christ's warnings against Christ's satisfaction.