Condemnation
Our choices and our actions determine our fate. We choose to ignore Christ, we choose to be condemned. We accept Christ, we are redeemed!
John 3:18The Holman Christian Standard Bible
Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God.
- Our choices and actions don’t determine our fate. No one chooses to be condemned. All are already condemned until regenerated by the Holy Spirit when by God’s grace we are given the faith to believe (Ephesians 2:8-9). Then we are able to repent and trust in the finished work of Christ for salvation.
- We're born dead, not wounded. Like Lazarus, we're dead and stinking in the tomb. And like Lazarus, unless Jesus first quickens our ears to hear his call, and the Spirit replaces our heart of stone with a heart of flesh, we remain dead and condemned. There is no "island of righteousness" that allows us to choose for or against Christ on our own accord. We don't become sinners because we sin, we sin because we're born sinners, not able to not sin. It's our nature (the old man) inherited from Adam. If by the unbiblical term "fate" you simply mean "destiny", then Adam's choices and actions determined our earthly "fate", while Jesus' (the second Adam's) sovereign choices and substitutionary actions determined our heavenly "fate". Neither condemnation nor justification involve our choices or actions.
- I only disagree with your last statement; God desires that all would be saved. The Gospel is the message of salvation; the means of grace (Baptism and the Eucharist) convey the forgiveness of sins to those who believe. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of Christ. One cannot choose to be saved, but one can choose to be lost after having heard the good news of our salvation. God does not reveal why it is true that being born of the Spirit is not a choice, or how it is that someone can choose to fall away, He only reveals that both are equally true. We ARE saved BY grace through faith. Before we are made alive in Christ, we ARE dead in trespasses and sins. A dead man cannot choose to believe or repent, but an alive person can choose to become disconnected from the Author of life, and suffer the consequences of that choice, if that person chooses to reject the Gospel.