Grace or Man’s Effort: Where does Salvation Start?

I recently came across the claim on a Christian forum, making a distinction between the “true gospel” believed by a particular Calvinist forum participant and the “false gospel” of other forum members:

“In one [gospel], Salvation starts and finishes with God and His Grace, in the other Salvation starts and finishes with man himself”

As is often the case, this Calvinist claim is a total distortion of the facts. Nothing could be further from the truth and it is merely the blind repetition of a clichéd lie.

If the Calvinist claim is a lie, what IS the real belief of the majority of bible believing non-Calvinists?

God and God alone made it possible for man to be saved. God and God alone provided the means for man to be saved. God and God alone can save man.

The salvation that God has made possible is obtained through means that God and God alone established according to conditions that God and God alone determined.
Those conditions are clearly set out in scripture and they require certain things of man.

The salvation God has ordained is not according to a unilateral decree made prior to creation, in which He determined which individuals would be saved.
Before creation God determined that salvation would be through His Son and His Son alone, and that whoever trusts in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life.

THIS is what salvation starting and finishing with God's grace is about. It is about His super-abundant grace extended to all of mankind, offering redemption to all of mankind.
It is not a limited grace extended to an elite few.

What could be a more glorious demonstration of God’s grace than the TRUE gospel of Jesus Christ, in which salvation has been opened up to all - not through any complicated and unattainable process of works, but through simple trust in Jesus.
Not through some unchangeable decree which excludes the majority of mankind, leaving them entirely devoid of hope, but through simple faith in Jesus.

What a joy it is to realise that that God isn't against any of us - but He wants everyone to come to knowledge of the truth and everyone to find salvation?

And salvation is obtained through?

- Simple trust in Jesus.

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This issue is closely related to one of my earlier blog entries, “Parrot is not a God ordained ministry function” in which I addressed the Calvinist claim that non-Calvinists believe they contribute to their own salvation.