Calvinism: The Greatest God-Sent Delusion of all Time

Calvinism: The Greatest God-sent Delusion of all Time

There is a way that seems right to man but the end thereof are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12) – TULIP

I am deeply and sincerely convinced that Calvinism, also known as Reformed Theology, entrenched in the acronym T U L I P (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the Saints) is the best top-ranked, and most dangerous deception God Himself has sent to judge those who believe in its vile doctrines. Paul announces God’s judgment on all those who dare to misrepresent his Gospel of salvation in 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 8 to 12.

And then the lawless one (the antichrist) will be revealed and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by His appearing at His coming. The coming [of the lawless one, the antichrist] is through the activity and working of Satan and will be attended by great power and with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and signs and delusive marvels-[all of them] lying wonders. And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing (going to perdition because they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false, In order that all may be judged and condemned who did not believe in [who refused to adhere to, trust in, and rely on] the Truth, but [instead] took pleasure in unrighteousness. (AMP)

Don’t be misled by the reference to false signs and wonders and think that, because Calvinists are cessationists, the indictment cannot be applied to Reformed Theology. The main reason for their severe condemnation is not because they indulge in false or pretended signs and wonders.

The reason why they are severely judged is that they trample underfoot the truth in regard to the way of salvation. As a matter of fact, they have completely ruled out faith in Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross as a precondition and the only requirement for salvation.

The Calvinists’ requirement for salvation is election followed by faith. Election determines whether you are going to believe or not believe, and you will of necessity believe or not believe because you are void of any choice to either believe or not to believe. Indeed, as an elect, you WILL believe, and as a non-elect, you WILL NOT believe, because you have no choice (free-will) in the matter of salvation.

Calvinists are the most adamant, obstinate, unyielding, obdurate, stubborn, and unteachable bunch of sinners on the planet. You may probably ask, “why?” Well, because God, who is unyielding in his sovereignty, has completely and utterly given them over, boots and all, to the strongest delusion imaginable.

The delusion is so intensely strong that very few Calvinists are being, and have been, delivered from its abhorrent clutches. If there ever was a doctrine that tickles the ears of those who firmly believe they are saved because they are the so-called elect, it is the Doctrines of Grace.

Bear in mind that the term “Doctrines of Grace” is a very shrewd replacement for the word “Calvinism” to divert the attention from the serial killer, John Calvin’s, abominable deadly persecution and killing sprees in Geneva. There is nothing that sounds so sweet and yet so diabolically deceptive as the mantra “I am one of the few chosen elect who was chosen to be saved before the foundation of the world.” (Notice how John MacArthur articulates this beautifully deceptive mantra later in this article when he tells his right-hand man, Phil Johnson, “[I] NEVER REBELLED AND ALWAYS BELIEVED.” What MacArthur forgets is that the Doctrine of Election unto salvation (TULIP) IS in essence rebellion against God).

It is God’s good pleasure that Calvinists believe what is false

You may again ask, “why?” The main reason for their God-sent delusion is because they shun, trample underfoot, despise, spurn and deride God’s Gospel which is forever entrenched in His words, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Why did God give them over to this exceptionally strong delusion? To begin with, He sent them the strong delusion so that they may believe what is false. It’s as simple as that. Let me repeat that: The reason why God sent them a strong delusion is that he wants them to believe what is false? He actually wants them to believe what is false.

In short, they have rejected the only and true way of being saved because they take pleasure in unrighteousness. Anyone who dares to tamper with God’s universal love in salvation (Titus 2:11), is not playing with fire to warm oneself by, but with the fires of hell itself. Paul reinforces this when he says,

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-9)

What do some of the best top-ranked deceivers in the Reformed camp say about John 3:16?

John MacArthur

John MacArthur in action

John MacArthur doesn’t seem to know what to believe about John 3:16. At first, he admits that God loves everyone, and then that He does not love all people in the same way. How can there be two or more ways for God to express his love for lost sinners when there is only one supreme way He chose to express it – i.e. by giving his Son as a substitutionary sacrifice to the entire world? Unless, of course, God did not send his Son on behalf of the entire world but only the so-called elect.  In MacArthur’s view, God’s love is split in two ways – a temporal love expressed in his gracious gifts of rain, air, and sunshine and eternal love, expressed in salvation. He wrote:

I am troubled by the tendency of some – often young people, newly infatuated with Reformed doctrine – who insist that God cannot possibly love those who never repent and believe. I encounter that view, it seems, with increasing frequency.

John MacArthur is mistaken when he says young people who are infatuated with Reformed doctrine, insist that God cannot possibly love those who never repent and believe. There are many older Calvinists who believe the same lie. (Read here).

John MacArthur firmly asserts that man is completely unable to repent and believe the Gospel of his own accord, and must, therefore, be regenerated first by a sovereign act of God and only then, subsequent to his monergistic regeneration be given the gift of faith. Those “who never repent and believe” are, in MacArthur’s view, the reprobate who don’t have, and never will have the ability to repent and believe, because God has chosen them unto damnation before the foundation of the world.

And so, for him to rebuke the young people who declare that God cannot possibly love the reprobate, is nothing else than downright hypocrisy. What kind of love is it when God sends those whom He has not chosen unto salvation to hell because it supposedly glorifies and pleases Him? MacArthur continues to say.

The argument inevitably goes like this: Psalm 7:11 tells us, “God is angry with the wicked every day.” It seems reasonable to assume that if God loved everyone, He would have chosen everyone unto salvation. Therefore, God does not love the non-elect.

Those who hold this view, often go to great lengths to argue that John 3:16 cannot really mean God loves the whole world. Perhaps the best-known argument for this view is found in the unabridged edition of an otherwise excellent book, The Sovereignty of God, by A. W. Pink. Pink wrote, “God loves whom He chooses.

He does not love everybody.” He further argued that the word world in John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world…”) “refers to the world of believers (God’s elect), in contradistinction from ‘the world of the ungodly.'” Unfortunately, Pink took the corollary too far. The fact that some sinners are not elected to salvation is no proof that God’s attitude toward them is utterly devoid of sincere love.

We know from Scripture that God is compassionate, kind, generous, and good even to the most stubborn sinners.Who can deny that those mercies flow out of God’s boundless love? It is evident, that they are showered, even on unrepentant sinners. (Emphasis added).

MacArthur’s eulogy to God being compassionate, kind, generous, and good, even to the most stubborn sinners, whom He did not elect unto salvation because it pleases Him to send them to hell, sounds more like a quote from the Quran than from the Bible. The Quran also refers to Allah as the most beneficent, merciful, and compassionate, whilst he passionately hates the infidels (non-Muslims, non-elect) and sends them to hell.

MacArthur uses words that are completely incompatible with Calvinism. In fact, they are non-existent in Calvinism. The terminology “unrepentant sinners,” for instance, cannot be applied to either the elect or the non-elect.

The elect has no need to repent because they are regenerated without them having to perceive, become aware of, or understand the moment when they are/were saved. In fact, it just happens to them when God monergistically intervenes and sovereignly makes them alive (regenerates them) without faith because they have always been God’s believing sheep. (Note MacArthur’s testimony further down in the article).

Likewise, the words “unrepentant sinners” are meaningless in regard to the non-elect. How can they possibly be described as unrepentant sinners when they are completely unable to repent because God refuses to draw them to his Son (John 6:44)?

At any rate, the concept of stubbornness is equally taboo in Calvinism, simply because free will, the ability to choose between two opposites, is equally taboo in Calvinism. It is impossible to be stubborn without free will. Stubbornness is anchored in the ability to choose either for or against the thing offered to you.

If God has preordained and predestined everything that comes to pass, then He must have decreed the reprobate’s stubbornness as well. This leads to the bizarre situation where God first decrees, predestines, or foreordains the reprobate sinners’ stubbornness, then He passionately loves them despite their stubbornness, as Macarthur says, and ultimately holds them responsible for their stubbornness and sends them to hell.

And this, my dear friends, is how the god of the Calvinists showers his love on the reprobate, or as MacArthur calls them, stubborn sinners. MacArthur continues to say.

At this point, however, an important distinction must be made: God loves believers with a particular love. God’s love for the elect is an infinite, eternal, saving love. We know from Scripture that this great love was the very cause of our election (Ephesians 2 verse 4).

Such love clearly is not directed toward all of mankind indiscriminately, but is bestowed uniquely and individually on those whom God chose in eternity past. But from that, it does not follow that God’s attitude toward those He did not elect must be unmitigated hatred.

Surely His pleading with the lost, His offers of mercy to the reprobate, and the call of the gospel to all who hear are all sincere expressions of the heart of a loving God. Remember, He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but tenderly calls sinners to turn from their evil ways and live.

Pink, was attempting to make the crucial point that God is sovereign in the exercise of His love. The gist of his argument is certainly valid: It is folly to think that God loves all alike, or that He is compelled by some rule of fairness to love everyone equally.

Scripture teaches us that God loves because He chooses to love (Deuteronomy 7 verses 6 to 7), because He is loving (God is love, 1 John 4 verse 8), not because He is under some obligation to love everyone the same. 

Nothing but God’s own sovereign good pleasure compels Him to love sinners. Nothing but His own sovereign will governs His love. That, has to be true, since there is certainly nothing in any sinner worthy of even the smallest degree of divine love. (Source) (Emphasis added).

Nothing but God’s own sovereign will governs his love and all Calvinists have the sovereign willpower to make this so-called truism a decree? Wow!

God pleads with the reprobate to repent and believe the Gospel while He has ordained and predestined them to eternal punishment in hell before the foundation of the world? Really?

He offers the reprobate his mercy whilst He mercilessly decided to send them to hell before the foundation of the world? Really? This is the kind of schizophrenic God reformed theologians (Calvinists) just adore to present to the world.

The god of Calvinism (Reformed Theology) is NOT, I repeat, Not the God of the Bible, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but a false god. In fact, he is nothing but an idol.

It is not God’s own sovereign good pleasure that compels Him to love sinners. He loves sinners because He is the ESSENCE OF LOVE and has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33 verse 11), and wants everyone to be saved (2 Peter 3 verse 9).

If, as John MacArthur says, God’s own sovereign good pleasure compels Him to love sinners, and only the elect benefit from his saving love because the reprobate has no chance in hell of ever being saved, it follows that only the elect are sinners. Jesus said, that He had come to seek and to save lost sinners (Matthew 18:11; Luke 19:10).

If all of mankind are/were lost sinners it logically follows that He had come to save all of mankind because all are sinners. Will all of mankind eventually be saved? Perish the thought. The Calvinist view is that if Jesus came to save all of mankind because all are lost, He would have been a dismal failure because not all are being saved.

Therefore, the only option open for Him to be a success is to have Him love and die only for the elect and to save them all without distinction. I have yet to find a Calvinist who has the chutzpah to explain to me Isaiah 49:4 in the light of their assumption that Jesus would have been a failure if He had come to save all of mankind. This is what Isaiah 49:4 says,

Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God. (Isaiahj 49:4)

If God had already decided, before the foundation of the world not to send his Son to suffer and die for the non-elect, then the non-elect, are not lost, sinners. Only those, for whom He had come to save are sinners, and that could of a necessity only be the elect because they are the only ones being saved, according to Calvinism.

I would like to suggest that Calvinists gather for a worldwide conference and call it “LOVE OR HATRED OR LOVE AND HATRED?” They can’t decide whether God loves or hates sinners or whether he schizophrenically and simultaneously loves and hates sinners. And perhaps they should rehash and change John 3:16 to read as follows.

For God so loved and hated the world (please bear in mind that “world” in John 3:16 refers to the world of the elect and not the non-elect), that he gave his only begotten Son (to the world of the elect), so that the world of the elect who are granted the gift of faith after they had been monergtistically regenerated, should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world of the elect; but that the world of the elect through him might be saved.

David Platt

Dаvіd Joseph Рlаtt іѕ а fаmоuѕ UЅ аuthоr аnd рrеасhеr. Не рrеѕеntlу wоrkѕ аѕ а раѕtоr-tеасhеr аt МсLеаn Віblе Сhurсh. Не еаrlіеr ѕеrvеd аѕ thе ѕеnіоr рrіеѕt аt thе Вrооk Ніllѕ Сhurсh іn Віrmіnghаm, Аlаbаmа, аnd gоt thе rесоgnіtіоn оf bеіng thе уоungеѕt раѕtоr оf аnу mеgасhurсh іn thе UЅ. Іn 2014, hе wаѕ арроіntеd tо thе роѕіtіоn оf thе Рrеѕіdеnt оf thе Іntеrnаtіоnаl Міѕѕіоn Воаrd оf Ѕоuthеrn Варtіѕt Соnvеntіоn.

Listen to what this godly sheep has to say about God’s love/hate relationship with sinners (the elect). If there is anything uplifting to learn from this video, it is to beware of little orange books written by Calvinists. In his little orange book, he says God hates David Platt, an elect beloved of God.

To understand the true meaning of Psalm 5:5, please read the article “Psalm 5 verse 5: ‘God Hates Sinners.'” Click on the “I love u/hate u” banner.

What the false prophet, David Platt, seems to misunderstand is that “hatred” is the complete opposite of “love.” If so, the opposite of John 3:16 would read as follows,

For God so hated the world, that he did NOT give his only begotten Son, so that everyone should perish.

In case you’ve missed Platt’s reason for God having to pour his righteous wrath on his Son on the cross, let me repeat what he says more or less 6 minutes and 30 seconds into the video.

“Does God hate sinners? Look at Isaiah 53 verses 4 through six. All of these things – pierced, crushed, punishment, wounds, all of these things are evidence of the wrath of God upon sinners. Look at the cross. Absolutely, God hates sin and sinners. Does God love sinners? Look at the cross because the Lord’s will for sin was to crush his Son for the salvation of his people.

No Platt, it is NOT what Isaiah 53:4-6 tells us. It does NOT tell us “all of these things – pierced, crushed, punishment, wounds are evidence of the wrath of God upon sinners. ” It tells us that God loves lost sinners so much and does not want them to perish, the result being that He poured his wrath out on his incarnated only begotten Son so that whosoever believes on Him may not have to bear the brunt of His wrath for all eternity in hell. Paul reiterates this truth in Romans 8.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned “sin” in the flesh: (Romans 8:3).

God focuses his wrath on man’s sin and not man himself. God’s wrath will only be poured out on the man himself when he, after having remained unrepentant all his life and refused to respond in obedience to the Gospel call, will be cast into the Lake of Fire subsequent to the White Throne Judgment of God. (Read Psalm 73 with special reference to verses 17 to 19). Sinners who refuse to accept and receive God’s gift of forgiveness on the basis that He has already punished their sin in his Son’s flesh on the cross will have to face God’s wrath and consequences in hell.

Paul Washer
The false prophet, Paul Washer

Like Paul Washer, David Platt seems to be one of the more gentlemanly types of Calvinists to grace our world. He doesn’t openly say: “God hates the non-elect and loves the elect.” He ever so gently points to the cross to prove that Christ died only for his people. Who are God’s people?

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that he is referring to the elect. Note carefully how he barely noticeably differentiates between God’s attitude to the non-elect and His attitude to his people (the elect).

When Platt says “God hates sin and sinners,” he evidently refers to the non-elect because they are not God’s people and therefore the only culprits whom God hates in tandem with their sins. Then suddenly, Platt’s face lights up when he says, immediately after his assertion that God hates sin and sinners, that God absolutely loves sinners.

How are we supposed to reconcile the paradox that God hates sinners and also loves sinners? It’s rather easy when you differentiate between non-elect sinners and elect sinners. In the latter instance, God hates their sin but loves the sinner, and, guess what, in the non-elect’s case he hates both the sinner and their sins.

It is imperative that we learn to listen very carefully to Calvinists and their preaching. They are past masters at saying things that are 99,9% correct and slipping in a 0.1% little lie to deceive their listeners. Would you drink a glass of water polluted with 0.1% of a lethal poison?

MacArthur is not so subtle and gentlemanly as David Platt. He openly says that God only loves the elect with a saving love. Listen very carefully and you will hear a demon (lying spirit) speaking through John MacArthur.

Depending on whether you are an elect or non-elect, God is glorified at any rate. If you are not elected, God is glorified because he does not love you with a saving love and if you are an elect He is equally glorified because He loves you with a saving love.

This is what the Bible calls “holding the truth in unrighteousness.” (Romans 1:18). A God who sovereignly chose the elect unto salvation and the reprobate unto damnation before the foundation of the world, and yet allegedly still lovingly pleads with the reprobate to respond to the call of the Gospel because He sincerely and indiscriminately loves them, is the epitome of unrighteousness.

It is not only a gross misrepresentation of God but pure blasphemy. It’s like saying,: “I dearly and sincerely love you, but not enough to want you to be in heaven with me. My love for you, expressed in raindrops falling on your head, and the sun shining into your boudoir every morning, is sufficient to prove to you that I really, truly, and sincerely love you. But I cannot possibly love you, in the same way, I love my blue-eyed predestined, and elected favourites. Therefore I have given you two diametrically opposite renditions of John 3:16 – one for the elect and one for the non-elect.”

The one for the elect goes like this:

For God so loved the world (OF THE ELECT), that he gave his only begotten Son (TO THE WORLD OF THE ELECT), that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world (THE WORLD OF THE ELECT) to condemn the world (OF THE ELECT); but that the world (WORLD OF THE ELECT) through him might be saved.

The one for the non-elect goes like this:

For God so loved the world (OF THE NON ELECT) that He gave them the sun to shine on their brow and the rain to fall on their head. He also gave the world (OF THE NON ELECT) his Son to plead with them because “His offers of mercy to the reprobate, and the call of the gospel to all who hear are all sincere expressions of the heart of a loving God.”

Remember, He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked reprobate, but tenderly calls them to turn from their evil ways and live. Yet in his sincere and tender love for the world (OF THE WICKED REPROBATE) He decided before the foundation of the world to send them to hell.

According to Calvinists God says in effect: Since they are so very special to me, I have added to my raindrop-and-sun-shine kind of love for them, an infinitely greater love, a love that saves. This love is infinitely greater than my love in John 3:16 which is merely an offer to love the reprobate on the condition that they believe in my Son.

Nevertheless, my offer to love them, on condition they repent and believe the Gospel, can never become a reality because I have decided to withhold my gift of saving faith from them so that I may send them to hell and be glorified so much the better.

Once again, this is nothing else than holding God’s universal love for all mankind in blatant unrighteousness, a sin worthy of the indictment in 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 8 to 12.

The ultimate Calvinistic paradox is hidden in classical RCC Mystagogy

How do you reconcile the paradox of a loving God who wants all people to be saved, because He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but sovereignly chose not to save the majority of people because it is his good pleasure to send them to hell? You don’t, because it is a mystery hidden in the secret counsel of God.

By the by, this infamous and mysterious paradox is one of the shameless seeds of unrighteousness that has come from the Roman Catholic Church, and very quickly found a niche in Reformed Theology in the writings of John Calvin.

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The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 says,

“Those of mankind who are predestined unto Life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable Purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ to everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving Him thereunto.”

Calvinists often use the phrases “the secret counsel of his will” and “God’s sovereignty” to cover up their unrighteous misrepresentation of God and his love. When the High Priest, asked Jesus about his teachings (doctrines), He told Him that He never said anything in secret.

“Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret.” (John 18:20).

If Jesus’s mission to the earth was to seek and to save lost sinners, as He Himself once said, then surely his mission of salvation could never have been done partly in secrecy. Not a single dot and iota of his mission to seek and save lost sinners would have been cloaked in “the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will.”

Besides the fact that the phrase “the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will” never once appears in Scripture, Calvinists attribute occult practices to God because the occult is usually practiced in a shroud of secrecy, obscurity, and unclearness. Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion,

Those, therefore, whom God passes by, he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children.

But if all whom the Lord predestines to death, are naturally liable to sentence of death, of what injustice, pray, do they complain because by his eternal providence they were before their birth doomed to perpetual destruction, what will they be able to mutter against this defence? Of this, no other cause can be adduced than reprobation, which is hidden in the secret counsel of God.

Now since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, He arranges that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. God, according to the good pleasure of his will, without any regard to merit, elects those whom he chooses for sons, while he rejects and reprobates others.

It is right for him to show by punishing that he is a just judge. Here the words of Augustine most admirably apply. When other vessels are made unto dishonour, it must be imputed not to injustice, but to judgment.

One of the greatest mysteries (mystagogies) in Calvinism is that they claim to know and understand the hidden and secret counsels of God. Surely, if salvation, the most vital of God’s counsels and decrees, is shrouded in secrecy, how do Calvinists know what God’s secret counsels are?

They state with emphatic assurance that God passes by whom He reprobates and that for no other cause but because He is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which He predestines to his children.

They also state with unhesitant assurance that man has no right to question God’s eternal providence to doom some before their birth to perpetual destruction because this is hidden in the secret counsel and will of God. How dare they declare word for word what God has decided before the foundation of the world when it is hidden in his secret counsel?

What they mean, is that God has decided to choose some to eternal bliss and others to eternal damnation but nobody knows why. It’s a secret and will never be revealed to man until eternity knocks on the door. And yet Calvinists have the audacity to declare the so-called secret counsel of God word for word.

Accordingly, they have concocted several unbiblical metaphors to give their cloud of unknowing “hidden in the secret counsel and will of God” some sort of credibility. A well-known metaphor is the one where the person passes through the door to eternal bliss and turns around to see written atop of the doorpost – ELECT.

Calvinists also take solace in the silly metaphor of two parallel train tracks that never come together but seem to merge in the distance to illustrate that the truth in regard to elective salvation will only be revealed in eternity.

According to this, the most revolting of the vilest doctrines devised and instituted by a serial killer (John Calvin), God, in the secret counsel and the good pleasure of his will, made the following horrific decision, “I wish to glorify myself to the uttermost and have, therefore, arranged that some babies should be doomed to hell, even from before they are conceived in their mothers’ womb.”

No wonder, Calvinists believe that God decreed babies be raped. Listen carefully to James White’s hideous explanation, when asked whether God decrees the rape of little babies a little bit later in this article. Apparently, it’s OK, to rape little babies, because God, has ordained some of them to everlasting destruction.

So, if God deems it necessary to predestine some babies to eternal destruction, so that He may be glorified, then a child rapist who rapes and kills babies for his good pleasure, is merely helping God to get the reprobate babies into hell much quicker, and hence to get the glory God wants for Himself, even much sooner.

RC Sproul

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RC Sproul in jovial mood

And in case you may think you are listening to a sci-fi story, listen to RC Sproul’s definition of God’s sovereignty. But before we do that, let us take a look at what some of today’s worst false teachers have up their sleeve, or is in their hands.

False Teachers and Their Allegiance to Satan
False Teachers and Their Common Allegiance to Satan

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Did you hear what Anton LaVey said? “I believe that hatred is necessary in a controlled way as much is love is necessary.” Here again, we have the duality (the YinYang concept) in God’s character, as David Platt described it. Both love and hatred for sinners are compatible with God.

This is what the Westminster Confession of Faith sounds like when you bring God’s decree of the rape and killing of little babies into the equation.

“God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably, ordain whatsoever comes to pass, (including the rape and killing of little babies).”

And in case you do not believe it, you are summarily branded an atheist, because if you don’t believe God ordained everything that comes to pass (including the rape and killing of little babies), you are accusing God of not being sovereign, and if He’s not sovereign, He is not God, and if He’s not God, then you don’t believe in God.

Therefore, you are an atheist. So please, realize and understand, that there is only one way to be converted from atheism to Calvinism and that is to believe in God’s sovereign decree that He ordained babies to be raped.

James White
James White – False Teacher

There is a vast difference between God causing a child to be raped because He allegedly has a greater purpose in view and Him overturning the heinous sin to glorify Himself. I have heard of babies being raped and slaughtered in front of their mothers who refused to deny and disown Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

It would be rank blasphemy to say that God caused or predestined the babies to be raped and killed so that He may be glorified. How then is He glorified in situations like these? He is glorified in the mothers who steadfastly remain faithful to Him no matter what the circumstances and because they know and believe that their murdered babies will be in heaven with them one day.

The Calvinistic view that God causes babies to be raped and killed because his purpose is to be glorified, is akin to the ancient Canaanite pagans who sacrificed their children through a fire in honour of their god, Molech. (Leviticus 20:2).

The obvious reason why Calvinists cannot see that what they believe to be God’s sovereignty and his so-called hidden purposes is demonic, is because God deliberately blinded their eyes to the truth so that they may believe the lie and be judged accordingly.

You may have heard James White saying “there is no reason for despair” when suffering has meaning and a purpose. “All suffering has a purpose,” he said. What does He mean?

To understand what he said, we need to take his Calvinistic doctrines of grace into account. To illustrate we need to make a distinction between Mother Elect and Mother Non-elect whose babies are automatically Baby Elect and Baby Non-elect respectively.

When Baby Non-elect is raped and killed, is it meaningless and purposeless or meaningful and purposeful? Well, it cannot be dubbed meaningless and purposeless because God had already predestined Baby Non-elect to be cast into hell even before the foundation of the world so that He may be glorified. His purpose, Mr. White, is and has always been to send Baby Non-elect to hell. Therefore, it cannot be meaningless and purposeless.

Similarly, Baby Elect of Mother Elect was predestined to go to heaven before the foundation of the world. So, whether Baby Elect is raped and killed as an infant or grows up and is later raped and killed, the purpose remains the same. Therefore, again, God’s decree is not meaningless and purposeless.

Voila! Mr. White is correct in saying “there is no reason for despair,” at least in the eye of the Calvinist, because the non-elect’s ultimate destination in hell is no reason for concern or despair.

How do you identify a Calvinist?

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said the following,

Yellow-stripe

However, you don’t need to identify them. They love to identify themselves in their so-called testimonies.

John MacArthur says:

“God didn’t draw straws; He didn’t look down the corridor of time, to see who would choose Him before He decided. Rather, by His sovereign will, He chose who would be in the Body of Christ. The construction of the Greek verb for “chose” indicates, God chose us for Himself. That means God acted totally independent of any outside influence.

He made His choice totally apart from human will and purely on the basis of His sovereignty.

Jesus said to His disciples, “You did not choose, Me, but I chose, you.” (John 15:16). [DTW comment: Come on, John, don’t you know He also chose Judas Iscariot to be one of his disciples and he was a devil?]

And in the same Gospel, John wrote, “But as many as received Him, to them, He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

And Paul said, “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (2 Thessalonians. 2 verse 13).

How do you identify a Calvinist? You only need to look at their beloved verses from Scripture, and their skill to avoid certain key passages in Scripture, and voila, you have successfully identified a Calvinist. MacArthur mentions two of their pet verses – John 15: 16 and 2 Thessalonians 2:13.

The irony is that Jesus also chose Judas Iscariot to follow Him as one of his disciples. His choice could not have been unto salvation, and if not unto salvation, then it must have been unto service. The employer chooses whom he wants to appoint in his business. The employee has no choice in the process of appointments.

A closer reading of 2 Thessalonians 2:13, proves that Paul is not dealing with salvation in the normal sense of the word, (the redemption from sin, judgment, and hell), but with “salvation through sanctification.”

Indeed, the context tells us that the salvation in this instance, (which is accomplished through sanctification), is the ultimate redemption at the Rapture, (the discarding of the saints’ earthly bodies to receive their new bodies like unto that of Jesus Christ).

Salvation in this context, is a redemption, by means of the Rapture, from the wrath of God, which is coming upon the entire world during the tribulation. Paul refers to this, as a salvation to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25). And so, Calvinists, regardless of the warning in 2 Peter 3:16, twist Scripture to their own destruction. R.C. Sproul, comments:

“The world for whom Christ died cannot mean the entire human family. It must refer to the universality of the elect (people from every tribe and nation)….” (Chosen By God, pages 206 and 207)

James White, states:

“He gave His only begotten Son, and here’s the purpose why He gave: The Son is given by the Father so that every believing one, notice not everyone, it’s every believing one, there is a limitation here, there is a particularity here, the Father did not give the Son for any other reason than for those, in regard to those who believe. That’s why the Son is given.”  (From “Does John 3:16 debunk Calvinism?”)

Whereas the apostle John states that whosoever believes will not perish but have everlasting life, White says that it was the faith of the believing ones (the elect) that prompted God to send His Son. If the Son was given for no other reason than for those who believed, then the incentive to send His Son was not his love for lost sinners but the faith of the believing ones. John 3:16, according to White’s interpretation, must then be read as follows.

For God so loved the believing ones (elect) in the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, so that the believing ones should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This is the kind of garbage you will have to believe if you are a Calvinist. Since when do those who are already believing ones need to be saved? “OK, you precious believing ones. You are already saved but I still need to die on a cursed cross to save you,” is what Calvinists are forcing Jesus to say. I don’t know whether James failed to see this but his “believing ones” grossly contradicts the doctrines of grace “Total Depravity.” How on earth can anyone who is totally depraved and totally dead in sins and transgressions exercise faith in order to be a believing one? James White, like all our Calvinist friends and foes, are wresting Scripture to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).

Consequently, it can be said that it was the faith of the believing ones that motivated God’s sovereign choice to send His Son into the world. What kind of sovereignty is this that could be manipulated by the faith of the believing ones (the elect), even to the point that their faith-inspired God to send His Son to the world – not on behalf of the entire world but the world of the elect only? The two scenarios may be summed up as follows.

  1. God looked at the world and saw that all its inhabitants were hopelessly lost in sin, and out of pure undeserving love decided to send His Son Jesus Christ into the world, so that whosoever without distinction puts their trust in Him for their salvation, may receive eternal life.
  2. God looked at the world and saw that all its inhabitants were hopelessly lost in sin, but noticed a few believing ones (the sheep, whom He had elected and predestined before the foundation of the world), and out of pure undeserving love for them only decided to send his Son into the world so that the believing ones (the elect) may know and understand that they had already been saved from before the foundation of the world.

To ensure that his Son’s mission to the earth was not in vain and that there would indeed be believing ones on the earth whom He could save, He decided to impart the gift of faith to a select few, by first regenerating them without them having to exercise the faith of their own accord, and then, subsequent to their monergistic regeneration, grant them the gift of faith (Ephesians 2 verses 8 to 9).

Voila! “the Father did not give the Son for any other reason than for those, in regard to those who believe, that’s why the Son was given” and not because He loved the world.

How do Calvinists testify about their faith?

The best and only way to discern whether a person is saved or not is to ask him or her of the hope that is in them (1 Peter 3:15). In an interview Phil Johnson had with John MacArthur, John explained his conversion as follows:

PHIL: “So you’re saying, are you saying it would be difficult for you to put your finger on when your conversion took place?”

JOHN: “Yeah. I’ve never been able to do that. And it doesn’t bother me. I think I’m one of those kids. I was one of those kids that NEVER REBELLED AND ALWAYS BELIEVED. And so, when God did His saving work in my heart, IT WAS NOT DISCERNIBLE TO ME.

I went away to high school and for all I knew, I loved Christ, I was part of the ministry of the church. I went away to college and I wanted to serve the Lord and honor the Lord. I was certainly immature.

But at some point along the line, I really do believe there was a transformation in my heart, but I think it may have been to some degree imperceptible to me, because I didn’t ever have a rebellious time, I didn’t ever revolt against, you know, the gospel or not believe.

And I guess that’s, in some ways that’s a grace act on God’s part. So that all that wonderful training found some level of fertile soil in my heart and none of it was wasted.” (Emphasis added).

Now, doesn’t this sound so much like the publican who, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, crying out to God in agony, God be merciful to me a sinner?

Not really! Fancy that, with a single sweep of the brush, John MacArthur obliterates the first letter “T” in the acronym TULIP. When he was a kid, he tells us, “Total Depravity” had NO part in the fiber of his pristine garment of self-righteousness.

In fact, he tells us in his own pristine self-righteous words that he never was so totally depraved as he likes to tell others how totally depraved they are.

Calvinists just love to remind other wretched sinners how depraved they are, even to the extent that it renders them completely powerless, incapable, and impotent to believe the Gospel, while they (like our learned and respected friend, John MacArthur) glory in their own pitiful self-righteous abilities to believe and never to rebel or revolt against God and his Gospel. This is Pharisaic hypocrisy at its very best. MacArthur is at least honest when he refers to his “unwilling and unable” gospel as “our gospel” and not God’s Gospel.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preaches any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8-9).

Notwithstanding the truth quoted above, John MacArthur claims that Calvinism’s doctrine of unwillingness and complete inability is the most despised and consequently the most distinctively Christian doctrine. Indeed, Paul of Tarsus proves its despicability in the quoted verses above and above all disproves MacArthur’s claim that it is most distinctively a Christian doctrine. Charles Spurgeon proclaimed something similar when he said,

It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching; no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.

And I have my own private opinion that there is no such a thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.” (Sermon number 98 New Park Street Pulpit 1:100)

Nonetheless, and despite Spurgeon’s clarion that Calvinism is “surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus,” their knack to hide the truth is astounding, and, may I say, hiding the truth is worse than an outright lie. Allow me to explain. MacArthur uses one of the oldest tricks in the book when he quotes John 6:44 and deliberately omits its corollary truth in John 12:32, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” The slightest contradiction of what Jesus Christ said and taught is NOT Christianity. It is another gospel that cannot save. And this is what makes Calvinism so utterly despicable. It is despicable because they themselves have made it so utterly despicable.

In some ways, John MacArthur’s testimony is the same as that of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Charles Spurgeon
The false prophet, Charles Spurgeon

CHARLES: I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine of free will; I can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace!

Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude, that God has never let me act as they have done! [DTW comment: The Roman Catholics also believe that Mary was miraculously preserved from sin. Read hear].

I have thought, if God had left me alone and had not touched me by His Grace, what a great sinner I would have been!

[DTW comment: What do you, my dearest reader, say is the difference between Spurgeon and the greatest missionary who ever lived – Paul of Tarsus? The difference is that Paul was a humble man who admitted that he was the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), while Spurgeon boasted that he was not such a great sinner as Paul because God withheld him from sinning so greatly.]

CHARLES: I would have run to the utmost lengths of sin, and dived into the very depths of evil! Nor would I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me; I feel that I would have been a very king of sinners [or chief of sinners like Paul] if God had let me alone. [Parenthesis added).

I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. [DTW comment: Paul’s reason for his salvation was because he knew and acknowledged that he was a rogue of a sinner who also knew in whom he believed – 2 Timothy 1:12].  I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine Grace. (Parenthesis added).

If I am at this moment with Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His Glory.

I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty Grace has saved me from going down into the pit of Hell!

And in many ways, both John MacArthur’s and Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s testimonies are the very same as the Pharisee’s testimony in Luke 18:11,

"PHARISEE: I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortionists, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican."

John MacArthur states in “Understanding Election,”,

JOHN: “I’m a Christian today, because before the foundation of the world from all eternity past, God chose to set His love on John MacArthur and to give him the faith, to believe at the moment that God wanted him to believe. He chose us.”

He also emphatically declares,

JOHN: “You and I are saved and know the Lord Jesus Christ because God chose us before the world ever began.”

All these testimonies, including those of John MacArthur, Charles Spurgeon, and James White, are outright denials of Jesus Christ’s words in John 16 verses 7 to 11,

JESUS: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin!! because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged."

Show me a single reference to the elect in these words. Jesus never said the Holy Spirit would convince the elect that they had been selected unto salvation before the foundation of the world and that God has chosen to shower his saving love on them only.

The Holy Spirit’s conviction is not limited to the so-called world of the elect. He has come to convict the entire world that it is lost and on its way to hell because they believe not on Jesus Christ. Contrary to what Jesus said, John MacArthur claims that he was one of those whiz kids who never rebelled, and always believed.

If John MacArthur, as he claims, always believed, it follows that he had no need of the Holy Spirit to convict him of unbelief. Who should we believe – Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, who cannot lie, and said that the Comforter would convict the entire world (including John MacArthur) of unbelief or John MacArthur who says that he was one of those whiz kids who never rebelled and always believed?

Any court of law will reject the testimony of a witness when it detects the slightest inconsistency. We don’t have to examine MacArthur’s testimony very deeply to see that inconsistencies abound. First, he says that he “was one of those kids who never rebelled and always believed” and then that “God chose to set His love on John MacArthur and to give him the faith to believe at the moment that God wanted him to believe.”

However, this paradox may be one of the enigmas hidden in the secret counsel of God which we are unable to understand right now and will have to wait until we reach eternity before we will understand it. Could it be that it is one of those things we now see through a glass darkly but in heaven spotlessly clearly? (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Bear in mind that salvation is such an important doctrine in the Bible that God chose not to disclose all of its wonderful characteristics to mortals.  That’s why it’s so difficult to understand why John MacArthur has always believed but was only given the gift to believe after his monergistic regeneration. Don’t try to understand it. Just go with the flow, as the modern-day alchemists would say.

John MacArthur is lying unless there are two kinds of faith – one that cannot save (the faith of an always believing kid) and one that saves (the one God gives when it pleases Him to grant it).

Never once in its entirety does the Bible say God draws only the elect to Jesus Christ (John 6:44). All sinners are drawn (John 12:32), but only those who respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they have sinned (in other words, do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Scriptures say – John 7:38), and realize, and acknowledge that their sins have caused them to become weary and heavy-laden and are lost, will come to Jesus for their salvation (Matthew 11:28; Romans 10:13; Matthew 9:12).

That’s precisely why Jesus said, “They, that are whole, need not a physician; but they, that are sick..” (Luke 5:31).

To assert that you have always believed is to deny that you are sick and in dire need of a physician. John 6:44, one of the Calvinists’ pet verses to prove that God only draws the elect to Jesus, must be read in tandem with John 12:32.

It simply means that God alone was able to devise the means by which lost sinners are drawn to his Son – i.e. his cross.

Not even the Father, could have drawn lost sinners to his Son without his cross because there was only one way to placate (propitiate) (1 John 2 verse 2) the enmity between mankind and Himself effectively, i.e. through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Tragically, however, Calvinists refuse to see it this way. They obstinately, ignore John 12:32 and thereby reinforce the vast deception God sent them so that they may believe what is false.

Once again, I must reiterate what I had said earlier: You become a very good candidate for a God-sent delusion when you tamper with God’s Gospel, and I can assure you that Reformed Theology (Calvinism in whatever form – 5 points, 4 points, or whatever), is not God’s Gospel. It is another Gospel and cannot save anyone on this planet.

John Piper

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John Piper surrounded by books

John Piper is even more adept at his devious re-interpretation of John 3:16. In a video on his site, “Desiring God,” entitled, “God so loved the world,” he endeavors to prove that there is an even greater love than God’s love in John 3:16.

It is vital to see, from the beginning, that Piper, like all his compatriots in the Calvinistic fold, makes a huge difference between the love expressed in John 3:16, and his love for the elect.

And how does he go about proving this Calvinistic double-minded love of God? Let’s turn our ears to John Piper, explaining God’s greater love.

John 3:16 is so beautifully easy to understand, so clear-cut in its simplicity that even a child can understand it. Multitudes of Sunday school kids have come to know Christ and his love, through a child-like understanding of John 3:16.

Nonetheless, Piper, a staunch Calvinist and a promulgator of the doctrines of grace (TULIP), complicates God’s love and in humbleness – rarely seen among mortals – explains the complexity of God’s love in the following way,

“Help me with the wider context and the fullness of your revelation to know what you mean by loving us in this verse.”

Why should we ask God what He means by loving us in John 3:16, when He Himself said that we ought to ask the little children who have learned to sanctify God in their hearts and how to testify of the hope that is in them with meekness and fear? (1 Peter 3:15).

They know what the love of God in John 3:16 means because they have experienced his love through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

They have learned the true meaning of the love of God that is indelibly etched forevermore in the torn body of his Son on the cross. What more do you need to understand his love in John 3:16?

What other kinds of love surpasses God’s love as expressed in the final, ultimate, and most magnanimous, and infinitely immeasurable love in the torn body of his Son on the cross? Ah! But of course, John Piper has discovered a love that is far greater than God’s love in John 3:16, as we shall learn from his illustrious preaching later on.

Piper continues to define John 3:16 as the “free offer of the Gospel,” and says that he loves the free offer of the Gospel because there are no limits to this offer. It was offered to every single human being who had ever lived, is alive today, and shall be living in the future.

“So, what’s so controversial about that?” he asks. “Nothing! Unless you try to make this expression of the love of God cancel out another expression of the love of God- which is what many people do with this verse.

This is a great sadness and robs the church of one of her great treasures,” Piper affirms.

What Piper actually means is that the love of God in John 3:16 is not saving love. It is merely a love offered to all mankind. It is not a love that overcomes, conquers, and makes those to whom this love is offered his own.

It could be said that it is merely a shadow love because God’s genuine love is reserved only for the elect which is the greater love. If this is not a deliberate degradation of the cross of Jesus Christ which announces and demonstrates the greatest love ever to be experienced by man, I don’t know what is.

Piper is blaspheming the cross and the love of God to its utmost extremity and if he’s not careful to repent he will spend an eternity in hell.

The alleged diversity in God’s love may be likened to a huge cake cut into slices of equal size but of unequal importance and purpose.

One slice is given to the elect which they must eat because it is irresistibly sumptuous and compellingly forced down the elects’ throats, whilst the slice next to it is offered to the reprobate, but they may not eat it, because the offer is irresistibly and irrevocably concomitant with the sovereign decree He made before the foundation of the world, and that is to send them to hell.

How else will He get the glory, honour, and pleasure He claims for Himself, as John MacArthur has said so succinctly. John Piper describes one of the other most important loves of God, as follows.

If this does not fill your heart with holy anger, then you ought to ask yourself whether you truly love Jesus Christ and his doctrine of salvation.

A love, WAAAY beyond the offer of John 3:16? A love, that is magnificently greater than John 3:16? Really? If, the offer in John 3:16 is a genuine offer, and If, the cross of Christ ratifies the offer through faith alone, nothing else can go WAAAY beyond its offer, because Christ crucified is the ultimate offering. (1 Corinthians 1:23).

That is why Paul wrote “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2 verse 2) and, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16), which he obviously based on the offer extended to everyone in John 3:16.

Caveman
He overcomes the elects’ rebellion. He overcomes their resistance. He conquers them and makes them his own.

However, Piper sanctimoniously asserts that there is an infinitely greater love than John 3:16, a love that does not need to be offered to his chosen ones because He overcomes their rebellion and resistance; He conquers them and makes them his own, without them having to put their faith in Him for their salvation.

Could it be that God didn’t know how to overcome Adam and Eve’s rebellion and resistance, and how to conquer them and ever so gently bend their wills to comply with his will, and only learned to do so throughout the centuries that followed? Or, could it be that He only learned to overcome the rebellion and resistance of his elect when John Calvin unearthed the deep mysteries of election and predestination?

Piper appeals to three passages in Scripture to verify his statement that God’s love for his own is magnificently greater than the love in John 3:16.

The fact is that God, in the very next verse (verse 16) of Deuteronomy 10, commanded the Israelites to circumcise the foreskins of their hearts and to cease their stiffneckedness (rebellion, obstinacy, hardheartedness, and pigheadedness). Don’t you think it was rather odd for God to command them to stop their rebellion and their resistance if He unilaterally could overcome and conquer their rebellion and resistance?

Did God unilaterally conquer the moon worshiper, Abram, whom He later called Abraham? Or was it Abraham’s faith that was accounted to him for righteousness? (Galatians 3:6).

King Solomon, must have agonized, to the point of death, and cried out many times: “Oh God, when are you going to overcome and conquer my rebellion, my resistance, my abominable idolatry, and endless fornications? I cannot tolerate the idolatry my many wives and concubines have duped me into following their gods, any longer. Please, overcome and conquer me.”

I can only imagine what Piper’s fiancé would have thought when he proposed to marry her and said: “This is not an offer you can refuse. I demand and I claim you for myself, regardless of what you think or may say. I am unilaterally taking you for myself to be my wife.” John Piper believes that God sovereignly preordained the sins of every single human being. He predestined and ordained the sins of Herod, Judas, and the Jewish rabble who shouted: “Crucify Him, crucify Him.”

But, unlike Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, King David and King Solomon, to name but a few, whom He overcame with his regenerative love, He decided not to overrule and overcome the sins of Herod and Judas Iscariot because they were not of the elect.

If God’s covenant love, election love, particular love, regenerative love, and monergistic love is majestically and magnificently far greater than God’s love in John 3:16, where He gave, offered, his only begotten Son to the entire human race so that whosoever believes in Him shall receive eternal life, and if this covenant love is expressed in its most pristine way in the election of the nation of Israel, then we ought to ask some serious questions.

  1. Why will the children of the Kingdom (the majority of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob whose resistance and rebellion God had overcome and conquered and made them his own) be cast into hell? (Matthew 8:12).
  2. If the majority of the Jewish nation has rejected Jesus Christ as their Messiah, and as a consequence, their eyes have been blinded to the Truth so that they may not see, (Romans 11:10), why is the entire nation of Israel still called God’s elect? (Romans 11:28).

If God’s love for the people of Israel was his highest form of love – a love magnificently far greater than his love in John 3:16 – why is the majority of his people going to be cast into hell? Is it because He failed to overcome and conquer their hideous rebellion, idolatry, waywardness, and sinfulness? I don’t think so because the Bible clearly states that it was their unbelief that prevented them from entering God’s rest.

"And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. (Hebrews 3:18-19).

This is precisely what John 3 verses 16 to 18 tells us. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” There is absolutely no difference between God’s alleged greater love for his people (the Jews) and his love in John 3:16.

His love in both cases is exactly the same, and the way to benefit eternally from this love is simply to believe in his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  For that reason, Piper’s effort to prove that God’s love for the elect is magnificently far greater than his love, expressed in the crucifixion of his Son, in John 3:16, is not only wrong but blasphemous to the extreme. God shows no partiality in his love for all people.

These are classic examples of the believing ones, to whom James White refers, for whom Christ came to the world because “the Father did not give the Son for any other reason than for those in regard to those who believe. That’s why the Son is given.”

Think of it, Spurgeon’s faith in God’s Sovereign Grace was so overwhelming that he believed it was God’s restraining power – a power He did not wield, to restrain Adam and Eve from sinning – that kept him free from acting in the horrendous sinful way the worst characters in the street were guilty of. How do you think Jesus would have compared Spurgeon to the woman of whom He once said:

Could it be, that Jesus restrained Spurgeon from sinning like the scum on the streets (and this woman) because He wanted him to love Him less?

"Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." (Luke 7:47).

Perhaps Spurgeon’s heart should have burst forth in tears of gratitude, for rather not having been restrained from sinning, and sinned much, much more than the woman so that his love for Christ could abound in greater depths. In fact, Jesus did him a great disservice when He restrained Spurgeon from sinning like the scoundrels in the street and the woman in Luke 7:47.

Listen carefully to James White’s testimony of how he was saved in an interview conducted by  Romel Ghossain of Christian Media Productions.

The Bible never says that we should ask people when they became Christian. Most people, among them the John MacArthurs, will tell you they’ve always been a Christian or they’ve always been a believer. This is a sure sign that they have never been saved because no one has always been a Christian or a believer.

At any rate, the devils also have always been believers and they tremble (James 2:19). The only difference between those who say they have always believed and the demons are that they don’t tremble like the demons. They seem to have more chutzpah than the demons. The hope of which we are told, we should testify to when asked (1 Peter 3:15), has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.

The Hope in you is Christ crucified and Him raised from the dead – not Christianity. Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, et al, are all Christians but are they saved? Similarly, Calvinists are all Christians but are they saved? James White begins by saying,

“Well, the Lord was gracious to me at a very young age. I was raised in a Christian family and it is a privilege to have that kind of upbringing. My first memories are of sermons, church services, Bible teaching. One of the first things I remember was my little child Bible, a precious possession. So at a very young age I remember RECOGNIZING the need of a Saviour.”

STOP! Stop right here. This is completely incompatible with what Calvinism teaches. Firstly, no one can recognize that he needs a Saviour without the conviction of the Holy Spirit – of sin, righteousness, and judgment,  “Of sin, because they believe not on me,” Jesus said. How does the Holy Spirit convict lost sinners? Paul says, through the preaching of the Word and man’s response in faith to what he has heard. And yet, James White wrote in his book “The Potter’s Freedom, page  101,

“The Reformed assertion is that man cannot understand and embrace the gospel, nor respond in faith and repentance toward Christ, without God first freeing him from sin and giving him spiritual life (regeneration).”

Yet he boldly states that as a child he recognized (understood) that he needed a Saviour. Did he, at that moment when he recognized that he needed a Saviour, respond to the Gospel he heard and in faith received Jesus Christ as his Saviour? No, of course not, because his recognizing (understanding) that he needed a Saviour became a reality for him, only AFTER, he had been monergistically regenerated.

He was first regenerated by a sovereign act of God and only then, did he realize he needed a Saviour.

Don’t be mistaken by the forceful defense of their view of God’s righteousness. According to them, God is sovereignly righteous when He randomly chooses whomsoever He wills to save and whomsoever He wills to damn.

They call this righteousness but it is, in fact, UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, and it is this unrighteousness, clothed in the guise of righteousness which they revel in, in the most superlative fashion. It’s as Paul said, they refuse to adhere to, trust in, and rely on the Truth, but instead took pleasure in unrighteousness. What does their brand of unrighteousness look like?

The very first thing they toss at you whenever you vent your anger against their preference for unrighteousness is the following.

The fact that some receive from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from his eternal decision. For all his works are known to God from eternity (Acts 15:18; Ephesians 1:11).

In accordance with this decision, he graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of his chosen ones and inclines them to believe, but , by his just judgment he leaves in their wickedness and hardness of heart, those who have not been chosen.

And in this, especially, is disclosed to us his act, unfathomable, and as merciful as it is just, of distinguishing between people equally lost. This is the well-known decision of election and reprobation revealed in God’s Word. This decision the wicked, impure, and unstable distort to their own ruin, but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words. (Article 6: God’s Eternal Decision (Canons of Dortrecht).

What kind of righteousness is this? First, they say that God sovereignly does not soften the hearts of the reprobate and does not incline them to believe as He does the elect, and then that the wicked, the impure, and the unstable distort the doctrine of election and predestination to their own ruin.

In other words, the reprobate wicked are themselves to blame for God’s sovereign choice not to soften their hearts and to incline them to believe the Gospel because they have rejected God’s sovereign choice not to soften their hearts and incline them to believe the Gospel. Is this what they call righteousness and justice?

They are the ones who distort God’s righteousness and, in effect, take pleasure in gross unrighteousness. Could there be any other deception as dangerous and destructive as this? May God have mercy on their pitiful souls.

The Bible warns:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)

 Are you prepared to follow these men and their abominable teaching? 

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. (Revelation 18:4).

At least two persons in this article no longer have the chance to repent of their evil and to believe God’s Gospel and not their own gospel. They are Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) and R.C. Sproul (1939-2017). The others still have a chance. Whether they are going to repent, is doubtful.

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Tom Lessing (Discerning the World)

Tom Lessing is the author of the above article. Discerning the World is an internet Christian Ministry based in Johannesburg South Africa. Tom Lessing and Deborah Ellish both own Discerning the World. For more information see the About this Website page below the comments section.

275 Responses

  1. Joe,

    Would you mind giving your testimony?

    You say you know Whom you have believed. In the doctrines of grace (TULIP, election, predestination unto salvation) faith is taboo. I am talking about faith of your own accord as a precondition for salvation. In fact, anyone who testifies that he knows Whom he believed cannot be saved because they are basing their salvation on their own free-will which is idolatry. Therefore, it is not I who say you are an unbeliever. Your own brethren in the Calvinistic fold (election unto salvation brethren) are telling you that you are an unbeliever.

    What do YOU mean when you say you KNOW Whom you have believed? The devils also believe and they tremble. It is not whether you believe but what and how you believe that saves. That is why Jesus said: “If you believe as the Scriptures hath said.” The adherents to the Doctrines of Grace (TULIP, election, predestination unto salvation) definitely do not believe as the Scriptures hath said. Do you, for instance, believe that God hates sinners and that it is wrong to say God hates the sin but loves the sinner? Anyone who misrepresents God puts a question mark behind his salvation. Why do I say that? Well, Jesus Himself said that you cannot misrepresent God and still say that you are saved.

    (Joh 17:3) And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

    If you say you KNOW Him, then you cannot possibly believe in election unto salvation because it maligns his very character which is love (1 John 4:8,16). He is the very essence of love. The doctrine of election unto salvation is a gross misrepresentation of God and his Son, Jesus Christ. Do you agree with the dudes I mentioned in my article that God loves the elect and hates the non-elect or that he loves them all but not in the same way? If so then I would advise you to look at –

    (2Co 13:5) Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

    Would you say that following the spirit of Antichrist is the very same as following the embodiment of Antichrist?

  2. blank Joe says:

    Thomas, I trusted upon Jesus’ work on the cross long before I knew about or believed in election. Indeed I was very much like you regarding soteriology and fought against election for years. I hated the very concept. I believe that a large amount of Calvinists fall into the same boat as I do. So you see your constant repetition that to believe in election has to preclude faith is not true at all. Whilst I believed that I chose God my faith was real in your eyes. The minute that I believed that the reason I had chosen God was actually due to His working then my faith became false in your eyes.

    You see, humans would like to take credit for something in choosing God, even whilst denying that they had anything to do with it. What was the special something in you Thomas that made you believe in God unlike all the perishing unbelievers. Was there something more noble about you than them? There must be, though you will deny it till the last. You rose above the dregs of fallen humanity and believed upon God. Well done to you. Dream on.

    Furthermore you state that Calvinists believe that those who do not believe in election cannot be saved. There may be some bitter,fringe cavinistic lunatics who claim that but generally Calvinists know that all believers including themselves put their faith in Christ to be saved. There is no other way.

    Back to the real issue at hand. You say, “Would you say that following the spirit of Antichrist is the very same as following the embodiment of Antichrist?” Not in the case of 2 Thess 2. In 2 Thess 2 believing that Antichrist is God results in God sending a delusion for certain damnation. In the current age all unbelievers follow the spirit of Antichrist but their delusion is not unto certain damnation. How many times do I need to point out your error in the use of 2 Thess 2 that is time and event specific for your deluded calvinist post? You made a mistake, it is not a crime.

  3. Joe wrote:

    According to your testimony there were two occasions on which you believed for your salvation. The first time when you believed in Jesus, which was, as you said, the time you hated the concept of election and the second when you believed in election. When would you say were you certain that if you died then you would go to heaven – the first or the second time?

  4. blank Joe says:

    Thomas, I did not give my testimony. I also did not say that I believed upon Him on two different occasions. I said that I trusted in God’s finished work on the cross before I understood election. I have trusted Him since then. You cannot accept that there are many people out there that put their faith in God before believing in election. That undermines your argument that Calvinists trust in their election rather than Jesus for salvation and you cannot abide by that. In like manner you refuse to admit that you have used the future deadly God sent delusion of 2 Thess 2 in an incorrect way by applying it to calvinists today. By the way where can I read the article that says that election is not unto salvation but unto service I think you said?

  5. Joe,

    If that wasn’t your testimony, what is your testimony? I asked you for your testimony? Don’t you want to give it?

  6. Joe wrote:

    You cannot accept that there are many people out there that put their faith in God before believing in election.

    OK, let’s try again. Would you say that they were saved the moment they put their trust in Jesus and his finished work on the cross or were they saved the moment they believed in election?”

  7. Joe wrote,

    By the way where can I read the article that says that election is not unto salvation but unto service I think you said?

    I quoted to you Romans 11:28 which clearly states that the entire nation of Israel is God’s elect despite the fact that they are enemies of the cross. Therefore, election cannot be unto salvation and therefore must be unto service. Put on your thinking cap, my friend and try to think logically a wee bit.

  8. blank Joe says:

    I believe that I answered that in saying that the they put their faith in God before believing in election. Obviously they are saved at the moment which they put their trust in Christ’s finished work on the cross. Do they then become “unsaved” because they later believe in God’s elective work?
    Thomas you said, “Put on your thinking cap, my friend and try to think logically a wee bit.” Shall I do that in the same manner which you have regarding the dishonest use of 2 Thess 2?

  9. blank Joe says:

    Thomas the only thing you said to me in an earlier post was, “Joe, Election unto salvation is not biblical soteriololgy. It is a downright lie.” If that is a paraphrase of Romans 11:28 then it is a really poor one. If it isn’t then why accuse me of not thinking logically?

  10. Joe,

    What’s the point in putting their faith in election when they had already been saved when they put their faith in Jesus Christ? Do you need anything else than that in order to be saved? It proves without a shadow of doubt that election unto salvation is a myth and completely worthless. It means nothing. Indeed, is proves that it is a lie from the pit of hell. What you are teaching is Jesus + election. That’s dangerous, very dangerous.

    At any rate, those who believe in election unto salvation assert that man is completely unable to exercise faith in order to be saved. This allegedly false kind of faith supposedly overrides and nullifies God’s sovereignty. The elect, they say, must first be regenerated before they can receive faith as a gift from God. Consequently, they say that the salvation of those who put their faith in Jesus before they believed in election is false. You are right, and I agree, those who later believe in election after they had put their faith in Jesus Christ remain saved. They do not lose their salvation. However, they have been deceived and it affects very dangerously the way they present the Gospel. In stead of telling people how they were saved when they put their trust in Jesus Christ, they tell them to put their faith in election. This is very dangerous because it leads people astray. (Remember Galatians 1:8-9?).

    You don’t seem to understand Romans 11:28. So, there’s no point in debating it any further. I cannot debate persons who refuse to understand.

    You asked,

    “Do they then become “unsaved” because they later believe in God’s elective work?

    Although I have already stated that the switch from faith in Jesus to faith in election does not mean that anyone loses his salvation, I do however doubt whether they were genuinely saved the first time.

    It is rather odd for Calvinists to say that man is completely unable to put his faith in Jesus Christ but quite capable to put his faith in election.

    I think you should first study Calvinism (Doctrines of Grace, TULIP) more thoroughly before continuing this debate.

  11. Joe,

    Jesus Himself is called God’s elect. Was He elected unto salvation or unto service?

    If the entire nation of Israel is God’s elect, and indeed they are, how can you come to the conclusion that the entire nation of Israel was elected unto salvation when most of them are going to hell?

  12. blank Joe says:

    Thomas, I love the way you just dismiss me as an idiot. You believe that I am an intellectual midget in your mighty sight. You demean me regarding Romans 11 though I have not commented on it. Indeed you told me to start thinking clearly in the last post regarding Romans 11 though you had not quoted it to me during our exchanges.
    The text that brought this whole debate on is 2 Thess 2 and your exegetically flawed use of it in your post. I have conclusively shown that you were absolutely wrong in your application of that text. You, however refuse to admit that you were wrong, whilst telling me that I am incapable of understanding your advanced arguments.
    Don’t just throw out a verse and expect me to accept it in isolation. You did that in 2 Thess 2 which is an uncomplicated text to deal with, and messed up the context and timing of that text. To argue for your position in Romans 11:28 please give me the context of the verse which starts all the way back in chapter 9. Furthermore you have stated that Romans 11:28 proves that election is unto service . Is Romans 11:28 the entire and only Biblical data regarding election. It clearly is not.If you had just carried on one more verse into 2 Thess 2 instead of stopping at verse 12 which you used incorrectly you would find this in verse 13;

    2Th 2:13 But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

    Apparently Paul says that you can be chosen unto salvation in 2 Thess 2:13.

  13. Joe,

    Are you blind? Romans 11:28 distinctly says that the entire nation of Israel is God’s elect. I cannot spell it out to you more clearly than that? Will every single elect Jew be saved?

    The context in 2 Thess 2 is the Rapture. As such, Paul is not addressing salvation from death to life through the forgiveness of your sins in verse 13. He speaks about the final salvation (rescue) of the saints at the Rapture. Haven’t you noticed that this salvation is through sanctification which will reach its ultimate culmination at the Rapture? Whenever Paul and the other apostles speak of salvation from death to eternal life, they refer to it as salvation through the blood of Christ and NOT through sanctification. The salvation through sanctification applies to the already saved only and therefore 2 Thess 2:13 cannot possibly refer to salvation from death to life.

    Why would God’s judgment on those who reject his Gospel of salvation suddenly change during the tribulation? If that should be the case He is not consistent in his judgments.

    I am not dismissing you as an idiot. That’s your perception. I am merely trying to encourage you to think logically. At the moment you are not.

  14. blank Joe says:

    Thomas, thank you for the interaction. There are obviously two ways to look at 2 Thess 2:13. I believe both are valid but will happily concede that after looking at both angles I actually like yours more.
    I am pressed for time but will quickly address Romans 11:28. While Israel is an elect nation the scriptures clearly speak of the remnant of believers within it. Romans 9 leading up to Romans 11:28 tells us,”For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel”. We also see the remnant in verse Romans 9:27 which also leads up to Romans 11:28.

    Rom 9:27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

    However that does not prove your argument because the actual remnant of believers in Israel are called the election in contradistinction to the majority that do not believe. So what we have is an elect nation comprising of a remnant of believers which are elect unto salvation while the rest are blinded or hardened. We can clearly see this in Romans 11:7 which actually gives context to Romans 11:28.

    Rom 11:7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded

    Israel is elect and the remnant within it in contradistinction to the unbelievers is also elect.

  15. Joe,

    I am pressed for time but will quickly address Romans 11:28. While Israel is an elect nation the scriptures clearly speak of the remnant of believers within it. Romans 9 leading up to Romans 11:28 tells us,”For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel”. We also see the remnant in verse Romans 9:27 which also leads up to Romans 11:28.

    Your’s is an outdated argument that does not stand up to scrutiny. Paul does not only refer to a future remnant in Romans 11:28 but the entire nation of Israel who, because of their unbelief and rejection of their Messiah, have been judicially blinded. And yet, they have remained God’s elect through the ages. Why? Because “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” (verse 29). In fact, Paul says that Israel is God’s elect despite their rejection of the Gospel. Paul does not speak about a remnant but the entire nation of Israel.

    How you can come to the conclusion that Paul refers to a remnant of Israel and not the unbelieving bulk of the nation of Israel, only you will know. The remnant to which Paul refers will be the remaining Jews at the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. They will believe the Gospel. Verse 28 refers to unbelieving Jews who are enemies of the Gospel and yet are God’s elect. Paul also refers to the entire nation of Israel as the children of the kingdom. (Matthew 811-12). That’s just another way of saying they are the elect of God.

  16. blank Joe says:

    Thomas thank you for the response. Please deal with Romans 11:7. You shot down my argument for the remnant without dealing with Romans 11:7 and the surrounding verses which clearly point to the remnant of Israel being elect in contradistinction to unbelieving Israel.

    Rom 11:7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded

  17. Joe,

    I don’t like double demanding posts trying to push me into a corner. So just patiently wait until I have the time to answer you. Or do you really think, “Ah, I have posted the double-punch knock-out blow.” Don’t be too sure about that.

    To determine whether Romans 11:7 refers to the remnant of Israel being the elect and the rest being the reprobate we must establish what comes first – faith or salvation. If salvation precedes faith then your assumption that only the remnant of Israel is God’s elect must be correct because the reformed view of faith is that it is a gift given only to the elect after they had been sovereignly and monergistically regenerated (Ephesians 2:8-9). However, should the view that faith is a necessary precondition for salvation be the correct one, then election cannot be ratified without the faith on the part of the elect. But before we go there, let us first see what the Old Testament says about Israel being God’s elect.

    For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. (Isaiah 45:4)

    If that doesn’t open your election-unto-salvation oriented eyes, then nothing will. You will remain blind to the truth until you breath your last. Note carefully: God does not say in the very least “and the remnant of Israel mine elect.” Hopefully you can see that although I doubt it. Did He surname only a remnant or the entire nation of Israel? Furthermore, the verse very distinctly says that though they did not know Him, He surnamed them. The expression “surnamed them” is just another way of saying “He chose them.” Furthermore (and I assume you already know this) Jacob was the father of the twelve sons who made up the entire nation of Jacob (Israel). If that doesn’t open your election-unto-salvation oriented eyes, then nothing will. You will remain blind to the truth until you breath your last. Let us now return to Romans 11:7.

    First of all, Paul is dealing with the abhorrent doctrine of replacement theology. Many Gentile saints in those days, like many today, believed that God had cast away his elect nation (Israel). They believed that God had written Ichabod over them. No, says Paul, you are wrong. God forbid, God has not cast them off. (verse 1). They are being held on hold in judicial blindness so that the Gospel may be presented to the Gentiles (verses 10-12).

    Hopefully you have noticed verse 2 which says “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.” This is very important because it shows on what basis He chose only a remnant to inherit his salvific blessings. It simply means that He foreknew (not foreordained or predestined) those who would believe in Him and on that basis He chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world. To verify this we must turn to verses 19 to 22.

    Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of UNBELIEF they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. (Romans 11:19-22)

    And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. (Hebrews 3:18-19)

    It is NOT non-election that keeps you out of heaven but UNBELIEF.

    God did not randomly choose some and said “you and you and you are mine and you and you and you are not mine (remember Isaiah 45:4?). The reprobate among Israel chose not to trust Him and on the basis of their unbelief God chose not to elect them to inherit his salvific blessings. If this is true, which of course it is because Paul very distinctly says so, then God elected the remnant to inherit the blessings of his salvation on the basis of their faith.

    What about the hardening part? Well, here again we must turn to 2 Thessalonians 2. Anyone – Jew or Gentile – who hardens his own heart and refuses to believe and trust God WILL be assisted by Him and o He WILL harden his or her heart even further, not because He wants them to end up in hell but because they persist in their own hardness of heart.

  18. blank Joe says:

    Thomas you are quite correct I do need to be patient. Thomas I agree that it is unbelief that keeps you out of heaven and not non-election. Most calvinists will agree with you. You cannot blame God for your unbelief but we can certainly rather give glory to God for His choice rather than ours. God chooses the elect because they first chose Him. In other words they are elect by their own choice?
    How do you view the “foreknowledge” of God?

  19. Joe,

    Let’s get this straight and clarify how you view the Doctrines of grace. What do you think of TULIP?

    No one is elect by his own choice. You can’t tell lost sinners “Choose Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Repent and BELIEVE the Gospel is the only way to be saved. They must get a grip on the Gospel (Good News) and believe it in order to be saved.

  20. blank Joe says:

    Thomas I will try to be brief in my answer. In Arnold Fruchtenbaum’s book named God’s will and man’s will he says the following;

    The term “lapse” means “fall”; it focuses on the fall of man. The different lapsarian views depend upon how the decree to permit the Fall fits within the divine decree. How Calvinistic one is will determine where the lapse takes place.

    The Moderate Calvinistic view holds to sublapsarianism, which consists of five decrees. First, God decreed to create all men. Second came the lapse, the decree to allow the Fall. Third was the decree to provide salvation for all. Fourth was the decree to elect some and bypass the rest. And fifth was the decree to apply salvation to the elect when they believe, and salvation is applied only when they believe. That is why in this view, faith must precede salvation; faith precedes regeneration.

    With that background, the five points of Moderate Calvinism would be as follows:

    1. Total Depravity

    All three groups of Calvinism speak of “total depravity,” but they do not always define it the same way. But in the case of Moderate Calvinism, total depravity simply emphasizes that sin has touched every part of man.

    2. Unconditional Election

    “Unconditional” means God did not elect on the basis of foreseen faith. That was not the basis for election. Election was not based upon what God knew people would believe, but He simply elected the elect unconditionally.

    3. Unlimited Atonement

    This view of Calvinism holds to unlimited atonement. The Bible teaches that Yeshua died for all. He provided salvation for all.

    4. Irresistible Grace

    God’s salvation grace is irresistible and for that reason the elect will respond to this grace and choose to believe.

    5. Perseverance of the Saints

    Normally, those who hold to the Moderate Calvinism view prefer the expression “eternal security.” Why other Calvinists employ the term “perseverance of the saints” is because Calvinists like to work with an acronym based upon the flower called “tulip.” This view was developed in Holland and the tulip is the Dutch flower. Based upon that, they like to use the word “tulip” as an acronym to represent the five points of their view: “T” represents “total depravity;” “U” stands for “unconditional election;” “L” stands for limited atonement, “I” represents irresistible grace; and the “P” is the perseverance of the saints. In their view, they believe all saints will persevere to the end, never fall into carnality for any length of time.

    But Modern Calvinists prefer the term “eternal security” or “the perseverance of God.” God perseveres for the saints; the saints do not always persevere. This would be the middle ground that the author holds.

    This is the view I hold to. Obviously one can put a lot more meat on the bones of this summary.

  21. Joe,

    I have one question for you. Do you believe that mankind as a whole has a free-will? Let’s make it two. Whenever you proclaim the Gospel do you ever use the words “election” or “unconditional election” in your presentation?

  22. Joe,

    If Jesus died for everyone, what is it that keeps the majority out of heaven – non-election or self-willed unbelief?

    You cannot have “unlimited atonement” and “irresistible grace” side by side. Irresistible grace cancels out unlimited atonement.

    You cannot have irresistible grace if God’s atonement is unlimited because his atonement IS an act of grace.

  23. blank Joe says:

    Thomas, I do not use the words “election” or “unconditional election” when proclaiming the gospel. “Election” is God’s domain, not man’s. I proclaim a gospel of repentance and man’s need to trust upon the finished work of the risen Jesus Christ on the cross. I do what God expects of me and I trust that God will give the increase as He sees fit.

    Self-willed unbelief is what keeps people out of heaven.

    God provides atonement for everyone but not everyone is saved. You seem to think that God is unfair if all do not get equal opportunity. The fact remains that many will die without even hearing a proper presentation of the gospel and thus be consigned to hell. Does that make God unfair? For your theory of God’s absolute impartiality in salvation to stand, then not only must man have a will apart from God, which is an impossibility if God is indeed omniscient, and furthermore every man must be presented with a clear and equal gospel message which does not happen either in reality. Those going to hell due to not receiving the gospel can then call God unfair.

  24. blank Joe says:

    Thomas, my apologies for using my gmail account. It was unintentional. I see it has changed the little picture.

  25. Joe,

    Thomas, I do not use the words “election” or “unconditional election” when proclaiming the gospel. “Election” is God’s domain, not man’s. I proclaim a gospel of repentance and man’s need to trust upon the finished work of the risen Jesus Christ on the cross. I do what God expects of me and I trust that God will give the increase as He sees fit.

    If election and in particular unconditional election is part and parcel of the Gospel (Good News) then you dare not omit it from your Gospel presentations.

    Self-willed unbelief is what keeps people out of heaven.

    If self-willed unbelief is what keeps people out of heaven, why do you blame God for it? Non-election places the onus on God; self-willed unbelief places it on the person.

    God provides atonement for everyone but not everyone is saved. You seem to think that God is unfair if all do not get equal opportunity. The fact remains that many will die without even hearing a proper presentation of the gospel and thus be consigned to hell. Does that make God unfair? For your theory of God’s absolute impartiality in salvation to stand, then not only must man have a will apart from God, which is an impossibility if God is indeed omniscient, and furthermore every man must be presented with a clear and equal gospel message which does not happen either in reality. Those going to hell due to not receiving the gospel can then call God unfair.

    Show me one verse in Scripture that says some people will never hear the Gospel? In fact, the Bible says the exact opposite. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. (Romans 1:18-19). Let’s assume there are still many who have not yet heard the Gospel. Don’t you think that should motivate you to pack your bags, get there as soon as possible and present the Gospel to them?

  26. Joe

    >> You said: “Thomas, I trusted upon Jesus’ work on the cross long before I knew about or believed in election. Indeed I was very much like you regarding soteriology and fought against election for years. I hated the very concept.”

    Do you think the Holy Spirit would give you a teaching that is detestable that you would hate for many years? No he wont. To me this sounds like something satan was giving you, the Holy Spirit made you hate it, detest it, but in the end you gave in and followed Satan’s teaching.

  27. blank Joe says:

    Thomas, you said,”If election and in particular unconditional election is part and parcel of the Gospel (Good News) then you dare not omit it from your Gospel presentations.”
    As I said before, election is God’s domain not man’s. Man’s domain is to obey God by carrying out the great commission. I proclaim a gospel of repentance and man’s need to trust upon the finished work of the risen Jesus Christ on the cross. I do what God expects of me and I trust that God will give the increase as He sees fit.

    You said, “If self-willed unbelief is what keeps people out of heaven, why do you blame God for it? Non-election places the onus on God; self-willed unbelief places it on the person. “
    Where did I say that I blame God for keeping people out of heaven who have heard the gospel and in self-willed unbelief rejected it? It is certainly not God’s fault that they reject the gospel, it is their own doing. It is what they want to do.

    You also said, “Show me one verse in Scripture that says some people will never hear the Gospel? In fact, the Bible says the exact opposite. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. (Romans 1:18-19). “

    Romans 1:18-19 refers to the fact that there is a God. It is general revelation of the existence of God not the Gospel message. God has planted evidence of His existence in the very nature of man by reason and moral law. That is why man is without excuse in verse 20. God holds all men responsible for their refusal to acknowledge what He has shown them of Himself in His creation. No man knows the gospel message without being told what it is. That is why Romans 10:14 says;

    Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

    Although the innate knowledge in man of the existence of God is thorough, it does not contain the entire biblical revelation. It is enough to render man culpable, but it is not a saving knowledge. This means that this knowledge is sufficient to condemn everyone, but not sufficient to save anyone.

    We see the following in Romans 2:12;

    Rom 2:12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;

    According to Romans 2:12, there are two kinds of sinners.Those condemned apart from the Law, and those condemned in it. It means that whether or not a person had the revelation of the Law of Moses or not, he was a sinner. Whether the person was an Israelite living under the Mosaic system, or a pagan living under his own moral or ethical system, man is a sinner. Romans 2:15 goes on to explain that those to whom the Law of Moses was never given, that is, those who are wholly ignorant of it, are still guilty of sin and their very consciences bear witness to this fact. They may not have the revelation of God’s specific Law as handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai, but they are guilty of violating the moral and ethical expectations planted in their own hearts. Those living under the Law of Moses are sinners because they failed to keep that Law; those not living under the Law of Moses are sinners because they have failed to keep the Law written in their heart. Either way, all men have failed to live up to the Light that they have been given. We have all failed to abide by whatever sense of right and wrong we have been given, whether it be the written revelation of the Lord as recorded in His Word, or the sense of right and wrong which He has placed inside each one of us.

    Your theory of God’s absolute impartiality in salvation is based on a faulty assumption. Your faulty assumption is that our condemnation is based on a rejection of the gospel. Scripture teaches that our condemnation is based on the fact that we are sinners and die in our sins, not because at some point in time we rejected the gospel.

  28. blank Joe says:

    Deborah you said, “Do you think the Holy Spirit would give you a teaching that is detestable that you would hate for many years? No he wont. To me this sounds like something satan was giving you, the Holy Spirit made you hate it, detest it, but in the end you gave in and followed Satan’s teaching.”

    That is your view. I would caution you to attribute things to Satan that could well be of the Holy Spirit.

  29. Joe wrote,

    Thomas, you said,”If election and in particular unconditional election is part and parcel of the Gospel (Good News) then you dare not omit it from your Gospel presentations.”
    As I said before, election is God’s domain not man’s. Man’s domain is to obey God by carrying out the great commission. I proclaim a gospel of repentance and man’s need to trust upon the finished work of the risen Jesus Christ on the cross. I do what God expects of me and I trust that God will give the increase as He sees fit.

    You are not listening. You believe in unconditional election unto SALVATION, don’t you? Now, if Jesus was correct in saying that He came to this earth to seek and to SAVE lost sinners, then unconditional election UNTO SALVATION must be part and parcel of the Gospel and therefore not only God’s domain. That’s pure nonsense.

    I didn’t read the rest of your post. I refuse to waste my time any longer. Your arguments are self contradictory. However I did read your last sentence. It is ridiculous to say the least.

    Your theory of God’s absolute impartiality in salvation is based on a faulty assumption. Your faulty assumption is that our condemnation is based on a rejection of the gospel. Scripture teaches that our condemnation is based on the fact that we are sinners and die in our sins, not because at some point in time we rejected the gospel.

    Why do people die in their sins – because they are not elected or because they refuse to repent and believe the Gospel? Rejecting the Gospel is tantamount to rejecting Him. If so, then people go to hell because they reject the Gospel, the Good News that tells them how much God loves them and sent his Son to bear God’s wrath in their behalf because He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Have you never read 2 John verse 9?

    Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine (THE GOSPEL) of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ (THE GOSPEL), he hath both the Father and the Son.

    Unconditional election unto salvation is NOT the Gospel. It is a lie from the pit of hell and the sooner you realize it the better for you.

    I really don’t have time to argue with you whilst you present so many contradictory arguments.

  30. Joe,

    Election unto salvation is definitely NOT from God. Therefore, I would caution you to attribute things to God that is not from Him.

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