The Calvinist ESV: 1 Corinthians 7:37
I am breaking the "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)" post up into shorter segments so that each verse (or two) gets it own post.
1 Corinthians 7:37:
In my normal Bible reading today, I came across a verse about "singleness vs. marriage" that destroys Calvinism in a few short words:
"But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but who has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin - this man also does the right thing." (1 Cor. 7:37, NIV)
When you get past all the layers Calvinism wraps itself in to disguise the bad parts, it ultimately teaches - at the heart of it all - that God causes/controls everything, even controlling our wills and causing our sins. (But He then punishes us for the things He caused us to do, which would make Him unjust, no matter how much Calvinists try to deny it and cover it up. See this post for some links about that.) Calvinism ultimately teaches that everything we do is because God preplanned it, ordained it, and compels us to do it. That we have no ability to make up our own minds about things because God predetermines everything we think, feel, do. There is no such thing as free-will. We have no real control over our wills, actions, desires, etc.
But in this verse, Paul clearly refers to the fact that we can make up our own minds about issues, without being under compulsion to choose what we do. That we are in "control" over our wills.
This clearly goes against Calvinism. It clearly puts the responsibility for our decisions and desires and actions on us, not on God.
However, Calvinists would accuse me of essentially saying that humans are stronger than God, of claiming that we are in control/sovereign and He is not. This is how they manipulate people into agreeing with them, making them feel ashamed and unhumble for sounding like they are taking power away from God and giving it to humans.
But this is not the case.
What I am saying, and what the Bible shows, is that we have control (to a large degree) over our wills, over our decisions, because God made it that way. Because He chose to limit His use of control/power/authority to a degree, so that He could give us the right and responsibility to make real choices. Because He wanted it to be this way, so that those who choose to love Him and obey Him do it willingly and voluntarily. And this is why He can rightly hold us accountable for our choices, for our sins and unbelief. Because He didn't cause us to do them; we chose to do them.
We have control over our wills. God does not control our wills, thoughts, feelings, choices, etc. for us.
However, do you want to know something interesting?
The NIV, Berean Study Bible, NASB, KJB, CSB, HCSB, Aramaic Bible in Plain English, among others, all use the phrase about the man having "control/authority/power over his own will."
But the Bible translation most used by Calvinists, the one translated by many Calvinists and "glorified" by many well-known Calvinists - the English Standard Version, the ESV - changes it to "but having his desire under control."
Interesting!
And very different!
Of all the typical word-for-word translations, that's the only one that words it that way: "having his desire under control."
To me, this is a deliberate attempt to sneak Calvinism in, by putting less "control" in man's hands over his will than what the Bible originally said.
"Having control over his will" is active. The control is done by the person. He has control over his will. But "having his desire under control" doesn't have to mean the man himself is doing the controlling. It's just saying his desire is under control.
But by whom?
It's like the difference between saying "I painted my house" and "I was having my house painted." Big difference! (One thing to know about educated, dogmatic Calvinists is that they are VERY careful in their wording, picking words and phrases that sound "free-will" but that are really the opposite. See these posts for more on that: "Exposing What Calvinists Really Mean" and "Confronting Calvinism's Deceptive Nonsense".)
So if He gave you the "unregenerated nature" which comes only with the desire to sin and reject Him, then you will only always want to sin/reject Him and you can only always choose to sin/reject Him. You are a slave to the desires of the unregenerated nature that God gave you. You can't choose anything different and can't even want to choose anything different because your nature determines that you will desire to sin and only to sin. And so you can only make the choices that go with your desires. And it's all been predestined by God from the beginning.
[So if a Calvinist says you can make "real choices," they only mean you can make the choices that go with the desires of the nature God gave you. And the unregenerated person only has the desire to sin/reject God, and so they can only choose to sin/reject God. But Calvinists will still call this "making the choice you want to make," even though God predestined the desires you have and the choices you make based on those desires, and you had no ability to choose otherwise. And then since you "wanted" to sin and reject God (because of the desires built in to your God-given unregenerated nature), Calvinists will claim that you deserve the punishment and the eternal life in hell that you get. Because you "desired" to do what you did, even though you could only desire/do what God predestined. It's disgusting how shamelessly deceptive Calvinism is!]
But if God has "elected" you for salvation (lucky people!), then He will eventually replace your unregenerated nature with a "regenerated" one (through the work of the Holy Spirit who "wakes you up inside" and causes you to be believe and be saved), which comes with the desire to obey and do good. And then you will be able to choose to obey and do good, because your desires are under the control of the Holy Spirit.
The way the ESV words this verse essentially changes it from "man controls his will/desires" (meaning then that man would have the ability to choose between various options, to decide which desires to follow, to change his mind, etc.) to "man's desires are under control" (meaning, according to Calvinism, that they are under the control of the Holy Spirit, not of man, and so therefore man cannot really make his own decisions or choose between various options/desires).
I would say that instead of faithfully translating the verse as it is, the translators clearly and shamelessly altered it to fit with Calvinism.
("But why would the translators of a Bible do that?" you might wonder. See this post for an answer.)
A note about the ESV vs King James (I'll be posting this note at the end of every post in this series. Just because.):
If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, read these articles about the men who wrote the Greek texts that the ESV is based on: "Westcott and Hort: Translator's Beliefs" and "Westcott and Hort and the Greek Text." The ESV is based on the RSV, which is based on the Greek Texts of these two men (who, it sounds like, rejected the infallibility of Scripture, despised evangelicals, questioned Jesus's divinity and an eternal hell, did not believe that Genesis and the creation story were literal, affirmed Darwin and evolution, etc.), which is based on two corrupted manuscripts which differ from the majority of the more reliable manuscripts that the KJV is based on.
So when something says that the ESV has only made 6% changes, it means "from the RSV," meaning that it's 94% the same as the RSV it was based on, a translation which was based on two corrupted manuscripts that disagree with the majority of the manuscripts available. It would be like if a journalist interviewed 100 people about an event ... and 95 of them said the exact same thing, but 5 told a different story ... and the journalist decided to side with the 5 and print their story as fact. Raises some red flags, doesn't it?
In the course of researching this issue, and after not knowing for decades what to think of the whole "which translation is most accurate" debate, I now side with the King James. I mean, I have several other translations, and I think different ones are good for different reasons, such as readability, compare and contrast, to hear God's Word in a fresh way, etc. But when having to decide which one is more reliable and accurate, especially considering the significant differences between them, I have to side with the KJV (not the New King James, just the King James). And I've never been more sure of it than now, after all this research.
[And a little necessary paperwork here for all the posts in this series:
Regarding verses from the ESV: “Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”
And regarding verses from the NIV: "Scripture verses taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House."]
