Exposing Calvinism: My Comment on Calvinist Twists

Here is another comment I left on the Soteriology 101 post "Frustrated by the state of the world?".  I had left a comment saying that Calvinists twist Scripture.  Roland (Calvinist) then asks: "Can you give me an example where Calvinist twist Scripture?"


My reply:

Calvinists won’t agree with me, of course, and they will cite various other unrelated Scriptures to support their twisted views, but for starters …

1.  John 3:16: “For God so loved the world …”  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Oh, yeah, but ‘the world’ doesn’t mean all people.  It means all the elect (or ‘the cosmos,’ as my Calvinist pastor said).”  Or “Yeah, God loves the world, but He has two different kinds of love: a saving one for the elect and a ‘gives you food and sunshine’ one for the non-elect.”  Or “God saves those He loves, so if He doesn’t save the non-elect, it means He didn’t love them.  So He doesn’t mean ‘all people’ here, just all kinds of people.”  (They start from their own presuppositions and interpret Scripture according to it.)


2.  John 3:16: “that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”  And Romans 10:13: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Yes, God commands all people to believe in Him and tells us that whoever believes will be saved, but this doesn’t mean that anyone can believe in Him and be saved.  He just means that all the elect will believe in Him and be saved.”

     [Note: Calvinists will say "anyone can believe/be saved," but they don't mean that everyone has the ability/opportunity to believe and be saved, just that "anyone can believe and be saved IF God wants them to and causes them to, which will be only the elect."  And they mean that people from any nationality can believe and be saved, but not that any individual person can.  Big difference!]


3.  The Bible says “Seek me and live (Amos 5:4) … You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13) … Choose this day whom you will serve (Joshua 24:15).”  (And there’s many more “seek/choose” verses not listed here.)  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Yes, God says to seek Him, but He doesn’t mean you actually can seek Him, until and unless He causes you to seek Him.  And He will only cause the elect to do this, after He gives them new life.”

     [Note: In Calvinism, being born-again comes first, before the elect are able to seek God, to understand/respond to the gospel, or to repent/have faith.  In fact, being born-again is what leads to those things, what makes those things possible.  And so if you are not born-again first, you have no ability to seek God, to understand the gospel, or to have faith.  And so, in Calvinism … I mean, think about this, really … the elect are born-again (saved) without ever seeking/finding God, hearing or responding to the gospel, or repenting/having faith.  Wow!  Just wow!  In Calvinism, those things are the result of being born-again, not what leads to being born-again.  So backwards!  So demonic!]


4.  The Bible says Jesus died for all people, all sins (Romans 5:18, 1 Timothy 2:6, 1 Timothy 4:10, Titus 2:11). 

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Yes, but Jesus wouldn’t waste His blood on those who are predestined for hell, so Jesus really didn’t die for all people, just all kinds of people, all the elect.”  (Once again, starting from their own presuppositions.)


5.  Romans 3:11 talks about the general condition of mankind when left to ourselves, that no one seeks God.  This is why God didn’t leave us to ourselves.  He wants us to seek Him and find Him.  And so He created people (Acts 17:27) and put evidence of Himself in nature (Romans 1:20) and put eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11) and speaks to our hearts, drawing (calling, inviting) all men to him (John 16:8, John 12:32) – to lead us to know He’s real so that we can seek Him.  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “‘No one seeks God’ means that no one can seek God, that it’s impossible for man to seek God unless God makes him do it.  And He will only cause the elect to do this.  No one else can seek God or think about God or even want God.  And sure, the Bible says God calls ‘all men,’ but He has two different kinds of calls: an irresistible one for the elect that they have to respond to and a resistible one for the non-elect that they cannot respond to because God created them to resist it.”


6.  The Bible says that we get the Holy Spirit as a result of turning to God in faith. Acts 2:38: “Repent and be baptized … and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Oh no, we need the Holy Spirit to make us born again before we can repent and turn to God in faith.  And this only happens to the elect.”  (In some cases, Calvinists don’t twist verses; they just flat-out ignore, deny, or defy them.)


7.  James 1:13-15 says God does not tempt anyone to sin.  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Yeah, He doesn’t ‘tempt’ anyone to sin, but He doesn’t have to because we do it 'willingly' on our own …. because He gave us the sin-nature that comes only with the built-in desires to sin, never the desire to do good, and we can only make the choices that these built-in desires tell us to make, which for the non-elect means that they can only choose to sin and reject God because that’s the only desires that come with the unregenerated nature that God created them to have.  God predestined their sins and rebellion from the beginning and orchestrates it all so that it works out just like He planned, but He doesn’t ‘force’ us to sin.  He just gives us the nature that makes us ‘want’ to sin, and only to sin, all on our own.  And we can’t choose anything else.  Because if God wasn’t in control of all sin and evil – preplanning it, causing it – then He wouldn’t be God.”  [Are Calvinists even listening to themselves!?!  To me, the fierce loyalty of Calvinists to such convoluted, twisted, contradictory, theological-garbage shows that this can only be demonic in origin.]


8.  Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrates His love for sinners by sending Jesus to die for us.  Romans 3:23 says we are all sinners.  Therefore, God sent Jesus to die for all of us (as confirmed in other verses).  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Yes, but God meant there are two kinds of sinners, the elected ones and the non-elected ones.  And so Romans 5:8 must be only about the elected ones because Jesus wouldn’t die for non-elected people; it would be a waste of His blood.”  

     [Note: One of the Calvinist commenters replied that Calvinists don't say there are two types of sinners.  And he's right.  They don't say it.  But their theology essentially teaches it, even if they don't say it or realize it.  Because God's Word says that we are all sinners and that Jesus died for sinners, and so for Calvinists to say that Jesus only died for some sinners means that there are two classes of sinners: those God truly loved enough to die for and those He didn't.]


9.  Romans 3:25-26 says that God demonstrates His justice by sending Jesus to the cross to punish sin.  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “No, God created most people to be sinners so that He could show off His justice by punishing them in hell for sinning.”


10.  Romans 10:17 says that faith comes from hearing the Word of God.  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “That’s right, faith comes from hearing.  But (contradictorily), God has to give the elect faith first so that they can understand and respond to the Gospel.”


11.  Romans 2:4 says that God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Yes, but the non-elect can never repent, and so God’s kindness to them is just His way of showing a non-saving type of love to them, before sending them to hell for eternity for being the unbelievers He predestined them to be.”


12.  The Bible says there are things God never wanted or planned, that people made their own decisions contrary to what God wanted (Hosea 8:4, Isaiah 30:1, Jeremiah 19:4-5, 1 Kings 20:42, Acts 14:16, Matthew 23:37, Isaiah 65:12).  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “God preplans and causes and controls everything (for His pleasure and glory)!  Or else He can’t be God.”

     [Note: Calvinists say that God even decrees that people disobey His decrees.  Think about that for a moment, about what it does to God’s character, His Word, His commands.  If this is true, then how can you ever trust any command He gives us, if His real plan is that we do the opposite?  Isn’t disobeying His command then just a form of obedience, to His “other” decree?  And then which one is His “real” decree/command: the thing He said He wanted us to do in the first place or the thing He made us do (breaking His command)?  What a theological mess!  And yet how do Calvinists solve it?  “God is mysterious and sovereign, and so He can do whatever He wants, and we don’t have to understand it or like it.  We just have to accept it.”  Once again, that’s not gonna hold up when they stand before God giving an account for what they taught others about Him!]


13.  2 Peter 3:9 says that God is not willing that any should perish.  And 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God desires all men to be saved.  

     CALVINIST TWIST: “Yes, but He only means He wants all the elect to be saved.”  Or “Yes, He ‘desires’ all people to be saved but He has a secondary, greater desire than that: To show off His justice by punishing sin so that He can get glory and worship for it.  And so He needed sinners to punish, and so He predestined many people to be unrepentant sinners so that He could put them in hell.  He still ‘wants’ them to be saved.  It makes Him sad to put them in hell.  But even though He wants them in heaven, He wanted glory/worship for punishing sin even more.”


I could go on, but you get the picture.

Calvinists trade in a clear, plain understanding of Scripture for their own twisted, contradictory version.  They are upside-down but think they’re right-side up because they’ve been trained to see it that way.  But if they have to add “Yes, but …” to all easily-understood verses, then it’s because they are trying too hard to make the Bible fit into their twisted theology.  It would be so much easier and make so much more sense if they ditched their twisted theology and their Calvinist presuppositions and Calvinist teachers … and just read the Bible in the plain, easily understood, consistent way it was written.  Then they wouldn’t have the horrible contradictions and distortions that they have to work so hard to try to fix.

I’ve said this before, but … If someone can’t see the damage Calvinism does to God’s Word and God’s character, then they either don’t really understand Calvinism or they don’t really understand God’s Word and character.


Most Popular Posts Of The Month:

List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist" posts).  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.]    And so here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinists," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify as a Calvinist, I tried to figure it out based on the statements of faith of the groups/churches they belong to, the books they write, the things they say o
Read more

Why Is Calvinism So Dangerous? (re-updated)

Image
Because it  appears  to teach biblical truth while actually teaching  the opposite  - while using  manipulation and cult-like tactics to suck you in!  And it's spreading.  Stealthily, fast, aggressively. (We watched it happen firsthand in our church, which is why I wrote this blog.  See  "What's the best way to make people agree with your Calvinist views?"    Sadly, we ended up  leaving that church , a place we attended almost 20 years.) [ I updated this November 2022 to try to shorten it.  I failed.  But I hope it's more readable and streamlined at least.   If you only read one anti-Calvinism post of mine, I think it should be this one.  But I'm warning you, this post is long.  Very long.  So pack a lunch and bring a sleeping bag.  But it has to be long because Calvinism is so deceptively convoluted that it takes time to peel off the layers so that you can see it for what it really is.  My hope is that with this one long post, I can show the deceptiveness of
Read more

Is The ESV (English Standard Version) a Calvinist Bible?

Just in case anyone missed this post (the longer title made it easy to miss the "ESV" part) ... "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?") In that post, I write about a bunch of verses that I believe were intentionally translated to be more Calvinistic or based on manuscripts that were too corrupt to be trusted (click on it to see the verses).   And why would I think that the translators of this Bible version would do that? (From that post...) The ESV and ESV Study Bible are majorly preferred by Calvinists.  In fact, it's often considered "The Calvinist Bible."   Why?  And why would translators of a Bible make these kinds of Calvinist tweaks to Scripture? Wayne Grudem and J.I. Packer were editors on the  ESV Study Bible   (this is for the ESV Global Study Bible).  Grudem and Packer are both popular, strong, dogmatic Calvinists.  Very Big Names in the world of Calvinism.  Grudem in the General Editor and Packe
Read more

Leaving Calvinism: Comments from Ex-Calvinists #11

Here is the last of the ex-Calvinist testimonies.  The first one is from this post:  X-Calvinist Corner .   (It's an Arminian website, but I am not Arminian.)  I am going to highlight some of the comments that stood out to me the most.  If you want to read everything that everyone said, click on the link above: Dana Steele writes: I grew up in a Calvinistic Baptist church from age 11.  The 5-points of Calvinism (TULIP) were taught regularly with great enthusiasm ... But it wasn’t until college that I began to understand and embrace the “Doctrines of Grace” and TULIP more fully....  I also learned to love the doctrine of election because it meant that God loved me personally and specifically in a unique way.  Though it made me a little embarrassed to think that God did not love everyone this way, I was content to leave this as a mystery.  Who am I to question God?  I was just glad I was one of the lucky (I mean chosen) ones. ... [As A Calvinist]   I had developed a sense of theologi
Read more

The Cult of Calvinism

Here are links to a few posts that reveal the cult-like side of Calvinism: "Why Calvinism is a Cult" "Calvinism is a Counterfeit Christian Cult" "Calvinism, Cults, and Control" I left a comment at Hoppers Crossing Christian Church about their post "Calvinism, Cults, and Control."  I will also print my comment here for your information: I was reading your post "Calvinism, Cults, and Control" (2/02/20) and so much of what you said fits the Calvinist church we recently left.  Here are some of the cult-like things that happened after a Calvinist pastor took over our non-Calvinist church: 1.   From the beginning, he started laying the groundwork that disagreement with him (about his Calvinist view of predestination and God's sovereignty, in particular) was not allowed and that anyone who did disagree with him was unhumble and disagreeing with God.   Things like (paraphrases): "Humble people have no problem with God's sovereignty
Read more

As evil as it gets: Calvinism on babies and the unreached

Image
[A.k.a: Snippets to Ponder, part 4 (#19-20).  This is such a long "snippet" - too many horrific quotes, couldn't resist adding them - that I decided to just make it a whole post.  (I might break this down into smaller pieces in future posts.)  Topics in this post: Calvinism, babies, and unreached people. Click here for snippets  part 1 , part 2 , and  part 3 .] #19: Calvinist comments about babies   [ buckle up, hang on tight, and have a barf-bag ready] : About the suffering and abuse of babies and children:   [ And remember that these are not my words.  These are Calvinist's own words , and so you can see that we are not misrepresenting them or putting words in their mouths.  This is hard stuff to read.  Really hard.  But you need to read it.  To know that they really do teach this garbage.  (And "garbage" is the nice word.  I was gonna use a stronger one.  Oh, yes, I was!  Note: A ll bold emphasis in all quotes has been added by me. )] a.  Gordan H. Clark
Read more

A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?")

(For just the "Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible" part of this post, click here .) 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 Corinthians 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, ordai
Read more

How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist (simplified version)

(For the extended version of this post, which I recommend, click here .  It is loaded with lots more information.  This simplified one is just the highlights.  And feel free to copy this and share it with others, to help them learn to identify Calvinism when they see it.  Just make sure to share the link to this blog so that they can find the original post.  Thank you.  New : For the super-short version, click here .  And FYI: I found a couple times when the Calvinist author of an article I linked to changed their article after I linked to it.  So if their article doesn't seem to match what I said about it, it may be because they altered it. ) We just left our church of almost 20 years because of the dogmatic Calvinist pastor who recently came on board.  ( Read my "Letter to Our Elders Regarding Calvinism Growing in Our Church" here.)   And I was thinking about what precautions I might take to make sure we didn't end up in another Calvinist church (that is, whe
Read more

When Calvinism Infiltrates Your Church

A note I recently added to my posts on "How to tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist" : On a personal note : After having seen firsthand how Calvinism stealthily infiltrates and takes over a church, I want to share with you something that Kevin from Beyond the Fundamentals said in the video   "Stealth Calvinism in Oklahoma"  (my paraphrase): "By the time you realize what's going on and start looking up information about Calvinism online, it's too late."   Calvinist pastors who set out to take over non-Calvinist churches are banking on the fact that most people don't know what Calvinism is, giving the pastors plenty of time to weave in Calvinism in sneaky, subtle, tricksy ways before people catch on to (and research) the red flags.  (*See note at bottom about deceptive pastors.)  By that time, too many people in the church have been suckered into Calvinism (without realizing it's called Calvinism), believing that they're just
Read more

The Bible vs. Calvinism: An Overview by Patrick Myers (a great resource)

A friend of mine recently sent me a link to an article that she says is one of the best overviews of Calvinism and its errors that she's read.  And after reading it, I agree.  I think it's a great one to share with others because it's got all the basics in one place: The Bible vs. Calvinism: An Overview by Patrick Myers There are some great rebuttals to Calvinist proof-texts in here, and some eye-opening quotes from Calvinists.  Something like this might help Calvinists understand what their theology really teaches and what the Bible really  teaches - and that these aren't saying the same thing.   FYI: If you click on the "about/contact" link at the bottom of the article, you can send him an email to request a PDF copy of his article.   And after I contacted him by email to tell him how much I appreciated his article, he graciously put a link to my blog at the bottom.  Thank you, Patrick, that was very kind of you. 😊
Read more