A Crash Course in Calvinism (A letter for pastors)
We recently started attending a new church and are enjoying it enough. But having come from a church that was hijacked by Calvinism, I am highly alert for any whiff of it in this one. (It's kinda sad when words like "sovereign" and "grace" make you wince.) We haven't really noticed any Calvinism in this one, but the pastors do quote from and praise Calvinist theologians. Sure, they're good quotes, but it makes me nervous. I doubt they know what Calvinism really teaches or how easily it traps people. And so being someone who can't just ignore it, I decided to write them a letter, to make sure they realize what they're dabbling with. (If I don't warn them, it's on me. But if I do warn them and they ignore it, it's on them.) And I figured I'd post that letter here, too, for anyone else who might want to know this stuff or who might want to copy it to share with their own pastors (or family or friends) who dabble in Calvinism. It's long, I know, but this is actually a very short examination of it. So grab a cup of coffee, cozy up, and enjoy. (As if it wasn't long enough, I added a few things not in the original letter, particularly some Bible verses to help support my points.)
Hello Pastor *** (and any other pastor/leader/believer you want to share this with, please pass it on),
We are somewhat new to your church, but we are really enjoying it, especially your preaching. You have a wonderful ability to reach deep into your heart and soul, touching ours. We can feel how deeply passionate you are about people, about helping them find healing, hope, comfort, and help in God. That kind of preaching usually only comes from people who have lived it, breathed it, struggled through it, not just read about it in books. We can feel that you’re teaching from the heart, not just the head. Thank you. It’s a breath of fresh air.
We left a church recently (after being there 20 years, raising our kids there, loving it) because it lost its heart after a new pastor came on board. It became all about teaching for the head, academic stuff, instead of being about shepherding people’s hearts or helping them draw nearer to the love and hope found in Jesus, in a relationship with God.
The new pastor almost never said things like “God loves you, cares about you, wants to help you, wants to save you.” But he did say/write things like “God commands us to spank our kids, and it has to hurt… Depression is a sin [No help, no compassion, just “it’s a sin,” kicking hurting people while they’re down.]… We are not God’s top priority. He cares about Himself most, about getting more glory for Himself through us.… I don’t do altar calls because I don’t want people thinking they’re saved just because they walked the aisle… We are wicked, depraved, rebellious, God-hating sinners from the beginning… Christians like to think there’s an age of accountability where babies who die go to heaven, but NO ONE gets a free pass, not even babies, because everyone is born a rebellious sinner on their way to hell, and they need to repent to be saved… God doesn’t love all people, and He doesn’t love all people equally; He picked some for heaven, but not the rest... God ordains all your tragedies, even childhood abuse – it was His Plan A for your life - for His glory, for your good, and to keep you humble, etc.” [And he didn’t mean it as in “God knew it would happen, allowed it to happen, and can work it into something good in your life.” He meant it as in “God deliberately preplanned/caused it, there was no other plan for your life than your abuse or tragedy, and He did it for His glory and to keep you humble.”]
The new pastor brought in Calvinism, which wasn’t in our Evangelical Free church before that. And heart and truth and the true Gospel went out the window. And this is one of the reasons I am writing to you. We really enjoy your preaching and the message of hope you share, how biblical you seem to be. But though we don’t necessarily think you preach/talk/think like a Calvinist, we do hear you quote Calvinist theologians all the time. In fact, almost all the theologians you quote are Calvinists. And it makes our radar go up. (The other pastor at your church – we really enjoy his teaching too - has also quoted Calvinist theologians, calling them excellent theologians, or something like that. And even if you are not Calvinists or are not at risk of drifting into it, you’re leading others to it by highlighting Calvinist theologians like you do.)
We’re concerned that maybe you don’t realize what Calvinism really teaches (underneath the biblical surface layer), how badly it destroys the Gospel, God’s Word, God’s character, and people’s faith.
(Read this letter slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, prayerfully. Because you are dabbling in Calvinism, even if you don’t know it. Seriously, right now, breathe a prayer for discernment, for wisdom.)
Some of the most popular Calvinist theologians are very Big Names in the evangelical world, writing many of the theology books out there: MacArthur, Grudem, Piper, Sproul, White, Carson, Keller, Dever, Spurgeon, Challies, Chandler. DeYoung, Platt, Greear, Kennedy, Loritts, Lutzer, Mahaney, Lloyd-Jones, Mohler, Packer, Washer, Slick, Begg, Baucham, Augustine (whom Calvin gets his theology from), etc.
[Sometimes it seems like everyone is a Calvinist, like “everyone is doing it,” but it’s not true. There are plenty of great pastors/theologians who do not teach or agree with Calvinism. (My favorite is Dr. Tony Evans, and a friend who also left an Evangelical Free church hijacked by Calvinism really likes Dr. Andy Woods.) And even if “everyone’s doing it,” it doesn’t mean they’re right. Might doesn’t make right. Just because a great number of teachers - even if they're intelligent, educated people - all gather around each other and say the same thing, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law in Jesus’s day were also intelligent, educated men who all said the same thing… but they were wrong, so blinded by their own intelligence and education that they missed the Truth when He was standing right in front of them.]
Calvinism is a corruption of the Gospel, of God’s Word, utterly destroying God’s good, faithful, loving, just, trustworthy character. And so we want to caution you (and all of your pastors, please share this with them), because the more you read, respect, and listen to Calvinist theologians, the easier it is to fall into Calvinism, to slide into it without realizing it. That’s how they get you. They seem so intelligent, lofty, God-honoring, educated.
But Calvinism is really just another form of “Did God really say…?”
After watching Calvinism slowly take over our church over the course of 6 years, we have deeply studied this issue for years now: what Calvinists really mean versus what they say, how they twist verses or use them out of context, how it takes over a church through manipulation/deception, how it’s aggressively spreading, etc. We know how sneaky it is, how alluring, how it slowly draws people in.
As a licensed counselor, I noticed first the manipulation from the new pastor, how he would try to shame people into agreeing with him, making them afraid to speak up against him. Even before he started revealing his Calvinist views, he started saying things like this:
“You only have three options when it comes to the truth of [Calvinist] predestination: ignore it, get angry about it, or accept it.”
No disagreement allowed. But Calvinists have an incorrect view of predestination. Biblically, predestination is not about God predestining who gets saved and how, but about God predestining what happens to believers (and anyone can believe) after they get saved, such as they will be glorified in the end, bring God glory, and have their bodies redeemed, etc. But Calvinists get this wrong, and then try to shame you into feeling bad for disagreeing.
And “This (my views) are what the Bible teaches. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to accept it. Humble Christians don’t fight God or question God’s sovereignty.”
But Calvinists have an unbiblical view of sovereignty, too. (Of everything really.) And it's a fundamental error, leading to many other errors and contradictions. They think it means that God must always use His power all the time to preplan, cause, control everything, even sin and evil, or else He can’t be God.
As Calvinist R.C. Sproul says (in Does God Control Everything?): “If God is not sovereign, God is not God. If there is even one maverick molecule in the universe – one molecule running loose outside the scope of God’s sovereign ordination – we cannot have the slightest confidence that any promise God has ever made about the future will come to pass.”
In Calvinism, "God" equals "sovereign" equals "must preplan, control, cause everything ('ordain,' in Calvinist lingo)" ... or else He's not God.
But telling God how God must act in order to be God is a dangerous and foolish thing!
(Calvinists will do their best to hide the fact that Calvinism makes God the cause of all evil and sin, but it is an inevitable conclusion of their beliefs. And the more honest ones admit it.)
But that’s not what sovereignty is, biblically or definitionally. It’s about being the highest authority there is, answerable to no one but yourself. And as the highest authority, He gets to decide how and when to use His power. And He has clearly decided to voluntarily restrain His use of power in order to allow us to have free-will, the right to choose to accept Him or reject Him, to obey Him or disobey Him, to love Him or hate Him.
(Wow, is that humbling or what! Knowing that the Creator God of the universe would love us enough and want us to voluntarily love Him enough that He would allow Himself to be ignored and rejected by His own creation. That's truly humbling. And it makes me want to love Him even more.)
He created us with free-will, and that's the only reason for verses like these:
Yes, Calvinists can say a lot of good things. They have a surface layer that’s biblical, that sounds right, that says the things we all agree with. But – and this is critical to understand – that surface layer covers up a deeper, hidden, unbiblical layer that ultimately contradicts/negates the biblical surface layer, a deeper layer they try to hide or obscure as long as possible. And the things they get wrong hit at the very heart of the Gospel, of God’s character, why Jesus came, who Jesus came for, and how we are saved. It destroys the very foundation of our faith and our trust in God and His Word. (Which is why it’s so important to stand against it, not tolerate it.) And so even if they do have some good things to say, it is far outweighed by the damage they do, by what they get wrong. They don't just preach a “deeper Gospel,” as they like to think. They preach a different Gospel, a different God, a different Jesus.
In the Bible, God truly loves all people, Jesus died for all people, the call to salvation is truly offered to all people, and anyone can put their faith in Jesus and be saved.
But in Calvinism, God only really loves the elect enough to save their souls. But He sure does “love” the non-elect, too - by giving them food and water while they are alive on earth, temporarily “saving” them from their “deserved” eternal damnation. [Where’s the verse that teaches this clearly? As clearly as “For God so loved the world…” and "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”]
Calvinists wrongly conclude that if Jesus died for you, you will be saved, meaning that Jesus only died for the elect, because He wouldn’t waste His blood on those who’d reject Him. They mistakenly believe that “Jesus died for you” is the same thing as “Jesus saved you,” because they cannot comprehend that Jesus would die for all people but that God would allow people to reject it. They mistakenly assume that everyone, given the choice, would inevitably accept eternal life, that if salvation was an option for all, we all would choose to be saved. And so therefore, in their minds, since not everyone is saved, it means that we don’t have the ability to choose, which means that God chooses for us. [They have a whole host of misconceptions and wrong assumptions like this that they build their theology on.]
In Calvinism, God gives only the elect a real call to salvation, and then He causes them to respond to it. But He sure does "call" the non-elect, too - by giving them a fake call to salvation that they are predestined to reject, that He makes sure they reject by not giving them the desire to respond to it, and yet He holds them accountable for rejecting it, even though they had no choice.
Calvinists don’t believe in free-will - that we make real choices, among options, about Jesus or sin or whatever - but they will try to make it sound like they believe in free-will by using phrases like “we willingly choose.” But all they really mean (the hidden, contradictory layer) is that we make the choices God predestined we would make. God gives us the nature He wants us to have, which He implanted with the desires He wants us to carry out, even sinful ones, and we inevitably “willingly choose to do” what we “desire” to do, which is what He predestined us to do. But since we “wanted” to do it, God will hold us accountable for it, even though He is the one who made us want to do it in the first place, which caused us to do it. [This is why they always add the caveat “according to our natures/desires/will” when they talk about people making choices.]
Basically, God gives the non-elect a magic potion that makes them want to do what He predestined them to do (sin and reject Him), and since they could only want to do those things (He put no other desires into their nature), that’s what they “choose” to do. But since they “wanted” to do it, He holds them responsible for it, as if it was a real choice among options, as if they had the ability to choose anything different, as if they really do deserve their punishment.
[If I injected you with a magic potion that gave you the irresistible urge to kick every puppy you see – and you had to obey that urge – then who is really responsible for you kicking all those puppies? We all know it would be me, but Calvinists will blame you, saying that you “chose” to do what you “wanted” to do, and so you deserve the punishment you get, even though I determined and controlled your desires and actions, and you had no ability to change or resist them.]
In Calvinism, only the elect are given the regenerated nature that makes them want to seek God and believe in Jesus. The non-elect are forever unable to do this because they get the unregenerated nature that came only with the built-in desire to sin and resist/reject God, and so they are hopelessly damned to hell, by God’s choice, for His glory.
As John MacArthur (and all Calvinists) say, Jesus only died for “HIS sheep/the elect,” not for everyone. He says (in a YouTube clip “John MacArthur talks about Limited Atonement”, find the link in my post "MacArthur's Manipulations") that it diminishes Jesus’s death to say He died for all people, that it’s not a real atonement/sacrifice unless He died for specific, prechosen people who will inevitably become saved, instead of dying for everyone in general, for those who reject Him. Where is the verse to support this, the verse that clearly, plainly says this?
Because here’s what the Bible clearly, plainly says:
"And he died for all ..." (2 Cor. 5:15)
"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." (Titus 2:11)
"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men..." (1 Tim. 2:3-5)
"He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9b)
“but now [God] commands all people everywhere to repent.” (Acts 17:30. Calvinists say that God commands it, but He does so knowing He made the non-elect unable to repent. In fact, in Calvinism, God commands them to repent so that they will disobey, so that He has a “justifiable” reason to punish them in hell, just like He predestined.)
“But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32. He draws all people, but He gives us the option of resisting Him.)
“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.” (Romans 5:18. Life has been bought for all, paid for by Jesus's blood, and it's offered to all, but we can reject it.)
“Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29. All our sins have been paid for, but if we reject Jesus's payment, then we choose to pay for them ourselves.)
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son ..." (John 3:16)
These verses very clearly tell us God's heart for all people, that Jesus died for all people, that God wants all people to be saved. But Calvinism gets critical Bible verses words, verses, and concepts wrong. Calvinism appears biblical because it uses Bible verses and words, but it flips it on its head.
Such as, they believe that we get the Holy Spirit first, before believing, to cause us to believe. But what does the Bible clearly, plainly say?
Acts 2:38: "... Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Ephesians 1:13: "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."
It’s “believe first, then get the Holy Spirit,” not “get the Holy Spirit first who then causes you to believe.”
And Calvinist Lorraine Boettner says that we are not saved because we believe in Christ, but that we believe in Christ because we are saved. But what does the Bible clearly, plainly say?
"... Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31)
"That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
"Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved..." (Mark 16:16)
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12)
Belief leads to salvation. Salvation does not lead to belief.
[Side note: Since Calvinists don't think we have a choice about what we believe, they don't often stress “believe to be saved,” even though it’s clearly what the Bible says. They tend to stress repentance instead. And so when Pastor ### did the same thing recently (saying that we need to repent and be baptized to be saved), it raised my red flags. I’m not saying he’s a Calvinist, but I found it very strange that “believing in Jesus” was left out.
Repentance is part of being saved, part of belief in Jesus, for sure – we can’t turn to Jesus unless we turn from ourselves first – but nowhere in his “how to be saved” speech (that I can remember) did he say that we need to believe in Jesus to be saved, even though it’s repeated all throughout the New Testament. Instead, he made it sound like it's our actions of repenting of our sins and being baptized in water that save us, not our belief in Jesus. I found that a little alarming, misleading, and off-track biblically. As if salvation is a behavior thing, not a heart thing.
Also note, when the Bible talks about the need to be baptized to be saved, I don't think it means water baptism, although it is important to follow Jesus's example in that and to publicly align yourself with Him as a new believer. But water baptism is not part of "getting saved." I believe the baptism that saves is the "one baptism" (Eph. 4:5) that we all get at the moment of conversion, when the Holy Spirit indwells us and regenerates us and makes us born again (1 Cor. 12:13). That is the baptism we need to be saved - because without it, we don't have the Holy Spirit, which means we aren't really saved/born again.)]
The Bible plainly and clearly presents the Gospel in an easy-to-understand, commonsense way. But Calvinists convince us that there is a deeper way to read the Bible, hidden messages that contradict the plain, easily-understood verses, changing the Gospel completely. And so to Calvinists, John 3:16 is not an invitation to all people to believe and be saved, not instructions on how anyone can be saved; it’s merely a statement about how the elect will be saved.
Interestingly, disturbingly, when explaining how he came to faith, MacArthur (in an interview with Phil Johnson, see here) says that he "always believed," that there was never a time he didn't believe, that he never rebelled against the Gospel (which contradicts his Calvinist idea of total depravity), and that he can't put his finger on the exact moment when he put his faith in Jesus because when God did His "saving work" in his heart, it wasn't even discernable to him.
So basically, he’s saying that he always knew he was saved, that he never really had to make a conscious decision to put his faith in Jesus, and that when the moment of saving faith came, he didn't even notice it because God did it without his awareness. Sure, he says there was a moment when his dad prayed with him, but it was a footnote, a formality, not the moment of deciding to put his faith in Jesus ... because, as he claims, he "always believed" and God put "saving faith" in his heart without his awareness. Sounds very fishy to me, very shady … especially since, according to the Bible, the way to be saved is to make a choice to believe in Jesus, to consciously put our faith in Him.
But Calvinists incorrectly define “believing” as a work, and then say that since we can’t work our way to heaven, we can’t choose to believe in Jesus, and so God has to cause it to happen to His elect.
But what does the Bible say?
"Then they asked him, 'What must we do to do the works God requires?' Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent [Jesus].'" (John 6:28-29)
"'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to a man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:" (Romans 4:3-6)
God says that believing in Jesus is the one work He gives us, the one work we must do to be saved. And yet Calvinists say it’s a “work” that we can’t do, because it’s trying to work our way to heaven.
But God – in comparing Abraham’s belief to men who try to earn righteousness through works - says that believing is not like the other kinds of works we do to get to heaven. It’s different. And it’s what He wants from us, the one responsibility He gave us. But Calvinists wrongly define belief as “working for salvation,” and then say that since we can’t work for salvation, we can’t choose to believe either, that God has to do it for us, to us.
How, then, can anyone be saved under Calvinism when they teach that we can’t do the one thing God said we need to do to be saved? (If anyone is saved through Calvinism, it’s in spite of Calvinism, not because of it. It’s because of the biblical surface layer, not because of what they really believe.)
[I’m spending a lot of time on this, being very thorough, because it’s so important to know what Calvinism really teaches, underneath what it says. (And trust me, this is the very short version, just the basics, a crash course in Calvinism.) You cannot just listen to what Calvinists say, the good surface layer. You must listen to what’s underneath, to the things they really mean but don’t say, the things they hide/obscure, the ways they use verses out of context, the ways they precondition you to read things their way and try to manipulate you into accepting it, etc.]
In Calvinism, the Gospel is not for everyone. Jesus is not for everyone. Only for the elect. MacArthur even teaches that if we knew who the elect were - if they came with marks on their backs - then we wouldn’t have to preach the Gospel to everyone. But since we don’t know who’s elect and who’s not, then we have to preach it to all, even though the Gospel is only for the elect.
The Bible says the Gospel is good news for all, but Calvinism makes it good news only for the elect, and bad news – very bad, damning, hopeless, fatal news – for everyone else.
And in reality, Calvinism doesn’t actually rescue anyone from hell. Because in Calvinism, the elect were always saved from the moment they were created, and eventually they will just wake up one day (like MacArthur) and realize that they were saved all along, that they didn’t have to do anything to be saved, not even consciously, willingly choose to believe in Jesus, that “faith” just happened to them. And the non-elect can never be saved because they were always doomed to hell because Jesus never died for them, and God prevents them from believing, for His pleasure and glory.
Calvinism destroys the Gospel, God’s character, and most people’s hope for salvation.
If God, as Calvinism teaches, has hidden meanings behind the things He says in His Word, which contradict His plain Word – if He says things He doesn’t mean and means things He doesn’t say – then He can’t be trusted. If He says “don’t sin” but really means “I predestined you to do what I commanded you not to do”, and if He says “Seek Me and believe” but really means “But I predestined that you cannot and will not seek Me or believe,” then how can we believe anything He says or trust any command He gives us?
If He has secret, unspoken commands that contradict/violate His spoken commands, then He is two-faced, untrustworthy, unjust, and works against Himself, violating His own commands. (And yet Matthew 12:25 warns that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. And James 1:8 says that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And 1 Cor. 14:33 says that God is not the author of confusion.)
[And, not unrelated: Whenever I read lately of celebrity/popular Christians leaving the faith, I look them up, where they went to church… and practically every time, they were Calvinists. Believing in an untrustworthy God who doesn’t mean what He says, who preplans/controls/causes our sins, who doesn’t love all people, who predestined most people to hell for His glory, who gets as much glory from sin as He does from obedience, and who might have given us a temporary faith that only makes us feel saved for a short time (look up Calvinism’s “evanescent grace”) will eventually destroy faith, causing many to turn away from God altogether. They were taught that Calvinism IS the Gospel, and in their naivete and biblical ignorance, they accepted it, not realizing that it’s actually a corruption of God’s Word and character. And so instead of just rejecting the Calvinism, they reject God and Jesus and faith altogether. Heartbreaking! (See here for some people's stories of the damage Calvinism has done to them.)]
Calvinism is a deceptive, slippery, contradictory theology that traps people with a biblical surface layer and reels them step by step into the deeper unbiblical layers.
It traps people through things like…
… unbiblical understandings of and definitions of words. Not only do they get predestination and sovereignty wrong, but they get election wrong. In the Bible, all that word means is “chosen,” and it NEVER specifies that individual people are chosen for salvation. “Election” is really just about God choosing to give those who believe in Jesus the special roles, responsibilities, blessings that He has determined for His followers. It’s not about God choosing which sinners will believe. Both “predestination” and “election” are about what God planned for those who believe, after they become believers, not about God planning who believes or causing them to believe. A critical difference!
[This is echoed in Eph. 2:10: "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." The "good works" that God wants all believers to do (all who become "in Christ" through faith in Jesus, Eph. 1:13) were preplanned by God, not who gets saved.]
Calvinists get “depravity” wrong. They say it means we are so fallen, so wicked, that we are unable to think about, want, seek, or believe in God/Jesus and so God has to make the elect do it. But all depravity really means is that we are fallen people (separated by God because of sin) who can’t save ourselves, that we needed God to make salvation possible for us.
They get “God’s will” wrong, incorrectly thinking that if He wills something, it must happen and so, therefore, He wills everything that happens and everything that happens is what He willed… and then since most people do not believe in Jesus, it must be because He willed it (and so when He says that He wills all men are saved, it must mean “all kinds of men,” the elect from all over the nations, not all individual men). Yet in the Greek, God’s will has to do with His preferred will, what He wants to have happen, but clearly He allows us to obey or disobey His will.
They get “faith” wrong, saying that it’s something God has to give people first to make them believe, when it’s really just about us deciding to put our trust in Jesus.
They get “hardens” wrong, as in God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, people’s hearts. They believe it’s that God decides who will reject Him, and He causes it to happen, with no influence from them. But biblically, in the Greek, it’s a retributive hardening, a punishment, where God further hardens the hearts of those who willingly choose to resist Him and His patient lovingkindness. It’s about Him locking them into their self-chosen hardness, and then using it for His purposes.
They get “foreknowledge” wrong, redefining it as “to plan beforehand,” not just to know beforehand.
They get “spiritual death” wrong, thinking it’s being “dead like a dead body,” totally unable to do anything, even want God or believe in Jesus. But biblically, it’s about being separated from God by our sins. But our brains still work, and God expects us to use our working brains to see Him in creation, seek Him, find Him, and believe in Him. "… since what may be known about God is plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1:19-20) And "God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us." (Acts 17:27). If you accept Calvinism’s definitions of words, you will become a Calvinist.
[Side Note: Calvinists misread Romans 1:20. They don’t think it means that everyone actually has the chance to find God and that there’s no excuse for not; they just think it means that even though God predestined the non-elect to hell and prevents them from believing, God will still say “No excuse!” when they say “But God, you didn’t give me a chance.” Calvinists think that because the non-elect were “willingly” following their sinful “desires,” they deserve the punishment they get. But, of course, the desire to sin and reject God were the only desires they had because of the nature God gave them, and so it’s the only thing they could “choose,” but still … “No excuse,” says the Calvinist, “because they ‘wanted’ to do it.” It’s sick. Twisted and sick. (See "Calvinism 101: 'Free-will choice' is not really 'free-will' or 'choice'" and "A Quick Study of Calvinism's Favorite Words" for more on this.)]
... taking verses out of context, reading Scripture incorrectly. A critical mistake Calvinists make is that they believe Romans 9 is about God choosing which individuals will get saved, about predestination. But Romans 9 is really about Israel as a nation, about God handing them over to their self-chosen hard-hearted rejection of Jesus and, consequently, giving the Gospel to the Gentiles instead, because the Jews didn't want it but the Gentiles did. But then the Jews cried "not fair!" because they thought the Gentiles shouldn't get salvation. They thought the Jews were the special ones and should get God's favor and salvation just because they were Jews. That's what Romans 9 is about. God is telling them that He can give the Gospel/offer salvation to whomever He wants to, to whomever is willing to receive it (and the Gentiles were), and that He can take it away from (and punish) anyone, even Jews, if they resist/reject it. But if you let Calvinists convince you that Romans 9 is about God choosing individual people for salvation or hardening individual people for hell, you will become a Calvinist.
Another key passage they get wrong is 2 Thess. 2:13: "But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth." They think it means God chooses who gets saved. But that’s wrong. This is not about individual people being chosen for salvation. It's about God switching the method of salvation with that generation, switching it from devotion to God (as evidenced in their adherence to the Law) to belief in Jesus (because their generation coincided with Jesus’s arrival, making them the “firstfruits” of those saved by grace through faith in Jesus). This isn’t a Calvinist “predestined for heaven” verse at all. It’s about God promising to save anyone who puts their faith in Jesus from the end times’ wrath. Big difference!
And another: Revelation 13:8 (ESV) says "and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain." In the ESV, in Calvinism, the names of the elect were written in the book of life before the world was created, affirming their view of predestination, election. But let’s see the KJV: ”And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." And I think there are two ways to look at this according to the KJV, both of which contradict Calvinism. 1) If "from the beginning" refers to the Lamb being slain, I would suggest that it means that Jesus was foreordained to be slain for our sins, that God knew from the beginning that we would sin and need a Redeemer, and so He planned from the beginning to pay for our sins with Jesus's death, which is confirmed by 1 Peter 1:19-20 and Acts 2:23. 2) Or if "from the beginning" refers to names being written in the Book of Life, then notice that the word in the KJV is "from" not "before," and this would mean not that certain names were written/chosen before the world began (as Calvinist say, to support their idea of predestination/election) but that names started being added to the Book of Life from the beginning, meaning that new names are added as each new person comes to Christ, which would be confirmed in Rev. 17:8. (Or it could be about the Book of Life itself being created from the beginning.) Either way, it contradicts Calvinism. Do not trust the ESV. It was written by Calvinists to push Calvinism. (I have found over 100 verses that have been changed to be Calvinist, and that’s without even looking all that hard. See here for an examination of them.)
And another: Calvinists take Romans 8:28, about how God causes all things to work together for good, and reinterpret it as “God causes all things.” But to “cause all things to work together” is far different than “to cause all things.”
And another: They misunderstand God using Assyria to punish Israel (Isaiah 10). They believe He caused Assyria to be wicked but then holds them accountable for it, using this as an example of how God can preplan and cause sin, evil, and unbelief (”ordain,” in their terminology), but still hold people responsible for it, as if it’s okay, as if it’s justice. But it doesn’t say that He caused them to be wicked or gave them a wicked nature. He simply let them be the wicked people they chose to be, that He foreknew they would be, and then He worked it into His plans to discipline Israel. And then since the Assyrians chose to be wicked, He could justly hold them accountable for it. This would not be a violation of His justice or righteousness, as Calvinism is. It’s like undercover cops using criminals in an undercover sting to catch the head bad guy, and then when the sting is over, the cops can punish the criminals for being the criminals they chose to be. The cops didn’t make them be criminals; they just used the criminals’ willful choices in their plans for justice.
Calvinists also misunderstand God opening Lydia’s heart to Paul’s message in Acts 16. They think it means that God opened her heart to believe in Jesus (that He gave her faith), using it to “prove” that God has to give people faith, and that if He doesn’t, you can’t believe. But nowhere does it say that the message Paul preached was a salvation message. Most likely, it was a “believers should be baptized” message, because that’s the next thing she does. Plus, it says that she was already a worshipper of God. She already believed. Most likely, this is a case of God opening the eyes of a believer to the need to be baptized, just like what happened in Acts 19 too. God does not decide (cause) who gets faith and who doesn’t, but He does help lead believers with soft hearts in the next steps they should take.
And similarly, they get Ephesians 2:8-9 wrong: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” They believe this means that to believe in Jesus, God has to give you the “gift of faith,” and He only gives it to the elect, meaning that the non-elect can never have faith or be saved. But they understand this verse wrong. In the Greek, words are either female, male, or neuter. And if another word relates back to a previous word, they have to agree in gender. Such as, "faith" is feminine, so if "this" ("this… the gift of God”) is referring to "faith," it also has to be feminine. But it’s not; it’s neuter. So it can't be referring specifically back to the word "faith." Faith is not the gift. Additionally, "grace" is also feminine, so therefore "this (gift)" cannot be referring specifically to “grace.” Grace is not the gift. So then what is the "gift"? The whole thing: salvation, the offer of eternal life by grace though faith. And this is confirmed in Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Eternal life - salvation - is the gift. But Calvinists use Eph. 2:8-9 to say that God has to first give you the “gift of faith” to make you believe, and that He will only give it to the elect, and so the non-elect can never believe or be saved. But faith is not the gift. Eternal life is the gift God offers to all, but we can reject it.
These are some of the foundational verses they get wrong, very wrong - because they view the Bible through their Calvinist lenses. If you believe their interpretation of these, you will become a Calvinist.
... bad analogies and illustrations. They say things like “Election is like having 100 murderers on death row. And out of His love and grace, God steps in to free 10 of them. But in His justice and wrath, He lets the rest go to their deaths for their crimes. Is God unfair to do this? Is He unjust? No, because it’s not wrong to let people pay the penalty they deserve. The thing is, He didn’t have to save anyone because everyone deserves death, hell. But the fact that He stepped in to save anyone at all, while passing over the rest, shows how gracious and loving He is.” But in Calvinism, God is the ultimate – and truly only – cause of sin. He predestined everything we do – every sin, evil, and unbelief – and we can only “choose” to do what He predestined us to do. And so while this death row analogy might seem fair on the surface, trapping many people, it ignores the fact that, in Calvinism, those 100 men were only on death row in the first place because God predestined/caused them to commit those murders, giving them no chance or ability to choose otherwise. This obliterates the concepts of love, grace, “deserved” punishment/justice.
… breaking biblical concepts up into “two different kinds,” when the Bible does no such thing. This allows them to speak on different levels, shifting between layers as needed, obscuring what they really believe, trapping people through deception. For example, they have “two types of love/grace”: a saving one for the elect and a “gives you food and water” one for the non-elect. This allows them - when trying to trap non-Calvinists - to “honestly” say “God gives grace to all” and “God loves all people,“ tricking you into thinking they believe that God loves all people the same John 3:16 way (that out of love, Jesus died for us all)... when they actually mean something very different. [Calvinist’s say that the reason God shows kindness to the non-elect is so that He can show them some love/grace before putting them in hell like He predestined. But what does the Bible say about why God pours out His kindness on fallen people? "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4, emphasis added). It’s not to show some goodness to sinners before they go to hell; it’s to try to SAVE THEM FROM HELL!.]
Calvinists have “two types of calls”: an irresistible one for the elect, and a fake one that the non-elect will/must resist. This allows Calvinists - when trying to trap non-Calvinists - to “honestly” say “God calls all people,” appearing to teach that God gives a real offer of salvation to all people that they can accept, when they don’t mean that at all.
They have “two types of God’s will”: To explain away their contradictions, Calvinists say that God has a spoken/revealed will (the things He tells us in His Word that He wants us to do) and a deeper, unspoken will that contradicts what He said, that determined we’d break His spoken commands. This is how they can say that God commands us not to sin but that He “ordains” our sins. They are both “His will,” so it makes it okay. Calvinists say “God decrees that we disobey His decrees,” and they see no contradiction in this, no problem with it. Just goes to show the remarkable hold that the irrational, contradictory Calvinism has on them, that they can still hold to it despite the damage it does to God’s Word and character. They accept a duplicitous, untrustworthy, self-fighting God because “It’s a mystery. He is God, and He is so far above us that we can’t understand Him anyway. Everything He does - even ordaining the sins and unbelief He commands us not to do – is good and just, because He is good and just. We can’t understand it, so we just have to accept it.” (Hogwash!)
[I believe that Pastor Tony Evans presents a biblical view of God's Will, that keeps God's character intact, unlike Calvinism. Calvinism teaches that God has two opposing, contradictory Wills about the same issue, that He says one thing but causes the opposite (such as He says it's not His Will for us to sin or for anyone to perish, while He simultaneously predestines our sins and people's unbelief). This destroys God's character and Word.
But Dr. Evans rightly says that God has an unconditional Will for some things and a conditional Will for other things (see the first ten minutes of this sermon: How to get your prayers answered). In this view, God has two different kinds of Wills for different situations: in some situations, He decides to do something on His own, but in others, He decides to let us make decisions and then He responds accordingly.
There are things God's planned and decided to do regardless of us, unconditionally, such as create the world, send Jesus to die for our sins, offer salvation to sinners, renew creation in the end, etc. He does these things regardless of what we do or don't do. But then there are things He's planned to do on the condition that we do our part, and this is where we get the "if you ... then ..." verses from. "If you obey, then I will bless you. If you disobey, then you'll face bad consequences. If you believe in Jesus, then I will give you eternal life. Etc." These kinds of verses only make sense if God gave us a real right to decide. And He did. Which is why the Bible makes sense and why we can still trust Him and why the punishment for our sins and unbelief is just.]
… false dichotomies. They present you with a dilemma/question, then give you only two options as answers: an obviously unbiblical one and the Calvinist one, as if those are the only two options, forcing you to side with Calvinism. Such as “Either God controls everything, or we do … Either God does all the work of saving us, or we save ourselves… Either God controls everything, or God controls nothing… Either all people believe and are saved, or God chooses who believes and is saved… Either God determines who is redeemed, or man does” (the last one is from MacArthur, in “Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation”), etc.
… deflection of the hard questions and criticisms, downplaying the bad stuff. When asked about those God predestined to hell, Calvinists say, “The real question is not ‘Why would God predestine people to hell?’ But the real question is ‘Why would God choose to save anyone at all when we all deserve hell?’” It’s much easier to accept Calvinism when you focus only on the lucky ones, ignoring the unfairly damned ones.
… putting Calvinist glasses on people first, then leading them to verses that appear to teach Calvinism when you’re wearing the Calvinist glasses. Such as, they will first define predestination/election for you, telling you their wrong Calvinist definition of it, and then they lead you to verses that have the word “predestined/election” in it, and say “See, it’s right there. I was right.” [MacArthur knows it all hinges on this. He says, in “Election and Predestination…”, that the first thing you must do is get people to accept Calvinism’s “doctrine” of election/predestination. (FYI: If you hear the words “doctrine of election, predestination, grace, total depravity, etc.), you know you’re dealing with a Calvinist.) Their definitions of this and of sovereignty will be the first things they try to brainwash you on, trap you with.] And you accept their idea that Scripture teaches Calvinism because you don’t realize you’ve been preconditioned to read it in a Calvinist way. You don’t realize that there is a different way to read it, that their definitions are wrong. They told you “It’s what the Bible says.” They called it “biblical doctrines.” And you believed them. You let your guard down, turned off your spiritual radar and critical thinking skills, and ate what they spoon-feed you. Big mistake! Where have all the Bereans gone?
… arguments that have no biblical basis at all but that they think sound convincing. From my Calvinist pastor and his Calvinist son: "Why would God create non-elect people predestined to hell? So that He can show off His full attributes and get glory for it. He loves Himself most and cares about His own glory more than He does people, and so He does what's best for His glory. If He didn't love Himself most, He'd be an idolater. And if there was no sin to punish, He couldn't show off His justice or be worshipped for it. And so He created people to be sinners so that He could show off His justice by punishing sin, so that He could worship Himself for it and get worship from people for it. And He also did it to highlight His love to the elect, to show them how loved they are by comparison."
[But now read Romans 3:25-26 to see how God Himself says He demonstrates (shows off) His justice: “God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it [sent Jesus to the cross for our sins] to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” God doesn't punish sinners to show off His justice; He sent Jesus to the cross to show off His justice. And it's right there in the Bible! If we end up in hell, it's by our choice to reject God's offer of salvation, not because God predestined anyone to go there.]
… and when all that fails, they resort to “These are mysteries. And God is so far above us that we can’t understand Him. I know it’s hard to accept. You’re just having an emotional reaction to it because you can’t understand it and don’t like the way it sounds. You’re putting your own human logic over God’s. [Note: They make you feel like you are the problem, not their theology.] But humble Christians don’t question God or try to figure Him out fully or judge Him by their own ideas/standards; they just trust Him and accept these ‘hard teachings,’ even if it sounds bad to us mere humans. [Note: They use your desire to be humble and God-honoring to trap you.] But if you just give it time - and read MacArthur, Grudem, Piper, Sproul, Keller, etc. - then you’ll come to accept it, and it will become a comfort to you because you’ll be trusting in God’s sovereignty instead of in man. Besides, who are you, O man, to talk back to God?”
They have many, many deceptive, cult-like, manipulative tactics to trap people into Calvinism. I don’t think they necessarily see it as “trapping, deception, manipulation” – they’re convinced they’re honoring God and His Word – but it is what it is. And those inside a cult can’t see that they’re inside a cult. They have the best intentions but have been severely brainwashed. [Also see "When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic' Traps Good Christians." And "12 Tips on how to think critically about Calvinism."]
We’ve seen it happen. We watched it happen over 6 years, seeing the strong hold it gets on people. It’s slow and subtle and sneaky, appealing to people’s humility and desire to honor God and grow deeper in the faith, in God’s Word. I think most people will become Calvinists “accidentally,” because they let others talk them into it, because they didn’t realize there was something wrong with it, didn’t heed the red flags that popped up in their spirit. They convinced themselves that they didn’t need to question it or doubt it because the Calvinist pastors/theologians are so smart and educated and went to seminary and know Greek and write books. They put on the Calvinist glasses, swayed by the Calvinist idea that there is a deeper layer underneath what God says, a deeper layer that they need to learn from Calvinists and to accept if they want to be good, intelligent, humble, God-honoring Christians. And now, with their Calvinist glasses firmly in place, they can’t see the forest for the trees. They can’t see/understand the plain, simple, commonsense truths of Scripture anymore because they are blinded by the Calvinist reinterpretations and bad analogies and wrong definitions and false dichotomies, etc. They have been convinced that Calvinism is just a deeper way to understand the Bible, not realizing it’s a false way, a different Gospel.
Incidentally, last month, I heard from someone from our former church – we left it 4 years ago – and they now see what we saw: the theological errors, manipulation, the stealthy Calvinist indoctrination happening under people’s noses. And they reached out to us because they feel alone, like they are one of the only ones sensing something wrong with what the pastor is teaching. This is exactly how we felt too. Being shamed into silence - being made to feel like there’s something wrong with you if you disagree with all these strong, smart, educated, domineering pastors/theologians - makes it really hard to speak up or to find others who disagree too. And so we all end up feeling alone, like we’re the crazy ones.
This is why I speak so boldly and openly against it now - so that others can know they’re not crazy for disagreeing, they’re not “bad Christians” for sensing something wrong. Sadly, Calvinism is stealthily spreading in many evangelical, biblical churches. An epidemic. Because Calvinists are very deliberate and patient in taking over churches, even publishing plans on how to slowly, strategically reform a non-Calvinist church over years, under the noses of the congregation.
Pastors *** and ###, all of you, we’re lovingly warning you: Do not fall to Calvinism. Be proactive in learning why it’s wrong, how it’s wrong, the damage it does to God and His Truth, how it takes over, and how to protect the church from it.
If you stick with the plain, clear, easily-understood, commonsense interpretation of the Bible, the people who are fleeing Calvinism will find refuge in you, hope and truth and a reason to cling to faith. But if you fall to Calvinism, you’ll be contributing to the destruction of the Church from the inside out.
If a church/pastor hasn’t encountered Calvinism before, they will soon. And so it’s very important to know the signs to look for now. It truly is a sly, subtle, unbiblical theology that slips in unnoticed, slowly, disguised as a biblical “upper level” theology, slowly reeling people in through baby steps. Please, research it from the other side (not the pro-MacArthur Keller, Grudem, etc. side).
The more you read Calvinists, the more impressive and accurate they seem. So step back and read things against it to see it clearly. I particularly recommend Soteriology 101 with Leighton Flowers (a former Calvinist for 10 years) and Beyond the Fundamentals with Kevin Thompson (a pastor and a Calvinist for a year who now preaches strongly against it. He is putting out new videos now on “Stealth Calvinism,” how it takes over churches. Though I do have some significant, potential concerns about him and the direction he's headed in. And I don't like that he pits himself against Leighton Flowers and Provisionism, though I understand his concerns and where he's coming from. But be careful and discerning for yourselves.)
We didn’t speak up early enough at our old church because it took us a long time to research it. And by the time we knew enough to speak up, it was too late. The church was firmly entrenched in it, especially through the pastor’s efforts to take leading people through what I call “Calvinist Indoctrination Classes,” studying Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. And since the elders would do nothing about our concerns (they all sided with him), we knew we had to leave.
So I’m not waiting too long with you guys. The best thing I can do as a fellow Christian is to warn you early, to help equip you to think critically about the things Calvinist theologians teach. Before it’s too late. We cannot sit by, idly watching Calvinism sneak in again, in your life or in the Church. And so we’re pointing this out early. The longer you immerse yourself in it, the more likely it is you will become a Calvinist.
God bless! And thank you for being a church that has been healing and refreshing for us, helping us in our faith. I’m hoping that with this letter, we can do the same for you.
- Sincerely, A Fellow Believer
[In the second half of the letter I quote a bunch of Calvinists, to show Calvinism in their own words, to show that I'm not misunderstanding them. I will post that coming up soon.]
