"But predestination!" (my comments 1-4: election)

This is a series where I examine some things my Calvinist ex-pastor preached about predestination.  Click on these for the pastor's sermons ("When Calvinists say 'But predestination!'"), and my comments 5-6 (Romans and sovereignty) and 7-9 (depravity, Book of Life, predestine) and 10-11 (shaming tactics, Feb. 2015) and 12-14 (dead, regeneration, born again) and 15 (total depravity, manipulation) and 16A (God's Will, babies) and 16B (sin, evil, suffering) and 17 (double-speak and the gospel).

First:

Starting with the last sermon: In the April 2024 sermon, he makes it sound in the beginning (the first 20 minutes of his sermon) like he means anybody can come to Jesus: "Jesus is inviting anybody (and His invitation is always phrased that way) who has a spiritual hunger in their soul...to come to Him for eternal life... That's the point of [Jesus's] sermon: Whoever wants to come, whoever wants to eat of His Flesh, whoever takes the bread of life, will know God."

We'd almost think he means "anybody, period!," right?  That anybody can come to Christ and be saved.  Doesn't really ring our alarm bells too much, does it?

But what can easily escape our attention is that Calvinists always qualify the "anybody/whoever" with something like "who wants to" (or as this pastor worded it: "who has a spiritual hunger").  

And this is deliberate - because it makes it Calvinist.  (But it's easy to miss if you don't know what they really believe.)  Because in Calvinism, only the elect can and will want to come to Jesus because God regenerates only the elect in order to make them want to.  And so only the elect can be saved.  But the non-elect cannot and will not ever want to be saved or believe in Jesus because God doesn't regenerate them because He predestined them to hell.

So when Calvinists say "anybody who wants to," they're not really putting out an invitation for all people to believe, though it may sound like it.  They're merely trying to trigger the predetermined salvation of the elect, the only people who can "want to."  

Thankfully, since most people don't understand that this is what Calvinists really believe, then anybody might come to Christ through it.  And if someone does, the Calvinist sees it as "proof" that the person was elect.  In Calvinism, if a person is elect, they will respond to the gospel when God is ready to open their heart to it, give them faith, and make them want to believe.  

In Calvinism, the gospel is only for the elect, and hearing it triggers their predetermined election.  (And for the non-elect, it makes them punishable when they resist it, even though that's what Calvi-god predetermined would happen.)

Here are some Calvinist quotes about Jesus and the gospel being only for the elect (there's more in "Calvinist Hogwash #2 (the elect)"):

R.C. Sproul (in Chosen by God): “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)….”  [Translation: "Jesus is only for the elect."] 

A.W. Pink (Doctrine of Election): "It is to call the elect that the Scriptures are given, that ministers are sent, that the gospel is preached, and the Holy Spirit is here... the preaching of the gospel is the appointed instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit whereby the elect are brought to Christ... The gospel, then, is God's great winnowing fan, separating the wheat from the chaff. ["The gospel is only for the elect."] ... it is unmistakably evident that the 'all men' God wills to be saved and for whom Christ died are all men without regard to national distinctions."  ["Jesus is only for the elect from all nations."]

John MacArthur (Answering Big Questions About the Sovereignty of God): "Since we don’t know who [the elect] are, we are called to fulfill the Great Commission and to proclaim the gospel to every creature."  ["The gospel is only for the elect."]

John MacArthur (2010 Shepherd's conference, see in the first video here, starting at the 8:20-minute mark), about why Calvinists should evangelize if God's already elected who would be saved: "I will not resolve the problem of the lost other than to do what the Scripture tells me to do... and that is that the Bible affirms to me that God loves the world, the specific people in the world, the specific human beings.  ["Only the elect."]  I don't know who they are.  Spurgeon said 'if you'll pull up their shirts and show me an 'E" stamped on their back and I know the elect, then I'll limit my work to them.'  ["The gospel is only for the elect."]  But since there is no such stamp, I am committed to obey the command to preach the gospel to every creature... But I don't think it's a good solution to diminish the nature of the atonement and have Jesus dying for everybody..."  ["Jesus is only for the elect."  And methinks someone thinks too highly of his own opinions.]

Steven Lawson ("Salvation is of the Lord"): "As a sin-bearing sacrifice, Jesus died a substitutionary death in the place of God’s elect.  On the cross, He propitiated the righteous anger of God toward the elect. ["Jesus is only for the elect."]... Jesus’ death did not merely make all mankind potentially savable.  Nor did His death simply achieve a hypothetical benefit that may or may not be accepted.  Neither did His death merely make all mankind redeemable.  Instead, Jesus actually redeemed a specific people through His death, securing and guaranteeing their salvation.  Not a drop of Jesus’ blood was shed in vain.  He truly saved all for whom He died... With oneness of purpose, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world to apply this salvation to those chosen and redeemed."  ["Jesus and the gospel are only for the elect."]

And again my pastor in June 2015: "God, in His love and compassion, sent [Jesus to die on the cross]...out of love for His sheep."  ["Jesus is only for the elect."] 

As my ex-pastor said in his April 2024 sermon, proving that he really means "only the elect" when he repeatedly said "anybody, anybody, anybody who has a spiritual hunger":  "Jesus is also interweaving a subtheme, a deliberate teaching of who can be saved...: those whom the Father draws... The Father must enable someone to come to Christ."

And in Calvinism, the Father will only "draw" the elect, as the pastor confirmed in February 2015: "Now your question might be this: 'Why doesn't God draw everybody?  And why doesn't He save everybody and open the eyes of every sinner and have mercy on them all?'... He does not.  He does not."  [Even though John 12:32 says “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”  God draws all people, but He gives us the option of ignoring/resisting Him.  Zechariah 7:11-13: "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears.  They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or [the Lord].  So the Lord Almighty was very angry.  'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the Lord Almighty."]

And in August 2015: "The definition of election, predestination, is that it's the Bible's teaching that as God looks out on rebellious, sinful humanity, He chooses to have mercy on some sinners and not others… In other words, He’s not an equal opportunity convicter."  [Even though John 16:8 says "When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment."  He convicts all, but we can resist Him and refuse to repent.]

And in June 9, 2016: "So why do some respond [to the gospel]?  It’s because God chose them and He summons them and awakens them to the gospel."   

From a Christmas 2016 sermon: “No one seeks God.  There is nobody who seeks God.  The only person who will repent and believe is the one God has sought out Himself.” 

And in June 2018: "Predestination...means 'prechosen, preselected, elect ahead of time.'... It is an act of God in which - before time began, before creation - He chooses to have mercy on some sinners and not others.  In other words, God is not an equal opportunity convicter."  [Even though Romans 11:32 says "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all."  He has mercy on all - offers salvation to all - but we can reject it.]

In Calvinism, Jesus's death is only for the elect.  The gospel is only for the elect.  God will draw and give a spiritual hunger to only the elect.  He will "override the sin, resistance, wickedness, rebellion" of only the elect... and so therefore, only the elect can "see, savor, and treasure Christ as Savior" and be saved.

Very different from a commonsense definition of "anybody" and "whoever," isn't it?  From what Calvinists first make it sound like, from what they want us to assume they're saying initially.

Note: Calvinist pastors often tell the story only from the view of the elect (this whole sermon of his was really just a sermon for the elect, about what God has planned for the elect), but they don't often come right out and clearly say that they mean "only the elect."  And they don't often tell us God's plans for the non-elect.

They'll say "Everyone who wants to be saved will be saved," but they fail to say "But only the elect can want to be saved.  The non-elect never had the chance, option, or ability to want Christ as Savior because God withholds from them any spiritual hunger, making sure they have no desire to seek Him or believe in Him, ensuring their damnation."

If a Calvinist sermon about salvation sounds good and hopeful and encouraging, it's because it's from the perspective of only the elect, because they're hiding the flip-side.  But if they were always fully honest, they'd regularly say things like this (from "Calvinist Hogwash #3 (the reprobate)":

John Calvin (Institutes, book 3, chapter 23): "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... individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.... The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he so ordained by his decree."

Arthur Pink (The Sovereignty of God): ""When we say that God is sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He loves whom He chooses.  God does not love everybody…"

My ex-pastor echoed this in a sermon once: "The Bible is clear that God loves people.  He loves peoples.  But He does not love all people, and He does not love all people equally.  He elected some sinners to salvation, and He predestined some for eternal damnation."

William Perkins (1558-1602, The Workes of That Famous and Worthy Minster of Christ in the Universitie of Cambridge): "God before all worlds did purpose to hate some creatures...for the manifestation of his justice"

Pierre du Moulin (1568-1658, Anatomie of Arminianism): “Whom God hateth from the womb, to them he doth not give sufficient and saving grace... So that there are some whom God hath rejected with a spiritual rejection, before they have done either good or evil; therefore he doth not give them sufficient means to faith, or to salvation: for this cannot be made to agree with hatred”

John Piper ("What do I do if I tried to believe in Jesus but can't?"), in answer to someone who fears he's beyond saving and asks what he can do about it: "Well, it may be that the Lord has put you in this situation—that is, withheld from you the kind of faith that you're looking for (saving faith)—in order to make you feel absolutely desperate... we cannot produce faith.  If we have genuine faith, it is a gift... I hope you realize you are absolutely, radically, deeply, powerfully dependent on God to give you faith... You are commanded to believe, yes, you are.  You are responsible to believe, but you can't believe.  You're dead!... The Lord grant you to receive the gift."  [This should make us angry and sick and heartbroken for that lost, hurting man who asked the question, who was desperately seeking some help and hope in finding salvation in Christ but who was essentially left with merely "Well, you better hope you won the salvation lottery."  This should break our hearts for all those deceived and destroyed by Calvinism.]

John Kennedy of Dingwall (1813-1847, “The Pleasure and Displeasure of God”): “You have no right to regard [God's] love, which is commended in the death of His Son, as embracing you if you have not yet believed... What right have you to say that He loves all?  Have you seen into the heart of God that you should say He loves you, until you have reached, as a sinner, through faith, the bosom of His love in Christ?... God loving a sinner without a purpose to save him!  The thing is inconceivable... Love to one utterly ruined, and that love commanding resources that are sufficient for salvation, and yet no purpose to use them!  Let not men so blaspheme the love of God..."

Vincent Cheung ("The Problem of Evil"): "One who thinks that God's glory is not worth the death and suffering of billions of people has too high an opinion of himself and humanity... Since God is the sole standard of measurement, if he thinks something is justified, then it is by definition justified.  Christians should have no trouble affirming all of this, and those who find it difficult to accept what Scripture explicitly teaches should reconsider their spiritual commitment, to see if they are truly in the faith.”  [Translation: "If you don't like or agree with my idea of election and reprobation, then you're probably not even a Christian."]

David J. Engelsma (Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel): "The proof of the Reformed position is evident to all.  The apostle Paul was an avowed, ardent predestinarian, holding double predestination—election and reprobation.  As a predestinarian he did not believe, nor did he ever preach, that God loved all men, was gracious to all men, and desired the salvation of all men, that is, he did not believe, teach, or give the well-meant offer of the gospel.  On the contrary, the apostle believed and proclaimed that God loved and chose unto salvation some men, and some men only, hating and reprobating others.  He taught that God is gracious only to the elect, enduring, blinding, and hardening the others.  He held that the preaching of the gospel, so far from being grace to all hearers, is a savor of death unto death to some, in accordance with God’s purpose in bringing the word to them.  This purpose is not a saving purpose, but the purpose is to render them inexcusable and to harden them."

Rev. Angus Stewart, Covenant Protestant Reformed Church ("Does God really desire to save the reprobate?"): "It was pleasing and good to God that some people would have the gospel hidden from them, even though they heard it preached... So then, does God love everybody, including the reprobate, those whom He has chosen not to save?  Does God desire to save everybody?  Does God have a wonderful plan for everybody’s life?  God does love all His elect people... God does desire to save the elect... God does have a wonderful plan for the lives of all of His elect people... If these questions, though, are applied to the reprobate, the answer to all of them is 'No.'  God does not love them... All who are reprobated, God hates. God does not desire to save them... They are cursed in their unbelief and rebellion both in this world and in the world to come.  They perish forever and ever in hell.  This is not a wonderful plan for them.  In God’s purpose it brings glory to Him.  It magnifies His justice.  But for them it is not a wonderful plan.  He does not have a wonderful plan for the reprobate... God judged that it was good not to save these people but to punish them for their sins... It was a sovereign choice of His, and it pleased Him.  To say it pleased God means that God desired to do it; that is what He willed and wished and wanted to do."  [At least he's an honest Calvinist.  Clear and unequivocal.  I give him credit for that.]

[Okay, hold on, let me pause here and breathe.  I've got a long way to go, but I'm already so angry!  Pause... deep breath... inhale, exhale... one, two, three... calming down a little... Okay, I'm ready.  Let's go on to more, shall we?  (Are we having fun yet?  And this is only the first point of sixteen.)]

Second: 

About a Calvinist's interpretation of John 3:16: Throughout the years, my Calvinist pastor said that "the world" means "cosmos" and "the nations of the world" and, most recently, "the dark realm," saying that God loved the fallen, wicked world so much that He wanted to save a few people out of it, to salvage it, to redeem it.  [Anything other than saying God loves "all individual people."]

Yes, the Greek word is "kosmos."  But when you look it up in Strong's concordance (with Vine's Expository Dictionary), it can mean many different things, from the universe, to the earth, to the ungodly inhabitants, to the Gentiles, to mankind, etc.  It does not often mean "the dark realm," but the pastor referred only to other Bible verses (I didn't quote that part) that use it that way in order to support his idea that John 3:16 also means it that way.

But Strong's concordance says that the word "world" in the Greek in John 3:16 (G2889) means "the inhabitants of the world, men, the human race."  It's about God loving people and wanting to save people, the inhabitants of the earth (all people), not about God loving and wanting to salvage a generalized, impersonal, wicked realm.  (For more, see "According to the concordance, it's NOT (Calvinist) predestination".)

And FYI, in Calvinism, John 3:16 is not an invitation to salvation or instructions on how anyone can be saved, but it's merely a description of how the elect get saved: "For God so loved the elect that He sent His one and only Son that the elect will not perish but have eternal life."  So don't be fooled by their use of it.  They're not inviting all people to believe and be saved; they're just telling you how the elect get saved.

[Also, it's ironic that in this sermon he says "The words we use and ideas we believe directly impact how we think and live... We often adopt - uncritically and sometimes unknowingly - unbiblical concepts and categories from the air we breathe in our own culture.  And we just assume 'Well, that's the way to see reality.'  And often, it's not."  It's ironic because it's exactly what Calvinism does and what their errors stem from: their wrong definitions of words and concepts, based on their presuppositions of how a "sovereign" God must act.  And it taints their whole theology and how they read the Bible. 

Oh, and one thing that really irks me is that he, as many Calvinists do, often quote from C.S. Lewis (whom I greatly admire and adore), as he did in this sermon (I left those parts out) - as if Lewis would affirm Calvinism, as if the pastor is desperate to have Lewis on his side.  He even tried once to make Lewis's conversion story a prime example of Irresistible Grace.  Yuck!] 

Third:

In many sermons, he asked a question like this (from his June 9, 2016 sermon): "[Given our horrible sinfulness and rebellion against God], the question is not ‘Why doesn’t God choose everybody?’  The real question is ‘Why does God choose any of us?’"  

And as I pointed out, this is not only deflection, but it's a faulty question because it's based on Calvinist presuppositions, on the idea that God chooses who gets saved.  

And this leads to some advice: Do not answer Calvinist questions that are based on Calvinist concepts, definitions, presuppositions, misconceptions, or Calvinisticly-interpreted, out-of-context verses, etc. 

And do not let a Calvinist define the terms.  Do not adopt their terms.  [And never assume that you know what they mean by the words they use.  Always insist - while conversing or "debating" with a Calvinist - that they clearly, fully explain what they mean by the words they use, such as "ordains" and "sovereignty" and "human responsibility."  The more you make them explain, the more you'll see how much they were hiding or sugar-coating at first, and you'll see how different their definitions are from how we commonly define terms.  And then you'll be less likely to be suckered in.]

When you're in conversations or friendly debates with them, if you let them ask the questions their way, define the words, weave in their presuppositions, interpret the verses (such as when they use John 15:16 - "You did not choose me, but I chose you..." - to "prove" that Jesus chooses who get saved, when that verse is really only about Jesus choosing His disciples), etc., then they've already defeated you from the very beginning.  If you let them control the conversation, the words, the verses, the logic, etc., then you'll get sucked into their world, their worldview, their theology, and you'll be a Calvinist before you know it.  

So instead of answering their questions or getting suckered into their logic, you need to dismantle their questions and responses instead, pointing out the errors, biases, presuppositions, bad definitions, out-of-context verses, false dichotomies (when they try to force you to choose between two severely-polarized options: the one that leads you further into Calvinism and the one that's obviously ridiculously false: "Does God control everything, or do you?  Did God save you, or did you save yourself?  Is God sovereign and all-powerful, or are you?"), etc.

There is almost always an error, trap, or built-in Calvinist-bias in their questions and logic that you can and should expose, especially if you don't want to be talking in circles or sucked into their theology before you even realize it, wondering how you got there.  So don't focus on answering their Calvinisticly-bent questions, focus on dismantling them instead.

Fourth: 

When our pastor said "But the Bible clearly teaches it. The Bible calls it 'the doctrine of election, the doctrine of predestination'", he makes it sound like the Bible itself uses the phrase "doctrine of election/predestination," that the Bible clearly spells out and teaches what he says it does, by name.  

This might deceive people (though I'm sure it's not his intention to deceive) who don't know the Bible well or who won't double-check him, tricking them into accepting it because they'll think "Well, if the Bible specifically calls it that, then I guess I have to believe it."  

But here's the thing: You won't find the phrase "doctrine of election" or "doctrine of predestination" in the Bible anywhere.  So no, the Bible does not call it that.  Calvinists do.    

Not to mention that he defines the "doctrine of election" as "The Bible's teaching that unless God chooses to override our sin, our resistance, our wickedness, our rebellion, we are unable to see, savor, and treasure Christ as Savior."   

If Calvinists can find this definition of election clearly stated in the Bible in any verse - just one - then I'll start to believe them.  But guess what?  It's not there.  The Bible never defines election this way.  Calvinists do.  They add this definition into the word "elect/chosen," into Scripture.  

If you look up the words "elect, elected, election" in the concordance, you'll see that all it means is “chosen out, selected.”  But it doesn’t say for what.  There is no implication in any of the definitions that these words inherently and necessarily refer to being chosen for salvation.  Nor does it say how they were chosen.  (See this post for more about "elect" and other words that Calvinists use.)

If you read it in context, neither election nor predestination are about certain sinners being prechosen to believe, prechosen for salvation.  They're about what God has planned for those who do believe.  God doesn't pre-decide which people become believers, but He did pre-decide that all believers will get certain jobs, responsibilities, and blessings that He has pre-planned for anyone who puts their faith in Christ.  And anyone can.

Kinda like how if a project-planner asks a roomful of people for volunteers to help build something, anyone who volunteers - and anyone can - is now chosen to get the jobs, responsibilities, and blessings that the project-planner planned for those who sign up.  He didn't predetermine who signs up - he opened it up to all and let the people decide - but he did predetermine what happens to anyone who does sign up. 

It's that simple, with no "troubling implications" at all, so there's no need to shame, gaslight, or manipulate people into accepting it.

[And furthermore, Romans 11:4-5 demonstrates how God "chooses" people: "... 'I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.'  So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace."  The people chose whether they would serve Baal or not, and then God chose those who did not worship Baal.  The people's choice of whom they worshipped affected whether God chose them or not.  If we choose Jesus of our own free-will, then God chooses us for the blessings and responsibilities He's promised for all who believe. 

(Side-note: What did God choose the 7,000 for?  If you go to 1 Kings 19:14-18, you see that He chose them, reserved them, not to be believers, but to be spared from death so they could be prophets alongside Elijah.  Election is not about God choosing individual people for salvation, but about God choosing faithful people for the jobs, tasks, blessings, and responsibilities that He's set aside for faithful people.  We decide first if we will be faithful to Him or not, and then He decides how He will use and bless us based on our decision.)] 

[My comments 5-6 coming up next.]