The Sovereignty of God.
Introduction
This paper began as a sincere attempt to understanding the thinking of those who subscribe to the teaching of the Westminster Confession. In my investigations I adopted a specific focus. Calvinists prefer to emphasize the positive aspects of their beliefs, and are very enthusiastic in proclaiming the benefits that their understanding of predestination and election have for the elect. I made a point of focusing on what Calvinism teaches about the relationship between God and the non elect. No one who studies the evidence objectively could come to any conclusion other than that the teachings of Calvinists misrepresent God as a cosmic sadist who inflicts extreme cruelty on humanity.
The doctrine of divine predestination was described by those who first taught it as the decretum horrible. Why did the early Calvinists call their own understanding of predestination a horrible doctrine? Because for vast majority of humanity that make up the non elect their gospel declares, "you have no hope because God has abandoned you." What kind of teaching is it that claims God deliberately prevents the vast majority sinners from receiving Christ?
For all of its failings Roman Catholicism is morally superior to the religion of Calvinists. Roman Catholicism teaches that by saying the rosary, by praying to Jesus, Joseph and Mary and a host of other saints, by celebrating the mass and receiving sacramental absolution, and by the performance of charitable deeds, anyone who accepts the Pope as God on earth can merit salvation. Catholic's believe, however, that hardly anyone merits a direct passage to heaven.
Even after sins have been forgiven through the merits of Jesus, Joseph and Mary and the merits of a host of the saints and the merit of good works Roman Catholicism teaches that just about everyone ends up in purgatory. What is purgatory? As Catholics tell it purgatory is a place of excruciating mental torment (poena damni) that purifies away the residue of sin and makes people fit for heaven. A Pope once issued an indulgence that was guaranteed to take 10 million years off the time spent in purgatory for anyone who had the money to afford it, so in the Catholic model you may only get to heaven after you have been subjected to extreme mental torture in purgatory for 10 million years.
When we compare the two teachings there is cause to hope that the Catholics got it right and the Calvinists got it wrong. Why? Because in the final analysis the Catholic doctrine holds out greater hope of salvation for more people than does the doctrines of Calvinism. It has to be said that 10 million years of torture in purgatory with the assurance of heaven at the end is a better offer than trillions upon trillions of years of torture in hell with no end to the torment. I am not saying Catholicism is right, I am only suggesting it offers a better outcome for the majority.
According to the Westminster Confession (Chapter 3.3): "By the decree of God ... some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death." Did the authors of the Confession understand what they wrote? If sinless angels were predestined to be punished for sinning that can only mean they were predestined to sin. Calvinists believe the will of God is the cause of everything. The Westminster Confession says "angels and men" are "unchangeably designed" to fulfil their role in a prearranged plan. (Chapter 3.4) Only a heretic would believe that sinless beings originally sinned because they were "unchangeably designed" to sin.
The Westminster Confession (6.1) states quite specifically that God intended that Adam and Eve would sin: "Our first parents, ... sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, ... to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory." There has never been a greater insult offered to God in the realm of religion than this. The claim made by the Confession that God "purposed to order" His own creation to experience moral failure is absurd.
Whatever else the decretum horrible does, it tells unspeakable lies about God. And it creates a strange breed of Christians who cannot do the work of Christ because their doctrine will not allow it. An orthodox Calvinist cannot pick someone out of the gutter and tell them that God's loves them, because according to their doctrine they might be talking to one of the non elect, and that would be telling a lie. If a Christian imagines there are places they cannot go to preach the gospel, that there are people they cannot speak to and plead with them to accept Christ, then they may as well say their prayers and go back to bed because they are just useless, and, whatever they think they are, God has no time for them. When the teachings of the Westminster Confession are compared to the Bible only one conclusion is possible: Its teachings are way outside the parameters of biblical Christianity and common decency.
The moral aberration inherent in the teachings of Calvinism is clearly expressed in the following statement. In his comments on 2 Samuel 11:14-17 Matthew Henry defends the claim that David remained in a state of grace while he was committing adultery with Bathsheba and having Uriah murdered. Henry writes,
"Adulteries often occasion murders, and one wickedness is sought to be covered by another. The beginnings of sin are much to be dreaded; for who knows where they will end? Can a real believer ever tread this path? Can such a person be indeed a child of God? Though grace be not lost in such an awful case, the assurance and consolation of it must be suspended."
Calvin also taught such nonsense. He wrote,
"For the example of David shows that the elect, although regenerated by God's Spirit, not only sin to a small extent, but, as I have said, plunge into the very lowest abyss. David became a perfidious homicide, and a traitor to the army of God; then that wretched king fell into a series of crimes: yet he failed in only one thing, and showed that God's grace was only suffocated within him, and not altogether extinguished."
Any religion that teaches a person can committed adultery and murder and remain in a state of grace has seriously departed from biblical standards. If David was in a state of grace when he practiced murder and adultery that allows for someone else to be in a state of grace and be a practicing homosexual. According to the teachings of Calvinism a person can be a hired assassin, a terrorist, an adulterer, a murderer, a homosexual, an abuser of children and still be in a state of grace if they are lucky enough to be one of the elect. By any objective guide the worst element in Roman Catholic teaching is purity itself compared to the immoral standards set out in the teachings of TULIP.
This Man Receives Sinners
I grew up in a household that was legendary for its violence. At some point anger transforms itself into a form of madness. I know what I am talking about, as I lived with it for years. The strongest emotion that I experienced in my first twelve years of life was fear. Those who do social studies tell us that dysfunction breeds dysfunction. Some of us did not have to read books to find that out. In primary school I got into more fights that my entire class combined. I was expelled from high school three weeks before my fourteenth birthday. I spent time in two prisons and numerous police lockups. But not everything was a failure. At least I got it right when I helped to organise a successful prison breakout.
When I was in the merchant navy the captain complained I had the vilest tongue he had ever listen to. When the officer at the recruiting depot studied my personal history he decided I was too much of a threat even for the military and he refused my application to join the army. I got thrown out of pool rooms just because I didn't look right and had forgotten that soap had been invented. I know what it is to live on the street, and understand why some need to steal to survive. I know why Jesus sought out the publicans and harlots. I have been in some strange places, and I have witnessed more concern for others among prostitutes and homosexuals than by many who claim to follow Christ.
It came about that one of my ex-prison friends became a Christian. He decided to look me up and brought along his girl friend. He ask me to go for a drive and told me he had found God. My friend met his girlfriend at a party when she was in a state of high intoxication. Somehow she still remembered him the next day and they started up a friendship. To please her mother, and for no other reason, this woman attended church regularly each week and she had invited him to join her. The short story is that my friend accepted Jesus and decided to share the gospel with his friends.
My friend didn't talk about Jesus or salvation but gave a long discourse on demonic spirits. I had already experienced forms of demonic manifestation and he confirmed my fears that there was something "out there" that could be a worry. His method of terror evangelism did not place me under any religious conviction, but for unknown reasons I said yes when he invited me to church. Up to that point I had survived most of my life by a process of denial. It seemed to me that at my deepest level I was made up of nothing. I could only visualise myself as a vast emptiness. If there was nothing there, nothing could hurt me. But suddenly from out of nowhere there came a powerful conviction that God was real. It no longer mattered that there were more questions than answers, for the first time in my life I had a focus for my existence. In my childhood I had experience no deep emotional bonding. I accommodated rejection by my own process of rejection. I can say without any self pity that I never experience what it was to be loved and my attitude to others was out of sight out of mind. In terms of deep seated affection there was no traffic coming in, and no traffic going out. But now there was a vertical dimension to my existence. The God of heaven loved me, and I knew it.
I came to learn that God has an eternal purpose and that before all beginnings He saw me. God has known me from eternity, and He purposed long ago to search me out when my time came. Every step of the way God was pacing me and by mysterious means leading me to that point where He would make contact. I never spent one minute searching for God, He found me. I experience what the prophet wrote, "I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for Me, I was ready to be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, 'here I am, here I am." (Isaiah 65:1)
At the time appointed God reached across my unbelief and infused faith into my heart so that I could answer His call. God and Christ and reached out to me in the Spirit and offered me fellowship and a sense of belonging. Jesus said, "The Spirit of truth ... lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." (Jn.14:17,18) I became a believer, not by embracing an ideology or some dogma, but by receiving a presence. Christianity is receiving Jesus Christ. Some talk about accepting the cross as if that meant something. Some preach salvation by faith in a doctrine about Christ, but that is delusory. Salvation is only possible by receiving Christ Himself.
I have experienced for myself the words of Paul that God "is not far from each of us." ( Acts 17:27) I have given my testimony to encourage others to believe that God is not far from them. Paul wrote, "We judge that if One died for all, all died" (2 Cor. 5:14). In another place he declared, "we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe." (I Timothy 4:10.) In another place Paul spoke of, "God our Saviour who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (I Tim. 2:3-4) It seems, however, that not all who claim to be followers of Christ believe God is "not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
"Christians, are obligated to present the claims of Christ. They must present the good news that Christ Jesus died on the cross in the place of His own, that He bore the guilt and suffered the penalty for their sins. He died that all whom the Father had given to Him might come unto Him and have life everlasting. As a reformed Christian, the writer believes that counselors must not tell any unsaved [person] that Christ died for him, FOR THEY CANNOT SAY THAT." Jay Adams Competent to Counsel, p. 70.
"The Christ of the Bible earnestly loves and desires the salvation of only those whom God has unconditionally chosen to salvation." Steven Houck, The Christ of Arminianism.
According to Michael Horton "we cannot tell an unbeliever, "God loves you," "Christ died for you," (Christianity Today, September 6, 1999) " The apostle Peter was clearly not a Calvinist because no committed Calvinist could ever say what Peter said, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism." (Acts 10:34-48) If the claim is true that God only loves a few selected individuals why did the Bible writers make the following comments?
Isaiah 53:6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Acts17:26,27 He made from one every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.
Acts 17:30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.
1 Timothy 2:3-4: God ... wants all men to be saved.
1 Timothy 2:5-6: Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men.
1 Timothy 4:10: The living God, who is the Saviour of all men.
Hebrews 2:9: But we see Jesus, who ... suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone."
2 Peter 3:9: The Lord is ... patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
1 John 2:2: He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."
1 John 4:14: And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
Revelation 3:20 Look! I stand at the door and knock! If anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come inside of him And I will have communion with him, and he with me.
Revelation 22: 17 And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
The Biblical Doctrine of Election
God decreed in the eternal past that all who are in Christ would become His elect. Scripture says, "For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Ephesians 1:4) But there is a sequence in God's eternal plan: Salvation begins with receiving Christ not with election. Predestination means that before creation a boundary was set. It was predetermined that all who came within that boundary would be saved.
We need to understand the way Paul's mind worked. Paul grouped all humanity into two groups, those who are in Adam, and those who are in Christ. He summarizes these two groups by saying, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:22) Paul's concept of election is based on the Hebrew understanding of corporate solidarity in which the "many" exist in the "one". In this concept Christ and the believer are viewed as having a corporate identity. When they accept Christ the believer become "one body" with Christ. (Ephesians 4:4)
In Hebrews 7:9,10 an example is taken from the Old Testament that shows how the Hebrew concept of corporate solidarity works. "And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithe, paid tithe for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him." Just as in this illustration Levi is represented as paying tithe before he existed ("in the loins of his father"), so also, Paul argued those who receive Christ became the elect even before they came to exist. Paul is saying the believer was elected in eternity because he is assigning a corporate pre-existence to the believer in eternity. We have noted that in the book of Hebrews Levi was given a corporate pre-existence in Abraham. In his doctrine of election "in Christ" Paul made use of the same concept of corporate pre-existence.
In the Hebrew understanding every human being has a corporate relationship to the first man and shares in the life God imparted to Adam. When God created Adam the Hebrew says He breathed into his nostrils the "breath of lives." (Genesis 2:7). Adam was more than one man, in himself he embodied the entire human race. So with Jesus. Christ's humanity linked Him to every other human being and on the cross He was the corporate Man suffering on behalf of every sinner for "the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6) Christ absorbed into Himself the death of every sinner and when God raised Him from the grave Jesus sent forth His Spirit to gather all who would answer the call to be incorporate into a new humanity. Just as we were one flesh in Adam so those who are brought to faith become "one body in one Spirit" in Christ. (Ephesians 4:4) The believer is bound to Christ by the Spirit and Christ binds the believer to Himself by dwelling in them. In the context of this unity the believer is one with Christ. Because they have "put on Christ" the believer and Jesus stand before God as one man. When God looks on that one man He does not see the sinner but only Jesus. Paul wrote: "For you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:3) All that belongs to Christ becomes the property of the believer, including His election.
According to Peter Jesus is God's Elect because He was "chosen by God" (1 Peter 2:4). When did Jesus' election take place? "He was chosen before the creation of the world". (1 Peter 1:20). Paul speaks of our election from eternity because the One in whom we receive our election was chosen by God from eternity. Paul said that the believers election "in Christ" cannot take place until they are actually in Christ. He said that God's "eternal purpose has been realized in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Ephesians 3:11) If election is "realized" in Christ there is no election until the believer is incorporated into Christ. Only when they are planted in Christ do believers become the elect.
Because of his concept of corporate identity Paul identified Christ's past, present and future as the past present and future of the believer. He teaches that when Christ was chosen in eternity to be God's elect the believers were also chosen to be the elect. Paul says, God "chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." (Ephesians 1:4) Not only was the believer elected in eternity when Christ was elected Paul also said that when Christ was raised from the dead we were raised from the dead with Him. He writes that God "raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places." (Ephesians 2:6) This concept of solidarity with Christ extends to the crucifixion. Paul said when Christ was crucified he was crucified. "I have been crucified with Christ." (Galatians 2:20)
In Paul's concept of corporate identity whatever has happened to Christ has happened to us. His election in eternity is our election in eternity. His death on the cross is our death on the cross. His resurrection is our resurrection. All this is true because our "bodies are members of Christ." (1 Corinthians 6:15) Because we are one body with Christ we acquire His identity and therefore His history and future have become our history and future.
One Man was elected in eternity to be the Elect. That one Man was crucified on the cross. That one Man was raised from the dead and now sits "in heavenly places". When we become one with Christ we become one man before God in Him. Before God Only One Man is the Elect. We participate in His election when we become one with Him.
Paul wrote: "For all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:26) If a believer becomes a child of God through faith in Christ that same believer becomes one of the elect "through faith in Christ." This makes it clear that faith in Christ is the door to election and that no one becomes one of the elect until they receive Christ.
The teaching of Calvinists that we are elected to receive Christ stands the gospel on its head because it makes God's sovereign decrees rather than receiving Christ the basis of the forgiveness of sins. A Calvinists believes that they have been saved from eternity by election, which means they were saved before they received Christ. In the final analysis the doctrines of TULIP base salvation on divine legislation rather than on receiving Christ. Here is a question. What comes first in the temporary order, election or receiving Christ? For the Calvinist election is the primary event and the means and cause by which the elect receive Christ. In Calvinists teaching receiving Christ is a secondary movement in God's eternal plan. Any teaching that makes receiving Christ second to something else cannot be true.
Israel and Christ
According to Psalm 33:12 the nation of Israel was the original elect. It is written: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom He has chosen as His own inheritance." Careful study will show that the principles involved in Paul's New Testament doctrine of election are patterned on Israel's election in the Old Testament.
There are a number of places where New testament writers took Bible texts that once applied to Israel and reapplied them to Christ. For example Hosea 11:1,2 reads, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt have I called My son." In Matthew 2:14,15 Hosea prophecy is given a new interpretation. "And [Joseph] arose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed for Egypt; and was there until the death of Herod; that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, "Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Here we see a prophecy that once applied exclusively to Israel is reinterpreted as a personal reference to Christ. We are told,
"There are amazing parallels between the history of Israel and the history of Jesus Christ. In Hebrew history, a young man named Joseph, who had dreams, went to Egypt. In the New Testament we find another man named Joseph who had dreams and then went to Egypt. When God called Israel out of Egypt, He called that nation "my son." Exodus 4:22. When Jesus came out of Egypt, God said, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." ... After the Israelites passed through the Red Sea, they spent 40 years in the wilderness. Immediately after Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river, He was "led up of the Spirit into the wilderness" for 40 days (Matthew 4:1,2). At the end of the 40 days, Jesus resisted the devil's temptations by quoting three Scriptures. All were from Deuteronomy, the very book that God gave to Israel at the end of their 40 years in the wilderness! What does this mean? It means that in Matthew's book, Jesus is repeating the history of Israel, point by point, and is overcoming where they failed. He is becoming the new Israel."
In Matthew 12:16-20 we read that after Jesus healed the people He "ordered them not to make Him known. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: Behold My servant whom I have chosen, My beloved with whom My soul is well pleased." Isaiah 41:8 shows that the prophecy Matthew cited originally applied only to Israel. Scripture teaches that Christ has taken Israel's place. Note that in Psalm 80:8, Israel was called a "vine" and in John 15:1 Jesus said, "I am the true vine." In Exodus 4:22 God called Israel as "my firstborn." In Colossians 1:15 Paul referred to Jesus as "the firstborn." In Isaiah 41:8 Israel is described as "the seed of Abraham." But in Galatians 3:16 Paul declared that the seed of Abraham is no longer "many" people but now has become only "one". He writes:: "Now the promise were spoken to Abraham and his seed. He does not say, 'And to your seeds' as referring to many, but rather to one, 'And to your seed', that is Christ." The many became one so that the One might represent the many. The doctrine of election is based on this biblical concept of corporate identity and cannot be separated from it.
Some believe that the New Testament teaches that the church has replaced Israel. This is true but only indirectly. Strictly speaking, the "church" has not replaced Israel, Christ has replaced Israel. Paul declared that all the promises that once belonged to Israel now belong to Christ: "For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him." (2 Corinthians 1:20). Under the old covenant Israel was the elect: Under the new covenant Christ is the elect. All who are called to be the elect receive their election by receiving Christ so that His election may become their election.
Election, Free Will and Irresistible Grace
"It cannot be doubted that the will of God . . . cannot be resisted by the human will." John Calvin Institutes, 3.23.14. It is evident that when Calvin made this statement there were many texts in the Bible he was unaware of. Calvin's claim that the "the will of God cannot be resisted by the human will" is frequently contradicted in the Old Testament.
And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea He said, "Go up and take possession of the land I have given you." But you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God. You did not trust Him, or obey Him. (Deuteronomy 9:23)
In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I Have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever. And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, ... But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel. (2 Kings 21:7-9)
I give water in the wilderness, to give drink to My chosen people, the people whom I formed for Myself that they might declare My praise. Yet you would not call on Me O Jacob, but you have been weary of Me O Israel ... you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." (Isaiah 43:20,21,24)
Paul warned the Galatians: "You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace." (Galatians 5:4) In Galatians 1:6 Paul was writing to believers when he declared . "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ." If Paul taught the elect can fall from grace in the book of Galatians why would he teach the exact opposite in other places in his writings?
Calvinists claim that the elected are saved by conscription and have no choice in their salvation. We are told,
"The gift of faith, sovereignly given by God's Holy Spirit, cannot be resisted by the elect."
"Since grace is undeserved by any person, Irresistible Grace teaches that when the Spirit of God is sent to change a person's heart, that person cannot resist the change." (see here)
It is surprising how much of the clear teachings of Scripture Calvinists choose to ignore or misinterpret.
John 1:11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
Luke 7:30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves.
Matthew 23:37: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
John 5:34, 40 I say these things that you might be saved ... and you are unwilling to come to Me that you may have life.
Acts 13:46 It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; [the Jews] since you have repudiated it, and judged yourself unworthy of eternal life, behold we are turning to the Gentiles.
The Potter
Some claim Paul's use of the imagery of the potter in Romans 9:21-23 supports the doctrine of predestination. Paul asks, "Does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessels for honourable use, and another for common use?" Verse 20 shows that Paul's intention in using this imagery is to silence the man "who answers back to God." The question is, how much truth about God can we read into the imagery of the potter?
Paul's writings are impregnated with analogy. (see 1 Cor. 5:7, 1 Cor. 14:8, 2 Cor. 10:4, Eph. 1:14, Eph. 2:14) In one place he wrote, "for I am ready to be poured out as a drink offering." (2 Timothy 4:6) He also said that Christ offered Himself to God on our behalf as a" fragrant aroma." (Ephesians 5:2) Whenever a analogy is employed by a biblical writer the truth is never to be found in the precise wording or actual imagery but in the idea the analogy represents.
Hebrew culture made extensive use of symbolism that cannot, and is not, intended to be interpreted literally. Psalms 98:8 says: "Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together." Rivers do not clap their hand and hills do not sing but the imagery expresses joy in worship. It is often the case in analogies that most of the wording is mere packaging. An example of this is Galatians 4:25; "Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem." In this analogy a person becomes a symbol of a mountain and a city. There is no truth in the analogy itself, it is a mere figment of Paul's imagination. Since analogy employs imagination and not fact we cannot base theology on analogy. Because Romans 9 makes use of imaginative analogy we cannot use Paul's description of the potter as an exact representation of God. Paul describes God as a potter to show He is in control and he intended to teach no more than that. Anyone who bases doctrine strictly on analogy will always end up distorting truth.
Paul may have been influenced to make use of the imagery of the potter by Jeremiah 18:6-10. In its Old Testament setting the potter analogy does not support the interpretation that Calvinists place on Romans 9. Jeremiah says,
O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? declares the Lord, like clay in the hands of the potter, so are you in My hands O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be .. destroyed, ... and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if I announce at another time that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in My sight and does not obey Me, then I will reconsider the good I intended to do for it.
God declared to Israel that "like clay in the hands of the potter, so are you in My hands." In Jeremiah the "potter" lets the clay chose what shape it will take. Although Jeremiah 18:6-10 employs the same the imagery as Romans 9 there is nothing to support the Calvinists doctrine of predestination. This suggests that Calvinists have seriously misinterpreted the analogy of the potter in Romans 9. In Jeremiah 18 it is not the potter but the clay that chooses what shape the clay will become. Calvinists do not seem to understand that as the Supreme Sovereign of the Universe God can bestow free choice or withhold free choice. Calvinists impose their will on God by saying that He cannot allow free choice. Free choice cannot be represented as a denial of God's power if God allows it.
In Romans 9:17-18 Paul wrote: "For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. ... therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." Pharaoh's heart was not hardened to prevent him from obeying, it was hardened as a punishment because he persisted in refusing to obey.
God saves sinners by taking away the stony heart: Ezekiel 36:26,27 says "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove from you your heart of stone ... . And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees." God does not actually do anything to sinners in order to harden their hearts, He simply allows them to become the victim of their own choices. Paul wrote, "God gave them over to the lusts of their [own] hearts." (Romans 1:24) The Psalmist wrote, "Israel would not submit to Me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices." (Psalms 81:11,12) After a time God allows a persistent sinner to become a prisoner of their own choices, but He does not deliberately prevent anyone from repenting or from receiving Christ.
Many times God said to Pharaoh, "Let My people go" (Exod. 5:1; 7:16; 8:1, 20; 9:1, 13; 10:13) It was only after repeated appeals and when Pharaoh said; "Who is God that I should obey Him?" that God allowed conditions to develop that hardened Pharaoh's heart. By persisting in disobedience Pharaoh locked himself into his own bad choices. God hardens a sinners heart only in the sense that He does not save them from themselves.
The Bible employs human language to describe God's relationship to the world. Within that framework God does not control human destiny by fixed decrees. Rather, He meets humanity at its own level and adapts His will to altered circumstance. Jeremiah records God's adaptation to situations by noting that if, "At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it." (Jeremiah 18:7-10). In other words, God's stated plans can be modified in response to changes in the behaviour of people. He sent Jonah to Nineveh to pronounce the doom of that wicked city. Yet, when the people repented, God withdrew his wrath.
This shows that God's sovereign will is not fixed. God's promises to Israel were two-sided and the people were always given the option of making a choice. Moses wrote: "Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you." (Deuteronomy 28:63)
God told the people of Israel that they would decide whether or not the nation would "prosper" or be "destroyed". If the basis of Israel's relationship to God was freedom of choice why would it be different in the New Testament? Calvinists are not wrong when they say God's sovereign will cannot be resisted. Their big mistake is they fail to see that God exercises His authority by not choosing to impose His will on anyone and by allowing free choice for all.
If there is such a thing as irresistible grace, where was it at the time of the flood? Creationists have speculated on credible mathematical principles that the pre flood population was up to 350 million people. If irresistible grace and predestination could only save 8 persons out of 350 million that is an unhappy thought for those who believe predestination determines their own destiny. If those percentages were repeated today out of the entire population of the United States only 6 individuals could claim to be the elect and to be predestined to be saved.
Hebrew and Greek Thinking
Biblical scholars claim that Hebrew thinking is so different to ours that often "the original Hebrew makes no sense when literally translated into English." In English Psalms 103:8 reads: "The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger." The Hebrew reads: "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to nose". While it may sound strange to us the teaching that God is "slow to nose" was the basis of the Hebrews relationship to God.
The Hebrews noticed that when a person became angry their nostrils flared, so they described anger by saying "his nostrils flared". This is called dynamic or concrete thinking. For the Hebrews God could only be known by experiencing His activity within the visible world. The invisible things of God did not concern the Hebrews. Any notion of cosmic legislation and eternal decrees was entirely outside of their perception of God. Their knowledge of God was confined to the historical event that involved salvation. When the Hebrew spoke of God they spoke of His "deeds of deliverance." (Ps. 74:12) For the Hebrew salvation was an event and an encounter God in daily living.
Is it necessary to distinguish between Greek ways of thinking and Hebrew ways of thinking in order to correctly understand the Bible? Absolutely! For example, Jesus was called God's firstborn. To a Greek mind the term firstborn meant the first to be born, and implied a chronology. To the Hebrew mind, however, the term firstborn was a title of honour and implied a status of privilege. This is a clear example how Greek thinking is misleading, and Hebrew thinking is necessary in order to correctly interpret New Testament meanings. Because the Greek Fathers gave a Greek interpretation to the term "firstborn" instead of a Hebrew meaning the church became involved in centuries of debate over the ontological relationship between Christ and God. Origen's concept of eternal generation, which is based on metaphysics and not the Bible, remains the teaching of the Catholic Church to this day. Greek thinking totally dominates Calvinists teachings and has caused them to often seriously misinterpret the Bible.
William Barrett claims that the most fundamental differences between the Hellenistic mind and the Hebrew mind is found in the distinction between knowing and practice. Says Barrett,
"The distinction...arises from the difference between doing and knowing. The Hebrew is concerned with practice, the Greek with knowledge. Right conduct is the ultimate concern of the Hebrew, right thinking that of the Greek. Duty and strictness of conscience are the paramount things in life for the Hebrew; for the Greek, the spontaneous and luminous play of the intelligence. The Hebrew thus extols the moral virtues as the substance and meaning of life; the Greek subordinates them to the intellectual virtues...the contrast is between practice and theory, between the moral man and the theoretical or intellectual man.
Marvin Wilson points out that the Hebrew mind had very little interest in religious theory. He says,
"The biblical authors never argue the existence of God; they only assume it. God is not understood philosophically, but functionally. He acts. The Hebrews primarily thought of him pictorially, in terms of personality and activity, not in terms of pure being or in any static sense. That is, to express the divine attribute of love, the Hebrews would normally think in terms of a "loving God" (i.e., a God who loves), rather than "God is love." Certainly, therefore, the Hebrew mind-set of Bible times would find little or no interest in many of the issues the Church has debated over the centuries. These issues include theoretical arguments for the existence of God, the nature of the Godhead, free will and predestination, the specifics of the life to come, and the precise way in which the divine and human mesh in the inspiration of Scripture." (The Contours of Hebrew Thought)
Just as speaking has an accent so thinking has an accent. And in terms of accents the Calvinistic concepts of irresistible grace and predestination are totally alien to the Hebrew way of thinking. The doctrine of eternal decrees represents an area of speculation the Hebrews never contemplated. The doctrines of TULIP are so contrary to the biblical way of thinking and are so alien to biblical patterns that it is absurd to claim that they are in the Bible.
The teachings of hyper Calvinism are built on the premise that the world and the cosmos is ruled by a divine will that is deterministic and inflexible. No biblical writer thought that way, but Plato did. Dennis Bratcher wrote,
"There is much in Christian tradition, and thereby in various church doctrines, that has its roots in philosophical ideas and speculation rather than in Scripture. The Reformation helped, but did not address all aspects of the problem, so we are left with a legacy of theology that was developed to answer the questions raised by idealistic Greek philosophy, especially the Platonic and neo-Platonic strands, rather than to explicate Scripture." (see here)
Idiomatic Hebrew cannot be transferred to another language without radically altering the concepts that the verbal language is intended to convey. Over 2000 years ago a Jewish author wrote in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, "For the same things uttered in Hebrew, and translated into another tongue, have not the same force in them: and not only these things, but the law itself, and the prophets, and the rest of the books, have no small difference, when they are spoken in their own language."
The authors of the Westminster Confession had a sixteenth century mind set and they were totally ignorant of the cultural conditions that shaped the thinking of the biblical writers. Whatever their learning, there was much that they did not know about the Bible. Puritan scholars may have been able to read Hebrew but they did not understand the dynamics of the Hebrew language or the idiomatic insights that would have enabled them to think as a Hebrew.
For the Greek God's righteousness is the quality of His inner life, that is the position taken in the Westminster Confession, for the Hebrew God's righteousness in His activity in the world. For the Greek justification is a legal status, that is the position taken in the Westminster Confession, for the Hebrew justification is a concrete act of deliverance. There is a vast difference between the Hebrew concept of torah and the Greek concept of nomos. All of theses insights into biblical languages were unknown in the sixteenth century. Every time the writers of the Westminster Confession wrote anything they expressed themselves in terms of a Greek perspective.
When the authors of the Westminster Confession wrote out their dogma they created theories alien to the way the biblical writers thought. When they read the Hebrew Scriptures they worked with philosophical suppositions that Western society had inherited from the Greeks. Because biblical words had Hebrew meanings that they did not understand it was inevitable their ignorance of ancient writings would cause them to misinterpret the Scriptures.
Did Paul Make Use of Pagan Mythology in Romans 9?
We are told, "Fate played a major role in Greek mythology. The Moirae were three female goddesses better known as the "Fates." Every time a new person was born, the "Fates" determined their destiny for the rest of their lives. Clotho "spun the thread of life," Lachesis "measured the thread of life" and Atropos "cut the thread of life." Atropos was the most feared of all, for death was her primary role. No matter what incredible event, terrible tragedy or breathtaking experience one went through, their fate could not be altered."
One of the most famous mythological stories concerning fate was is the story of Oedipus. When he was born, Apollo, God of Truth, spoke to Oedipus and told him that within his lifetime, he will kill his father and marry his mother. Failing to believe his doom, he left the Delphic oracle and on his way, he was brutally attacked. In self defence, he killed the mystery traveller. Soon after, Oedipus journeyed to Thebes where he met Jocasta, Queen of Corinth. He fell in love with her and they were married immediately. Later, Oedipus learned that the stranger whom he killed was in deed his father. And, surely enough, Jocasta had previously been married to Oedipus's father and gave birth to their son, Oedipus himself. Just as Apollo said, Oedipus married his mother and killed his father. Regardless of his efforts, he could not avoid his predetermined destiny.
It can be concluded that in Greek mythology, everyone has a predetermined destiny and despite their attempts to flee from their doom, their fate is unchangeable. (see here)
In Plato's teaching god is a cosmic mind (nous) who exists in the realm of ideas. According to his thesis deity employs deterministic methods to organise the world. Plato's fatalism has been describe as "the most important concept in Greek philosophy". Paul was aware of Plato's determinism and may have use of it for teaching purposes. However, while Paul possibly incorporated Plato's determinism in his analogy he did not endorse Plato's concept of fatalism. Plato believed that the world is controlled by irresistible fate. Paul may have used of the principle of determinism to illustrate that God is in control and to show in terms of final outcomes that God's purposes will prevail. But any interpretation of Romans 9 that contradicts the biblical declaration that "God ... wants all men to be saved." (1 Timothy 2:3-4) and "Christ Jesus, ... gave Himself as a ransom for all men" (1 Timothy 2:5-6) is incorrect.
Calvinism and New Age Teaching
Anyone familiar with New Age religion will be aware of the similarity between the fatalistic structures expressed in the doctrines of TULIP and ancient and modern astrology. New Age religion and Calvinism share the same basic structure of cosmic determinism and the concept that the whole of life is under the control of outside forces. The doctrines of Calvinism and New Age teachings both teach that final outcomes are predetermined either by fate or election. If both systems of belief have the same basic structure, and one is erroroneous, what is the other?
From the Alexandrine period and all through the Hellenic period, astrology accelerated the concept of fate and slowly eroded the concept of responsibility associated with free will. (Compare and Contrast The Different Models of Fate, Free Will, and Astrological Determinism, Edmond H. Wollmann, Kepler University: Astrology in Ancient Civilizations)
Throughout the history of the world of astrological knowledge and otherwise, the debate about fate vs. free will has been intense and complex. (see here)
Astrological Determinism and Platonic philosophy identify individual destiny with the alignment of the planets, mysterious forces, and a cosmic nous. The teachings of 5 point Calvinism identify individual destiny with exactly the same concept of determinism based on arbitrary sovereign decrees. Platonic philosophy comes from confining knowledge to the strictly controlled parameters of reason and logic. The doctrines of TULIP are the inevitable result of subjugating Scripture to uninformed reason and an iron-fisted logic. Job once asked the question, "Can you fathom the mysteries of God"? (Job 11:7) Calvinists imagine they can, and they deprive the Bible of its deepest mysteries.
Confusion and Contradiction in The Westminster Confession
The Westminster Confession provides one of the greatest examples of incoherence in the history of religion. On the one hand it claims that angels and men sinned "not by a bare permission" but because they were powerfully bound by God to do so. The Confession claims that Satan and Adam sinned because God created for them a destiny that guaranteed that they would sin. It says, in effect, that Satan and Adam were programmed to sin. After stating that in plain English the Confession then absurdly argues that God had nothing to do with His own divine intentions.
The article in the Confession that states Satan and Adam sinned because of their predestination reads as follows:
5.4 The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God ... extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but [by a] ... powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, ... yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God; who, ... neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.
When the same statement is quoted, but the emphasis is placed on different wording, the Confession flatly denies the very affirmation that it had just strenuously affirmed. Note that only the emphasis has been altered.
5.4 The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God ... extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but [by a] ... powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, ... yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God; who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.
The Confession clearly states that sin entered the universe, not by an accident or break down in the exercise of free will, and "not by a bare permission" but by a "powerful bounding and otherwise ordering and governing" of the outcome by God. The claim that God predestined Adam and Eve to sin is clearly affirm in another place.
6.1 Our first parents, ... sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, ... to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.
After having stated plainly that Adam sinned according to a "powerful bounding", and an irresistible "ordering and governing" of outcomes, and having stated plainly Adam sinned because God "purposed to order it" the Confession makes the contradiction that "the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God."
The Westminster Confession repeatedly affirm that God has "ordain whatsoever comes to pass", including the entrance of sin into the universe, but just as often affirms that God had nothing to do with the very events that He predestined to come to pass. The following statement repeats the same contradiction that we have already noted.
3.1. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
It has to be asked, how could God "ordain whatsoever comes to pass", including the entrance of sin, and at the same time a situation exists in which "neither is God the author of sin". The Confession affirms that God predestined Satan and Adam to sin by a powerful an irresistible "ordering" of events and affirms that God had nothing to do with what He ordered. The Confession affirms that God "purposed"' to order something it elsewhere affirms that He had nothing to do with His own purpose and intention. This is not intelligence, it is self deception and utter nonsense.
The authors of the Confession operated on the principle that because God is God He can do what He likes. In their thinking it does not matter if an idea sounds confusing, if God is involved the idea has to be accepted as it stands. But since the authors of the Confession that invented the confusion no one is obligated to agree with them.
Summary and Conclusion
When we understand divine foreknowledge as an expression of prophecy we can see how God's foreknowledge is not based on a fatalistic determinism. That God knows the future does not mean He creates the future beforehand. The fact that God knows who will be lost is not proof that He does not loved the lost or that He withholds His saving grace from them. Love does not cease to love even when a relationship is irretrievable broken.
Christ knew beforehand what Jerusalem's final destiny would be, and yet Christ's foreknowledge did not prevent a broken heart. There is real pain in these words: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not. See, your house is left to you desolate. (Matthew 23:37) Here is a mystery that no theory can account for. Christ knew exactly what Jerusalem's end would be, but He made every attempt to change it. That is why we sing, "O love that will not let me go, I hang my helpless soul on Thee." Hallelujah.
A Calvinist is in a sad position. If they had to preach the gospel to a stadium containing 100,000 people the best they could say to those people would be that with any luck possibly 10 of them may, or may not, belong of the elect. If they provided an honest confession of their belief they would be obligated to tell that vast throng of people that basically God found them disgusting, except perhaps for one extended family sitting some where in the back row. This is no parody, it is the reality invested in the doctrines of TULIP themselves. The teaching of TULIP represent pure delusion.
In terms of eternity Calvinism has no future, it is a wasteland of barren ideas and lies about God. And yet the God of heaven and the Father of the Lord Jesus extends His love and compassion even to those who grossly misrepresent Him. Calvinists have every reason to hope in God because the good news is better than they ever imagined. What is required of a Calvinist to make them orthodox Christians? Simply this: Let them embrace the belief that God loves all humanity as much as they imagine that He loves them. The reality is that Christ became the corporate Man, His humanity embraced the whole of humanity, His sacrifice was sufficient for every sin, and He excludes no one.
A Calvinists can only defend their belief by proclaiming that God purposely predestined the world to collapse into sin, as the Westminster Confession tells it, for "His own glory." They can only defend their doctrines by defending the idea that God "purposed to order" death and suffering and hell itself for billions of human beings. They can only defend their beliefs by openly proclaiming that God's "ordering and governing" of humanity is the first cause of every murder, every rape and every element of human degradation. They can only defend themselves by proclaiming that whatever evil has happen has been no accident but has been the result of God's deliberate intention and part of His eternal plan. What is sad it that there are many who are fully prepared to do exactly that. May God forgive their blasphemy and folly.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious
Slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
Nor will He harbor His anger forever,
He does not treat us as our sins deserve,
Or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth
So great is His love for those who fear Him,
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a Father has compassion on His children
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him
For He knows how we are formed,
He remembers that we are dust
Palms 103:8-14