What's Wrong with Calvinism?
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civic
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those who are saved under the same umbrella have no choice. they cannot refuse to be saved. God makes them believe, after God forces His spirit in the dead corpse.
I use to believe and teach this stuff for decades.
FreeInChrist
Active Member
One additional thing about John Calvin.....
“Reason would tell us that baptism is rightly administered to babies. The Lord did not give circumcision long ago without making them (infants) partakers of everything represented by circumcision. He would have been deceiving his people with a sham, if he had reassured them with false signs. The idea is very shocking. He distinctly states that the circumcision of the infant is the seal of covenant promise. If the covenant remains firm and unmoved, this is just as relevant to the children of Christians today as it was to the children of the Jews under the Old Testament…The truth of baptism applies to infants, so why do we deny them the sign? The Lord himself formally admitted infants to his covenant, so what more do we need?”
So if he was wrong about that... why would he be right about predestination the way he taught it?
John Calvin, Institutes of the christian religion, 4:16:5 (Beveridge Edition)
I bet you wont find many on here that are a Calvinist or predestined believer who believes in baby baptism... but Calvin did.
Theophilus
Administrator
My old stand by is "Where is the love in Calvinism?"
Calvinism is not the correct way to show God's love to the lost. Calvinists think of unregenerate people as cadavers. That is, they see them as totally unable to respond to God in a saving way—or in any way.
They often cite Rom 3:11 which says, “There is none who seeks after God.” Yet we know from many texts that what Paul means is that no one seeks after God of his own initiative. But God does take the initiative (John 12:32; 16:7-11; Acts 17:27), gives natural revelation to all (Rom 1:19-20), and convicts all of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:7-11).
Cornelius is exhibit A (though there are many examples like him in Scripture). He sought God before he was born again because God was first seeking him. If our theology does not allow for the unregenerate to respond to God, then we ought to change our theology.
Theophilus
Administrator
My favorite non-Calvinist quote!
"The glory of the justice that condemns the sinner is not as great as the glory of the justice of the grace of God that saves the lost ... He is not so short of glory that He must needs seek it in hell, death, and damnation. A high Calvinist once said, 'the groans of the damned in hell shall be the great bass of the universal anthem of praise to God'. Such horror of hell can surely never sound other than horrible in the ear of Divine love. ...
"In this matter of Divine Sovereignty in election we are not dealing with personified and inflated will, abstract justice, power without love, and glory without moral content, but with the personal God whose grace is glory and whose glory is grace to sinful persons needing redemption. Instead of disjointed attributes, arbitrary powers, and death-dealing decrees, let us have the living, loving personal God revealed so perfectly in Jesus Christ!"
J.B. Champion -- in his book Sovereignty and Grace.
"The glory of the justice that condemns the sinner is not as great as the glory of the justice of the grace of God that saves the lost ... He is not so short of glory that He must needs seek it in hell, death, and damnation. A high Calvinist once said, 'the groans of the damned in hell shall be the great bass of the universal anthem of praise to God'. Such horror of hell can surely never sound other than horrible in the ear of Divine love. ...
"In this matter of Divine Sovereignty in election we are not dealing with personified and inflated will, abstract justice, power without love, and glory without moral content, but with the personal God whose grace is glory and whose glory is grace to sinful persons needing redemption. Instead of disjointed attributes, arbitrary powers, and death-dealing decrees, let us have the living, loving personal God revealed so perfectly in Jesus Christ!"
J.B. Champion -- in his book Sovereignty and Grace.
It does teach those in Christ were chosen to be holy and blameless.
As well as all this, which you do not address
And again, believers are chosen to be forgiven, declared righteous, and saved—that is, to have life
John 3:16
For in this way God loved the world, so that he gave his one and only Son, in order that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life.
Eph 2:8–9
For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.
Rom 10:9–10
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. For with the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.
Acts 16:31
And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household!”
Mark 16:16
The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who refuses to believe will be condemned.
1 John 5:13
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.
John 5:24
Truly, truly I say to you that the one who hears my word and who believes the one who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
Rom 3:22–24
that is, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,
Gal 2:16
but knowing that a person is not justified by the works of the law, if not by faith in Jesus Christ, and we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified.
John 11:25–26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die forever. Do you believe this?”
2 Thess 2:13
But we ought to give thanks to God always concerning you, brothers dearly loved by the Lord, because God has chosen you as first fruits for salvation by the sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth,
Acts 13:39
by this one everyone who believes is justified!
Rom 4:5
But to the one who does not work, but who believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness,
1 Cor 15:1–2
Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed to you, which you have also received, in which you also stand, by which you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the message I proclaimed to you, unless you believed to no purpose.
Eph 1:13–14
in whom also you, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also when you believed you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.
2 Tim 3:15
and that from childhood you have known the holy writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
John 20:31
but these things are recorded in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Acts 13:38–39
“Therefore let it be known to you, men and brothers, that through this one forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and from all the things from which you were not able to be justified by the law of Moses, 39 by this one everyone who believes is justified!
Acts 10:43
To this one all the prophets testify, that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.”
Acts 26:18
to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Romans 3:23–25
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God made publicly available as the mercy seat through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness, because of the passing over of previously committed sins,
and after reading, adopt a theology that is consistent with the scriptures posted.
So what. What it does not say is you were chosen because you are in Christ. Which of course you were not at the foundation of the world. Also, the only choice mentionrd in the text is made by God.
