WHY JOHN CALVIN WAS WRONG IN HIS DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE PREDESTINATION---------- JOHN CALVIN ... . ..By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death. This God has testified, not only in the case of single individuals; he has also given a specimen of it in the whole posterity of Abraham, to make it plain that the future condition of each nation lives entirely at his disposal: When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lords portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance, (Deut. 32: 8, 9.) The separation is before the eyes of all; in the person of Abraham, as in a withered stock, one people is specially chosen, while the others are rejected; but the cause does not appear, except that Moses, to deprive posterity of any handle for glorying, tells them that their superiority was owing entirely to the free love of God. The cause which he assigns for their deliverance is, Because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, (Deut. 4: 37;) or more explicitly in another chapter, The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people: for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you, (Deut. 7: 7, 8.) He repeatedly makes the same intimations, Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens is the Lords thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, (Deut. 10: 14, 15.) Again, in another passage, holiness is enjoined upon them, because they have been chosen to be a peculiar people; while in another, love is declared to be the cause of their protection, (Deut. 23: 5.) This, too, believers with one voice proclaim, He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob, whom he loved, (Ps. 47: 4.) The endowments with which God had adorned them, they all ascribe to gratuitous love, not only because they knew that they had not obtained them by any merit, but that not even was the holy patriarch endued with a virtue that could procure such distinguished honor for himself and his posterity. And the more completely to crush all pride, he upbraids them with having merited nothing of the kind, seeing they were a rebellious and stiff-necked people, (Deut. 9: 6.) Often, also, do the prophets remind the Jews of this election by way of disparagement and opprobrium, because they had shamefully revolted from it. Be this as it may, let those who would ascribe the election of God to human worth or merit come forward. When they see that one nation is preferred to all others, when they hear that it was no feeling of respect that induced God to show more favor to a small and ignoble body, nay, even to the wicked and rebellious, will they plead against him for having chosen to give such a manifestation of mercy? But neither will their obstreperous words hinder his work, nor will their invectives, like stones thrown against heaven, strike or hurt his righteousness; nay, rather they will fall back on their own heads. To this principle of a free covenant, moreover, the Israelites are recalled whenever thanks are to be returned to God, or their hopes of the future to be animated. The Lord he is God, says the Psalmist; it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves: we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture, (Ps. 100: 3; 95: 7.) The negation which is added, not we ourselves, is not superfluous, to teach us that God is not only the author of all the good qualities in which men excel, but that they originate in himself, there being nothing in them worthy of so much honor. In the following words also they are enjoined to rest satisfied with the mere good pleasure of God: O ye seed of Abraham, his servant; ye children of Jacob, his chosen, (Ps. 105: 6.) And after an enumeration of the continual mercies of God as fruits of election, the conclusion is, that he acted thus kindly because he remembered his covenant. With this doctrine accords the song of the whole Church, They got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them, (Ps. 44: 3.) It is to be observed, that when the land is mentioned, it is a visible symbol of the secret election in which adoption is comprehended. To like gratitude David elsewhere exhorts the people, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance, (Ps. 33: 12.) Samuel thus animates their hopes, The Lord will not forsake his people for his great names sake: because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people, (1 Sam. 12: 22.) And when Davids faith is assailed, how does he arm himself for the battle? Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causes to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts, (Ps. 65: 4.) But as the hidden election of God was confirmed both by a first and second election, and by other intermediate mercies, Isaiah thus applies the terms The Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, (Isa. 14: 1.) Referring to a future period, the gathering together of the dispersion, who seemed to have been abandoned, he says, that it will be a sign of a firm and stable election, notwithstanding of the apparent abandonment. When it is elsewhere said, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away, (Isa. 41: 9,) the continual course of his great liberality is ascribed to paternal kindness. This is stated more explicitly in Zechariah by the angel, the Lord shall choose Jerusalem again, as if the severity of his chastisements had amounted to reprobation, or the captivity had been an interruption of election, which, however, remains inviolable, though the signs of it do not always appear. 6. We must add a second step of a more limited nature, or one in which the grace of God was displayed in a more special form, when of the same family of Abraham God rejected some, and by keeping others within his Church showed that he retained them among his sons. At first Ishmael had obtained the same rank with his brother Isaac, because the spiritual covenant was equally sealed in him by the symbol of circumcision. He is first cut off, then Esau, at last an innumerable multitude, almost the whole of Israel. In Isaac was the seed called. The same calling held good in the case of Jacob. God gave a similar example in the rejection of Saul. This is also celebrated in the psalm, Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, (Ps. 78: 67, 68.) This the sacred history sometimes repeats that the secret grace of God may be more admirably displayed in that change. I admit that it was by their own fault Ishmael, Esau, and others, fell from their adoption; for the condition annexed was, that they should faithfully keep the covenant of God, whereas they perfidiously violated it. The singular kindness of God consisted in this, that he had been pleased to prefer them to other nations; as it is said in the psalm, He has not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them, (Ps. 147: 20.) But I had good reason for saying that two steps are here to be observed; for in the election of the whole nation, God had already shown that in the exercise of his mere liberality he was under no law but was free, so that he was by no means to be restricted to an equal division of grace, its very inequality proving it to be gratuitous. Accordingly, Malachi enlarges on the ingratitude of Israel, in that being not only selected from the whole human race, but set peculiarly apart from a sacred household; they perfidiously and impiously spurn God their beneficent parent. Was not Esau Jacobs brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, (Mal. 1: 2, 3.) For God takes it for granted, that as both were the sons of a holy father, and successors of the covenant, in short, branches from a sacred root, the sons of Jacob were under no ordinary obligation for having been admitted to that dignity; but when by the rejection of Esau the first born, their progenitor though inferior in birth was made heir, he charges them with double ingratitude, in not being restrained by a double tie. 7. Although it is now sufficiently plain that God by his secret counsel chooses whom he will while he rejects others, his gratuitous election has only been partially explained until we come to the case of single individuals, to whom God not only offers salvation, but so assigns it, that the certainty of the result remains not dubious or suspended. These are considered as belonging to that one seed of which Paul makes mention, (Rom. 9: 8; Gal. 3: 16, &c.) For although adoption was deposited in the hand of Abraham, yet as many of his posterity were cut off as rotten members, in order that election may stand and be effectual, it is necessary to ascend to the head in whom the heavenly Father has connected his elect with each other, and bound them to himself by an indissoluble tie. Thus in the adoption of the family of Abraham, God gave them a liberal display of favor which he has denied to others; but in the members of Christ there is a far more excellent display of grace, because those ingrafted into him as their head never fail to obtain salvation. Hence Paul skillfully argues from the passage of Malachi which I quoted, (Rom. 9: 13; Mal. 1: 2,) that when God, after making a covenant of eternal life, invites any people to himself, a special mode of election is in part understood, so that he does not with promiscuous grace effectually elect all of them. The words, Jacob have I loved, refer to the whole progeny of the patriarch, which the prophet there opposes to the posterity of Esau. But there is nothing in this repugnant to the fact, that in the person of one man is set before us a specimen of election, which cannot fail of accomplishing its object. It is not without cause Paul observes, that these are called a remnants (Rom. 9: 27; 11: 5;) because experience shows that of the general body many fall away and are lost, so that often a small portion only remains. The reason why the general election of the people is not always firmly ratified, readily presents itself, viz., that on those with whom God makes the covenant, he does not immediately bestow the Spirit of regeneration, by whose power they persevere in the covenant even to the end. The external invitation, without the internal efficacy of grace which would have the effect of retaining them, holds a kind of middle place between the rejection of the human race and the election of a small number of believers. The whole people of Israel are called the Lords inheritance, and yet there were many foreigners among them. Still, because the covenant which God had made to be their Father and Redeemer was not altogether null, he has respect to that free favor rather than to the perfidious defection of many; even by them his truth was not abolished, since by preserving some residue to himself, it appeared that his calling was without repentance. When God ever and anon gathered his Church from among the sons of Abraham rather than from profane nations, he had respect to his covenant, which, when violated by the great body, he restricted to a few, that it might not entirely fail. In short, that common adoption of the seed of Abraham was a kind of visible image of a greater benefit which God deigned to bestow on some out of many. This is the reason why Paul so carefully distinguishes between the sons of Abraham according to the flesh and the spiritual sons who are called after the example of Isaac. Not that simply to be a son of Abraham was a vain or useless privilege, (this could not be said without insult to the covenant,) but that the immutable counsel of God, by which he predestinated to himself whomsoever he would, was alone effectual for their salvation. But until the proper view is made clear by the production of passages of Scripture, I advise my readers not to prejudge the question. We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment. In regard to the elect, we regard calling as the evidence of election, and justification as another symbol of its manifestation, until it is fully accomplished by the attainment of glory. But as the Lord seals his elect by calling and justification, so by excluding the reprobate either from the knowledge of his name or the sanctification of his Spirit, he by these marks in a manner discloses the judgment which awaits them. I will here omit many of the fictions which foolish men have devised to overthrow predestination. There is no need of refuting objections which the moment they are produced abundantly betray their hollowness. I will dwell only on those points which either form the subject of dispute among the learned, or may occasion any difficulty to the simple, or may be employed by impiety as specious pretexts for assailing the justice of God. JOHN CALVIN- INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION ____________________________________________ 1. God did not choose or elected Abraham with Gods covenant for salvation purpose and rejecting others for damnation but to make Abraham the blessing to all families of the earth. GENESIS 12:1-3 [1] Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers house, unto a land that I will shew thee:[2] And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:[3] And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. GENESIS 12:1-3 a. Calvin was twisting Gods words to suit his doctrine of double predestination- God elected some to salvation and others to damnation. b. Calvin was wrong to cite Abraham as as an example of Gods election unto salvation which is not Gods intention but to make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee , and make thy name great: and thou shalt be a blessing: GENESIS 12: 2 c. Calvin was misrepresenting God making Him appear as biased and unmerciful and unloving to all nations except Abraham family and seed. God truly has the loving intention and holy purpose to bless all families of the earth by way of Abrahams life of faith. d. Calvin was wrong to picture God as unjust and unmerciful and unloving by his double predestination. He made a wrong exegesis of God words and therefore to be judged as a false interpreter of God;s words and false teacher as such and must be condemned as perpetrator of false and vile doctrines about God. 2. God had elected or chosen Abraham to the example of a sinful person turned and changed by the grace of God through faith in the promise of God. GENESIS 15:1-6 [1] After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.[2] And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?[3] And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.[4] And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.[5] And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.[6] And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness. GENESIS 15:1-6 a. Calvin was wrong not to emphasize Abrahams faith as Gods condition to be righteous with God in His sight instead but Gods partiality to Abraham and Gods rejection to others. GENESIS 15 6 This is clearly evidenced by what Calvin wrote in his false doctrine of predestination: The separation is before the eyes of all; in the person of Abraham, as in a withered stock, one people is specially chosen, while the others are rejected; but the cause does not appear, except that Moses, to deprive posterity of any handle for glorying, tells them that their superiority was owing entirely to the free love of God. b. Calvin must be branded and convicted of the highest degree of character assassination of God who is truly loving, merciful, kind,long-suffering and gracious to all people and nations. PSALM 33:5 ; PSALM 25:8; ROMANS 2:4; NUMBERS 14: 18; MATTHEW 5:44-45 c. Calvin was deceitful to teach the vile imagination of his heart being unfaithful and untrue to Gods words and full counsel of God. He was a blatant example of a sly teacher to suit his misrepresentations and misunderstanding of Gods pure words, though he used scriptures that are not properly given proper and right exegesis. 3. God had chosen and elected Abraham as the father of all nations through to those who believe in the Lords promises. ROMANS 4: 16-22 [16] Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,[17] (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.[18] Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.[19] And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Saras womb:[20] He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;[21] And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.[22] And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. ROMANS 4:16-22 a. The faith of Abraham unto Gods promise demonstrates to us sinners that our salvation in God is purely by Gods grace and nothing more and nothing less.[16] Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, ROMANS 4:16 b. Gods promises are faithful and true that nothing is impossible if sinners trust in God. c. Unbelief in Gods promise is the reason why God will judge people to eternal destruction especially in distrusting the gospel of God in Christ. PRAISE THE LORD OF GODS GRACE AND HIS GOODNESS TO ALL THE EARTH! PSALM 33:5, He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 02:08:46 +0000
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