Featured What are the Fundamentals of the Faith ?

In context, the sheep of course simply being any OT Jew that already believed the scriptures before Christ began his ministry.

 

Based on what in the context? Unbelief? John 10:25-26, ". . . Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. . . ."

 

Eze_34:6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.
Eze_34:11 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.
Eze_34:12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.
Eze 34:30 Thus shall they know that I the LORD their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord GOD.
Eze 34:31 And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD.

Christ's my sheep is an unmistakable, undeniable picking up of Ezekiel 34 (& Jer.23, 50)

Joh_10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
Joh_10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

Christ defines his sheep as those that hear my voice, again, an unmistakable, undeniable reference to:
Isa_28:23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
Isa_32:9 Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.

Jer 22:21 I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice.
Jer 22:22 The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.
You see that pastors in Jeremiah 22:22? Watch in what similar context it shows up 9 verses later: Jer 23:1 Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.
So what is the problem with the pastors of sheep (the forebears of the gospels' Pharisees and Sadducees) in Jeremiah 22-23? It's that they SAID I WILL NOT HEAR...and that THOU OBEYEDST NOT MY VOICE.

In line with not hearing the voice of God, Christ had charged the Jews with not believing the words of Moses:

Joh 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
Joh 5:47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

AND NOW, WE CIRCLE BACK TO:

Joh 10:25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
Joh 10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

That is, the Jews that were not of the Father's sheep were not of his sheep because they did not believe the words of Moses and the prophets before Christ showed up and therefore were not Jews (sheep) inwardly. They could not believe the Son in the gospels because they did not believe the Father in the prophets.

Thus being or not of God's sheep has nothing to do with an imagined Calvinistic election except in a church-age poorly-knowledgeable-of-the-OT Gentile reader's mind.

 

It is not just the 'Trail of Blood' theory, it is The Bible;

TEN BIBLE PROOFS OF BAPTIST PERPETUITY
by Rosco Brong, Late Dean
Lexington (KY) Baptist College

"The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth"
I Timothy 3:15

We believe The Lord's churches had a Divine Founding, in Jesus Christ,
that is always local and never "universal" visible, or invisible.
and not founded by a sinful man reforming something God never Commanded to reform.

How I Became a "Narrower" Baptist
By Roy Mason, 1930

The Church that Jesus Built By Roy Mason, Th.D.
1. Introduction and Introduction Chapter
2. Did Jesus Found the Church? If so When?
3. The Kind of Church that Jesus Built
4. The Family, Kingdom and Church of God Differentiated
5. The Master's Promise
6. The Search for the True Church
7. The Doctrinal Test
8. Points to be Remembered
9. Baptist Under Other Names
10. Statements of other Historians
11. What is the mission of the ChurchThat Jesus Built
12. The Church that Jesus Built justifying its Existence
13. Conclusion

God's Command?: Revelation 18:4; "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues."

While John Calvin didn't come far enough away from RCC
and KILLED OUR LIKE FAITH people/ "Heretics".
Martyrs Mirror
Foxes Book of Martyrs
Video: Dr. Jewell Smith - The Bibles of the Martyrs


John Calvin’s interpretation of the Bible justified the murder of his theological opponents. He himself did not cut off any heads or light any fires that burned human heretics alive, but John Calvin’s preaching from the Old and New Testaments claimed those capital punishments aligned with God’s interests.

How so? Calvin did not believe all Old Covenant laws had been set aside by the New Covenant Jesus inaugurated. He didn't buy into the plain sense of Hebrews: “God has made the first covenant obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13). He maneuvered around Paul’s conclusion: “the Law became a tutor to lead us to Christ and now that faith has come we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:24-25; cf. Rom 10:4). Calvin dismissed this data from the New Testament and decided the moral laws in the Old Covenant laws of the Torah still applied. And killing people who perverted his pure doctrine was a moral necessity.

Calvin specifically justified capital punishment of heretics with Leviticus 24:16. “The one who blasphemes the name of the Lord should be put to death; all the congregation must stone him. Any foreigner or native who blasphemes the Name should be put to death.”

Jesus’ teaching to “love your enemies” didn’t stop Calvin from approving and promoting the death of his theological enemies. And Paul’s instructions for dealing with people who theologically disagree with you were equally ignored: “A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25). Calvin did not patiently discuss his differences with people who promoted competing ideas. Calvin requested beheadings, made death threats, and praised God for orchestrating the torture of heretics.

Calvin spelled out his theologically reinforced vengeance in a personal letter:
“I am persuaded that it is not without the special will of God that, apart from any verdict of the judges, the criminals have endured protracted torment at the hands of the executioner.” - Calvin's letter to Farel on 24 July (for more words directly from Calvin’s pen, read Selected Works of John Calvin)
Calvin believed God made sure criminals didn’t die quickly when tortured. This vengeful attitude and his support for outdated Old Covenant laws that legislated capital punishment for competing theologians that challenged his preferred doctrines look more like ISIS than Jesus.

John Calvin’s Fight Against Heretics

Personal correspondence and city council records betray John Calvin’s extraordinary influence in Geneva. Although he was asked to leave in 1538 when he enforced his strict moral standards and pushed for the church’s independent power to excommunicate people, Genevan officials invited him to return in 1541 to resolve church divisions. Upon his return, the city council approved his Ecclesiastical Ordinances that included the establishment of the Consistory. The Consistory, a church court that oversaw the discipline of the citizens of Geneva, met every Thursday to review cases (This book is a chronicle of the Consistory’s records from 1542-1544.) John Calvin led the court. Although the Consistory did not have the power to imprison, exile, or kill those who were guilty, Calvin could still convince the city magistrates to wield such power when his theological opponents contradicted him.

When Jacques Gruet, a theologian with differing views, placed a letter in Calvin’s pulpit calling him a hypocrite, he was arrested, tortured for a month and beheaded on July 26, 1547. Gruet's own theological book was later found and burned along with his house while his wife was thrown out into the street to watch.

Michael Servetus, a Spaniard, physician, scientist and Bible scholar, suffered a worse fate. He was Calvin's longtime acquaintance who resisted the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. However, he angered Calvin by returning a copy of Calvin's Institutes with critical comments in the margins. So what did Calvin do? You can read his resolution from a personal letter he wrote to a friend:
“Servetus offers to come hither, if it be agreeable to me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety, for if he shall come, I shall never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any avail.” - Letter to Farel, 13 February 1546
The next time Servetus attended Calvin's Sunday preaching service on a visit, Calvin had him arrested and charged with heresy. The 38 official charges included rejection of the Trinity and infant baptism. The city magistrates condemned him to death. Calvin pleaded for Servetus to be beheaded instead of the more brutal method of burning at the stake, but to no avail. Some people see Calvin’s compassion in pursuing a more humane method of death, but ultimately he supported killing Servetus and all such heretics.
Institutes of the Christian Religion to be a "holy doctrine which no man might speak against." Disagreeing with Calvin’s view of God was a violation warranting the death penalty according to the way John Calvin interpreted Leviticus 24:16. The Geneva city council records describe one verdict where a man who publicly protested against John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination was flogged at all the city’s main intersections and then expelled (“The Minutes Book of the Geneva City Council, 1541-59,” translated by Stefan Zweig, Erasmus: The Right to Heresy). You did not get to disagree with Calvin in this town.

 

con't:
Bad Bible Interpretation Can Kill People

John Calvin argued:
“Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death, knowingly and willingly incur their guilt. It is not human authority that speaks, it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for His Church.”
Most bad Bible interpretation causes disappointment in an unbiblical god, anxiety about what he demands, or a false sense of security rooted in biased beliefs. But it can kill. John Calvin justified murder with his bad Bible interpretation. It isn't representative of his entire life or his contribution to the Protestant church, but we are wise to learn from a mistake he made.

That’s why I design and teach Hermeneutics courses. I don’t want culture to contort the way I compel people to follow Jesus. I want the Bible to shape my values and not the other way around. If you want to learn how to interpret the Bible more accurately, you can download my Bible Interpretation workbook and start watching this free online video Hermeneutics course.


John Calvin followed Augustine’s biblical justification for burning heretics. Augustine excused extreme measures through his interpretation of Jesus’ Great Banquet parable in Luke 14:16-24. When the master could not fill up his banquet in the parable, he commanded his servants in Luke 14:23 “to compel people to come so that my house will be filled.” Augustine and Calvin believed burning heretics would “compel” more people to enter their house of God. Interpreting “compulsion” as a license to kill without consideration for Jesus’ other teaching to “love your enemies” is a major hermeneutical error. Any part of Jesus’ teaching should be interpreted in light of the whole.