Continuation of Why Y'all Aint Calvinists thread

I think the "why I am not Calvinist" argument included something like this --

Why not be Calvinist? easy - "Calvinism does not survive the test of scripture."
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John 1:11 “He came to His OWN and His OWN received Him NOT”


"God so loved the WORLD that HE gave" John 3:16.

"God is not WILLING that ANY should perish" 2Peter 3.

God knew Judas would fail - and yet he washed his feet.

God knew His own would reject Him - and yet He came to them and yet he weeps over them in places like Matt 23. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.. how I wanted to save your children...but YOU would not"


Matt 23
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.
38“Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!

Hosea 11
:7 So My people are bent on turning from Me.
Though they call them to the One on high,
None at all exalts Him.
8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart is turned over within Me,
All My compassions are kindled.

Ezek 18
30“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct,” declares the Lord GOD. “Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you.
31“Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel?
32“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord GOD. “Therefore, repent and LIVE!"

"He came to HIS OWN and HIS OWN received Him not" John 1:11

2Cor 5
18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the WORLD to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

 

Some would argue "yes" -- because God does not have the power to enable choice for the lost - without first causing them to be born-again saints.

And yet the Bible says otherwise

Rom 10
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

 

IS God the cause of His own lament? Calvinism appears to answer "yes"


Isaiah 5
3 “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge between Me and My vineyard.
4 “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it?
Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?
5 “So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard:
I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed;

John 1:11 “He came to His OWN and His OWN received Him NOT”

God says "what more could I do that I have not done?"

Calvinisms says "oh I know... I know...zaaaapped me to choose of my own free will as He dictated"

Indeed the Calvinist answer to God's question in Isaiah 5 is to make God the author and cause of His own lament.

It is to inform God that He must have "forgotten" to zaaaap.

 

As for the Calvinist answer of constantly circling back to "redefine terms when the bible contradicts Calvinism" , I find it helpful that one contributor to these threads points this out about Calvin himself being reluctant to try out that trick every time Calvinism appears to "need it".

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from #131 Saved-By-Grace, Yesterday at 7:24 PM

Last edited: Yesterday at 7:34 PM



John Calvin himself on John 3:16, who was not a "Calvinist"!

"That whosoever believeth on him may not perish. It is a remarkable commendation of faith, that it frees us from everlasting destruction. For he intended expressly to state that, though we appear to have been born to death, undoubted deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ; and, therefore, that we ought not to fear death, which otherwise hangs over us. And he has employed the universal term whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term World, which he formerly used; for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favor of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled to the whole world, when he invites all men without exception to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life."

Note what this man, who is claimed by those who call themselves "5 Point Calvinists", says about who the Lord Jesus Christ died to save. Also note the terms, "THE WHOLE WORLD" (as we have been discussing for 1 John), and "ALL MEN WITHOUT EXCEPTION", a term that is not Calvinistic in any way.

Also, on Colossians 1:14

"that our sins are not imputed to us. He says that this redemption was procured through the blood of Christ, for by the sacrifice of his death all the sins of the world have been expiated"

Mark 14:24

"Which is shed for many. By the word many he means not a part of the world only, but the whole human race"

 

Because most Calvinists misuse the Scriptures for their purposes, rather than accept what it actually says, even if their are wrong in their beliefs for many years. They like to mock you, or attack your knowledge of Scripture or languages, laugh at mistakes of grammar, some even go around marking serious discussions as "funny", etc, etc. When they are challenged on their theology by their very own, like John Calvin, John Gill, and Matthew Henry, they either dismiss what they say, or just ignore it. They attack the authorities like lexicons and grammars when they disagree with them. And when they don't like what you say, they get you banned for the truth!

Basically, most Calvinists and Reformed are very sad and bitter people, who cannot accept the Bible fact, that "God takes not pleasure in the death of the wicked...and wiling that none of them are lost".

 

I can't speak for these "young men". I was a teenager when Christ saved me and about 40 when I came to understand God's sovereignty in election, but my experience might be similar.

Having read, and read, and read the scriptures, I became more and more unsettled by the teaching (or lack of it) that I was receiving in my (Pelagian - Arminian) church. At that time, I could not put my finger on it, but I knew something was wrong. It wasn't until I came to understand the DoG that I finally came to understand the Bible.

 

Do you consider AlbertMohler to be biblically Illiterate ?

 

Jon, I think you are making a distinction without a difference. How does your comment not apply to specific Synergists and Monergists alike? Individuals in either group can trust in the conclusions of their system of belief without having done the hard work to confirm what they believe through the study of scripture. Biblical laziness is not an indictment of any system of belief, it is an indictment of the individual.

I embraced the doctrines of grace in a similar way as @thatbrian. I made the "mistake" of doing an in-depth study of Romans in the early 1990's. That study tipped a series of dominos that lead me to a more Reformed understanding of scripture. Without the scriptures, I never would have made that change.

 

The reason I am in the habit or using the term Monergist vs. Calvinist is because of the erroneous accusations by some on this board that Calvinism is about following John Calvin. That canard has been thoroughly debunked but they keep using it all the same. Spurgeon considered Calvinism and the doctrines of grace as one-in-the-same, as do I. For that matter I consider Monergism to be nothing less than Calvinism. The Calvinists I know are people of the book, not disciples of a long dead French theologian and pastor.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

N. T. Wright is very much unbiblical on Justification, hence would be a Liberal

 

regardless of what one might "know", it is useless without the aid of the Holy Spirit. But, then too we have to be open to the possibility, that what we have believed in for many years, might be completely wrong. Some cannot do this for reasons known to them.

 

Amen.