Eternal Security On What Basis?

I went through his doctrine with him for three and a half years. He believed the TULIP doctrines through and through. That is what I call a calvinist. I do not say this flippantly as I loved him dearly and he was one of the humblest and noblest men I have ever known. Yet, he considered witnessing to the lost as an act of disbelief in the sovereign will of God. He chastized me many times for it. I witnessed the sorrow of parents who saw a beloved son sinking down and would not cast out a life line due to the casting being completely and totally God's work. Then he died lost.
This was reprehensible, and unscriptural.

 

Affirming TULIP is not all it takes to be Calvinist. A Calvinist believes in witnessing, because a Calvinists believes that the message of the gospel is a necessary means by which God saves his elect. Primitive Baptists understand this difference between what they believe and what Calvinists believe, and that's why they won't call themselves Calvinists, even though they affirm TULIP.

Your friend was a hypercalvinist, which is not a form of Calvinism, but something Calvinists (and most of the rest of orthodox Christianity) consider heretical. And I don't say this to be mean. It makes me just as sad as it does you. And you are exactly right. It is reprehensible and unscriptural.

This, by the way, is exactly the same sort of belief system that Spurgeon (one of the TRUE Calvinists) stood against in his fight against the hypercalvinists. There aren't that many of them left, and I really don't know of any Baptist hypercalvinists except for some Primitive Baptists.

If you are interested in knowing more, here is an article by Phil Johnson explaining hypercalvinism, and how it is different from Calvinism.