"But predestination!" (#12-14: "dead," regeneration, born again)
In this series, I'm examining some things that Calvinists (especially my ex-pastor) say about predestination.
Here's the whole series on my other blog: the pastor's sermons ("When Calvinists say 'But predestination!'"), and my comments 1-4 (election) and 5-6 (Romans and sovereignty) and 7-9 (depravity, Book of Life, predestine) and 10-11 (shaming tactics, Feb. 2015) and 12-14 (dead, regeneration, born again) and 15 (total depravity, manipulation) and 16A (God's Will, babies) and 16B (sin, evil, suffering) and 17 (double-speak and the gospel).
Twelfth:
Three things about his June 26, 2016 sermon on Romans 9:
A. He said "And if [God] just waited to see which sinners would choose Him, no sinful human being - who is a slave to depravity, as we’re told - would choose God. Because we’re dead in sin… Dead sinners can’t pick people. Dead sinners don’t make choices. God elects from eternity past; He has mercy on some sinners and not others."
But once again, "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Romans 11:32). He has mercy on all, but we can reject it.
And an important point: Calvinists totally misunderstand depravity/"dead in sin." Calvinists wrongly - using flawed human logic - equate spiritual death with physically dead bodies. They insist that if physical "death" means you can't do anything on your own, like a dead body that just lays there all dead and helpless, then spiritual death must also mean you can't do anything on your own, not even think or believe or want God. And that's why God has to cause you (well, the "elect" only) to want Him, seek Him, believe in Him. Because you're dead like a dead body.
But they are basing their theology on their own flawed analogy!
Spiritual death does not mean "like a lifeless dead body that can't do anything." That is a bad, wrong, misleading analogy. (And if we were truly dead like a dead body that can't do anything, not even think or choose, then "unregenerated" sinners would not be able to choose to sin or reject Jesus either, which would mean that the non-elect are punished for doing nothing.)
Spiritual death simply means that we are dead in our sins, separated from God, headed to hell. (If they can get you to agree to their bad analogies, then they've got you hooked!)
But guess what?
Our brains still work. Our minds are still alive. And God expects us to use our living brains to want Him, seek Him, and find Him!
Look at Amos 5:4: "Seek me and live ..." Calvinists say that dead people can't seek God and so we have to be brought to life first in order to seek God. But in this verse, God is saying, "Seek Me and then you will live." We have to seek Him to find life, which means that God is telling "dead people" to seek Him. Contrary to Calvinism, "dead people" can seek. And God can expect "dead people" to seek Him because He knows that our brains still work.
And Deuteronomy 30:15,19 says "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction... Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." They are to "choose" life, which means they are currently "dead." And so "dead people" are being told to evaluate the options and choose life. Contrary to Calvinism, "dead people" can see, understand, contemplate, and decide. In Calvinism, we are supposedly brought to life first to enable us to choose Jesus. But in the Bible, we choose first and then are brought to life according to our choice. Calvinism often uses the same concepts but in reverse order, making it easier to trick people who hear the biblical concepts but don't notice the flip.
Contrary to Calvinism, "dead people" can seek. "Dead people" can choose. And God expects us to. Because "dead" doesn't mean "unable." It just means "separated from God." (If you let them convince you that it means "unable," you will become a Calvinist.)
B. "God is sovereign and all-powerful. The Bible shows no backing off from that doctrine.
Right, but, once again, Calvinists misunderstand sovereign and "all-powerful". The Bible doesn't, but Calvinists do. They believe that sovereign, all-powerful, and control are about how God must act as God. And if He doesn't rule the way they think He does - using His sovereign power to preplan/cause/control everything all the time, even sin - then He's not God. But what these words really have to do with are His position of authority, not about how He must behave in that position or about how He must use His power and control. This is a huge, fundamental flaw in Calvinism - deciding how God must act in order to be a sovereign God - which taints the rest of their views and how they read the Bible.
C. "The answer, going back to our question 'So how can God blame us?' is: That’s an accusation, and we don’t have any right to accuse God. God has the right to elect some – which puts His mercy on display, the elect get God’s mercy. And when He hardens someone, His justice is on display. And we don’t have any right to accuse God." [As he said in another sermon: "The elect get mercy. The unelect get justice. Nobody is treated unfairly."]
This is shaming and deflecting from the tough questions. And it's a bad question-and-answer because it assumes the Calvinist perspective from the beginning. And so since their perspective is bad, the question-and-answer is bad, flawed.
Plus, as all Calvinists do, this pastor says that God chose to show off His justice by creating non-elect people who sin so that He can punish them in hell for their sins, thereby showing His wrath and justice against sin, so that He can get glory for it.
But let's not forget that God Himself clearly tells us how He Himself decided to demonstrate His justice: “God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26, emphasis added).
God Himself tells us that He sent Jesus to pay for our sins, in order to demonstrate His justice. And yet Calvinists would have us believe that God created people to be non-elect so that He could punish them in hell to show off His justice and satisfy His wrath.
So who's wrong and who's right? Who are you going to side with?
God doesn't need non-elect people to punish in order to show off His justice - because He demonstrated His justice when He sent Jesus to the cross for our sins. Fully. Completely. "It is finished."
And so if we end up in hell, it's not because we were predestined to go there for God's justice and glory, but it's because we chose to reject the payment Jesus made for our sins. We chose to pay a penalty for our sins ourselves that was already paid in full by Jesus.
Thirteenth:
Similar to the "dead people can't seek" stuff above, all throughout these sermons, the pastor stressed the idea of "regeneration before belief," that the Holy Spirit must bring the elect to life first (regenerate their dead hearts/save them) in order to give them the ability to want/seek God, repent, and believe in Jesus.
October 2014: "God elected, God chose, God drew, God opens your eyes, God saved, and because He did all that, you were able to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and repent."
February 2015: "The Bible's teaching on our human condition especially outside of Christ [is that we are] hopelessly blinded and in slavery to sin unless God graciously opens human sinful eyes and summons them to Himself as Lord... That's the gospel: That there is a God who seeks hardened sinners, pursues them, turns them around, drags them to Himself, blesses them, pardons them, and justifies them." [Notice that there's no mention of Jesus in that gospel, of His death or resurrection, or of our need to believe in Him. This "gospel" is just Calvinist election. Good news for only a few people.]
June 2015: "The Bible says...we are born enemies of God and that we are in rebellion against God. You are in rebellion against God from the moment of conception. We inherit Adam and Eve's sin. We inherit their depravity. We inherit their fallen nature. We don't have a free will. Lots of people ask, 'What about our free will?' We don't have a free will. We have a fallen will. We are dead and unresponsive in sin unless the Holy Spirit wakes somebody up..."
January 2016 sermon: “We can’t seek God. We won’t seek God. We are God-haters. And unless God chooses to seek us and open blinded eyes, we are helpless and hopeless as slaves to sin… Not only are we unwilling to come to God, the sinner is unable to come to God unless God first seeks them."
February 2016: “Because our human nature is corrupted by sin, because our depravity has permeated us to the core, unbelievers cannot grasp God's truth clearly. It is only the Holy Spirit who can give a person the ability to go 'I believe that. That's me. That is who I am.' Or 'That is who Christ is and that is the gospel.'... According to Tim Keller in Romans for You: 'This means that anyone who is truly seeking God has been sought by God. We decided to put our faith in Him only because He had decided to give us faith.'
June 2016: "So why do some respond? It’s because God chose them and He summons them and awakens them to the gospel…"
Christmas 2016: “No one seeks God. There is nobody who seeks God. The only person who will repent and believe is the one God has sought out Himself.”
September 10, 2017: "And the evidence that someone is believing is evidence that they have already been converted. So once again, this new birth precedes the ability to have saving faith. It has to, because until a person's eyes are opened, until the chains have fallen off, I can't even see the glory of God. I can't even see my need without God opening my eyes first."
January 14, 2018: "Once someone has a grace-encounter with the Holy Spirit, they still have to choose to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ... So you still have to make that choice, but the key is that you can't make that choice unless God wakes you up. That's why theologians will talk about, really, regeneration precedes saving faith - because you can't believe until God wakes you up. But there still is that role, you still have to make that saving choice."
April 2024: "The Father must enable someone to come to Christ... What is the doctrine [of election]? Well, here's the biblical doctrine: It is the Bible's teaching that unless God chooses to override - that's key - our sin, our resistance, our wickedness, our rebellion - that we are unable to see, savor, and treasure Christ as Savior."
Calvinists believe that people are "totally unable" to want/seek God (because of their wrong definition of "total depravity") and so the Holy Spirit has to first regenerate them, making them spiritually alive (born again) to give them the desire to believe in Jesus.
In Calvinism, being saved and born-again come first. They come before - and lead to - believing in Jesus.
Here are some more examples of Calvinists saying that regeneration comes before faith, before believing in Jesus (these quotes were found in the Redeeming God post "Calvinists believe that regeneration precedes faith"):
Edwin Palmer (The Five Points of Calvinism, pg 18-19): "Then, once he is born again, he can for the first time turn to Jesus, expressing sorrow for his sins and asking Jesus to save him."
Boice and Ryken (The Doctrines of Grace, pg 74): "Like a spiritual corpse, he is unable to make a single move toward God, think a right thought about God, or even respond to God – unless God first brings this spiritually dead corpse to life."
John Piper (Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of God's Grace, pg 35): "He cannot make himself new, or create new life in himself. He must be born of God. Then, with the new nature of God, he sees Christ for who he really is, and freely receives Christ for all that he is."
R.C. Sproul (Chosen by God, pg 10,72): "The Reformed view … teaches that before a person can choose Christ … he must be born again … one does not first believe and then become reborn. … A cardinal doctrine of Reformed theology is the maxim, 'Regeneration precedes faith'.”
Arthur Pink (The Sovereignty of God): "A man is not regenerated because he has first believed in Christ, but he believes in Christ because has been regenerated."
John MacArthur (Faith Works, pg 62): "… Regeneration logically must initiate faith."
Tom Wells (Faith: The Gift of God, pg 58): "A man must be born again in order to exercise faith."
R.C. Sproul (Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will, pg 23): "The Reformers taught not only that regeneration does precede faith but also that it must precede faith. Because of the moral bondage of the unregenerate sinner, he cannot have faith until he is changed internally by the operative, monergistic work of the Holy Spirit. Faith is regeneration’s fruit, not its cause."
R.C. Sproul ("Regeneration Precedes Faith"): "After a person is regenerated, that person cooperates by exercising faith and trust. But the first step is the work of God and of God alone. The reason we do not cooperate with regenerating grace before it acts upon us and in us is because we can- not. We cannot because we are spiritually dead... Again, dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith."
And read these sections from a Heidelberg Theological Seminary article called "The Doctrine of Limited Atonement..." (quoting Rev. Paul Trieck's book Faith of our Fathers, Living Still: Study of the Five Points of Calvinism): "If it is true that God only intends to save his chosen people and if Christ only died for them, then how can we bring the message of the gospel to all men?... Can we sincerely preach the gospel to all men, knowing that many of those who hear it throughout the world will never believe it?
It is inaccurate to say that we 'offer' salvation to all men. The preaching of the gospel is not an offer, but a 'command' to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. The non-elect person will never have ears to hear this and obey. Yet, the call of the gospel must be sincerely given, allowing God to gather his people by the power of His Holy Spirit.
... While the messenger of Christ may never say to all men indiscriminately, 'Smile, God loves you' or 'Christ died for you,' yet he must say that Christ died for the sins of His people and all men are commanded to repent and believe in Jesus Christ... It is precisely through this preaching of the gospel that God has determined to save His elect for whom Christ died.... God will also use the preaching of the gospel to condemn those who reject it and continue in their unbelief.
The success of preaching is guaranteed, for none of the sheep will be lost... Those who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd...will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, recognize His voice and will follow Jesus because they are His sheep. Others do not hear the voice of Jesus and will not believe, because they are not His sheep whom He died for.
The preacher does not have to rely (indeed, it would be wrong to) on his own cunningness, slick words, emotional appeal, or entertainment in order to get a response of faith from the sinner... The only method which the Bible outlines for doing mission work is to go to all men and preach the gospel. God will apply the message to the hearts of His elect through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
... The decree of election determines for whom Christ would lay down his life. This decree is a sacred decree. We as mere men do not know whom God has chosen, but only that those chosen will be repent, believe, and be saved. Therefore, we can be assured of success in missions. Success is not determined by how many become Christians, but it is a matter of faithfulness in bringing the true gospel of salvation to the ends of the earth.
... Unfortunately, in a mistaken attempt to bring all men into the Church, men have forsaken true doctrine in order to give greater appeal to the sound of the gospel. It may sound like a nice way to approach all men and say “Christ died for you, now you must choose Him,” but it is not true, and does grave injustice to the intent of Christ on the cross.
... When we say that we 'freely proclaim' the gospel we must not think that all men are equally capable of receiving it in faith. The unregenerate man is not 'free' to believe – not until and unless the Holy Spirit has brought new life and freedom into his heart. No man can do this himself. Only the sheep will listen, and that will be only because the Holy Spirit works faith in their hearts.
It should be remembered the purpose of preaching the gospel is two-fold. It is a message of salvation to all who believe, and a message of condemnation to all who reject it. But all men need to hear it..."
[I hate this stuff. I really, really hate it!]
Recently (May 26, 2024), our pastor gave a whole sermon about regeneration before belief. He turned the account of the man born blind (John 9) into a whole sermon on Calvinism's election, total inability, and, ultimately, salvation before belief.
He taught that the man couldn't open his own physically-blind eyes and so Jesus had to do it - and that this means that unbelievers can't open their own spiritually-blind eyes and so God has to do it. God has to open the eyes of unbelievers (select unbelievers, of course) to cause them to seek Him and believe in Him.
[But this passage is simply about Jesus healing a blind man to show God's power and glory. I don't think it was ever meant to be a metaphor for spiritual blindness. But that's what the pastor turned it into. Jesus uses the healing later to make a spiritual point, John 9:39, but the healing itself was not meant to be a demonstration of the Calvinist idea that God causes people to believe. But if you let Calvinists convince you that this is an example of "total inability," you're on your way to becoming a Calvinist.]
The pastor then said that the Bible constantly teaches that God hardens and blinds people, such as when God hardened Pharoah's heart. He said "Some people think that Pharaoh hardened his own heart first. But that's not true, according to the chronology." [Umm, yes, it is true. See #88 in this post for why I think that.]
He said that Exodus 4 says that God hardened Pharoah's heart first. But that's simply not true. In Exodus 4, God is telling Moses that He will harden (future tense) Pharoah's heart, which He does do later after Pharoah hardens His own heart first. He's letting Moses know how it will end.
And then the pastor referred to Isaiah 6 about God making the hearts of the people calloused, using it to support His idea that God (arbitrarily) chooses whom to harden. But the pastor is ignoring the context of Isaiah 6. It's not about God picking random people to harden or about not giving them a chance to believe. It's about God choosing to harden those who willfully, consistently resisted Him despite His loving care of them and patient calling to them, as seen in Isaiah 5.
Just like with Pharoah, the hardening was a punishment for rejecting Him. "What more could I have done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard...", Isaiah 5:4-5.
The pastor then referred to the New Testament's reference to Isaiah 6 (John 12:39-40), saying that the New Testament writers use it to teach the idea that God picks whom to blind and harden. But once again, if you read it in context, you'll see that John 12:37 explains the reason for the hardening: "Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him."
Verse 37's "they would not believe" resulted in verse 39's "they could not believe." Hardening is (according to the definition in the concordance) a punishment for first choosing to resist/reject God. It's God giving people what they wanted, what they chose: a hard heart. Permanently.
(John 12:42 also says that "Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him." So first it says "they would not believe" which resulted in "they could not believe"... and yet many did believe. "Total inability" and "God hardens people without any prior decision from them, preventing them from having the chance or ability to believe in Him" are simply not true.)
And then the pastor connects it all to Ephesians 2 and the idea of being "dead in sin," enslaved to sin - and he clearly defined "dead in sin" incorrectly, teaching that it means unbelievers are unable to believe in God because of sin, which is why God has to cause us to believe in Him. (But on the contrary, biblically, "dead in sin" really just means that we are separated from God because of sin and that we can't close the gap ourselves, which is why Jesus had to die for us to pay the penalty for our sin, to close the gap for us.):
"The context of Ephesians 2 - in fact, the whole New Testament - is that of enslavement [to sin]. Jesus said the same thing, that he who sins is a slave to sin, meaning that the unsaved, the unregenerate, cannot see spiritual truth, they have no appetite for the things of God, they hate God's authority - that's our natural state - and they are unwilling and unable to commit to God... And the only hope - hear this, because that's what this miracle [of the blind man] is about and what this message is about - the only hope is if God in His mercy, just like Jesus with this [blind] guy, chooses to open blinded eyes, just like Jesus did in this miracle... Exodus 33:19: 'The Lord God says, 'I have mercy on those I've chosen to have mercy on, and I will have compassion on those on whom I choose to have compassion.' That is the gospel. [Really!?! That is the gospel!?! Calvinism's election/predestination is the gospel!?! Silly me, I thought the gospel was "For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son (to die on the cross for our sins and then rise again), that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."]... We thank God when He opens blinded eyes... And the unmistakable sign that God has opened someone's blinded eyes and they have come to saving faith is that they're desperate for a Savior and that they understand their desperate condition. That is the unmistakable sign that they've been saved or are in the process of being saved."
[Note: Exodus 33:19 in context is about God choosing to bless Moses by showing him His glory. There is nothing in there about it being about salvation or predestination of people's eternal destinies.
Always remember: Calvinism and context cannot coexist.
And a small thing, but a Calvinist twist nonetheless: Notice in the various translations of Exodus 33:19, none of the translations but two (New Living and Good News) contain the word "chosen/choose" as the pastor translates it ('I have mercy on those I've chosen to have mercy on, and I will have compassion on those on whom I choose to have compassion.').
I know it's a small thing, but the word "chosen/choose" - as in "God chooses" - is such a Calvinist concept (used to support the idea of God choosing who gets saved) that to add it into a verse that isn't in most translations seems to me like a deliberate attempt to make it sound more Calvinist. The more that Calvinists can shove in words like "chosen, sovereign, predestined, ordained, decreed, etc.," the more Calvinistic they can make it all seem and the more believable they sound.]
And then after preaching a whole sermon about how it's up to God if we believe or not and that we can only believe after our eyes are opened by God (after we've been saved by God), the pastor goes on to plead with unbelievers, telling them that the only way to get to heaven is to repent and believe and that "if God is opening your eyes, respond to Him in saving faith."
So essentially, it's "If God has saved you, respond to Him in saving faith."
It's nonsense. He ends by making it sound like unbelievers can do something about whether or not they believe and are saved... after giving a whole sermon about how they cannot believe unless and until God has already saved them and opens their eyes. Contradictory nonsense. What the heck does "respond to Him in saving faith" mean if He had to inject faith into you in the first place so that you could respond to Him? Ridiculous!
Error upon error. Out-of-context verse upon out-of-context verse. Bad inference upon bad inference. Nonsense upon nonsense. All to teach Calvinism's "total inability" and "election/predestination" through a Bible story that isn't even about that at all.
But that is the way of Calvinism, hooking you with one incorrect idea and then leading through a series of other incorrect ideas until you are a Calvinist too. And because we hear a bunch of Bible references - which we don't double-check or research - we are duped into thinking Calvinism has overwhelming, consistent biblical support. And we reluctantly or passively slide into it, letting the pastor do our thinking for us.
(And just for fun, I think John 9:34, in a nutshell, shows Calvinism's modus operandi for handling the opposition: "To this [the Pharisees] replied, ' You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!' And they threw him out." Ha ha, that's so Calvinist!)
According to Calvinism, faith in Jesus (belief in Jesus) does not save and cannot save, but it is the result of already having been saved. The elect are saved first (in eternity past) and then God causes them to be born-again by giving them the Holy Spirit who regenerates them, and this causes them to understand the gospel, respond to the gospel, repent of their sins, and then to believe in Jesus.
Repentance and belief in Jesus come last.
As the pastor said in February 2024 "the unmistakable sign that someone has been born again is that they have the ability to repent and believe the gospel."
In May 2024: "the unmistakable sign that [someone has] come to saving faith is that they're desperate for a Savior and that they understand their desperate condition. That is the unmistakable sign that they've been saved..."
As Calvinist Loraine Boettner says in his The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination puts it: "A man is not saved because he believes in Christ; he believes in Christ because he is saved."
Or as our pastor worded it in June 2024: "We're not His sheep because we follow Him; we follow Him because we are already His sheep."
So despite the fact that Calvinists claim that "salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone," what they're really teaching is that faith (belief in Jesus) is by salvation alone, that being saved comes before and results in belief in Jesus.
In Calvinism, neither belief in Jesus or the gospel can save anyone. Only election saves. The elect are saved and born again before they can believe in Jesus or the gospel - which, think this through, technically means that they are saved without, apart from, the gospel and faith in Jesus.
Therefore, in Calvinism, the gospel and faith in Jesus are superfluous, inconsequential, ineffective - because they come last and do not affect whether someone is saved or not. The elect are saved before the gospel, and the non-elect can never respond to the gospel.
And so, then, what good is the gospel in Calvinism really? What does belief in the gospel, in Jesus, actually do?
Nothing. They're superfluous, the result of already being saved and born again.
But what does the Bible say?
John 20:31: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
When we believe the gospel, we are saved. Not the other way around.
Calvinism uses the same biblical concepts, but it completely, boldly, blatantly reverses the biblical order of things. Calvinists say that "dead people" must be brought to life first in order to believe, but the Bible says that "dead people" must believe first and then they will be brought to life. Calvinists say that salvation and regeneration lead to belief, but the Bible says that belief leads to salvation and regeneration. Calvinists say that we get the Holy Spirit first to make us repent and believe, but the Bible says that we get the Holy Spirit when we repent and believe. Calvinists say that responding to the gospel is the result of being born again, but the Bible says that when we respond to the gospel then we are born-again.
Calvinism: Same concepts, twisted order, deceiving many. A Satanic specialty.
And if that verse wasn't clear enough, notice the biblical order of things in these verses too:
John 3:16,36: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.... Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life...”
Acts 16:31: “… Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved …”
Romans 10:9: “… 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.”
John 5:24: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”
John 1:12: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
Acts 2:38: "Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized ... And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
Acts 11:18: “… So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto [that leads to] life.” (God gave the offer of salvation, the ability to repent, even to the Gentiles, not just the Jews. And notice that repentance leads to life, to being born-again, contradicting the Calvinist idea that being born again and brought to life leads to repentance.)
John 7:39: "By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive." (Calvinism: First get the Holy Spirit, then believe. The Bible: First believe, then get the Holy Spirit.)
Ephesians 1:13: "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit." (Same here. And Calvinism says that the elect are saved - included in Christ - before the beginning of time and that it leads to their belief. But the Bible says that belief leads to being saved, to being included in Christ. Reversed order.)
How much clearer could God have been?
And I don't even have to tell you how to read these verses (nor am I trying to convince you that there's some deeper, hidden, contradictory meaning to them, as Calvinists do with Scripture so that you buy into their reinterpretations and presuppositions). I am simply telling you to read them for yourselves, as they are written, to see what they plainly and clearly teach.
Calvinism: Salvation leads to belief.
In the last sermon I heard from our pastor, the "Jesus and His sheep" one (June 2, 2024), he taught that God chooses who His sheep are before we are ever born, that we can't decide to be one His sheep because it's not up to us, because we are so spiritually dead and depraved that we can't choose Him on our own. (And obviously thinking he was being cute and clever, he taught that it was meant to be an insult when Jesus referred to us as "sheep," because sheep are stupid, stubborn, aimless, easily spooked, lazy, smelly, etc.) He used John 6:37 ("All that the Father gives me will come to me...") to support his idea that God decides who will believe.
"Those given to [Jesus] by the Father before the foundation of the world will hear His voice and they will come and they will follow Him. (Read Revelation 13:8 in the KING JAMES VERSION to see what was from the foundation of the world. And here's a question: If we were supposedly already saved before the foundation of the world, why did Jesus have to die, thousands of years after we were technically saved?)... The point is that they don't become His sheep because they follow Him. They follow Him because they're already His sheep... The Shepherd takes the initiative... All credit, all glory, goes to the Shepherd. He seeks out His sheep who already belong to Him... We tend to make the sinner the focus of salvation. But according to the Bible, the glory doesn't belong to the sinner but to the Savior. [Notice the manipulation, how he makes it sound like you steal Jesus's glory if you believe people can choose to believe in Him.] He is the one who initiates and He is the one who chooses.
... Romans 9 says that God has mercy on whom He wants to and God has compassion on whom He wants to. That's exactly what Jesus is saying here when He says the Father has given Him certain sheep. [No, Romans 9 is not about God choosing who gets saved; it's about God extending the gospel and the offer of salvation to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it.]... It's called the doctrine of election, the doctrine of predestination, [which is] the Bible's teaching that unless God chooses to override our sin and wickedness and rebellion, we are unable to follow Jesus.
[At this point, he goes into how terrible we are and how hopeless our condition is.]... Once we're reminded, friends, of our wickedness from the Bible, and our depravity, and our corruption, and our sheer propensity to evil, and how prone we are to selfishness, self-deception, dishonesty, pride, bitterness, anger, lust, laziness, envy, the real question is not 'Why doesn't God elect everybody?'... What's the real question? It's 'Why does God, in His infinite love and mercy, elect anybody?' [Funny - because, in Calvinism, His love and mercy is not so infinite. It's really quite tiny and limited.]
As we said, election doesn't keep anybody out of heaven [Bullcrap.]. Election makes sure there will be people in heaven. Jesus gathers His sheep. It's a beautiful metaphor." [No, it's not so beautiful after telling us how "sheep" is meant to be an insult, a commentary on how stupid we are.]
He went on to emphasize that Jesus died for His sheep, only His sheep, meaning only the elect. And he ends by saying that we have to make sure we are one of His sheep. But this is completely pointless after a whole sermon about how we cannot decide to be one of His sheep. What a waste of time and breath Calvinist sermons are. (This pastor - and the elders who sought him out and hired him - has ruined our previously wonderful church! Heartbreaking!)
Another Calvinist sermon about predestination. The same things and same out-of-context verses he's preached over and over again for years. (My 21-year-old son said that it would be fun to make "predestination" Bingo cards to pass out, filled with all the points and phrases the pastor repeatedly uses. Because it's the same sermon over and over again.)
But interestingly, there's a verse right in the middle of the "sheep" passage he quoted (John 10:1-21) that explains it all, a verse he conveniently didn't bother to cover: "I am the gate, whoever enters through Me will be saved." (John 10:9)
To become one of Jesus's sheep, we must enter through Him, by faith in Him. And all who believe in Him - and anyone can - are given to Him.
John 1:12: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
And if the pastor would've just read 3 verses past the John 6:37 verse he quoted, he'd see John 6:40: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
It's that simple.
We believe first, and then we are saved. (And read John 10:1-21 for yourselves to see if you think Jesus meant "sheep" as an insult, a commentary on how stupid He thinks we are. You don't think so? Then why would this pastor emphasize how "sheep" is meant to be an insult? How badly this reflects on God's heart towards people!)
Even the Old Testament confirms the way it's always been, Deuteronomy 18:31: "Rid yourselves of all offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and new spirit." In Calvinism, God has to give you a new heart first to cause you to repent. But biblically, we repent (turn to God) first, and then we get a new heart.
As Isaiah 57:15 says, God will "revive the heart of the contrite." If we choose to be contrite, to repent, God will revive our hearts. Whereas in Calvinism, God must first revive our hearts to cause us to be contrite.
Scripture plainly, clearly, and repeatedly says the same thing: that repentance and believing in Jesus come first and that it leads to spiritual life/being saved/getting the Holy Spirit/being born-again/being regenerated. Not the other way around, as Calvinists believe.
Calvinism uses the same concepts but flips the order, making faith in Jesus and the gospel inconsequential. A footnote.
And who do you think it is that's behind a theology like that - a theology that makes the gospel and faith in Jesus inconsequential, that tricks "dead people" into thinking they have to stay dead unless and until God brings them to life first, that turns God into someone who speaks deceptively and confusingly and who doesn't really mean what He says or say what He means, and that - despite the fact that God says we must believe in Jesus to be saved - makes us think that we cannot choose to believe in Jesus to be saved because God's already decided for us?
Who do you think it is that's behind all this?
Fourteenth:
Another example of this is his February 2024 sermon on being born again (see if you can catch his fundamental errors):
In a February 2024 sermon about being born again, he said: "If anybody is going to end up in the kingdom of God, a person must experience new birth. [Jesus] is stating a fact, not giving a command... It may surprise you. There is no command to be born again in the Bible. In fact, there is no explanation how to be born again in the Bible... because it's not up to us. It is a supernatural miracle and work of God that He gives to some... The new birth is a sovereign work of God. It is not something we choose to do for ourselves.
... What must occur for us to enter the kingdom of God is, in fact, something we are unable to do ourselves... The verb 'to be born' is passive in the Greek. It means we don't play any role in the new birth. It's why there is no command given, no explanation how to do this. Jesus is just declaring a fact. And just like we had nothing to do with our physical birth - I mean think about it, how much did you have to do with being born again? how much choice did you have in the whole process of physical birth? - the point is that it's the same with spiritual birth.
... So once again, the reason we have no role in the new birth is [because] we are born, the Bible says, steeped in sin, slaves to sin, spiritually dead, enemies of God, unable to seek God - which means we can't pray enough to get into heaven, or attend church enough, or do enough good things, or give enough money, or keep enough rules, to override the darkness and depravity of the human heart.
The only way to get to heaven, says Jesus and the apostles, is if God chooses to give someone new life... It is a sovereign gift of God given to some. And like the wind from our perspective, God's Spirit blows where He chooses. And the unmistakable sign that someone has been born again is that they have the ability to repent and believe the gospel."
Yes, this could sound quite convincing, right, especially if you don't notice the reversed order of belief and regeneration or the fact that "unable to seek God" is not biblical? In fact, when I first listened to this, I even found myself going, "Wait, much of this seems to make sense. How is that possible?" But once I realized what his fundamental errors were, I could see why/how it was wrong, and it all fell apart. (But those who don't know what to listen for or what Calvinists really believe will be much more easily manipulated into Calvinism.)
He's making it sound like since we can't make ourselves born-again (and we can't - it's a work of the Spirit), then we can't do anything to effect whether or not we are born-again. But this is wrong.
As we saw in the verses above, our job is to believe, and whether or not we choose to believe will determine if we are saved or not. Belief is the one work God gave us to do to be born-again: "Then they asked him, 'What must we do to do the works God requires?' Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent [Jesus].'" John 6:28-29. And then in response to our belief, the Holy Spirit will enter our hearts, regenerate us, and make us born-again.
But the pastor constantly emphasizes that we can't make ourselves born again because it's the Spirit's job (which is true), making people think that it means we can't make ourselves believe either, that "belief" is the Spirit's job too (which is false). (And notice in the last sentence that he clearly says that belief comes after being born-again, after getting the Holy Spirit - a complete and shameless reversal of what the Bible says in the verses above.)
But sadly, many people will be convinced by a sermon like this because they won't realize that he's conflating belief and being born-again (treating them like they are essentially the same thing) or that he reversed the order of belief and being born again. A sermon like this will convince people that since we can't make ourselves born-again, then we also can't believe, that God has to make us believe.
But this is totally wrong! (And I would add "demonic" - an attack on God's truth, the gospel, Jesus's sacrifice, and, ultimately, God's character.)
Biblically, we believe first, and then the Holy Spirit makes us born again. The Holy Spirit regenerates believers, turning those who believe into new creations. He does not, as Calvinist say, regenerate sinners, turning some sinners into believers.
Another error/deception in this sermon is that he lists a bunch of things that can't save us (tithing, praying, doing good things, etc.), but none of them are the one thing the Bible did say that we have to do to be saved, the one thing that does lead to being born-again: believe. But by emphasizing all these things we can't do to be saved (which are true) will make us automatically think that we also can't choose to "believe" (which is false).
When he says that salvation is all the work of the Spirit and that we can't do anything to affect it (listing off a bunch of actions that can't save), we will unconsciously lump "belief" in there, becoming convinced that "belief" must also be a "work" that we have no control over and cannot do to be saved, that it's something the Holy Spirit controls, just like being born-again.
And more people will become Calvinists.
(Question: If the Bible says that "belief" is the one work we must do to be saved, but Calvinists say it's something we can't do to be saved, can anyone really be saved under honest Calvinist preaching?)
But the thing is, the Bible doesn't put believing in the same category as the other kinds of "works" people do to try to earn heaven (praying, tithing, being good, etc.). But Calvinists do, convincing us that since we can't work our way to heaven then we can't choose to believe either.
But notice in this verse how differently God sees "belief" and "works":
'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to a man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:" (Romans 4:3-6)
Do you see how "believing in/trusting God" is not considered a "working to earn salvation" kind of works? God is contrasting Abraham's belief/trust with those who "work" for their justification and righteousness. God is saying that believing (trusting God) is different than the other kinds of "works" people do to try to earn their way with Him.
But if you let Calvinists convince you that belief is a work we can't do (like the other works of praying, tithing, being good, etc.) and that it's something the Holy Spirit controls, you will become a Calvinist. If you let them convince you that being born again (getting the Holy Spirit) comes before belief, you will become a Calvinist. If you let them convince you that since it's the Holy Spirit's job to make us (believers) born again then it's also the Holy Spirit's job to make sinners believe, you will become a Calvinist.
The tricks and traps and manipulations and bad biblical interpretation of Calvinism are everywhere. And so you must be a good Berean, researching what they preach, comparing it all to the plain, commonsense understanding of Scripture... or else you will become a Calvinist. They are that convincing, that subtly deceptive. (Not that they intend to be manipulative and deceptive, they just are. It's just the nature of Calvinism and who's behind it.)
We've seen it happen. We watched it take over our church, a whole congregation of good, godly, well-meaning, humble Christians. It was like watching a ship go down as the people partied on deck. Almost no one else seemed bothered or alarmed by what the pastor was preaching. They happily and willingly ate up what he spoon-fed them - because that's what "good, intelligent, humble, God-honoring" Christians do, right? Only "bad, stupid, unhumble, God-dishonoring, man-worshipping" Christians spit it out.
[Once again, see "The 9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult," if you haven't already.]
