UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION/ REPROBATION SCRIPTURALLY REFUTED
MostCalvinists will admit that there are a number of passages in the New Testament that seem to pose a problem for their view of unconditional election and/or reprobation. Sometimes these passages are referred to as the pillars of Arminianism. My contention is that these two, as well as similar passages, are pillars of the truth regarding salvation. If that agrees with the Arminian view (or, in fact, any other non-Calvinist view), so be it.
One of these passages is found in Paul’s first pastoral letter to Timothy. Paul tells us:
God ... desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3-4) With this verse in mind, Spurgeon says that:
It is quite certain that when we read that God will have all men to be saved it does not mean that he wills it with the force of a decree or a divine purpose, for, if he did, then all men would be saved.173 No non-Calvinist Evangelical that I know believes that God’s desire here is the same as a decree. That is, all non-Calvinist Evangelicals would agree with Spurgeon in saying that what God wants in this sense is not what He will get. And no Evangelical would argue that God determined that all would be saved. Had He done so, we would all agree that everyone would eventually and inevitably be saved. If, however, God decrees the damnation of the reprobate, in the Calvinist sense, then there is a conflict between what God desires and what He decrees. In a futile and convoluted attempt to resolve the conflict between what God desires and the Calvinist view of unconditional election, MacArthur reasons: The Gr. word for “desires” is not that which normally expresses God’s will of decree (His eternal purpose), but God’s will of desire.
There is a distinction between God’s desire and His eternal saving purpose. . Ultimately, God’s choices are determined by His sovereign, eternal purpose, not His desires.174
It is true that there are many things that do not happen that God desires to happen, or that do happen that God desires not to happen. For example, God desires that Christians always tell the truth. Yet few, if any, always tell the truth, no matter how honest they typically may be. So, unless you argue that Christians always do what God desires them to do, you must agree that God does not always get what He desires.
MacArthur, however, seems to be confused about this desire/decree dilemma. Suppose we get to heaven and find out that although we were told that God did not desire us to lie, He actually decreed that we should and would lie. That is, what if we found out that the primary reason we lied when we lied is that God determined this is what we would do? First and foremost, He decrees that we will lie, and then as a consequence to that decree, we actually do lie. God could allow or permit us to lie without being responsible for our lies. God could not make us lie, however, by way of a Calvinist kind of decree, without being responsible for our lie. This is the kind of problem MacArthur faces with his desire/decree explanation. It is not as though God cannot desire one thing and then permit another. He can and does. He cannot, however, desire one thing and then decree, in the Calvinist/MacArthur sense, another thing, without being morally responsible for whatever comes to pass in correspondence to that decree.
God is and must be responsible for what we do; and He must be responsible for what He does not desire us to do—if indeed His decree is what makes us do what He does not desire us to do. God can and does decree that a man may be able to lie. God can and does permit the telling of lies. In the Calvinist sense, however, the decree of something to be is the primary and responsible cause of that which is to be. While Calvinists are not required to agree with Calvin on every minutiae of doctrine, it is still instructive to see how Calvin interpreted the word desire in 1 Timothy 2:4. Calvin said that the desire of this text is God’s decree. Thus Calvin asked:
What is more reasonable than that all our prayers should be in conformity with this decree of God?175
If this were all that Calvin said on this matter it would mean that MacArthur cannot be right in contrasting God’s desire with His decree and at the same time be in agreement with Calvin. It is not, however, the entirety of what Calvin said on this matter. John Piper goes to great lengths to get God off the moral hook that Calvin and Calvinists have put Him on by arguing that there is no necessary conflict in a desired versus a decreed will of God in the Calvinism scheme. This is why he says:
... unconditional election ... does not contradict biblical expressions of God’s compassion for all people, and does not nullify sincere offers of salvation to everyone who is lost among all the peoples of the world.176 The only way this can be true is if we do to Piper’s words what Calvinism does with Scripture. That is, the words all people must refer to all kinds of people. The sincere offer must only be to everyone who is among the elect and still lost. If we assume that what God desires in this text is not what God decrees, the argument has no merit. For if the decreed will of God is the primary reason that the desired will of God is unfulfilled, then God has not decreed in accordance with what He desires, but He has decreed contrary to what He desires.
Remember that, according to MacArthur and Piper, God desires that all men be saved and decrees that some men be damned. According to Calvinism, however, the desire of God only comes to pass when God decrees that it will. Of course, the same is true of everything else, according to a consistent Calvinism. That is, if it happens, it is because God decreed it to be so. God, according to Calvinism, decrees what He decrees always and only because it pleases Him to do so. Are we to believe that God is pleased to do what He decrees but is not pleased to do what He desires? Someone help me please! As we have already read, however, in Calvinism damnation is just as much determined by what pleases the Lord as is salvation. That is, according to Calvin and Calvinism, insofar as we know, those ultimately damned are damned for the same revealed reason those ultimately saved are saved—it pleases God. The Calvinist can reasonably argue that God permits what He would rather not have happen without being inconsistent or unscriptural. The Calvinist cannot, however, reasonably argue that something turns out a certain way because this is what pleases God or because He has decreed it, and then turn around and say that God really desires something else. By pitting what God desires against what pleases God, Calvinists have created an even more serious logical and scriptural problem. The hypo Calvinist cannot embrace an unconditional love that is universal and an unconditional election, which is anything but universal. The hypo-Calvinist wants what a consistent and seemingly less compassionate Calvinism will not let him have. John Piper may be responsible for one the strangest attempts made by a Calvinist to rescue Calvinism from the hopeless contradiction that Reformed Theology has created. Piper says:
I affirm with John 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2:4 that God loves the world with a deep compassion that desires the salvation of all men. Yet I also affirm that God has chosen from before the foundation of the world whom he will save from sin. Since not all people are saved we must choose whether we believe (with Arminians) that God’s will to save all people is restrained by his commitment to human self determination or whether we believe (with Calvinists) that God’s will to save all people is restrained by his commitment to the glorification of his sovereign grace.177
Note that this “deep compassion” to which Piper refers is that God “desires that all men be saved.” In these words Piper thereby affirms what MacArthur denies, namely that God also loves the reprobate with a saving love. Nevertheless, immediately after pitting God’s will to save all men against His will to glorify His sovereign grace, Piper goes on to say:
God’s will for all people to be saved is not at odds with the sovereignty of God’s grace in election. That is, my answer to the question about what restrains God’s will to save all people is his supreme commitment to uphold and display the full range of his glory through the sovereign demonstration of his wrath and mercy for the enjoyment of his elect and believing people from every tribe and tongue and nation.178
“Restrains God’s will”? What Piper says is that God has a supreme will that will result in the glorification of His sovereign grace and which is to display the full range of God’s glory through the sovereign demonstration of His wrath and mercy, etc. Accordingly, God also has a less than supreme will, which is to save all men. According to Piper, God cannot have it both ways. God therefore chooses to fulfill His supreme will rather than His less than supreme will. Remember that Piper set out to rescue Calvinism from the charge that it says God’s sovereign will is at odds with His saving will. His supposed solution continues to put at odds the two wills of God—he simply invents a “supreme” will and “less than supreme” will. Piper has not refuted the charges against Calvinism; he has affirmed and added to them.
It is incredible to think that Piper can believe he has somehow helped the Calvinist case. Perhaps he could use the favorite Calvinist “synonym” for contradiction—mystery. And Piper makes it so easy to choose! You can choose to agree with those Arminians who are so man-centered or with the Calvinists who are so God-centered. Referring to what Piper calls the “Arminian pillar texts,” he reasons that they: may indeed be pillars for universal love, nevertheless they are not weapons against electing grace.179
Unlike MacArthur, who believes God loves everyone, just not with a saving love, Piper sees the love that God has for everyone as a saving love. Piper calls this saving love a “universal love.” It is a saving love for everyone, not just the elect. Thus, it is a saving love for the reprobate just as it is a saving love for the elect. God does not have one kind of love for the elect and another love for the reprobate. For “God loves the world with a deep compassion that desires the salvation of all men.”180 That saving love that is directed toward the reprobate, however, inevitably runs up against, or is contrary to, God’s electing grace as well as His need or desire to demonstrate His wrath and the full range of His glory.
If, however, God elects those He elects because He chooses to savingly love them, as most mainstream Calvinists contend, then the love involved in 1 Timothy 2:4 or 2 Peter 3:9 cannot be universal. That is, the love implicit in these pillar texts is a weapon against unconditional election if it is a saving love and if it is universal. Piper also seems to want what his doctrines of salvation and damnation will not allow him to have. He’s just a little more creative in trying to get it. (A little later, we will hear directly from Calvin on this very matter.) After arguing that God has no saving interest in much, if not most of mankind, with 1 Timothy 2:4 in mind, Hagopian admits: At first glance, this passage appears to contradict everything we have said up to this point.181
Without getting into the specifics of what Hagopian was proposing just before this statement, he, like most hypo-Calvinists, believes that God is only interested in saving some of mankind and not all of mankind. He also believes, with all Calvinists, that Christ only died savingly for those in whom God has a saving interest. Obviously, a passage such as 1 Timothy 2:4 will at least appear to contradict him. To remove this apparent contradiction in the mind of the potential convert to Calvinism, Hagopian reasons:
... This passage teaches either that God desires that many be saved, which is perfectly true, or that He desires all kinds of men to be saved ... God wants all kinds of men to be saved. ... “all kinds of men” is a perfectly legitimate translation of the word pas [all] in 1 Timothy 2:4. ... Christ did not come for the Jews alone; He came for all kinds of men. Christ did not come for the rich alone;
He came for all kinds of men. Christ did not come for the poor alone; He came for all kinds of men. And this is the point made in 1 Timothy 2:4, as well as in similar passages that teach that Christ died for all.182
Thus, Hagopian says that the issue is not with what God desires, but with the meaning of the word “all.” Accordingly, the word “all” could mean “many” or “all kinds” rather than every single one. God really desires what Scripture says He desires. We just need a Calvinist to tell us what the word all really means. White agrees with Hagopian and says:
It is perfectly consistent with the immediate and broader context of Paul’s writings to recognize this use of “all men” in a generic fashion ... [as in] all kinds of men.183
While it is certainly true that Christ came for “all kinds of men,” the all kinds of men He came to save are the lost kind. Referring to Himself, Jesus said “the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost” (Matthew 18:11). It follows that whatever else may be true of a man, whether he is a Jew, Gentile, Greek, or German, if that man is a lost man, Jesus came to save him. Calvinists, however, taking their cue from Calvin, must read into Scripture their theological convictions, since those convictions cannot be found in the text. While MacArthur and Piper distinguish between what God desires and what He decrees, Hagopian, like Calvin, referred to God’s desire as His decree or at least leading to God’s decrees. Commenting on the subsequent words: “And may come to the acknowledgment of the truth, ” Calvin argued that this:
... Demonstrates that God has at heart the salvation of all, because he invites all to the acknowledgment of this truth. This belongs to that kind of argument in which the cause is: proved from the effect; for, if “the gospel is the power of God for salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16), it is certain that all those to whom the gospel is addressed are invited to the hope of eternal life.184
Before you conclude that Calvin interpreted these words to mean that anyone may come in faith to Christ and be saved, consider what Calvin went on to say: The Apostle simply means, that there is no people and no rank in the world that is excluded from salvation; because God wishes that the gospel should be proclaimed to all without exception. Now the preaching of the gospel gives life; and hence he justly concludes that God invites all equally to partake of salvation. But the present discourse relates to classes of men, and not to individual persons; for his sole object is, to include in this number princes and foreign nations. That God wishes the doctrine of salvation to be enjoyed by them as well as others, is evident from the passages already quoted, and from other passages of a similar nature. ... In a word, Paul intended to shew that it is our duty to consider, not what kind of persons the princes at that time were, but what God wished them to be. Now the duty arising: out of that love which we owe to our neighbor is, to be solicitous and to do our endeavor for the salvation of all whom God includes in his calling, and to testify this by godly prayers.185 With just a few strokes of the quill, Calvin was able to reduce the saving interest of God for all in the world to some in the world. In other words, according to Calvin, “the present discourse relates to classes of men, and not to individual persons.” Calvinists have been using this argument to accomplish the same purpose (i.e., a narrowing and restricting of the saving interest of God to an elect caste of men) ever since. The Calvinist interpretation can be stated as a salvation syllogism:
God wishes all to be saved. Only some are saved. The all He wishes to save, therefore, equals the some He does in fact save.
Or:
God wishes all to be saved. All of the elect are saved. All He wishes to save, therefore, equals the elect that He does in fact save.
Initially, it appears that Calvin recognized that God has a saving interest in all of mankind. Given a little time to explain what he meant, Calvin managed to limit that saving interest, in his thinking and theology, into a saving interest in the elect of mankind only. While Calvinists will argue among themselves about the nature of the love of God for the reprobate, all Calvinists end up denying that God has anything that could be considered a real saving interest in those He does not choose to save. With 1 Timothy 2:4 in mind, Spurgeon had some very critical comments to those who interpreted the “all” in this passage as a relative “all.” That is:
“All men,” say they; “that is, some men”: as if the Holy Ghost could not have said “some men” if he had meant some men. “All men,” say they; “that is, some of all sorts of men”: as if the Lord could not have said “All sorts of men” if he had meant that. The Holy Ghost by the apostle has written “all men,” and unquestionably he means all men. I know how to get rid of the force of the “alls” according to that critical method which some time ago was very current, but I do not see how it can be applied here with due regard to the truth.186
Spurgeon was locked in a decades-long theological battle with the hyper-Calvinists of his day. This is the way they treated 1 Timothy 2:4. Ironically, this is exactly the way many of Spurgeon’s most loyal fans treat (or mistreat) this passage today. I am not sure that Spurgeon was aware that what he says here in criticism of some Calvinists applies equally to what we just read by Calvin. Since he read Calvin’s Institutes and Commentaries he should have known this.
Despite the fact that most Calvinists insist that all the men God wills to save must be limited to those He actually does save, the context of 1 Timothy 4 gives us a number of reasons to believe otherwise. Calvinists agree that there is only one Savior. Yet, in 1 Timothy 4:10, the apostle Paul says:
... We trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. A straightforward reading of this verse seems to suggest that the God we trust is the Savior, at least in some sense, of two classes of men. He is the Savior of believers and unbelievers. No Calvinist, however, would say that He is the Savior of unbelievers in the same sense that He is the Savior of the believer. Another way of saying this is to say that God is not the Savior of all in the same sense that He is the Savior of some. He is the Savior in both cases. So what is the difference? The difference is that God, the only possible Savior of all, only actually saves those who believe in His Son and accept His Son’s sacrifice on their behalf. Some Calvinists will say that if God does not actually save an unbeliever, He cannot be that unbeliever’s Savior. That is, however, like saying that the subject of a king must be in subjection to that king in order for the king to be that subject’s king. It would also be like saying that God, who is Lord over all, is not Lord over those in rebellion to His Lordship. God is and can be the Savior of those He does not save, just as He is the Lord of those who do not willingly serve Him.
Clearly, there is a difference between affirming the Lordship of Christ over those who have submitted their lives to His rule, and affirming His Lordship over those who reject Him and His rule. Just so, there is a difference between saying that God is the only Savior of those who have met the only God-ordained condition of salvation, and saying He is the Savior of those who have not or never will trust Him to save them. That is why Paul says that God is the Savior of those that believe, or believers, in a special or distinctive sense. To avoid the problems faced by a denial of the fact that this Scripture says God is the Savior of all men, some Calvinists, such as MacArthur, see God saving the elect, in an eternal and complete sense, and the reprobate, in a temporal and incomplete sense. God provides a temporal atonement (as MacArthur calls it) for the reprobate in “spill over” or “overflow” benefits from the salvation provided for the elect. (See MacArthur’s notes on 1 Timothy 4:10 and 1 John 2:2 in his Study Bible.) John Piper, seemingly always willing to do whatever is necessary to accommodate Scripture to Reformed Theology, says:
... Christ is the Savior of all men ... he is especially the Savior of those who believe . The death of Christ actually saves from all evil those for whom Christ died especially.187 The text, however, does not say that Christ died especially for those He saves. Rather, it says He is the Savior in a special sense of those who believe. It is therefore the absence of faith in Christ and not the absence of an atonement by Christ for some that matters. If Christ did not die redemptively for those that are ultimately lost, how can Piper say that He is their Savior in any meaningful sense? Surely, Christ cannot even be the possible or potential Savior of those on whose behalf He did nothing of a saving nature. If Christ must die for a person for that person to be saved, it follows that those He did not savingly die for cannot be saved. It also follows that Christ cannot be called the Savior, in any sense, of such a person. Even though He can be the Lord of those who do not voluntarily submit to His Lordship in this life, He cannot be the Savior of those He has no saving interest in and for whom He has done nothing of a saving nature. What could Piper possible mean when he refers to “those for whom Christ died especially?” Is he suggesting that Christ died for the reprobate—just not especially?
SEEKING TO SAVE THE LOST According to Luke, Jesus, referring to Himself and His purpose for coming, says:
“The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10)
If Calvinism is true, it would be more precise, if not more accurate, to say, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the elect lost. In his now classic sermon entitled Good News for the Lost, Charles Spurgeon ministered to the unsaved attending one of his services as follows:
I would have all anxious hearts consider HOW THE OBJECTS OF MERCY ARE HERE DESCRIBED—“The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” I feel inexpressibly grateful for this description—“that which was lost!” There cannot be a case so bad as not to be comprehended in this word, “lost.” I am quite unable to imagine the condition of any man so miserable as not to be contained within the circumference of these four letters—“lost.”188
Spurgeon went on to exhort the “lost” in his listening audience with these very encouraging and non-Calvinist words:
Beloved Friends, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Does not the description suit you? Are you not among the lost? Well then, you are among such as Jesus Christ came to save.189
These and similar words got Spurgeon in hot water with the hyperCalvinists of his day. If you take the time to read their criticism of Spurgeon, however, they were only asking him to be consistent. To be consistent with Calvinism would be to deny so much that Scripture says and that Spurgeon believed. It is simply not possible, logically speaking, to say you are among such as Jesus Christ came to save merely because you are among the lost and, at the same time, embrace unconditional election. Are we to believe that Spurgeon was using the words among and such as to say that if you are lost and reprobate, you are only like those who can be saved? That is, since you are lost and not elect, you cannot be saved. If that is what Spurgeon wished to communicate, he certainly had a very odd way of doing so. How would a lost, but non-elect person find comfort in the fact that they were lost, since they would not be one of those whom the Lord came to save? To be merely like one of those the Lord came to save would hardly be comforting to the reprobate. Such a notion would be a reasonable basis for despair and hopelessness, not consolation and comfort. If you are only among those that are lost and can be saved and not one of those who are lost and can be saved, Spurgeon could not be preaching news that was any good for you. And if the news is not truly good, it is not the true gospel.
Spurgeon, like so many hypo-Calvinists, could not follow through and become a consistent Calvinist without also giving up on so much that Scripture says. So Spurgeon tried to do the impossible. He tried to embrace the five points of Calvinism as well as the teachings of John Calvin and also remain faithful to all that Scripture says. This resulted in Spurgeon appealing to everyone to receive Christ, even though he believed that Christ really did not come to save everyone. Despite his universal appeals to anyone and everyone, and the grief he received from the hyper-Calvinists of his day for such appeals, it was Spurgeon’s posture and not his position that really distinguished him from the hyper-Calvinists. In other words, it was what Spurgeon chose to emphasize that set him apart from the hyper-Calvinists. at least as much as what he really believed. Let us compare what we just read Spurgeon saying to the lost with what he explains elsewhere about our Lord’s mission to the lost: Our Lord’s mission was not so much to save all whom he addressed, as to save out of them as many as his Father gave him.190
While Spurgeon tells all the lost there is hope because Christ came to save the lost, he did not believe Christ elected, efficaciously calls, or died for all the lost. Still and inconsistently, like many other Calvinists of the hypo-variety, Spurgeon believed that while God unconditionally elects those ultimately saved, those ultimately damned have only themselves to blame.
Thus Spurgeon saw no problem saying: From the Word of God I gather that damnation is all of man, from top to bottom, and salvation is all of grace, from first to last. He that perishes chooses to perish; but he that is saved is saved because God has chosen to save him.191
Reprobation, however, is as most Calvinists reason, the logical flip side of unconditional election. And if anything is clear, it is that unconditional reprobation makes lostness a hopeless situation for countless numbers of people who were passively not elected, or actively reprobated. If we were to allow Calvinists to help out Luke a little, we could rewrite the words of Jesus to agree with Calvinism: The Son of Man has come to seek and save the elect lost. The other passage that Piper referred to as a pillar of Arminianism comes to us through the apostle Peter. Like so many other passages of Scripture, if you did not come to the text already convinced that Calvinism is true, you could never interpret 2 Peter 3:9 as does the Calvinist. If, however, you come to this text convinced of Calvinism, you must find a way to explain away what Peter clearly says. Without equivocation or qualification, Peter tells us: The Lord ... is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9, emphasis added) Ordinarily, most Evangelicals would agree with the interpretive principle: When the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense. When the plain sense does not conform to the Calvinist sense, however, the Calvinist will need to ask, as does Sproul:
How can we square this verse with [the Calvinist view of] predestination? ... What is the antecedent to any?192 Sproul then answers:
It is clearly us. . I think that what he is saying here is that God does not will that any of us (the elect) perish.193 This is a textbook example of eisegesis, reading into a text what it does not say or suggest, not exegesis, getting out of the text what it does say and suggest. MacArthur agrees with Sproul when he says:
“Us” is the saved, the people of God. He waits for them to be saved. . He is calling and redeeming His own. . The “any” must refer to those whom the Lord has chosen and will call to complete the redeemed, i.e., the “us” ... “All” ... must refer to all who are God’s people who will come to Christ to make up the full number of the people of God.194
Thus, for MacArthur and other Calvinists, the people of God include all the elect people still unsaved. In other words, in the most basic sense, we do not become the people of God when we believe. Rather, it simply becomes manifest that we already are and have always been God’s people. Spencer asks:
Why is the Lord longsuffering regarding His promised coming?195 He then answers: For the simple reason that He is: ... not willing that any of (US) should perish, but that all of (US) should come to repentance.196 James White argues:
... This passage is not speaking about salvation as its topic. The reference to “coming to repentance” in 3:9 is made in passing.197
Even if this passage is not speaking about salvation as its topic, what it says about salvation, passing or otherwise, must be true if the apostle Peter is telling the truth. Even so, White is in agreement with Hagopian and most other hypo-Calvinists in the way he interprets this passage. He explains:
Peter writes to a specific group, not to all of mankind. ... There is nothing in chapter three that indicates a change in audience, and much to tell us the audience remains exactly the same. ... Therefore, the “not wishing any should perish” must be limited to the same group already in view: the elect. In the same way, the “all to come to repentance” must be the very same group. In essence Peter is saying the coming of the Lord has been delayed so that all the elect of God can be gathered in. Any modern Christian lives and knows Christ solely because God’s purpose has been to gather in His elect down through the ages to this present day. There is no reason to expand the context of the passage into a universal proclamation of a desire on God’s part that every single person come to repentance. Instead, it is clearly His plan and His will that all the elect come to repentance, and they most assuredly will do so.198 No matter who the audience might be, it does not alter what Peter actually says: The Lord ... is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
It is not the context that determines the meaning of Peter’s words for the Calvinist. It is the Calvinist doctrines of salvation and damnation that leads him to interpret the words any and all to mean any and all of us. If they did not already believe in the Reformed view, I am convinced that these otherwise very astute scholars would understand these words in the same way that the rest of us do. Commenting on this verse, Calvin said: So wonderful is [God’s] love towards mankind, that he would have them all to be saved, and is of his own self prepared to bestow salvation on the lost. But the order is to be noticed, that God is ready to receive all to repentance, so that none may perish; for in these words the way and manner of obtaining salvation is pointed out.
Every one of us, therefore, who is desirous of salvation, must learn to enter in by this way.199 Once again, however, what Calvin gave, he also took away. Thus he immediately went on to say: But it may be asked, if God wishes none to perish, why is it that so many do perish? To this my answer is, that no mention is here made of the hidden purpose of God, according to which the reprobate are doomed to their own ruin, but only of his will as made known to us in the gospel. For God there stretches forth his hand without a difference to all, but lays hold only of those, to lead them to himself, whom he has chosen before the foundation of the world.200
If you only know God’s “will as made known to us in the gospel,” you don’t have the whole story, according to Calvin. You need to factor in “the hidden purpose of God, according to which the reprobate are doomed ...” If you can see what is hidden, you can see what Calvin and Calvinism is saying. I will confess that I find it difficult to see that which is hidden. I also confess, if it is not made known in the not hidden pages of Scripture, it is very difficult for me to see it.
Picture, if you will, a hand stretched out to all. Then, picture that hand only grabbing hold of some of those that the hand has been stretched out to. This is what Calvin was saying about God. He is stretching out a hand that makes it appear that He is interested in rescuing all because His hand is stretched out to all. But that same stretched out hand conceals a hidden purpose, in which the One with the stretched out hand is interested only in saving some to whom He is stretching out His saving hand. What I can clearly see is that it is the hidden purpose or the secret counsel of God that guides the Calvinist in his understanding (or misunderstanding) of what Scripture says, relative to why some are saved and others are damned. At best, this portrays God as teasing the reprobate. If anyone of us did this, we would rightly be accused of a cruel and deceptive practice. Suppose a hundred Calvinists were swimming in rough waters and were about to go under. Suppose some lifeguards stretched out their hands to all of them, but only intended to rescue fifty of them (even though they could have saved all of them). It would not be difficult to imagine that at least fifty Calvinists would find something troubling about the morality of lifeguards who would behave in such a manner.
What if these same lifeguards decided to save fifty Arminians and let fifty Calvinists drown? Would the Calvinists object? The lifeguards could argue that they have the right to save anyone they desire to save and to let drown whomever they want to see drown. They could claim that they owe no one anything, and so they can be merciful to whomever they want and merciless to whomever they want. They could even say that although they only chose to save the Arminians and not the Calvinists, it had nothing to do with the swimmers’ theological convictions.
Suppose the lifeguards say that it is not anyone else’s business, or it is over the head of everyone else, or even an incomprehensible mystery. I do not see much difference in this scenario and that which is inherent in Reformed Theology. The all in 2 Peter 3:9, or those whom Calvin believed God would cause to come to repentance, are no more or no less than the elect that He actually does save. More specifically, to Calvin, it was the elect among those that were wandering and scattered that Peter had specifically written this letter to. That is:
God would have all, who had been before wandering and scattered, to be gathered or come together to repentance.201 With the dark side of Calvinism in mind, we can also see that: The Lord is willing that all but the elect should perish and that all but the elect should not come to repentance.
If, however, you come to this text without a Calvinist bias, the Calvinist interpretation is very difficult, if not impossible, to discern. The Lord is longsuffering toward us and this is why we could be saved. For indeed, in verse 15 of the same chapter Peter says:
Account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. (KJV)
It is the same longsuffering Lord who does not want any to be lost. It would have been a rather simple matter to say the Lord is not willing that any of the elect perish. Instead, however, he says the Lord is not willing that any should perish. The fact that the Lord is writing to believers, as White points out, is true of much, if not most of the New Testament, with perhaps the exception of the four Gospels. That does not mean that He cannot be writing about non-believers while writing to believers. Turning the any from the lost community into an elect us of the saved community may be required of Calvinism, but it is only evident to those who subscribe to Reformed Theology. In effect, the Calvinist concepts of election/reprobation are a divine excuse for the lost. To illustrate, suppose a student is caught outside a class while class is in session. Suppose the one who catches him demands an explanation. Suppose the child pulls out a note from the principal saying that this child is excused from class. Suppose the note goes on to say the principal does not want this child in school and never did. Suppose the principal said he should not be allowed in the classroom because it is only for a group of select young people of which he is not now, never was, nor ever will be among. Should the student then be punished for not being in class? Is this not what Calvinists have done with election/reprobation? What better excuse could we give a lost person than the Calvinist view of election/ reprobation? If a person remains lost, he can pull out his note from God that says:
I did not want to save this person. I did not choose to save him. I did not do anything to make it possible for him to be saved. He is up the eternally bleak creek without a paddle.
Logically, if Calvinism is true, those who ultimately perish have a very good excuse for not being saved. Let us continue with our analogy of the principal and the student. Suppose the same principal that excludes a student from the classroom punishes the student for not attending class. First, he provides an excuse for not attending class and actually bars the student from attending class. Then he punishes him for not being in class and says that this punishment is just, and that the student’s absence from class is inexcusable. When the defenders of this principal are asked to explain how this can be, they say that it cannot now be understood. That is the Calvinist view of reprobation/damnation. This also perfectly illustrates why it is that Calvinists need to appeal to or hide behind an apparent mystery so often. Jesus tells us that no one knows: The Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Matthew 11:27)
Calvinists believe that this verse is a very strong proof text for unconditional election. As someone said, however, every text out of context is a pretext. If you continue reading, our Lord identifies those to whom He wills to reveal the Father. With obvious compassion, He says:
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) Are we supposed to believe that only the elect-lost labor and are heavy laden? Or are we to assume that the Lord was insincere in inviting all who labor and are heavy laden to come to Him for rest? Or perhaps He was only inviting all kinds of people who labor and are heavy laden. At first glance, we might think we only have two choices here.
CALVINISM
Christ was inviting all that labor and are heavy laden.
Only the elect (while lost) labor and are heavy laden.
SCRIPTURE
Christ was inviting all that labor and are heavy laden.
All the lost labor and are heavy laden.
There is a third option, or a different way to word the first option, that would satisfy some Calvinists:
Christ was inviting all kinds of people who labor and are heavy laden.
The all kinds of people He invited to come for rest were the elect kind.
While most Calvinists will vehemently disagree with this characterization, the Calvinist view of unconditional election/reprobation says that a man will be saved or lost for all eternity because he is saved or lost from all eternity. It amounts to nothing more than an eternal caste system that condemns a very large number of people to eternal misery with no recourse or remedy. As the reprobate do not and cannot have any hope of salvation, the elect, according to Calvinism, have never had any real reason to be concerned about damnation. In an article entitled I’m Going to Heaven Someday, Joseph Wilson explains: In actuality, not one of the elect has ever for a moment been in real danger of going to hell. No man can truly believe in sovereign grace and question this statement. God’s elect were, from eternity, predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. They were ordained to eternal life. They were chosen to be saved. ... In reality, they were as safe while living in sin and rebellion against God as they are now.202 Consistent Calvinists can also say: In actuality, not one of the reprobate, which is everyone who is not one of the elect, has ever for a moment had any hope of going anywhere but hell. No man can truly believe in sovereign predestination and question this statement. God’s reprobate were, from eternity, predestined to damnation. They were ordained to reprobation.
They were chosen to be damned from all eternity to all eternity.
Compare this despairing and disturbing view with the hope-filled message of John 3:16, 1 Timothy 2:4, and 2 Peter 3:9. You can see why I suggested in my primer on Calvinism that you can have John 3:16 or you can have John Calvin, but you cannot logically have both. With this in mind, let us now take a close look at some of those other passages that Calvinists rely upon to support unconditional election. Keep in mind that for Calvinists, a sovereign unconditional election to salvation rules out the possibility of a sovereign condition for salvation. Faith in Christ, therefore, must ultimately be a consequence of a sovereign election by God versus a sovereign condition of salvation for man. Jesus says: many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14)
Surely, says the Calvinist, these words at least imply an unconditional election to salvation. Steele and Thomas, in a chapter of their book written to define, defend, and document unconditional election, offer this verse as evidence. So does Hagopian. Commenting on verse 14, Reformed pastor and professor Douglas Wilson says:
Elect does not mean “elector.” Chosen does not mean “chooser.” The Bible’s teaching on this subject is so plain that denying it involves standing the words of Scripture on their head. When a man is chosen, he is not the one performing the action; that is, he is not the one who is choosing.203
Wilson’s reasoning here is flawless. Does the context of this passage. however, support the Calvinist doctrine of an unconditional election to salvation and its flip side, an unconditional reprobation to damnation? Read and decide for yourself. Backing up a few verses, Jesus says:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out for his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come.
Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. ’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? ’And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness. ’... For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:2-14, emphasis added) WHY ARE SOME EXCLUDED AND OTHERS INCLUDED? Is there a correlation between those invited but unwilling to come and the many who are called? Or are we to conclude that this whole story leading up to the statement “many are called, but few are chosen,” is something akin to a filler? Is there a correlation between those who were invited and that became guests and the few who were chosen from among the called? Are we to understand this latter group was not willing or that their willingness was irrelevant? Or perhaps we should conclude some were invited, but not allowed to say no as did the former group. Now if the king was happy that this latter group came to the wedding and that they came to the wedding only because he made them come or made them want to come, he certainly could have done the same for the former. If Calvinism in general, and unconditional election in particular, is true, you should be excused for asking: why all the fuss?
I am not suggesting here that everything in a story is necessarily germane to the main point of the story. Certainly, however, some things are. What is it in this story that will help us understand the concluding statement, “many are called, but few are chosen”? It seems obvious that the “called” refers both to the former and latter group, or all who were invited. Only the latter group, however, corresponds to the “chosen,” and they are the ones who accepted the invitation and dressed appropriately for the occasion. The responsibility or culpability for attending or failing to attend the wedding belonged to the one invited, not the king who did the inviting. The provision and offer was entirely the king’s. The responsibility to respond and respond appropriately to the invitation belonged entirely to the ones invited. The Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election makes the king out to be insincere, since he invites individuals to come but did not choose them to come, thereby making it impossible for them to accept the invitation. That would of course make the invitation a tease at best. There is no way that such an invitation could be considered a serious or sincere invitation. It could even be considered a fraudulent scam. It makes much more sense to see the chosen ones as guests already and not chosen to be guests. In other words, they were chosen because they were invited guests, not invited to be guests. All were invited to be guests, but only those who became guests because they accepted the invitation given them to attend the wedding were chosen as guests. This distinction is crucial. They were invited or called to the wedding and accepted the invitation. They could then be chosen as guests. The others, with the exception of the one who came in unacceptable apparel, were invited, refused the invitation, and therefore did not even show up to be chosen. In reality, they excluded themselves from being guests by refusing to come to the wedding, for only guests at the wedding feast were chosen. In Chapter Twenty of Matthew’s Gospel, we see this phrase used again in the context of yet another parable. Jesus says:
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you. ’ So they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out andfound others standing idle, and said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day? ’ They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us. ’He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive. ’
“So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first. ’ And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. And when they had received it, they complained against the landowner, saying,
‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day. ’ But he answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good? ’So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen. ” (Matthew 20:1-16)
It would seem that the so and for of 20:16 identify the last in this life with the “called” who are also “chosen.” The question is this: what were they called to and chosen for ? The answer is that they were called to and chosen for the work of the kingdom. Clearly this is not even remotely related to the kind of unconditional election to salvation found in Calvinism. There is, of course, a Scripture in which Jesus comes right out and says:
“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” (John 15:16, KJV) Concerning this verse, Boettner says:
Christ explicitly declared to His disciples, “Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit,” John 15:16, by which He made God’s choice primary and man’s choice only secondary and a result of the former.204 Spencer goes so far as to say: The bluntest affirmation that man does not do the choosing of God, since his depraved nature is capable of being “positive” only towards Satan, is that of Jesus who said: “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:16, cf. John 15:17).205
Before we consider this verse and what it says and does not say, let us be clear about one thing. The Calvinist is not denying that there is not a sense in which we do not choose Christ. They believe we choose Christ, and often say so, after we are born again and as a result of the new birth, new nature, saving faith, etc. In fact, they believe that choosing Christ is inevitable for the elect because it is irresistible for the elect. As Sproul says: To be sure, a human choice is made, a free human choice, but the choice is made because God first chooses to influence the elect to make the right choice.206 This influence is defined by Sproul as forces, coerces, or drags.201 If, however, this verse says we do not choose Christ relative to salvation, it also says we never do so. That is, it does not say you chose Me because I chose you, anymore than it says what an Arminian would say, which is I chose you because you were going to choose Me. Unless we read into this verse a Calvinist assumption, it offers no more support for the Calvinist view than it does the Arminian view. In whatever sense He says the disciples do not choose Him, they never choose Him. Otherwise He would have said something like you did not choose Me first. He plainly says to His disciples, however, “you did not choose Me, but I chose you.” I think we can take this verse at face value, keeping in mind the context. What is the context? What is it He chose them for? If it was not for salvation, regeneration, justification, glorification, etc.. then what was it for? There can be no doubt that it was for service. By way of analogy, consider a conversation between the owner of a company and an employee of the company. Suppose the owner of a company initially recruited and eventually hired an employee for a specific job. Later in a conversation with that same employee, the owner says, “you did not hire me, but I hired you” for the purpose of producing a lot of widgets. The employee could not hire the owner. He could accept the offer of a job, but he could not hire himself. Even so, the things God gives us to do for Him, including the abilities, gifts, and opportunities to do them, is really and only from God. We can refuse to do the job He gives us. We can refuse to do a good job relative to the job He gives us to do. We can choose to do the job and choose to do it well. We cannot, however, choose the job we are called or elected to do, since it is His and His alone to assign to us. The job in this case is the sacred ministry, given to each disciple by the Lord Himself. It is first and foremost service to Him and as a result, it is service for Him. The choosing is always and only His prerogative. Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike at least formally agree that we have some choices to make both in terms of salvation and service. The kind of choice referred to by our Lord in John 15:16-17, however, is a choice that only He can make, by definition of who and what He is in relation to us. In like manner, it is not a choice we can make by definition of who and what we are in relation to Him.
Paul did not choose to be an apostle. Nor indeed could he, any more than an eye could choose to be the member of the body capable of sight. We will return to this matter a little later in the context of a discussion of the closely related issue of calling and the various ways in which Scripture uses this and similar terms. No matter how you state it, a Calvinist view of this passage is, at best, incapable of consistency. It also fails to take into account the different kinds of choices referred to in the New Testament. The Calvinist almost always assumes that when the Bible speaks of God choosing a believer for service, He is referring to a choice made by God on behalf of an unbeliever for salvation.
While most Calvinists will concede that the word “election” can be used in a variety of ways, for all practical purposes, most make an attempt to see an unconditional election to salvation wherever they find a form of the word “election” in Scripture. Show a Calvinist how a particular use of the word “elect” or “election” cannot, according to the context, be an election to salvation—unconditional or otherwise—and he comforts himself with the conviction that somewhere else it will refer to an unconditional election to salvation. A lawyer who has no single piece of evidence to prove his case may present to the jury and judge a whole host of facts, which on the surface may seem like evidence. When it turns out that after a careful examination of the facts, they do not to prove or even support the case he is trying to make, he just turns to more facts that do not prove his case. The hope is that the jury will just see a bunch of facts, the sheer volume of which must prove something. Sometimes, a whole lot of non-evidence can, when taken together, appear to turn into evidence. It never really does. So it is with the word “election.” If the individual instance in which the word “elect” or “election” is used does not refer to an unconditional election to salvation, the total sum of such instances cannot provide scriptural support for the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election.
Consider another scriptural use of the word “chosen” that Calvinists use as evidence of an unconditional election to salvation. Jesus says to His disciples:
“Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John 6:70)
Obviously, a person can be designated elect, because God has given him something to do; something He has elected him to do. God can elect someone without unconditionally electing him to salvation, for one of those He chose or elected was a devil. No Calvinist I know of believes God unconditionally elects devils to salvation. No Calvinist that I know believes God unconditionally elected Judas to salvation. Yet, the text clearly indicates that Judas was chosen in the same way and for the same purpose as the other eleven disciples. With this verse in mind, White admits: Of course the word “chosen” is used in more than one way. No one is arguing that “chosen” always has the same meaning.208 No matter what Scripture says in a given context, however, the Calvinist is so convinced of unconditional election or what they call sovereign election, and so desperate to find evidence of this view, that there is often a theological knee-jerk reaction to the word “election.” For example, also with this verse in mind, MacArthur says: In response to Peter’s words that the disciples had come to believe in Jesus, He reminds them that He sovereignly chose them (John 6:37, John 6:44, John 6:65). Jesus would not allow even a whisper of human pretension in God’s sovereign selection.209 Does MacArthur see evidence of the Calvinist version of sovereign and unconditional election to salvation in Judas? Of course, Jesus sovereignly chose the disciples. Everything a sovereign Lord does, He does sovereignly. By definition, our Lord’s choice of the twelve, for whatever reason He chose them, was a sovereign choice. His choice of Judas was just as sovereign as His choice of Peter. This just goes to show how wrong the Calvinists can be about the meaning and implications of a sovereign choice. Did MacArthur not notice that this sovereign choice included Judas? It is almost impossible not to notice Judas, since he is the only one identified by name, in this text, as chosen by our Lord.
No, MacArthur did not miss the identity of Judas as one of the chosen, as is evident in the time and attention he gave to the diabolical character and conduct of Judas. Regardless, if so many of the passages used to support the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election do not actually teach this doctrine, the Calvinist has to introduce it wherever he can. Commenting on this verse and specifically the elect of this verse, Calvin said: When Christ says that he has CHOSEN or ELECTED twelve, he does not refer to the eternal purpose of God; . but, having been chosen to the apostolic office. ... He used the word chosen, therefore, to denote those who were eminent and distinguished from the ordinary rank.210 The apostle Peter says:
... giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. (2 Peter 1:5-12) In context, Peter is exhorting his readers to live a life in concert with their “call and election.” In reference to the word “election,” Calvin automatically concluded that Peter refers here to an unconditional election to salvation. Calvin explains this passage as follows: The meaning then is, labor that you may have it really proved that you have not been called and elected in vain. ... Now a question arises. Whether the stability of our calling and election depends on good works, for if it be so, it follows that it depends on us. But the whole Scripture teaches us, first, that God’s election is founded on His eternal purpose; and second, that calling begins and is completed through His gratuitous goodness .
If anyone thinks that calling is rendered sure by men, there is nothing absurd in that; we may however, go still farther, that everyone confirms his calling by leading a holy and pious life ... this does not prevent election from being gratuitous, nor does it shew that it is in our own hand or power to confirm election. For the matter stands thus,—God effectually calls whom He has preordained to life in His secret counsel before the foundation of the world; and He also carries on the perpetual course of calling through grace alone. But as he has chosen us, and calls us for this end, that we may be pure and spotless in his presence; purity of life is not improperly called the evidence and proof of election.211
I am simply amazed that such a brilliant man, as Calvin no doubt was, could not see or was willing to overlook the many and serious problems with this view. First of all, Calvin had to know that it is meaningless to appeal to men to do what they cannot help but do (i.e. “God ... carries on the perpetual course of [effectual] calling ...”). Second, it is silly to ask a man to confirm what he is incapable of confirming, which is the case for the reprobate, according to Calvin. Third, how could an effectual calling or unconditional election be in vain? If you are called and elect, according to Calvinism, all the other links in the chain of redemption will inevitably and irresistibly follow.
If you could somehow prove your calling and election were in vain in the Calvinist sense of calling and election, you would only prove you were not called or elected, according to Calvinism. That would also prove you had no calling or election to prove, one way or the other. It would be like trying to prove that words have no meaning with words. If words have no meaning, you could not meaningfully prove such a theory with words.
According to the apostle Peter, an awful lot hangs on making your calling and election sure. Viewing this calling and election, in this context, as the calling and election of a believer (and the service or even character development he is called to and elected for) makes sense. It makes no sense to view this calling and election as an unconditional election to salvation for the unbeliever. It is my contention that a careful look at the way Scripture uses the term election does not support any notion of an election to salvation for the unbelieving lost—unconditional or conditional. That is, insofar as the New Testament is concerned, the issues involving election are always and only issues that concern believers. Unbelievers are not referred to as the elect of God or the called of God in the New Testament.
Now there is an invitation-type “calling” that both Calvinists and nonCalvinist Evangelicals acknowledge. The calling, which is most often associated with election in Scripture, is not an invitation to salvation but a calling in the sense of vocation, Christian service, character development, or even our ultimate destiny as believers. Christians are elected for and called to a variety of things, in keeping with the purposes of a holy God. Show me an elect person in the post-Pentecost period (as this term is related to the New Testament saints), and I will show you a Christian. Conversely, show me a non-Christian and I will show you a person that is not one of the elect of God or one of the called of God. Does God elect believers as Scripture seems to say, or does He make the elect believe as Calvinism teaches?
MacArthur identifies another verse that he believes clearly supports the Calvinist view of unconditional election. He says: In 2 Thessalonians ... chapter 2 verse 13, [Paul says] “But we should always give thanks to God for you.” Why should we always thank God? “Brethren, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation.”212 Paul says to the Thessalonian believers: But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because Godfrom the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14)
We know from this text that the one doing the choosing for this salvation is God.
We know that God made this choice from the beginning.
We know that this salvation is faith-based.
We know that the calling related to this salvation was the open and even audible proclamation of the gospel. It was not a hidden, secret, or inward calling.
We know that nothing even remotely related to an unconditional election to salvation for unbelievers is mentioned in these verses.
The Calvinist will argue erroneously that if God’s choice to save a particular man is conditioned upon that man believing, then it is man and not God who is in control. At best this is misleading, for it is God who determines what the condition of salvation for a man will be, and even that there will be a condition. Man is in no position to dictate to God that He will or will not condition salvation on faith in Christ. If God decided that salvation would not be conditioned on anything, that would have been His choice and no one could contest it.
If God chose to condition salvation on faith in Christ, as I am convinced Scripture teaches, it is no less God who decides how He would go about His work of saving the lost and under what, if any, conditions He would do so. Sovereignty is not denied because it is God doing what He wants to do, the way He wants to do it. Grace is not denied if the condition is not meritorious, or a work. Admittedly, such a salvation could not be gracious if the condition was anything but faith. Since, however, it is through faith, it can be and is by grace (Ephesians 2:8-10). The Calvinist contends that the elect believe because they are in Christ, while Scripture makes it clear that we are in Christ because this is where God places the believer when he believes. All Evangelicals agree that in Christ, God provides much for the believer and promises much for the believer. As the apostle Paul says:
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. (1 Corinthians 15:19-23) The context of this passage does not allow us to think of this life as the life of regeneration, but of resurrection, which are admittedly two ends of the same saving work of God. Thus, all that are alive in the regeneration sense will be made alive in the resurrection sense. We have life here and now and we are looking forward to life there and then. In Adam, the entire human family was born into spiritual death. In Adam, the entire human family is also on the road to physical death. We are born spiritually dead and then a few years later we physically die. In Christ, all members of the family of God have received life through the new birth. Most still die physically, but physical death has no permanent hold on them because in Christ, all will be resurrected to glory. The significance of this privileged position of the believer cannot be overstated. As to our present spiritual condition, Paul says:
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Concerning how blessed believers are and will be “in Christ” and because we are “in Christ,” Paul says:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:3-12)
The choice that is referred to here was made by God.
The choice was made by God “before the foundation of the world.”
The choice made by God “before the foundation of the world” was made of individuals that were “in Him.”
The purpose of the choice made by God “before the foundation of the world” of individuals “in Him” was that those so chosen would “be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
To accomplish this purpose God “predestined us [those in Christ] to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself.”
All this is “according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.”
This grace which is glorified is the same grace “by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.”
According to Reformed Theology, these individuals are not chosen in Him but chosen to be in Him. This distinction is crucial. To be chosen in Him is to be chosen as a believer. Chosen to be in Him is to be chosen as an unbeliever.
Notice that this text does not speak of the unregenerate being predestined to be children of God through regeneration. Rather, this text refers to those “in Him.” If they are “in Him,” they are already regenerate children of God or viewed as regenerate children of God. It is therefore regenerate children of God that are predestined to adoption as sons. That is, Reformed Theology says that this text is talking about non-sons being predestined to become sons through adoption. However, this text refers to sons being predestined to adoption as sons. What then does it mean to be predestined to adoption as sons? Fortunately, the answer to this question is not only found here in this immediate context but in several different places in the New Testament. Notice that: In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:1-12)
Adoption relates to our inheritance. We are now heirs. The day is coming when we will receive what is ours by virtue of our relationship to Christ.
We have already “obtained an inheritance” and have already received the Spirit of adoption. We have not, however, actually received what is in our inheritance as we will on the day of our glorification. It is the full realization of adoption, and all that this implies for our inheritance, to which we still have to look forward.
There is nothing in this text even remotely similar to what Calvinists have in mind when they speak of an unconditional election to salvation or an unconditional reprobation to damnation. There is nothing related to what they have in mind when they speak about an elect lost person being predestined to become an elect saved person.
ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE The Authorized Version (KJV) of Acts 13:48 reads as follows: as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown say that this is:
... a very remarkable statement, which cannot, without force, be interpreted of anything lower than this, that a divine ordination to eternal life is the cause, not the effect, of any man’s believing.21 In The 1599 Geneva Bible Notes we read that:
... either all were not appointed to everlasting life, or either all believed, but because all did not believe, it follows that certain ones were ordained: and therefore God did not only foreknow, but also foreordained, that neither faith nor the effects of faith should be the cause of his ordaining, or appointment, but his ordaining the cause of faith.214 In representing the view of Charles Spurgeon, and all hypo-Calvinists, Iain Murray says in reference to Acts 13:48 :
All men are equally condemned in sin but, for reasons unknown to us and to the praise of his grace, God does not deal equally with those who are equally undeserving. The testimony of Scripture ought to be unmistakable: “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).215 John MacArthur, in his study notes on Acts 13:48, says that this is:
One of Scripture’s clearest statements on the sovereignty of God in salvation. God chooses man for salvation, not the opposite. ...
Faith itself is a gift from God.216
Many Calvinists view Acts 13:48 as the most powerful evidence of Calvinism in general and unconditional election in particular. For some Calvinists, any interpretation of this verse that does not support Reformed Theology does not deserve serious consideration. It may surprise even some Calvinists to know that there are some respected scholars who are not so certain that this verse lends support to the case for Calvinism. Due to the fact that so much weight is given (by most Calvinists) to this verse, we will look very closely at the arguments for and against a Calvinist interpretation of Acts 13:48, giving special consideration to the context in which these words were spoken.
All serious students of Scripture will agree that the context of what is said here is that of a very intense time of gospel preaching for Paul and Barnabas. On one hand, many Gentiles were responsive, in a very positive and enthusiastic way, to the gospel message preached by Paul and Barnabas. In contrast, many of the Jews were negative to the point of hostility. Beginning with verse 46, Luke tells us:
Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God shouldfirst have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. (Acts 13:46-48, KJV, emphasis added) The problem with MacArthur’s statement is not that he says God is sovereign in salvation. God is sovereign in all things. If God were not absolutely sovereign in every way and over everything, He would not be God as we understand God in Scripture. The problem is not that God chooses man for salvation. Obviously, God does choose to save men. Not only so, if God did not choose to save men, men would not be saved because only God can, and therefore, only God does, save. Unless God does what He does without choosing to do so, then anyone saved by God must have also been chosen by God for salvation. Just because God chooses to save, however, does not mean He cannot and does not require that a man make a choice that conditions salvation on whatever He sovereignly determines that condition to be. So what can be said about Acts 13:48? Does this verse teach us that faith is logically the result of being appointed to or ordained to eternal life, as Calvinists believe? Is Luke telling us that an eternal choice by God is the cause for which faith, in time, is the effect? Or is there a more reasonable and biblically sound interpretation? In a discussion of this verse and its meaning, Vine’s Dictionary says:
... Those who having believed the gospel, “were ordained to eternal life.”217 The New Testament Greek Scholar, Henry Alford, believes that it should read: As many as were disposed to eternal life believed.218 The highly acclaimed New Testament Greek scholar, A. T. Robertson, says: The word “ordain” is not the best translation. . There is no evidence that Luke had in mind an absolutum decretum of personal salvation .219 In similar fashion, The Expositor’s Greek New Testament states:
There is no countenance here for the absolutum decretum of the Calvinists.220 J. Oliver Buswell says:
Actually the words of Acts 13:48-49, do not necessarily have any reference whatever to the doctrine of God’s eternal decree of election.221 The Presbyterian commentator Albert Barnes explains:
There has been much difference of opinion in regard to this expression. One class of commentators have supposed that it refers to the doctrine of election—to God’s ordaining men to eternal life; and another class, to their being disposed themselves to embrace the gospel—to those among them who did not reject and despise the gospel, but who were disposed and inclined to embrace it.222 Barnes goes on to say: The main enquiry is, what is the meaning of the word rendered ordained?223
According to Barnes, the word “ordain” could just as accurately be rendered appoint, as is found in some newer translations. Even so, this does not directly help the case of either of the two interpretive schools mentioned above. That does not mean that Barnes believes that men dispose themselves to embrace the gospel either. According to Barnes: The word is never used to denote an internal disposition or inclination arising from one’s own self. It does not mean that they disposed themselves to embrace eternal life. . It does not properly refer to an eternal decree, or directly to the doctrine of election .224
While the scholars can legitimately debate about what is the best rendering of this verse, I will assume for our present discussion that the Authorized Version’s “ordained” is a perfectly good translation of the original Greek word. I will also interpret it to mean appoint, as many scholars on both sides of the Calvinist divide have done. As always, to correctly understand a verse of Scripture, we should carefully consider its context. So what is the context of this verse? While preaching to the Jews, Paul says:
“Men and brethren ... through this Man [Jesus Christ] is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses ...” So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.
Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, andjudge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth. ’ ” Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. (Acts 13:26; Acts 13:38 b, Acts 13:42-48, emphasis added)
First, it should be noted that Paul proclaims the gospel as truly to the Jews who reject its message as to those who accept it. That is, the gospel proclamation appears to be a very genuine offer of eternal life, no matter who the audience happens to be or how they respond to it. Paul seems convinced that they could believe if they would believe. Thus, he gives them all kinds of evidential and scriptural reasons why they should believe. The heart of the message is:
... Through this Man [Jesus Christ] is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justifiedfrom all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:38, emphasis added)
It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that they could have been forgiven and justified had they simply and sincerely believed in Jesus Christ. Even so, many of the Jews rejected this good news, evidenced by their unbelief in the gospel message and their rejection of the offer of eternal life contained and conveyed therein. Their loss was due to their rejection of what God offered them in Christ. Paul then turns to the Gentiles and proclaims the gospel to them. Many of the Gentiles accepted the offer of eternal life that came to them in this proclamation of the gospel, as evidenced by their very enthusiastic and believing response to it.
Paul’s alternative message (alternative to the gospel) to the unbelieving Jews was that since you reject Christ, you forfeit eternal life. In contrast to these unbelieving Jews, many of the Gentiles “were glad and glorified the word of the Lord” because the offer of salvation in the gospel proclamation included them just as it did the Jews. Moreover, the Gentiles were offered eternal life on the same basis, or with the same condition that was set forth for the Jews. That is, they could have eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. The believing Gentiles therefore happily received what the unbelieving Jews tragically rejected. The context of this verse makes the Calvinist interpretation very difficult to maintain. The Calvinist interpretation of this verse makes the rejection of the unbelieving Jews the result of God’s lack of a saving interest in them and His prior decision to reject them unconditionally. The Calvinist would have us believe (based on their understanding of this verse) that these Gentiles only believed the gospel because they had been unconditionally appointed or ordained to eternal life. To say as Scripture says that those appointed to eternal life believed is not however to say that they believed because they were appointed to eternal life. Nothing is said in this verse or anywhere in Scripture that says or suggests that an appointment to eternal life causes faith. Even if we assume the strongest possible meaning for the word “ordain” or “appoint,” it does not necessarily follow from what is said in this text that those ordained or appointed believed because they were ordained or appointed. Of course, God appointed or ordained them to eternal life. That is not in dispute. If we assume that this appointment refers to an appointment that was made in eternity as opposed to an appointment that was made in time (not a necessary assumption), then they were appointed to eternal life before they actually believed in Christ. When they were appointed, however, is not the issue. The question is not when they were ordained or appointed to eternal life (i.e., eternity versus time), but why they were ordained or appointed to eternal life. That is, it is not the chronological relationship of this appointment to faith that should concern us.
Rather, it is the logical relationship of this appointment to faith that is of importance. Everyone that is ordained or appointed to eternal life is appointed or ordained to eternal life because God in Christ provides and offers salvation to all who through faith turn to Christ for salvation. The Calvinist wrongly argues that people are unconditionally ordained or appointed to eternal life, and therefore believe as a consequence of that appointment. The abundant and unequivocal testimony of Scripture is that a person is ordained or appointed to eternal life on condition that they believe in Jesus Christ, making faith logically, but not necessarily chronologically before this appointment, as a prerequisite to receiving eternal life.
Like Barnes, however, I am not persuaded that the words in question support either the Calvinist or the non-Calvinist position, or that they were intended to do so. To argue one way or the other from these brief words misses the point. I do believe, however, that the immediate context (as well as many other passages of Scripture) teaches that faith in Christ is a prerequisite (logically, even if not chronologically) to an appointment to eternal life.
Luke’s purpose seems to be to point out what is at stake here. That is, this is a serious matter with a great deal to be gained or lost depending upon how one responds to the gospel. The Reformed interpretation of these words paints a picture of “whatever will be, will be,” or Que Sera, Sera. That is just the opposite of what we get out of the very intense time spent by Paul and Barnabas on the spiritual battlefield that we call the mission field. If little is offered, little is lost by a rejection of what is offered. Even so, if much is offered, much is lost if it is rejected.
If faith is the God-ordained means, and the only God-ordained means by which we can receive eternal life, then to believe or not to believe makes an eternal difference. To be appointed or not appointed to eternal life is no light matter. Therefore the decision to believe or not to believe should be made with a full understanding of what is gained by faith and lost by unbelief. To Luke, everything hinges on how you respond to the gospel provision, proclamation, invitation, and offer. In Reformed Theology, everything is simply working out the only way it can. The Calvinist interpretation of this verse is a what was (i.e., ordained to eternal life or not) determines what will be (i.e., believing response to the gospel or not) proposition. There is nothing you can say to the lost that will make any real difference in the Calvinist scenario. They will or will not believe in Christ in the realm of time, based on whatever God decided unconditionally for them in the realm of eternity. Luke tells us that:
... When the Gentiles heard this [the gospel preached by Paul and Barnabas], they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed [or ordained] to eternal life believed. (Acts 13:48) Their positive response to the good news seems to be very important to Luke. Calvinism makes it incidental at best. Notice their three-fold response to the gospel proclamation they heard. From these words we know:
The Gentiles were glad about what they heard concerning the Word of the Lord.
The Gentiles evidenced their gladness concerning the Word of the Lord in that they glorified the Word of the Lord.
The Gentiles ... believed the Word of the Lord.
Thus, putting it all together we know:
As many as were appointed or ordained to life eternal, rejoiced, glorified the Word of the Lord, and believed.
It would seem almost too obvious that what they heard was the gospel or at least contained the gospel. Thus, what they were glad about and believed was the gospel. The Calvinist, like other Evangelical Christians, accepts that these Gentiles:
Rejoiced over what Paul said concerning salvation being for the Gentiles as well as the Jews,
Glorified the Word of the Lord, which in this context was the message of the Old Testament about salvation being for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews, and
Believed the salvation message Paul and Barnabas preached and which, in some way, gave rise to their gladness about and glorification of the Word of the Lord.
The typical interpretation the Calvinist gives to this passage, however, suggests or even requires that these Gentiles responded as they did because, and only because, God from eternity past ordained or appointed them to eternal life. As evidence that they were appointed or ordained to eternal life from eternity past, Calvinists say that they eventually and inevitably trusted in Christ. In other words, faith in Christ is, according Calvinism, caused by that appointment or ordination to life.
Remember, in the Calvinist scheme of things, they did not rejoice and did not glorify the word of the Lord because they became convinced that this message of salvation was true or good or even from God. Rather, they became convinced and believed that it was true because God chose them unconditionally from eternity past, regenerating them in time, giving them faith in Jesus Christ in the process. In other words, they believed because God made them believe or made them believers. According to Calvinism, the fact that they believed the message was not a choice they made based upon anything they heard or saw, but solely upon a choice made by God, and all that inevitably followed that choice. To accept this Calvinist interpretation one must redefine everything that seems to be stated plainly in the passage. A non-Calvinist approach to this passage is simpler, more reasonable, and more straightforward. A non-Calvinist approach also corresponds to everything else we know about God’s saving purpose and process from Scripture. This approach would affirm:
Paul preaches to the Jews.
Many of the Jews reject in unbelief what he says.
Paul turns to the Gentiles. He preaches a salvation message to them and demonstrates to them from the Old Testament Scriptures that God has a saving interest in the Gentiles, just as He does in the Jews.
Many of these Gentiles respond in faith to that message, evidenced by their gladness concerning the salvation message they were hearing and their glorification of the Word of the Lord through which that message came.
Since salvation is by grace through faith, and since it is true that those who believe in the Lord Jesus will be saved, these Gentiles were ordained or appointed, along with all Jewish believers, to eternal life. When they were ordained or appointed is therefore irrelevant, insofar as this text is concerned. Why they were ordained or appointed (i.e., because of faith alone in Christ alone) is really all that matters and is the very motivation for all true gospel preaching. That is, when we preach we are asking unbelievers to believe in the message of the gospel, assuming that they are able (or enabled by God) to do so. If we are not doing this, then we have no business preaching. The cause of their salvation is the God who ordains or appoints believers to eternal life. The God-ordained condition for receiving all that is offered in the gospel is faith in Christ.
Only God saves.
Therefore only God can be the ultimate and primary cause of salvation. The God who causes men to be saved does so when they meet the condition for salvation ordained by Him, which is to believe in Jesus Christ. The text clearly says that those who believed were ordained to eternal life. Conversely, the text also says that those who were ordained to eternal life believed. That is, believers are one and the same as those ordained or appointed to eternal life. It does not say they believed because they were ordained to eternal life. Setting aside for now the issue as to when they were ordained or appointed to eternal life, if you show me someone ordained to eternal life, I will show you a believer. While it clearly identifies the believing ones with those ordained or appointed to eternal life, the text does not suggest the cause/effect relationship (i.e., God ordained the Gentiles to eternal life; therefore they believed) suggested by the Calvinist interpretation.
Calvinism says:
These Gentiles who believed the gospel when it was preached to them believed in time because God unconditionally ordained or appointed them to eternal life before time. Their appointment to eternal life is the cause of their faith and their faith is an effect of their appointment to eternal life.
Scripture teaches:
These Gentiles who believed the gospel when it was preached to them did so because they were persuaded by the case Paul and Barnabas made on behalf of the gospel. They were ordained or appointed to eternal life because God has purposed that all who believe in His Son will have everlasting life.
While hypo-Calvinists attempt to prove unconditional election from Acts 13:48, consistency requires that they see unconditional reprobation as well. Wendel Francois in Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, states what should be obvious to everyone familiar with the teachings of Calvin both in his Institutes and Commentaries. He says:
Calvin was never content with the statement that God, in his goodness, elected to salvation a certain number of men taken from the mass of sinners; he thought that those who had not been chosen had also been the object of a special decree, that of reprobation.225 Williston Walker, in his book John Calvin, says: To Calvin’s thinking, election and reprobation are both alike manifestations of the divine activity. ... Calvin’s severe logic, insistent that all salvation is independent of merit, led him to assert that damnation is equally antecedent to and independent of demerit. ... The sole cause of salvation or of its loss is the divine choice.226 By any meaningful definition of terms, if unconditional election is a good thing, unconditional reprobation is a bad thing. That is why I call it the dark side of Calvinism. If, however, you cannot have an unconditional election to salvation without an unconditional reprobation to damnation, then Calvinists should admit the dark side in their quest for converts to Calvinism. I can understand why Calvinists are so shy to talk about the dark side; that being said, no Calvinist can rationally deny it.
Remember that the apostle Paul says:
[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4) Remember also that the apostle Peter says: The Lord is ... longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) This is why Jesus said of Himself:
“The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.”
(Luke 19:10) It is also undoubtedly why Jesus, speaking of His Father, says:
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ” (John 3:16-17) In light of both Scripture and logic, there is simply no way to make sense out of Calvinism, even when expressed (perhaps especially) by it most moderate and mainstream advocates. Of his hero, Charles Spurgeon, Iain Murray says:
He refused to explain how men could be held accountable for not trusting in a Saviour in whom they were never chosen, on the grounds that Scripture itself offers no explanation.227
There is no possible scriptural explanation for the Calvinist version (hypo or hyper) of reprobation because there is no scriptural affirmation of the Calvinist version of reprobation. To see in Scripture sinners being “held accountable for not trusting in a Saviour in whom they were never [unconditionally] chosen,” you must be able to see that which is “hidden.” Evidently that is just what a good pair of Calvinist-colored glasses will allow you to do.