© 24 Colin Melbourne
Set in Stone… or Can They Choose to Repent?
Q: What’s your opinion of Calvinists, election, and predestination, it’s quite confusing for a new believer like me.
A: We honour Protestant John Calvin for his fortitude against Catholic tyranny during the Dark Age.
He inspired others in Europe, Scotland, Wales, Eire, and England, to stand for the Gospel of The LORD Jesus Christ, refusing to tow-the-line on Rome’s papal heresies, often at the cost of their lives.
So we forgive him for the blatant errors of Calvinism, and endless chatter about election, and free-will versus predestination.
Some of the original Reformers, and a few of the evangelists of the eighteenth century Great Awakenings were influenced by John Calvin; John Knox, Johnathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Gill, and Charles Spurgeon.
Note: This isn’t an invitation to debate Calvin’s errors, simply a warning for those seduced by them, to wake up and repent.
Pre-Ordained to be a Calvinist?
John Calvin taught that it’s an affront to the LORD’s Sovereignty for sinners to imagine they have any choice in the matter of their salvation from sin and Hell.
His pet doctrine was that man plays no part in deciding if he’ll be born again, but God alone predetermines who will repent and believe on Christ, and so be born of God.
Calvin claimed the faith to repent and believe on Christ is the sovereign choice of God.
He read scriptures that seemed to him to declare that, and so he taught it as divine fact.
Whoops: Can I Repent?
However, it’s plain from our perspective that John Calvin was led astray by his carnal nature, and Satan has since spawned a cottage-industry developing calvinist perversion of scripture into what has become a pot-puri of cultic beliefs today.
You ask for my opinion, and there’s numerous grounds, both scriptural and experiential, upon which every born again believer in Christ can readily discern that Calvinism is flat wrong.
The great shortcoming of calvinism is that, like their teacher John Calvin, his disciples reject the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, so none of them can comprehend scripture rightly.
They juggle God’s words to fit their carnal reasoning and religious concepts, instead of spiritually discerning the meaning of scripture by revelation from God’s Spirit.
Show them scripture, and they will wrongly divide it to support Calvin, and stonewall God, The Holy Ghost, who inspired it!
I Find That Appalling
Here’s four ways you can see that Calvinism is NOT from God;
1) Personal experience of salvation upon receiving The Living Christ as LORD.
You were present, conscious, and awake when you chose to receive Him as your LORD and Saviour. Like I Was.
Men and women may have twisted your arm to do so, but Father God, The Holy Ghost, and LORD Jesus Christ, certainly did not.
Christian parents, friends, and relatives may have begged, even nagged, you to turn from unbelief and believe on Christ: But Father God didn’t.
Preachers perhaps confronted you with vivid oratorical imagery of hanging over the Pit of Hell, a whisker from eternal torment, persuading you to repent and believe on Christ, if not from love for God, at least from fear of Divine Judgment.
Ideally, you simply read the Holy Bible, and drawn by the Holy Ghost, you were attracted to the Person of the Living Christ, and began to hunger to Know Him in Reality.
Whatever the circumstances when you came to Christ, recall that you had a free choice to accept His Word, or reject Him as LORD.
The LORD did not force or pressure you to make the wisest choice of your life, did He?
Did He?
No, never.
Which brings me to the second grounds.
2) The Character and Nature of God.
Everyone who knows The Living Resurrected Christ, has His Holy Ghost in their heart leading them in the way of righteousness, and thereby knows that He would never force them to make any choice, for, or against, His will.
Such a thought is contrary to the very Nature of God: He’s simply not like that.
God’s enemies are like that: God isn’t.
You and I, before we came to Christ, would compel another to obey us, to make a decision we desire, but that’s never God’s way.
Flesh shoves and rushes: The Spirit of God gives freedom to choose, always. He’s so beautiful.
That was how it was when you were self-satisfied-in-your-sins, and it’s the same even now as you bask in the glory of God’s Grace, seated in Christ Jesus.
People always have free choice.
To be any other way would be unjust, unrighteous, unscriptural, and illegal.
Father God acts in perfect justice, and righteousness, and always will.
3) Predestination is Fatalism
Fate is a demonic philosophy invented by Satan; fatalism permeates New Age religions such as; Humanism, Hedonism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism.
I’ve lived most of my life in the midst of fatalists, so I’m familiar with their worldview, and spiritual blindness.
They float along shrugging at whatever comes, as “fate”, or “karma”, with zero hunger for truth.
They say to themselves, “It’s just the way it is, so why get worked up over it?”
Fatalism insulates from the truth, making the person immune to concern about their eternal welfare.
Calvinism teaches that God has already decided who He will save, and they play no part in the process: It’s fatalism, and wrong.
The Reformer’s Wall, University of Geneva
Paul Landowski, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
4) Calvinism is contrary to the Great Commission.
We thank God for the few calvinists who have dared to venture and proclaim Christ to the lost, but their Gospel Sword is always blunted by belief in Calvin’s doctrines.
The perverted prism of predestination, through which they view the lost, amputates their faith, and restricts the movement of God’s Spirit upon lost souls.
The Gospel all believers are commanded to proclaim to every creature is that; Heaven is wide open to WHOSOEVER will believe on Christ as LORD.
Not merely to special ones “whom God has chosen”, but open to every sinner ever born on Earth.
If a preacher doesn’t have that foundation in his heart, his gospel arrows fall short of their target.
The message of Christ’s good news is for every creature, because God’s Blood was shed for whosoever will repent and believe on The LORD Jesus Christ.
He took the sin of the world upon Himself willingly, so that each and every individual can have the opportunity to be saved from Judgment for their sins.
Is God a Sadist?
Can you imagine Father putting the sin of the world on Christ at Calvary? …Whilst knowing that nearly all of those sins were committed by sinners “He’d not pre-selected to be saved”, consequently, Christ is bearing them, and suffering their consequences, needlessly.
The Calvinists’ “god” is perverse.
No! Father God wanted Christ to bear the sin of every one of us, so that each person is Redeemed from; Sin, Sickness, Satan, and Judgment.
He already accomplished the Redemption of the world at Calvary two Millenia ago, but nobody benefits from that Gospel fact until we individually repent from unbelief, and believe on Christ as LORD.
It is Father’s will that all men come to repentance and faith in Christ. 2 Peter 3:9 KJV;
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Notice the words, ANY and ALL
The “god” of John Calvin IS willing that most sinners perish, and do not come to repentance: Thus flatly contradicting holy scripture.
That is satanic.
There are many other points I could mention, such as sectarianism, their rejection of present day healing miracles, constantly arguing about words, creating complex jargon, but that ought to be enough warning for any sincere believer in The LORD Jesus Christ.
Repent from religion and believe the Good News of Christ that He commanded us to proclaim.
What Good News?
The Good News that God has paid every sinner completely out of debt to God by the Sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son in our place.
Why?
So that every sinner can repent from unbelief and be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, here on Earth, and continue doing what Christ began to do.
So what?
So turn from religion and unbelief and believe Christ was crucified to redeem you.
Accept the Good News that Christ has reconciled every sinner to God by His death, burial, and resurrection.
Why?
So you can walk with God as though there’d never been any sin in your life, and reflect His love to everyone around you.
So what?
So repent of doubt and unbelief and embrace this Good News.
Believe the Good News that Christ the Healer-Saviour bore your sicknesses in His Body at Calvary.
Why?
So that you don’t have to have to bear sickness & disease, but be healed and stay healthy always.
So what?
So believe the Good News, and trust that God in Christ bore you diseases so you can be free of them all.
That’s my opinion: How about you, are you predestined to always be a Calvinist?
No, you can choose to repent, forsake Calvin’s errors, and Embrace The Truth?
© 24 Colin Melbourne
You may also be interested in reading;
The Ministry of Reconciliation
Charles Spurgeon on Catholicism
John Knox on The Roman Catholic Mass
John Knox on The LORD’s Supper
10 Reasons Why Catholics Are Not Christian
The header image shows the Reformer’s Wall monument in the University of Geneva, and depicts William Farel (1489–1565), John Calvin (1509–1564), Theodore Beza (1519–1605), John Knox (c.1513–1572) Photo courtesy of “SwissSmith” on Pixabay.