Friday March 30, 2012
Beware of the Calminians!
There is a new breed of “Calvinist.” Beware of the Calminians. They have John Calvin in the head and Billy Graham in the heart. Here’s how you can spot them:
- They say that God loves everybody (an Arminian doctrine) but Jesus only died for his elect (Calvinist doctrine). Thus they separate the love of God from the atonement. The Scripture makes no such separation. Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it (Eph. 5:25). He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).
- They talk of the death of Christ as being sufficient for all the world (i.e. every person in the world) but efficient only for the elect. The Scripture uses no such philosophical language but is definite in its expressions. I lay down my life for the sheep, Jesus said (John 10:15).
- They speak of two wills in the Godhead; whereas the Scripture says, But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth (Job 23:13).
- They speak of “paradox” and “tension,” of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. But the true Calvinistic doctrine is that man has no “response-ability.” Indeed response-ability is an Arminian doctrine. Men are accountable for their sins; God is wholly and solely responsible for the salvation of any man. Salvation is of the LORD. (Job 2:9.)
- Though they profess to believe that man’s will is in bondage, they would also put God’s will in bondage. Like Mr. John Piper who says, “Since not all people are saved we must choose whether we believe (with the Arminians) that God’s will to save all people is restrained by his commitment to human self-determinism or whether we believe (with the Calvinists) that God’s will to save all people is restrained by his commitment to the glorification of his sovereign grace.” But the Scripture knows of no such restraining, or bondage, of the will of God (and neither do true Calvinists). But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. (Ps. 115:3.) The will of God is unrestrained and unrestrainable.
- Astonishingly, they are attempting to re-cast John Wesley as a Calvinist! Like Iain Murray of The Banner of Truth Trust who in his book John Wesley and the Men who Followed says, “the foundation of Wesley’s theology was sound.” And Rowland Burrows who has recently written a book entitled, John Wesley in the Reformed Tradition. According to this book John Wesley “believed the truth to be . . . within a hairs breadth of Calvinism.” But the foundation of Wesley’s theology was free will (an Arminian doctrine and poles apart from Calvinism) as George Whitefield pointed out in his letter to Mr. Wesley: “You plainly make salvation depend not on God’s free-grace, but on man’s free-will.”
I recently had the privilege of speaking at a Sovereign Grace Union meeting at Colnbrook Strict and Particular Baptist Chapel in Berkshire and I mentioned these things, as well as many other matters, on that occasion. My subject was The Free Will Controversy. Although the subject was given to me, I was free to choose my text. So I took Revelation 8:10-11 for my text:
“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”
To hear the whole discourse, go to http://soundcloud.com/the-parsons-pages .