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PART II


 Chapter 2  

On Calvinism and Various Excesses


This is taken from News, Facts and Forecasts Ch. 4,
for this purpose somewhat extended, and slightly revised.  

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

CALAMITOUS CONTENTION AND HOLY HARMONY

 

NEWS 112

 

Dave Hunt's latest newsletter (August 2000) has done it at last

 

After rather a reasonable review of some of the points in which he agrees with Calvinism, he unleashes an assault where it does not belong, and omits the precision of one where it does! First then let us look at this general field of Biblical study, to gain perspective. Then we shall consider it in some more detail. The double coverage will not be wasted.  Talk for centuries attests that. Thus be patient, gentle reader, and apply the mind!


PERSPECTIVE

 

It is of the greatest misfortune, arising out of hundreds of years of endless division and resultant declivity from important areas of scripture, that restless auto-sotericism, salvation by or though self in part or whole, is tweedle-dee, and aborted, truncated love of God is tweedle-dum. Neither is Biblical. Both fight, inveterately, unprofitably. What is profitable is the word of God, not these philosophical extrusions from culture and intrusions from presumption.

 

It is not that it is necessarily conscious. It is just that it is necessarily wrong. The reason ? The word of God as will be shown here and in our many references to this topic in this site, does not tolerate either option. Naturally and assuredly, therefore, we can expect such luttes à mort, the death struggles in any language which do not adorn the church.

 

So do they slog it out. Free-will fans (in part or in whole) ignore Ephesians 2:1-8, which cannot be circumvented, for it is both a negation of the one option, and an affirmation of the other, as likewise I Corinthians 2:14, which is just as clear and sure as is I Cor. 2:9-13, on the inspiration of scripture.

 

In this case, the natural man finds spiritual things foolishness, and DOES NOT RECEIVE THEM, says Paul. Now someone might twistingly, thrashing about, try to argue that the natural man (that is the unspiritual, the unconverted man, contrasted expressly with the child of God), might decide to be foolish. However even this enormity of insanity is precluded, for it also states expressly, this: that he does NOT RECEIVE THEM. How do you receive what you do not receive!

 

The answer is clear: it cannot be done. If GOD precludes it, it is useless to assert that you can do it. This would require you to be greater than God, able to abort His program, His analysis, His power. That is simple delusion.

 

Hence NO part of freewill can operate in salvation. You are either converted or not. If not, you do not receive it. Until you are, therefore, you will not receive it. (See for ordo salutis, the order of salvation, SMR Ch. 6, end note 6, p. 476) If the MAN is  NOT converted, and HENCE unspiritual, THENCE he cannot receive it. If he is unconverted, he is not a Christian. If he is not a Christian, HE cannot become one. It is outside his power. It is not a thing that he can do.

 

It IS, however, most readily a thing that God can do. It is for this reason that He does it. He has the motive, in love; He has the knowledge, being non-sinful and not so limited as is the unconverted man; He has the power, being able to do whatsoever pleases Him in heaven and on earth (Psalm 115:3). As Jonah put it, THEREFORE, "SALVATION IS OF THE LORD".

 

YOU cannot contribute ANYTHING. If you are converted, then it is already done, and you indeed to receive Him.      If you are not, then you CANNOT. Since you cannot receive Him, when unconverted, then until you are converted, you are defunct, a spent force, a hopeless cripple. This needs to be clear. Failure to realise this leads to endless difficulties in theology and in life, and justified ones. YOU cannot achieve it, relieve it, deliver it. God does all this.

 

Thus as Paul says in Ephesians 2, BY GRACE are you saved (literally, having been saved), through faith; and that (i.e. grammatically, the whole cycle, not just 'faith') is NOT of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Now how a gift of God which is NOT of yourselves can be said to be in part an achievement which is of yourselves we shall leave to the lawyers; but in case they seek too far, let us add this. When you drive a car, you do not invent simultaneously, the mechanism of steering, or the existence of tyres beneath you. This is well understood.

 

The whole structure of the car, its engineering and modes of relationship of part to part, parts to environment, parts to whole, all this is NOT OF YOU. But if you see a car coming towards you, and swerve, this very definitely is of you. It would be ludicrous to pretend that you could say: My deliverance (speaking humanly apart from the grace of God) was not of myself, it was the gift of the car! Clearly we all know the obvious, that you are not the engineer. The relevant question is simple: DID YOU do something which, given the structure, environment and conditions, resulted in avoidance of accident ? Answer : Yes, I swerved. IF you had not swerved, would the structure of the car, the conditions have delivered you ? No, in one second the smash was about to happen. COULD you say it was not of yourself but the gift of the car, then ? Not at all.

 

So here. IF you make a difference without which the whole thing aborts, it cannot without flat and final self-contradiction be said that it is NOT of yourself, but on the contrary, the gift of God.

 

Thus Christ declares you did not choose Me, but I CHOSE YOU! (John 15), and Paul as we shall see further later, announces this truth: It is not of him who wills, but of God who shows mercy. The topic salvation and the access to divine mercy.

 

Auto-sotericism, self-salvation, instrumentally, episodically, as a contributor, is forbidden. As we shall shortly see, it aborts many theological facts, as well as having collision with numerous scriptures and the whole tenor of salvation. John 6 will add depth to our counsels when we return.

 

Nor however is it true that God does not LOVE those going to hell, is not bothered or concerned, does not, as one eminent (truly eminent) theologian stated, love in the same way; that he does not have that dynamic or diligence or reality or whatever may be the missing element, that clinches the case, secures the result ?

 

The love, it is often expressly stated or implied, is there, but NOT ENOUGH of it, in quality, in calibre, in determination or in some other differential or potentially differential feature, to secure the prize, get the target, save the soul of someone who is about to be damned. ALL deserve it; those who escape have this love securing the result in Christ. Those who do not, do not have this sort of love in their pursuit. Hence it does not reach them.

 

THIS is the story from the tweedle-dum side.

 

On the contrary, the word of God insists in Colossians 1, it PLEASED the Father that in Christ should all fulness (the whole of the Godhead as in Col. 2:9) dwell. It was not a specific ambassadorial truncation of the godhead, or a partial eclipsed version. THE FULNESS, the pleroma, all that constituted God, was there dwelling, in Him. This therefore included the realities which attach to the godhead: eternity of nature, irrepressibility of power, immeasurable purity, and the precise nature of His heart, who in I John 4:7ff. is said to BE love. Let us be clear here. It is NOT stated that what we call 'love' in our presumptions or proclivities is what God is; it is what GOD CALLS LOVE. That love however is then seen in its nature in what follows in Colossians 1.

 

It pleased, then, says Paul, the Father that in Christ should all fulness dwell (for as in Philippians 2, HE WAS IN THE FORM OF GOD before voluntarily, in majestic self-abasement and humiliation, taking the form of man as an outlet and expressive form for His function of salvation). It “pleased the Father” that a series and sequence of events should then proceed. This is detailed.

 

The components ?

1) that He should make peace by His blood of the cross and this done,

2) that He should act to reconcile all things to Himself.

3) that He should do so in such a scope of operation that it should cover things on earth and in heaven, both, all,

 4) that the method would be personal, by HIM. It would not be a methodology to which He would point, but in His own Person - His is any methodology, it is all of HIM, He the mediator (I Timothy 2), the SOLE mediator (loc. cit.), He that between God and mankind (loc. cit.)

5) that this should include even those whose wicked works were alienated

(and indeed include no others, for it is for sinners only - Barbs, Arrows and Balms    - cf. Ephesians 2:2, 4:17-19, Psalm 51:5).

 

Is there here recorded some truncation, then, in the love of God ? Is it affirmed, then, that this good pleasure of the Father is in some way limited, in heaven, or on earth; that He should reconcile some things ? that it would be by measure ?

The opposite is both dramatically, and emphatically determined and expressed by the apostle in this passage.

Now the Calvinist may object. In that case, he may affirm, God would be frustrated, which is impossible since He works all things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11).

Not so. This is an example of philosophical addition to the word of God fully as noxious as that of the Arminian (in part or whole, it is possible to take one Arminian feature of distinction, but not all, and thereby in that respect to be Arminian). The latter insists that one must do some part of the salvation oneself, so that it would be true to say, Salvation is in part of the Lord; and this, By grace you are saved by faith, and not all of this is of yourself. This however is not so written, but the contradictory.

The solution is not far to find. It is this: sit still and let God talk. IF HE wants in a sense of willingness, expansiveness of lovingkindness, to secure and provide goodness towards all, this is His business, and if as is the case, He asserts this, woe to its exclusion! He DOES assert this.

If however someone wishes to assert that because this willingness, this proclivity, this dispositional kindness does NOT result in the salvation of all, and that this is salvation, to borrow from Dave Hunt's phrasing, this is NOT what the ordinary man would understand, either of love or of power, what then?

Yet is a man frustrated if he is willing and even desirous of sending his own son to University, and this does not transpire ? Yes, IF he is a dictator and is never satisfied, but only frustrated, if his wishes are negated. If however he loves his son in such a way that he does not plan to bend his will, mould his mind or direct his feet as if he were a puppet, then there is not the slightest frustration. His kindness of heart does not reach to dictation, abortion of the personality of the son. Nor is the kindness compromised in the slightest degree, by such a result; and if a man could not understand THAT, where then has he been!

 

The father’s purse was ready (on behalf of ALL such things that the son might do); but the exchequer was never called on. He did not redeem the opportunity for his son, since the son was not to be found where the need was. Universal redemption is an abortion of truth and simple reality. The offer for all is ON THEIR BEHALF (Greek I John 2:2). The redemption for what Christ calls 'many' (Matthew 26:28 cf. Isaiah 53:11) is for those actually bought. The rest, as Christ explicitly stated, shall die in their sin (John 8:24).

 

Bearing sin justifies (Isaiah 53:11), and justification consummates with certainty in glorification. Indeed as in Romans 5:1ff., and 5:12ff. alike, the beginning, when of God, ensures the end. Having been justified, how much MORE will you be kept! The payment is the price, and the price is death, bearing sin; and that death buys and sustains what is bought. Redemption is no more universal than are millionaires; and many might relate to the unsearchable riches of Christ, and yet do not!

 

Hence redemption is offered for man as one whole, on his behalf, as is the case in many things, offered to many categories of person; but the payment in place, equivalent to sin bearing, this is always chastely less. In the Saviour’s own words, it is “for many”. We shall revisit this shortly.

As to the negative process, when that is the case, it may be simple or complex, drawing near and spitting out; but the result is one. That soul is not bought. Whom He justified, He glorified (Romans 8), and the ones justified are so resolved, the word of God expressly states, because HE BEARS their iniquities (Isaiah 53). We have to be very explicit about what the word of God teaches. Those in Romans 8:32 for whom He is actually delivered up, these have “all things”. Since this contextually includes heaven, it does not possibly include hell.

That is the express teaching of the Bible.

Having Christ delivered up in your place, being justified, His bearing your sin, hence becoming glorified (Romans 8:;17,28ff.), being covered by His blood and hence much more being saved from wrath through Him (Romans 5): it is all one. These things are complementary, integumental, integral, fashionings of the one piece of wood, the cross, of the one predestinative certainty, His, secured by the one hand, the Shepherd’s; and those who imagine any could wrest from that, or determine it themselves,  are merely deluded, as well as anti-scriptural (John 10, 1:12, I Cor. 2:14, Romans 9:16).

When God performs the miracle of electing and thus justifying and hence glorifying His own people, that superb and supernatural act, He is irresistible. When however He is working, not the outcome of His plan and foreknowledge of all things, His discernment and His will, but the income of His willingness, then in His love He is perfectly willing (though He lament as Christ did), to allow those made in His image, to defile it for ever. He did not make them otherwise.

God then is quite able (let us not limit the Holy One of Israel as in Psalm 78, such things are recorded of Israel) to have a willingness, a proclivity to do something which His own principles do not follow through to consummation. In this, He may grieve, but He is not frustrated for the very good reason that His principles are HIS. NO ONE forces them on Him; where they are bent, He is not present. In other words, God and breach of His principles by Himself are mutually exclusive; He does not and yes, scripturally, cannot deny Himself (II Timothy 2:13).

He would not be who He is if He were to do so, for His Being is not susceptible to improvement, and He maintains constant His perfections, neither growing better by discovery or realisation of error. Of errors, He makes none.  Of knowledge, He has all (cf. SMR Ch.1).

Hence His willingness and readiness is one thing; and His pursuit to consummation, is not in terms of more or less sincere love, qualitatively or if you would like such a term, quantitatively. It is in terms of the very chasteness of love and its articulation in the divine being.

He KNOWS in particular who are His (II Timothy 2:19), secures them, having loved them; but not them alone! It is the divine restraint and purity of motive and heart, attention to the realities which He has created, and not the creaturely skill which is the determinant.  In action, as in knowledge, He is right.

He pays where the payment belongs, to many.

He offers it likewise where offer belongs: to all.

The consummation and the offer are not the same, and the difference is NOT in truncated love or exalted flesh. It is in the divine knowledge. THIS is where it is all taking its beginning (Romans 8:29ff.), and God, who knows His own mind, so declares. The other concept of carnal application is precisely where it is excluded by the word of God, as we see and shall see, continually. When it comes to the word of God, it is better to let Him write it. He KNOWS what He is talking about!


 
TIME TO CEASE WANDERING

 

NEITHER AUTO-SOTERICISM*1A NOR TRUNCATED LOVE IS BIBLICAL. HENCE there is this unhappy proclivity of the flesh to argue endlessly for one or the other, or to try to avoid the realities of the justice of the attribution on the one side or the other; but the fact remains, use meaningful vocabulary as you will, the Bible condemns both these views. The reality of the love, sincerity and depth and breadth, is Biblical; to deny it is unbiblical. The total omission of the sinner from being a determinant, partial or complete, contributory or other, a participant in salvation so that it is in any part his own doing, is precluded. Let them argue. There is no resolution.

THIS is not because it is a fault or defect, a deficiency or an omission even, in the Bible. It is not for this reason in the least. It is in fact, as we have shown so often, because BOTH positions are CONTRARY to the Bible. In one sense, and a just one, this is even a FURTHER VERIFICATION. THEY CANNOT agree, and the matter is NEVER resolved, whether between Wesley and Whitfield, or Hunt and others, very much after the manner of that famous original exchange, the terms of which appear and re-appear, BECAUSE NEITHER PARTY keeps to ALL that is written. Some vary more, some less; some rather omit: but the need is always there. Have all God says, omit nothing.

We are not being in the least personal in this. It is merely that the TYPE of position of the one and the other is here more, there less, shown in exchanges when the NATURE of the options, in essence and in the end, is that neither does full justice to all that is written. Some party may come nearer, but when there is a complete presentation of all that is written on this topic, in every phase and facet, then the resolution is already there. It is as above.

There is NO room for ANY auto-sotericism (cf. Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 3); no, nor for ANY universal redemption frustrating God of impotence and frustration, aborting HIS efficacious payment; nor for ANY diminution of the love of God; nor for ANY non-limitation of the atonement, for what is atoned for is covered for ever as in Romans 8:17,29ff., Ephesians 1:11, Romans 5:1-11. The beauty of it is this: that what God affirms, fits in a harmony exquisite and wonderful; and what He denies, rumbles like a bad stomach.

The love is not limited, then; but the atonement is. The choice is not made by man but by God; but the reality of the image-of-God nature of man is honoured and God does NOT force the spirit of man, or merely omit the thing He made, so that it is seduced into a mere force-pump, moved by the pressure.

HOW is this so ? God works things in His own way (Ephesians 1:11), but it is clear that it is quite possible to have it all happen this way. For example, as illustration to demonstrate possibility merely, God could assess the soul without works, apart from its actualities in history entirely, indeed, see it apart from sin, and construe it in His own way.

Psychiatrists allege (wrongly) that the soul is thus and so, and may be analysed and understood in this or that theoretical way, based on some model, from time to time.

The concept is right, but the allegation is wrong. It is GOD who has this understanding, being free both from limitation and from sin. It is HIS pre-rogative so to see and so to know. If HE knows - apart from the vying competitiveness of someone being more or less aware, more or less susceptible to the power and influence of God - if He comprehends in fall what is the case for any soul, even when its own will is paralysed IN THIS AREA because sin MAKES it foolishness as the apostle Paul declares to be the case: that is His own divine business.

It is not the operation of flesh to secure this. Flesh and blood CANNOT inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor. 15:47,50). It is not only ‘of the earth’ but ‘earthy’ that is the inheritance. It is the operation of GOD who, being capable to the degree necessary (an infinite degree) can do what He does do. What is this ? We pass insensibly as it were to the Bible itself now, so that past all possibilities, we simply look at what is in fact written.

GOD FOREKNOWS HIS OWN (Romans 8:29ff.). Thus it is all based not on foreknowledge of events or happenings, a mere subtlety of evasion of autosotericism; for what does it matter WHEN or HOW it is based on what one does: if it is so based, it contradicts the same scriptures as before. It is based on knowledge of the person, with SUCH a sort of event orientation EXCLUDED EXPRESSLY (Romans 9:11), so that the predestination is of God in such a way that works are EXCLUDED on the part of man. This, as we shall examine more closely later, is just what John 1:12ff. is telling us.

THOSE foreknown are predestined, justified and glorified. Justification is wrought on the basis of BEARING sins. They are justified, says Isaiah 53:11, BECAUSE He has born their sins. WHEN that happens, says Paul, they are to be  glorified. Having been justified he declares in Romans 5, they shall the more certainly be kept by the power of God.

Justification demands payment, and ensures keeping; redemption is eternal, efficacious, immutable, resulting expressly from adequate payment (Romans 5:16,19, Hebrews 9:12,15). The soul is redeemed, the peace is provided, the acceptance is acknowledged, faith is wrought and used (Ephesians 2:1-10). It is all based on the fact that GOD FOREKNEW HIS OWN (Romans 8:29ff.). On them, He so operates.

Who is this who presumes to announce that this aborts freedom, makes mockery of liberty, debases the soul, misuses words! Hunt is wrong precisely and entirely in so designating what in fact as shown, the Bible expressly declares. Of course one must choose. But the point is on what basis one does so!

If it is as an unsaved person, then it is excluded, and that by the biblical warrant demonstrated.

v If it is as a saved person, then the unsaved has NO part in his own salvation, redemption. If this is so, does that rob God of the power in His foreknowing activity, action, envelopment, to engage liberty according to pattern without man having the power ?

v Is man’s impotence to be illicitly equated with God’s! Is God to fail to make the reality to which the words apply, or in His own being and in His own foreknowing, so to act that man in his failure, is neither past nor beyond the power of God to KNOW what is fitting!

Is this grand knowledge available beyond the divine wisdom of God ? How ? By what means ? On the basis of some psychoanalysis of the divine mind or power or proclivity ? The WORD of GOD STATES, that this foreknowledge is basic. It does not state that this aborts the reality of human liberty. In fact, since this reality is affirmed, and the slavery of sin is likewise affirmed, and its total inhibition of salvatory power in man, even to the point of precluding his RECEIVING spiritual things (expressly), then it must be that the reality of liberty is SECURED in the mode of the divine foreknowledge. Is this too amazing!

Certainly the Lord is amazing; but not too amazing. HE ONLY does wondrous things (Psalm 72). To know Him is to know that! So He is more, and not less, capable of knowing the soul apart from all the competitive relativities of sin, and implementing this knowledge apart from the will of man, but not in abortion of the form of freedom, its formula. Salvation then does not depend AT ALL on mere circumstance, psychological or cultural, educational or other. It depends on the ONE the word indicates (the normal man, we remember, and consider what would HE make of it!). Salvation IS of the Lord! It is NOT of the flesh, or any part of it. Flesh cannot receive these things. That is what God says. It is better to believe Him, if you wish to expound His will.

SALVATION IS OF THE LORD does not mean that we are a crucial part of it, and that our contribution makes the pivotal difference. NOT of works lest any man should boast. YOU CAN BOAST of making all the difference. Many boast of making ANY difference. It is excluded. It is of the Lord, this salvation by grace through faith (positive), and NOT of yourselves (negative). One notices no qualification, no limitation. It is a flat and direct statement. Its contradiction is mere rebellion.

Now certainly this realm is deep. It is well not to brand one another. It is necessary however, without reflecting on the state of grace of any party (God judges! judge not! very well, let us keep to our task and not stray from it!), to realise that the word of God has spoken in this issue. It is time a more mellow and gracious disposition of realisation occur. We must realise the force of both intentions and the unscriptural character of much that has been written on both sides.

In the LOVE aspect, Wesley is basically Biblical, praise God. In the SYSTEM aspect, Calvin is basically Biblical, praise God. We have not been left all this time without a witness. The Bible back of both has it ALL. We must learn to respect that, and in whatever other discussion we have on this topic, let us NEVER abort the plain meaning of what is written, far less FLATLY CONTRADICT it. What is it like ? It is like those engines which, not well cared for or suddenly deficient, INSIST on continuing for a few seconds when the key is turned off. They run on.

Now the engines do well as engines to run at all. It is however a distinct defect when they will not be still when the key is turned off! THEN they SHOULD be still. ALL of the Scripture is spoken; when we meet a direction in it, let us not vainly and philosophically try to carry on and say, thus and therefore, based merely on the false assumption that our limits are the Lord's.

Let us rather keep to ALL that is said ALWAYS and NEVER add. If we have, as here, in appealing for purity towards the word, to point out that certain things do NOT follow, are NOT implied, and that the purity of the word can be seen in a harmony thus or so, so be it. This is not doctrine. It is merely the defence of it; and more also. It enables us to see that NOTHING else ever does or COULD meet the whole case of man with respect to these basic issues of freedom and control.

ONLY if man CAN be moved to new system outside himself is there even a possible liberty; and ONLY if he is to be moved beyond his own power and limits, can that freedom, that liberty be express and expressed The word of God provides what is necessary. Man gets what it gives. HOW he gets it is God's business, not that of extrapolations built on nothing.

Otherwise, the limits abort at any and every point. This is the ONLY way in which this can be done: by the POWER OF GOD. It is not merely in a systematic way; it is also in a personal way. Being born again is not an option for the babe any more than it was the first time. Birth is the ONE time when you HAVE to realise that it does not depend at all on YOU. The Spirit, as Jesus put it, blows where it will! (John 3).

This is the case with being born again, He says. Let us not contradict the word of God in ANY place. Let us leave it there. It blows as IT will and not as WE will. That is what is written. It is NOT of him who wills, that is what is written. You have NOT chosen Me, that is what appears.

That - where it will - is the nature of it, being born again, when the nature of it was the topic of conversation, as expressed by the Lord. In that we rest. It IS restful. It is ALWAYS restful to abide in the Lord and in His word, because it is His. Avaunt then philosophy, let us abide in His word and let His word abide in us, and let us be therewith content. It is reasonable as we show; nothing else in this area is able to be (cf. Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 11, and Predestination and Freewill).

ONLY God can remove man from his sin/limits/self/flesh in His own vision, and having another quality and value and power to provide, bring man on His own recognition, to Himself, thus preserving freedom.

Freedom carnally provided, in man per se, by whatever means, is as impossible in his sin-sick state as the Bible expressly indicates (in I Cor. 2:14, and parallels in John 1:12ff.). To have it you must lose it. To find it you must be taken from yourself to where it is. It is God who does it: salvation is of the Lord.

Indeed, so FAR from this aborting freedom, it is necessary for it, essential to its operation in the soul stricken with sin. There is NO purity of heart without purging. There is no knowledge without purity.

There is no salvation in which man has part.

Hence Christ has indeed CHOSEN YOU (f you either are, or are to be His), and not vice versa. The evangelisation formula is deficient. Liberty is secure. It is reasonable. It is revealed. Its place is the Lord.

Its mode of transfer is salvation. This is its result. The assaults on the divine doctrine of total salvation by grace through faith, without any contribution of flesh, are misplaced, a weakening of the fabric of truth, an erosion of the beauty of apologetic truth, because they represent a humanistic weaning from the word of God. It is not by any means always realised by those who so err; but this does not prevent its occurrence. It is abiding in the word of God which does that.


OVERVIEW


Where the assault on the doctrine of Calvin does belong, is in the short change on the love of God to those ultimately lost. This has been shown and documented before. For this, see Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 2, 'A Prominent Example of the Insular, Beware of the -Ism, but take the Good, Testing All Things'.


The error has also been exhibited in , and the correction with it; and likewise the Biblical approach has been shown to this area in SMR Appendix B. In fact, there has been an exposure of this dangerously short-changed area of Biblical truth also in Ch. 4 in The Kingdom of Heaven. More may be found on the love of God, without this precise emphasis, but conformably to it, in Spiritual Refreshings for the Biblical Millenium Chs. 9, 10, 11, 12.


It is however NOT in the 5 points of Calvin that the trouble with his system lies. Indeed, to the extent that this embraces his essential system, that is not the trouble. It is in the milieu, the surrounds, the unnecessary additives, the unnecessary exemption concerning the love of God that the trouble lies. As the first reference above documents, Calvin does indeed fail on this point. What has doubtless contributed vastly to the upset caused by his theology is not the real strength in his five points, but the real weakness in this delineation of the love of God, which is beyond and antecedent to the system. WHEN the 5 points are read in THIS CONTEXT, then the opprobrium occurs. Read in a SCRIPTURAL context, they are quite sound.


Unfortunately, neither Calvin nor many calvinists put them in the scriptural context, IN THIS REGARD. THAT is just ONE of the ways in which the Lord in His kindness and compassion shows PRACTICALLY the error of trusting in the flesh. The arm of flesh will fail. Let it be a brilliant man, a godly: it is all the more dangerous to trust in such a one. TRUST IN THE LORD ALONE! This is the Biblical advice (Jeremiah 17; 9). It is not good to put trust in horses or in flesh or armies or princes; it IS most good and holy and godly to put your trust in the Son of God (Psalm 2) and in the ROCK who is GOD ONLY (Psalm 62).

It is perhaps not at all Calvin's fault that so many have called themselves in complete disregard of the Biblical COMMAND, after his name (I Corinthians 3, and for exegesis of this to the point, see Repent or Perish 1, ). It is however his error which - perhaps not least to keep men level-headed and to avoid idolatry - occurs. The ONE whose theology is utterly and entirely perfect is God. For the rest of us, TEST ALL THINGS, and NEVER name yourself after ANY SINNER! His 1% error may become your 48% error! In any case, it is FORBIDDEN!

Thus the one in the extreme that surpasses scripture in the abyss of free thought, and the other in the parallel declivity that surpasses scripture in the abyss of dissolved love, they fight it out. Dave Hunt's surprisingly naive sharing of one - indeed some - of the errors of Calvin's adversaries certainly excluded him from being "a Calvinist" (which with other forbidden follower -isms of man, are explicitly forbidden in I Corinthians 3). It does not, however, deliver him from aborting God's total coverage of salvation in the realm of will, at His own unsynergised instance (Romans 9, John 15, 1), as in all else.

Neither side ever seems able/willing to meet the scriptures of the other. As Spurgeon rightly emphasised, the scriptural propositions are both true: those that insist on the relevance of will, and the direct performance by God of His will in salvation. As shown in Predestination and Freewill Sections 3 and 4, the relevance however is to GOD, and not a matter of any mite of sovereignty of disabled man.

God is not to be viewed as a love-aborted caricaturer of what the scripture clearly depicts - in what Spurgeon terms a hideous caricature of the love of God. (See ref. above for detail.) Nor is He to be made an accomplice or co-agent in the salvation of what is "dead in trespasses and sins", who says, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you," and this, "It is not of him who wills", and again, "who were born ...not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

The will is both as fallen and as debarred as all else, operative only when liberated at this level, and liberated by the will of God at His own discretion and grace: not without love, and not without knowledge, indeed BY foreknowledge, and that not of works, but of what He foreknows.

It is necessary indeed to cease misusing clear words on BOTH sides, expressing amazing neglect of the TOTALITY of the word of God. What! is man to grapple with the word of God as with some monster, because he declines to adapt to it, and insists on adapting what at some point he may not understand, to his own mind and will!

Thus each striving party relates to a valid point in some things, but tends to make false implications from that point or region, and hence to abort other scriptures.

The Bible statements, in each case repetitive, leave no room for either extreme. It is not that truth lies "in the middle", but that it lies where God put it, which is in neither "camp".

How it is to be understood is first and foremost by neither amplifying man's power, nor diminishing God's love*1, but in giving to each what is accorded. Man has power to sin, and to reject. Only God has power to save and to select. The selection is HIS will and in deals with man without diminution of love, because man is too sick to handle the case himself. Without this lust or thrust for philosophy, or from it, illicit inferences abounding like grasshoppers in a Spring plague, there is the harmony where the word of God rules, and rule it must, free from those two diverse and divergent unscriptural philosophic extrapolations*2.

All this is demonstrated an exhibited in detail in ...



THE PROBLEM

THAT MUST BE SOLVED,
BY RETURN TO THE WORD OF GOD:
LOOKING ON DETAIL and WATCHING DIRECTIONS



Dave Hunt then, in his public declamation on Calvin, might with perfect propriety, have drawn attention to this demonstrable error. It is not however in the five points. It exists; but not there.

Since he has alleged error in the five points, on the topic of irresistible grace total depravity, however, it is necessary to check this out, test it. It is not a question of Calvin or non-Calvin. It is a question of the points Dave Hunt is making while dealing with Calvin. His basic error, which however Calvin in this case avoids, is to allow man a part in his own salvation.

This may come as rather a shock at first sight, since he seems to be saying more or less what such evangelists as Billy Graham have for so long and so erroneously, declared. Billy Graham's not entirely strange degree of alliance with Roman Catholicism has been attested elsewhere (e.g. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.   7, p. 110,  and  8  in   Questions and Answers). The failure in the area of separation is allied to, and parallel with the drift in doctrine on this very point, which is indeed not distant from Rome's teaching in this specific area.

It is NOT the case that CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY, is addressed to people FORMALLY outside the kingdom. It is addressed, indeed to those in rebellious mode; but it is addressed to those who allegedly are in a covenant relationship to God. It is like a Lieutenant calling to his men to be faithful to their C.O. If they are not inclined to do this, it is a violation of their ground of being there at all. It may indeed happen, as in breach of contract. It is however not at all like the case where someone simply does not join the army. The choice is of those called and committed, to be faithful; or to show their fraudulence.

It is NOT the case that Ephesians 2 teaches us that the cycle of shown is inclusive of some fragment of the will of man. It is rather that the whole episode. BY grace you have been saved THROUGH faith and THAT (grammatically agreeing not with 'faith' but with the whole cluster), that whole thing is NOT OF YOURSELVES.

What could be clearer! If I am to save myself by ferociously clinging on to a rope, while a helicopter draws me up, then it is indeed in part my effort. Useless to protest that the helicopter was the main instrument. Granted and of course. But it ALL DEPENDED ON ME, unless the rope were tied about me so that I was secure, NOT OF MYSELF, but by the action of the one who tied the knots to render me so secure. It would be misleading in the extreme to say that it was NOT of myself but the GIFT of the helicopter, when, with aching muscles and wrenched wrists, I clamoured into safety, KNOWING that one slip from me and it was all over. I COULD boast (if I had the effrontery to do so), saying:

"You know, our family have always been tough, and when the chips are down, we rise to the occasion. I was in deep, I do not deny it, but the old muscle and bone told the story. That is the way it is with us: we get there in the end! What!"

When you had quite recovered from your nausea, you might reflect, that pride apart, it was true. In this case, at least, the old chap HAD managed to HOLD ON. In this he might be so very unlike countless others who did NOT rise to the occasion and so perished.

BUT, says the apostle, IT IS NOT OF WORKS LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST.

Boasting is EXCLUDED. (Ephesians 2:9, and Romans 3:27). It CANNOT be excluded by the nature of the case when the case enables it. It cannot be WITHOUT works when the work of being sensitive enough, having a natural proclivity which RESPONDS to the appeal of the Lord MORE than that of someone who lacks just that natural proclivity, and USING that sensitivity in  RESPONSE to call, differentially from the use others make, makes the difference, or indeed ANY difference.

That is doubtless why, in no small part, the Bible which has a harmony of phrase and function, substance and declaration so intense as to be like a massive electromagnetic field, gripping everything in its path, tells us in John 1, something else.

It is this. HOW were those who were born into the kingdom, then, born ? What was the procedure ? It is in the negative aspect as follows: "who were born , not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God".

Now we need to reflect on this. Someone might say,



It is, says the word of God, in perfect harmony in PRINCIPLE with the image given, “NOT of blood”. In other words it is