There's a famous statement from the 19th century by C. H. Spurgeon, aka "The Prince of Preachers." (No, the prince of preachers isn't Joel Osteen.) C. H. S., in a dogmatic frame of mind, wrote, "Calvinism is the gospel." So, if anyone should doubt that Spurgeon was a five point Calvinist, those four words answer the question.
OK. Let's weigh that statement on the biblical scale and see if it's found wanting. We'll begin by using the literal meaning of "gospel," i. e. "good news." And, in so doing, we'll let an unembarrassed Calvinist define their hallowed five points aka according Spurgeon as "the gospel." However, since bullet points are boring, let's put them into a narrative, into a conversation in which a follower of Calvin is witnessing to an unbeliever and giving him the "good news." That conversation, based on a summary of Calvinism, should go something like this:
The unembarrassed Calvinist: "The first part of the good news that you need to understand is that you can't independently choose God. You can't can't save yourself. God must intervene to save you. By "intervening," I mean that God must have already chosen you before you were ever born, chosen you to be saved.
"To further explain the good news, here's what happened in eternity past--God elected certain people to go to heaven. We call these people the elect. By choosing some to be the elect and bound for heaven, this would mean that God did not choose others and those people, billions ad billions of them, are therefore chosen to be the damned, damned to Hell before they were ever born. They have no choice in the matter of their salvation.
"Let's go further and hear more of the good news. The good news is that that Jesus Christ
died only for the sins of the elect, those people God chose in eternity past to go to heaven. The flip side of that is that Christ didn't die for the sins of those God chose to go to Hell. And, I must tell you, to be honest, I really don't know if Christ died for your sins or not, I can't say to you, "Christ died for your sins."
"You have to understand that those God chose are powerless to resist the good news. They have no say-so or choice in the matter. They cannot say, "No."
"Now these people called the elect, will be faithful to the end of their lives, but it's not really they who will persevere in faith, God is the One who will. They have no choice in that either."
"In all of this, God gets the glory. He's glorified in sending people to Hell who had no choice in the matter, that is, He created men, women, and children for the purpose of sending them to Hell forever so that He could be glorified. I also admit to you that even John Calvin confessed that this was a horrible and dreadful doctrine. He called it, "God's horrible and terrible decree."
"Now if you ask me, "How in the world could God be glorified by sending men, women, and children to Hell who had no choice in the matter and how could He be glorified by saving people who had no choice either?" We have an answer to that question--it's a mystery. We don't know."
How should the unbeliever respond to such a gospel presentation? The only answer is: "If that's good news, then it's only good news to the elect, but it's bad news to every one else, so how can we call it a gospel for the whole world?"
Does any Calvinist witness to the unbeliever that way? If so, it's a very small percentage, which makes you wonder, are they embarrassed by a God like that?
No comments:
Post a Comment