Now...he [God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a
way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain
death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. So wrote John Calvin.
Here are some of those verses that would lead us to think that every person has a free will, one in which man is free to make moral choices.
- “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life” (Deut. 30:19)
- “Choose this day whom ye will serve” (Josh. 30:19)
- “Repent…unless you repent you shall perish” (Mt. 4:17; Lk. 13:3) [Repent=change your mind]
- For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
- “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31)
- “Repent ("change your mind") and be baptized” (Acts 2:38)
- “Come unto Me” (Mt. 11:28)
- "God desires that none perish but that all come to repentance (a change of mind." (II Peter 3:9; 1 Tim 2:4)
- “And the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come'” (Rev. 22:17).
- "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have
been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together,
the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.) Matt. 23:37)
The believer is Bible- bound to get out there and spread the good news, not only to people with whom he has cultivated a relationship (often called friendship evangelism) but to scatter the seed to those he's just met or hardly known (cf. Paul in the synagogues and the rough and tumble forums of the ancient world with strangers abounding all around; cf. Philip hopping a ride in the chariot of a stranger; cf. God's sending Peter to Cornelius)
It's at this point that the Calvinist faces a dilemma. Whether he's in a church preaching evangelistically to a group of people or speaking man to man to an unbeliever, he has no idea as to whether, according to the system he's imposed on the Bible, God chose that person to be saved in eternity past or whether that person is one whom God chose to torture in hell for all eternity. As the Calvinist witnesses to someone, he doesn't believe that the listener is free to change his mind.
So what is the Calvinist to do? Is he to be truthful about his position and inform the unbeliever of his ignorance of the man's election to heaven or hell?
Some Calvinists say "Preach like he has a choice but believe like a
Calvinist." This means calling all people to faith as if everyone has the ability to choose, but by
doing so, they're being deceptive with their listener(s). They're leading
people to think they have a choice when in reality, according to the Calvinist, the choice has
already been made for them before they were born. If Calvinists are correct in their
understanding of the Bible, then the Bible is deceptive since there are all those "choose" texts.
In other words, Calvinists teach that the Bible deceives its readers
into thinking they're the ones who have to make a choice, and that anyone can be saved if he chooses to believe, when in reality the Calvinist believes that God only regenerates and gives the faith to a mere 5% to 10% of the world's population and God has already decided who's in and who's out.
In essence, this is the deception of saying one thing but believing the opposite and simultaneously hiding the opposite.
What's important is what the Calvinist does not say.
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