PEOPLE HATE REFORMED DOCTRINE. HERE'S WHY.

Every once in a while someone will want to argue with me about Reformed doctrine, particularly the doctrines of election and predestination.

My first response is to ask them if they have actually read The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin. The answer is almost always no. Then I reply, "Read the entire work and then come back and we will discuss it."

Yes, I have read it. It is an absolutely brilliant work. It is not the infallible word of God and there are things Calvin said that I think he's off track on, particularly infant baptism. This work of Calvin could be accurately described as an exposition and commentary on the gospel. As Charles Spurgeon said:

"I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else."

For those who don't like Reformed doctrine it may be of comfort to know that many of the great reformed preachers intially hated the doctrine too. But when faced with what scripture actually says about the sovereignty of God and the depravity of man they couldn't argue with it.

Here are the main objections and some responses:

1. Does God really determine that some are going to hell?

Actually in our dead, fallen state we are ALL going to hell. What God actually proactively does is determine that he is going to save some from going to hell.

Romans 3:23:

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"

Almost everyone knows what John 3:16 says. Fewer know what verse 17 says and almost nobody knows what verse 18 says. Verse 18 says:

"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son."

The world was already condemned and that included us.

2. But we have free will.

Interestingly, the Bible nowhere says that we have free will. We DO have free will in the sense that we are not puppets where someone is pulling our strings. But our will is in bondage to our nature. In Romans 8:7:

"The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so."

Without being regenerated (born again) we simply cannot respond to the gospel call.

1 Corinthians 1:18:

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

This first section of Ephesians explains it well;

Ephesians 2:1-10:

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

The word for dead in verse 1 is 'necros,' and it literally means 'dead.' Dead people cannot hear the gospel. Dead people cannot respond to the gospel. I remember a sermon by Paul Washer preaching on Ezekiel 37 and he explained that whenever we preach the gospel we are just like Ezekiel and we are preaching to a cemetery. Unless God breathes life into the corpses absolutely nothing is going to happen.

Unless God had breathed his life into us, we would have rejected the gospel as well. But God breathed life into us and then, being made alive, we could hear the gospel and respond to His call.

This is even affirmed in the Old Testament

Ezekiel 36:26-27:

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

'Heart of stone' is literally non-living. 'Heart of flesh' does not mean carnal. It means living. We were once dead and have been made alive. Now that we are alive we can hear God's voice and with his spirit in us we can now follow him.

ANSWERING THE GOSPEL CALL REQUIRES A NEW NATURE

3. The doctrine of election makes it sound like we really don't have a choice. So how can I be responsible if God has already determined who will be saved and who won't? Paul anticipates this argument in Romans 9:19:

"One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”

His answer basicly is that God can do whatever he wants and who are we to tell God what he can and cannot do. Chapters 8 and 9 so firmly establish the doctrine of election that some early theologians around the time following the Reformation, who disagreed with the doctrine, explained it by actually saying that Paul was mistaken. Of course, that opens a whole new can of worms about biblical reliabiliity, which I won't address here.

The underlying reason that many object to Reformed doctrine is pride. We don't want to admit that in our carnal state we are not capable of choosing to follow Christ and that we are dependant on his grace for every aspect of our salvation. As someone once said, "The only thing I contribute to my salvation is the sin that made it necessary."

4. But I made the choice to follow Jesus when I heard the gospel.

The reason you made the choice to follow Jesus is because God removed the old 'heart of stone' and replaced it with a 'heart of flesh' (Ezekiel 36:26). You just weren't aware that God had performed open heart surgery. You may remember the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38-44). The problem is Lazarus was dead. If I were ot walk up to the tomb and say, "Lazarus, come forth!," nothing is going to happen. If the greatest preacher today commands Lazarus to come out it will be the same result. Some have said that Jesus had to say, "Lazarus, come forth!" because if he had simply said, "Come forth!" all the dead would have come out. In reality, Jesus has the same issue. Lazarus is dead. Dead people can't hear. But Jesus did something that nobody saw. Behind the scenes, he breathed life into the dead man and made him alive. Now when Jesus said, 'Lazarus come forth!" he was able to hear the voice of Jesus.

It is the same with us responding to the gospel call. We are spiritually dead and simply cannot respond to the gospel call. But God did something that nobody saw. He gave us spiritual life by the rebirth. Now when we hear the gospel we respond to the voice of our shepherd.

Otherwise we would respond just as those who are perishing -- "The message is foolishness."

Jesus made this point when he was talking to Nicodemus in John 3:3:

"Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. ”

The word 'see' actually means 'percieve.' Without the rebirth we cannot even comprehend the gospel.

A few points of Arminianism and it's problems.

1. Arminianism affirms the doctrine of total depravity but says that in our fallen nature we can still choose to accept the gospel call. That is a contradiction. If we, in our fallen state, can accept Jesus then we aren't totally depraved.

2. God doesn't determine who he is going to save but he knows who will ultimately accept his offer of grace.

The problem with this is that he creates each and every one of us in our mothers' wombs. We have to assume that he creates some of us who he already knows will accept him and others who he knows will reject Him. It becomes a circular argument. It still comes down to election and the sovereignty of God.

If we take another approach, that God actually doesn't know who ultimately will accept his offer of grace then we have a broken link in the sovereignty of God. If God isn't completely sovereign then he isn't God. As someone once said, "Once you have embarked on the road of Arminianism you have headed down the road to atheism."

Arminianism actually contradicts itself.

Some misunderstandings about Reformed Doctrine:

1. If everything is predetermined why do we preach and share the gospel with the unsaved?

The simple answer is that is how God has chosen to spread the gospel. If you look at the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, one thing that is missing is getting people saved. It is NOT our job to save people. Our job is to preach, and then baptize and disciple those who are being saved. Jesus does the saving.

In Exodus 32: 9-14, God was going to wipe out the Israelites beccause they had made a golden calf. Moses interceded on their behalf and God relented. A hyperCalvinist view would have been to shrug and say, "Oh well." That was exactly what the priest Eli did when he was told his sons would be punished because they were corrupt.

1 Samuel 3:18b:

"Then Eli said, “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.”

We don't know who God is actually saving and who he isn't. Our job is to present the gospel and let God do the saving.

Interestingly, nobody worked harder at evangelizing the unsaved than the reformers.

2. Some people may be turned away who truly desire to follow Christ.

John 6:37:

"All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away."

If a person truly desires to take up their cross and follow Christ, they can rest assured that God regenerated them. Otherwise they would have no desire to follow Him.

Rejection of Reformed theology has resulted in false conversions.

We have a huge problem in the modern church today. We have almost completely lost the understanding of regeneration. Being born again has been reduced to the notion that an individual has accepted Jesus as their Savior. Today we have altar calls and the 'sinner's prayer' which is found nowhere in the New Testament nor is it found anywhere for most of church history.

Because we believe the rebirth simply means making a decision to follow Christ, we have watered down the message to make it easy for people to accept the gospel.

The modern message barely speaks of judgment for the unrepentant sinner and the need to repent. Sin, if it is mentioned at all, is treated like some 'unfortunate mistake' that keeps us from our true destiny. Peter's first sermon hit people hard. His message on Pentecost was basically, "Jesus the Nazarene was the Lord's Christ and you killed him." At the end he didn't issue an altar call and say; "Who would like to invite Jesus into their heart? I see that hand."  Rather it says the people were pricked in their hearts and asked what they needed to do. That is when Peter told the people to repent and be baptized. By their response they demonstrated that God had done his work on their hearts.

The Second Great Awakening brought about an idea that all but lost the understanding of regeneration and reduced conversion to a 'decision' or an 'act of the will.' The modern church has almost universally adopted this doctrine and the result has been a lot of buildings full of unconverted people who responded to an unbiblical gospel call. This is why the modern church is making so little of an impact in the world today.

Conclusion:

You may ask if it really matters what we believe. The real issue is that if you believe we had anything to do with our salvation you have nullified the Gospel. As I mentioned before, the only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary. In our natural state, we have no ability to respond positively to the gospel call. It requires the resurrection power of God to give us spiritual life so we can hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.

Our doctrinal beliefs dictate how we do everything from body life, preaching, missions, and evangelism.

• If we truly believe that every aspect of our salvation is accomplished by God himself, then we will preach the Gospel without reservation with the understanding that God is the one who saves.

• If we believe that man is capable in his fallen state to receive the gospel, then the tendency is to believe we are responsible to get people saved. The temptation will be to make the gospel more palatable to get people to accept Christ. The problem is obvious. If we try to make the gospel more palatable then we have altered the gospel. An altered Gospel is a false Gospel. If people respond to a false Gospel then they aren't truly being saved.

It is my hope and prayer that you will prayerfully see the truth of the doctrine of election and predestinattion after critically reading this explanation. If you are interested in further reading, several years ago I wrote a blog entitled, Predestination and Free Will, which goes into the subject in more detail. You can find it on this blogsite if you look back to 2016.