I believe God is capable of communicating with His creation in a way that makes His message easily and clearly understood. However, Calvinism’s theological and philosophical commitments make God appear to speak in such a way that it seems as though He offers His love and salvation to all, and He desires all to walk in holiness. However, the fact that Calvinism’s determinism (in the form of compatibilism or another similar deterministic approach), unconditional election (UE), internal irresistible call and grace (IG), and limited, selective regeneration (SR) mean such an appearance is a mirage.
People only appear to have accessible offers to know God from a God who loves and desires redemption for all of his creation, and people only look as if they can choose between following him or not following him. His commands, accompanied by connected consequences, give the impression of being something a person can do or not do. However, the reality behind the declaration of the good news gospel and other beautiful biblical revelations is a deceptive theatrical veil concealing the fact that God has already determined who can and cannot respond and how they can respond. His actions are opposite to what he communicates, which makes him exoterically unintelligible (only for people who are privy to Calvinism).
The call to follow God that goes out to all seems to demonstrate God’s desire for all to be saved and that they can be saved, even heathen Gentiles (Acts 26:17–18), but they all cannot be saved any more than the elect can fail to be saved. Commands go forth from the throne of God, commanding people to do what he predetermined they could not do and vice versa. The external call of the gospel, urging people to be saved before it is too late, and offering the needed salvation by believing in the gospel, only makes all people think that God loves them and they can be saved.
In reality, the call issued to all who hear the gospel is absolutely impotent to save anyone because salvation is wrought through the efficacious internal call that goes only to the elect. When we consider Calvinism’s salvation holistically, faith is the predetermined result of UE, IG, and SR.[1] Then, it brings the elect to a place where they can and will necessarily and freely exercise faith in the gospel unto salvation.[2] But I am sure that is not what most people understand salvation by faith alone to mean; in other words, the gospel is only good news for the elect once it is effectively actualized by unconditional election, the internal irresistible call of God, and selective regeneration. If Calvinists are correct that this is the gospel, God’s manner of communicating such in Scripture is, indeed, perplexing, and the level of abstruseness calls into question his articulacy (clarity).
Therefore, if Calvinism is correct, God’s gospel means that salvation is technically not by faith alone (Rom 4:16f) or by trusting the gospel. Moreover, the gospel is not good news in the sense that one can believe it and be saved; this harsh reality applies to both the elect and the non-elect alike. For the elect, their acceptance of the gospel by faith is evidence that God chose them for salvation. To wit, the gospel reveals the good news that they were selected, and for the non-elect, the gospel is horrible news because it reveals that the masses have not been selected.
In both cases, the simple gospel is not “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16); instead, it is the revealer of the selected.[3] But the Scripture clearly states that salvation is by faith in response to hearing the gospel (John 3:16; Rom 4:13–25, 10:9–10; 1 Cor 15:1-4). The gospel is simple in Scripture, but in Calvinism, its nature is only fully revealed to the theological sophisticates of the Calvinist tradition. Everyone else who simply reads the biblical narrative about the gospel and preaching the gospel who have not been enlightened by Calvinism are left with a revelation from God that does not illuminate the genuine and full breadth of the gospel but confusingly presents it as a straightforward message of good news of his grace and salvation that is available to everyone by faith, which all can exercise unto salvation.
Calvinists may respond that they believe the gospel is the “power of God to everyone who believes.” By which they seem to mean, when you believe, you will experience the power of God, and that is true for everyone who believes. But, hidden in this explanation is that while this is trivially true, it is not an actualizable truth as it stands (that the listener can benefit from or by simple faith) without UE, IG, and SR, so one can and will believe, all of which is reserved for the elect and withheld from the non-elect.
As it stands in Scripture, the gospel is portrayed and understood by those who hear it to be sufficiently imbued by God’s power to save the most wretched of sinners if they only believe. Therefore, I beseech Calvinists to be more forthcoming in their gospel encounters with the lost about the other Calvinist requirements, by telling the listener what else must happen before they can believe and experience the power of the gospel—that is, the whole nature of the gospel according to Calvinism. Please fully explain to those who reject the gospel why they did so according to Calvinism. Do not let them leave with a false notion that it was because they rejected the gospel when they should have, and could have, accepted it. It was not just an act of the grace-enabled will, as they think and Scripture testifies.
The biblical gospel is simple and clear (John 3:16; 1 Cor 15:1–4). Anyone can believe and be saved by simply believing this revelation—the gospel—in which resides the power of God almighty to overcome any and all obstacles to salvation by faith. Calvinists should be equally clear about their quite different full understanding of the gospel of Christ. As Calvinists, please tell those whom you evangelize that belief in the gospel is the effect of God’s eternal and unconditional election, the internal efficacious call of God reserved for only the elect, and the renewing pre-faith work of God (regeneration or some form of renewal) of some, rather than what it is in Scripture and the minds of most, if not all, that hear the good news; that believing the gospel is the activating event that results in salvation and all that entails. Contrary to the biblical simple gospel, Calvinism’s gospel should only be shared in a way that listeners understand the gospel is not good news for everyone, and its real good news is that if you accept it, you can know you are one of the elect.
Therefore, according to Calvinism, hearing and believing in the gospel is not the sufficient call to move sinners from being a lost hell-bound sinner to being a child of God by faith. That requires the person to be elected in eternity past, a recipient of the internal efficacious call, and selectively regenerated by God. All of that empowers one to respond positively to the external call of the gospel, without which the gospel is incapable of doing anything except confirming the irreversible state of the damned.
Any veneer of Calvinism that even suggests, or leaves the listener thinking they have a choice to believe or not believe the gospel, is deception, because only after those monergistic renewal works can one truly believe the gospel unto salvation. Moreover, believing the gospel is not the turning point in a person’s eternal destination; it is actually the conduit that brings the truth to a person whose turning point in their life was being unconditionally elected in eternity past, from which believing the gospel is a result. Calvinism undermines the intelligibility of God so that the message derived from a normal reading of Scripture in light of Calvinism makes God appear indecipherable unless one possesses the Calvinist code.
When people read Genesis 2 and 3 as they are written, they will receive a distinct message that God genuinely loves all of His creation, as seen in the fact that He placed them in a perfect environment, both functionally and aesthetically. Then, even when they sinned, he immediately began revealing that he would judge sin in holiness, and that he still loves his lost and rebellious creation, demonstrated by his actions and revelation that he would bear the burden and cost of their salvation (Gen 3:15, 21). But if we are to believe all the facts made known by Calvinism, the loving plan revealed in a normal reading of Scripture makes God’s Word unintelligible to everyone who is not privy to God’s deterministic and exclusive plan revealed only in Calvinism. Without initiation into Calvinism, God’s simple message is a truly unintelligible theatrical deception that portrays the opposite of what is true about God and man as revealed in the normal reading of Scripture.
[1] Do not let the fact that some Calvinists do not believe in regeneration prior to faith be used to present Calvinism to be more biblical or open to all. Because we can say of all true Calvinists, and characteristic of Calvinism, is that some divinely efficacious work is done in the elect so they will freely exercise faith, and that same prior work is withheld from the non-elect; I often use the term renewal as an umbrella term that includes the various ways Calvinists express this determinative work for the elect. This, of course, is untrue of Extensivism.
[2] I say necessarily not to mean it is not a free act according to the definition of compatibilism, but to highlight it is determined by God, and, therefore, must necessarily take place instead of something he foreknows will happen but did not determine, which event would certainly happen but not necessarily happen.
[3] Calvinists often respond that they believe the gospel is the “power of God to everyone who believes,” but technically, belief in the gospel is the effect of unconditional election, and, therefore, belief in the gospel is not the way from lostness to salvation, but belief in the gospel is merely a result of unconditional election and regeneration. The gospel merely reveals that a person is elect. In contrast, the Scripture says of the gospel, “It is the power of God to everyone who believes.” That is to say, that power is experienced by all who exercise grace-enabled faith in trusting God’s revelation, which anyone can do. By all appearances and clarity, God communicates the gospel to all and only requires simple faith in that gospel to be saved, no hidden exclusive doctrines or selective irresistible works of God—period! In dark contrast, Calvinism believes the gospel is the power of God to everyone who was unconditionally elected, received the internal efficacious call, and is regenerated by a sovereign act of God before faith, which reduces the power of the gospel to be the sign that one received the previously mentioned conditions of eternal life.
