In order for Calvinists to maintain their theory of unconditional election, they must violate the Apostle John’s stated purpose for writing his Gospel and his clear emphasis upon salvation by believing alone, which is available to every person, rather than Calvinism’s supposed unconditional election of chosen ones.
I am looking at two failures of the Calvinist narrative in two articles. I looked at Part I last time and you may access it through the link below before reading Part II.
Part I: Calvinists Undermine John’s Purpose for Writing His Gospel.
Part II: Calvinists Undermine John’s Clear Emphasis on Salvation by Believing Only.
Calvinists Undermine John’s Clear Emphasis on Salvation by Believing Only.
John became known as the apostle of love, at least partly because of how often he used the word ‘love’ in his writings. Agapao is the root form for love in the New Testament, including agape and agapetos. All three forms are used in Matthew 16 times, Mark 11 times, Luke 19 times, totaling 46 times in the first three gospels; John uses the terms 51 times in his gospel, and 52 times in 1st John. Thus, the title seems to fit because, by comparison, John’s gospel uses a form of agapao more than any other gospel and more than all the synoptic gospels combined (the synoptic texts present a similar perspective and use of content and order).
John is also known as the apostle of truth, in part because he used the term so often in his writings and because of his emphasis on truth. The word truth, aletheia, appears in the New Testament 111 times, of which 26 are in John’s gospel, compared to 13 in Matthew, 5 in Mark, and 15 in Luke (synoptics totaling 33 times). Resultantly, we see that John uses the term more than any of the synoptic gospels, and is just 7 fewer than Matthew, Mark, and Luke combined.
John should be known as the apostle of believing even more than the apostle of love or truth. This title is appropriate because of John’s extraordinary emphasis on the word “believe” (pisteuo). We have seen in Part I that he wrote his gospel “so that [all of] you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that [any of you] believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). The pronouns “you” are plural.
John’s emphasis on believe, pisteuo, is highlighted further by the fact that of the 243 times believe, pisteuo, appears in the New Testament, 98 are found in John’s gospel, compared to 11 in Matthew, 14 in Mark, and 9 in Luke. And of course, this term can also mean faith, pistis. So, John uses believe, pisteuo, more than any other gospel and almost three times as often as the synoptic gospel writers combined. Six of those times are in John 6, which the Calvinists consider a Calvinist stronghold, although when interpreted according to John’s purpose in writing his gospel and the immediate context, and without the artificial importation of Calvinism’s determinism, it is actually about God’s salvific love for everyone. It is worth noting that the word pisteuo, believe, appears in John an average of 4.6 times per chapter, and 6 times in chapter 6, above the average. As a result of John’s numerical use of the word pisteuo, we might call John the apostle of believing.
John’s gospel is about calling the world of humanity, all and everyone, to believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin (John 1:6-13; 20:30-31). God salvationally loves every person in the world (John 3:16; 8:15; 12:47; 1 John 4:14), and Jesus died for every person, and by dying, he took away the sin penalty, the obstacle, before the world of humanity keeping us from a relationship with God, salvation (John 1:29:1 John 2:2; 5:19). He enlightens every person while still in the darkness of their sin (1:9; 8:12; 12:35-36, 46). This enables all people, while still in their sin (John 12:35-36), to believe and be eternally delivered from their just desert, by becoming part of God’s eternal family (John 1:12-13). We call this The Gospel (good news)!
The teaching that God salvationally loves only the unconditionally elect, and withholds his salvific call, love, mercy, and grace from the rest of humanity (the non-elect, reprobates, the damned) leaving them without an actually accessible opportunity to believe and be saved because it pleases God to do so is a horrendous corruption of the Gospel of John and a torturous misrepresentation of the Triune God.
Commenting on Paul’s words in Romans 9, John Calvin candidly explains, “He [Paul] concludes that God has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth (Rom 9:18). You see how he refers both to the mere pleasure of God. Therefore, if we cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just that it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will” (italics added). Calvin further assigns this act to “the hidden purpose of God, according to which the reprobate are doomed to their own ruin,” while simultaneously (and quite contradictorily) maintaining “so wonderful is his love towards mankind that he would have them all to be saved.” Calvin classifies God’s good pleasure to doom this innumerable group of people whom he created to such an unalterable fate, which he did not have to so choose, as “incomprehensible judgment.”
Similarly, the Canons of Dort from the Synod of Dort 1618-19, address five points or disagreement raised by the Arminians. “Moreover, Holy Scripture … further bears witness that not all people have been chosen but that some have not been chosen or have been passed by in God’s eternal election—those, that is, concerning whom God, on the basis of his entirely free, most just, irreproachable, and unchangeable good pleasure, made the following decision: to leave them in the common misery into which, by their own fault, they have plunged themselves; not to grant them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but finally to condemn and eternally punish them” (italics added).
In unmistakable fashion, consistent Calvinism believes that, according to a conscious and voluntarily deliberate act, and according to his “good pleasure,” God did in fact unalterably predestinate the vast majority of the human race to eternal torment in hell because of only one stated reason: it “pleased him.” That they deserved such an eternal existence fails to mitigate this truth one whit since everyone deserves damnation; alluding to such is merely an obfuscation. A fortiori, even if the Calvinist seeks refuge in claiming to believe in passive or consequential reprobation, i.e., God simply was not pleased to elect them to salvation, the motive, purpose, and end result is the same.
This reminds us that it is not merely the dreaded hyper-Calvinists who believe in double predestination. Rather, the belief in double predestination encompasses everyone committed to the tenets of Calvinism, whether four or five-point Calvinists. This is despite one’s position regarding the order of decrees, which actually change eternal destinies not one whit, since God has predestined every person to heaven or hell either by divine decree or as a consequence of unconditional election wrought by selective regeneration. And this pleased God.
According to Calvinism, the eternality of every person is ultimately determined by only one thing, and that is what pleased God; correspondingly, had it pleased him, within the scope of Calvinism, he could have saved every one of the damned. This is a disquieting reality of Calvinism. Moreover, damning anyone, much less untold billions of people, to hell is unnecessary for God to show his wrath or holiness, since no one needed to suffer God’s wrath to demonstrate his holiness, because Christ suffering his wrath for our sin is the quintessential display of God’s wrath. See my article, Calvinism and the Problem of Damnation and Hell. Calvinist W.T. Shedd concurs with statements by Augustine and Calvin, whom he had just quoted, when he says, “When God passes by some fallen and sinful men and does not regenerate and save them, this also is a positive voluntary decision that might have been different had he so pleased. He could have saved them” (italics added).
I must admit I do weary of Calvinist forays into proffering supposedly palliative notions for such beliefs that creatively seek to portray God as salvifically or even significantly loving the very ones whom it pleased him to damn (two wills—secret vs. revealed, i.e., eternal decrees vs. the Bible—different kinds of love, two parallel lines, inscrutable mystery, double talk, etc.). See my article on Piper and two wills, as well as chapter 19 in my book Does God Love All or Some?
The truth is, the Calvinist belief in reprobation (non-elect who cannot believe unto salvation by God’s design) serves to effectively eviscerate and destroy all Calvinist endeavors to demonstrate that God salvationally loves everyone, or even significantly loves the nonelect for that matter because He gives them only natural blessings that, alone, deceptively lead people to believe that life goes on with a purpose, but such life has no purpose except to assure that they burn in eternal torment to please God.
In the final analysis, since all people are undeserving of heaven and only deserving of hell, all people are in heaven because it pleased God to elect and provide them with what is needed to enter heaven. Simultaneously, all the people who are in hell are there because it pleased God not to elect them and provide them with what is needed to enter heaven. This is the pinnacle of the disquieting realities of Calvinism.
The Apostle John emphatically says NO to Calvinism!
