LIFE DOWN HERE IS NOT FOREVER
Why I Departed from Calvinism
Part 1
In this article, I will only cover how I got there, what I believed in, and how I got out.
Before I get into my testimony, I need to mention two important points:
First, I can’t wait until Jesus returns because that will be when this ongoing theological debate since the early 17th century will finally end. And secondly, I am not posting this to say that those who hold to Calvinism aren’t my brothers and sisters in the faith. But I will say this, if they are a Calvinist and saved, they must have gotten saved before they got duped into this mess.
How I got there
For a year, since I was talked into Christianity, my faith was shallow: I felt no need to count the cost of following Jesus. But back in 2008, I heard The Shocking Youth Message by Paul Washer. The message itself gripped me, so I started to listen to Paul Washer more often from my computer. The reason for that is that no one in person ever preached the whole truth to me: I was never told what I deserve as a sinner and that Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient Savior. I wasn’t even told that becoming a Christian meant that I am a walking martyr for Christ.
So, as I was listening to Washer, subtly I was introduced to Reformed Theology. It wasn’t my intention to become a Calvinist. I didn’t even know what a Calvinist was when I was labeled one and that was only because I believed that God is Sovereign.
The first Christian book that I bought was Welcome to a Reformed Church: A Guide for Pilgrims by Daniel R. Hyde. It helped me to understand who these reformed guys were. From then, most of my orders were bought from Monergismbooks’ website.
I was warned and encouraged that I should read a lot of Calvinistic books if, and whenever, I would tackle non-Calvinists in a debate. So I did. My bookshelf consisted of >95% Reformed books, mostly classical. It was essential to own Amazing Grace: The History & Theology of Calvinism (2004) DVD. So I got myself a copy!
On my Facebook, from time to time, I would upload a picture of the new books I received in the mailbox. One was entitled Why I am not a Calvinist by Jerry L. Walls & Joseph R. Dongell. I didn’t read it through nor have I even read one whole chapter. It wasn’t that book that convinced me to leave Reformed Theology.
Mind you, my audio library was but Calvinistic with very few exceptions by Leonard Ravenhill, David Wilkerson, Dave Hunt, Kent Hovind, and Bob Jennings.
What I believed in
I was known as a staunch Calvinist. I contended for:
+ Total Inability: the teaching that humanity is spiritually dead from birth, as a result of the Fall. His will is not free; it is in bondage to his evil nature. Faith doesn’t contribute to his salvation; faith is a gift from God. (I was persuaded that free will is a myth by reading The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther.)
+ Unconditional Election: Before the foundation of the universe, God chose certain individuals for salvation by his own sovereign will. And he did not foresee who would accept him nor obey him through the corridors of time to choose them.
+ Limited Atonement: Christ bled only for the elect/chosen; not a drop of blood was spilled in vain. Christ’s redeeming work was intended to save only the elect (those for whom the Father had given his Son).
+ Irresistible Grace: The Spirit irresistibly draws sinners to Christ. He sweetly (and graciously) changes their will to be able to believe the gospel.
+ Perseverance of the Saints: All who were chosen by God, purchased by Christ, and given faith by the Spirit are saved forever. They will persevere. They will bear fruits unto salvation. They cannot lose their salvation. They are kept not by their strength but by the triune God alone.
In conclusion, God in salvation will not fail. For whom salvation was intended, it is secure and none can pluck them out from the hands of God.
Some of these are still my favorite, but back then these were my top 3 in…
+ Books: The Glory of Christ by John Owen, The Holiness of God by RC Sproul, and The Attributes of God by AW Pink;
+ Booklets: The Five Points of Calvinism by WJ Seaton, Evangelistic Evangelism: Why the Doctrine of Grace are Good News by John Benton, and A Defense for Calvinism by CH Spurgeon;
+ Ministries: HeartCry missionary society, I’ll Be Honest and Alpha & Omega ministries;
+ Preachers: Paul Washer, Tim Conway and James White;
+ Deceased Pilgrims: John Owen, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards;
+ Christian Worship: Sovereign Grace Music, Reformed Praise, and Reformed University Fellowship music;
+ Christian Rappers: Timothy Brindle, Shai Linne, and Jovan Mackenzy.
How I got out
My departure from Calvinism started when I saw contradictory statements, which were: what I was taught to believe by men versus what the Scriptures taught themselves.
As we are moving forward, I want you to retain and remember this aspect of unconditional election which can be abbreviated as the following: God decided who will be saved and who will be ignored for salvation. So keep that in mind, if you so desire to be a consistent Calvinist, because I kept that in mind when I wanted to be a consistent Calvinist.
In Matthew 23:37, Jesus expresses:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”
In conversations, what would usually happen when I brought up this verse is that the obvious would be pointed out: Jesus condemned the Jews for rejecting Him.
But Calvinists disregard the fact that Jesus is frustrated with them, and wants those Jews to come to Him. At the end of that verse Jesus said, “[…] and ye would not!”. So one must ask himself/herself with a clear mind, why is God expressing sorrow for a people that he already knows have been ordered by God’s sovereign will to reject Him? Does God have a personality disorder? Didn’t Jesus want to gather them all? Was he lying? Why are we led to believe that God has two wills: one to save everyone but the other will, only some? Is that not an attribute that you associate with a psychopath?
In other words, God has the power to save and he doesn’t lift a finger. He makes a scene by expressing his desire to be their God knowing very well they can’t believe unless he gives them faith in the first place (because through the lenses of TULIP, mankind is born in unbelief. That’s why faith must be given). If you did not receive faith as a gift, God holds you, an unelect sinner, responsible for unbelief. And on judgment day, you will roast forever in the open oven without a choice given to you.
If the passage in Matthew 23 were Calvinistic, it would say, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered some children together, and I know that others would be unwilling to come to me, because it was decreed to be so before they were born!”
To end part 1, all the volumes in the world full of arguments couldn’t convince me to come back to Calvinism. There were also other verses that I found contradictions, but that particular verse was the strongest for me.
PS: When I was a Calvinist, a non-Calvinist once told me, “there cannot be two truths!” Looking back, I can now say, I concur.
Written by KP Jaskula
Nice resources:
116 Contradictions from Calvinists
Calvinism Critiqued by a Former Calvinist
Youtube: What Love Is This? by Dave Hunt
You can also find more about the biblical teachings of salvation at https://soteriology101.com/
Why I Departed from Calvinism
Part 2
After I published my first reason for Departing from Calvinism, I was accused of leaving the right doctrine of salvation as taught by Jesus Christ and getting further away from the Gospel.
I was also accused of misrepresenting Calvinism. That chuckled me because no one told me where I was wrong in the five points I mentioned. But you know what, David Cloud says it as it is from his free eBook The Calvinism Debate, he wrote: "Calvinists are seriously divided among themselves and always have been." [source]
He continues, "There is Supralapsarianism vs. Sublapsarianism vs. Infralapsarianism. “the Supralapsarians hold that God decreed the fall of Adam; the Sublapsarians, that he permitted it” (McClintock & Strong). The Calvinists at the Synod of Dort were divided on many issues, including lapsarianism. The Swiss Calvinists who wrote the Helvetic Consensus Formula in 1675 were in conflict with the French Calvinists of the School of Saumur. There are Strict Calvinists and Moderate Calvinists, Hyper and non-Hyper (differing especially on reprobation and the extent of the atonement and whether God loves all men), 5 pointers, 4 pointers, 3 pointers, 2 pointers. In America, Calvinists were divided into Old School and the New School. As we have seen, the Calvinists of England were divided in the 19th century.
Whenever, therefore, one tries to state TULIP theology and then refute it, there are Calvinists who will argue with you that you are misrepresenting Calvinism. It is not so much that you are misrepresenting Calvinism, though. You might be quoting directly from various Calvinists or even from Calvin himself. The problem is that you are misrepresenting THEIR Calvinism! There are Calvin Calvinists and Andrew Fuller Calvinists and Arthur W. Pink Calvinists and Presbyterian Calvinists and Baptist Calvinists and many other sorts of Calvinists. Many Calvinists have never read Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion for themselves. They are merely following someone who follows someone who allegedly follows Calvin (who, by his admission, followed Augustine).
Calvinists believe that they have the right to reject or modify some parts of, or conclusions of Calvin. I agree with them 100%, and I say, further, that we also have the right to reject the entire thing if we are convinced that it is not supported by Scripture!"
So those Calvinists who say that "All babies are reprobate and thus immediately translated into hell upon death, awaiting the final eternal judgment for their sin nature inherited from Adam." should never quote C.H. Spurgeon who said the following: "If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." Why am I saying not to quote him? Because Spurgeon also said, "It has been wickedly, lyingly, and slanderously said of Calvinists, that we believe that some little children perish. Those who make the accusation know that their charge is false. I cannot even dare to hope, though I would wish to do so, that they ignorantly misrepresent us. They wickedly repeat what has been denied a thousand times, what they know is not true." [source]
In this second part of my testimony, I will show how I supported Limited Atonement and how it became a struggle with evangelism.
How I Supported Limited Atonement
Upon becoming a Christian, I believed that God's love was demonstrated to everyone by the giving of His only Son to die on the cross. But further down the road, I started to respect bible scholars and preachers more than God's written word. I was taught by respectable men in Reformed Camps who had a grand following and I read many books from deceased reformers. Each time I approached the Scriptures, I was reading them through the lenses of their Calvinism.
As a new Calvinist, I didn't have a single verse to support the view that Jesus Christ died only for the preselected random. All I had was intellectualism. My argument was as it goes, "If God knows everything and people have free will, why would He allow His Son to spill a single drop of blood in vain? If John Doe, whom God so loved, closes his fist and screams in hatred toward his Maker and will not come to the Savior, then God would be so heartbroken for eternity?" And I didn't want to accept that idea of God being weak because it meant that He isn't 'sovereign' at all. I had a wrong understanding of God's Sovereignty and it is to my shame but I will leave that subject for another time...
I have learned how to reinforce Christ's definite atonement to the elect by changing obvious Scripture.
Here are some changes I have concluded:
Romans 5:18
Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
In the first half of the verse, the word all men means all men and in the second half all men doesn't mean all men―even though it is the same verse.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Here, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise to "us-ward" (elect). But I couldn't understand then how God could be longsuffering to the elect when He knows they are going to get saved! So I didn't question it any further, for a long time.
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
For God loved the elect in such a way that He sent His only Son so that all the believing ones would not perish but have everlasting life. But the "world" to which Jesus was sent (v.17) is the same "world" that God loves (v.16). (No indication that God loves the world of the elect, even in the whole of Scripture.)
I was fascinated of this mystery, and proud to learn that insight. I was taken captive "through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."
My Struggle in Evangelism
When I approached a person to witness, I would normally ask "if they understand the gospel?" and then work in the conversation to present the Calvinistic gospel with clarity. But I would find myself countless times in conflict.
I will be in this position: At the start of the conversation, I would be aware that I don't know who the elect are, and secondly, I would hesitate If I should tell them how God demonstrated His love to the person I am interacting with. If I am God's instrument, I remind myself and commanded to preach repentance unto everyone then God would be lying through me to someone. And I didn't want to be self-contradictory with my theology and dishonor Scripture (what I thought was biblical then). I could even remember that my love for the lost was growing colder and persuading them I reckoned as useless unless God moved through me. I ended by using God's Sovereignty (meticulous micromanagement) as an excuse for not loving people, especially other believers who weren't Calvinists.
Paul Washer in "The Ten Indictments Against the church" (on YouTube) said that Calvinism is not the issue but regeneration is. And I agreed then. However, Calvinism deteriorated my evangelism because I wholeheartedly believed that it was the Gospel. It made me colder toward lost souls as I pursued to remain pure to it. I didn't want only to pray like a Calvinist but to preach like one too, but that didn't work out. Oh, how many times I wanted to see sinners get born again but God the Holy Spirit hasn't resurrected them, to begin with from spiritual slumber and given them faith! But you know what, how can God withhold salvation from some of His creatures and then condemn them to the Lake of Fire for all eternity for not accepting what was never offered to them in the first place? Try that with your children, pets, and coworkers. Offer them something that was never meant to be had and then punish them. You will be the psycho.
Conclusion
Calvinism is an issue. It perverts the love of God. It attributes evil to His holy nature. It makes Him the Author of sin. Among believers, it creates confusion. But get this, on the surface, it does preach the gospel. It really does but then again, it really is a question of whether you want to remain true to this ideology that you only start facing theological & methodical problems. What is sad about this is that it is gaining popularity, especially among the young and no one suspects it. But do yourself a favor, investigate it and you should find out that it is an unsettled theology. Remember, Calvinists are divided from each other.
Written by KP Jaskula
For your interest:
10 Things Consistent Calvinists SHOULD Say (But Usually Don’t)
Dear John (An Open Letter To John Calvin)
Brenda's Testimony: Her 14 years in Calvinism
A Calvinist Objects To Brenda's Testimony
You can also find more about the biblical teachings of salvation at https://soteriology101.com/