Alana L.: 1c (faith/salvation); 1d (seeking God)
This series is based on this 14-minute video from Alana L.: 5 Signs Your Loved One is Becoming a Calvinist
Point #1 Still:
C. Alana said that, according to the Bible, faith comes by hearing and believing the Word.
She's right. The Bible teaches that faith comes by hearing the Word. We hear the Word, and then we believe it, and then we are saved.
But not in Calvinism.
In Calvinism, faith comes by election only, by being saved first. As Calvinist Loraine Boettner said in The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination: "A man is not saved because he believes in Christ; he believes in Christ because he is saved."
And A.W. Pink in Doctrine of Election: "... [faith] cannot be the cause of our election... the reason why any believe is because God gives them faith." As he says: "[faith] was a gift of God (Eph. 2:9), and the operation of the Spirit (Col. 2:12)" (*both verses are misunderstood, which I'll explain below).
What they mean - what all Calvinists mean - is that the elect are not saved because they have faith/believe, but they have faith/believe because they were first saved.
[Do you realize that Calvinism rescues no one from hell? Because the "elect" were never on their way to hell at any point in time, they were always saved, and the "non-elect" can never be rescued from hell no matter what. Calvinism rescues no one. All it does is convince the "elect" that they were always saved, even without making their own conscious, voluntary decision to make Jesus their Lord and Savior, and convince the "non-elect" that they can never be saved because God always hated them and predestined them to hell for His pleasure and glory. It's sick and sad and so very unbiblical.]
In Calvinism, the elect are saved/born again first, and then God gives them saving faith so that when they hear the gospel, they will believe it - salvation before belief, before even hearing the gospel.
But the Bible clearly and repeatedly - clearly and repeatedly! - tells us the true order of salvation: We hear the gospel, then we believe/put our faith in Jesus, and then we are saved/born again.
John 20:31: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
John 3:16,36: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.... Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life...”
Romans 10:9: “… if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Acts 16:31: “… Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved …”
John 5:24: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”
John 1:12: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
How much clearer could God have been?
How much more wrong could Calvinism be?
Calvinism reverses this and teaches a very different, backwards path to salvation. And that's why it's so deceptive: same words, different order. Leading to a totally different gospel.
[Note: Calvinists misunderstand what faith is. They think it's something God injects into the elect to make them believe, a prerequisite for believing. But I think faith IS our belief. When we choose to believe in Jesus, we have put our faith in Him.]
Now think carefully about this: If Calvinists believe that we are saved/born again before we believe in Jesus, then they are really saying that we are saved/born again without belief in Jesus, apart from belief in Jesus. And who do you think is behind the idea that salvation happens without belief in Jesus?
[*About the two verses Pink used to support Calvinism:
Pink says (as all Calvinists do) that faith is the gift God gives to people, to the elect. And so if you don't have faith, it's because God didn't give it to you because you were non-elect, and so you can never believe in Jesus. But when you research the gender of the Greek words in Ephesians 2:8-9, you learn that "faith" is not the gift, but that the whole thing (salvation by grace through faith) is the gift: the offer of eternal life through faith by grace.
Eternal life is the gift, as verified in Romans 6:23: "the gift of God is eternal life." And it's a gift that's offered to all people (Romans 11:32, Romans 3:23-24, Titus 2:11, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, Ezekiel 33:11, 1 John 2:2, John 3:16, etc.), but we choose to accept it or reject it. (See more on that here: "Is faith a gift God gives (forces on) us?")
{Don't be tricked when Calvinists say something like "Eternal life is offered to all who believe in Jesus." When they say this, they mean it's only offered to those who believe in Jesus. And in Calvinism, only the elect can/will believe. Therefore, eternal life is offered only to the elect, which means only the elect can/will be saved. But in the Bible, eternal life is offered to all, but only those who accept it will be saved. And anyone can accept it.}
And Colossians 2:12 is not saying that the Holy Spirit makes the elect believe, but that the Holy Spirit makes us born-again in response to our decision to believe, to put our faith in Jesus and receive Him as Lord (Colossians 2:6). Our job is to believe, and when we do, the Holy Spirit's job is to make us born again, a new creation. (See Quick Answers to Calvinism, part 3 for more on that.)
Neither of those verses support Calvinism when read in proper context.
But as I've said before: Calvinism and context cannot coexist.]
D. Alana correctly notes that the section in Romans 3 about no one seeking God, no one understanding, is taken from Psalms about "the fool who says in his heart that there is no God."
I agree. Romans 3:10-18 is taken from Psalms about wicked people who reject God. Notice even in Romans 3:12: "All have turned away..." This is why they do not seek God or understand, because they've turned away from Him. Wicked people who reject God, fools who say "there is no God," people who turn away from God, will not seek God or understand. They have rejected Him and chosen to ignore His truth, and so their spiritual eyes and ears have become worthless.
So it's not that people are born "totally unable" to seek God or understand (nowhere in that section does it say people cannot seek God, just that they don't), but it's that those who turn away from God, who choose their sin over God, will not seek Him or understand. Their decision to reject Him leads to their inability to see/believe in God, not the other way around, as Calvinism teaches.
And this truth - that our decision to either turn to God or away from God determines whether or not we see and understand truth and believe in Jesus - is confirmed over and over again in other verses, such as these:
Matthew 13:15: "For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.'" [Jesus is saying that if the people didn't choose to be calloused to the truth, to cover their ears and close their eyes to the truth, then they would be able to see the truth, turn to Jesus, and be healed. But they chose to be blind and hard-hearted, and so they couldn't understand Jesus and wouldn't believe in Him.]
John 12:37,39: “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.... For this reason, they could not believe.” ["Would not" led to "could not."]
Zechariah 7:11-13: "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or [the Lord]. So the Lord Almighty was very angry. 'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the Lord Almighty."
Hebrews 3:12-15: "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God…. so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness… Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts...”
2 Kings 17:14-15: “But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the Lord their God. They rejected his decrees and the covenant he made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless…”
Romans 11:20,23: "But they were broken off because of unbelief ... And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in ..."
John 5:40: “yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
Matthew 23:37: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
Isaiah 65:2-3: “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations – people who continually provoke me to my very face …”
Romans 1:18-2:5: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened... Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind... But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed."
How many more verses do Calvinists need to see before they will believe it, before they will realize Calvinism is wrong?
[The posts in this series will be added to the "Alana L." label as they get published.]
