Calvinism teaches that God only saves those who are important enough to Him!
Calvinists teach that it is the importance and the value of a man that saves him; yet inexplicably teach that any free will decision by man becomes a work of that salvation. So please tell me just how being important enough to be saved is not a work of that salvation! Read the following quotes from different websites:

https://www.zedekiahlist.com/cgi-bin/quotes.pl?&id=49412625
MacArthur says: “A true sense of self-worth comes from understanding our position in Christ. We have been chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world. Knowing this gives us a sense of our significance and value to God. We were so important to God that He gave up His Son to die on our behalf. … Thank God for considering you valuable enough to bestow such riches upon you. … If you’re struggling with a lack of self-worth, remember that you were important enough for God to give you to Jesus as an inheritance.” Book: by John MacArthur entitled: The Believer’s Life in Christ, MacArthur Bible Study Guide, Eph. 1:1-2:10 [Word of Grace Communications:1989/1995], pp. 27, 36, & 69-70 (Underlining emphasis on in Christ mine.)

https://www.examiningcalvinism.com/files/Paul/Romans5_8.html
Calvinist, John MacArthur, explains: “A true sense of self-worth comes from understanding our position in Christ. … We were so important to God that He gave up His Son to die on our behalf. … Thank God for considering you valuable enough to bestow such riches upon you. … If you’re struggling with a lack of self-worth, remember that you were important enough for God to give you to Jesus as an inheritance.” 

https://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/macarthur/general.htm
God died for us because we were “important enough”?! This is a tragedy of immeasurable magnitude that we have people who claim to belong to the living God, and churches that claim to be Bible-believing churches, that are robbing God of that which belongs to Him and Him alone — all the esteem, all the honor, is His for the work of salvation — and directing it back to themselves. What blasphemy is being promoted from within the church today! — that pastors like John MacArthur can find a way to say, “You want to know how valuable I am? You want to know how much worth I have? You want to know what gives me self-esteem? God thought I was valuable enough to die for.” That’s blasphemy. That’s robbing God of that which is His alone. God did not die for us because of our great worth, but because of our great sin! He died because of who He is, and in spite of what we are (cf. Rom. 5:8). He died to demonstrate His righteousness and His divine justice (Rom. 3:23-26). There is no mercy if it had to do with my worth. It is not of grace if it had to do with my value. Anyone who would try to divert some of that glory, honor, and esteem to man is robbing God of the worship due Him and Him alone.

Yet the calvinist also teaches that God did not give up His Son to die on behalf of the non-elect. MacArthur teaches that Jesus only died for the elect; He didn’t die for even one of the non-elect!
“God did not intend to save everyone. He is God. He could have intended to save everyone. He could have saved everyone. He would have if that had been His intention. The atonement is limited.”
https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/90-277/The-Doctrine-of-Actual-Atonement-Part-1
Apparently not one of the non-elect was important enough for that!

MacArthur also says
“Thank God for considering you valuable enough to bestow such riches upon you”. Obviously, not one of the non-elect was valuable enough to bestow such riches upon him or her! And MacArthur, like other calvinists, has the gall to teach that the election is unconditional; that is, only those unconditionally chosen by God are permitted to be saved. However, if only those who were important and valuable enough to die for are permitted to be the elect of God, then it is clear: all others (the non-elect) lack the special conditions of having sufficient importance and value to be worth it all. That is, they weren’t important enough for Jesus to worry about on the cross! The need for importance and value sounds very much like a condition of salvation to me! If you end up in hell, it’s because you were not “important enough for God to give you to Jesus as an inheritance.

(By the way, the Bible actually teaches that not one person is deserving of salvation in any way, not even the elect. Isaiah 64:6aBut we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags; Can any intelligent calvinist, with this verse in mind, please explain how even one person, elect or otherwise, can have sufficient worth for God to have sent Jesus to die on his behalf?)

Now, if MacArthur tries to claim that the elect are special through no work of their own, then they must have been created special. Thus, the calvinist God of MacArthur has created two separate classes of people: the special ones (created for heaven), and the not-special ones (created for hell). MacArthur clearly believes that he is one of those special ones; in fact, he would feel very disappointed, even cheated, if Jesus died for all people. MacArthur desperately wants the atonement to be limited, because that’s seemingly the only way he can feel special! He apparently hates the idea that the true God of the Bible loves all people in this world enough to have died for them all according to 1 John 2:2.

You hear people say, “Well, you know, when you say the atonement is limited, people don’t feel very special.” Well, I’ll tell you what. I don’t feel very special if you say to me, “Christ died for you, He loves you just like He died for the millions in hell.” That doesn’t make me feel very special. That’s kind of a hard way to do evangelism. Christ died on the cross for your sins and all the people in hell, too. That’s not special. That’s anything but special. You mean to tell me He paid for my sins and I’m paying for them forever? Then I’ll tell you, whatever His payment was, it was bogus.
https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/90-277/The-Doctrine-of-Actual-Atonement-Part-1

But then, illogically, MacArthur denies that God predestined the lost to go to hell, but instead it was really their own free will that sent them there. In particular, MacArthur teaches that God didn’t decree that Judas should go to hell, that instead he (Judas) chose to reject the truth – see Foreknowledge and Free Will
MacArthur’s website says – “Judas was not created by God to occupy hell. …..
Judas went there because Judas chose to betray Christ, chose to reject the truth, chose to pay a sad, sad price.”
https://www.gty.org/resources/print/questions/QA183

Note that Calvin taught double predestination, that is, God predestined some to heaven and the rest God predestined for hell. For Calvin, free will doesn’t exist even for the lost, for what free will do they have if the only choice they can make is to go to hell?
Calvin’s Institutes Bk 3, Ch 21, Section 5 By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.
Calvin’s Institutes Bk 3, Ch 21, Section 7 We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment.

MacArthur clearly doesn’t believe what Calvin taught on this. Many calvinists don’t like the idea of double predestination because it makes their God look like an ogre, sending most of the world off to hell without any say on the matter. The stock calvinist answer to that is that everyone deserves to go to hell, so no-one in hell has any right to complain. Well, yes, that might be so, which then raises the question: why did God bother creating them in the first place if they were always predestined to go to hell? After all, Judas didn’t really have any choice, for according to MacArthur, Jesus didn’t die for the sins of Judas! So how could Judas have chosen anything else than to go to hell?? He just wasn’t created “special”! Poor Judas!
“Jesus didn’t pay for the sins of Judas because when Judas died, he went to his own place to pay for his own sins.”
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/62-10/the-sacrifice-that-satisfied
(Also note in that same message that Jesus didn’t die for the sins of those whom He asked the Father to forgive for they knew not what they did!
“Jesus didn’t pay for the sins of the mob that screamed for His blood.” Clearly the calvinist Jesus didn’t think it was his responsibility to be the means of their forgiveness.)

(Note that the Bible clearly teaches that the judgment is on works. We don’t go to hell to pay for our sin but because we refuse to accept the free gift of justification offered by God through Jesus Christ; by our rejection of Christ we have therefore determined to make our own salvation according to our own works – see Romans 4:4-5 for our two choices!)

So what hope did Judas have to be saved anyway? Judas was created by the calvinist God without any hope of heaven, so how can MacArthur say he was not created to occupy hell?  But, MacArthur says that Judas, as one of the non-elect, wasn’t created to occupy hell, yet his calvinist God withheld all means by which Judas could prevent himself from entering that eternal torment. The calvinist God never chose Judas for heaven, never sent Jesus to die on the cross for Judas, never offered the gospel of salvation to Judas, ever, according to MacArthur. There is only one conclusion that may logically be drawn from this: the calvinist God created Judas for hell without any other option! It’s a bit like throwing someone off a cliff without wings, and telling him to fly if he wants to be saved. The calvinist God only gives wings to the elect; the rest have to learn to fly without wings! Just tell me: how many non-elect are going to fly without those wings? And calvinists like MacArthur claim that their God never created anyone for hell?!!

Loraine Boettner similarly teaches that the calvinist God withheld those “wings” (Boettner calls them “constraining grace“) so that Adam couldn’t “fly”. How then can he claim that it was still Adam’s choice to not “fly”? The calvinist God, by not giving Adam “wings”, has effectively caused Adam to sin!
Yet God in no way compelled man to fall. He simply withheld that undeserved constraining grace with which Adam would infallibly not have fallen, which grace He was under no obligation to bestow.
(“The Reformed Doctrine Of Predestination” by Loraine Boettner, Chapter XVII)

Of course, there are many high-profile calvinists like MacArthur who say that they don’t agree with everything Calvin taught, which raises the question: why are they calvinists? MacArthur does like to call himself a calvinist, so shouldn’t he therefore be in support of the teachings of Calvin?
“Today Calvinism is being subjected to constant attack. Several recent, popular, published critiques have tried to discredit John Calvin the man, or they have unfairly blamed Calvinism for the dubious politics of the Reformation era. But the doctrines of Calvinistic soteriology must stand or fall by the test of Scripture, period.”
(John F. MacArthur Jr.; quoted from, The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended and Documented; 2nd Edition: David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and Lance Quinn.)

So why do calvinists like MacArthur pick and choose just what parts of Calvin’s teachings that they will have, while rejecting the rest? It is likely that MacArthur might also reject infant baptism as a means of salvation, and the doctrine of temporary faith (an inferior operation of the Spirit), both taught by Calvin.
Calvin’s Institutes Bk 3, Ch 2, Section 41 Hence it is not strange, that by the Apostle a taste of heavenly gifts, and by Christ himself a temporary faith, is ascribed to them. …..
But in this there is nothing to prevent an inferior operation of the Spirit from taking its course in the reprobate.
One fact does stand out, though. Calvin was terribly wrong in much of his theology, but at least he was consistent!

However, if MacArthur were to deny that God created two classes of people as defined above, then he is forced to teach that this importance and value of man to God is somehow an earned quality that separates those of the election from those of the non-election. Thus, it can be nothing else than a work of salvation. The presence of this work (importance and value to God) would be necessary for God to send Jesus to die for their sins; the lack of this work in their lives would determine that Jesus would not be sent to die for their sins. And, if this importance and value to God were not predetermined by God to create two separate classes of mankind, then this importance and value must somehow be a consequence of the lives of those of the elect, in other words, a work of the elect! Thus, the non-elect are refused salvation because they have not made themselves important enough, and therefore they are not deemed sufficiently important nor valuable enough to earn God’s salvation. And how could the calvinist God know this without foreknowledge?? Truly there are more questions than answers in calvinism!

Clearly, in the above quotes about the importance of the elect, MacArthur is talking to those elect people, for he allows no option for the over 95% of the world that will go to hell without a Saviour. It does sound good to be able to say all those nice platitudes to a room filled with the “elect”, for how many of those “not important enough” people are going to be sitting with them in that room of the “elect”? There won’t be any “non-elect” among them because the non-elect are not drawn to church like the elect are. (According to calvinist teachings, the elect must attend church, or else they cannot be considered one of the elect.)

In fact, that was another of Calvin’s teachings, that those who didn’t attend the mother church (his church in those days) couldn’t be saved! (Oh, is this another condition for being declared one of the “unconditional” elect, that you have to be nicer people who attend church and do nicer things, that is, acquire a puritan lifestyle?)
Calvin’s Institutes Bk 4, Ch 1, Section 4 But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels, (Matth. 22: 30.) For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars. Moreover, beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for,

Note that a free will acceptance of the gift of salvation cannot be a work of that salvation (for how can anything be added to the full and already perfected salvation in that gift of God through Christ?). However, being of sufficient importance or value to God has to be seen as either a work required for that salvation, or else God has created most people for hell by refusing them sufficient importance and value to be saved! It would be very much appreciated if any intelligent calvinist could take some time to explain from basic scriptural principles (and not emotional rhetoric, sarcasm or cynicism) just how my statements are in any way opposed to scriptural truth. Silence on this issue will be taken as an acceptance of an inability to be able to answer this without heresy pushing its way into the discussion.

I am tired of hearing all those who aren’t calvinists being described as Arminians, or Pelagians, or even non-Christian. I am neither Arminian nor Pelagian, nor anything else that might be written with an -ism on the end. I believe in the Bible alone, and will accept no other defence than from the Bible alone. Will I get given misquoted and twisted Greek and Hebrew rules, or altered meanings of words or phrases out of context, or quotes from calvinist “heroes” of the faith, or claims that it is a mystery that we are not meant to understand (a favourite for those who have come to the end of their ability to explain from Scripture)? Of course, even Calvin taught that it was better to remain ignorant than to search after knowledge.
Calvin’s Institutes Bk 3, Part 11, Section 2 “Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning. Rather let us willingly abstain from the search after knowledge, to which it is both foolish as well as perilous, and even fatal to aspire.”
This aptly describes the calvinist who hides behind the teachings of other people, not wishing to discuss the Bible on its own merits, but to interpret it with the “light” afforded it by Calvin and other “enlightened” teachers.

One more thing must be said on this matter. If the calvinist allows no free will to choose salvation, yet requires that the elect be found important enough to God to grant them salvation, then it strongly suggests that there is, indeed, another “salvation” being discussed by them. If the Biblical salvation requires faith (as a response of man to God’s promises) and free will to accept God’s conditions for salvation, and the calvinist gospel requires salvation before belief in Christ, and sufficient importance to God to be accepted for salvation, then the calvinist gospel is not the gospel of the Bible.

Now we seem to be getting to the real nature of this discussion, that we are actually talking about two separate gospels offered by two separate Gods (only one of whom can be the one true God). For where there is seemingly irreconcilable conflict between two doctrines, then there has to be a lie somewhere. Either the calvinist gospel is totally consistent with the gospel of the Bible (which it isn’t!), or else the calvinist gospel is another gospel, literally a doctrine of demons instead! And a false doctrine it is indeed! Their converts are not permitted to pray a sinners’ prayer, for the calvinist teaches that those who pray the sinners’ prayer are still going to hell.
Calvinist Todd Friel says – Brace yourself for this one: with very few if any exceptions, anyone who asked Jesus into their hearts to be saved…is not. If you asked Jesus into your heart because you were told that is what you have to do to become a Christian, you were mis-informed.
People who ask Jesus into their hearts are not saved and they will perish on the Day of Judgment.
(Ten Reasons To Not Ask Jesus Into Your Heart by Todd Friel. Follow this link The Heresy of Todd Friel.)
Then how did Jesus get into the Christian’s heart in Ephesians 3:17?? (That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith)

The calvinist who claims to have so many converts to the kingdom cannot base any estimate of his numbers on the praying of the sinners’ prayer, or anything that is based in any way upon the free will of the sinner. If you made a decision to receive Christ, to be saved, etc, then they cannot accept that because, according to them, that denies the sovereignty of God in salvation. Calvinists say that you don’t choose God; God chooses you. They say that it is arrogance for someone to pray the sinners’ prayer as if that would gain them salvation!

Paul Washer mocks traditional evangelists who might say that the handle to the door of your heart is on the inside (as per Revelation 3:20). He teaches that it doesn’t matter where any handle is, for Jesus will come in by force if He wants to, regardless of where that handle is. “The question is not whether you would like to pray this prayer and ask Jesus to come into your heart — after all, you know, the handle to your heart is on the inside and if you do not open it Jesus cannot come in.
My friend, Jesus is Lord of your heart and if He wants to come in, He will kick the door down.”
https://www.triviumpursuit.com/blog/2010/10/13/paul-washer-quotes/

Obviously, there is no conflict between Washer’s statement and the calvinist gospel, for they both teach that only God chooses who will be saved; not one sinner can plead with God to be saved unless he or she is already on the list of the elect from the beginning of time. Not one sinner may call upon the name of the Lord to be saved unless the calvinist God wants to save him or her! Even then, the calvinist God will not save them until he is ready to save them! People may cry out to the calvinist God as much as they like; he will ignore them unless they are important enough for him to want to listen to them. All those calvinist “soul-winners” such as Whitefield cannot claim free will decisions or else they could not be named as calvinists! And if they couldn’t be named as calvinists, then they would not be permitted to be calvinist “heroes” of the faith. So, just how many genuine (Biblical) Christians have these calvinist evangelists converted, if the converts cannot pray the sinners’ prayer or make a decision to be saved in any way? Not one!

So, how does the calvinist assess his converts? You’ve heard of the puritans, no doubt. They were people who lived a good and pure life. Most of the “Christians” who settled America were puritans, generally good law-abiding people who were “nicer” people than those who were not puritans. They attended church regularly, did good deeds for the community and the less-fortunate, and avoided (mostly) excesses of bad things such as alcohol and gambling. (Temperance unions were popular among such people.) If you were a good puritan (attended church regularly, didn’t swear nor drink too much etc) you were considered a Christian. In fact, calvinists generally define Christian converts as those who have adopted the puritan lifestyle of attending church regularly and being generally nicer people.

So, to sum it up, calvinism won’t accept those who say they are Christians because they prayed the sinners’ prayer; instead, they accept those who live a life that demonstrates their Christian behaviour and ethics. The calvinist God only saves those who are on his list of elect; if you are not on that list, you can never be saved no matter how many commitments you make to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. This gets back to the start of this article, that the calvinist God only saves those who are sufficiently important or valuable to him, or else he wouldn’t have sent Jesus to die for their sins. You have to have worth in the eyes of the calvinist God to be saved by him. Clearly the sinners’ prayer does not have worth and therefore those who pray the sinners’ prayer will be rejected; the calvinist Jesus didn’t die for them!

But the Jesus of the Bible died for them, because the God of the Bible desired the redemption of all mankind such that Jesus became the atonement for all the sins of all the world without exception, so that all who would call upon the name of the Lord would be saved. This is the true gospel!

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