Ep 1274 ｜ Predestined to Hell？ Calvinism Explained
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 12 minutes
Words per Minute
158.5432
Summary
What is Calvinism? Is it just unbiblical, fatalistic determinism, or is it actually backed by scripture centered on the glory and sovereignty of God? These are some of the questions that we tackle in this episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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What is Calvinism? Is it just unbiblical, fatalistic determinism? Or is it actually
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backed by scripture, centered on the glory and the sovereignty of God? These are very fair
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questions. I get asked a lot what Calvinism is and what the Bible says in relation to Calvinism.
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So let us break it down on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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All right. Today we are going to do something that is truly evergreen. We are going to talk
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about Calvinism. Now I, back in 2019, did a whole series of evergreen content for my first maternity
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leave. I did, I think like nine weeks worth of episodes that had to do with politics, that had
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to do with theology and interviews. And I did an episode on predestination. We talked about different
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points of Calvinism, but I received a text from a friend the other day asking, what is Calvinism?
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Can you break this down for me? She found the old episode that I did and she said it was helpful,
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but I thought that it would be a good time to kind of refresh this. I get questions about this a lot.
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I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about what Calvinism actually is and why it matters.
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And so to clarify a lot of the questions that you guys seem to have, I wanted to get into it.
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The reason why Calvinism is considered controversial is because it is seen by many as a form of
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determinism. So God is just determining what happens and we don't have any free will. Some people would
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say Calvinism posits and we're just puppets without really any responsibility, but somehow also can
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incur punishment. There are plenty of critiques of Calvinism, some that I think are totally valid
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and interesting, and then some that are just misconstructions of what the form of theology is.
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So let's start, let's give some context about not only what this is, but why it actually matters.
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It's almost turned into a buzzword in theological debates, and you guys know how much I like to
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define my terms. And I truly believe no matter what you believe, this will be a helpful primer on
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what Calvinists actually believe. So Calvinism is a form of theology, and let's get down to brass
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tax. Theology means the study of God. Theos, God, logi, or logos, word, rationale, reason, study.
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The primary means of knowing God is through his word, which for us has been written down in something
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called the Bible, and it has been carefully translated so that what we call the biblical canon,
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the 66 books that we now hold in our hands matches the earliest manuscripts that we have found. And
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these 66 books were chosen through a long process, but have been verified and validated and substantiated
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not only by the references by the apostles and the New Testament writers, but also by Jesus himself.
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And we could get into, we should do a whole episode about how these 66 books were chosen and how we know
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that they are reliable. But for now, we will just say this, that the Bible is our primary means of
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knowing God. There are other ways of knowing God. We know him through prayer. We know him through the
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wisdom given to us by the Holy Spirit. We have that relationship with God through Christ, but we can
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understand his character and his will best through scripture, which is authoritative. It is infallible,
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so it cannot fail. It is also inerrant. So that means without error. In the 16th century, there was
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something called a Reformation, and it was called the Protestant Reformation. It was ignited by a man
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named Martin Luther. He was a German monk. He nailed something called the 95 Theses reportedly on the door
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of the Wittenberg Church. And these are 95 issues that he had with Catholic leadership at the time,
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Catholic practices that were going on at the time. He did not intend to start a revolution. He was
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actually not trying to protest against the papacy. He held his entire life to some doctrines that are
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considered to be Roman Catholic. So he wasn't trying to start a revolution by saying that, hey, it's wrong
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to tell people that their loved ones can be sprung out of purgatory by giving money to the church via
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something called indulgences. But start a revolution, he did. The Catholic leadership not only excommunicated
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Martin Luther, but they sought his life. But incredibly, God used a variety of means to protect
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Martin Luther, who became convinced that the single most important thing he could do was translate the
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Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew into German. And the way that this coincided also with the
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invention of the printing press is just incredible and speaks to God's providence and his desire for
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people to know him through his word. And Martin Luther did this so that people could read for
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themselves how to get to heaven. So they could see that it is by grace through faith, as Ephesians 2.8
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tells us that a person is saved, not through money, not through church attendance, not through good
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works. Martin Luther was not a perfect man by any means, but God used him as he uses all
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imperfect people to light the fire of the Reformation fueled by the light of scripture and the hope of
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the gospel. He insisted that scripture supports the main thing that makes Christianity different
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from every other religion. Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, even Judaism all tell you how to get to God. Here is
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your list of requirements. Here's the money that you have to pay. Do these things, say these things,
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and you'll be good. You'll be right with God. But Christianity fundamentally brings something new
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by saying, no, no, no, you can't get to God. So he has to come down to you. You can't make yourself
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clean. You can't pick yourself up. It is only God's grace that can make you alive and faith in that
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saving grace that can save you. So what's called the five solas or the five alones of the Reformation
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were and are by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to scripture alone,
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for God's glory alone. Sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, sola scriptura, soli Deo gloria.
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That's the Latin for the five solas. And this is the gospel. And this gospel, which by the way,
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was not new at the time of Martin Luther or the Reformation. This was the very gospel that was
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preached by Jesus and the apostles and all the writers of the New Testament. The knowledge of
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this gospel, the access to this gospel through God's written word for the common person spread
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like wildfire throughout Europe. And ultimately, it laid the foundation for the United States,
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this belief in the freedom of conscience, the responsibility of the individual to gain wisdom
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and knowledge of Christ through his word was foundational to Western civilization in America
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itself. The founders were Protestant. Those rebelling against King George were largely Presbyterian.
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The pilgrims were not only Protestant, but they were Puritans. That's like the Protestant of Protestant.
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And even more specifically, they were Calvinists. So the reason it is so important for anyone to
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understand Calvinism, whether you are one of my beloved Catholic listeners, or whether you are
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a Protestant, whether you are an agnostic, is because it has had a huge influence on the American
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conscience, how we define right and wrong, how we define legal and illegal, not exclusively, but
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definitely predominantly. Calvinism, maybe in light of, because of, or maybe despite its influence,
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depending on how you look at it, has been extremely demonized by all types of people,
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both in and outside of Protestantism. I think some non-Protestants think that all Protestants are
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Calvinists. That is so not true. It is actually probably a very small sliver of Protestantism today.
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But that's why I think it's important to understand what it actually is, because even though very few
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people relative to the general population would call themselves Calvinists, the belief system,
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the worldview that it has kind of created or helped shape is extremely influential today. And even after
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this episode, you may or may not believe that that demonization is justified. I can't wait to see your
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comments for us to discuss this. But let us try our best to really understand what it teaches. Calvinism is a
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theological framework that is born out of the Reformed Protestant tradition. So all that I just
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explained with its own set of specifications that we will get into today. I'll get into some of those
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A lot of people, when they think of Calvinism, they only think of predestination. And that is
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definitely, I would argue, a defining feature. It is something that makes the Calvinist view of
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salvation very distinct. But Calvinists themselves would say that Calvinism reads the Bible with a
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keen focus on a magnification of God's sovereignty and God's glory. So what does sovereignty mean? It
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means that God is in control, basically. That he reigns over all of it. That he does not have
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limited power. There's no part of the spiritual or physical realm that his power cannot reach.
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And this emphasis on God's glory means that God does what he wants to do and how he wants to do it.
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He allows what he wants to allow. He causes what he wants to cause, all for his glory, whether we
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understand it, whether we like it or not. And Calvinists would argue this includes salvation and
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damnation. And that is where the controversy for many begins. I actually remember in sixth grade,
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I was so incensed by this idea of predestination. I was basically like the people in Romans 9,
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being like, how would it be just? How would it be good and merciful and kind? All of these things we
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know about God for him to create people that he knows are going to be sent to hell and he doesn't
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choose to save them. And so you might already be thinking those things. And if you are,
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then 12-year-old Allie completely relates to those questions. And they're really good questions.
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We'll get into some of them today. Before we get into the rest of the theology of what Calvinism
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actually is, let's back up a little bit and talk about what it's named after. It is named after a
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man called John Calvin. And this is according to Ligonier Ministries. And there's John Calvin right there
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with his pointy beard. Very important. It seems like this is like a mainstay of Calvinism today.
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You can tell that a man is Calvinist by how much of a beard he has. Remember Chad Wright? Chad Wright,
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hardcore Calvinist. We love Chad Wright. He has a similar beard to John Calvin. This does seem to be
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just an indicator of someone's Calvinism. But he crossed over with Martin Luther. He lived from 1509 to
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1564. There were other Reformed theologians at this time. And remember, Reformed refers to the
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Protestant Reformation. These people had a lot of problems with what the Catholic Church was doing
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at the time, some of the things that they were teaching at the time. And so they were inspired by
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what Martin Luther was doing. Didn't agree with everything that Martin Luther said, but many people,
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like John Calvin, he held to the five solas or the five alones of the Reformation, and he built upon
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that. And John Calvin, again, according to Ligonier, I didn't finish that thought. That's a ministry
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started by R.C. Sproul, who died, I believe, in 2017, was a Reformed Calvinist theologian.
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But he wrote, John Calvin wrote, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. I wrote it first in Latin,
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and then it was translated into his native French language in the mid-1500s. And this was and still
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is a very important breakdown of what John Calvin believes the Bible teaches about the Christian
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religion, particularly when it comes to salvation. Calvinism stresses the sovereignty of God and his
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creative power and providential care. The absolute authority of the Bible is the source and norm for
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all of life and the reality of both human sinfulness and human responsibility. A hallmark
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of Calvinism is continuing the role, according to Ligonier, of God's law. The Ten Commandments remain
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the rule of the Christian life. After conversion, they would say Calvinists would believe that this is
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part of the moral law. And not only Calvinists believe this, this is really just kind of like
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a Protestant teaching, that we don't abide by the ceremonial law, we don't abide by the cleansing laws,
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because Jesus has become our cleansing, he's become our sacrifice, but he didn't do away with
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the moral law. He doubled down on the moral law. We see him emphasize the Ten Commandments in the New
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Testament, not do away with it. And then there are the five points of Calvinism you'll talk about,
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or you'll hear about people saying, I'm a five-point Calvinist, or I'm a four-point Calvinist.
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And that is summarized by an acronym called TULIP. And maybe you've heard of this before.
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TULIP stands for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace,
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and the perseverance of the saints. These were set forth by the Synod of Dort in 1618 to 1619.
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And that is really what summarizes all of the principles, the core beliefs of Calvinism.
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So let's get into what TULIP actually is. So as I said, T stands for total depravity. Total
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depravity means that we are not just sick in need of some medicine. We don't have the ability to save
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ourselves. There's nothing good inside of us that makes us naturally want to seek God. But any
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inkling that we have that there's something higher or something better, or that we need to be saved,
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has nothing to do with our natural selves and has to do with the grace of God through the Holy Spirit.
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So Calvinism teaches that sin has corrupted every single part of human nature, mind, heart, will,
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emotions. It doesn't mean that we are as bad as we could be at all times, but we certainly have the
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capacity for that, that every single part of that, of our nature, has the capacity to be as sinful as
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possible. And ultimately, it is about our state without Christ, that we are completely spiritually
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dead and unable to seek God or do anything truly good on our own. So Calvinism gets this from Ephesians
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2, 1 through 3, which you have heard me cite many times on the show. And you were dead in the trespasses
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and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the
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power of the air. And I could go on and on. That's one of my favorite passages. If you are dead in your
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sin, do you have the ability to wake yourself up? Does medicine help you? Does someone reaching for
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you and lifting you up help you? No, if you are dead, you are completely helpless. You actually have
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to be resuscitated. You have to be made alive. You can help yourself or clean yourself off or do
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anything about the stench of your decaying body at all because you are dead. And so Ephesians 2 says that
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we are completely dead in our sin. And this is part of where Calvinists get this idea of total
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depravity, that we have nothing inside of ourselves that reaches towards salvation, that that is all a
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gift from God. They also get that a few verses later in Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, that this is not your
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own doing. It is a gift of God. And then the U is unconditional election. Unconditional election,
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Calvinists say, is based only on God's free choice. Calvinism says that God chose before the
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world began which specific sinners he would save. And he based that choice only on his own will and
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love, not on anything he saw that they would do. Ephesians 1, 4 through 5 would be a verse that's
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cited here, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
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blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,
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according to the purpose of his will. Also Romans 9 is cited often. Romans 9, 11 through 13. Though
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they were not yet born, he's talking about Jacob and Esau, and had done nothing either good or bad.
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In order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him
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who calls, she was told, their mother, the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I
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loved, but Esau I hated. So obviously, as Paul is writing to the church in Rome, they are having some
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of the same feelings of injustice. Hey, like how is it possible that God chooses people who are going to
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be saved and who are not going to be saved? And Paul basically says, like, can the clay say to the
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potter, why did you make me this way? And he answers that God made vessels of wrath and vessels
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of mercy. And then he gives this explanation of Jacob and Esau. All right, in just a second,
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we will get to limited atonement. This is the L in tulip, limited atonement, which says that Christ
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accomplished salvation for the elect on the cross, not the whole world. We'll get into that in just a
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Okay, so this is maybe one of the most controversial aspects of Calvinism, I would say.
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Limited atonement says that Christ accomplished salvation only for the elect, so only for those
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that God chose before the foundation of the world, not the entire world. Whereas the other
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perspective, which we'll get into Arminianism in just a little bit, is that Christ died for everyone,
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and it's our responsibility to choose to have that blood that was poured out for us on the cross
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cover us. So Calvinism teaches that when Jesus died on the cross, he actually secured complete
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salvation for the exact people that God had chosen, so limited atonement. The elect in his death was
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perfectly effective for them. Hebrews 10.14, for by a single offering, he has perfected for all time
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those who are being sanctified. So context here, Calvinists would say, is that Christ's one
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sacrifice does not just offer perfection. It is perfected for all of time, the same people who are
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being sanctified. The group that is perfected is identical to the group for whom he offered himself.
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And then you have John 10.14-15, I am the good shepherd. I know my own, Jesus says, and my own
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know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
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The I in Tulip is irresistible grace. This means God's call to the elect always succeeds. Calvinism says
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that when God decides to save one of his chosen people, the Holy Spirit powerfully and sweetly opens
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their blind eyes and changes their hearts so that they will willingly and gladly come to Christ.
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So it is not possible, Calvinism would say, for someone to be captured by the grace of God and
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then wrestle themselves free. That his grace, when it meets someone, when it captures someone,
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is completely irresistible. Now, someone may have a spiritual experience, Calvinism would say.
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Someone may look like they're walking the walk. Someone might be interested in the Bible. Someone
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may even preach the Bible very well and understand all of these doctrines and understand Calvinism,
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but still not actually be saved by the grace of God. But Calvinism posits, when you have been
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captivated by the grace of God, you do not have the power to resist it because of God's total
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sovereignty. Now, again, the other side would say, no, God's grace is there, and it's trying to
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convict someone, but someone still does have the power to resist it. John 6, 37, all that the Father
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gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. So Calvinists would use this
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to say that not only can you not resist God's grace and initial salvation, but you also can't
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escape his salvation, that there's nothing you contributed to your salvation. So there's nothing
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that you can do to get rid of your salvation either. And that leads to the last one, P,
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perseverance of the saints. This promises that true believers who have been captivated by God's grace
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by no merit of their own, no contribution of their own will be kept by God forever. So this is the
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belief that you cannot lose your salvation. There are many Protestants who do not hold to this belief,
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who do believe you can lose your salvation, but Calvinism teaches that everyone that God has truly
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saved will be kept safe by God's power all the way to the end, that they might stumble,
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they might lose their way sometimes, it might look like the pilgrim's progress,
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there will be temptation, there will be sin, but nothing that they do can escape as well.
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Now they would also say that someone who is truly following Christ, that because the Holy Spirit
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lives in them, there will be fruit, there will be a hatred of sin, there will be a repentance of sin.
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That doesn't mean there will be perfection every day in their moral life, but that they will be
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sanctified. Calvinists do not generally believe that someone just prays a prayer and walks down,
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the aisle and says, you know, yes, I'm a sinner and I need to be saved and that they can go on
00:27:17.980
living like nothing really happened. That person is truly a Christian. It's not that Calvinists would
00:27:24.440
say you have to contribute your righteousness to be saved, but they would say you have to look at the
00:27:29.460
fruit of someone's life in order to be able to tell that that person has truly been saved by the
00:27:36.840
Holy Spirit and is being sanctified by Christ. Philippians 1.6, they would say, proves this,
00:27:42.560
and I am sure of this, God through Paul writes, that he who began a good work in you will bring
00:27:48.840
it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Another modern name for tulip for these five points
00:27:58.240
is the doctrines of grace. You may have heard that before from people like R.C. Sproul or people like
00:28:05.540
John MacArthur or John Piper. All of these people are considered to be reformed teachers today.
00:28:15.440
So what is the influence of Calvinism? Well, if we go a little bit more deeply into who Calvin was,
00:28:23.860
that kind of gives us an indication. So if we go back to 1533, because of Calvin's contact with
00:28:30.180
people who opposed the Roman Catholic Church, Calvin had to flee Paris because this was a very
00:28:36.960
Catholic city, of course, and he was not safe there. Many also believe that this was the year
00:28:44.380
he experienced a sudden and unexpected conversion, specifically to the Reformed faith. In 1536,
00:28:51.320
Calvin officially broke with Roman Catholic Church and planned to settle in Strasbourg.
00:28:57.440
But then he ended up in Geneva. That's where he stayed. He was a lecturer and a preacher in Geneva.
00:29:04.460
He became very popular there. He preached what is called still today, expository sermons,
00:29:11.300
without notes, often 10 times every two weeks, and delivered three theology lectures weekly,
00:29:17.560
wrote extensive biblical commentaries. He also trained pastors. Calvin's Geneva became known as
00:29:26.120
the university there, became known as the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth
00:29:31.960
since the days of the apostles, according to another reformer, a Scottish reformer by the name
00:29:41.700
If Luther sounded the trumpet for reform, Calvin orchestrated the score by which the Reformation
00:29:47.080
became a part of Western civilization. I think that's a really good way to put
00:29:52.620
why understanding Calvinism for any person is important. This is what R.C. Sproul said,
00:29:58.960
John Calvin stands alone in church history as the master of systematizing
00:30:02.700
biblical truth with doctrine. He was driven by a desire to interpret all the details of biblical
00:30:07.820
revelation. Rarely, if ever, have we found a systematic theologian. So looking at the entire
00:30:13.700
system of Christianity through scripture, systematic theology by Wayne Grudem is an awesome resource.
00:30:21.120
There are a lot of systematic theologians, and some are super trustworthy and thorough.
00:30:26.400
Able to quote lengthy passages of the Bible with one breath, followed by a considerable recitation by
00:30:31.160
memory of the writings of St. Augustine, Calvin mixed his mastery of linguistics with his heart set on
00:30:37.180
fire by the word of God. There are a lot of quotes that I could read that are in my notes about
00:30:44.900
Calvinism. But what I think is important, I wasn't even planning to talk about this, but this is just an
00:30:50.900
aside. What's important to know is that this is actually the predominant worldview that built America
00:30:57.740
and not the modern evangelicalism that we see today. And so a lot of people will say, I've seen this from
00:31:09.460
some of my Catholic friends, that it is like Protestantism is dispensationalism, is the reason
00:31:16.620
why they would say America puts Israel first, and they would say has some like wrong idea of Israel.
00:31:24.140
But Calvinism is not dispensationalist. Now, there are some Calvinists who would call themselves
00:31:30.820
dispensationalists, probably, like John MacArthur. Now, some people would quibble about whether or not
00:31:36.300
John MacArthur was truly reformed, and if he believed in the doctrines of grace because he was
00:31:41.120
dispensationalist. I know I'm throwing around a lot of just like Christianese that may not matter to you
00:31:45.880
and might be kind of confusing. But dispensationalism is pretty new. Go back and listen to my Israel
00:31:53.500
episode, to my past In Times episodes to understand what dispensationalism is. But this is actually more
00:32:03.580
of the influential worldview that has kind of shaped the Protestant and American conscience for a very
00:32:11.620
long, for a very long time. If you go back again to the history of Calvinism and the influence that
00:32:19.260
it had on theologians, on seminaries throughout Europe, and then you look at the English Puritans,
00:32:25.600
who were deeply Calvinistic, they carried this reformed faith about justification by faith alone,
00:32:32.540
namely, and even the doctrines of grace in Tulip, into North America. And then by 1776,
00:32:38.820
roughly two-thirds of American colonists belonged to Calvinist-leaning churches. This is according to
00:32:46.120
Joel Beakey, who is awesome, an awesome scholar and preacher on all of this. Calvinism differed from
00:32:53.160
Lutheranism, so Martin Luther on the Lord's Supper, so Lutherans tend to believe in the true presence of
00:32:59.740
the Eucharist, the role of God's law, guide for believers versus mainly convicting sinners,
00:33:05.800
and the scope of predestination. And this is an argument that I hear a lot from my Catholic
00:33:11.320
friends, that the fruit of Protestantism, just look at this, it's division. You have all these
00:33:15.960
people who are reading the Bible and they're interpreting things differently. Isn't that a
00:33:20.740
case to be made for the Roman Catholic Church and the authority of the magisterium and the authority
00:33:25.660
of the Pope? Because look at all of this division. And look, I understand what you're saying,
00:33:30.900
certainly. I don't revel in arguments and division, especially disagreement on really important
00:33:36.240
things. But we would argue disagreement in pursuit of the truth is worth it. If we're just to use an
00:33:43.640
analogy here, we could also say, isn't it sad that we had this bloody revolution of America versus
00:33:50.220
England? Wouldn't it have just been better if we just stayed unified? At least we would have
00:33:55.460
all, you know, shared our nationality and shared our common culture of being Englishmen, even if we
00:34:01.680
were under the tyranny of King George. Again, this is an analogy here. We would say, no, it was worth
00:34:09.220
the division. Like it was worth the tearing apart. It was worth the Declaration of Independence. It was
00:34:14.800
worth the bloody revolution. But because what we got was better. Because yes, now there are states that
00:34:22.440
have different constitutions. Yes, with all of this freedom of religion and speech, there's all kinds
00:34:28.000
of conflict. But we believe that the freedom of speech and freedom of religion, if it gives people
00:34:32.920
the opportunity to seek what is good and true without possibly the misguided authority of the state,
00:34:39.980
then that's a good thing. Again, that is an analogy. You don't have to agree with it. Of course,
00:34:44.120
as a Catholic, I don't expect you to. But I'm trying to get you to understand the Protestant
00:34:48.940
perspective of why we are okay with denominations. Do we all wish that we agreed? Absolutely. But I'm
00:34:55.300
so glad that we have been given access to and the authority of understanding Scripture in the best
00:35:02.500
way that we possibly can. Yes, under the authority of our pastors, with the help of theologians,
00:35:06.900
and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as imperfectly as we possibly can. But that is what we are
00:35:14.080
trying to accomplish. And so when we look at some American Calvinists, we can see someone like
00:35:20.900
Jonathan Edwards, who preached the seminal sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. I have that
00:35:29.920
little booklet at home, so different than the kind of sermons we hear so often today, that God doesn't
00:35:36.780
want you to have it hard, that He wants you to feel good about yourself. You know, the God of self,
00:35:41.000
the God of self-esteem sermons that we hear, that is, if you feel good about yourself and you love
00:35:46.280
yourself, then everything will be fine. And that is what God is most concerned about, is just cheering
00:35:52.620
you along to fulfill your desires. Well, that is certainly not the God of Scripture, but it's
00:35:58.440
definitely not the Calvinist God. It's not the Puritan God. And actually, in the little book on the
00:36:03.720
Christian life by John Calvin, he has an incredible—I wish I had it in front of me—he has an incredible
00:36:08.500
passage about the dangers of self-love. Because in fact, any time you see this phrase, lovers of
00:36:14.800
self in Scripture, is an indication of the evil of the end times, not something that is beneficial.
00:36:20.020
It's actually something that we are trying to get rid of as we fill ourselves instead with the love of
00:36:26.180
Christ that helps us see rightly our own worth and the worth of other people. The Great Awakening
00:36:33.140
began in Massachusetts in America in 1734 to 1735. Jonathan Edwards really spearheaded that,
00:36:42.700
and he was affected by the doctrines of Calvinism. We are still living kind of in the shadow of these
00:36:48.260
Great Awakenings. You also had someone like George Whitefield. He was an Anglican evangelist. He arrived
00:36:55.680
in America. He preached these open-air sermons on things like total depravity, the tea, and tulip.
00:37:01.360
And then if you go back to the UK, you have someone like Charles Spurgeon. He was also a
00:37:07.120
Calvinistic preacher, still massively influential today. His massive influence demolished this myth
00:37:14.420
that Calvinists can't be passionate evangelists. His church baptized thousands, supported dozens of
00:37:19.700
missionaries, proved that strong doctrine and fervent evangelism go together. And that probably speaks
00:37:26.900
to a question that I think a lot of people have about if you are Calvinist and believe in this
00:37:31.620
predestination, why would you pray and why would you evangelize? You've got Martin Lloyd-Jones. You've
00:37:38.860
got J.I. Packer. You've got R.C. Sproul. You've got John MacArthur. You've got John Piper. And then,
00:37:45.560
of course, you've got Votie Bauckham, our dear brother that we just lost. You have people like James White and
00:37:50.100
Paul Washer and Jeff Durbin, who all consider themselves Reformed and, I believe, consider
00:37:56.640
themselves somewhere on the spectrum of Calvinism. So still extremely prominent in America today
00:38:06.340
in shaping what we think about the Bible and what we think about salvation. But let's get into
00:38:11.760
specifically predestination, this very controversial point. And then we will get into what the Bible says
00:38:17.440
and also what other belief systems within Christianity and within Protestantism actually
00:38:24.560
believe. I have a lot of very good friends, theologians that I respect that are not Calvinist.
00:38:30.360
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Okay. Let's talk about predestination. Everyone's favorite topic. Everyone's favorite debate subject.
00:40:03.300
Okay. So predestination is the idea that God predestined before time began. Not just before
00:40:12.540
we live, but before time began because God is not limited by time. He is eternal. He did not start
00:40:19.740
when the world started. He has always existed. And he predestined before our time began who was going to
00:40:28.540
be saved and who was going to not be saved. Who was going to spend eternity in hell. And like,
00:40:37.000
this is tough for me. Like, this is really tough for me because, and so like, I will just tell you,
00:40:44.160
because I understand the reaction to that. The reaction that I had when I was 12, I fully understand
00:40:54.260
and still sympathize with that because what father or mother would create a child knowing that their
00:41:03.780
soul will be spent in torment forever and ever. And how is it possible to say that that person
00:41:11.480
deserves that wrath and deserves that punishment if they did not have any contribution to being
00:41:19.440
created? And if we read that God is loving, if we read that God is good, if we read that God is kind,
00:41:26.280
and we know he is purposely creating babies, embryos, knitting them together and bringing them to life
00:41:35.820
only to send them to hell eternally, like that is really difficult. And so that is why people have a
00:41:43.720
very hard time with this belief that God truly chose whom was going to be damned and whom was going to
00:41:51.560
be saved before time began. So I just want to like validate your questions about that, that I'm not
00:41:59.620
dismissive of those things because I think that's a really good question and something that we should
00:42:04.220
be wrestling with. So here's how Calvinists would explain it though. The doctrine of predestination
00:42:10.420
is the teaching that before the creation of the world, God decided the eternal destiny of all
00:42:15.060
rational creatures, so human beings and all angels. God's choice to save certain sinners by grace is
00:42:21.040
called election. And his choice to leave certain sinners to the damnation they deserve is reprobation.
00:42:27.980
Predestination is part of God's decree, his eternal purpose in which he has decided all that will take
00:42:33.380
place, ordaining everything for the manifestation of his glory. So this is for Crossway,
00:42:40.260
Joel Beakey and Paul Smalley wrote this. Many Christians, including Reformed theologian Jonathan
00:42:46.540
Edward, officially found the doctrine of predestination disturbing, but later came to see its beauty and
00:42:54.060
comfort. Some reject this predestination argument because they think it's just human speculation. And
00:43:00.700
of course, they also believe that it's disturbing or it's unjust and God cannot be unjust. There are many
00:43:06.960
passages that talk about God's elects. We already talked about Romans 9. We talked about Ephesians 1,
00:43:14.660
4 through 6, but there's also Romans 8, 32 through 34. Calvinists would say,
00:43:21.200
He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously
00:43:27.160
give us all things? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
00:43:32.620
Who is to condemn? And then there is also Romans 11, 28. As regards to the gospel, they are enemies for
00:43:44.260
your sake, unbelievers. But as regards to election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers,
00:43:51.640
for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 1 Timothy 5, 21. In the presence of God in Christ
00:44:00.200
and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging.
00:44:06.640
Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect. 2 Timothy 2, 10 says that they also may
00:44:12.500
obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Titus 1, 1. Paul, a servant of God and
00:44:20.000
an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth,
00:44:25.220
which accords with godliness. 2 Peter 1, 10. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent
00:44:31.600
to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail.
00:44:38.940
And we could kind of go on and on there. Acts 13, 48. And when the Gentiles heard this,
00:44:43.700
they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord and as many as were appointed
00:44:48.760
to eternal life believed. This is at the end of Romans 8, verse 29. For those whom he foreknew,
00:44:59.280
he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn
00:45:05.980
among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called,
00:45:12.400
he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Another part of Romans chapter 9
00:45:21.860
says this, what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he
00:45:27.120
says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have
00:45:31.580
compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
00:45:36.240
For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I've raised you up that I might show my
00:45:40.360
power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever
00:45:46.180
he wills and he hardens whomever he wills because God hardened Pharaoh's heart. So there are a lot of
00:45:54.340
objections to this. There is the belief that, okay, if God predestined people to go to hell, then he can't
00:46:01.220
be just, he can't be merciful, he can't be kind, he can't be loving, and therefore it must not be true.
00:46:10.360
We must have some kind of contribution to our salvation. Calvinists would say, look, God can
00:46:17.040
do what he wants to do. And we evangelize because God has called us to evangelize. We pray because
00:46:24.220
God has called us to pray. We glorify God and we call God good and kind because that's what he tells
00:46:33.180
us that he is. And it's not pointless to pray. It's not pointless to evangelize because they would
00:46:40.260
say God has sovereignly predestined these to be the means by which he accomplishes his purpose.
00:46:47.480
We know throughout scripture that like God didn't need his people to walk around the walls of Jericho
00:46:52.800
seven times for him to destroy the walls of Jericho, but he predestined that as a means by which he would
00:46:58.520
accomplish his purpose. He didn't have to use Moses to write down the 10 commandments, but he did. He
00:47:05.580
didn't have to, you know, go through the plagues and open up the Red Sea to set his people free,
00:47:11.240
but he did. God uses particular processes and particular means to accomplish his purpose. And
00:47:17.800
we could say, well, that seems pointless if he can do what he wants to do. But Calvinists would say,
00:47:22.940
it's not up to us to say how God should accomplish his will. We are simply to obey.
00:47:30.300
Wayne Grudem in his book, Systematic Theology, he talks about this doctrine of concurrence, which
00:47:37.540
says that two things can be concurrently true, that God is totally in charge. He is completely
00:47:43.180
sovereign, that nothing escapes his will, that even what Satan does is allowed by God in his power,
00:47:50.440
and also that humans have a real responsibility, that we are actually held accountable for our
00:47:57.560
actions, that we actually bear the weight of our sin. These two things are concurrently true,
00:48:04.300
and how they're concurrently true can be a mystery. But Calvinists wouldn't say that we have to
00:48:10.960
completely understand the mystery of concurrence, how God's sovereign character and man's responsibility
00:48:17.060
can be logically and theologically reconciled. We can try to do that. But at the end of the day,
00:48:23.860
we do what Paul does in Romans 9, and we simply break out and praise and the glory and the foreknowledge
00:48:29.960
and the wisdom of God. And a lot of people say, well, doesn't this lead to worry about, well,
00:48:37.380
how do you know you're chosen? How do you know you're really saved? Look, if you are a Christian,
00:48:41.880
if you have been captured by the Holy Spirit and because of him or walking in Christ, then you
00:48:47.360
have been chosen. You have been saved. We simply have to trust and obey. Calvinists would go to
00:48:56.100
Psalm 115.3, our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. Isaiah 46.9-10,
00:49:02.920
For I am God, there is no other. I am God, there is none like me. 2 Corinthians 4.6,
00:49:09.020
For God, who said, let light shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the
00:49:13.240
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So it is God who actually
00:49:18.600
gives us the knowledge. He gives us the grace that is required to be saved. It is nothing that we do
00:49:26.940
on our own. So Calvinists have much scripture that they offer in defense of their belief of tulip,
00:49:34.880
but what does the other side say? As I said, people that I really respect oppose Calvinism. So we'll
00:49:40.120
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All right, here is my very good and wise friend, apologist and evangelist, Frank Turek, stating his
00:50:42.080
See, the ultimate problem with Calvinism, hard five-point Calvinism in my view,
00:50:46.300
is it makes the world a sham because we really don't have a free choice, but God is telling us that
00:50:51.860
we ought to choose him when we can't choose him because he hasn't chosen us at all. And secondly,
00:50:57.200
it makes God the author of evil. In fact, let me give you a debate that took place 40 years ago
00:51:01.880
at Dallas Theological Seminary. It was between Norman Geisler, my mentor, and a guy by the name
00:51:07.260
of John Gerstner. And at one point, Geisler turned to Gerstner and he says, he said, does man have free
00:51:12.520
will? And Gerstner said, yes, man has free will to do what he desires, but God gives him the desire
00:51:19.960
of his heart. So Geisler said, who gave Adam the desire to sin? And Gerstner said, mystery.
00:51:29.440
I love Frank Turek. And I think that we could have a really interesting discussion about this
00:51:35.980
because I would, I would have questions. So here's how I, here's how I see it. We know that God is
00:51:45.000
completely in control, right? That there is nothing that his power cannot do, that there is no realm
00:51:52.440
in which he is inept, that his power is not limited in any way. He's all powerful. I think
00:51:59.020
all Christians would agree on that. He is all knowing. He is omnipresent. And if these things
00:52:07.400
are true, that we read about God throughout scripture, that he is completely powerful,
00:52:13.700
that he knows everything, he can do anything, and that he's everywhere at once, then I have a hard
00:52:21.580
time seeing how that doesn't also apply to someone's salvation. Now you could say, here's what I hear
00:52:27.600
a lot, that he knows who is going to be saved, but he doesn't choose. But for someone who is all
00:52:34.680
powerful, is that not the same thing? Here's an analogy. Say you have a babysitter. This is kind
00:52:41.440
of a disturbing analogy, but you've got a babysitter who is watching a two-year-old. Now the babysitter is
00:52:47.920
sitting there watching the two-year-old fall into the pool. She sits there. She doesn't do anything.
00:52:53.320
The two-year-old drowns. Now, did the babysitter push the child into the pool? Did the babysitter
00:53:00.300
insist that the child goes out into the pool? No, she didn't do any of those things, but she sat there,
00:53:05.520
her hands free, seeing this child, knowing that they're about to fall into the pool, and she does
00:53:10.580
nothing. Now, is that person, is that babysitter responsible? Yes, she is. She had the power to
00:53:21.620
stop it, and she did not. Now, you could argue that she didn't choose that, but because she had
00:53:30.100
the power to stop it and didn't, she kind of did, right? The only way that she would be let off the
00:53:35.860
hook there is if her hands were literally tied behind her back, or there was a good reason why
00:53:42.800
she did not see this happening. But we know with God that his hands are not tied behind his back,
00:53:48.960
that he does know everything, he does see everything, and he is all-powerful. So I don't
00:53:54.500
see how we can reconcile God's all-powerful nature with this idea that there are some people that he just
00:54:01.780
can't save even though he really wants to. Because the opposing view, the Arminian view,
00:54:08.540
is that God died to save everyone, and that he wants to save everyone, but not everyone is going
00:54:17.840
to choose that. So within that view, there are some things that God wants to happen, something that's
00:54:23.680
important in salvation, but for some reason, God's power cannot overcome that person's will.
00:54:29.440
Whereas the Calvinists would say, no, no, no, God is all-powerful. His grace is so powerful that that
00:54:35.000
person, whatever their will is, whatever their rebellion is, cannot overcome God's grace.
00:54:42.740
Now, Arminians would say, this is named after someone named Jacob Arminius, who also lived in
00:54:48.600
the 16th century. Now, he originally believed in Calvinism, but then later rejected that. They shared
00:54:54.820
some beliefs, but they're different. 1 Timothy 2, 3-4, this is good, and it is pleased in the sight
00:55:00.240
of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved. So that's where they would go and to come to
00:55:04.760
the knowledge of the truth. 2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count
00:55:10.140
slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach
00:55:17.040
repentance. So that's where they would go. They would say, look, God desires all people to be saved,
00:55:24.720
but not everyone is going to choose this. And because not everyone is going to choose it, then
00:55:32.500
that must mean that God is just not able to accomplish everything that he wants. Now, I think
00:55:40.080
you could probably reconcile those two views by saying, yes, God loves all people, but we also
00:55:46.360
read that God hates sinners. God wants all people to be saved, and maybe some could argue, yes,
00:55:52.440
in a greater sense, he desires all people to be saved, but that doesn't necessarily negate that
00:55:57.620
he chose some people to be saved and chose some people to be vessels of wrath and to be damned.
00:56:02.700
Now, I think from the Arminian perspective, you could say God is still all powerful. He is still
00:56:09.460
all sovereign, but he has allowed things to happen that he does not ultimately want to happen. He
00:56:16.060
allows rape to happen. He allows evil to happen. He allows war and oppression and corruption to happen.
00:56:23.420
He doesn't want these things. He doesn't cause these things. He doesn't author these things,
00:56:27.680
but he allows these things to happen for his greater glory. I think both Arminians and Calvinists
00:56:34.020
would agree on that. Calvinists, however, would say, yeah, that includes him choosing some people
00:56:40.400
to go to hell. Arminians might say, no, he's allowing some people to go to hell, but he doesn't
00:56:47.560
want that. And that, they might say, I'm kind of making this argument for them, I don't know if they
00:56:53.620
are or not, that he predestined the means by which they can be saved. And he has sovereignly chosen to
00:57:01.500
give people free will to have faith in Christ and accept his gift of salvation. And he wants people
00:57:12.540
to exercise that free will to choose salvation, knowing that some won't. When you talk about it like
00:57:21.060
that, the views really aren't that different. Some could argue that it is a semantic argument. I do think
00:57:28.400
it's more than that. I do think that the questions about Calvinism and this determinism and this fatalism
00:57:36.140
are valid and understandable. At the same time, you really can't escape Romans 9. You can't escape the
00:57:44.360
language about predestination and election and God's sovereignty. If God knows something and he can do
00:57:50.420
something, then he is choosing to at least allow the outcome. And here's kind of how I think of all of
00:58:00.280
it. That God is true and he is right and he exists independent of what I think about him. So if God
00:58:09.240
exists and God says he's kind and God says he's merciful and God says he's sovereign and God says that we are
00:58:16.580
predestined and God says that there is an elect and God says that he hates evil and that he hates evildoers and
00:58:26.440
God says that he desires all people to be saved and he says in John 3 16 that God so loved the world that all who
00:58:35.040
believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life. If God says all of these things, then somehow all of these
00:58:41.640
things are true. All of these things are true regardless of my ability to understand them, regardless of my
00:58:49.100
ability to create the logical human connections between all of these things. If all of these things
00:58:55.200
are true, independent of me, then I simply have to accept them and do the next right thing in faith. If God
00:59:02.800
tells me to evangelize, I evangelize. If God tells me to pray, I pray. If God tells me that he is seeking and
00:59:09.820
saving the lost and that I am a part of that, then I seek to be a part of that however I can.
00:59:18.680
Regardless of whether you believe that God actively chose people to go to hell or to heaven,
00:59:24.760
all of these things are true and the commands for the Christian are the same. I think that they are
00:59:29.680
worthy debates to have. The beautiful thing I think about Protestantism is that we can bring
00:59:35.840
scripture. We can bring the authority of the Bible and we can do our best to do the iron sharpens iron
00:59:42.300
thing and better understand who God is through the word that he has revealed to us. But at the end of
00:59:49.980
the day, I simply have to submit to the fact that all of these things are true and even though sometimes
00:59:56.720
they seem contradictory, that doesn't change my calling or my purpose as a Christian. We are all
01:00:04.140
called in Jesus' last earthly dictate to us to go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
01:00:12.840
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are all told that
01:00:20.080
salvation, this is indisputable, is a free gift of grace, that we are justified by grace alone,
01:00:27.040
through faith alone, in Christ alone, for God's glory alone. I think all Protestants agree on that.
01:00:33.880
The mechanism, whether it's God knowing but then deciding to use this mechanism of free will to
01:00:40.740
allow people to choose salvation, or whether it is God saying, no, no, no, no, that free will thing
01:00:45.820
when it comes to salvation, that's not something. I'm completely sovereign over the salvation and I
01:00:52.800
have specifically one by one predestined the people who are going to heaven. Whichever one of those
01:01:01.680
things, if it's one of those two things that is being debated is true, the calling for the Christian
01:01:08.020
does not change. I do want to say something about the fruit of Calvinism that I've kind of seen
01:01:17.340
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Okay, so growing up in a very traditional evangelical setting that I am so incredibly thankful for,
01:02:39.740
raised Southern Baptist, still go to a Southern Baptist church today.
01:02:42.700
I did not know what the Reformation was. I was not taught about Martin Luther. I was not taught
01:02:47.860
about John Calvin. If anything, if I heard anything about Calvinism, it was probably negative. I think
01:02:54.140
a lot of evangelicals, mostly are Arminian today and largely dispensationalist, have a little bit
01:03:02.220
of a different view of free will and God's sovereignty. I really didn't know what Reformed
01:03:08.380
theology was until maybe I was a junior in high school. And I don't think I would have called
01:03:14.980
myself Reformed, but I started learning about people like C.S. Lewis, which we could debate
01:03:21.280
his doctrines and what he actually believed. John Piper, all of these people in what was called,
01:03:28.040
I didn't realize, this young, restless, and Reformed movement. This resurgence of expository
01:03:34.040
preaching just exploded in all of these Protestant church plants across the country. Acts 29 used to
01:03:40.500
be a big part of that. And expository preaching is preaching verse by verse. And so, we're going
01:03:49.760
through the Book of Romans. It might take us 12 years, but we're going to go verse by verse. In fact,
01:03:54.360
if you listen to John MacArthur, who has been an expository preacher for, or was, he recently died,
01:03:59.200
but for a very long time. If you listen to his sermon on Romans 1.1, the entire hour-long sermon
01:04:06.440
was about Paul. The first Paul. That was the entire sermon talking about who Paul was, why
01:04:13.320
that authorship is important, and what his testimony was. And so, that's expository preaching.
01:04:19.600
And that, I think about people like Matt Chandler and others who were a big part of this kind of
01:04:25.800
young, restless, Reformed, this without, I don't know, me even knowing it. They were kind of
01:04:31.780
popularizing expository preaching and Reformed theology. So, I started learning more about that.
01:04:38.360
Then someone gave me my ESV study Bible when I was a sophomore in college, and that really
01:04:44.500
revolutionized how I read the Bible, my understanding of the end times, my understanding of God's
01:04:49.500
sovereignty. Again, I probably did not know the five solas at the time, or TULIP. But ESV, that
01:04:56.740
version, and the study Bible is very Reformed in its interpretation and commentary on Scripture.
01:05:03.220
That really shaped what I thought. It wasn't until after college that I really learned what the
01:05:08.520
Reformation is, why we should be celebrating it, what John Calvin is. And so, when I started studying
01:05:14.640
Tulip and Calvinism and all of these things, it was very enlightening for me to understand the history
01:05:21.980
of Protestantism, the history of the Great Awakenings, the history of the interpretation of
01:05:26.620
Scripture, the Puritan movement, Jonathan Edwards, the history of evangelism, and how different that
01:05:32.880
was from a lot of modern evangelicalism. Now, when it comes to the fruit of Calvinism,
01:05:38.940
there's a lot of good fruit and Reformed theology, a love of Scripture, a desire to see Christ glorified,
01:05:46.200
an understanding of the theology of suffering and self-denial. That really comes from the Puritan
01:05:52.920
history. I think there's so much good in that. But also, I am so thankful for modern evangelicalism,
01:05:59.620
which really isn't Calvinistic in nature. It's much more Arminian. Even if I would rather have an
01:06:07.180
expository sermon than here are three points and the altar call, I think much of the fruit of
01:06:13.580
evangelicalism to try to Christianize America as much as possible, to build these Christian schools,
01:06:20.240
to have a large influence as the church in our local communities has been really beautiful. Like,
01:06:26.020
if you look at Charlie Kirk's life and look at his legacy and look at who eulogized him and the gospel
01:06:32.620
that was preached at his memorial in Phoenix, you see that the fruit of evangelicalism really is such
01:06:42.220
a strong desire for people just to know Christ and for people to know the gospel. Now, I believe that
01:06:48.640
many, many Calvinists that I know and respect a lot have that exact same desire, and they know their
01:06:56.560
stuff so well. And you guys probably know that I am a Calvinist as well, if you've been following me
01:07:02.820
for any amount of time. However, I do think a weakness in Calvinism that I've seen, especially
01:07:09.660
over the past few years, is just a hardness of heart and a callousness towards the unbeliever.
01:07:17.480
I'm not saying everyone, and I'm not speaking in generally sweeping terms, but this is a weakness
01:07:26.520
of Calvinism is a pride in our theology, a pride in understanding every jot and tittle of doctrine
01:07:33.700
and never allowing that doctrine to give us the humility and just the desire for the glory of
01:07:40.800
Christ and for other people to come to know him that it should be giving us. In fact, some of the
01:07:46.720
people that are like the angriest that I know, that seem to be the most prideful in their own
01:07:51.900
righteousness that I know are Calvinists, which is ironic because the first tenet of Calvinism is
01:07:58.440
total depravity and their reliance on Christ, like for all holiness. I mean, there's even a name for
01:08:04.700
cage-stage Calvinists, which I totally understand when someone realizes, oh my gosh, you can read the
01:08:09.920
Bible this way and see all these doctrines this way. It's very exciting. You become so obsessed with
01:08:14.100
your doctrine. And I saw a clip the other day of Paul Tripp, whom I'm sure I don't agree with on
01:08:20.560
everything, say, like, he said, you know, Satan is happy to give you your theology. Like, he's happy
01:08:28.860
to give you your obsession with the labyrinthian nature of the doctrines of grace or reformed theology
01:08:36.240
as long as he can have your heart. And he was talking about two men that he had counseled who
01:08:42.020
understood the depths of theology, like, understood the Bible, but they were some of the angriest and
01:08:49.020
most prideful people he knew. And I think that there is a danger there because of the, I think,
01:08:55.120
beautiful, like, complexity of Scripture to get so caught up in that and to get so prideful in our
01:09:01.160
understanding of that, especially in the Calvinist world, that we really forget that Christianity really
01:09:07.220
is about love, speaking the truth and love through the gospel, being used by God to save souls, to loving
01:09:17.440
the lost, and helping the poor and the vulnerable. That's not some social justice talk coming from me. I just
01:09:26.300
sometimes think that's lost in the obsession that we Calvinists have when it comes to theology. And some of the
01:09:33.360
ugly, ugly fruit that I have seen from people who call themselves Calvinists over the past few years
01:09:39.460
has really been just, it's left a horrible taste in my mouth. But at the end of the day, here's what I
01:09:45.340
want to say for anyone, no matter what you believe, Catholic, Protestant, Calvinist or not, it's about what's
01:09:52.900
true. What is true? Independent of what people who say that they believe a certain way, independent of
01:10:01.740
how they act, like independent of their personality or their persona on X, independent of the pastor who
01:10:10.260
fails you, independent of any false teaching that you hear from someone in your camp, what is true?
01:10:17.500
What does the Bible actually say about God and about salvation? That's the most important thing.
01:10:26.240
Not who the representatives are of these things, but like what is actually true? Let what is true take
01:10:32.780
root in your life and bear fruit in your life and focus on Christ and focus on his salvation. I do think
01:10:39.300
it's so important to understand these things and debate these things and know these things. But at the
01:10:43.780
end of the day, again, the gospel is for you. And Jesus did die on the cross to save us from our sins
01:10:53.860
so that whoever believes in him by grace through faith will not perish and go to hell when we die,
01:10:58.980
but have eternal life. I don't think we need to get caught up. Am I chosen or not? The beautiful thing
01:11:05.460
though about election is that when you become a Christian, you are saved forever and ever, and
01:11:12.900
there's nothing that you can do to lose that. Those who leave Christianity were never really saved in
01:11:20.920
the first place because God is all-powerful. And he who began a good work in you will be faithful to
01:11:27.620
complete it. That's, I think, where we can get our comfort in all of this. So I know that was a lot.
01:11:34.420
There's a lot more that I could have said. There's so much on Calvinism. You can look at
01:11:38.540
Ligonier. You can look at Desiring God. Get a little book, the little book on the Christian life
01:11:44.120
by John Calvin, no matter where you stand. Like, it's just really, really wise and really good.
01:11:49.500
I hope that give you some understanding and some basis when people say Calvinism to
01:11:54.200
know what they're talking about. All right. We will be back with an incredible testimony
01:11:58.740
on Friday. I know you guys are going to love it. I'll see you then.