Examination of Calvinism
Paul Wilson
Table of Contents
Examination of Calvinism
Before we take up the subject of reprobation, we should probably first state what it is, and then examine whether it has scriptural soundness or not. Reprobation is a dogma of Calvinism which can be expressed in the words of Arthur W. Pink as illustrative of its proposition; hence we quote: "God's decree of Reprobation contemplated Adam's race as fallen, sinful, corrupt, guilty. From it God purposed to save a few as the monuments of His sovereign grace; the others He determined to destroy as the exemplification of His justice and severity." p. 123. "The case of Pharaoh is introduced [in Rom. 9] to prove the doctrine of Reprobation as the counterpart of the doctrine of Election." p. 111. "If God actually reprobated Pharaoh, we may justly conclude that He reprobates all others whom He did not predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." p. 110.
Here it is, briefly stated; that is, it is "the counterpart of the doctrine of Election." This is a false premise based on the assumption that because God chose some in the past eternity as objects of His mercy that He necessarily thereby designed to consign all the rest to hell; that He decreed before the world was that most of His creatures should go to hell. This, we say, is definitely without scriptural warrant. There is no place where there is a "Thus saith the Lord" for the doctrine of reprobation. It is arrived at by conjecture, assumption, deduction, and human reasoning. To show that such is the case, let us quote just a few excerpts from Mr. Pink's chapter on Reprobation: "it would unavoidably follow.... Every choice, evidently and necessarily implies a refusal (p. 100).... then it is clear He designed and ordained that that person should be eternally lost.... it must be because.... no escape from these conclusions (p. 101).... Now are we not obliged to conclude?... it must have been His will (p. 102).... we assuredly gather that it was His everlasting determination to do so; and consequently that He reprobated some from before the foundation of the world... in addition to the above conclusions (p. 103)," etc., etc. Italics ours.
No man should dare to presume to thus speak for God, for His Word plainly says, "Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." Pro. 30:6. Where the Word of God is silent, men should forbear to speak. Years ago a faithful servant of the Lord was confronted by some persons of reasoning habits who contended that because the Word of God says of certain ones that He would not blot out their names from the "book of life," there were others who would lose their salvation and God would blot out their names. The faithful man replied, "Never put a positive statement where God puts a negative one." If God speaks, we can speak with assurance; but when He is silent, we should be silent also. If this simple rule had been followed, we would not have the one-sided doctrine of reprobation.
Let us take the case of Jacob and Esau which is a cardinal point with these extreme Calvinists. They contend that "God loved Jacob and hated Esau, and that before they were born" (p. 30), but this is not stated in Scripture. This is another case of overstepping what is written, and adding to God's Word. Let us read Rom. 9:11, 12: "(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger." Surely it was before the children were born that God said to their mother, "The elder shall serve the younger" (Gen. 25:23). What was wrong with that? God had chosen Abraham as the depositary of His promises and blessings, and then said that "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." Next He chose Jacob to continue the line of earthly blessing, and the seed through which the Messiah was to come. But let the dedicated followers of Mr. Pink search the Scriptures for one inkling that God hated Esau before he was born. Not until the last book of the Old Testament- Malachi- did God say that He loved Jacob and hated Esau; and then it is not merely Esau that He hated, but Esau's posterity. Note carefully the language of Mal. 1:3, 4: "And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places," etc. It is "his mountains" and "his heritage" and "Edom"-the descendants of Esau. They say, We will build what God has destroyed. Is it not abundantly clear that Mr. Pink has overstepped more than propriety in adding to what God actually said? Furthermore, Esau had shown himself to be "a profane person" by despising "his birthright" which was in fact a divine title to the land of Canaan. God's choice of Jacob for the pre-eminent place over the elder brother Esau, who had it by nature according to birth, did not make him profane.
We quote the words of another on the subject: "It must be carefully observed that this [in Malachi] is not an appeal to God's sovereignty in His choice of Jacob as in Rom. 9, where the Apostle indeed cites this passage (after he has recalled the scripture [Gen. 25:21-23] which announced the divine purpose respecting Esau and Jacob) to show, not only that Israel was entirely indebted to grace for the difference God had put between themselves and Esau.... The evidence here given is drawn wholly, not from God's action toward Esau himself, but from God's judgment upon his posterity-1 laid his mountains and his heritage waste,' etc. And in other scriptures we find (see especially Obadiah) that these judgments were visited upon them because of their irreconcilable hatred of Israel, and their triumph over, and their vengeance upon, them in the day of their calamity. God had chosen Jacob-let not this truth be ignored, albeit Esau despised his birthright; but the scripture before us concerns the ways rather than the sovereignty of God."
And still another has written: "God withholds the sentence of hatred till it is evidently justified by the conduct and ways of Esau, more particularly towards Jacob, but indeed towards Himself. In short, it would be quite true to say that God loved Jacob from the first, but that He never pronounced hatred until that was manifested which utterly repels and rejects Himself with contempt, deliberately going on in pursuit of its own way and will in despisal of God. Then only does He say, 'I hated Esau.' Along with this He draws attention to the fact that He `laid his mountains and his heritage waste.' " "When God says, `Esau have I hated,' He waits till the last moment, till Esau has shown what he is.... He is patient in the execution of judgment. Long-suffering belongs to God, and is inseparable from His moral nature, while He delays to execute judgment on evil.... Yet Esau's ill conduct to Jacob was not the only or worst element of evil which comes into judgment. He was profane Godward, despising everything done on God's part, save that which brought sensibly before him the greater dignity to which his brother was promoted.... He had no confidence in God: beyond this life no thought, no desire.... Why should he seek more than to enjoy present life?"
We will also quote from another book: "In short then not only not Paul but no other inspired writer ever speaks of 'eternal reprobation'; it is merely a dream of a certain school. So the curse of God follows, instead of causing, the impious ways of men. Arminianism is wholly astray no doubt in reducing God's election to a mere foresight of good in some creatures; but Calvinism is no less erroneous in imputing the evil lot of the first Adam race to God's decree. They both spring from analogous roots of unbelief: Calvinism reasoning, contrary to Scripture, from the truth of election to the error of eternal reprobation; Arminianism rightly rejecting that reprobation but wrongly reasoning against election. Like other systems they are in part true and in part false-true in what they believe of Scripture, false in yielding to human thoughts outside Scripture. Happy those who are content as Christians with the truth of God and refuse to be partisans on either side of men! Our wisdom is to have our minds open to all Scripture, refusing to go a hairbreadth farther."
Another stone in the conjectured arch of reprobation is the case of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Let us notice a few remarks from the pages of Mr. Pink's book: "The case of Pharaoh establishes the principle and illustrates the doctrine of Reprobation. If God actually reprobated Pharaoh, we may justly conclude that He reprobates all others whom He did not predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. This inference the apostle Paul manifestly draws from the fate of Pharaoh, for in Rom. 9, after referring to God's purpose in raising up Pharaoh, he continues, 'therefore.' The case of Pharaoh is introduced to prove the doctrine of Reprobation as the counterpart of the doctrine of Election." pp. 110, 111. Note how much conjecture is here.
Mr. Pink will not allow that God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he could not let the people go only after Pharaoh had proved himself the inveterate enemy of God and His people. He insists that God hardened his heart arbitrarily before Pharaoh had displayed his wicked intentions to God's people. That Mr. Pink held this, we prove from the following: "It is not judicial hardening which is in view (that is, hardening because of previous rejection of the truth), but sovereign 'hardening' of a fallen sinful creature for no other reason than that which inheres in the sovereign will of God." p. 114.
But let us notice words of another vein: "The king of Egypt was a thoroughly selfish, cruel, and profane man when God first sent him a message by Moses and Aaron. The effect of the summons on such a spirit was to bring out his blasphemy against Jehovah and more savage oppression of Israel.... God made a most striking example of Pharaoh, not a mere exposure of his malice, but His own power on that background, so that His name might be thus told abroad in all the earth. Never does God make a man bad; but the bad man Pharaoh, made yet worse by his resistance of the most striking divine appeals, He made manifest, raised up as he was from among men to such a height, that his downfall might tell on consciences far and wide throughout the world. Hard at first, God sealed him up at length in a judicial hardening.... If it were true, as Calvin says, that those who perish were destined to destruction by the will of God, the case were hard indeed. But Scripture never really speaks thus, and the language of the texts usually cited in support of such a decree, when closely as well as fairly examined, invariably avoids such a thought, however near it may seem to approximate."
Verses 22 and 23 of Rom. 9 have also furnished Mr. Pink and Calvinism with opportunities to twist them enough to furnish ground for their own devices: "What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory." These verses are used by this school to declare that God prepared these vessels to destruction on the one hand and to glory on the other. Thus Mr. Pink says: The Apostle "intimates here, that before they are born they are destined to their lot." p. 120. This is to falsify what the Apostle said, for he did no such thing as is here alleged.
A careful examination of these verses will show that it is not said that God fitted such vessels to destruction, but that He prepared the vessels of mercy unto glory. To say more than is here said, is to add to God's Word. Furthermore, instead of saying that He prepared the vessels of wrath for destruction "before they were born," it is said that He "endured with much long-suffering" these vessels. Not a word about His preparing them, but about His forbearance with them.
We shall again quote from a more sober author: "Sinful men thus living in enmity against God are here styled 'vessels of wrath,' on the one hand; as those who believe are designated `vessels of mercy' on the other.... But there is a shade of difference as distinct as it is refined and profoundly true which no reader should overlook. The vessels of wrath are said to be 'fitted for destruction.' But it is neither said nor implied here, or anywhere else, that God fitted them for it. They were fitted by their sins, and most of all by their unbelief and rebelliousness against God. But when we hear of the faithful, the phrase is altogether different, 'vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory.' The evil is man's, and in no case is it of God; the good is His and not our own. Not the saints, but God prepared the vessels of mercy for glory. More strictly, He prepared them beforehand with a view to glory.... Thus lost man will in the end be compelled to justify God and to take the entire blame on his own shoulders, who preferred to trust Satan as his friend and adviser rather than God; while the saved, however dwelling in bliss, will know and make known all as the riches of His glory, themselves debtors to His unfailing and unfathomable mercy." And from the same writer: "To me I confess it looks like the blinding influence of falsehood when men overlook the difference of vessels of wrath fitted on the one hand to destruction, and vessels of mercy which He on the other hand before made ready for glory."
We will quote from still another source: "While it is true that Christians are 'chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world' (Eph. 1:4). it would never be right to say that lost sinners were in a parallel way elected to reprobation.... In the case of the wicked, so far from being elected to eternal misery, we find that God endures them [while on earth]-vessels of wrath -with much longsuffering, fitted not by Him but by their own deeds for destruction. The word katartizo* (Rom. 9:22) means to correct, repair, mend; then in its participial form, fitted, prepared. The word does not suppose a decree of God, but a work of man." Nevertheless, Mr. Pink says, "He fits the non-elect unto destruction by His fore-ordaining decrees." p. 118.
Pharaoh was a cruel despot long before Moses and Aaron were sent to him with a demand from God that he let Israel go. Even before Moses was born, a previous Pharaoh had issued the decree that all the male children should be drowned in the Nile, and Moses was delivered from that fate by the providential intervention of God. Pharaoh was hardened in his cruel course of exterminating God's chosen earthly people, long before God began to work to deliver them from under his power. God may justly have cut him off in his sin against Him at that time, but He endured the wicked king, and finally hardened his heart in His government so that Pharaoh rushed on headlong into the jaws of death in a way calculated to demonstrate God's power.
But Mr. Pink speculates, and says that Moses when grown up in Pharaoh's house was "a powerful check upon the king's wickedness and tyranny," and so God "designed by removing this restraint, to give Pharaoh full opportunity to fill up the measure of his sins." pp. 108, 109. There is not the slightest hint in all Scripture that such was the case; it is just human speculation.
A young scoffer once accosted a faithful servant of Christ about God's hardening Pharaoh's heart, but he received a stern rebuke in the words, "Beware, young man, lest God harden your heart." And in like manner, Christendom, which is largely rejecting God's grace today, is going to be given a lie to believe, so that those who will not have the truth may perish in their deception. (See 2 Thess. 2:9-12.) "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Heb. 10:31. God is patient and long-suffering, but when grace is despised, He will act in judgment. It is dangerous for one to resist the overtures of grace; he may then be blinded as his just desert.
Examination of Calvinism
Another grave error of the system under review is that God had decreed beforehand that Adam should take of the forbidden fruit and so sin. Take the following quotation from Mr. Pink: "Before He formed him [Adam] out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, God knew exactly how the appointed test would terminate.... But we must go further: not only had God a perfect knowledge of the outcome of Adam's trial, not only did His omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so.... If God had foreordained before the foundation of the world that Christ should, in due time, be offered as a sacrifice for sin, then it is unmistakably evident that God had foreordained sin should enter the world, and if so, that Adam should transgress and fall." pp. 305,306. Here we see the same human reasoning that departs from what God has said, simply in devotion to a predetermined scheme. Why is it "unmistakably evident" that God decreed that sin should enter the world? It is not evident at all. God placed Adam and Eve here in perfect innocence only; and, in order that His creatures should be intelligent, He gave them specific instructions and warned them of the consequences of disobedience. To leave man as an intelligent and responsible being, God had to leave the entrance of sin a distinct possibility. We admit that God foreknew how it would be resolved, but we affirm with decision that this does not involve God's eternal decree that man had to sin. Away with such a thought! for hedge about his teaching as Mr. Pink will, it cannot but reduce if not remove man's responsibility.
Let us notice some more of his rash boldness: "To affirm that God decreed the entrance of sin into His universe, and that He foreordained all its fruits and activities, is to say that which at first may shock the reader [and well it may]; but reflection should show that it is far more shocking to insist that sin has invaded His dominions against His will, and that its exercise is outside His jurisdiction: for in such a case where would be His omnipotency? No; to recognize that God has foreordained all the activities of evil, is to see that He is the Governor of sin." p. 308. His conclusions are wrong, and the attempt to speak for God thus, is revolting. God does restrain "the remainder of wrath" and set limits beyond which He will not allow rebellious man to go; but to make God the designer and governor of sin is preposterous. He endures with much long-suffering men who boldly sin, and that against His grace. When God saw the wickedness in the antediluvian earth, "it grieved Him at His heart" (Gen. 6:6). We may well ask, Did God design and order the sin, and then be grieved about it? The thought is the boldest presumption and is rashly irreverent. In the days of Israel's great breakdown, it is said that God "had compassion on His people" and sent messenger after messenger to have them turn from their evil ways. Mr. Pink would in substance have us believe that this was not so, for He had marked out their sin beforehand so that they could not depart from it. (See 2 Chron. 36.) Did the Lord Jesus weep over Jerusalem's sinful activities in their rejection of Him, and yet dictate their course so that they could not do otherwise? To make such an affirmation can only be evil. Time and time again throughout the Holy Word of God, it can be seen that God bore in patience with that which grieved Him. What is so blind as dedication to a theory, especially in theology!
Mr. Pink takes such a verse as this: "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come" and then adds, "because God has foreordained them." p. 309. Is not this blind obsession with his own scheme? Who gave him or any other the right to interpolate those words into the text, or context?
Mr. Pink rejects the verse that says that God "wills all men to be saved," because Calvinism has already settled it that God has no desire that all men be saved; for according to it He has settled the issue by an eternal decree that they be damned. Mr. Pink recognizes no difference between God's will of desire that is in keeping with His nature, love, and His will of command, which orders and it comes to pass (p. 127).
Another error of Pinkism is to make God's foreknowledge of certain ones His "approbation and love." This he argues at some length and says that those to whom. He will yet say, "I never knew you," were not the objects of His approbation. pp. 70, 105. Now just what does such an argument prove? Does not approbation mean (according to Webster), "act of approving; approval; sanction; commendation"? If God back in eternity had approbation for those whom He chose, then election goes for nothing; for the word indicates only the approval of the thing chosen, and not supreme sovereignty at all.
On page 121, 1 Pet. 2:8 is forced to say that the Israelites who rejected Christ were appointed to be disobedient, whereas a careful examination will show that they, being disobedient, were appointed to stumble.
Election, which is God's sovereign choice, we believe, is often confused in Mr. Pink's book with predestination. These two things are not the same, for the latter is always spoken of as to something; as, to "be conformed to the image of His Son." Election is His choice of individuals, and not predestination; the latter is the thing to which He has appointed them, but neither is ever used to designate the doom of the wicked. Mr. Pink's chapter on God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility is a pitiable attempt to reconcile his doctrine with any offer of the gospel to the sinner. In one place he says that men are commanded to search the Scriptures, but he should know better than that. In John 5, where the verse is found, it is a challenge to the Jewish leaders, for the Lord really said to them: "YE search the scriptures, for ye think that in them ye have eternal life, and they it is which bear witness concerning Me, and ye will not come to Me that ye might have life." vv. 39, 40; J.N.D. Trans. They were guilty of willful rejection of Him, for they searched the Old Testament, and it gave ample evidence to His Person and work; but they would not come to Him. In another place, Mr. Pink approvingly quotes the Puritan Manton: "Let us do our duty, and refer the success to God, Whose ordinary practice it is to meet with the creature that seeketh after Him." p. 196. What is this but a gospel of works? And did not God say "there is none that seeketh after God"? (Rom. 3:11). Is not this setting aside of man's total ruin? which Calvinism is supposed to set forth.
The same thing is advanced on page 199: "His [man's] second duty is to cry to God for His enabling power-to ask God in mercy to overcome his enmity, and 'draw' him to Christ; to bestow upon him the gift of repentance and faith. If he will do so, sincerely from the heart, then most surely God will respond to his appeal." Can any man apart from the Holy Spirit's work in him draw nigh to God in this manner? for in coming to God thus, the man must have faith-"He that cometh to God must believe that He is." Is not this asking man to take the first step to salvation on his own strength, when he is "without strength"? How can a man in nature "sincerely from the heart" approach God, for his heart is incurably bad (Jer. 17:9).
Other remarks on the preaching of the gospel are indeed strange: "God suffers the Gospel to fall on the ears of the non-elect.... The preaching of the Gospel to the non-elect is made an admirable test of their characters." What strange language! Is God using His precious gospel concerning His Son just to test characters? Man was proved bad long before, according to Rom. 3 His trial was over then, for it ended in the cross.
When Mr. Pink says (p. 234), "God has to put His laws in our minds, and write them in our hearts (see Heb. 8:10)," he is applying to us what strictly belongs to the houses of Israel and Judah in the Millennium-see Jer. 31:31-34. Christ in our hearts and occupation with Him in glory are the safeguards of our conduct, not the law given to Israel-of-old being in our hearts. To say this is to lower the whole standard of Christian living.
Mr. Pink is guilty of using the language of Scripture very carelessly. This is seen in many places, but on page 72 he says: "It surely does not need arguing that the Father had an express purpose in giving Him to die, or that God the Son had a definite design before Him in laying down His life." Did God the Son die? Could God die? To be specific, He was rejected and suffered as the Son of man, a title first mentioned in Psalm 8, and that in connection with His rejection and His coming reign. The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, and the Son of man had to be lifted up, but carelessness in use of words is dangerous and can lead to serious error, as is witnessed in Mr. Pink's statement.
On page 75, Mr. Pink makes a remark about substitution, which says: "The persons for whom He acts, whose sins He bears, whose legal obligations He discharges." This is sad, for to make Christ merely discharge our legal obligations is to remove grace and God's forgiveness. If He merely discharged our legal obligations, then nothing needs to be forgiven; but Scripture teaches God's forgiveness, and in such a way that God remains just while justifying the ungodly (Rom. 3:26).
We must now bring our review of Mr. Pink's book which sets forth the Calvinistic line of teaching to a close. Much more might be said, but we leave with our readers the challenges we have made and commend them to the Word of God-"prove all things; hold fast that which is good." 1 Thess. 5:21.
In closing, however, we wish to again affirm that we stand squarely on the fact of man's total ruin and helplessness, and maintain that besides the work of Christ on the cross for the glory of God and for the putting away of the sins of all who believe, the work of the Spirit of God in the soul producing new birth is an absolute essential in the saving of souls. We close with the words of the poet Cowper:
"Of all the gifts Thy love bestows,
Thou Giver of all good!
Not heaven itself a richer knows
Than the Redeemer's blood.
"Faith, too, that trusts the blood through grace,
From that same love we gain;
Else, sweetly, as it suits our case,
The gift had been in vain.
"We praise Thee, and would praise Thee more,
To Thee our all we owe;
The precious Savior, and the power
That makes Him precious too."
Bibliography
Short Papers on Church History, Andrew Miller, vol. 1, pp. 463, 464.
Letters of J. N. Darby, vol. 2, p. 196; G. Morrish, 2nd edition. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 32, p. 64.
Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 10, p. 292.
Day of Atonement, William Kelly, pp. 59-62.
Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 29, p. 435.
Notes on Second Corinthians, William Kelly, pp. 103-106. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 29, pp. 366, 367. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 29, pp. 380-383.
Malachi: or, State of Things at the End, Edward Dennett, p. 6. Lectures Introductory to the Minor Prophets, William Kelly,
p. 506.
Notes on Romans, William Kelly, pp. 220, 179, 182, 185, 187. Bible Treasury, edited by William Kelly, vol. 9, p. 346. Strong's Greek Dictionary of the New Testament.
*STRONG'S GREEK DICTIONARY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: to complete thoroughly; i.e., repair (lit. or fig.) or adjust:-fit, frame, mend, (make) perfectly join together), prepare, restore. (see p. 325, Dec. issue.)
Correction: In our Oct. 1959, issue, we gave the approximate date of Mr. Pink's death as during World War II, but we have just been informed it was in 1955.
Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.