Recently, I have heard a new doctrine proposed. It is that unfaithful Christians of this age will not be in the kingdom. That is, they will not participate in the millennial reign of Christ on earth, but will...
One of the most common "proofs" of the Calvinists for irresistible grace and the need for regeneration before faith is the analogy which compares the lost person to a dead person. The argument goes like this:
John M. Frame in his book called "The Doctrine of God" has some helpful teaching on the being and works of God. However, when he begins to teach his Calvinistic theology, he seems to lose His grip on what is proper. According to him, although man is responsible for his sins, these sins are also foreordained by God. Consider this quote (p.130): "Human sins, too, are foreordained. Sometimes, indeed, as we have seen, Scripture describes God specifically as 'hardening' people, that is, making them more sinful. When God brings about sin, that sin is in one sense unavoidable." I only hope this the teaching that God foreordains sin, makes men more sinful, and brings about sin, is as repugnant to you as it is to me. But more important, it is unscriptural. God is careful to point out that He is not the tempter of sin but that sin is the result of us being drawn of our own lust (James 1:13-15). What is the point of this teaching if God has ordained our sin? This is the foolishness that consistent compliance to the Calvinistic system bears.
The Lord is clearly interested in beauty. Some form of the word is used 76 times in the Bible. We are told that God "hath made every thing beautiful in his time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He so highly exalts the proper concept of beauty that He often associates it with holiness (Psalm 29:2; 96:9; 110:3). Unfortunately, men tend to pervert beauty as they do all that they touch. God reminds us that outward "beauty is vain" (Proverbs 31:30) and human "beauty is a fading flower' (Isaiah 28:1). Men corrupt beauty and make the "beauty of a man" a focus for idolatry (Isaiah 44:13). Eventually, man's perverseness causes his "beauty to be abhorred" (Ezekiel 16:25). The very concept of what is beautiful is no longer recognizable.
Alfred Edersheim wrote a major life of Christ called "The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah." Edersheim's Jewish heritage gave him interesting insights into many of the beliefs and ways of life during the time of Christ. In his book (Vol.11, p.12), he wrote of the Jewish traditions concerning the defilement of hands and the accusation that Jesus did not keep these traditions (as recorded in Mark 7:1-9).
One of the dirty little secrets of Calvinism is that it really does make God the author of sin. In "The Doctrine of God" by John M. Frame, John Calvin is quoted (p.177) as saying: "But how it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man's future was without God being the author and approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance." John Frame declares (p.176), "it seems to me that it is not wrong to say that God causes evil and sin." In another place (p.65), Frame states, "God does in fact bring about the sinful behavior of human beings, whatever problems that may create in our understanding." Yet James 1:13 states, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." It all boils down to whom we believe: God or man. Who do you believe?
