John Calvin was a slick lawyer, who saw an opportunity to use the theological concept of predestination as a weapon against the Papacy of his day. The religious rites of Catholicism kept the ignorant in bondage, by means of ‘indulgences,’ which plagued humanity. Calvin’s scheme freed Europe from the tyrannical grip of Rome, however, predestination became one of the more odious and erroneous teachings of Christianity. In this broadcast, Carl compares the polarizing theological viewpoints of two 16th century contemporaries, namely, Jacob Arminius and John Calvin. Carl reveals how their beliefs have shaped modern-day Christianity, for better or worse. Let’s join him now…
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
Friend today we will discuss two theological or doctrinal viewpoints that greatly impact the way you see God and these viewpoints are Calvinism and Arminianism. These terms will never reach 80-90% of Christians in their lifetime, as they’re taught in seminary schools but I think it’s important to share these viewpoints with you. In fact, you may be shocked to find out the fruit of these two doctrines heavily influence the sermons your pastor preaches every Sunday. Now you may or may not realize but depending upon which church denomination you attend; it will adopt one of these two theological viewpoints. These two doctrines were developed by two famous 16th century men, living decades apart. Albeit I will say, one doctrine is correct in its hermeneutic or interpretation of God’s word and the other is very wrong. Later on, this broadcast, I’m going to share with you, the denominations that wrongly believe in Calvinism and rightly believe Arminianism.
The truth is that Calvinism which I sincerely believe to be a false teaching and rooted in Gnosticism has in fact infiltrated the Protestant Church in recent years, even the evangelical church. If one studies the Early Church Fathers, you’ll soon realize they were staunch and rightly divided the word of God up until about the 3rd century AD. This was around the time the emperor Constantine declared Christianity as a national religion and anyone who was a either a citizen of Rome or living within its province, automatically became a Christian. This of course watered down the true Gospel, because it was no longer a choice to follow Christ but a part of the rights of citizenship.
Coincidentally it was around this time that Gnosticism began to infiltrate the church. This false doctrine started in Alexandria Egypt and spread like wildfire throughout the region. As the orthodox Jews preserved the biblical texts that we now enjoy the corrupt Alexandrian branch of liberal scholars however, were responsible for the source text of all modern and corrupt bible versions since 1881. It was these corrupt Egyptian Essences who did not hold to the Torah and ended up believing in false teachings like reincarnation, evolution and predestination based on their so called ‘doctrine of emanations’. In fact, Josephus speaks of this, when he says, and I quote: “…they were vegetarians, were very ascetic, denied the bodily resurrection, kept the names of angels, learned the quality of roots and stones…they has their own special form of exorcism, had books on charms and magic, interpreted dreams.” Antiquities (Josephus).
Then we have the famous Simon Magus who is spoken of in Acts 8:18, who held to the Gnostic teachings and is considered by some, the very Father of Gnosticism. It was he who desired the gift of the Holy Spirit in order to make money. His motives were impure. The Early Church Father’s Iraeneus and Hippolytis spoke of this evil man saying: “Simon called Magus used exorcisms and incantations, potions, and charms, as well as those beings who are called, “Paredi” (or familiar spirits) and “Oniopompi” (dream senders)” – Irenaeus Against (Heresies 1.23) also, Hipolytus, in Against Heresies 6:5-10 said, “He (Simon Magnus) allegorized much Scripture to support his teachings, especially Genesis.“
Notice that Hippolytus said that Magus was the first to allegorize scripture. Now, we preach that ‘if the plain sense of the scripture makes sense, seek no other sense,’ therefore, allegory is only applicable in scripture where it is obvious or implied within the text. We take the Bible literally friend, even though only 24% of Americans take it literally today.
But what does all this have to do with me Pastor? I would like to give credit to learned scholar Dr. Ken Johnson at this point, for his extensive research having discovered that Calvin was witness to the increasing oppressive nature of the Catholic Church in the 16th century, and he sought a means to curtail its spread. As you know, the Catholic church locked up God’s word in monasteries, withheld the truth from the common man and through a series of so called ‘indulgences,’ they would coerce people to pay money, in order to free their family members from the fantastical place called purgatory, which is probably just down the road from Disney-world and has no mention in God’s word, whatsoever.
Calvin was so greatly angered by this spiritual abuse of ignorant Catholics, having witnessed it firsthand in the mid 1500’s, that he researched the teachings of Augustine and surmised that he could utilize the Gnostic teaching of ‘predestination’ as a weapon against the Papacy. So, what is predestination exactly? It means that God has already chosen those who will be saved before he created every man and woman, and decided before hand who will go to heaven and who is predestined, for Hell itself. Calvin’s dastardly tactic was this. If the Pope of Rome could not ensure the salvation of the people through indulgences, but people were predestined to heaven or hell by God as Calvin proposed, then the Pope would immediately lose his power over the ignorant masses because money would no longer get them out of purgatory.
Calvin was of course, a highly skilled lawyer, and by utilizing the law, he finally broke from the Catholic Church in 1530 AD using this predestination ‘technicality’ as a devastating weapon against Rome. From his writings we know that Calvin did not believe the Romish system but saw Catholicism as the earthly display of the coming Anti-Christ system along with Charles Spurgeon who believed this to be the case also. Therefore, using this radical Gnostic idea of predestination which denied the free will of man; Calvin introduced a new theology to Christendom in opposition to Rome. Unfortunately, however, although predestination did free people from the clutches of the Catholic Church’s oppressive system of sacraments and indulgences at the time, it exchanged one lie for another. Instead of the seven sacraments being a means to salvation, mans free will to choose the Gospel was taken away also. The common man went ‘from the frying pan into the fire’, because one lie was exchanged for another. Predestination is an unscriptural teaching where God has ‘loaded the dice’; having chosen in advance, who would end up in heaven or hell and man’s personal choice becomes redundant.
This teaching created a spiritual apathy in Europe that withdrew from evangelistic outreaches and the churches of the 19th and 20th centuries effectively dyed a slow death, as Darwin’s theory of evolution concurrently gained momentum. Now, I have personal disdain for the teaching of predestination or Calvinism because it is the very teaching under which I was raised in the Anglican Church of Wales (which is a branch of the Protestant church). In my opinion, it’s one of the main reasons why only 2% of people attend church in the United Kingdom. It creates a passive religious outlook, exhibiting spiritual impotence and producing a weak church subject to powers beyond its control. It also harbors a victim mentality, serving a potentate God who seems indifferent to personal circumstances, nor cares for them, in particular.
In the Calvin’s mind God cannot place a condition on man for salvation (like repentance and choosing Jesus as savior) because man is totally depraved and incapable of accepting God’s gift. Calvinists teach God must use an ‘irresistible grace’ to force only those He wants to be saved into saving relationship. Therefore, election into salvation becomes a decision made by God only; not man and cannot be refused. This is false teaching friend, but it was the key to loosing the hold that the Pope had on the entire European populace of that time. Because of Calvin’s ingenious strategy, one by one European countries became Protestant Christians, eventually leading to conflict in Europe in the form of the, “Thirty Years War” which was fought from 1618 AD to 1648 AD between Roman Catholics and Calvinistic Protestants.
Now one of the major opponents of Calvinism and rightly so, was Jacob Arminius born in Oudewater, Netherlands in 1560. He realized that this false doctrine of Calvinism, spawned by Gnostics in the latter part of the 3rd century, was going way too far and distorting God’s word in the process. If we are predestined for salvation before we’re even born then sin of course, becomes irrelevant. Why would the Apostle Paul teach us to avoid sin at all costs, to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, if everyone’s fate was already sealed by God? Nonsense.
No friend, God draws us to him by His Holy Spirit but we have the final decision of whether we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior or not. So, Jacob Arminius researched many historical writings to find out precisely where this Calvinistic teaching started and found out that none other than Augustine was the key influencer of Calvin’s teachings. Believe it or not, Augustine was part of a Gnostic cult for eight years called the Manicheans founded in 252 AD by a man called “Mani”, who mixed Christianity with Gnosticism. Anyway, He later reverted back to orthodox Christianity but by then, the seeds of discord and falsity had already been sown. So, the train had left the station.
Now, after the death of Jacob Arminius, in 1609 AD his followers developed the Remonstrance of 1610 which outlined the “Five Points of Arminianism.” So, one year before the publication of the mighty King James Bible, when God’s Holy word was distributed to the common man, God set the record straight by producing this Remonstrance statement in which the correct doctrine was finally established. Now, let me share these five tenets with you now and I want you to know I believe in these tenets:
Number 1 – Free Will: Man can do nothing to save himself, but he chooses to accept Gods free gift of salvation.
Number 2 – Conditional Election: The Body of Christ is predestined for salvation but only for those who’ve chosen Christ. Salvation is based on Gods foreknowledge of who will freely accept God’s gift
Number 3 – Universal Atonement: Christ’s death is universal in that it paid for the sins of every single person who ever lived, but not all people will be saved. Each person must exercise his free will and accept the free gift of salvation.
Number 4 – Obstructable Grace: God wants all men to be saved and the Holy Spirit will draw people to God; but each person can resist the call also and damn himself to Hell by the rejection of the free gift.
Number 5 – Falling from Grace: Just as it is possible to resist Gods call of grace and refuse to be saved in the first place and it’s also possible to become a Christian and then choose to walk away from your salvation under very rare circumstances of persistent rebellion.
Now, in the 1700’s John Wesley began teaching these five points of Remonstrance and this is one of the reasons why God blessed his ministry at the time. Wesley indeed stoked the hearts of people in England and founded the Methodist movement.
So which Protestant denominations today follow the false teach of Calvinism, let me list a few of them right now: Evangelical Covenant Order (ECO), Council of Revival Ministries, Anglican Missions in the Americas, Calvin Synod – United church of Christ, Congregational Christian Churches, Sovereign Grace Ministries, United Church of Canada, United Church of Christ, United Christian Church, Primitive Baptists, Reformed Baptist, Separate Baptists, Traditional Lutherans, Calvinistic Methodists, now known as Presbyterians, Mennonite Church, Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches, Methodists and finally Episcopal denominations will typically fall under this category also.
Now I’m not saying that everyone who attends these churches is not saved by Jesus Christ ok, as brother Hagin used to say, “You can be right in your heart and wrong in your head.” God knows the heart friend. So let me read for you now, a list of the denominations that follow the correct doctrine of Arminiasm today, that would be the: Baptists – Southern and non southern (although most Baptists preach eternal security, they often preach four points of the Remonstrance listed above), Pentecostals, The majority of non-denominational churches also, Charismatic churches, Prophetic churches, Church of the Nazarene, The Holiness Movement, Apostolic churches, Word of faith teachers and churches and finally the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
And just for the record, I believe that many Catholics are truly saved also, so please understand that, it’s just that their teachings do not line up with the Bible. God judges the heart friend and he knows the heart of every person. What I am saying, is that the doctrine of Calvinism is a false doctrine which removes free will from the equation and salvation is therefore out of your hands. It also means that preachers who follow the Calvinistic doctrine have no need to evangelize or share the Gospel, because as far as they’re concerned, the dice is already loaded. In other words, God has already chosen those who will be saved and who won’t. Have you noticed friend that Calvinist preachers do not give altar calls within their church walls and this is very disturbing. It’s the church I grew up in and breeds ‘luke warm,’ and confused Christians, who deny God’s Holy Spirit and power moving in the earth today.
Related keyword searches:
