CALVINISM

Does God wait for a person himself to become related to Him through a work, before the person is declared Justified (made Righteous) by God at new-birth? Yes or No ? 

II. Calvinist Reformation (Zapping) Church of Sardis in Revelation says, "No."

Reformers said a forensic (legal) justification makes a person declared just (righteous) by faith alone, through grace alone , and instantaneously at regeneration Zapping, through nothing (no act or thought) of the person themselves, but the inscrutible Election of God... 

Justification (righteousnes) is Imputed (accounted) by Christ's sacrifice for our sins in His death and also Imputation of Christ's righteousness by His Life lived during His ministry. This they call double imputation (see Rom 5:9-11). This is also called, Synthetic justification = an alien righteousness from outside of us, but accounted to us as a legal transaction as in accounting by the grace of God alone. So we are "as if" righteous.  Also, this can be understood only by scriptures alone, they say.

From Martin Luther on, Protestantism (not the Historic Apostolic believers through the ages) has insisted that Justification does not change us internally and is not based on any goodness that we have in ourselves inherently, or by any manner.

"They justify this external righteousness by saying, if we are instantaneously declared righteous based on our own personal goodness, then we could have no assurance of forgiven sins, or have peace with God (Rom 5:1), removal of condemnation (Rom 8:1), no assurance of faith (Heb 10:22), no free gift of righteousness (Rom 5:17), or say that "the free gift of God is eternal Life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:23) (Systematic Theology, by Wayne Gruden).
 
Our righteousness is purely accounted (imputed) to us from a righteousness of Christ outside of ourselves, they say. This they call a foreign righteousness, instantaneously ONLY judicially accounted to us .   [[  Note: We ourselves only continue as the same sinners, calling ourselves Christians.  "Isn't His grace wonderful," they say.  Our guaranteed righteousness is laid up in Heaven, hid in Christ now in Heaven, and external to us.]]

But unfortunately, their thinking stops here, and is really perverted even more after this, from here on:
They go on to say that it stays external to us and only takes us to Heaven by a fictional eternal "decree" (Institutes, 3. 21. 5) that it be so.  And that is the end of their explaining justification and sanctification for eternity. 

This fictional "decree" which cannot be found in scripture also makes it ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED, which has never been demonstrated by exegesis from the verbally inspired Greek scriptures by any Calvinist or anyone else. 

Their Atonement, in fact, provides no indwelling righteousness of Christ Himself (His faith) to whom they are to be obedient in living according to His righteousness directing, teaching, guiding us, and assuring us. 

Consequently, the Calvinist teachings become a dead letter keeping of the written scripture instructions and that is all. Another Pharisaical effort of men doing what looks good to them. To live pleasing to God, simply go by this written Word, they say. Just like the Pharisees of Jesus day, according to the dead letter instead of the Living Christ Himself indwelling them, even as in the OT saints.  

[[  This is also the teachings of today's "grace" regardless apostates of Dallas Theological Cemetery since 1920.  They also only hold to the dead letter of the Bible as the Calvinists in explaining how one can be led by the Holy Spirit.  Despite their pious rhetoric, their living of the Spirit filled life by faith is just as dead as the Calvinists from whom they took their teachings (originating from John Darby's Plymouth Brethren invention of Dispensationalism). ]]

According to the Reformed, "Christian theology there are three separate and distinct acts of imputation. In the first place Adam's sin is imputed to all of us, his children, that is, judicially set to our account so that we are held responsible for it and suffer the consequences of it. This is commonly known as the doctrine of Original Sin. In the second place, and in precisely the same manner, our sin is imputed to Christ so that He suffers the consequences of it in a Penal Substitution for us. And in the third place, Christ's own (outside of us) righteousness is imputed to us and secures for us entrance into heaven.

We are, of course, no more personally guilty of Adam's sin than Christ is personally guilty of our sin, or that we are personally meritorious because of His righteousness simply accounted for us. In each case it is a book keeping judicial transaction. We receive a fellowship relationship to God from Christ in precisely the same way that we receive condemnation and ruin from Adam. In each case the result follows because of the close official union which exists between the persons involved. To reject any one of these three steps is to reject an essential part of the Christian system" (The Reformed Faith by Loraine Boettner).

To simply repeat for clear understanding of what the Reformation Calvinist teachings are for Atonement to make us righteous and prepared for Heaven:

The Calvinists teach that justification is nothing more than a judicial accounting (imputed) according to the transfer of all our sins upon Jesus for some imagined (not found in scriptures) punishment on the cross.  So then God placed all His wrath for our sin and sins upon Jesus in His penal substitution for punishment, so that our sins (past, present, and future) and sin nature are judicially accounted (imputed) as remitted, not removed in functioning fact or replaced with an indwelling Righteous Life of Christ Himself. 

Jesus suffering God's wrath (punishment) for all our sins, simply provides for the so-called Christian to now continue in sin but still expect a Holy God to take them to Heaven.  We are then accounted judicially (imputed) anothers righteousness, alien to us (outside ourselves), the righteousness of Christ by His merit alone demonstrated in His Perfect living on earth ONLY.    These are all a bookkeeping, accounting, by God made possible by Christ's taking our sins to himself and suffering punishment for them.   And Christ's righteousness is likewise accounted as in letter written bookkeeping to us thereafter also, and kept in Heaven in Himself.   Isn't grace wonderful, they say.

This work of Atonement by Christ for us is given to all who repent and believe for salvation.  They consider a man's believing (trust) and saving faith as synonyms in fact.  And that this repenting and believing or trust (they think, "faith") is given by an instantaneous transformation to only certain chosen people, the Elect, for only these certain few are whom Christ endured such a penal punishment, foreknown and fore-planned (ordained) before the foundation of the world.  

Again, they regard trust and faith as synonyms.   No scriptures teach any of this, except their forced assertions against plain words.   Repentance is hardly and passingly mentioned, and likewise emasculated of all importance, because of the inscrutible instantaneous Zapping of Election bringing all these "things" to the individual instantaneously without his comprehension or understanding in the least, except as explained by these profound doctors of such invented philosophy.

They then teach that all salvation by Christ's Atonement to man is only through this "faith" (trust)  instantaneously instilled in a man's being without any effort, motion, reason, or understanding of the individual himself.   He is just inscrutably Zapped by God, to be ultimately taken to Heaven regardless of his beliefs or behaviors.  

They further define this saving faith by which we stand justified as noted by three manifestations in the person:  First, he is given mental affirmation to all of Christ's teachings and dying for him as factual content and true;  second,  he gives mental assent that Christ freely died for his sins; and most importantly, the Calvinist says, third, he places his absolute and total "trust" in Christ alone for his salvation in Heaven.  They teach that this trust of a man and saving faith are synonyms. (R.C. Sproul, The Doctrines of the Reformation.)  

Consequently, the understanding of HOW the person is saved by God and WHY the person is saved by God appears totally lost to both the Calvinists and also to the apostate "grace" regardless, Dispensationalists, today.  Calvinists' teachings about WHO, WHAT, WHEN, and WHERE deceptively sound all very scriptural but their explanations (doctrines) of HOW and WHY are totally irrational heretical unscriptural and morally irrational absurdities.

Fortunately, yet today, the outward Calvinist preaching is that the sinner must repent and believe (commit) to the Lordship of Christ and live a Holy life at the end to go to Heaven.  This the "grace" regardless Dispensationalists refuse to preach in actual fact; they deny that repentance, Lordship, and any moral living or any commitment of any kind is necessary for salvation.

Because of the facts of the last paragraph, we have long hesitated to say that the Calvinists are apostate, because of their "rare" (almost nonexistent today) preaching to sinners for salvation by repenting and committing to Christ's Lordship, as well as their teaching verbal inerrancy and preservation of scripture, separation from evil in doctrine and morals, and necessary continuance in a Holy Life to death. 

Indeed, many of the Calvinists are at the forefront of Protestantism in resisting the Ecumenical and Dispensational "grace" regardless apostasy today.  These may be used of God to save souls in this day of apostasy, even as in the days of Jonathan Edwards or George Whitefield or Spurgeon.

Calvinists were and are truly very wrong (very apostate) in their historic practices and explanations of their TULIP doctrines, but their statements of necessary beliefs for salvation "sound" correct and agree with Arminian salvation statements,  They are simply repenting and believing (committing) to (eis) the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved through obedience of faith. 

However, Calvinists redefine all these words to mean something very different.  All of these fine sounding teachings are redefined in their own minds and teachings, regardless of how right they sound.  Simply being so redefined in fact as to possibly prevent salvation makes them apostate, regardless of all other considerations.

The new-birth occurs because the Holy Spirit convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment to whomever is considering Truth in their own thinking, despite the deceitfulness or falsity of any preacher.  By this, sinners may be truly new-born listening to totally cult or apostate teachers.  Not by understanding what the teachers deceitfully believe, but by hearing the Holy Spirit utilize their hearts to His truth.

[[  Today, in this age of teachers to itching ears and apostasy on every corner, one cannot naively listen to a teacher or preacher and take their words as those of straightforward meaning as in the Bible.  One must learn how the preacher defines or redefines these common words.  Otherwise, one can have no idea of what he is saying.  This is why people today listening to so-called "expository" preachers cannot possible know what they are saying.  Why are there no "exegetical" preachers today?   Answer. There are no God-Sent God-Taught teachers or preachers today.  ]]

The Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, intended to fully and completely restore every human being to Righteousness, Holiness, and Fellowship with the Father during their Living here on earth, will not in any way possibly prevent Salvation.  

Any meaning given, whether before or after new-birth, that could possibly prevent a person's salvation is apostasy.    Plain and simple.     It is a departure from the pure and perfect gospel taught by Christ and His Apostles in the scriptures..

"Apostasy is a defection from the Truth of the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Christ and His work are so wrought into the faith that change cannot be tolerated.  Tolerance could only give another Jesus"  (Gospel under Seige, by Malcolm Lavender, see Recommended Links, The Call to Reform.) 

This tolerance of the pagan-like Calvinist Atonement work has now been used to redefine Jesus in these last days, first by the apostate Calvinists, and now by the cult "grace" regardless who deny commitment to Christ's Lordship as necessary for salvation.  This denial of Christ's Lordship in salvation is accomplished by the worldwide "grace" regardless cult teachings today, made popular by non-Calvinist but Dispensational Dallas Theological Seminary since 1920 to date.

Calvinism's WHO, WHAT, WHEN, and WHERE of salvation is totally redefined by their HOW and WHY's of their TULIP doctrines.  If they ever rarely preach as to sinners for salvation today, it may be no different than that prescribed in the scriptures, in sound.  But they have redefined every historic Biblical word they use.  

Their teachings as to the HOW and WHY explanations of God in salvation are totally irrational (deductive reasoning) and totally demeaning to God's great Attributes, indeed, very heretical, and to be avoided.  These are leaven teachings used by darkness to leaven the whole lump in these apostate days.  Now, with the "grace" regardless Dispensational cult, instead of Jesus being Lord, He saves only by being a Savior; they now totally deny His Lordship in salvation.  That makes them a cult.

Unfortunately, the powers of darkness have adopted these grave deficiencies of the primitive Calvinist HOW and WHY explanations, who give:
(1) no Atonement means of personal Holiness or righteousness of anyone while on earth. 
(2) the unscriptural (against plain scripture) assertion of "once saved always saved" salvation, 
(3) a confusion (blindness) of believing = faith in salvation and Living,
                                                       **
(4) a one time involuntary change of a person's mind and desires for eternal immutable salvation,
(5) no personal efforts avail for perseverance, only God's inscrutible immutable changing of the person's sensibilities for eternity, 
(6) a most important denial of personal responsibility to Jesus Christ as Lord because of the involuntary nature of salvation in all aspects of Calvinism, 
(7) most importantly a denial of the working and office of the Holy Spirit in salvation to everyone in the world, as well as in each individual's responsible fellowship of Life in Christ for daily guidance, gifting, teaching, assurance, and empowering, and 
(8) focused in the dead written word, rather than in the Living Word indwelling them from which true obedience derives through the indwelling Holy Spirit leading them, assuring them, gifting, teaching, illuminating the scriptures, and empowering.

"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom 8:14)

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom 8:16)

Because of (4), (5), (6), (7), (8) above, their robot walk (dead men walking) must be (8) focused in the dead written word, rather than in the Living Word indwelling them from which true obedience derives.  Thus, we believe the appallation of "thou has a name that thou livest and art dead" (Sardis, Rev 3:1) is most appropriate for "Reformation" Calvinism, both in time of the different churches in history, as well as their doctrines.

Calvinism is such a distortion of scripture in relation to salvation that they are as apostate as possible, without becoming the extreme Dispensational cult of the "grace" regardless of today.  Indeed, many whom we respect for their clear proclamations so ascribe Calvinism as apostate .  We have found that we must agree with them after much examination and for the reasons given.  See our Link to Crisispub.com and their many clear precise books on this subject.

We find it is pertinent that of those who oppose this worldwide Dispensational "grace" regardless cult most today are the Calvinists, who still hold to Calvinist doctrines.   However, Many are being deceived further into the Dispensational salvation terminology and thinking.  R.C. Sproul is a clear example.  He now says, all one must do is trust Christ as your Savior with all your heart and you are guaranteed Heaven.

Most other people who even preach and teach Biblical separation and holding to the Textus Receptus and even call themselves Fundamentalists are totally apostate in accepting the Dispensational "grace" regardless  cult salvation doctrines of simply trusting (= believe = faith, they think)  in unconditional eternal security of a Savior-only for Heaven someday, even denying Christ's Lordship as necessary for salvation.

During the past 80 years, until recently, sincere Bible thumping Calvinists were not accepting the "only trust in a Savior only for unconditional security in Heaven" sophistry.  But they are now beginning to teach it also.

These demonic Dispensational "grace" regardless apostates today have just taken the Calvinist extreme heresies to darkest absurdity.  Consequently, by default of darkened reasoning, today's modern total apostate cult, calling themselves "grace" teachers,  teach "once saved always saved" with no necessary personal thought of Lordship or any moral intentions, or any perseverance; just a sterile mental affirmation and trust only one time in Christ as a Savior only.  They call this the "finished" work of Christ, all by His "grace" to all sinners who simply trust Him as Savior only. 

[[ A rational person, who understands Christ's Atonement (restoration), must wonder how they can teach this in a sound mind, except in extreme demonic sarcasm toward our Heavenly Father.  The Church of Sardis (fifth in series of seven) in Revelation 3:1-6, represents Calvinism, we believe, and is there called "a name that thou livest, and art dead"  But in Rev 3:14-22, the Laodicean Church (seventh in series of seven), the last church in the series of seven churches, we find Christ outside of it knocking at the door for entrance.  No commendation is given to either of these churches by Jesus, but he does commend all the other 5 churches throughout history, in some manner.    ]]] 

It is a great mystery of iniquity, demonstrating the depth of apostasy today, that even sincere people calling themselves Fundamentalist and separating from so many false practices and doctrines today have accepted the salvation teachings of this Dispensational "grace" regardless cult, denying Christ's Lordship in salvation and only trusting in Jesus as a Savior who uncondtionally promises them Heaven.  These dear sincere people are possibly lost to perdition and teaching thousands or millions more to follow them.  How blinded by satan, probably because they went to Bible Schools or Seminaries.

These demonic "grace" regardless apostates today have just taken the Calvinist heresies to darkest absurdity.  We now have throughout Christendom saved "carnal sinning Christians" who need have no moral differences from others in the world, but are inscrutably destined for Heaven.  This establishes the present last days of worldwide apostasy cult with the amoral "grace" regardless doctrines.  Isn't "grace" wonderful, they say. These deny the Lordship of Christ as the only mediator for salvation, making them a modern cult in the Laodicean church.

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron" (1 Tim 4:1-2).

In Revelation, third chapter, neither the church of Sardis (probably Reformation Calvinist church in sequence of history), nor the Laodicean church receive any commendation from our Lord.  All the others do receive commendation.  Interesting.   

And the church of Philadelphia between the Sardis and Laodicean church, in their history sequence, receives commendations for the necessity of Holy living (no "carnal Christian", or OnceSavedAlwaysSaved-regardless, teachings) and "thou has kept the Word of My endurance".

Christ promised taking those who persevere in this church "from out of" the time of trial (Rev 3:10) that is coming.     Interesting.  The last four named churches in order of origination are given a different ending that the previous three.  Perhaps this denotes a different end of age status of existence.  Perhaps the first three letters are to now nonexistent historical churches.

In our own lifetime, we have never heard a Calvinist preaching to sinners for salvation.  Have you?  Today, they are occupied in proudly smelling their own robed arm pits and eruditely explaining the philosophy of their "esteemed historical" philosophy of religion and totally irrational moral logic.

Their noble esteemed doctrines must be agonizingly justified to the common people, who have little chance of understanding or being Zapped anyway, in their thinking.  But Calvinists get violent when accused of being "elitists".    Not to mention them being total Pharisees as the Dispensationalists, teaching to follow the dead letter ink written Word, instead of the Living Word indwelling them, the Holy Spirit Mind of Christ, our indwelling Righteousness Himself, Who gifts, teaches, guides, empowers, and assures us.   Both the Calvinists and the Dispensational "grace" regardless deny all of this.

Since the Atonement (restoration) was incompletely formulated from the scriptures by Luther and more by Calvin (1534) from Catholic Augustine (414) and later by a Catholic monk, Anselm (1097 A.D.), regarding the Penal Satisfaction theory of Atonement, we have thereby been given a primitive and totally errant and blasphemous understanding of the Atonement.

According to the Calvinists, Justification (righteousness) and Sanctification (Holiness) before God is purely a judicial accounting, bookkeeping act of God.  Nothing more.   And instantaneous instilled "faith" is nothing more than man's own trust, called faith in the devils world dictionary.    No sure intrinsic righteousness of God is theirs nor may be experienced by them this side of Heaven, is their actual Atonement teaching.  Consequently, their only instruction in Holy Living is to follow the dead letter of Holy scripture, like the Pharisees in Jesus day.

They even call it a "foreign" and "synthetic" righteousness, outside themselves.   We, personally, must be inscrutibly decreed, destined by God and be in Heaven, before we shall experience any right-relation to our Heavenly Father, righteousness, gained only by His Immutable decree for only a few Elect, they say.  This is purely fatalistic Soteriology.  And actually, no real scriptural understanding of Atonement or "faith" or its HOW or WHY in our lives or the scriptures.  They call faith a man's "trust".  All is totally unscriptural; not supported by the scriptures in any manner.  It is all the doctrines of men, as the Pharisees of Christ's day.