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 Hyper-Calvinism
   
Summary:
Hyper-Calvinism holds to the extreme and unscriptural belief that God chose to save some individuals,
    but not others. In other words, Hyper-Calvinists believe that humans have no freewill in the matter of salvation at all.
    However, the Bible says quite the opposite. 


  1) You are predestined to either heaven or hell, and you have no choice in the matter.
  2) The Biblical term "predestinated" must prove the Hyper-Calvinist doctrine.

 

1) Salvation is a free gift given by God through the blood of Jesus Christ that you can choose to accept or reject. Everyone in the world can choose to repent and believe on Christ to save them.
 
I Timothy 2:4-6
"Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time."

II Peter 3:9
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

Romans 5:18 "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."

Revelation 22:17 "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

Romans 10:13 "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Acts 10:43
"To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins."

Romans 10:17
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Ephesians 1:13 "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,"

I John 2:2 "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

Acts 10:43 "To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins."

Hebrews 2:9 "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man."

Acts 17:30 "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:"

Isaiah 45:22 "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else."

John 5:40
"And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life."

John 6:45 "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me."

John 7:37 "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."

Rom. 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."

Titus 2:11 "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men"

Hebrews 5:9 "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him"

John 4:14
"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

John 3:14-16
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The Children of Israel simply had to look up to the serpent in the wilderness and they would be healed. People today must simply look up to the cross to
receive salvation. Whosoever looked at the serpent was healed. Whosoever looks to the cross is saved. There is no mention of an elected group
in John 3—but there is a definite reference to a free will.

Whosoever -- Notice how many of the verses above use the word "whosoever". In every dictionary under the sun you will find that the word "whosoever" is defined by words and terms such as "whoever" or "whatever person." To believe that the word "whosoever" only applies to a specific elected group as hyper-Calvinists believe is ridiculous. Take a look at Matt. 5:28: "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." This verse simply means that whoever looks on a woman to lust has committed adultery in his heart. By the same token, it is common sense that whoever believes receives salvation. There are no exceptions to either scenerio.
 
2) God has elected the group of people who accept Christ as their savior to be the ones who will go to heaven. To say it a different way, God has predetermined that all believers will go to heaven, while all unbelievers will go to hell.
 
Ephesians 1:4-6 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,"

God has chosen the group of people who are "in him" to go to heaven. In other words, God has chosen the group of people who have faith in and are resting in what Jesus Christ did on the cross to go to heaven.

These two verses in Ephesians are used by Hyper-Calvinists to promote the theory that God picked the individual winners and losers before the world began. However, this passage and terms like "predestinated" can be easily explained by a simple analogy:

A bus station has two buses. One bus travels to Los Angeles, while the other bus travels to San Francisco. Travelers who choose to get on the bus that will go to Los Angeles will end up in Los Angeles and travelers who choose to get on the bus to San Francisco will go to San Francisco. The first bus was predetermined or "predestined" to go to Los Angeles and the second bus was predetermined to go to San Francisco.

The point of the analogy is that all of the travelers have a choice, just as all humans have a choice in their destination after this life. Travelers have a freewill, while the buses are predestined to go one place or another. Those who choose to believe will end up in heaven, while those who choose not to believe will end up in San Francisco--errr, I mean Hell.

This bus analogy explains the passage in Ephesians. Now, we would like to hear Hyper-Calvinists explain-away the overwhelming number of verses mentioned above and found throughout the rest of the Bible.

But, how come two people can hear the same sermon and only one of them gets saved?

According to the verses below there are two major reasons why some people do not believe while others do: (1) a person resists the conviction of the Holy Ghost (i.e. does not want to truly believe), (2) the devil tricks people into not believing the gospel (e.g. perhaps the devil brings a hypocrite relative or an atheist professor into the person's life to add confusion).

Acts 7:51
"Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye."

Matt. 23:37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"


Luke 8:12 "
Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved."

But, what about Romans 9 which says that God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born?

To understand
Romans 9, one must remember who God is. God is omniscient, and he can see both the past and the future as clearly as we see the present. God hated Esau because he knew his future and he knew the life Esau would live and the decisions he would make. However, the fact that God knows the life a person will live does not mean that such a person did not have a choice in how to live. All men have a free will and can make whatever choices they want, but God knows what choices will be made. If you understand the omniscience of God, then understanding Romans 9 is easy. God knows what choices people will make, and he chooses to have mercy on the ones who seek and have faith in Him.