Matthew 7:21
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
Question: Why is Jesus angry that they never “knew” Him, if He never died for them?
Answer: Jesus’ disposition is that He desired that they know Him, in the intimate, salvific sense, at least as much as it is up to Him. So why would Jesus desire that they know Him, if He never actually died for them, and was never their Savior at all, but only of the Calvinism’s elect, as per the Calvinist doctrine of a Limited Atonement?
These people thought that they were saved, meaning that they thought that there was a Savior who died for them (in order to be saved), and Jesus could have said, “You’re mistaken. There’s a Limited Atonement, and I never died for you. You don’t have a Savior. You were stuck the whole time, and you didn’t even know it.” But instead, Jesus answered that He never knew them, as if they did something wrong, as if they did have a Savior, but didn’t know Him (in terms of a relationship), and now are facing judgment for spurning the Savior who they did have, and who otherwise could have, and would have, gladly saved them. For His part, their Savior was willing but they were not.
This passage places the onus on the individual who fails to seek God for who He is, and subsequently never knew Him. However, according to Calvinism, the onus is instead on God, because regardless of whether or not they knew Him, the Calvinist doctrine of Limited Atonement states: “I never died for you. Depart from Me, you whom I never died for.”
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “Calvinism gets really bizarre if you keep in mind that they believe that God predetermined every single event. So God predetermined that some become Christians, and then live sinful and rebellious lives, but stay saved and go to Heaven, while others He predetermined that they would and could never be saved, He makes them into non-Christians, who live very moral lives and then go to Hell to be eternally punished! Or what about the ‘Lord, Lord’ people of Matt. 7 who mistakenly believe they are believers, and yet He says at the Judgment Day, they will find out the reality that they never knew him (so God predetermined that they would be self-deceived for years, believing themselves to be saved, when they never were saved!), then giving them the surprise at the final Judgment Day, and then sending them to Hell for eternal punishment. And this same God who supposedly predetermines everything, decides that most of the human race will be ‘reprobates’ who are Hell-bound, and this decision is made independent of anything they do or do not do, anything that happens in their life. God just reprobates them from eternity (isn’t this sort of like aborting a baby that has done nothing, no matter what this baby would have done had it lived, the baby is simply aborted?). And yet the same God who does these ‘spiritual abortions’ on the reprobates before they ever live, supposedly then turns around and says abortion is wrong? What a mess exhaustive Determinism leads to!”
This member continues: “The Lord, Lord people are not liars; they are self-deceived. They would be liars if they really knew and believed that they were not saved, but then in contrast, claimed that they were, in fact, believers. But that is not these people. They sincerely believed. They were believers and do not find out until the final Judgment that they were wrong! I have sometimes said that that passage is one of the scariest passages in the Bible, in my opinion, because it says there are MANY who believe themselves saved, when they never were, and they will not find this out till the final Judgment! So the Lord, Lord people, in my opinion, will most definitely include pastors and elders and church leaders who thought they were saved and yet never were. Second, don’t forget the parable of the wheat and tares. Jesus sows good seed and then an enemy comes along and sows bad seed. The servants are ready to root them out now! But the master says, ‘No, let them grow together until the harvest’ (the final Judgment). So the parable says that until the final Judgment, we live in a mixed world, where the good and the bad grow together in the same families, the same churches, with no separation occurring until the final Judgment! Have you ever studied church history carefully? In seminary, church history was my most depressing class because, over and over and over again, you see how mixed things are, with good and faithful people alongside heretics and false professors and false teachers. Do you really believe that every pastor or church leader is a born again believer? I don’t. And I can tell ‘horror’ stories about professing believers/pastors and church leaders. No, I am a realist. I take that parable, of the wheat and tares, dead seriously, which is why I always have my discernment ears on no matter who is talking and no matter what ‘leader’ I am hearing.”
First of all, Jesus says that He “never” knew them. Hence, Adrian Rogers states: “They didn’t get saved and lost it. They never had it. They went through a form of religion, but they were never saved.” (How God Handles Hypocrites: Romans 2:1-8, 16)
Secondly, notice that the Lord doesn’t seem to contest whether they performed real miracles: “John said to Him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.’ But Jesus said, ‘Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is for us.’” (Mark 9:38-40)
Calvinist, Erwin Lutzer: “The bottom line, however, is that the will of man is not free, but responsive to either the wickedness of the heart or the sovereign work of God, which grants to some the ability to believe the gospel.” (The Doctrines That Divide, p.173, emphasis mine)
Erwin Lutzer: “Thus the doctrine of total depravity leads directly to that of unconditional election--a dead man cannot respond to the gospel’s appeal.” (The Doctrines That Divide, p.181, emphasis mine)
Question: So if they were they able to do these things, how?
Answer: The impetus is clearly the Holy Spirit, but His grace obviously can be misused.
Erwin Lutzer: “Nor has any person ever existed who would like to be saved but cannot because he is not elect.” (The Doctrines That Divide, p.191, emphasis mine)
In other words, man is so depraved that he does not “want” to be saved, so God gives to some people, namely Calvinism’s elect, the irresistible desire to want to be saved, and hence they believe. The strange thing, however, is that the Jehovah’s Witnesses certainly do want to be saved, or else why would they commit so much time and energy into serving the Watchtower, whom they trust for guidance in the way of salvation? Moreover, for those who follow false prophets and false teachers, it may be a bit presumptuous to suggest that they do not “want” to be saved. The problem for these is not that they lack a desire for salvation, but rather that they have not trusted in the right person, namely Jesus Christ and Him alone. Also consider those of the parable of the sower according to Luke chapter 8. These certainly want to be saved, and hence their initial positive response to the gospel. The problem is that they also want something else even more, and that’s the problem.
John Calvin: “So to do mighty works in Christ’s name means precisely the performance of miracles under His strength, His auspices, command, and direction: though the word virtutes (powers) is sometimes restricted to one sort of miracle, in this place, and in many others, it covers miracles in general.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Vol.I, p.240, emphasis mine)
If these are real miracles, then, how did they perform them?
John Calvin: “…when we speak about faith in general, let us realize that there is a certain faith which is perceived by understanding only, and afterwards quickly disappears because it is not fixed in the heart; that is the faith which James calls ‘dead,’ whereas true faith always depends on the Spirit of regeneration (James 2:17, 20, 26).” (John: Calvin, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.61, emphasis mine)
Regardless of Calvin’s “true faith” argument, it cannot be denied that these people had some form of spiritual life, though not a saving personal relationship with Christ, and hence their condemnation. So, can a “dead man” engage in prophesying, casting out of demons and performing many miracles? They were obviously not dead in terms of spiritual matters, though dead under the condemnation of the Law (John 3:18; Romans 8:2), and dead with respect to being separated from God. (Ephesians 2:11-12)
John Calvin: “Some kind of life, I acknowledge, does remain in us, while we are still strangers to Christ; for unbelief does not extinguish every sense, or the will, or the other faculties of the soul. But what has this to do with the Kingdom of God? What has it to do with the blessed life, when everything we think and wish is death? Let this, then, stand fast, that the union of our soul with God is the true and only life; and that outside Christ we are altogether dead, because sin, the cause of death, reigns in us.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, p.139, emphasis mine)
Question: With “some kind of life,” and with the power of Christ’s miracle-working ministry (Matthew 11:20-24), what kept them from coming to Christ? After all, they had some degree of Sight, at least enough to perform miracles in the name of Jesus, and at least enough Light, to know that there was power in His name.
John Calvin: “Let no one think that those [who] fall away...were of the predestined, called according to the purpose and truly sons of the promise. For those who appear to live piously may be called sons of God; but since they will eventually live impiously and die in that impiety, God does not call them sons in His foreknowledge. There are sons of God who do not yet appear so to us, but now do so to God; and there are those who, on account of some arrogated or temporal grace, are called so by us, but are not so to God.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.66, emphasis mine)
That’s the Calvinist answer: Temporal Grace. That’s how Calvinism accounts for the totally depraved to perform things that they otherwise should not be able to do. Therefore, according to Calvin, these miracle-working, prophesiers were given a temporary grace, being just enough to give them a thirst for spiritual matters and a hunger for godliness, though not enough grace to actually bring them to Christ in repentance. So there you have it: Arminian Prevenient Grace vs. Calvinistic Temporal Grace. See, also, the discussion on the Calvinist Contradiction.
