Deuteronomy 5:29
Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!
Does God mean what He says? Calvinists want to answer “yes,” but then they are stuck with having to explain the Calvinist doctrine of Preterition, where God has only decreed certain of mankind for salvation, while the rest are passed-by.
Question: Does God mean what He says? Or is God merely condenscending to man, trying to relay things in a way that man can understand it, but not necessarily stating a universal truth?
Answer: This is what’s troubling about Calvinism. Many have accused Calvinism of turning the Bible into a “charade.”
Calvinist, Erwin Lutzer: “Calvinists believe that election makes the success of God’s plan certain. God has committed himself to save a certain number, and they will be saved, despite the rebellion of mankind. The unbelief and failure of man can never thwart the intended plan of God.” (The Doctrines That Divide, p.213, emphasis mine)
Calvinist, R.C. Sproul: “God made a choice--he chose some individuals to be saved unto everlasting blessedness in heaven and others he chose to pass over, to allow them to follow the consequences of their sins into eternal torment in hell.” (Chosen By God, p.22, emphasis mine)
R.C. Sproul: “In the Reformed view God from all eternity decrees some to election and positively intervenes in their lives to work regeneration and faith by a monergistic work of grace. To the non-elect God withholds this monergistic work of grace, passing them by and leaving them to themselves.” (Double Predestination, emphasis mine)
But then how do you explain God’s heart-felt desire according to Dueteronomy 5:29?
One Calvinist gives it a shot: “This is an expression of the Lord’s heart toward the rebellious people of Israel. In the face of their continued rejection of him, he passionately wished covenant blessing for them. Clearly God had not decreed that they would have a heart inclined to him, for if he had they would have followed him. The verse plainly describes a desire on God’s part that was not in accordance with what for higher reasons he had decreed. The divine offer of covenant blessing was sincere, but it fell on deaf ears.”
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “Maybe I’m missing something here, but the highlighted sentence appears to me to be some of the most nonsensical doublespeak I’ve ever encountered in seven years of reading Calvinist commentary, and that’s saying something. ‘...a desire on God’s part that was not in accordance with what for higher reasons he had decreed.’ ???????? Please, spare us.”
Exactly. In other words, if God had passionately wished covenant blessing, wouldn’t it makes sense that He would also at least make it possible? But the Calvinist reasons that if God really, really wanted what He said that He wanted, then they would have received what God wanted, but because they didn’t get what God wanted, God must not have really wanted that for them. But that doesn’t follow. God could easily have desired blessings for them, and then the people simply rejected God’s wishes for them. Oh, but the Calvinist will insist that that means that God is not really “sovereign.” The Calvinist’s ideal of sovereignty means that God always gets His way, and is never disappointed in anything. Conversely, the Arminian’s ideal of sovereignty means that God always gets...the last word. (Philippians 2:10-11) The difference is that one ideal works with the Bible, while the other doesn’t, as Deuteronomy 5:29 shows.
