Ezekiel 33:8
“Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me. If I announce that some wicked people are sure to die and you fail to warn them about changing their ways, then they will die in their sins, but I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn them to repent and they don’t repent, they will die in their sins, but you will not be held responsible. Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?” [TLB]
The apostle Paul echoes similar language at Acts 18:6: “But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’”
John Calvin comments: “By these words, teachers are warned that if they do not want to be guilty of blood before the Lord, they must do whatever they can to bring wanderers back to the way, and that they must not allow anyone to perish through ignorance.” (Acts: Calvin, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.309, emphasis mine)
However, compare this with what Calvin had elsewhere taught:
Calvin says: “Two people may hear the same teaching together; yet one is willing to learn, and the other persists in his obstinacy. They do not differ in nature, but God illumines one and not the other.” (Acts: Calvin, Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.229, emphasis mine)
If God “illumes the one and not the other,” then the other perishes, not because of what you failed to do, but because God was disinterested in illuminating them, allegedly. And it gets worse:
Calvin says: “Hence, Augustine, having treated of the elect, and taught that their salvation reposes in the faithful custody of God so that none perishes, continues: The rest of mortal men who are not of this number, but rather taken out of the common mass and made vessels of wrath, are born for the use of the elect. For God created no one of them casually or fortuitously, nor is He ignorant of whatever good may be worked through them. For that He created human nature in them and adorned the order of this present life by them is in itself a good work. But He brings none of them to the spiritual repentance by which a man is reconciled with God.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.107, emphasis mine)
According to God, He only wants for them to “turn from their wicked ways so they can live,” while yet according to Calvinism, they are “born for the use of the elect.”
Calvin writes: “When God prefers some to others, choosing some and passing others by, the difference does not depend on human dignity or indignity. It is therefore wrong to say that the reprobate are worthy of eternal destruction.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.120-121, emphasis mine)
Calvin adds: “If what I teach is true, that those who perish are destined to death by the eternal good pleasure of God though the reason does not appear, then they are not found but made worthy of destruction.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.121, emphasis mine)
John Calvin introduces a “secret” will explanation:
John Calvin comments: “But, it is alleged, we thereby ascribe a double will to God, whereas He is not variable and not the least shadow of turning falls upon Him. What is this, says Pighius, but to mock men, if God professes to will what He does not will? But if in fairness the two are read together: I will that the sinner turn and live, the calumny is dissolved without bother. God demands conversion from us; wherever He finds it, a man is not disappointed of the promised regard of life. Hence God is said to will life, as also repentance. But the latter He wills, because He invites all to it by His word. Now this is not contradictory of His secret counsel, by which He determined to convert none but His elect. He cannot rightly on this account be through variable, because as lawgiver He illuminates all with the external doctrine of life, in this first sense calling all men to life. But in the other sense, He brings to life whom He will, as Father regenerating by the Spirit only His Sons.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.106, emphasis mine)
So by the Revealed Will, God wants for them to repent, but by the Secret Will, God does nothing for it to have any real chance of actually happening.
God said that He wants for them to turn and live. He even asks: “Why should you die?” (Ezekiel 33:11) But Calvinism answers, they were “born for the use of the elect.”
Adrian Rogers states: “Now if you believe that there is a kind of Predestination and Election that men are going to be saved no matter what, or lost no matter what, this verse makes no sense to me whatsoever.” (Let the Earth Hear His Voice, emphasis mine)
Same here.
Question: If they are not found, but made, worthy of destruction, how could God simultaneously, genuinely want them to turn back to Him? Furthermore, what would God mean by, “O people of Israel! Why should you die?”
Answer: According to Calvinism, if God genuinely wanted them to live, then then the Giver of Life would grant them spiritual life, and effectually draw them to Himself, and hence live. Therefore, there is no explanation that Calvinism could offer, whereby God was being sincere.
Imagine if a husband and wife are getting divorced, and the father announces that he wants his daughter to live well and be provided for, and to go to college, but then just walks out of their life for good, and never pays one cent for child support. Would you say that the talk is matching up with the walk? Would you say that he was in any way, sincere, about what he said that he wants?
