[Chapter 8-10] The Erroneous Doctrines (Romans 8:29-30)
(Romans 8:29-30)
“For
whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of
His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover
whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also
justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
These
passages tell us that God has predestined to save people in Jesus
Christ. To do so, God has called them in Christ, justified those whom He
called, and glorified those whom He justified. All the basics of the
Scripture are planned and worked out within Jesus Christ. This is what
the Book of Romans tells us, yet many theologians and false ministers
have turned this clear and simple truth into a mere doctrine, consisting
of their own thoughts and self-interests, and earnestly spread it. We
will now turn our attention to examine how many misunderstand this
truth.
Some
theologians deduce five major doctrines from this passage: 1)
prescience, 2) predestination, 3) effective calling, 4) justification,
and 5) glorification. These five doctrines are known as the “Golden
Chain of Salvation” and have been spread as the truth to both believers
and non-believers alike. But their claims are full of flaws.
All
five doctrines speak only of what God has done–that is, “God already
knew, already elected, already called, justified, and glorified
someone.” But the Doctrine of Predestination is a doctrine that claims
that God has unconditionally elected those whom He would save even
before their births. Yet the Biblical truth of predestination teaches
that God has made sinners His children by pouring His love over them.
Having thus elected them, God has called them, justified and glorified
them.
The Error of the theological doctrines of predestination and election
In
Christian theology, we can find the “five great doctrines” of Calvinism
proclaimed by John Calvin. Among them are the Doctrine of
Predestination and the Doctrine of Election. In the following
discussion, I will point out the Biblical errors of these doctrines and
bear witness to the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
The
Doctrine of Election originated from a theologian named John Calvin. Of
course, God spoke of the election in Jesus Christ long before Calvin’s
time, but his Doctrine of Election has led many to confusion. This false
doctrine limits God’s love and defines it as discriminatory and unfair.
Fundamentally speaking, there are neither limits nor boundaries to
God’s love, and as such, the Doctrine of Predestination that imposes
such limits on God’s love cannot be anything but wrong. Yet the reality
is that many believers in Jesus today have accepted this doctrine as
natural and fatalistic.
The
ideas of this Doctrine of Predestination have come to rule over many
minds, as the doctrine is fitting for those who like philosophizing,
and, as such, dominate their minds, making it believable to them. The
doctrine claims that even before Creation, God unconditionally
predestined and elected some, while others were predestined to be left
out of this election. Were this doctrine true, those souls that were not
selected would have grounds to protest against God, and He would turn
into an unfair and prejudicial God.
Because
of these doctrines, today’s Christianity has fallen into great
confusion. As a result, many Christians are suffering while wondering,
“Have I been elected? If God had reprobated me before Creation, what is
the use of believing in Jesus?” They end up being more interested in
whether they were included or excluded from God’s election. This is why
the Doctrine of Predestination has produced so much confusion among the
believers in Jesus, as they assign more importance to the question of
their elections rather than to the true gospel of the water and the
Spirit, given by God.
This
doctrine has turned the truth of Christianity into just another world
religion. But it is now time for us to cast these wrong doctrines out
from the Christendom with the gospel that has born witness to the
righteousness of God. As such, you must first see to yourself whether
the Doctrine of Predestination is correct or not and be delivered from
all your sins by knowing and believing in the gospel of the water and
the Spirit. Those who have truly been selected by God are those who know
and believe in His righteousness.
The predestination and election spoken by the Truth
Ephesians
1:3-5 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will.” The election spoken in this
passage from Ephesians is an election chosen “in Him (Christ) before
the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). It also tells us that
Jesus Christ has not excluded a single person from the grace of the
salvation from sin.
From
this passage, we must ascertain what is exactly wrong with the Doctrine
of Predestination. The fundamental error of this doctrine is that it is
bias against the standard of God’s election–that is, its basis of who
is to be saved or not does not depend on the Word of God, but instead on
His arbitrary and unconditional decision.
If
we were to base our faiths in Jesus on the logic of such unconditional
predestination and elections, how could we ever believe in Jesus in our
nervous uncertainties and worries? Calvinism preaches of a false
doctrine that turns the just God into an unfair and unjust God. The
reason why Calvin made such a mistake is because he took out the
condition of “in Jesus Christ” from God’s predestination, and the error
has been grave enough to confuse and mislead many. But the Scripture
clearly tells us, “God chose us in His Son Jesus Christ” (Ephesians
1:4).
If,
as the Calvinists claim, God unconditionally chose some in order to be
their God while excluded others without any reason, what could be more
absurd than this? Calvin turned God into an unfair God in the minds of
many people. But the Bible tells us in Romans 3:29, “Or is He the God of
the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the
Gentiles also.” God is the God of everyone and the Savior of all.
Jesus
is the Savior of all. He gave redemption to everyone by taking upon all
the sins of mankind on Himself with His baptism by John and His blood
on the Cross (Matthew 3:15). The Scripture tells us that Christ saved
every sinner by bearing all the sins of the world with His baptism and
carrying these sins to the Cross (John 1:29), being judged for these
sins in our place (John 19). Also, John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Jesus Christ took upon
everyone’s sins with His baptism, died on the Cross, and arose from
death for all of humanity in God’s righteousness.
Our
understanding of whom God has called must be based on His Word. To do
so, let us take a look at the passage from Romans 9:10-11. “And not only
this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our
father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any
good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works but of Him who calls).”
It
says here that the purpose of God might stand “of Him who calls.” Whom,
then, has God called in Jesus Christ? They are precisely sinners whom
God has called. Between Esau and Jacob, whom did God love? He loved
Jacob. God did not love people like Esau, who was full of his own
righteousness, but He called sinners like Jacob and allowed them to be
born again through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This was the
very will of God’s righteousness that chose sinners like Jacob to love
and call through Jesus Christ.
Because
Adam was the forefather to everyone, all were born as the offspring of a
sinner. In Psalms 51, David says that he was conceived in sin from when
he was in his mother’s womb. Because people are born as sinners, they
commit sins, regardless of their determinations. Throughout their lives,
they continue to bear the fruits of sin until the very end. Mark
7:21-23 tells us that just as apple trees bear apples and pear trees
bear pears, humans are bound to live in sin for their entire lives
because they were born with sin.
You
must have had an experience of committing a sin against your wishes.
This is because from the very beginning, you were born a sinner. People
are born with evil thoughts including adulteries, fornications, murders,
thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and others such
sins in their minds. This is why everyone lives his or her life in sin.
Sin is inherited. Since we were born with the sins that our forefathers
passed on to us, we are fundamentally determined to live in sin. This is
the reason why we need to believe in Jesus as our Savior and believe in
God’s righteousness.
Does
this then mean that God’s first work, Adam, ended in failure? No, it
doesn’t. God decided to make mankind His children, so He allowed the
first man to fall into sin. He fundamentally permitted us to be sinners
in order for God to save us and make us His children with the baptism of
Jesus Christ and His blood. So, we must know that we were born as
sinners without exception.
However,
God decided to send Jesus Christ to this earth before Creation, knowing
that mankind would become sinners. He then placed on Jesus, through the
baptism of Jesus received from John, all the sins of the world and had
Him die on the Cross. In other words, He decided to bestow upon anyone
who believed with the blessing of the redemption from sin and of
becoming God’s children. This is God’s plan and His purpose for creating
mankind.
Some
people might ask in their misunderstandings, “Look at Jacob and Esau.
Was not one selected and the other abandoned by God?” But God did not
unconditionally elect those who insisted to be saved outside of Jesus
Christ. He clearly chose to make everyone His children through Jesus
Christ. When only considering the Old Testament, we may get the
impression that God chose only one side, but with the New Testament, we
can unmistakably see that He elected people like Jacob to save all
sinners through Jesus Christ. We must have a clear understanding and
believe in whom God called with His Word.
Of
Esau and Jacob, who did God call and love? He called no other than
Jacob, a man full of shortcomings, deceit and unrighteousness, to love
and save him in God’s righteousness. You, too, must believe in this
truth, that God the Father has called you through Jesus Christ in His
righteousness. You must also believe in the fact that the gospel of the
water and the Spirit in Jesus Christ is the very righteousness of God.
Why,
then, did God choose such people as Jacob? God chose Jacob because he
was a representative of all unrighteous humanities. Jacob’s calling by
God was a calling congruent to His will; a calling in accordance to the
Word of God that “we were chosen in Jesus Christ.” This calling is also
consistent with the Word of truth that “the purpose of God according to
election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.”
The
way to save sinners through Jesus Christ was to completely fulfill the
righteousness of God with His love. This was the law of salvation set by
the righteousness of God for sinners. To clothe them in His
righteousness, God called people like Jacob, who had no
self-righteousness at all, and those who answered His calling through
Jesus Christ.
Did
God call those who were self-righteous and who seemed just fine? Or did
He call those who had no self-righteousness who were full of
shortcomings? Those whom God called were people like Jacob. God called
and saved sinners bound for hell because of their sins. You must realize
that from your very birth, you, too, have been a sinner who has come
short of God’s glory, and as such, were bound for hell. You need to
know, in other words, your true self. God called all sinners through
Jesus Christ and saved them in His righteousness.
The
people of God are those who have been justified by believing in His
righteousness. God predestined to call all sinners and redeem them in
Jesus, and He fulfilled what He had predestined. This is the
predestination and the true election in Jesus Christ that God speaks of.
To understand the true election of God, we must first understand the
background of this truth on election, as described in the Old Testament.
Background to God’s election from the Old Testament
Genesis
25:21-26 tells us about the story of Jacob and Esau while still in the
womb of their mother, Rebecca. Between the two, God chose Jacob. Calvin
based his Doctrine of Election on this passage, but we will soon find
out that his understanding departs from the will of God. There was a
reason why God loved Jacob more than Esau. This reason is that people
like Esau, rather than relying on and trusting in God, live by believing
in their own strengths, while people like Jacob live by their reliance
on and trust in the righteousness of God. When it says that God loved
Jacob more than Esau, it means that God loved people like Jacob. This is
why we were “chosen in Christ” (Ephesians 1:4).
“Unconditional
election” without Jesus and outside of God’s righteousness is only a
false Christian doctrine. This idea is akin to bringing and believing in
a god of fate into Christianity. But the truth tells us that God
elected all sinners in Jesus. Because God chose to save all sinners “in
Jesus Christ,” His election was a just election. Had God chosen Jacob
unconditionally and reprobated Esau groundlessly, He would have been an
unfair God, but He called us in Jesus Christ. And to save those whom He
called, He sent Jesus to this earth to take upon the sins of the world
with His baptism, which has fulfilled the righteousness of God, and to
shed His precious blood on the Cross. This is how God has chosen and
loved us through Christ Jesus.
We
need to throw away our human thoughts and believe in the Word of the
Scripture, not in a faith of literalism, but in our spiritual faiths.
God the Father, in other words, chose all of us through Jesus Christ.
But how does Calvin treat God’s election? True faith is found when one
knows and believes in God’s righteousness. To believe in human thought
as the truth is the same as worshiping an idol, not God.
Believing
in the righteousness of God through Jesus is clearly distinct from
believing in the erroneous Doctrine of Predestination. Were we not to
know and believe in Jesus according to the written Word of God, we would
be no different from mere beasts incapable of reasoning. We have been
chosen as God’s children by the seal of God’s righteousness “in Jesus
Christ.” We should examine our faiths with the basis of the Word of the
Scripture.
One
of the five doctrines of Calvinism speaks of “limited atonement.” This
doctrine claims that among the many people of the world, some have been
excluded from God’s salvation. But God’s love and His righteousness
cannot be so unfair. The Scripture tells us that God “desires all men to
be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). If
the blessing of salvation were a limited blessing that is granted to
some but not permitted to others, there would be many people who would
give up on their faiths in Jesus. Those who believe in such false
doctrines must return to the gospel of the water and the Spirit, be
saved from their sins and receive eternal lives by knowing and believing
in Jesus Christ as their Savior. God has saved everyone through Jesus
Christ with His righteousness.
If
God had indeed loved some and hated others, people would turn their
backs from God. Let us suppose that God is standing right here, right
now. Were God to select all those who were standing to His right for
salvation and those who were standing to his left for hell without any
reason, would this be just? Those who are to His left would have no
choice but to turn against God. If God were like this, then who in this
world would serve and worship Him as the true God? All those who were
unconditionally hated by God would protest and in turn, they, too, would
hate God. Even the criminals of this world are said to have their own
morals and fairness. How, then, could our Creator be so unfair, and who
would believe in such an unfair God?
Our
Father decided to save all the sinners with the righteousness of God
found in His Son Jesus Christ. This is why the Calvinist Doctrine of
Limited Atonement has nothing to do with God’s righteousness. Yet
because of such erroneous doctrines, many people are unfortunately still
going astride, believing in God wrongfully or turning away from Him,
all from their own misunderstandings.
An untruthful movie
Stephen
King’s novel entitled, “The Stand,” was made into a TV mini-series some
years ago and was highly acclaimed all over the world. The plot of the
novel unfolds like this: In the year 1991, a plague strikes America,
leaving only a few thousand people alive, who are “immune” to the
epidemic. Of the survivors, those who instinctively serve God meet in
Boulder, Colorado, while those who worship the “Dark Man” are drawn to
Las Vegas, Nevada. The two groups separately rebuild societies, until
one must destroy the other.
Among
the survivors, a young man named Stuart repeatedly dreams that the end
of the world has come, and an elderly woman named Abigail tells him in
his dreams to go to a certain place, reminding him that God elected him
already. In this movie, God saved this young man because He predestined
him before Creation, even when he did not believe in God or Jesus.
Does
God, then, unconditionally save those who do not even believe in Jesus?
Of course not. God has predestined everyone in Jesus Christ to save
those who believe in His righteousness from their sins.
The
storyline of this movie is based on Calvin’s Doctrines of
Predestination and Election. This movie is merely a story that only
tells a part of a theologian’s doctrine. How could God arbitrarily
decide to send some people to hell and yet elect others for salvation?
Because God is just, He has predestined and selected everyone through
Jesus Christ, and there is none who is barred from the salvation of His
righteousness. God’s predestination and election without Jesus Christ
are meaningless and unbiblical. It’s unfortunate that so many
theologians continue to claim that God elected some while He reprobated
others.
Even
before He created the universe, God planned to save all sinners and
make them His children with His righteousness through Jesus Christ. He
elected, in other words, all sinners through the gospel of Jesus. How,
then, do you believe?
Do
you believe that the Buddhist monks meditating deep in the mountains
are excluded from God’s election? If God’s predestination and election
were unconditional without Jesus Christ, there would be no need for us
to preach His Word, nor believe in it. If, without the Savior Jesus
Christ, some people were destined to be saved and others were not, there
would absolutely be no need for sinners to believe in Jesus. That Jesus
has saved us from our sins through His baptism and His blood on the
Cross, in the end, it would also be meaningless. But in the
righteousness of God found in Jesus Christ, God allowed salvation to
even these Buddhist monks who do not believe in Jesus, only if they
repent and turn their minds toward God.
There
are many people in this world who live their lives believing in Jesus.
Were we to divide them into two groups, one group would be those who are
like Esau and the other would be those who are like Jacob? People like
Jacob identify themselves as sinners bound for hell, and as such, are
saved from their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit given by Jesus. The other group is made of people like Esau, who
try to enter the gates of heaven by adding their own efforts to their
faiths in Jesus.
Who
are you like? Jacob or Esau? Do you believe in the righteousness of
God? Or do you believe in the erroneous Doctrine of Predestination? Your
choice between these two faiths will decide where you will end up–in
heaven or hell. You must throw out these erroneous doctrines and receive
the righteousness of God to make peace with Him by believing in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit, spoken of by God’s righteousness.
Only this faith gives us perfect deliverance from our sins and eternal
lives.
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