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Frank Turk says, 'The offer is real'
by Antonio da Rosa
Frank Turk says in a post on Pyromaniacs The Inconsistency and Contradictions of Calvinist Gospel Preaching [Note: this is my name of his clever post]:
"The offer is real"
(Speaking about the Gospel offer to all)
What is the offer, Frank?
How is it real?
John Calvin:
“Paul teaches us that the ruin of the wicked is not only foreseen by the Lord, but also ordained by his counsel and his will... not only the destruction of the wicked is foreknown, but that the wicked themselves have been created for this very end -- that they may perish” (Commentaries Romans 9:18)
“... he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction...God ... arranges and disposes of them at his pleasure... all events take place by his sovereign appointment” (Institutes III, xxiii, 6)
What is an offer?
My dictionary gives this as a definition of the verb:
"to present for acceptance or rejection"
What is 'real'?
My dictionary gives this:
"true; not merely ostensible, nominal, or apparent"
Is the Calvinist 'gospel' a real offer for everyone?
I would argue that it is a real offer to not a single soul (note the use of that word soul, denoting the temporal person).
There is no 'real' offer to the reprobate:
Christ did not die for him. God chose him for hell.
What can be offered him? How is your Calvinist message a 'real offer' to him?
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone that you have no intention of making good?
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone who cannot hear or understand your offer?
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone who cannot legitimately respond affirmatively to it?
And the hardest to answer for the Calvinist:
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone in whom you have made NO PROVISION WHATSOEVER FOR THEM CONCERNING THE OBJECT YOU ARE SUPPOSEDLY OFFERING?
According to Calvinism, Christ did not die for the reprobate. He did not provide the gift for them. How can eternal life and reconciliation "REAL"-ly be offered to them when it isn't Christ's to give to them? (Because Christ did not purchase the gift for them)
How can it be a "REAL" offer when you do not have the item for that person?
Only in the realm of that fantastical deductionistic theological framework called "Calvinism" could one attempt to say with a straight face that a 'real offer' is given to the reprobate.
Does God wish to give a 'real offer' to those who are 'doomed from the womb' unto destruction, apart from any consideration of them whatsoever? There is no offer to the reprobate. His fate was sealed in the counsels of God's all-encompassing decree.
There is no 'real' offer to the elect:
The elect have salvation sovereignly imposed upon them. They are deaf, dead, and blind until God sovereignly imposes His 'grace' upon them, regenerating them.
Were they offered anything? They didn't even have ears to hear!
By the time they can hear, they don't have a choice, in that they, apart from any desire whatsoever (actually they desired to stay in their sins and rebel against God, right?) they were regenerated.
No offer here. Just the whim of a God who thinks he will be glorified by creating people in order to populate hell and heaven.
Imagine the glory God receives, Frank:
To God be the glory for creating a sub-division of humanity He made for the express purpose and pleasure of torturing in hell forever!
Such a notion inspires praise on MY lips (I hope you sense the sarcasm).
Antonio da Rosa
Frank Turk says in a post on Pyromaniacs The Inconsistency and Contradictions of Calvinist Gospel Preaching [Note: this is my name of his clever post]:
"The offer is real"
(Speaking about the Gospel offer to all)
What is the offer, Frank?
How is it real?
John Calvin:
“Paul teaches us that the ruin of the wicked is not only foreseen by the Lord, but also ordained by his counsel and his will... not only the destruction of the wicked is foreknown, but that the wicked themselves have been created for this very end -- that they may perish” (Commentaries Romans 9:18)
“... he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction...God ... arranges and disposes of them at his pleasure... all events take place by his sovereign appointment” (Institutes III, xxiii, 6)
What is an offer?
My dictionary gives this as a definition of the verb:
"to present for acceptance or rejection"
What is 'real'?
My dictionary gives this:
"true; not merely ostensible, nominal, or apparent"
Is the Calvinist 'gospel' a real offer for everyone?
I would argue that it is a real offer to not a single soul (note the use of that word soul, denoting the temporal person).
There is no 'real' offer to the reprobate:
Christ did not die for him. God chose him for hell.
What can be offered him? How is your Calvinist message a 'real offer' to him?
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone that you have no intention of making good?
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone who cannot hear or understand your offer?
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone who cannot legitimately respond affirmatively to it?
And the hardest to answer for the Calvinist:
How can you "REAL"-ly offer something to someone in whom you have made NO PROVISION WHATSOEVER FOR THEM CONCERNING THE OBJECT YOU ARE SUPPOSEDLY OFFERING?
According to Calvinism, Christ did not die for the reprobate. He did not provide the gift for them. How can eternal life and reconciliation "REAL"-ly be offered to them when it isn't Christ's to give to them? (Because Christ did not purchase the gift for them)
How can it be a "REAL" offer when you do not have the item for that person?
Only in the realm of that fantastical deductionistic theological framework called "Calvinism" could one attempt to say with a straight face that a 'real offer' is given to the reprobate.
Does God wish to give a 'real offer' to those who are 'doomed from the womb' unto destruction, apart from any consideration of them whatsoever? There is no offer to the reprobate. His fate was sealed in the counsels of God's all-encompassing decree.
There is no 'real' offer to the elect:
The elect have salvation sovereignly imposed upon them. They are deaf, dead, and blind until God sovereignly imposes His 'grace' upon them, regenerating them.
Were they offered anything? They didn't even have ears to hear!
By the time they can hear, they don't have a choice, in that they, apart from any desire whatsoever (actually they desired to stay in their sins and rebel against God, right?) they were regenerated.
No offer here. Just the whim of a God who thinks he will be glorified by creating people in order to populate hell and heaven.
Imagine the glory God receives, Frank:
To God be the glory for creating a sub-division of humanity He made for the express purpose and pleasure of torturing in hell forever!
Such a notion inspires praise on MY lips (I hope you sense the sarcasm).
Antonio da Rosa
posted by Antonio at 5:37 PM
9 Comments:
As I have understood Scripture, the gospel message is 'if you believe, you will not perish'. I mean this is made evident quite blatantly in John 3:16, John says, 'those that believe, will not perish'. So, we are to go into the world and tell the goodnews, that 'if you believe, you will not perish'.
That is the command we are given to tell. God says, 'Adam, Antonio, go to everyone you meet and tell them 'if you believe, you will not die'. Go tell them that.
But Antonio raises his hand and says, 'God, who can believe or who cannot? Surely everyone can believe'. God responds, 'Antonio, Antonio, that doesn't matter, just go do what I told you to do'.
That is it Antonio, we are told to go tell the good news that 'if you believe, you will not die'. Who can or cannot believe, or whether everyone can or cannot believe is entirely up to God and between Him and the person.
Don't meddle in the affairs of God, it is not your place.
By
Anonymous, at Sunday, January 07, 2007 8:28:00 PM
Antonio,
given the "Reformed" suppositions on election/reprobation--would you say that "they" are asserting that "they" know who are "elect" and who are reprobate? It seems like that's what you're articulating.
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 08, 2007 12:02:00 AM
I am glad to see a fresh post here.
Interestingly, I was intrigued to find that Michael Williams of Covenant Theological Semainary criticises Chafer for teaching that the Kingdom was genuinely offered to Israel, even though it was determined that they would reject it. It seems to me that Chafer was only following the logic of Calvinism (perhaps through his own Presbyterian background). Michael Williams seems to accept the 'Arminian logic that an offer must be capable of being rejected or accepted.
Every Blessing in Christ
Matthew
By
Matthew Celestine, at Monday, January 08, 2007 12:50:00 AM
The bottom line is this:
is is a "real" offer or not?
The fact that Calvinists believe in Limited Atonement would preclude it from being a "real" offer to all.
You cannot offer to someone something that is not theirs.
Lets not equivocate.
There is a difference between saying we must preach that man must believe, and saying that there is a legitimate, "real" offer for all.
There is no real offer for all.
Actually, there is no real offer for any, as the post asserts.
To the one who is reprobate, there is no offer to him.
What is Christ through the evangelist offering the reprobate? There is no gift for the reprobate. How can it be offered to him? How can the offer be real when it is nothing but empty?
Look at the inconsistency that is brought upon the name and majesty of God when Calvinists play these little games.
They are supposing that Christ has commissioned them to give a "real" offer to people who do not qualify for that offer, as per God's design for the Atonement. What kind of travesty is that? And who would do such a thing?
The bottom line, in all rationality and logic, is that if the Calvinist doctrine is correct, there is no "real" offer to either the reprobate or to the elect.
The elect do not have ears to hear, eyes to see, and are dead. They cannot respond to any spiritual offer whatsoever. They do not even have a choice. They will be sovereignly imposed upon. An offer stipulates a choice. The elect cannot choose to be reprobate.
The Calvinist says that the offer to the reprobate is "real"? In what sense is it real? There is nothing that can be offered to him. Salvation is not his. Christ did not die for him. The gift of God which is eternal life was not purchased for him, therefore cannot be offered to him.
The reasoning I produce in this comment is irrefutable.
Calvinist:
Answer me this:
How can you "REALL"-ly offer a gift to someone when there has been no provision made to secure that gift for that person?
Antonio
By
Antonio, at Monday, January 08, 2007 11:24:00 AM
Hey Matthew,
That line of reasoning, from the dispensationalists, has always bothered me. I don't have a good answer to it.
But the difference is that provision for the kingdom was made and that the offer was real in that national Israel could have repented and received Christ as their Messiah.
For the reprobate, provision for eternal life has not been made on their behalf, and any offer of such is fraudulent.
Antonio
By
Antonio, at Monday, January 08, 2007 11:28:00 AM
Yeah, much of the Calvinist thought on the external call and internal seems to be nothing more than existential glaze relative to the Bible's constant admonition to choose or reject God's way.
Antonio, do you think in order for a choice to be real, that the agent choosing must be autonomous in their ability to choose? In other words does God play any role in "causing" a person to choose or reject Him; or does your defintion of "freedom" require that a person inherently by nature has deliberative power to choose to believe or not on their own?
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 08, 2007 12:51:00 PM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By
Gojira, at Monday, January 08, 2007 4:48:00 PM
Great Post. It's very clear to me that they have "accelerated" (as Brian has called it) the Biblical concept of election.
By
Unknown, at Monday, January 08, 2007 5:04:00 PM
Antonio-
Interestingly enough, the idea that there is no 'offer' to either the elect or the reprobate was exactly the reasoning that John Gill used to reject the term 'offer'. Of course, he still wasn't a traditional hypercalvinist because he still believed in the indiscriminate preaching of the Gospel to all; he just spoke of it in terms of command rather than offer.
Really has nothing to do with the post. Just sparked a thought.
By
Chuck, at Tuesday, February 13, 2007 4:03:00 AM
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