# Modern Moderate Calvinism



## AV1611 (Nov 19, 2006)

This is a must read: http://www.epc.org.au/literature/mod-cal.html



taken from the introducation said:


> Modified or moderated Calvinism as the term implies seeks to modify the terms of the Calvinism of the Reformers and Puritans, while at the same time attempting to maintain itself, until exposed, within the ranks of those who subscribe to the orthodox confessions of the Church, such as the Westminster Confession. Of this the article of Professors Murray and Stonehouse is a classic example. Its root principle is so plain that it is liable to be overlooked in all the controversy and debate which arises from it. It is simply the assertion that there are two desires and wills in God. The following is a clear statement made by the Professors, "We have found that God himself expresses an ardent desire for the fulfilment of certain things which He has not decreed in His inscrutable counsel to come to pass. This means that there is a will to the realisation of what He has not decretively willed, a pleasure towards that which He has not been pleased to decree." No one can deny, not even the Professors, what this is a clear statement that there is a duplicity of desire and will in God. In the same paragraph the Professors write, "We should not entertain, however, any prejudice against the notion that God desires or has pleasure in the accomplishment of what he does not decretively will." By the device of running to a mystery, they cling to the former and advance their doctrine on a duplicity of desire and will in God.


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## AV1611 (Nov 19, 2006)

trevorjohnson said:


> Does God delight in the death of the wicked? If so, how?



Of course he does. God was pleased to reprobate a part of humanity before the foundation of the world to show forth his power.




trevorjohnson said:


> Did Christ desire to gather Jerusalem like a hen would gather her chicks? If not, how?



*Regarding Matthew 23:37:* Does this verse show that God desires to save all those who hear the preaching of the gospel? In this verse Jesus Christ is rebuking a stubborn and rebellious nation and I agree with Calvin that it “is expressive of indignation rather than compassion.” Just look at the context of the verse! Earlier in the chapter we read of Christ denouncement: “woe unto you”, “fools and blind”, “blind guides”, “Ye serpents, generation of vipers”, and then immediately after verse 37 we read the declaration of judgment upon Jerusalem “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Chapter 24 is the Olivet discourse which foretells of the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem. As is plain, the context of the verse is such that I say it must be a rebuke, a summary of the charge against Jerusalem. Calvin correctly points out how “we must…observe the vehemence of the discourse.” God sent prophet after prophet to the nation of Israel and what did they do? They killed them, they stoned them to death. This obstinacy was the result of the natural man to the word of God. Yes God is willing to save all who repent yet the intent of this phrase here serves to highlight the stubbornness, their haughty distain, their inexcusable ingratitude towards God’s constant and interrupted advances to them through the prophets. So the verse ends “ye would not”, it was not that God did not make it known what they must do but rather their damnation lied at their own door. So I say that this verse shows not that God desires the salvation of all who hear the gospel but rather it teaches the justness of God in punishing unbelief and the context teaches that this verse is an indignant rebuke of a rebellious stiff-necked people.

In his Institutes of the Christian Religion Book 3, Chapter 24, Parts 8, 12 and 13 John Calvin taught that God was not gracious to all in the preaching of the gospel. The following are some quotes:
1.	"BUT that the subject may be more fully illustrated, we must treat both of the calling of the elect, and of the blinding and hardening of the ungodly."
2.	"The expression of our Savior, "Many are called, but few are chosen," (Mt. 22:14), is also very improperly interpreted (see Book 3, chap. 2, sec. 11, 12). There will be no ambiguity in it, if we attend to what our former remarks ought to have made clear--viz. that there are two species of calling: for there is an universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death, and the ground of a severer condemnation."
3.	"As the Lord by the efficacy of his calling accomplishes towards his elect the salvation to which he had by his eternal counsel destined them, so he has judgments against the reprobate, by which he executes his counsel concerning them. Those, therefore, whom he has created for dishonor during life and destruction at death, that they may be vessels of wrath and examples of severity, in bringing to their doom, he at one time deprives of the means of hearing his word, at another by the preaching of it blinds and stupefies them the more."
4.	"Nor can it be questioned, that God sends his word to many whose blindness he is pleased to aggravate. For why does he order so many messages to be taken to Pharaoh? Was it because he hoped that he might be softened by the repetition? Nay, before he began he both knew and had foretold the result: "The Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he will not let the people go," (Exod. 4:21). So when he raises up Ezekiel, he forewarns him, "I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me." "Be not afraid of their words." "Thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which has eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not," (Ezek. 2:3, 6; 12:2). Thus he foretells to Jeremiah that the effect of his doctrine would be, "to root out, and pull down, and to destroy," (Jer. 1:10). But the prophecy of Isaiah presses still more closely; for he is thus commissioned by the Lord, "Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not, and see ye indeed but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed," (Isa. 6:9, 10). Here he directs his voice to them, but it is that they may turn a deafer ear; he kindles a light, but it is that they may become more blind; he produces a doctrine, but it is that they may be more stupid; he employs a remedy, but it is that they may not be cured. And John, referring to this prophecy, declares that the Jews could not believe the doctrine of Christ, because this curse from God lay upon them. It is also incontrovertible, that to those whom God is not pleased to illumine, he delivers his doctrine wrapt up in enigmas, so that they may not profit by it, but be given over to greater blindness. Hence our Savior declares that the parables in which he had spoken to the multitude he expounded to the Apostles only, "because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given," (Mt. 13:11). What, you will ask, does our Lord mean, by teaching those by whom he is careful not to be understood? Consider where the fault lies, and then cease to ask. How obscure soever the word may be, there is always sufficient light in it to convince the consciences of the ungodly."


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## PresReformed (Nov 19, 2006)




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## Puritan Sailor (Nov 19, 2006)

So when God says "Thou shalt not commit adultery" is it His will that men should not commit adultery? Yet men do commit adultery. They could not have done so apart from His decree. Is he then pleased with adulterers for fulfilling His decree?


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## AV1611 (Nov 19, 2006)

Puritan Sailor said:


> So when God says "Thou shalt not commit adultery" is it His will that men should not commit adultery? Yet men do commit adultery. They could not have done so apart from His decree. Is he then pleased with adulterers for fulfilling His decree?



God has a revealled will or will of command and a secret will or will of decree. So when men commit the adultery he has decreed he is pleased yes yet he is angry at them for their sin.


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## Puritan Sailor (Nov 19, 2006)

AV1611 said:


> God has a revealled will or will of command and a secret will or will of decree. So when men commit the adultery he has decreed he is pleased yes yet he is angry at them for their sin.



Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly. You believe that a holy God is pleased with sin?


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## Scott Bushey (Nov 19, 2006)

I may be wrong but I don't believe God feels anything in regards to when His decrees come to pass.


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## C. Matthew McMahon (Nov 19, 2006)

Scott Bushey said:


> I may be wrong but I don't believe God feels anything in regards to when His decrees come to pass.


 
Impassability.


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## AV1611 (Nov 20, 2006)

Puritan Sailor said:


> Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly. You believe that a holy God is pleased with sin?



I think this issue is one of the hardest to explore. God is sovereign and is "him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will" (Eph 1:11) which obviously means that God has willed sin. Did God desire the death of Christ? Yes however "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:" (Acts 2:23).

Think also about the gospel. God commands all men everywhere to repent and believe and yet he has not decreed everyone to be saved, but more, he has decreed to use the gospel command and call as a means of hardening and condeming those he has not decreed to save!

Further:

*A. *1 Kings 22:19-22 "And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so."

*B. * Isaiah 63:17 "O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance."

I must agree with Hoeksema when he states "Surely, the Scriptures teach very plainly that the Lord, although he certainly is not the author of sin, nevertheless controls absolutely all the wicked deeds of sinful men." (_Reformed Dogmatics_, pp331)

These are indeed high mysteries!

Here is John Gill:



> 5d5b2. There are the evils of fault, or sinful actions, from which the providence of God is not to be excluded. This is the greatest difficulty to be met with in the article of providence, how it should have a concern with sinful actions, or with actions to which sin is annexed, as some choose to express themselves. There are two things to be set down for certain and eternal truths, whether we are capable of reconciling them to our own satisfaction and that of others, or not; the one is, that God is not and cannot be the author of sin; the other is, that the providence of God has a concern with and in all sinful actions in some sense or another: that God is not the author of sin is most certain, there is nothing sinful in his nature;[36] Plato[37] says of good things there is no other cause, but of evil things we must seek for any other cause but God: he is without iniquity, is of unspotted purity and holiness; there is nothing but good in him, and therefore nothing sinful can come from him, nor be done by him; he takes no pleasure in sin, nor in those that do it, which the authors of sin do; he cannot look upon it with approbation and delight, it is abominable and hateful to him; for he has not only forbidden it by his law, but is the avenger of it; indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, come from him on every soul that does evil; wherefore "let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God" (Jam. 1:13), and on the other hand, to exclude the providence of God from all concern in the sinful actions of men, is contrary to the independency of God, in whom all live and move and have their being, and of whom, through whom, and to whom all things are: creatures depend upon God, as in their being so in their operation, or they would be in action independent of him, and so there would be other independents besides him; moreover to exempt the providence of God from all concern in sinful actions, or in actions to which sin is annexed, would be to banish providence, in a good measure, out of the world; for, comparatively speaking, what is done in the world but what is sinful? for these are the all, or the chief things in the world; "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). Let the following things be observed for the settling of this point, and the removing of the above difficulty,
> 
> 5d5b2a. That God supports men in their being, while they are sinning. This is certain; he upholds them in life, his visitation preserves their spirits; was he to withdraw his power and providence from them, they would cease to be, and become incapable of action; but this he does not; he could have struck Ananias and Sapphira dead, before they committed the sin they did, and so have prevented it; but he did not; but when they had committed it, then he did it.
> 
> ...



http://www.pbministries.org/books/gill/Doctrinal_Divinity/Book_3/book3_04.htm


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