Cruelty is Inherent in Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God and His Gospel

Calvinists firmly follow Calvin, who said of God, "for, (as he hates sin) he can only love those whom he justifies [i.e., the elect]." Gerstner argues that if John 3.16 "is supposed to teach that God so loved everyone in the world that He gave His only son to provide them an opportunity to be saved by faith...such love on God's part...would be a refinement of cruelty.... Offering a gift of life to a spiritual corpse, a brilliant sunset to a blind man, and a reward to a legless cripple if only he will come and get it, are horrible mockeries."

We agree that it would be cruel mockery to offer salvation to those whom God had no intention of saving and would not help to respond to the offer. But who says that all mankind cannot respond, if they so desire? Not the Bible, which offers salvation to "whosoever will," but Calvinism, which effectively changes "whosoever" into "elect"! So this "cruelty" is imposed by Calvinism itself, beginning with the very first of its five commandments. Yet "moderates," blaming all on "hyper-Calvinists," claim to believe that Go sincerely loves and offers salvation to all, while in the same breath they say Christ did not die for all."

By defining "total depravity" as "total inability," Calvinism says that none can respond to the gospel, not even the elect, until they have been sovereignly regenerated. Yet Christ commanded the the gospel to be preached to everyone-and no one warns the non-elect that it isn't for them. Of course, how could they be warned, since no one knows who they are? So Christ commanded "cruelty and mockery"? And the Calvinist engages in it each time he preaches the gospel!

We preach salvation to those already predestined to eternal damnation? "We must," says the Calvinist, "because no one knows who are the elect." So there is no escaping the fact that if Calvinism is true, then it is a cruel mockery to preach the gospel to anyone except the elect-but there is no way to identify them.

Would it lessen the non-elect's pain for the evangelist to explain, "This good news is only for the elect, so disregard it if you are not among them"? No, that would only add to the confusion. The cruelty is inherent in Calvinism's misrepresentation of God and His gospel.

Hodges rightly states,

The cruelty implicit in such a view [of calvinism] is obvious to any observer outside of those who have been brought up in, or have bought into, this kind of theology. Despite specious arguments addressed to every text alleged against such theology, determinists of this type are bereft of true biblical support. It is absurd, for example, to claim (as they sometimes do) that when the Bible says, "God so loved the world," it means only the "world of the elect."

Palmer adds,

It was just because God so loved the world [of elect sinners] that He sent His only begotten Son that the world [i.e., the elect by Calvinist definition] might saved (John 3.16,17).

Reassigning clear key words to mean something else which is restrictive and arbitrarily imposed is very disturbing.

In maintaining Limited Atonement, the Calvinist reasons, "If Christ paid the debt of sin, has saved, ransomed, given His life for all men, then all men will be saved."

But, we know not everybody is saved, so by Jesus dying on the cross for all men, either some people are not saved because of their own free will or they are not saved because God never gave them the opportunity to be saved. If the latter is true, you would need to explain why a loving God would not give them the opportunity to be saved even though He pleads with all to be saved and dies for all? Is His blood not effective for all? Why would He waste His blood in dying for all when He does not provide all access to the blood? These are blatant contradictions in Calvinism.

"Christ "taste[d] death for every man" (Heb. 2.9). Sinners are invited and urged to come to Christ and believe in Him. Such is the sinner's responsibility-something he "must...do to be saved" (Acts 16.30).

That Christ died for our sins is the message preached in the gospel, but it must be believed to be of benefit to the sinner. Christ's death, though offered to "all men," is only efficacious for those who believe: He is "the Savior of all men, specially of those who who believe" (1 Tim. 4.10). If there was a gospel with a message of not dying for all our sins, then this is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but a false Christ.

Vance points out, "If the nature of the atonement was such that it actually in and of itself provided salvation for those whom it was intended, then the 'elect' could never have been born 'dead in trespasses and sins' (Eph. 2.10). And consequently, how could men who were saved, redeemed, reconciled, and justified be 'by nature children of wrath' (Eph. 2.3)...?"

Paul writes that salvation comes "unto all...that believe...for all have sinned" (Rom. 3.22-23). Surely the "all have sinned" means all mankind. Thus the "all...that believe" must mean that all mankind may believe on Christ, if they will.