Luke 11:52
Luke 11:52 (see also 1st Thessalonians 2:16)
“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”
Matthew 23:13
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”
Question: How would you be able to “hinder” or “shut off” someone who is unconditionally elected to salvation with an irresistible grace?
Calvinist, William MacDonald: “And they hindered others from coming to Christ. They didn’t want Him themselves, and they didn’t want others to receive Him.” (Believer’s Bible Commentary, pp.1416-1417, emphasis mine)
If Calvinism was true, what difference would it make if the Pharisees and Lawyers didn’t want others to become Christians? How would they have any power whatsoever, not just to stop, but even to slightly hinder unilateral Irresistible Grace? The only answer from Calvinism that could make any sense is that they were merely being a nuisance, but in no way actually being successful in hindering even one person among Calvinism’s secret elect.
John Calvin: “Just so in these days we are driven to thunder out our denunciations of the papal clergy precisely in order that those not entirely reprobate, but still ready to learn, may take thought for salvation, and shaken by the judgment of God may break the fatal noose of superstition that holds them captive.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Vol.III, James and Jude, p.52, emphasis mine)
According to Calvinists, how is the alleged “dead man,” the alleged “spiritual corpse,” being “not entirely reprobate,” at the same time able to “take thought for salvation,” and “break the fatal noose”? According to Calvinists, the only way to do this is if they have an Irresistible Grace. Calvinists trip over their own theology, when trying to comment on the Bible. If there are people who are “not entirely reprobate,” then what did he mean elsewhere when he stated: “Those therefore whom God passes by he reprobates....” (Institutes 3:23:1, emphasis mine) If they were not entirely reprobate, does that mean that they were potentially elect?
John Calvin: “Even so today heaven is locked in the face of the poor people under the Papacy while the door keepers (at least those who are entrusted with the responsibility) use their tyrannical power to keep it shut.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Vol. III, James and Jude, p.53, emphasis mine)
According to the eternal decrees of Calvinism, who has locked heaven’s door by “their tyrannical power to keep it shut”? According to Calvinism, it is God who allegedly has “...committed himself to save a certain number....” (The Doctrines That Divide, p.213, emphasis mine)
John Calvin: “...God has chosen to salvation those whom He pleased, and has rejected the others, without our knowing why, except that its reason is hidden in His eternal counsel.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.53, emphasis mine)
John Calvin: “Those therefore whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children.” (Institutes, Book 3, Chapter 23, Section 1, emphasis mine)
John Calvin: “All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.” (Institutes of Christian Religion: Book 3, Chapter 21, Section 5, emphasis mine)
This is why Calvin’s explanation seems to be double-talk.
Calvinism: Figures of speech, nothing more. The Pharisees and Lawyers didn’t actually hinder any elect person from becoming saved, or lock any door to heaven, but merely made the sons of hell to become twice the sons of hell, nothing more.
Arminianism: People who could have been saved, and very well might have been saved, were swayed by the Pharisees and Lawyers, and ultimately perished.
Decide for yourself which of these two teachings is more representative of what the Bible actually says.
