Hebrews 3:1
Hebrews 3:1 (see also Luke 8:13)
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
Question: What does it mean to be “partakers of a heavenly calling”?
Answer: Notice the similarity with Hebrews 6:4-6, which states: “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”
It would seem that being “partakers of a heavenly calling” (Hebrews 3:1), is akin to being “partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Hebrews 6:4), which is akin to being “partakers of Christ.” (Hebrews 3:14)
Hebrews 3:12-14: “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.”
Hebrews 6:4-6: “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”
In my estimation, I see the parable of the Sower in these words. (Refer to Luke 8:13.) Those who are called in this sense, that is, those who have been called to live *in* Christ, can and have “fallen away.”
John Calvin comments on Hebrews 6:4-6: “...God certainly bestows His Spirit of regeneration only on the elect, and that they are distinguished from the reprobate in the fact that they are re-made in His image, and they receive the earnest of the Spirit in the hope of an inheritance to come, and by the same Spirit the Gospel is sealed in their hearts. But I do not see that this is any reason why He should not touch the reprobate with a taste of His grace, or illumine their minds with some glimmerings of His light, or affect them with some sense of His goodness, or to some extent engrave His Word in their hearts. Otherwise where would be that passing faith which Marks mentions (4.17)? Therefore there is some knowledge in the reprobate, which later vanishes away either because it drivers its roots less deep than it ought to, or because it is choked and withers away.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Hebrews and I and II Peter, p.76, emphasis mine)
By invoking “regeneration,” Calvin infers that the “heavenly calling” of the “holy brethren” is the Irresistible Grace of regeneration, bestowed upon unbelieving elect persons to become believers. However, in referring to “holy brethren,” it seems inappropriate that it would mean unbelievers, since according to John 3:18, unbelievers are not designated as holy but as condemned and judged. The other matter concerns the “calling” itself. Unbelievers may indeed be “called” or invited to salvation, but it is also true that believing Christians (who the Bible does call “holy,” as per 1st Peter 2:9), receive specific callings relative to their God-assigned roles within the Body of Christ. For instance, Christians often desire to want to know “what their calling is,” in reference to what God has in store for them as Christians. For some, their calling is into the mission field or into into the ministry in one capacity or another. But neither of these things refer to what unbelievers receive, but of what believers receive, and that’s the distinction. Apparently, Calvin does not recognize the calling of Christians.
Question: How can a Calvinist have any sense of security, if the possibility exists that they might have merely been given a “taste” of grace, or just “glimmerings” of light?
These words are echoed by Calvin elsewhere, when he states:
John Calvin: “Let no one think that those [who] fall away...were of the predestined, called according to the purpose and truly sons of the promise. For those who appear to live piously may be called sons of God; but since they will eventually live impiously and die in that impiety, God does call them sons in His foreknowledge. There are sons of God who do not yet appear so to us, but now do so to God; and there are those who, on account of some arrogated or temporal grace, are called so by us, but are not so to God.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.66, emphasis mine)
John Calvin: “Yet sometimes he also causes those whom he illumines only for a time to partake of it; then he justly forsakes them on account of their ungratefulness and strikes them with even greater blindness.” (Institutes of Christian Religion, 3.24.8, emphasis mine)
Therefore, by “some arrogated or temporal grace,” God “illumines only for a time” the alleged non-elect in order to overcome his Total Inability and thus temporarily think that he was “of the predestined.” Realize that Calvin taught the doctrine of Temporal Grace because he needed to patch a hole in his theology, such as how to explain passages such as Luke 8:13, in terms of how someone who is totally unable to believe could believe, and then later turn away, or Matthew 7:21-23, where the perishing, that is, those who are being condemned to Hell, had performed miraculous things that spiritually dead people are not supposed to be able to do, according to the Calvinistic doctrine of Total Inability. Calvin’s answer for such instances was a temporary grace.
John Calvin: “Whoever has sinned, I shall delete him from the book of life. … But the meaning is simple: those are deleted from the book of life who, considered for a time to be children of God, afterwards depart to their own place, as Peter truly says about Judas (Acts 1:16). But John testifies that these never were of us (1 Jn 2:19), for if they had been, they would not have gone out from us. What John expresses briefly is set forth in more detail by Ezekiel (13:9): They will not be in the secret of My people, nor written in the catalogue of Israel. The same solution applies to Moses and Paul, desiring to be deleted from the book of life (Ex 32:32; Rom 9:3): carried away with the vehemence of their grief, they prefer to perish, if possible, rather than that the Church of God, numerous as it then was, should perish. When Christ bids His disciples rejoice because their names are written in heaven (Lk 10:20), He signifies a perpetual blessing of which they will never be deprived. In a word, Christ clearly and briefly reconciles both meanings, when He says: Every tree which My Father has not planted will be rooted up (Mt 15:13). For even the reprobate take root in appearance, and yet they are not planted by the hand of God.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.151-152, emphasis mine)
“Not planted by the hand of God,” is strange since Calvin also espoused an immutable “decree” of Absolute Determinism.
