10-GOD'S COMPASSION
Chapter Nine God’s Compassion
Calvinism teaches that the people whom God has not chosen for Himself have absolutely no chance for redemption. Their destiny is eternal punishment in hell. Yet the Bible documents numerous instances showing God’s compassion for the lost. He pleads with them and reasons with them to come to Him, and laments when they reject Him. Here are some poignant examples:
PLEADING
5 Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?
6 Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.
8 The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.
9 Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children’s children will I plead.
Ezekiel 20:35-36; Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 43:1-27; Ezekiel 44:1-31 35 And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.
36 Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord GOD.
38 And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
43 And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed.
44 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought (labored) with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.
REASONING
Isaiah 1:16-20 16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
LAMENTING FOR THE LOST Ezekiel 33:10-11
10 Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?
11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Jeremiah 4:14; Jeremiah 19:1-15; Jeremiah 20:1-18 (These are God’s words)
14 O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?
19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
20 Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.
Notice the highlighted statements. These are not the words of a God who chooses who will be saved, passing over and disregarding the rest. We need to take special note of the passage in Jeremiah four. Notice the pain it causes God when He must judge the people He loves. My bowels, My bowels: This is a touching description of how God was feeling at the sound of the approaching judgment on Israel by the Chaldeans. The word bowels here is the Hebrew word mê‛eh. It is a plural word that refers to the internal organs. In order to get the full meaning here, try to remember the feeling deep in your gut when you received some very bad news, or when a death happened in your family. That terrible feeling seemed to control your whole being, and you could think of nothing else because of your deep grief. This is what God was feeling when it became necessary to judge His people through the Babylonian overthrow of Israel, and the resulting captivity. I believe God feels the same way when He must cast an unbeliever into eternal punishment (Ezekiel 33:11 - above). Now according to Calvinism, the judgment of the lost is governed by God’s eternal decree, and God chooses who will be redeemed and who will be damned. But if this is true, why would we see God grieving like we do in Jeremiah four?? He wouldn’t, this record shows us that God will do everything possible to redeem the lost, and it grieves Him when He must condemn the unbeliever. Someone may say that all these scriptural examples given are from the Old Testament and apply only to Israel, but I will remind you that the Bible tells us that things that happened in the Old testament are examples for us (1 Corinthians 10:11). The phrase "as it is written", refers to Old Testaments events 34 times in the New Testament. Furthermore, we have a very touching example of how Jesus feels when He is rejected by unbelievers:
Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
These passages do not portray an angry God who chooses a few to be saved and callously allows the rest of humananity to go off into perdition. No no, the scriptures show us a merciful God, one who pleads with sinners to accept His plan of salvation, one who is full of sorrow at the rejection of those to whom He offers His gift of salvation. God’s love is boundless! His longsuffering for sinners is beyond measure! His grace is sufficient for all, and the only hinderance to His benefits is unbelief. We have now considered five arguments which refute the teachings of Calvinistic Soteriology and have reached the following conclusions:
1. Election and predestination unto salvation are based on God’s foreknowledge of who will believe and who will not.
2. Jesus atonement on the cross paid the penalty for the sins of the whole world, making it possible for God to offer redemption to anyone who will only believe.
3. God has given all people the internal influence of conscience and the external influence of the Holy Spirit, as well as the free will to accept or reject God’s gift of salvation.
4. God utilizes many methods to draw people to Himself as we saw in chapter eight, but God’s grace is not an irrestible force, it is a loving invitation to come to Christ and be saved.
5. The examples of God’s compassion for the lost, His pleading with them to come to Him, and His grief when people reject Him are not a picture of a God who chooses a few to be saved and disregards the rest.
I Hope that these five arguments are anough to convince you that the Tulip of Calvinism does not give us an accurate representation of God’s plan of salvation. God loves us much more than we can imagine, so much so that He was willing to pour out His wrath against sin on His own Son while He hung there on the cross of Calvary! He did that so we can escape the judgment of sin by trusting in Jesus as Savior. This is the God of the Bible! This is the God on whom we can depend! This is not the God portrayed by Calvinism. Turn your eyes upon the God of the Scriptures, and reject the false representation of the Spurious Tulip!