“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ [is] the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:1-4).
Tolerant Calvinist: Yes, Paul. Israel is holding to doctrinal error; but is this error necessarily a damnable error? Your prayer for Israel’s salvation clearly implies that this doctrinal ignorance is a deadly ignorance. By playing judge, jury, and executioner in this winsome and idiosyncratic way, are you not making your perfect submission to Christ’s righteousness as the basis of your justification instead of Christ’s righteousness itself as the basis?
MY NOTE: These sorts of nefarious non sequiturs; of tolerant Calvinist canards; of customary abuses of logic; of traditional toying with the science of necessary inference, are commonplace. People actually do “reason” (and have “reasoned”) in precisely the manner above upon encountering a person who judges righteous judgment according to the gospel, instead of judging by reputation, appearance, religious zeal and dedication, or a false gospel. Making judgments in this manner reveals that the typical tolerant Calvinist places NO VALUE on the true gospel. Thoughtfully observe how vehemently these Calvinists defend the regeneracy of their Arminian (perhaps Open Theists too?) brothers in Satan. And then consider whether or not they have received or rejected the love of the truth; or whether or not they are not believing the truth, but taking pleasure in unrighteousness.
I am NOT equating “Calvinism” or “the five points” or “TULIP” with the true gospel of Christ. Consider the “second point” (or the “U” in TULIP) as an example: It stands for “unconditional election.” The doctrine of unconditional election IS BIBLICAL and IT IS an essential gospel doctrine that every single regenerate person without exception, believes. However, as the quote from John Owen showed us, the true doctrine of unconditional election DOES NOT involve the elect sinner being infallibly enabled to establish his own righteousness (by “grace” of course). So, in the conspicuous case of Owen we see that he held to a mere verbal form of “unconditional election” but certainly NOT to the Biblical form. Words mean things. And for John Owen, what he means by “unconditional election” and what the Bible means by these same words, are NOT the same thing.
One could run (or walk) through what is commonly called “the doctrines of grace” and perform a similar type of unpacking (e.g., how do most Calvinists or Reformed persons define “the doctrines of grace” as compared and contrasted with how the Bible defines these essential gospel doctrines of grace?)
Agrammatos 