That Can’t be the Gospel, or the Wrong People Will be Lost
Christians are ambassadors of the Lord who do not “regard anybody according to the flesh” (II Cor 5:16). According to numbers, and according to our own flesh that wants to say we were saved while still ignorant of the gospel, many should be accepted as Christians to whom the Lord will say, “I never knew you.”
You are too quick to say, if that gospel is true, all these people would be lost, therefore it must not be true. That is what the Pharisees said– the wrong people are being lost!
I John 3 says that Abel “did righteousness”. In John 3:21, Abel “did the truth”. Cain did not. Why was Cain not saved? Because he murdered? No. Cain was born condemned, and therefore all his works (not only murder) were evil. The evil works included the “sincere worship” Cain offered.
Cain could not have good works because Cain had the wrong gospel. And so Cain and Abel were not both obedient to the gospel. But some would say that, if Abel is not able to enter into worship and religious fellowship with Cain, this shows that Abel is self-righteous
Some say that God “stoops” to save even those who confess that God conditions salvation on the sinner. In other words, God not only saves idolaters (praise God for that, since I myself was an idolater when I was a lost Calvinist!), but God saves these sinners using the idolatry as the message by which God saved them and THEN LEFT THEM IN THEIR IDOLATRY.
God justifies the ungodly. God is also just. God will be glorified in the salvation of sinners, and in the damnation of the condemned who never come to know or believe the gospel
God is not stingy on God’s love to the Son: if one person for whom the Son died is lost, then God is represented as unjust. All those who believe in universal atonement are lost idolaters. God does not love His people more than His Son, because God’s love of the Son’s righteousness (His death for the elect at the cross) makes ALL the difference between saved and lost.
Sure, you may say, but you don’t have to know that to get the benefit of it. What then do you need to know?
In Galatians, Paul did not accept all who professed to be Christians as his brothers. He said: they are cursed. Those who bear fruit of the Spirit have had their flesh “crucified” for them in their conversion, when they understood that the cross was all the difference and they none of it. (Gal 5:24).
The idea that Jesus died for everybody but some will still perish appeals to the desire of the flesh to condition salvation on the sinner. Even when this flesh says “but my faith is not a work”, the flesh is deceived and deceiving, because faith in faith as the difference means ignorance of the righteousness as the difference. Romans 9:11–that the purpose of election might stand, not of works”. No “election of grace” (Romans 11:5), no grace.
In Philippians 3, Paul explained that he was lost as long as he had the righteousness to be found in the law (conditioning salvation on the sinner).
Paul did NOT say: I have always been justified since birth. He says his worship then was crap. And crap we are ashamed of … No sinner is born ashamed of being born Arminian by nature.
Romans 6:21 What fruit did you then have? NONE. …”in the things of which you are now ashamed of”.
When you became an Arminian, you were already ashamed of some things before then, and after that, maybe more. But until you are ashamed of saying that Christ’s death was for those who perish, then you are still free of the righteousness established for the elect in the death of Christ.
If I have a false gospel, then you should NOT receive me or call me your brother. (2 John 9). You can tell people with a false gospel what the gospel is without having to say that they are justified already without the gospel.
So don’t feel bad about the lack of fellowship. There could be open discussion without that, if you wanted it. I have learned that I need to continually take sides with the Scripture against myself. It is not coldness and hardness that makes me say this but a love for the gospel and a concern for you when you sound so much like the universalist I was.
No, you don’t say that all are justified But neither do you say that we judge who is justified by the gospel.
What if a person says: Christ died for all sinners, I am a sinner, and thus Christ died for me? Then what do you say: OK, you are saved, but there are some things I need to teach you about how you said that?
I say not all are justified Not all will ever be justified. The good news is that the death of Jesus actually results in the justification of all the sinners Jesus for whom died. Believe this true gospel, and you are justified It’s the only gospel there is. The Christ who died only for whose who will be justified is the only Christ there is.
Some time ago, I heard a pca preacher say–“If you believe in Jesus then Jesus will die for you also.”
How can i believe in Jesus, if i don’t know that Jesus already died for me?
Answer—Jesus already did die for sins imputed, but not all sins were
imputed to Jesus and Jesus already did not die for some sinners.
How can I believe in Jesus, if I don’t know that Jesus already died for me?
You can’t and you won’t believe the true gospel, unless Jesus died for you.
What you are commanded to believe is NOT that Jesus died for you, but that there will no justification from sins for you except by the gospel of the truth about the death of Jesus.
Those who confuse Christ’s death accomplished with this death necessarily
also at the same time being imputed are confusing Christ’s death as the righteousness with God imputing the righteousness to the elect. The
elect receive (by imputation) this obtained righteousness. But God’s
imputation of the righteousness (Christ’s death) is before the elect
are regenerated and given faith in the gospel. And this regeneration
and faith in the gospel is before God’s justification (God’s declaration not only of forgiveness but also of legal access to Christ and eventually all Christ’s blessings.)
Thus it is true that God imputed the “merit of Christ’s death” to
Abraham before Christ died. But Abraham was not justified before God until Abraham believed the gospel. The objective righteousness (the value of the death for imputed sins, the imputation of this righteousness, and the resulting justification are three different THINGS.
We don’t need to say “the merit”, because that probably leads us back
to “acts of law-keeping”. Better to say “righteousness of the
death”—-not just any righteousness, not the righteousness Adam had
before, not the righteousness God had before, but the righteousness of
Christ’s death
Many of the Reformed don’t think Christ’s death is the righteousness obtained, because they think that it’s Christ’s law-keeping that is the
righteousness. This is why they don’t care much about the extent or
the meaning of the death (except for saying “infinitely sufficient”.)
But some preachers say—“It is Christ Himself who is our righteousness. There is no objective thing out there called the righteousness of Christ, but it
is Christ Himself the person who is our righteousness
Another preacher says— “It was not enough that our sins were imputed to
him. His death on the cross was much, much more than a legal matter.” This preacher agrees that “justification “is transferred to the elect but denies that objective righteousness is transferred to the elect because “righteousness not a substance or a gas or a liquid or a solid or a THING”——
Even some of the preachers who oppose the idea that “made sin” is
about Christ’s corruption (GOD FORBID), continue to focus on the “spiritual death” of Christ and not on guilt transferred (Christ under condemnation for the sins of the elect) and not on the righteousness transferred. (Christ’s death before or later imputed).
Their view of “spiritual life” is not about a transition from condemnation to lasting legal life of the age to come , but instead on being given a “deep rooted change of heart instead of a mere mental change.
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For the Elect Alone 
August 29, 2014 at 9:13 pm
Robert Reymond, Systematic Theology, p 754—-The Protestant doctrine calls into question the salvation of millions of Christians throughout history. This group would include, we are informed, such church fathers as Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas who as sacerdotalists believed in baptismal regeneration and, because they confused justification and sanctification, believed also in the necessity of deeds of penance for salvation.
Reymond: This argument however is aimed not so much at Protestantism’s “rigidity” as it is against Paul’s insistence that there is only one gospel, and that any other “gospel” is not the gospel, that those who teach any other “gospel” stand under God’s anathema (Galatians 1:8-9), and that those who rely to any degree on their works for salvation nullify the grace of God (Romans 11:5-6), make void the cross work of Christ (Galatians 2:21, 5:2), and become debtors to keep the entire law and are under the curse of the law.
Reymond: It is neither my nor their defenders’ place to assure the Christian world that surely God justified them by faith alone even though they themselves did not hold to a faith alone view of justification. I will not speculate but I will say that our attitude should, with Paul, ever be: “Let God’s truth be inviolate, though EVERY man becomes thereby a liar. ” (Romans 3:4) The clear teaching of the Word should be upheld and we should not look for reasons to avoid it, even if the alternative would force us to conclude that these fathers–and all others like them—were not saved.
https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/reymondatone.html
August 9, 2016 at 3:13 am
God’s grace does not save Christians from dying, but after Christians are dead, then God saves them from death. First dead, then saved from death.
God’s grace does not save Christians from repenting from Arminianism. God’s grace does not say, you don’t have to believe the one and only gospel, you can believe any gospel you like. …God does not leave justified people in Arminianism. When the elect are still Arminians, they are not justified yet . God gives life to these dead elect and saves them from Arminianism. First Arminian, then justified. Not justified while still Arminian.
February 14, 2018 at 4:27 pm
Calvin–The cause of faith itself, however, they would keep buried all the time out of sight, which is this: that the children of God who are chosen to be sons are afterwards blessed with the spirit of adoption. Now, what kind of gratitude is that in me if, being endowed with so pre-eminent a benefit, I consider myself no greater a debtor than he who hath not received one hundredth part of it? Wherefore, if, to praise the goodness of God worthily, it is necessary to bear in mind how much we are indebted to Him, those are malignant towards Him and rob Him of His glory who reject and will not endure the doctrine of eternal election, which being buried out of sight…
Let those roar at us who will. We will ever brighten forth, with all our power of language, the doctrine which we hold concerning the free election of God, seeing that it is only by it that the faithful can understand how great that goodness of God is which effectually called them to salvation.
Now, if we are not really ashamed of the Gospel, we must of necessity acknowledge what is therein openly declared: that God by His eternal goodwill (for which there was no other cause than His own purpose), appointed those whom He pleased unto salvation, rejecting all the rest; and that those whom He blessed with this free adoption to be His sons He illumines by His Holy Spirit, in order to receive the life given in Christ; while others, continuing of their own will in unbelief, are left destitute of the light of faith, in total darkness.
http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/reformed-theology/predestination-election/a-treatise-of-the-eternal-predestination-of-god-by-john-calvin/
October 25, 2018 at 12:41 am
So instead of asking “do I believe in election” (which Demoss rejects as any part of the gospel), these sinners instead are to ask “do I live right enough to know that I believe” So Demoss fakes some kind of pity for us, with an hypothesis that we can’t be sure that we believe this “extra gospel” about election. But in reality, Demoss is accusing those “in the group” of not living as well as he and those in his church live.
He won’t say directly that we have a false gospel. Instead, he wonders if “we observe all the things Jesus commanded”.
Demoss is not asking if we imitate Jesus by not answering evil with
evil. Demoss is wondering about us because we have no “affiliation”
to a church (like his or the Methodists or some club where there is
accountability and dues). DEmoss explains that the gospel is “not
enough…The Shepherd does more-much more” (106). But Demoss is not talking about Jesus the Shepherd of John 10, the one who dies only for the sheep and the one whose gospel the sheep hear. Instead , when Demoss talks about the Shepherd, he is talking about “the elders of the church”. If you are not a member of a church, or if your church does not have elders, Demoss warns, then Jesus dying on the cross is not enough. How are you going to live right, if you are not a member of some church. And if you don’t live right, how are you going to know if you really believe the gospel (for the lost in the book of Acts)?
.
So instead of asking “do I believe in election” (which Demoss rejects as anypart of the gospel), these sinners instead “do I live right enough to know that I believe” So Demoss fakes some kind of condescending pity for us, with an hypothesis that we can’t be sure that we believe this “extra gospel” about election. But in reality, Demoss is accusing those “in the group” of not living as well as he and those in his church live. He won’t say directly that we have a false gospel. Instead, he wonders if “we observe all the things Jesus commanded”.
Demoss is not asking if we imitate Jesus by not answering evil with
evil. Demoss is wondering about us because we have no “affiliation”
to a church (like his or the Methodists or some club where there is
accountability and dues). DEmoss explains that the gospel is “not
enough…The Shepherd does more-much more” (106). But Demoss is not talking about Jesus the Shepherd of John 10, the one who dies only for the sheep and the one whose gospel the sheep hear. Instead , when Demoss talks about the Shepherd, he is talking about “the elders of the church”. If you are not a member of a church, or if your church does not have elders, Demoss warns, then Jesus dying on the cross is not enough. How are you going to live right, if you are not a member of some church. And if you don’t live right, how are you going to know if you really believe the gospel (for the lost in the book of Acts)?
August 5, 2019 at 3:47 am
Most Calvinists think it’s only about regeneration. They think regeneration before faith means that regeneration inevitably means moral change in us. They have nothing much to say about the atonement (the righteousness, the reconciliation)
here’s an example –“I would go so far as to argue that most of us are born-again as Arminians, utterly convinced that faith was our contribution to our own salvation, blissfully unaware that faith is actually God’s contribution to our salvation And yet, it is my conviction, that few who believe the source of faith is their own heart who would actually attribute it as a meritious “work.” Arminianism can be heresy when it is taken to its foregone (logical) conclusions as it often is. It does not have to be taken to its logical conclusions (people are inconsistent, by our very nature) and when it represents a misunderstanding of the order of regeneration and faith.
August 29, 2019 at 1:32 am
Robert Reymond, Systematic Theology, p 754—-The Protestant doctrine calls into question the salvation of millions of Christians throughout history. This group would include, we are informed, such church fathers as Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas who as sacerdotalists believed in baptismal regeneration and, because they confused justification and sanctification, believed also in the necessity of deeds of penance for salvation.
Reymond: This argument however is aimed not so much at Protestantism’s “rigidity” as it is against Paul’s insistence that there is only one gospel, and that any other “gospel” is not the gospel, that those who teach any other “gospel” stand under God’s anathema (Galatians 1:8-9), and that those who rely to any degree on their works for salvation nullify the grace of God (Romans 11:5-6), make void the cross work of Christ (Galatians 2:21, 5:2), and become debtors to keep the entire law and are under the curse of the law.
Reymond: It is neither my nor their defenders’ place to assure the Christian world that surely God justified them by faith alone even though they themselves did not hold to a faith alone view of justification. I will not speculate but I will say that our attitude should, with Paul, ever be: “Let God’s truth be inviolate, though EVERY man becomes thereby a liar. ” (Romans 3:4) The clear teaching of the Word should be upheld and we should not look for reasons to avoid it, even if the alternative would force us to conclude that these fathers–and all others like them—were not saved.
https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/reymondatone.html
Ten Lines of Evidence for Particular Redemption