Some Call it Hyper!

“Some call it Calvinism”

Is it compromise or is it something else? Why is it that so many Calvinists disparage other Calvinists with the epithet of hyper-Calvinism?

Much of what passes for discussion on these issues is really nothing more than misunderstandings of the Bible. How my heart aches as I hear Calvinists give up ground to Arminians in their exposition of such texts: John 3:16; 1 Timothy 2:4; and 2 Peter 3:9, for example. Many Calvinists surrender these passages as if they are “Arminian Verses.” Nothing could be further from the truth. They can be explained within the context of a plan of God that is consistently and comprehensively portrayed in the Bible as a selective plan of God’s special and discriminating love for the elect alone.

In John 3:16 one sees the manner of God’s love in the giving of His son. This is not linked with some non-salvific context and therefore cannot be understood by some appeal to common grace that encapsulates every human being without exception. It is a declaration that God’s love is manifested in this way/manner: believing ones (all of them) will not be eternally condemned but have eternal salvation. Consistent with John’s explanation of God’s love elsewhere in 1 John 3:1, it is God’s love that makes us children of God. It is an effectual love that undertakes to make and secure the salvation of the beloved. Indeed, to say that John 3:16 teaches that God loves everybody is to speak of some lesser love so it can remain in the sphere of non-redeeming love, for it is obvious that not all are redeemed. Calvinists that say that this merely denotes God’s loving stance to the world (every person without exception) rob the text, and our God, of the only love He has: A Sovereign, Special, Selective and Saving love, which fails not in its objectives.

In 1 Timothy 2:4 it is clear from context that God is desirous (and will be successful) in saving all manner of men, especially those classes of men mentioned: Kings & those in authority etc. There is no indication that God wants something He can’t have. Those who read this with “Arminian eyes” are not being true to the immediate context, not for that matter to the message of the gospel as spoken of throughout the entirety of Scripture. So again, reading the desire of God as a universal desire of all men, without exception, to be saved is nowhere necessitated by the passage, its context or the remainder of Scripture. It makes perfect sense to see this verse as God’s desire to save some men: All Without Distinction, or All Kinds of Men.

The passage of 2 Peter 3:9, perhaps has been most stretched by the Arminians and inconsistent Calvinists, second only to John 3:16. In the passage the longsuffering of God is directed “us-ward” as is found in the AV. There is no doubt that God will tarry as long as there needs to be elect individuals brought to faith by the efficacious call of the Gospel. This text has nothing to say about sinners able to be saved, but have not yet “accepted Christ,” and that God is waiting on them till they make their decisions. This view of God is most pathetic and it disturbs me greatly that Calvinists share Arminian perspectives on this text as well.

My pilgrimage into the doctrines of grace has been a rather long trek. In fact, I believe that all my steps have been ordered of the Lord, and this certainly includes the days before Christ, as some prefer to call the unregenerate times. This should not be strange to Calvinists, for the Bible gives us such indication of the eternal sovereignty of the Lord. In Psalm 139 not only are we told that are days have been recorded in His book, in terms of number, but further more, He has fashioned them. This means that everything in my life, as it comes to pass, has been specifically ordained and designed by Almighty God. My trek not only took me away from Arminianism, it also took me through all forms of lessesr Calvinism, hypo-Calvinism, inconsistent Calvinism, free will Calvinism or whatever else one may call it. There is a wrong way to be a Calvinist and a right way to be a Calvinist. The wrong way is to hold to remnants of Arminianism or to be inconsistent in understanding the Bible. The right way is to reject all aspects of Arminianism or to be consistent in reading the Bible.

If we believe in a sovereign God, and if we believe He can and save all that He has ordained to save, and if we believe that no purpose of God can be frustrated, then how on earth can we also believe that God has unfulfilled desires? What to make of this is beyond me. Will God be forever frustrated over the desires He has been unable to fulfill? Will Satan have a partial, if not complete, victory over God by hanging on to those God would otherwise have truly desired to save but has not? To ask these questions is to answer them. God has One Eternal Purpose! He will be triumphant in this plan. There will be no frustration or unfulfilled desires leftover for eternity. God will have nothing more into the eternal ages to come but the perfect bliss He has always had in eternal ages gone by, so to speak.

The only answer, in my mind, is that we either embrace a consistent Calvinism or else posit a schizophrenic God. I prefer the former! No doubt, some will call this hyper. That it is; it is about our hyper-God: Hyper wisdom, hyper power, and hyper salvation: all to the Hyper Glory of the most high!

Theodore.