Radio Free Geneva: Calvinism’s Gospel Tautology Refuted

Problem with them. They're following men instead of the word of god and crying out dead. We're selected. Uh first of all james. Um i'm very ignorant of the reformers. I think i probably uh know more about calvinism than most of the people who call themselves calvinists.

Gentleman james white is a.

Hyper calvinist now whatever we do in baptist life we don't need to be teaming up with hyper.

Opening the Program and the Calvinism Discussion

Greetings. Welcome to radio free geneva on the dividing line. We're going to try to get it all in within an hour. Today um i was directed to the unbelievable radio broadcast uh last weekend uh where a discussion took place a debate took place on calvinism uh a french former atheist now reformed theological philosopher uh was giving the uh reformed side of things and on the other side was one of the two primary um individuals at the tyndale philosophy program up in canada and that was dr w paul franks.

Uh he was the one that dialogued with um on the subject of calvinism from a non-calvinistic perspective. And i was hoping to review it but there wasn't really much to review. Um i'm getting a lot of stuff in.

You know people saying they can't hear the sound and somebody on the channel saying it's not. Oh you fixed it. Okay all right. Well okay well they all catch yours and uh start telling me about it and distract me.

And there's somebody on uh twitter saying it seems like youtube playing right now is today's live show but the recording the last dividing lines. So i you fix that too. Hey you're the you're you're the you're the techie guy.

I'm just i'm just telling you that uh people out there are confused and so on. You know anyway um i was going to review uh the unbelievable broadcast but there just wasn't much in to review. It was one philosopher saying this is my view the philosophy saying this is my view and i guess it should be expected because i don't believe reformed theology is arrived at by philosophy.

Christian Philosophy and Divine Revelation

Um christian philosophy if it's truly christian begins with christ and hence begins with a supernatural worldview and with divine revelation. So christian philosophy if it's consistent christian philosophy will be revelational at its foundation.

It will not try to reason to revelation. It will not make man's reason the central aspect of its uh of its existence. It can't because all truth and all philosophical truth is found in christ and so by the very truth claims of scripture uh the christian philosopher cannot um consistently it doesn't mean they don't but cannot consistently play the world's perspectives on the issues of philosophy and things that just can't start in the same place can't pretend that we do you can't do just plain old philosophy and then slather on some christianity on top of it.

That doesn't doesn't work. Um and so the real problem was that the very first reference even quotation of a vibe of bible verse took place in the closing statements on the unbelievable program from the calvinist.

Um and that was the closing statements and you know it finally got to the foundational stuff. You know they had been talking about god and evil and theodicy and all the rest of stuff without ever once making reference to the only reason why a really committed calvinist believes what he believes and that is divine revelation until the closing statements.

And then there wasn't any time to even be thinking about going through those texts uh in any in any meaningful fashion and so there really wasn't anything to do. But what i did find interesting is that um i had been sent a link on twitter a few days earlier um from that had a number of anti-reformed um articles that came from the other of the two individuals um who are a part of the philosophy department i'm just gonna have to cover twitter up i'm just gonna have to put bring it down because i'm not looking at that anyways and everyone's like this is last week it's not this week and i'm like well i'm sorry um the other individual uh is uh dr richard davis who has an entire page on the philosophy thing uh the philosophy page there uh the tyndall philosophy against calvinism.

And so i started looking at some of these articles i thought you know sometimes radio free geneva is focused upon really bad misrepresentations of reform theology and so which are very very common and you still need to deal with those things you still need to deal with the really bad misrepresentations especially when they tend to be the most common misrepresentations.

Um so you know if that's what you're going to be writing up against it's sort of like in dealing with islam you know sometimes you have to deal with some really really really bad misrepresentations and and sometimes people go man you know why why waste time on it.

Well because that's what's the most common the average muslim you talk to has a really really really bad understanding of what christianity is all about. It's a very twisted understanding and sometimes it can be really hard to get past that kind of prejudice and false information things like that.

But at the same time um sometimes the misrepresentations are uh garbed in doctoral degrees and and that's what you have here in one of the articles that i chose to uh to look at from that particular uh set of uh of pages offered uh by dr richard davis phd toronto from the tyndale philosophy group and it's called calvinism's gospel tautology.

Now if you know what a tautology is it's a statement that basically states the obvious it doesn't actually have any meaningful truth value to it. Um circles around. Well okay uh that's that's that's sort of given by definition isn't it.

Um so calvinism's gospel tautology and it's what's interesting is the the title in the link to this and i'm wondering if i i yeah yeah it's it's something called the gospel uh the calvinism files and the link was actually titled how calvinism makes the good news no news.

But then when you go to the actual thing it's got calvinism's gospel tautology which i guess i can see the connection but you can see why i initially clicked on that one went ah this looks good this looks good.

This is specifically on the subject of the atonement of christ though as is normally the case most people who object to the doctrine of particular redemption uh do so because they're actually objecting to the doctrine of unconditional election.

They're just objecting to the idea that god actually uh is specific in his salvific work rather than just gen putting out a general plan and then saying you all do what you uh what you will with this it's up to you which raises all sorts of questions about the nature of god's knowledge of future events and what the basis of that is.

And and uh whether god has a decree and i've often said it all ends up boiling down to whether you believe god has a divine decree whether what is happening in time uh is in fact uh the result of the expression of god's will.

Um or or whether it is not. And so you really have to end up going back to that level for any meaningful discussion of these issues. And the fact that unfortunately the vast majority of christians in our day do not do theology holistically they do it in parts.

Uh you know you can have people that are just absolute experts in biblical eschatology and prophecy of end times things that couldn't define or defend the doctrine of the trinity their life depended on it.

Um that's that's just inappropriate. That's that's not how it should be. And uh we need to keep that that in mind. Uh reform theology always in its final analysis is going to require a submission to the whole revelation of god not just to a part of it.

And that's really its power as well. But anyway um let's take a look at Calvinism's gospel tautology before i actually read that um i want to just remind us of a a text of scripture in hebrews chapter 9 we read.

But when christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands that is to say not of this creation and not through the blood of goats and calves but through his own blood he entered the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption.

Now just i just stopped there for a moment. Did he or did he not obtain eternal eternal redemption is the obtaining of eternal redemption the theoretical provision of redemption that may or may not take place for any given individual.

Or is it an obtained real redemption in behalf of a specific people. There's a major conceptual difference between those two. Major difference. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who've been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh how much more will the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to god cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living god.

For this reason he is a mediator of a new covenant goes on from there. Now you'll notice that hebrews 9 14. How much more will the blood of christ. And so you have incarnation. Because if you only have um a docetic sort of manifestation of a temporary physical being who's not truly incarnate then you don't really have a sacrifice.

Chapter nine comes after chapter two. Obviously there had already been the establishment of the reality of the incarnation the reality of the human nature of christ. So you have the blood of christ and all that comes with that who through the eternal spirit.

And so now you have the son. You have the spirit offered himself without blemish to god. So i mean right there you have the refutation of oneness theology in the clear roles of three divine persons. The gospel is triune.

Um it is intentional because he offers himself without blemish to god the father. You have the clenching cleansing of the conscience of dead works to serve the living god. So it is an effective salvific act.

All of this points us to the reality. And as i think about it i i honestly don't think i have ever seen a serious attempt on the part of opponents to the reformed understanding of the atonement. I've never seen anyone really focus upon the strongest presentation.

And that is that particular redemption is nothing more than the recognition of the perfect harmony of father son and holy spirit in the one salvific work of the redemption of god's people in light of the father being the source and origin of the divine decree to save these individuals.

Ephesians chapter 1. John chapter 6. The father has a certain people. He gives them to the son. The son brings about their perfect salvation. Ephesians chapter 1. Again the father blessed us very spiritual blessings in christ.

Jesus before the world began. Same concept that you have in john 6 john 10 john 17. What you have is the father setting his unmerited redemptive love upon a particular people. He is under an obligation to set that redemptive love upon any one person or all people.

Either way if you say that it is necessary that god set redemptive love upon any individual you are immediately destroying the nature of grace. It can no longer be free. It is demanded by some sense of justice or something else.

You've lost the idea of not only the federal headship of adam but you have lost the idea that there is a necessity of man's obedience to god to be able to remain in his presence. You've lost the entire biblical narrative.

You can bring that in from all sorts of other considerations. That's what people do. I know. But that's what's. That's the only way you can get it. That's the way you can get it. You're not going to get it from the scripture itself.

So the father sets his redeeming love upon particular people. And let's skip over the work of the son for just a moment to the work of the spirit. The spirit effectively raises the individual members of the elect to spiritual life at the time that he so chooses.

If again you reject the biblical teaching of saving faith as a gift if you reject the biblical teaching of the spirit as having the power to raise dead sinners to life if you are wedded to a concept of human autonomy then you see the spirit maybe attempting to save everybody maybe attempting to um equally maybe i mean i i don't know how but i don't know how anybody comes to that i i just don't know how anyone comes looking at the biblical narrative in history to the idea that the spirit is striving equally with every single individual.

I mean i know where it comes from. It comes from the pulpits in evangelicalism today. It comes from the idea that god somehow owes us something and therefore the spirit's trying to save everyone equally.

But you can't. It also comes from the old testament being d d canonized uh in a lot of theology and interestingly enough in listening to the man on unbelievable the uh i think it was dr frank's on unbelievable when he attempted to respond to the numerous primarily old testament passages that have been quoted to him he did go almost the brian zond way of that was how people experienced what god was doing.

In other words that's not really what god was doing. That's just their experience of it type thing so as is so often the case the arminian perspective does tend to result in a a multi-layered canon of scripture.

Basically because if you really believe that all scripture is theodinus does um then you can't just look at the old testament and go well now that's stuff about heartening people's little people to be destroyed.

Yeah that probably didn't really happen historically. So you know that was just the experience that people had. Blah blah blah blah. Well once you once you do that there isn't any reason for you to be reformed.

Because you no longer have a consistent biblical revelation upon which to base anything. So you got to go searching for something else. Men's traditions philosophies whatever else you're not going to end up with a biblical theology not going to end up with jesus's theology.

Uh because you're no longer functioning on the the basis of authority that jesus himself taught us to function on. That's just unfortunately widely popular but massively sub-biblical. Um so if you see however the father sets his love upon a particular people the spirit effectively brings those individuals to spiritual life infallibly he has the power to do that.

Well now you look at the middle you look at the son and you go. Is his work going to be consistent or inconsistent with the father and the spirit. How many people in evangelical churches in believing in churches that have almost any fidelity to biblical revelation as a whole.

How many people do you think have ever been challenged to even think about that. How many people would stare at you and go and and and should it be that way. No certainly not. I mean that's a basic theological question.

Do the father son and spirit work in perfect harmony with one another. Because the natural answer is well of course i mean uh yeah if they're working at odds with another you have division within the godhead itself and we just naturally go.

That doesn't sound right. But if you start thinking that way then you realize well my theology of god should sort of determine everything else i believe. And so if they are working in harmony with one another and then that should be an overarching principle that i apply in everything else.

And so if the son if the father has willed to redeem a particular people then the son is going to accomplish perfect redemption on their behalf and then the spirit will come and apply that at the time god decrees for their salvation.

Well that that makes perfect sense. Which for some people is what's wrong with it. I remember one fellow in seminary that we were discussing this very thing and he was just like i just don't think you can put god in that box which his was his way of saying i just don't think god acts consistently as god.

Well good luck with that. Um but there are some people just that's how they that's how they roll that that's that's how it works. So what is particular redemption. Particular redemption is basically the recognition that the father son and spirit work consistently with one another.

That if there is a elect people that god has chosen um undeservedly so freely and that's really again as we're going to see in this article that's really where the problem was these folks just god can't.

God doesn't have the right to do that god has to try to save everybody equally. Um if there is that divine divine election then the work of atonement is going to be consistent with the scope of the election.

And of course if they turn an election into this hey anybody wants to come come long then you have to turn. Since election becomes impersonal it becomes a group rather than specifics. Then the atonement has to be the same way and the work of the spirit and conviction of sin has to be the same way.

You got got it got to work up this thing that the apostles never heard of called prevenient grace uh to try to hold that together and it just becomes becomes a mess. But that's that's what's very very popular.

So turn to the article. Uh christians of every stripe agree that christ substitutionary and atoning work on calvary's cross is marvelous beyond comprehension. It is an act of unspeakable mercy condescension and grace on the human level wholly unearned and uninitiated a visible and concrete demonstration of god's love for sinners and enemies.

As jesus tells nicodemus god's love the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Surely this is good news indeed the best of news for sinful fallen humanity.

Where would we be without it. It is a pearl of great price not to be exchanged for even the whole world. Curiously however one very influential theological system calvinism bids us to pause at this juncture is jesus's penal substitutionary death.

Good news for all or just some. According to one of calvinism's finest offenders rc sprole the doctrine of limited atonement declares that the mission and death of christ was restricted to a limited number to his people his sheep.

The mission of christ was to save the elect chosen by god. Page 206. The story is a familiar one. There are two groups. The elect those who are chosen showered with irresistible grace and consequently saved.

And then there are the non-elect intentionally not chosen not given irresistible grace not died for and hence not saved. As sprole sadly notes. God gives the non-elect over to their sins. In effect he abandons them to their own desires.

End quote. Abandoned. Oh the word just by itself abandoned now so far as it is expressed true but insufficiently true. Uh nothing here about the rebellion of sinners. Nothing here about their love for sin.

Uh nothing here about their abuse the good gifts of god. Nothing here about the clarity of general revelation. Nothing here about the suppression of the knowledge of god that is within them. And nothing here about the fact that that general revelation is clear to hold them accountable to give thanks and honor is god.

But they don't do that. They're twisting of every aspect of god's revelation the depravity. None of that gets mentioned. Uh there is. There is not a truly biblical sufficient doctrine of sin in arminianism it just isn't.

It can't be. Because if there was then they'd realize no one will ever be saved. Exactly that's why god is the one who saves not ma 'am um but what you. But when you don't have a fully biblical view of sin you end up smuggling into your argumentation an unbiblical view of man by necessity.

And so you end up with the idea that the elect and the non-elect uh that something's being done to the non-elect. That is unjust unfair. That's what you're creating in the mind. That is not true. But that's what you create in the mind if you do not include the biblical revelation of man's true nature.

The Meaning of John 3:16 and the Scope of the Atonement

Okay. Continue on the biggest problem. Naturally this comes as something of a shock and disappointment. Listen to this to those who take jesus at his word uh his word maybe in john 6 where he actually taught this john 10 john 17.

No no no no uh it's the old i'm going to misunderstand john 3 16 thing god so loved the world. Not some of it but the whole thing. Now once again this is where and if you read this article i'll link to it.

I'll try to remember to link to it. Uh this afternoon when i when i post this um you're gonna end up with a whole philosophical logical proof argument down below where you try to turn uh you basically function on the idea there cannot be a divine decree god god just can't do it.

It's not possible to do. Um it's not. None of this is based on revelation. And the most important thing is that i've yet to find an anti-reformed christian philosopher who could exegete his way out of a wet paper bag.

I mean i i just i just have to say it straightforwardly um when we have gone after people like jerry walls and others we've just found them to be exegetically bad really really bad. And it does make you wonder um why.

That is because it it shouldn't of necessity be if you're a philosopher you you there are philosophers who can do meaningful exegesis. But it does raise the possibility that your philosophical um pet perspectives end up causing you to do really bad biblical interpretation or more likely in many an instance many an instance you don't really believe that the scriptures are sufficient and of themselves to be exegetically examined to answer the big questions you need to have the the philosophical theories that you've come up with to answer the big questions.

Um in my experience most people who call themselves philosophers their philosophy is their ultimate authority not revelation from god. And um in this instance you have someone who should know what reformed people believe about this but doesn't accurately represent it.

Um not some of it but the whole thing. Yes uh you're going to turn it around and say that we actually limit this solely to the elect. It's not the case when uh i was reading an article that my daughter posted uh well she didn't post it.

Cross politic posted it. Uh i don't know if you heard about i only heard about just a few minutes ago but there's a some christian singer that um did a song about revelation chapter 5 and revelation chapter 5 the song uh sung to the lamb you have redeemed men from every tribe tongue people and nation.

And that is a that's what's that's what you've got right here when when you love jew and gentile when you love the the that and that that expresses the whole world in jewish thinking. But it's even expanded more revelation chapter 5 tribe tongue people a nation.

Then that's what's here. It's not just the elect. It's the elect of all the world. So first same thing in first john 2 2. Well i guess this guy did a music video. He did an open call. Anybody who wanted to be involved in in making this music video uh they're all white.

So just just white folks showed up and so he had to apologize and and they're actually thinking about starting a go fund me to reshoot the video to get it properly ethnically balanced to represent things you see.

But it's an open call. It's not like he said no you can't. I'm not going to have these people. I'm not. This is just the people that showed up. But that's not good enough. No not for the not for the christian social justice warriors.

No no no uh you've got you've got to. Yeah you got to you got to keep your your ethnic lenses on look at everything even even in the body of christ. Oh my goodness. Um so anyway just an illustration uh of uh i'm and i i made a comment just before the program started.

I said um i wonder if these christian social justice warriors are going to complain at the freedom that god has had in the relative proportions of ethnic groups in the elect. I mean are they really consistently they would have to be able to demand that when you get to heaven there needs to be the proper proportions.

Or god wasn't fair. Is god doing the math right. Uh up to the time of jesus. Think about that you've got the people of israel and you got everybody else. And i mean just look at the jewish egyptian disparity there.

I mean what was god thinking. Wow i evidently yeah. Yeah. Evidently i guess. But anyway we got off see summer got me completely off track by posting that thing before the uh before the uh program started.

Um so we do take jesus at at his word um we just recognize that the consistent exegetical and we're going to catch him on a really bad exegetical faux pas in john 3 here in a few minutes. But the congestion the consistent exegetical reading of all of scripture is that that's man from every tribe tongue people a nation.

Um and that is the okay. Um it's one thing for provision to be made for the salvation of all. Notice provision. There is a vast difference between saving and providing for salvation. There's a vast difference between the statement god saves and god makes salvation possible.

And in the mindset here it's only possibility. It's only potential. It's not actual accomplishment. That has to be a cooperative effort between god and man. The idea of monergism the idea that god can actually save it is not even allowed at the table from this perspective not even allowed at the table.

It's one thing for provision to be made for the salvation of all but not all to be saved. Because that way you can just blame people. You know god tried. And the the important part thing is he tried and even if he fails that's okay because we all understand he did his best.

That is a basic consequence of the fact that not all freely and willingly satisfy jesus whoever believes. Condition. It's another thing entirely to say that those who don't believe were abandoned a priori not justly notice that by abandoning their rebellion by abandoning their positive rejection of their creator by not recognizing that we are talking about pots here who refuse to acknowledge the potter.

But instead now you have now you've got victims. And this works. This works in our in our culture today. Doesn't it just turn anybody into a victim. And boom the the mind turns off. And you just whatever victims say is automatically true.

It's just you. You can't even question it. So what you do here is you make the non-elect the victims of the mean calvinist god. And it works turns people off immediately. It's absurd. It's ridiculous.

It's it's beneath um christian theology christian philosophy for that matter. But and it abandons all of christian history. It's just absurd. But it works in our context today. Uh because of the mindset that people have primarily in the west.

It's another thing entirely to say that those who don't believe were abandoned a priori. Now they're. They're right there we can stop right there. There's the falsehood. That is the falsehood that's going to be built upon and built upon and built upon to create all the silly conclusions that come forth from this before the foundation of the world before the sun was given and that christ's atoning death was limited to the elect.

So god cannot. God just cannot have a specific people. He's not allowed to do that. Nope nope nope. Can't do that grace can be demanded. You have to. If if god created him he's got to try to save him.

That's just the way it is. Biblical revelation is not the source of this. This is not reasoning from biblical revelation. This is not looking at the example of of the old testament and the fact that god gives his revelation to one people and the generations and generations of amalekites.

And and and you know just just start naming the nations around around israel let alone far flung beyond that. No prophets. No nothing. Well we don't know that. Yes we do. It's right there. Think about the actual biblical narrative.

Uh to rephrase this properly would be it's another thing entirely to say that those who would believe were freely chosen against their just desserts by god's mercy and grace. They're just desserts. And that others were allowed to continue in their rebellion and receive their just desserts.

No one receives injustice. Mercy is not a category of justice. Um and that says before the foundation of the world. Well you know depending on how we take that text in revelation the lamb slain before the foundation of the world for whom.

For a specific individual specific people. That christ's atoning death was limited to the elect. In other words that christ's atoning death would be consistent with the decree of the father and the work of the spirit.

There must be dissonance in the godhead is what we're being told. Thus sprawl quote the biggest problem with limited atonement has found the passages the scriptures use concerning that christ's death for all or for the whole world.

The world for whom christ died cannot mean the entire human family. It must refer to the universality of the elect people from every tribe and nation. Notice people from every tribe and nation. Or to the inclusion of gentiles in addition to the world of jews.

Both of which are perfectly uh defensible exegetical positions. Depending on which text you're looking at you can see it. The problem sprawl has in mind isn't big simply because of its theological implications.

It's also an offense on a logical level. No it's not. If you can't see the logic of this then you haven't even tried to listen to the other side. Um for if calvinism is true all doesn't mean all. This is from phds.

Okay. Um all doesn't mean all. In many places this has been proven over and over. There's all sorts of romanians who have said hey guys this is bad argumentation. Don't don't go here. It's too easy for the calvinists to demonstrate their places where all either doesn't mean all or all means all kinds.

It's used generically rather than universally. The guys stopped doing this but unfortunately their note hasn't gotten around because it's too easy to demonstrate all jerusalem went out to be baptized of john.

Well no there there were probably a few doggies and kitties left in the in the city. Uh when everybody else was gone actually okay it was all kinds of people from the upper parts and the lower parts of the of the social strata and everything else.

That's that's what it says. When all of jerusalem went out to john to be baptized doesn't mean every single individual. That's obvious. That's obvious. So when we you know we could look at any one of the the texts we've.

We've looked at them a thousand times before math 2337. It's like peter or or first timothy 24 whatever. We can look at them demonstrate the consistency exegetically in each one of these. Not just assume it but demonstrate it exegetically.

Uh it means some the elect depending on the context depending on the context just didn't die for the whole world. He did every tribe telling people a nation but only a part of it. Well that means we are not universalists.

That's correct. This is indeed a problem only if you refuse to listen to the side and you do not drive your beliefs exegetically from scripture but from other sources the believing predicate. Perhaps we can see this as follows.

Consider the 316 principle god's love the world that he gave his only son. That whoever believes in him should not perish to have eternal life. And now suppose for reductio that sprawl is right. This principle taken at face value is potentially misleading.

Although 316 says god loved the world and gave his son for it this is actually false. No come on. This isn't even serious. It's hard to take this seriously. It is really hard to take this seriously. What we're saying is that god's love is directed to the world of men.

It will find itself. See john 316 contains within its own words particularity. Because who is it that receives eternal life. Is it the entire world. No it's only those who believe. So there is a limited there's a limitation found right within john 316 that is normally overthrown as we're going to see by individuals like this and just a paragraph or two by misreading the text and inserting a concept that isn't there and now is actually false.

God didn't and doesn't love everyone he loves only the elect. So what you've done now is instead uh not now you have taken the world and particularized it. You are demanding that cosmos in this context must mean every single individual.

That means you have to prove exegetically that the tribes tongue people and nation concept which is the same author by the way revelation. Well some people would argue that but most would would agree same author.

Um that that's impossible. And you're going to have to argue that against the fact that you have particularity in verses 16 and 17 it's not going to be every single individual who ends up getting saved.

How is the love of god expressed for the person who doesn't get saved by their condemnation in verse 17. See we never get that here you've got the philosopher who is not exegeting the text. He's abusing the text to create a false argument against the other side.

It's a shame to see it really is. Um god didn't and doesn't love everyone he loves only the elect. Well if you mean redemptively are you going to say that god's redemptive love for the elect who will be with him for eternity is the exact same as the love that he will maintain to have maintain having for the rebel sinners who are in hell for eternity same thing.

God's love can't be differentiated though ours can be. Where do we get the capacity and ability to do that if it doesn't exist in god. There's a philosophical question exegetical too. But it's a philosophical question.

If you think man has the ability to differentiate in the kinds of love we have where do we get that ability. If god doesn't have it seems to me that god would have it in far greater and perfect degree than man.

Hmm yeah. Okay then 316 is more accurately rendered as i just love these. Um you know sometimes calvinists do it to arminians and i i don't. I don't think that they should. But it's normally the arminians that out of either malice misrepresentation something end up doing this.

God so loved the elect that he gave his only one and only son that whoever believes in him should shall not perish out of eternal life. The domain dilemma. Now we confront a dilemma. How are we to take the universal quantifier.

Whoever does it range over the whole domain of fallen human beings wide scope as the text strongly suggests. Or should we restrict it in the way we restricted the world. Narrow scope. Well that's where the problem lies.

Isn't it. As we have mentioned so many times before there is no specific universal. What's his universal quantifier whoever. There is no word for whoever in john 3 16 as we have explained over and over and over again it is hinna pass ha pisteum on in order that every one believing.