Elect or Reprobate

I know a man, a good man, a decent man, a kind man, a husband and a father. He and his wife were blessed with a fine, healthy son. I rejoice with them. This man is also decidedly Reformed, Calvinist in his theology. I tell his story, not singling out a single man, but as a composite of the many described herein.

Calvinist Fathers

• Through social media, I made the acquaintance of a man while he attended seminary in preparation for a life in ministry. He is now a pastor in Boise, Idaho. I happily saw the announcement when his wife gave birth to twins, a young son, and a precious Down Syndrome daughter. If my memory is correct, she later gave birth to another son. My story can be perfectly applied to him.
• Through social media, I made the acquaintance of a man while he attended seminary in preparation for a life in ministry. He is now a pastor in Boise, Idaho. I happily saw the announcement when his wife gave birth to twins, a young son, and a precious Down Syndrome daughter. If my memory is correct, she later gave birth to another son. My story can be perfectly applied to him.
• I met a young pastor from the Twin Falls, Idaho area. He has been blessed with fine sons. Recently, I saw an announcement that a new baby boy was added to his family. My narrative applies perfectly to Him.
• I have become friends with a man from American Falls, Idaho. He and his wife have a quiver full of children. The last addition to the family was a fine baby boy. While visiting his church, I had an opportunity to visit with the pastor’s two fine sons. My story can be perfectly applied to this man and his pastor.
• The same can be said of a pastor in Pocatello, Idaho, two men from the South Salt Lake Valley who are in Christian ministry, a father of many children in central Utah, a grandfather in Colorado, and others.

As I understand reformed theology, that son, that precious infant was preordained, before the creation of the world, to be elect or reprobate. In other words, he was inalterably predestined for salvation and heaven or eternal destruction in the fires of hell.

Video, Elect, or Reprobate

The Elect

If this child is numbered among God’s elect, the day will come when he will be forcefully regenerated. Reformed theology, as I understand it, says this child will be a God-hater with no ability to hear God’s invitation and respond. It insists that this regeneration will be accomplished by God alone and against this child’s will. This regeneration will forcefully compel this child to desire God, to seek Him, and believe. The part I struggle with is that this child will be forced to love God against his will and nature.

What makes love wonderful? Grace, my wife, loves me freely even when I don’t deserve her gift. That is why I treasure it so.

Ask a Calvinist

• Is love really love when it is forcefully compelled by the full sovereign power of God?
• Is willing and self-sacrificial devotion a better example of actual love?

The Reprobate

What if this child is not numbered among the elect and is instead among the hell-bound band of reprobates? As I understand reformed theology, this predestinated destruction of that child is a sovereign act of God. Even if this child desires to please God, he will be thrust into hell and suffer eternally for the pleasure and glory of God. This infant’s fiery and eternal death is a foregone and unalterable conclusion.

 ³This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:3-4

Ask a Calvinist

• If God desires that all should be saved, how does the loss of a soul please Him?

Why Baptize

Recently, this infant was baptized and I must ask why. Regardless of whether this child is elect or reprobate, how does this baptism benefit the child or any who witnessed the event?

Ask a Calvinist

• If the child is heaven-bound against his will, how does the baptism help?
• If the child is hell-bound against his will, how does the baptism help?

What Love Is This

The man of whom I speak loves his family. I am satisfied he would walk through fire and risk everything to save this child. I know he would do this regardless of the child’s status as elect or reprobate. What of Jesus? For whom did he walk through the fire?

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:2, KJV

Calvinists take a different view.

The question that needs a precise answer is this: Did He or didn’t He? Did Christ actually make a substitutionary sacrifice for sins or didn’t He? If He did, then it was not for all the world, for then all the world would be saved.

Edwin H. Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism, p. 47

Ask a Calvinist

• Who loves the world most, the reformed Jesus who was the propitiation for a few, or the biblical Jesus described in 1 John 2:2?
• If the infant is not among the elect, who loves him most, the reformed Jesus who condemned him to hell or his earthly father?

Conclusion

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

Matthew 23:37, CSB

If reformed theology is correct, would the above scripture have been translated as follows?

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing able!

Matthew 23:37 aligned to defend Calvinism.