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The doctrines of John Calvin have achieved near universal acceptance in the denominational
industry. In a recent paper distributed in our city, the Grandview Assembly of God Church
asserted that, "Though we are all born sinners, we have a common need — God." That assertion
was made without a scintilla of proof from the Scriptures. And, there's a good reason for
their lack of proof. It doesn't exist. But that doesn't matter to most folks today. In this
postmodern age, the Bible has been replaced by their "feelings" and "think-sos."
The assertion that, "we are all born sinners" is Calvin's doctrine of inherent depravity which strips man of his free will and makes him a mere machine in the hands of a ruthless God. If we inherit sin and its guilt from Adam, then God Himself is the source of it, for Adam was the son of God (Luke 3:38). One of Calvinism's proof texts of "inherent depravity" is Psalms 51:5: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." But there is a difference in being born in sin and being born with sin. Iniquity existed in the world when David was shapen — sin existed when he was conceived. Astonished that unlearned Galileans could speak their native tongues, the multitude who heard the apostles preach on Pentecost asked, "How hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born?" (Acts 2:7-8). While the apostles' auditors were born in those tongues, they weren't born speaking them. They learned them after they were born. Their statement simply meant they were born into cultures wherein those tongues were spoken. That's precisely the meaning of David's words in Psalms 51:5. He wasn't born with sin. He was conceived and born in and into a world polluted by sin. In contrasting our Heavenly Father with our fleshly fathers, the writer of Hebrews said God is the "father of spirits" (Hebrews 12:9). If "we are all born sinners" that means God is the Father of a depraved spirit. If "we are all born sinners," one wonders why Jesus used a little child as an example of simplistic purity for us to emulate. He said, "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). If "we are all born sinners" — inherently depraved at birth — then, according to Jesus, we must become depraved to enter the kinghdom of heaven! Sin is not inherited. It is acquired. That truth is taught throughout the Bible. Man is not born astray. He goes astray of his own free will. "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies" (Psalms 58:3). Our estrangement from God is after — not when — we are born and the means is by "speaking lies." "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable" (Romans 3:12). We were not born unprofitable, but become that way, and Ezekiel writes that sin is not passed from generation to generation. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" (Ezekiel 18:20). We acquire sin when we come to the age of accountability and understanding. Illustrating the absurdity of Calvinistic arguments for inherent depravity, Foy E. Wallace, Jr. says the doctrine carries the seeds of its own destruction. "The dictum of this doctrine, which results in its self-destruction, is that acquired characteristics cannot be transmitted to the offspring, and that is the reason, they say, that the righteousness of the parents cannot be transmitted to their children... this principle must work both ways, and utterly destroys the theory of inherited depravity. Here is why. Whatever depravity or sinfulness Adam and Eve had was an acquired characteristic. If that is not true, then their sinfulness would have been inherited, which would mean that Adam and Eve inherited sin from God! Therefore, there was no depravity, and no sinfulness in Adam and Eve until they acquired that characteristic by disobedience. But since acquired characteristics of parents cannot be transmitted to their children, Adam and Eve did not, could not, transmit their depravity to their prosperity" (Bulwarks of The Faith, Foy E. Wallace, Jr. Publications, Oklahoma City, 1951, p. 377). With no basis in God's revealed truth, the obnoxious doctrine of inherent depravity is the fundamental error of all of John Calvin's other pernicious doctrines. Augustine borrowed it from heathen philosophy and passed it down through the centuries until John Calvin plagiarized it for the Protestant world. As the fundamental error of both Catholics and Protestants, it is a perversion of Bible truth and the corrupt foundation upon which Calvinism teeters. Those who preach it are wrong, and those who believe it are wrong. Calvinism constitutes something other than the gospel and in its very nature incurs the wrath of God (Galatians 1:6-9). |