Calvinism Defended:
Calvin, Hell, and The Word of Faith Movement
By
This is the 21st section of the e-mail exchange I had with Bill, an individual who objected to Calvinism. Click here to go back to the table of contents, or here to go to the full 88 page exchange.
Bill Writes: Quite interestingly the Word Faith movement got much of its theology of Christ suffering in hell from the works of Calvin. Christ victory is the cross; He never suffered in hell. He suffered in the flesh on the cross.
My Response: Don’t blame Calvin for others who cannot read his words in context and then might use them to formulate doctrines that he would have been horrified at. By the way, I would be rather shocked if any Word of Faith teacher ever read one word of Calvin. I am quite familiar with Word of Faith teachers and teaching (I was actually ordained in a church that was influenced by Word of Faith theology), and I never heard one quote from Calvin. If they did read any of Calvin and actually decided to follow his teaching, suffice it to say they would never have taught what they have with regard to the sufferings of Christ and hell. Their teachings are in direct contradiction of Calvin on a vast array of doctrines; this matter is no exception. Thus, as has been the case throughout, you have offered yet another outright false linking between one heretical group (The Word of Faith movement), and Calvinism.
As for Christ’s victory being at the cross, what does that mean Bill? Or, let me simply ask this: Did Jesus actually save anyone at the cross? Was there something left undone by His work on the cross? Did Jesus make a perfect atonement, or merely a potential atonement that is made only made effective by the freewill of men? For Calvin, Christ endured hell on the cross, and on the cross He made a full, perfect, substitutionary work of atonement whereby He actually saved His people (and didn’t just make salvation possible as heretics might say). Here is real victory: every person for whom Christ died will, not might, be saved, because Jesus, and not those for whom He died, is the only perfect, all powerful savior. The Calvinist says unapologetically that Jesus saves…and he really believes it. Unfortunately, and quite ironically, it is the non-Calvinist that denies these things, and in effect makes Christ work ineffective. Whereas the Calvinist can say “Jesus Saves!” and really mean it, the most the non-Calvinist can say is “Jesus Tries To Save,” or more precisely “Jesus Tries to Help Us Save Ourselves.”