Withholding Sufficient Grace in Calvinism

Critique of the Chapter 11 Retort by James White

"How does Dave Hunt deal with the fact that God sent Isaiah to preach a message of judgment even though He said that the people would not believe, and in fact, that He would not allow them to (Isaiah 6:8—13)? Was this a blasphemous and senseless" thing for God to do, or does He have a purpose in proclaiming His truth even when it results in judgment? Hunt ignores the reality that the message preached to all men has two effects: When joined with the work of the Spirit, it is the very means of salvation for the elect; in all other cases, it brings judgment to the glory of God. God is glorified when His justice is done, and when men show themselves to be rebel sons of Adam in their hatred of the proclamation of His truth, His just condemnation of them is honored."

Is God not allowed to send His preachers and to do the righteous thing by sending them and share with us His infinite foreknowledge that even though He is sending His elect those He sends to will still not repent so God keeps them hardened resisting His grace? His purpose is clear: "the stump will be a holy seed that will grow again" (Is. 6.13) after Israel is shown the punishment continues as long as they continue to resist His will. This judgment is justified to show even after God sends His elect to those ministered to, they will still not repent. For example, I am ministering to James White right now and he still refuses to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated so he will most certainly go to Hell. God has not given it to James White to repent, because he resists God's love, mercy and grace.

If you want to insert into the text God is without mercy and grace and causing them to be the way they are without them having any choice, where is it explicitly stated in the text? I would like to know. It would be quite evil to claim "His just condemnation of them is honored" when they were not given sufficient grace to have the choice, but Isaiah 6.8-13 says sufficient grace was given. We can glean that sufficient grace was given from the resultant clause at the end of the passage that quoted. The seed can grow again because God from the grace that was always there, but only now are they ready to repent. As long as they resist God's grace, He does not provide them with repentance. Surely this is not hard to understand unless you are a false Christian locked into heretical and cultic teachings of Calvinism which demand mental gymnastics to thwart the sufficient grace for all men.

White's rabbit hole of confusion he jumps blindly into is disclosed further when he said (323-324),

When Mr. Hunt speaks of God "withholding the ability to repent and believe," he is engaging in unfair misrepresentation, for he does not inform his readers that we are speaking of just condemned rebels who do not desire to repent and believe. This would be like saying that the state is unjust for withholding the pardon from a man on death row who has been justly condemned. A pardon cannot be "withheld" because it is not owed to anyone in the first place. Grace cannot be "withheld" because by nature is must be free to be grace. Here again we sow how Hunt's belief that grace must be given to all equally denies the fundamental freedom of God.

Hunt does not inform his readers the unsaved are condemned? Immediately in the following sentence by Hunt after the text White misquoted (should read "withholds the ability to repent and believe," 319) Hunt said, "Why present the elaborate fiction that God loves everyone and that all men have the choice to receive or reject Christ?" In other words, why pretend this if you don't really believe it? If everyone has the choice to receive or reject Christ, by definition they must have been supplied with the sufficient grace to be able to do so; therefore, Total depravity is a heresy of Satan. Since everyone has the choice, any who refuse to give their lives to Christ are justly condemned. They do not desire to repent and believe not because they were denied the sufficient grace of God but because in spite of receiving such abundant mercy freely from God they still refuse to repent just as James White refuses to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. Just as I am preaching to him, he hath not an ear to hear like in the Isaiah chapter 6 passage (vv. 8-13) so his heart hardens and God does not given him repentance or faith.

The analogy is faulty to the core, placing the cart before the horse. A man doesn't deserve a pardon if he is sentenced to death and justly condemned. The pardon is only given if after review by the judge the person has truly changed his ways and can be reformed: true repentance and faith. A pardon is freely given to anyone righteously who fulfill God's condition of repenting and believing. A pardon is owed to any person willing to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. The pardon of Calvinism is "withheld" because the grace is insufficient and must be irresistibly imposed to force their hand. The grace of God is given to all men: it is "owed to anyone" (everyone) for God is not an unrighteous God and does not send people to Hell just because they were born into sin. That's demonic. All grace is free like the grace in creating us in His image. We did not earn it. Sadly, the grace in Calvinism is "withheld" thus insufficient for all men. Even if it was withheld from one person it would lack the vastness of God's mercy and love freely given.

Perhaps White doesn't want to think grace is being "withheld" in his system which is the argument from embarrassment. But it is indeed withheld because of its insufficiency towards all men. Underserved grace is over and above the sufficient grace of God. The latter is obligatory according to the righteousness of God's nature; whereas the former can be given over and above what is required of God to maintain His holy standing. We have used the example many times. A king sees two children playing in the pond and directs them to get out because an oncoming underwater beast is about to eat them. They don't believe and refuse to listen. In Calvinism, the king grabs one of the children and leaves the other to perish. This somehow gives glory to the god of Calvinism even though we would be negligent and go to jail for such unloving, uncaring concern, and denigrating free will. Whereas God of the Bible supplies grace that is mandatory by not grabbing either child but again pleads with both and extending a life raft out to them as well.

Some may argue isn't it at least more loving to force one child out even if done brutally? No. Because there are many examples in life where such behavior is a violation of treatment towards fellow man. How can God's standards be less than our own? For example, since really we are not children but adults over the age of accountability, another example would be to force the CEO engaged in nefarious business practices to personally pay back to each person he took advantage of; the only way to do that would be to kidnap him and force him with a knife under his throat to give access to his bank funds and property wealth then drag him to each of his victims' homes to personally hand each one of them the money that was extracted from them. In society with such corrupted CEO's, we do not kidnap people. We can place them under the judgment of the law, but we do not as Matt Slick says, cage his mother up for the rest of her life in a basement suite so that she can't be harmed by poison. One evil does not justify another. Calvinists are sick bastards.

There is yet one other mistake made by James White in this matter. Time and again he uses the phrase, grace is "given to all equally" as though this somehow dismantles God's grace. Where is it said that OSAS Arminians believe God's grace is equally given to all men. No! What is said is that God's grace is "sufficient" for all men, so that He withholds nothing. Some persons need more or less, but it is always sufficient. In Calvinism grace is withheld by sending a child to Hell just because that child was born into sin. His god did not have the wherewithal or even the desire to provide sufficiently the grace needed for that soul in need to given a genuine choice. What love is that?

The common evasive attempt to adjust 1 John 2.2 is seen when White said (324),

Hunt's...interpretation of such passages as 1 John 2:2 have to be reconsidered (the original audience would have understood that to mean that distinct groups, Jews and Gentiles, make up  the "world").

What Hunt is teaching is not reconsidered but the original. Think about the underlying deception White is trying to push over on you when he reconsiders 1 John 2.2. "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world." Of course the whole world means Jews and Gentiles, for if either group is excluded, then it would not be the whole world. How does this in any way change the fact that Jesus was the propitiation for the sins of the whole world? to every soul that ever lived or will live. White requires an insertion into the text that is not there: "whole world of believers only." That does violence to the text. The simple reading of the text give no other option than His atonement was sufficient for the whole world and not just some of the world; the latter which would be the case due to the impotency of the god of Calvinism. 1 Tim. 4.10 concurs, "the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe." Not "Savior of all men but not from hell" nor Savior of all men some in each class of men"; but His atonement covers all the sins of the whole world, not just some of the sins. What a strange rendering: "Savior of all men in each class of men, specially those who believe." Let me get this right. There are those within each class of men that are saved and then a further subset of those who believe who are also saved? Calvinism is a molestation of God's word for a false salvation.

Praise the Lord Jesus is the Savior of all men, propitiation for the sins of the whole world, because grace is sufficient for us all, especially those who believe since we respond to God drawing. Sadly James white "draws back unto perdition" (Heb. 10.39). It would have been better if he never even heard the name of Christ (2 Pet. 2.21).

White thinks 1 Tim. 2.1 is supplication only for kings (324):

If Mr. Hunt wishes us to believe that "all men" in the passage is to be taken as "every single individual person" ...why should we not allow Paul's own words in verse 2 definite the term (i.e., "kings an those in authority"), and let him then seriously deal with the fact that his interpretation makes Jesus the mediator of every single individual, forcing to believe the amazing idea that Christ intercedes for those in hell itself!

Never underestimate the evil deceptions Satan will employ-a changed word here or there. 1 Tim. 2.1-2 says "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, [and] giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and [for] all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." Paul is giving a list of "all men" plus "kings" and not just kings also, but "all that are in authority." How strange this passage would be if we read it the way James White does that we should not pray for all men just the kings and those in authority to be saved. It shows you the kind of god White worships.

Dave Hunt didn't say Jesus is the mediator for those in Hell. Remember, the reason why they and White end up in Hell is because they want to be there for eternity to worship whatever they worship above God. They forsook Jesus as the mediator between God and men so just in that rejection they keep themselves separated from God for all eternity.

So James White thinks Jesus is a failure (325).

"Christ fails in His work of High Priest (which is what is in view in 1 Timothy 2:4-6).

Do you see how White and Satan accuse God? God is a failure to White! An employer is not a failure because he gives an employee every accessible tool to do his work. According to White, Jesus failed in dying for the sins of the whole world because not everyone is saved, but why must this be so if the purpose of dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world was to save whosoever was willing; having supplied all of us with sufficient grace to be able to respond to the wooing of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me White starts off with the supposition God can only operate by irresistibly imposing and decreeing things to happen rather than allowing man to be a sovereign being with free to have the choice. Yet there is no basis for this assumption. On the contrary, I count over 4000 places in the Bible referring to man's free will.

James White cries out, "Calvin changed nothing" (324) and again, "Calvin changed nothing" (325)! I think White is lost in Calvin not Christ. The gospel of Christ has been replaced by the gospel of Calvin, man's way.

Be grateful to God you don't have to spend one minute in the New City on the New Earth in the New Heaven with James White or John Calvin.

Thank you Jesus! Amen.