VII. JOHN CALVIN ON THE SALVATION OF - The Works of F. N. Lee

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Thus the Pre-Mosaic book of Job - and John Calvin' s comment thereon. The same is true also of the Mosaic book of Exodus - and Calvin' s comment thereon too. Indeed, in Exodus 11:4f Moses says that God would kill the firstborn in the land of Egypt but spare the children of Israel - ' so that you may knowthat the Lord puts a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.' Yet nothing is here said about the Lordkilling babies - and still less about sending babies to hell. To the contrary, the passage is discussing the physical slaughter of ' the first born' in Egypt - nearly all of which ' first born' (unlike the ' last born' ) would no longer have been babies. Calvin comments to the same effect: 299 "It appears how courageously Moses sustained the menaces of the tyrant [Pharaoh].... He willingly encounters him, and boasts that He [God] shall be his conqueror...[viz.] by the death of [not his last-born but] his first-born son.... "God again puts a difference between the Egyptians - and His Own people.... The latter shall be quiet and tranquil.... [So] God divides them very widely one from the other!" Yet hell is never mentioned here. Even more interestingly, in Deuteronomy 20:13f, the inspired Moses himself told the people of Israel: ' When you come near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it.... But if it wants to make no peace with you, but wishes to make war against you -- then you shall besiege it.... ' Whenthe Lord your God has delivered it into your hands, you shall smite every [mature] male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women and the little ones and the cattle and all that is in the city...you shall take for yourself.... "That is what you shall do to all the cities very far off from you.... But of the cities of these [nearby] people which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them: [namely] the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites!' Only nearby pagan peoples, who could have polluted the Israelites, were to be exterminated. Yet God in the same breath ordered His ancient people to do everything possible to spare the totality of the inhabitants of all vanquished pagan cities that were far-off (and thus of little moral threat to the Israelites). Even if such cities would not surrender - only the mature males but never their womenfolk and children were to be smitten. In all of this, God' s people were required to image the merciful God Himself. Therefore, it would seem that God had a much harsher attitude toward mature male pagans - than toward their womenfolk and especially toward their ignorant children. Accordingly, Calvin himself 300 here comments anent those ' far-off' pagan cities: "It was not lawful to kill any [of the enemies of the Hebrews], except those who were taken in arms and sword in hand.... This permission, therefore, to slaughter - which is extended to [slaughter] ' all the males' - is far distant from...its execution [regardless of sex and age].... - 91 -
"Inhumanity is here mitigated, since they might not kill either women or children" among their far-off pagan opponents. For "when a city will not receive peace, God gives His people leave to destroy all the men - reserving only the young children, the women, and the cattle." Accordingly, Calvin taught that the children of the far-off pagan cites were not to be slaughtered. Only those ' nearby' were not to be saved alive physically. Indeed, even then - and a fortiori - nothing at all is said about the everlasting destiny of the unspared children of even those nearby pagan cities with their truly abominable practices. Calvin on the spared children of the Ninevites in the Book of Jonah An extended quotation from Calvin' s comment on statements in the Book of Jonah, will establish that particularly the infants of pagan Nineveh were spared from at least a temporal destruction. Here again, there is no question of ' impenitent' [?!] babies - or, for that matter, even of their parents (the penitent adult Ninevites) - going to hell for ever. Quite the contrary. See Matthew 12:41. There, Jesus Himself has declared that the Ninevites shall rise in judgment against the wicked Hebrew generation of His own day. They shall condemn it - "because they [the Ninevites] repented at the preaching of Jonah." Calvin explains 301 that "Nineveh must have been a great city.... This city was large, and so populous that there were there one hundred twenty thousand children. If any one receives not this testimony - let him feed on the lies of the devil! But since there were so many children there - what else can we say but that the circumference of the city was very great?" Furthermore, "destruction had been denounced not only on men, but also on the whole city - even on the buildings.... Jonah afterwards adds, ' And they cried [out] mightily to God.' This must be confined to human beings. For it could not have been applied to brute animals.... ' AndGod saw their works, that they turned from their evil way' .... [Thus] the Ninevites obtained pardon -- through their repentance." Calvin: wicked Nineveh s babies did not merit destruction Now it was not an impenitent city which God here spared. Here, He spared a city which repented - at least as regards its adolescents and adults. Yet the would-be spectator Jonah still became very angry that God had spared Nineveh. So God shrivelled up a leafy gourd which had been sheltering Jonah from the hot sun. This, however, made that malcontent even more angry. Jonah 4:1-9f. Says Calvin: 302 "It was no wonder that God the Creator and Father had a care for so many thousands of human beings.... The men of Nineveh were [or had been] alienated from God. "Yet, as they were human beings, God as...the Father of the whole human race acknowledged them as His Own - at least to such an extent as to give them the common light of day and - 92 -
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Page 3 and 4: "It grew worse and worse, as time a
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Page 11 and 12: Here, the whole context not only se
Page 13 and 14: According to Calvin, ' the blood of
Page 15 and 16: "God' spromise comprehends not only
Page 17 and 18: grace of adoption but also newness
Page 19 and 20: Calvin comments 319 that John is he
Page 21 and 22: Calvin on Christ healing the daught
Page 23 and 24: is done to the covenant of God, as
Page 25 and 26: "Christ surpasses Adam.... Since Ch
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Page 37 and 38: "I again ask how it is that the fal
Page 39 and 40: Calvin condemns the Anabaptist Serv
Page 41 and 42: Castellio would therefore also be q
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Page 45 and 46: The Early Calvinist Confessions on
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Page 49 and 50: The above is also our own perceptio
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Explained Toplady: 407 "Christ died
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The maverick hypercalvinist Michael
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Thus, Rev. Professor Dr. Ashbel Gre
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Rev. Drs. Bethune and Bockok on the
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Rev. Professor Dr. R.S. Candlish: a
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whereby one could remain connected
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"If the ground be taken that justic
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"Who broke for ever, out of Christe
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After seeing the great usefulness o
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Standard [namely the Westminster Co
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Also the noted Presbyterian Theolog
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the martyrdom of prophets and other
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"It was instrumentally the result o
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Rev. Professor Dr. Philip Schaff: t
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the salvation of all infants dying
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"Before pronouncing this judgment,"
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"' ChristJesus came into the World
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They also give very little hope tha
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XI. OUR OWN VIEW ON THE SALVATION O
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Church regards those whom it admits
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For example. The Declaratory Statem
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Article I of the Australian Declara
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In the book of Ecclesiastes (4:2f &
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critics) that Calvinists teach chil
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Zechariah 13:7; and Malachi 2:10-14
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VII. JOHN CALVIN ON THE SALVATION OF - The Works of F. N. Lee

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