The Calvinism Debate - Way of Life Literature

e verse, though, does not say that the unsaved falseteachers were made by God to be destroyed, that they weresovereignly chosen to be reprobated. It says simply that thefalse teachers are like the beasts that have no understandingand that perish. It is the beasts that are created to bedestroyed, not the false teachers.In fact, the previous verse says that the Lord bought thesewicked men, meaning that He died to make it possible forthem to be saved, and that they BRING UPON THEMSELVESthe destruction. “But there were false prophets also amongthe people, even as there shall be false teachers among you,who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denyingthe Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swidestruction.”Jude 4--“For there are certain men crept in unawares,who were before of old ordained to this condemnation;ungodly men, turning the grace of our God intolasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and ourLord Jesus Christ.”Arthur Pink finds further support for the doctrine ofsovereign reprobation in this verse, saying, “...whicheveralternative be selected there can be no evading the fact thatcertain men are ‘before of old’ marked out by God ‘untocondemnation’” (e Sovereignty of God, p. 99).e simple meaning of this verse is that the false teachers inthis dispensation that deny the doctrine of Christ are judgedaer the same fashion as the men who were condemned inthe Old Testament--as the sinners of Noah’s day, as the menof Sodom, etc. “e meaning clearly is, that the punishmentwhich befell the unbelieving Israelites, (Jude 1:5) the rebelangels, (Jude 1:6) the inhabitants of Sodom, (Jude 1:7) and ofwhich Enoch prophesied, (Jude 1:15) awaited thosepersons” (Albert Barnes).Note that Jude does not say that these false teachers wereordained to condemnation from eternity but from “before ofold.” He is referring to the Scriptures and the constant109