TULIP – the five points of Calvinists false doctrine

The argument really comes from those who teach constitutional depravity.  They are Calvinists.  They hold to the doctrine of TULIP.  It may be explained in this way:

Total Depravity - man has the nature of a sinner and he cannot do good or make right choices.

Unconditional Election - God chooses who he wants to be saved and man can do nothing.

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only for the elect that God has chosen not for the whole world.

Irresistible Grace – When God chooses the elect to be saved they cannot resist God’s decree.

Perseverance of Saints – Once chosen by God they cannot be lost, wicked or not.

I have put together the following chart to explain the difference between Calvin, Arminius and Bible:

The first letter of each point spells the acrostic – TUPIP. As anyone can see from this acrostic much of what we discuss in these chapters is to combat this false doctrine from John Calvin.  We have been saying that moral law is making right choices and that no one is incapable of turning to God.  We could answer all of the above in the following simple way:

1. There is no such thing as constitutional depravity for all have a free will to choose and there is nothing in the nature of man that keeps him from answering the call of God through the love of Jesus Christ and responding to the disinterested love that sent Jesus to the cross for sinners.  No person is so morally depraved that they cannot instantly repent and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

2. We have shown that Jesus died for all mankind and that man makes choices.  There is nothing moral about God making the choice for a moral agent or why would he be moral at all.  Election is nothing more than God knowing in his vast foreknowledge who will be saved and then making preparations to give them a chance based upon that foreknowledge.

3. We have discussed in previous chapters how God has provided an atonement for all mankind and there is no one that cannot readily accept the free gift of salvation.  Atonement is not limited, it is free to all who will receive it by faith.

4. Grace from God is free but not irresistible.  If that were the case man would not be a moral agent at all, he would be a robot.  What kind of God would it be that makes a man totally depraved then chooses only some to be saved which he pays for with a limited atonement and then crams his religion down their throat thus making them into a group of religious robots?  Wrong!  Grace is full and it is free to all who choose of their own free will to receive the wonderful love and salvation of God.

5. Perseverance of saints is a true doctrine and we will see in further chapters that a true repentance is one that lasts throughout life.  If there is anyone that feigns salvation or repentance and then in time they revert back to their old ways it is only obvious that they were not really saved after all, only reformed.  Perseverance is partly from a choice of disinterested benevolence and not holding back on God and also partly from the indwelling Holy Spirit who will not allow one of his children to be lost. Jesus said that he thanked the father that he had lost none of his disciples.  This is what perseverance is all about.

So when it comes to moral depravity, the root of it all is sin.  Man was created innocent.  He was neither sinful nor righteous.  Man was a moral being given the opportunity to make choices to either obey God and choose the love of God and the good of the universe as an end or to choose self-gratification as an end.  Adam found out immediately that the curse of sin was placed upon the world.   So the race of men that come from Adam are basically deficient, not sinful in nature.  They are deficient because they need to choose to know God and to will the best end for God and others as the ultimate end of life.  This choice comes only from a knowledge of God in his mercy which Adam did not know until after he had sinned and God offered an animal sacrifice in symbolism to mark the coming of the Holy One, Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of mankind.  When God brought the animal and provided clothing from the skins and then prophesied about the coming one that would bruise the head of the serpent, the Devil, Adam responded by teaching his offspring to offer a sacrifice and to look for the coming Messiah which was prophesied and looked for from the first man until Jesus came in the flesh.  The Bible talks about the result of all of this in Genesis:  “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.”  (Genesis 4:25-26)  We can see that when Eve had another son for the slain Abel that he was called Seth – compensation or substitute.  No doubt Eve thought that her son would be the Messiah who would pay for the sins of the world.  It was Abraham who willingly offered his son Isaac and God stopped him in the act that was a symbol of the coming of Christ and the faith that we all have in Jesus the sacrifice.  When the family of Adam began calling upon the name of the Lord it was that they wished to know the God of mercy and salvation.  We have almost the same words in the book of Romans:  “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  (Romans 10:13)  “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”  (John 17:3)

So the only thing that we can truly claim as being moral depravity is the sin of choosing selfishness over the bliss of knowing God.  In that, there is no sin nature that prevents anyone from choosing to receive the precious gift that has been so freely offered to all.

“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.”  (1 Peter 2:6)

“To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,” (1 Peter 2:4)

So when we think of the subject of what accounts for the moral depravity of moral agents we need only look at the life of a young child from birth to the day that he is saved and we can see the development of moral depravity in that life.

1. A child is born and until the age of what many theologians call accountability is considered innocent as Adam and Eve were in the Garden.  In that stage the baby has no knowledge of sin or of God and his moral standards.  The child only cries for his parents for the basic needs of food and changing or to help when he or she is sick.

2. As the child grows, the basic instinct of self-preservation will develop into what we have discussed as self-gratification in many ways.  However, as yet it is not sinful since the child does not know that certain things are wrong until disciplined by parents which does not amount to any more than the training of a pet who will do certain things to avoid punishment or to receive reward.  This also shows that the moral part of the child is being developed.

3. The child grows still further and learn to communicate and also learns that some choices are not right because his parents say they are not right.  As yet, he only is aware of doing that which causes concern from his parents, quite basic and not necessarily sinful.

4. The child then grows to a point where he does something that he knows is wrong and he does it maliciously in direct opposition to the wishes of his parents but chooses this path because he prefers self-gratification to obedience.  This now begins to develop and as yet the child has not sinned as far as the Bible is concerned.

5. Now comes a day when the truth of God is introduced to the child in either a conversation at home, or at school, or in some other way.  When the child learns that there is a God and he senses in his conscience that God is watching him and yet he still chooses self-gratification in opposition to God, then the child has reached the age of accountability and his moral depravity is just beginning to grow.

6. This pattern continues as new revelations of God and further decisions to reject his conscience cause the child to grow to a teenager and then to an adult still developing the moral depravity in the heart.

7. Some times a person, whether child, teen, or adult makes an attempt to know God and to repent but it is merely a selfish way to appease a guilty conscience and still continue in self-indulgence while thinking that they are safe from judgment.

8. The whole time of a person’s life that continues in selfishness, whether religious or not, keeps the moral depravity growing and growing until it becomes a hard and fast habit that is very hard to break and will one day take them to hell.

9. The only time that moral depravity is broken is when a person comes to see their total depravity before God and they come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ who died for them and they view the atonement as never before as meant for them and yet God loves them enough to forgive their sin if they will surrender all to Jesus both now and forever. When they finally have confidence to give up their self-gratification mindset and make living for Jesus and others the end for which they live as they receive the Holy Spirit into their lives, they become saved and moral depravity is ended forever.

10. There never was a day during the life of any individual when they had a constitutional inability to know God if they would only repent and believe.  To fail to receive the grace of God has to be a choice unless a person is mentally challenged or ill or a baby.  No other reason can be given for any person on the face of the earth to miss the glorious gift of salvation freely offered by Jesus to every man.

11. This does not make void the statement in the Bible that says that as by one man many were made sinners.  It does not disagree with the fact of physical depravity or of the weakness of the flesh.

Discussion of some verses that others use to prove a sinful nature!  Let’s look at the following:

1. “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:” (Genesis 5:3) There is nothing here that proves the fact that either Adam or Seth had a sin nature.  They both had similar DNA as science will prove and they both had a moral nature.  They had a cursed world and the temptations were similar and the flesh was now under the curse as well.

2. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.”  (Job 14:4) Again, nothing about this proves a sinful nature.  The only conclusion that one can draw is that the sinful do not by birth beget holy beings.  No one is holy without making a choice to be holy, birth has nothing to do with it as this verse states.  Again, men are moral by nature and able to make moral choices.  Birth has nothing to do with the choices that are made.  This can easily be seen in the history of the Bible where so many times Godly kings begat wicked sons.  Then again, wicked kings begat godly sons.  The point is that each one made his own choices and it had nothing to do with their birth.

3. “What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?”  (Job 15:14)  The truth about this and the previous quote from Job is that the persons doing the speaking were wrong before God and their statements were erroneous. They were actually trying to prove a sin nature and also trying to convict Job of sin that he had not committed before God.  The point still remains that the way a person is born does not make him righteous, only when he comes to know God as Job had obviously done. Read the last chapter and you can see how God asked them to repent and offer sacrifices to righteous Job who walked with God daily.

4. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”  (Psalms 51:5) Nothing is wrong with the statement that the parents of a person are sinners and there is nothing here to prove a sinful nature.  The verse does not refer to the child, only the mother and as we know already, the birth of a person does not make him either a sinner or righteous.  Each person makes that decision individually.

5. “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.”  (Psalms 58:3)  Well, you say, that verse proves a sinful nature!  Really?  Examine it closely!  How many babies do you know that begin to speak the day that they are born?  If so, then how many of them come out speaking lies as this verse says?  None!  This is allegorical to say that when children reach the age that they understand that they are moral and able to make decisions to do good or evil that they begin to make selfish decisions almost immediately which includes lies.  This in no way proves a sinful nature, only that children are have moral natures and make sinful choices early in life.

6. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  (John 3:6)  We could not agree more.  Again, this proves that a person is not born righteous.  It also does not prove that a person is born a sinner.  It only proves that a person does not become righteous until they are born again as other verses in John 3 testify.  Also, we have never argued against a depraved flesh.

7. “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”  (Ephesians 2:3)  Again, read what it says.  Are we to say that God is wrathful against us from the day that we are born regardless of our moral choices?  No!  God has wrath against transgressions, selfishness.  This verse is only saying what others above say, that we are children of parents who are sinners and potentially under the wrath of God.  As the Bible says, “All have sinned…”  If you read the verses previous to this you can see that the only way a person is quickened is not by physical birth but by being born spiritually.  You can also see that the condemnation is against self-gratification which a person sees being done by his or her parents.

In all these verses and in many others in the Bible there is nothing to suggest anything more than a depraved flesh and a moral nature that is not hindered from choosing to know God.  If it were any other way, God would be guilty of creating a sinful nature and we would justly demand that salvation be provided for every unfortunate calamity in the human race because sin is not our fault.  Is it any wonder that the church is so confused today?  We need to get away from theological evolution and get back to the position of God that man was made in the image of God who does not have a sinful nature.  We need to see why God says that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.  He never says that human nature is sinful anywhere.  The question we all need to ask is this:  are we going to obey God in the spirit or obey the flesh with our moral nature that can choose, like Adam and Eve, either to become self-indulgent, or to know God want the best end for God and others.  It is our choice!