When the Protestant Church was born, they kept around seventy percent of Romanism when they first separated.  They didn’t know anything else.  The evolution of the Protestant Church—we know the term “protestant” just comes from the root “to protest.”  They were protesting against the Roman Church.  They were protesting against the Pope and the authority, certain doctrines that became real to these particular men that they saw were false.  In Luther’s case, of course, it was justification by faith and not by works.  Isn’t it tragic today how many Roman Catholics and Muslims are bound with believing in salvation by works?  When have you done enough?  If you talk to a Roman Catholic, or you talk to a Muslim, and you pin them down and ask them, “Have you done enough works?  Are you sure you’re going to heaven if you die?”  They go, “No.  I don’t know that.”  The fact is, a person in reformed theology, a Calvinist, they don’t know if they’re saved.  How do you know if you’re one of the “elect”?  If you were chosen from before the foundations of the world, and it was not by anything good or bad that you did, it was just arbitrarily God choosing to send some to heaven and some to hell, how do you know you’re the “elect”?  But we can know.  The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God; amen?  Because we’re not trusting in an arbitrary choice of God.  We are trusting in the free gift of God, Jesus Christ slain from before the foundation of the world, who came and said, “Whosoever will, may come.  And he that believeth on Me shall be saved, praise God!  And inherit eternal life.”  What a great privilege.  What a great, great gift we have in this gospel that’s been so clearly and simply set forth.  No words having to be twisted.  No changing of definitions.

In John 3:14-16, Jesus, answering the question of Nicodemus, gave him an example, an illustration in verse 14 and said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.”  Now, we all remember the story of the brazen serpent, and the children of Israel were dying, and they were admonished to take this serpent and put it on a standard and to raise it up, and when they did, it stilled the plague.  And it says, “And every person that looked, lived.”  So, Jesus Himself chose to use that as an illustration.  “…Even so must the Son of man be lifted up:  That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”  Now, is there any implication other than the fact that if you look and believe, you’ll have eternal life?  Is anything in there talking about a sovereign, arbitrary decision that was made that excluded some and included others at God’s discretion and sovereignty alone?  Can you find any of that?  Well, how they read this is, “whosoever believeth ‘of the elect’.”  That’s not what it says.

Volition, not arbitrary sovereignty, determines whether or not a man receives the gift of redemption.  In the example that Jesus was giving, everybody had a choice to look on that brazen serpent or not.  They could have tried to run or get out a stick and try to kill snakes.  They could have looked for another way of escape, to try through their own works.  But only if you looked, were you saved.  There were other paths and other methods that you could have chosen.  Jesus goes on in this passage, and we see in verse 16, that God so loved the world (not only the elect).  1 Timothy 2:1 says He wills that all men are to be saved; amen (not just the elect).  Guard yourself against Calvinism.