The Protestant Reformation: Truth and Error.

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The Flower Falls

21 min readSep 7, 2019

NOTE: The post you are about to read is adapted from Chapter 3 of my book The Flower Falls: A Careful Examination of Calvinism’s TULIP. The entire book is available here in blog format, but you can find it in print form on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or ask for it at your favorite bookstore.

The Protestant Church owes a debt of gratitude to Martin Luther. Standing on the shoulders of John Wycliffe, Jan Huss, and others who spoke scriptural truth in opposition to the religious hierarchy of their day, Luther spoke against the practice of selling indulgences as a quick pass to heaven. He boldly declared the Scriptures are the sole source of religious authority. And he rightly proclaimed that justification is the result of faith, rather than works. His 95 Theses were a proposition to dialogue with scholars, in the hope of sparking necessary changes to the Roman Catholic Church he loved. Yet, within four years, Pope Leo X declared him a heretic, excommunicated him, and called for his arrest.(1)

Luther’s brave stand marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and emboldened other people to make declarations that caused further upheaval in Christendom. Within twenty years of Luther’s proclamation that salvation comes by grace through faith, a young Frenchman named John Calvin claimed the grace and faith necessary for salvation were given only to those people whom God had chosen and predestined before the foundation of the world to be saved, leaving all others condemned to an eternity in hell.(2)

This teaching can be traced back to the fifth-century philosopher Augustine who wrote, “Faith, then, as well in its beginning as in its completion, is God’s gift; and let no one have any doubt whatever, unless he desires to resist the plainest sacred writings, that this gift is given to some, while to some it is not given”.(3) Calvin expanded on Augustine’s writings in his 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion, causing confusion and division in the body of Christ that continues today.

Scripture and Calvin Contrasted

Scripture proclaims that God desires all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). Calvin said, “All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation.”(4)

Scripture declares the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all people (Titus 2:11). Calvin said salvation is freely offered to some people, while others are barred access from it.(5)

Scripture records the Lord’s declaration, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). Calvin said, “Scripture clearly proves this much, that God, by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction.”(6)

The contrasts between Calvin’s words and the Scriptures were immediately evident, but that didn’t stop Calvin’s teachings from spreading and later being summarized in the acronym TULIP.

· T stands for Total Depravity, which claims that the depravity of humans is so comprehensive we are incapable of turning to God and accepting his gracious gift of salvation unless he predestined us to do so.

· U stands for Unconditional Election, which claims that God unconditionally chose some people to obtain eternal life and others to be eternally damned. Calvinists commonly refer to those chosen for eternal life as the “elect.”

· L stands for Limited Atonement, which claims that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus’ death was not accomplished for the sins of the world but was exclusively for people God unconditionally elected to be saved.

· I stands for Irresistible Grace, which claims that God’s grace overcomes any human resistance that would keep the “unconditionally elect” from accepting the gift of salvation.

· P stands for Perseverance of the Saints, which claims that God ensures his “unconditionally elect” will persevere in faith until death.

A cursory reading of the points of TULIP may lead some people to consider them harmless. After all, despite the uncomfortable nature of them, there seems to be Scripture to support each one. Why, then, is there so much confusion? Proverbs 18:17 provides a possible explanation: “The first to plead his case seems right until another comes and examines him.” As evidenced by the passages we looked at earlier, a closer examination of TULIP reveals that many Scripture passages conflict with its individual points.

Few Christians deny that every part of humans is affected by sin, and they are not able to earn, merit, or buy eternal life. However, if the T in TULIP is true and people are not able to turn to God unless he predestined them to do so, then it seems he was insincere when he said, “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22).

The U in TULIP puts us in the position of attempting to reconcile Calvin’s idea that it was God’s pleasure to unconditionally elect some people to salvation and doom others “to destruction” with the biblical truth that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Furthermore, we must attempt to reconcile Calvin’s view that being “chosen” provides an unconditional guarantee of eternal life with Paul’s words to Timothy: “If we deny Him, He also will deny us” (2 Timothy 2:12).

The confusion continues with the L of TULIP. Calvinism teaches that the redemption and salvation made available because of Jesus’ death and resurrection were restricted to a chosen few people. Yet John wrote in 1 John 4:14, “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” Paul wrote to Timothy that Jesus “gave Himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6). And John wrote in 1 John 2:2 that Jesus is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

The I in TULIP presents another set of problems. Though only one Greek word is used in the New Testament for grace, Calvinists have divided God’s grace into two categories: common grace and effectual grace. They speak of common grace as being everyday blessings the whole world receives, such as the air, sunshine, and rain that are necessary for life. Effectual grace, they claim, is God’s irresistible grace that results in salvation for the people who are “unconditionally elect.” Calvinists might have a case for their distinction if it weren’t for Paul’s claim in Titus 2:11: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.”

Calvinists make a similar distinction between an “effectual” and “general” call to salvation; but, here again, no separate word exists to support it. The Calvinistic perspective of God’s call says the irresistible “effectual call” is given only to “elect” people while the perfunctory “general call” is given to the whole world via the preaching of the gospel. Thus, we are left to conclude that if people respond to the call of salvation, they must have been called with the “irresistible call.” And if they don’t respond, they were called with the “general call.” This thinking is commonly accepted among Calvinists, but the circular reasoning of it reveals weakness in TULIP’s foundation.

It’s true that all people are partakers of God’s grace with every breath we take, morsel we eat, and beauty we enjoy; but the Scriptures don’t indicate his gracious call and offer of salvation are given only to a chosen few. Rather, as we’ve seen, God said in Isaiah 45:22, “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.”

Paul seemed to have a good understanding of God’s desire for all people to be saved. After all, he not only told Titus the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all men, he told the men of the Areopagus that God determined the times and boundaries of humankind, so “they would seek God” then went on to say, “Having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent” (Acts 17:26–27, 30).

The P in TULIP further complicates things. James indicated the possibility of “brethren” straying from the truth (James 5:19–20), but he wasn’t the only biblical author to do so. Though Paul was “a chosen instrument” of God (Acts 9:15), he wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:1 of the possibility of receiving the grace of God in vain. He wrote in Romans 11:19–22 of the possibility of “called” people being cut off. And, as we’ve seen, he wrote to Timothy, “If we deny Him, He also will deny us” (2 Timothy 2:12).

These passages are straightforward. Yet, when faced with a person who has strayed from the truth and walked away from the Lord, Calvinists often suggest the person may never have been chosen (unconditionally elect) to begin with. That might seem like a logical conclusion, but logic also prompts the question: If people who don’t persevere to the end were never chosen to begin with, how can anyone be assured they’re chosen to salvation until they persevere unto death?

I won’t speculate that John Piper spends much time pondering whether he’ll persevere in faith, but the following quote from a sermon he taught on Hebrews 6 reveals the uncertain nature of election as taught in TULIP:

“I’ll be very personal, to give it its sharpest point. If in the coming years I commit apostasy and fall away from Christ, it will not be because I have not tasted of the word of God and the Spirit of God and the miracles of God. . . . If that happens, then know that the truth is this: John Piper was mightily deceived in the first fifty years of his life. His faith was an alien vestige of his father’s joy. His fidelity to his wife was a temporary passion and compliance with social pressure. His fatherhood was the outworking of natural instincts. His preaching was driven by the love of words and crowds. His writing was a love affair with fame. And his praying was the deepest delusion of all — an attempt to get God to supply the resources of his vanity.”(7)

Dr. Piper is a passionate, well-known teacher of Calvinism’s TULIP, and I pray he never commits apostasy. Yet even he acknowledges the possibility that he could be “mightily deceived” about his faith and fall away from Christ. If one of the most influential leaders of the modern Calvinistic movement suggests such a possibility, it seems reasonable to consider whether the grounding for TULIP is as solid as many people have been led to believe.

Ordained By God?

The confusion surrounding Calvinism and whether it aligns itself with Scripture is compounded by the idea that God not only unconditionally predestined every person’s eternal destiny, he predestined every word and event in history. Calvin wrote, “The counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.”(8) Calvin went on to explain Augustine’s viewpoint on the matter, saying, “There cannot be a greater absurdity than to hold that anything is done without the ordination of God; … no cause must be sought for but the will of God.”(9)

These ideas were later summarized in the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith: “God, from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: . . . yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, . . . nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”(10)

Neither Calvin’s words nor the Westminster Confession are Scripture, but many people have become convinced that “whatsoever comes to pass” is God’s foreordained will. One week after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, John Piper’s Desiring God website posted an assessment of the massacre, claiming,

“But, of course, the Bible says more than that God could have prevented it; it says it occurs “according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). Indeed, he works all things according to the counsel of his will. And when the Bible says ‘all things,’ it means all things….All things — good, bad, ugly, and horrific — are ordained, guided, and governed by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.”(11)

Then, seemingly in an effort to back up his strong statement, the author provided a link to a longer post where he proposed, “God is an Author and our days are His story. . . . God writes the book of history, and then reads it aloud into existence. He puts pen to paper and forms a plan for the ages, and then performs a dramatic rendering of his epic poem that is so potent that his words actually take on flesh.”(12)

These are bold claims, but God’s words as recorded in Jeremiah 7:30–31 provide reasons to question their validity:

“For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares the Lord, “they have set their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind” (emphasis mine).

The word translated “mind” can also be translated “heart” but neither supports the idea that the Lord commanded the atrocities committed by the sons of Judah as part of his ordained will. In contrast, he said the burning of the sons and daughters of Judah didn’t even come to his mind. Interestingly, he reiterated those words almost verbatim in Jeremiah 19:5 and 32:35.

Each of these passages challenge the idea that everything has been ordained by God as part of his will. And they are not the only ones to do so. Speaking of false prophets, the Lord said to Jeremiah: “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them” (14:14). “I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied” (23:21). Then, expounding on his previous statements, he said, “Behold, I am against the prophets . . . who use their tongues and declare, ‘The Lord declares.’ . . . I did not send them or command them, nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit” (23:31–32).

Conflict, the Secret Things of God, and the Scriptures

The times in which Luther and Calvin wrote were tumultuous. The newfound freedom of the clergy to interpret the Scriptures, along with Guttenberg’s improvements to the printing press, meant that ideas about God and salvation spread quickly throughout Europe and later throughout the Western world. Sadly though, amid the excitement, Luther, Calvin, and others fell into the trap that ensnares many people eager to make their point.

They swung the pendulum too far.

They embellished.

They exaggerated.

They made slight changes to the Scriptures.

And, in doing so, they distorted the gospel they sought to rescue from the Roman Catholic Church and journeyed into errors of their own.

Luther’s call for the reformation of the Catholic Church was admirable. However, rather than following the example of Jesus who mourned over Israel (Luke 19:41–44) or the example of Paul who wished he could trade his salvation for that of his fellow Israelites (Romans 9:1–5), Luther spoke harshly of the Jewish people. In his book On the Jews and their Lies, he called for the burning of their synagogues and schools, the destruction of their homes, and the restriction of their safe passage. Sadly, Luther’s sentiments were later used to support Hitler’s extermination of Jews, and they continue to fuel antisemitism today.(13)

Calvin didn’t call for the destruction of the Jewish people, but he wrote to his friend William Farel that if his nemesis Michael Servetus were to come to Geneva, “I shall never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any avail.”(14) Later, when Servetus finally made it to Geneva, he was detained at Calvin’s request, put on trial, and burned at the stake.(15)

Followers of Calvin might claim he was compelled to have Servetus arrested because he was a heretic; but whether a heretic or not, Calvin’s attitude toward him fell far short of Paul’s instruction to Timothy to gently reprove those who opposed him (2 Timothy 2:25). In fact, when faced with the concerns of people who questioned the inconsistencies between his teachings about predestination and the Scriptures, rather than gently reproving those who opposed him and remembering Peter’s instruction to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have…with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15), Calvin referred to God’s hidden will and dismissed people who questioned him as “foolish” saying, “I admit that profane men lay hold of the subject of predestination to carp, or cavil, or snarl, or scoff. . . . There is no need of refuting objections which the moment they are produced abundantly betray their hollowness.”(16)

Calvin looked to Moses’ words “The secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29) as support for his claim about God’s hidden will. The problem with that is, Moses didn’t stop there. He went on to say, “The things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.”

The infinitely wise, all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe has the freedom and ability to do anything he chooses and is under no obligation to tell us his secret things; but we err when we overlook what is revealed in favor of that which is hidden or secret. The idea that God has a secret will in opposition to his revealed will presents a problem. We have ways of describing people who say one thing publicly and another privately. Untrustworthy. Unreliable. Hypocritical. Two–faced. None of them are nice. And none of them describe the sovereign God revealed in the pages of Scripture.

Beyond the Bounds of Scripture

The inconsistent nature of Calvin’s teachings shouldn’t surprise us. Distortion often follows on the heels of truth. Small changes to Scripture have become the foundation of false beliefs, teachings, and religions throughout history. With the addition, subtraction, or change of a single word, people can make the Bible say many things it does not otherwise say. John Calvin seemed to acknowledge this reality, cautioning his readers, the “light of God’s Word . . . will curb and restrain all presumption. For it will show us that the moment we go beyond the bounds of the word we are out of the course, in darkness.”(17) Yet, both he and John Piper go beyond the Scriptures to uphold their Calvinistic beleifs.

In a message titled Let Us Press On to Maturity, Dr. Piper attempts to make the point that Esau could not repent:

“Another example is from Hebrews 12:16–17 where the writer tells about Esau who squandered his birthright and his blessing and then tried to repent and couldn’t.”

‘[Let] there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it [repentance] with tears.’

“Esau was rejected. He had so profaned the grace of God that he was no longer able to repent even though he wept and looked like he was sincere.”(18)

The claim that Esau couldn’t repent aligns with the Calvinistic idea that people are unable to repent unless God has chosen them to do so, but the verse doesn’t say Esau sought repentance with tears. Piper inserted the word repentance into the text. The passage says he sought for it with tears; and both the grammatical context of this passage and of Genesis 27:30–38 (which records the original incident) reveal the it Esau sought was his father’s blessing; not repentance.

Despite the fervor with which Piper presented his case, the text doesn’t support his claim that Esau couldn’t repent. The same is true of both Calvin’s and Piper’s assessment of 1 Timothy 2:4. There Paul wrote, God “desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” His words are simple and straightforward, but Calvin claimed Paul was referring “to classes of men, and not to individual persons.”(19) And Dr. Piper says it’s possible “all people” means “all sorts of persons.”(20)

Interpretations like these are common among people who hold to Calvinistic ideas, but in claiming Paul meant all classes of men or all sorts of people, Calvin and Piper seem to forget Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians not to go beyond what is written (1 Corinthians 4:6) and the warning of Proverbs 30:6, “Do not add to His words or He will reprove you and you will be proved a liar.”

In suggesting the addition of even a single word, Calvin and Piper not only put themselves in the unenviable position of correcting the writers of Scripture, they put the church in danger of reverting to the days before the Reformation when people were dependent on the clergy to explain the Scriptures to them.

The Test of Time

Calvinism’s almost 500-year history, combined with the sincerity and passion of people who proclaim it, leads some to conclude it must be true. I understand the sentiment. It’s natural to give credence to ideas we believe have stood the test of time, especially if we hold the purveyors of those ideas in high regard. However, it’s important to recognize that neither the certainty of the people who believe them nor the test of time is enough to validate ideas or theories as true.

A simple example is the theory of spontaneous generation. It’s considered absurd today, but after being proposed in Aristotle’s History of Animals, the theory managed to persist for more than two thousand years after his death in 322 BC. Aristotle described the procreation of mammals in detail, but he went on to erroneously assert that aphids spontaneously arise from the dew on plants, flies from putrid matter, [720] and gnats from bloodworms.(21)

More than 700 years after Aristotle wrote, Augustine upheld the idea of spontaneous generation in his books The City of God and The Literal Meaning of Genesis, citing Genesis 1:20 as support for it: “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” Aristotle and Augustine were respected thinkers in their times, but water teeming with swarms of living creatures does nothing to support the idea of spontaneous generation.

Aristotle was a keen observer of the natural world and has remained a respected philosopher throughout the millennia, so when people began questioning his theory in the 1600s, they were met with ridicule; especially by the clergy. Alexander Ross, vicar of St. Mary’s Church, Carisbrooke, England, and a prolific writer, asserted that to question spontaneous generation is to “question reason, sense, and experience.”(22)

It’s not surprising that people cling tightly to long-held beliefs or that the reason and sense of those who doubt them are called into question. However, though considered true by virtually everyone for more than two thousand years, the theory of spontaneous generation began dying a slow death in 1668 when Italian physician and poet Francesco Redi conducted experiments designed to disprove it. I say a slow death because the theory wasn’t definitively disproved until almost two hundred years later when the young French chemist Louis Pasteur demonstrated convincingly that microorganisms are responsible for the previously unexplained appearance of “spontaneous generation.”

In pointing this out, I am in no way suggesting that all long-held beliefs are invalid and should be questioned. I live my life based on truths recorded in ancient writings. However, followers of Jesus Christ must not be content holding to “hidden truths” that conflict with revealed ones. Truth isn’t dependent on our feelings, beliefs, or even the quantity or quality of people who believe as we do. Feelings, passions, and beliefs change. The Scriptures do not. If they are our foundation for determining truth, we can be sure that no matter how passionately it may be taught, any philosophy, worldview, theory, or idea that is inconsistent with them cannot be true. Otherwise, we leave ourselves open to many strange and false teachings.

I’m not advocating for a war against Calvinists, but overlooking inconsistencies isn’t the answer either. Neither promotes true unity in the body of Christ. While God uniquely inspired the Scriptures, and their message and truths are timeless, the rules for interpreting them are the same as for every other spoken and written word. Neither ancient Greeks, German monks and French theologians of the Middle Ages, passionate modern-day Bible scholars, nor common people like you and me are free to add to anyone’s words, take away from them, or define them outside of the normal range of meaning at the time they were written. Neither are we free to arbitrarily insert ourselves into passages that leave no room for us. Doing any of these things not only violates proper interpretation guidelines, it violates basic rules of civility.

The idea that God chose and predestined individuals to either life or death and foreordained every word and event in history as part of his will, has caused much confusion and division in the body of Christ. While the apostle Paul pleaded with the Philippians to be “of the same mind” (Philippians 2:2) and Jesus prayed in John 17 that his followers would be “one,” the church has been debating and dividing over Calvinistic teaching for hundreds of years.

Anyone tempted to think twenty-first century Christians are too sophisticated to divide over such issues might want to consider what happened in the more than 14 million-member Southern Baptist Convention in recent years. In response to controversies and heated debates over the resurgence of Calvinism, David L. Allen, then dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in 2012:

“Two things are crystal clear. The issue of Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention is not going away, and finding our way forward is not going to be easy. Calvinism is viewed through many prisms in the SBC. . . .Regardless of which camp you are in, or somewhere in the middle, Southern Baptists need to proceed with caution in the days ahead. When it comes to Calvinism in the SBC, a fair amount of misinformation, misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation characterizes the current climate. This makes it difficult for most to cut through the discrepant fog.”(23)

While attempting to cut through the fog, Southern Baptists were hit with yet another blow when more than 700 people came forward in 2019 with claims of sexual abuse by church leaders and cover–ups by the clergy.(24) These horrific crimes are heartbreaking in and of themselves, but the horrors are compounded by the fact that, if Calvinism is true, then the abuses and their cover-ups were God’s foreordained will and predestined plan.

The confusion, division, and devastation associated with Calvinistic ideas aren’t limited to people involved with the Southern Baptist Convention. Statistics aren’t available on how many individual churches have split over the teachings of Calvinism; but at least three in my small part of southern California have done so in recent years, leaving individuals and families disappointed, discouraged, and disillusioned. People who haven’t been negatively affected by Calvinistic teaching may never fully grasp the extent of damage it can cause, but blissful ignorance does nothing to alleviate the pain of those who have.

Thankfully, the status quo of confusion, division, and devastation need not continue to plague the body of Christ. While there is plenty of mystery, there is no duplicity with God. The confusion and division surrounding Calvinism is not the result of mystery. It’s the result of misinterpretations that have been spread by well-meaning men and women over hundreds of years. Some people may scoff at that statement, but the Gospel of John reveals that even the people closest to Jesus were susceptible to misinterpretation. John 21 records that, after preparing breakfast for his disciples and telling Peter to tend his sheep, Jesus spoke of Peter’s future death, saying he would be brought where he did not want to go. Those words seem to have made Peter a bit uneasy. I say this because, after hearing them, he looked at “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and said, “What about this man?” Jesus’ reply was simple and direct: “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” (John 21:20–22).

Despite the simplicity of Jesus’ words, his disciples read something into them and a rumor spread. The next verse tells us, “Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?’” (v.23). Such is the case with Calvinism. A word added here, a passage taken out of context there, and the erroneous interpretations of John Calvin have been spreading ever since.

Keenly aware of the dangers of false teachings, the apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). This is important counsel to follow when considering the teachings of Calvinism. The Calvinistic “gospel” is so different than the gospel proclaimed in the Scriptures that even John Piper, Matt Chandler, and the late R.C. Sproul struggled greatly with the discrepancies before surrendering to Calvinism as “truth.” The problem with their surrender is that the persuasive tactics and interpretational methods employed to bring them to the point of surrender violate basic interpretation guidelines and ethical standards that we Christians hold other faith groups to.

We’ll consider their stories and more of the difficulties surrounding TULIP’s teaching of unconditional election here.

NOTE: This post is adapted from Chapter 2 of my book The Flower Falls: A Careful Examination of Calvinism’s TULIP. You can find it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or ask for it at your favorite bookstore. Or, if you prefer, you can purchase it through me.

You can connect with me on Twitter, or email me at patti@theflowerfallsoff.com

To read more, return to the homepage or follow one of the links below.

Calvinism’s Errors: A Brief Introduction

Reformation Truth and Error

The Illusionary Truth of Calvinism

The Sovereignty and Will of God

Chosen and Predestined Ephesians 1

Pronouns and the Sense

Redemption, Adoption, and the Seal of the Spirit- Ephesians

Romans 8- Foreknown and Predestined

Romans 8:33- A Charge Against God’s Elect

Romans 9- Love & Hate, Potter & Clay