Nuggets from "Whatever Happened to Heaven?" by Dave Hunt | thebereancall.org

Nuggets from "Whatever Happened to Heaven?" by Dave Hunt

February 14, 2015
Hunt, Dave

Nuggets from "Whatever Happened to Heaven?" by Dave Hunt

One of the boldest experiments to come out of the Reformation, though it ultimately failed like other similar attempts, was the theocracy established by John Calvin in Geneva, the city to which he moved in 1536 at the age of 27. The character of the man could scarcely be faulted. One senses the deep frustration as Pope Pius IV declares: "The strength of that heretic consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such servants my dominion would extend from sea to sea." His marriage relationship was chaste, affectionate, and loyal. On a modest salary of 100 crowns per year he lived frugally ans selflessly and labored tirelessly to establish a kingdom given over to godly rule and simple living....

Having convinced us [through his writing] of our own depravity and need to cry out for God's mercy as the only basis of hope, however, he went on to limit that mercy through his doctrine of predestination:

"As Scripture, then, clearly shows, we say that God once established by his eternal and unchangeable plan those whom he long before determined once for all to receive into salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, he would devote to destruction....By his just and irreprehensible but incomprehensible judgment he has barred the door of life to those whom he has given over to damnation." (Calvin, "Institutes of the Christian Religion," Vol XXI, Ch XXi.7, 931)

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