The following post is a satire, written from the perspective of an overzealous Calvinist.
This post is part of a series on the New Calvinist Bible (NCB) – a new Bible translation designed to show Calvinism in all its glory. Click here to start at the beginning of the series.
After Romans, John’s Gospel is probably the second most referred-to book of the Bible by Calvinists. Surprisingly, some still manage to read this gospel and not pick up on its consistently Calvinist content. This won’t be a problem any more with the New Calvinist Bible, which spells out the Calvinism in John in even clearer detail (if that were even possible). Here are some highlights:
John 1:6-13 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might the elect would definitely believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone the elect, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him were not elect. But to all who did receive him were elect, who were irresistibly caused to believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world elect, that he gave his only Son, that whoever was arbitrarily chosen by God to believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world non-elect – they had been condemned already, but in order that the world elect might would definitely be saved through their prior election, as evidenced by their irresistibly-caused faith in him. Whoever believes in him was arbitrarily chosen for salvation is not condemned, but whoever does not believe was arbitrarily chosen for eternal damnation is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God been condemned to this since before the world began.
John 6:27-71 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent There is nothing you can do; if you have been chosen then God will irresistibly cause you to believe, otherwise you are going to hell.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world elect only.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever is irresistibly caused to comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever is irresistibly caused to believes in me shall never thirst.
But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe, because you were not given the opportunity to do so. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and rather than give me all who believe, he has given me only a select few individuals whom he will irresistibly cause to believe, and whoever is irresistibly caused to comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and is irresistibly caused to believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and he will only draw the elect and will do so irresistibly. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever is irresistibly caused to believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one mayeither irresistibly will, or won’t be given any opportunity to eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, but this bread is only for the elect and they will be irresistibly caused to eat it. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world elect is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever God irresistibly causes to feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever God irresistibly causes to feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever God irresistibly causes to feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever God irresistibly causes to feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you the elect are spirit and life. But there are some of you who the non-elect do not believe because they have not been given the opportunity to do so.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not were not going to be given an opportunity to believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father, and that there are many to whom the Father will never grant an opportunity to come to me, while those that do come to me will be caused to do so irresistibly.” After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have been irresistibly caused to believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.
John 10:24-38 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep, and you can never possibly become one of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be broken — do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, you can never possibly believe the works because you are not among my sheep, and you can never possibly become one of my sheep, that you may so you will never know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will irresistibly draw all people only the elect to myself.”
John 17:1-26 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him, i.e. the unconditionally elect. And this is eternal life, that they, i.e. the unconditionally elect, know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world, i.e. the unconditionally elect. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them, i.e. the unconditionally elect, the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
I am praying for them, i.e. the unconditionally elect. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, i.e. the elect, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they, i.e. the elect, are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they, i.e. the elect, may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them, i.e. the elect, your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them, i.e. the elect, into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these, i.e. the elect, only, but also for which includes those who will irresistibly believe in me through their word, thereby showing that they were also always elect, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may only they will believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, i.e. the elect, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may only they will know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, i.e. the elect, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these, i.e. the elect, know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
This was originally posted at The Predestination Station, where comments can be made.
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