What is Hyper Calvinism?

In this video, I address the question "What is Hyper Calvinism?" Often this term is used incorrectly, but there is an actual historical definition!

[villarrealmarta]

I thought it meant a Calvinist who drinks too much coffee....

[blackoakfarm]

I really appreciate your ministry. I was born Lutheran, married into Dutch Christian reform, which pretty much drove me crazy for 20 years until I backed out. Thank God. Charismatic for a long time and now I feel myself moving back to my roots once again. Thank you.

[Mygoalwogel]

When Casiodoro de Reina sparked the little known Valencian Reformation, he very quickly had to flee the Inquisition to England. The Anglican Church welcomed him, but the Puritan Calvinists tried to have him jailed on false charges. Then he fled to Geneva, arriving on the very day Calvin approved the burning of fellow Spaniard, Servetus. De Reina wrote, "Calvin is worse than the Inquisition." He then fled to the Lutherans. They DID find De Reina's teachings heretical, but did NOT arrest or kill him. Instead, they dialogued with him, eventually coming to doctrinal agreement. He became the leader of all diaspora Spanish, Italian and Portuguese churches in Germany. He was also the first to complete a translation of the Bible, Luther's Catechisms, and the Augsburg Confessions into Spanish.

[Saint_Magnapinna]

Thank you clarifying! accuracy is better than fiery rhetoric.

[jcpg]

Calvinist here (I'm a member of the URCNA). Very fair and precise overview!

[JamesMC]

It is very refreshing to hear theological precision defended and insisted upon. All the more so, given the widespread popular neglect of precision.

[sdpeterson]

This is a fantastic explanation. Very concise. Thank you Pastor Jordan.

[BillWalkerWarren]

Hello Pastor .
Got a question . Would you say there is a difference between hyper Calvinist and cage stage Calvinist.
What you said in some ways describe what some folks call cage stage Calvinism.
Blessings
Your Reformed brother
Bill

[haroldgamarra]

Hypercalvinism is a Calvinism that embraces coherently all the consequences of its assertions.

Basically Hypercalvinism is sincere Calvinism.

[JamesMC]

How old is *hyper* -Calvinism ? I know it goes back to the 18th century.

And does it justly represent Calvin’s own doctrine ? Indeed, is Calvinism today, anywhere, faithful to Calvin - or, have his insights been mangled by his theological heirs ?

[michaelnewsomegreen]

Is Calvinism the problem or are Hyper-Calvinist the problem? I hear the objections to Calvinism almost daily, & IMHO it is not Calvinism going too far but Hyper-Calvinists who take that position too far. I am a Calvinist...

[BoSS-dwon]

Seems to me that any run of the mill TULIP Calvinist is what you are describing as a hyper-Calvinist.

[ArtVandelay-ImporterExporter]

Hyper Calvinism found expression in some 17th century Particular Baptists like John Gill. It tended to continue more in those circles. Groups who were not confessional to either the 1689 LBC or their paedobaptistic Reformed confessions but held a truncated Reformed view embraced it. It was more of a soteriological than covenantal confession. It didn’t exist in groups confessing the Westminster Standards or Three Forms of Unity.

[laudante]

Hi, well done. I would just add that supralapsarianism doesn't necessarily mean that God is active on condemning, but that the reason for creation and fall is the glorification of the elect (and of Himself though them, naturally), which is, IMO, the only logical option. Otherwise, the creation and even more the fall would be random, purposeless events. I even wrote a book on subject.

Now, true hyper-Calvinism is, in the bottom, nothing less than the old heresy of antinomianism, disguised in calvinistic terminology. It's simply a way of saying that you don't have to do anything at all, even believe, because you are elect. And how on Earth they know they are elect? Paradoxically, it's very likely that they aren't, if they follow this terrible heresy. You have to live a holy life and show fruits of conversion, persevering till the end, almost as if salvation were by works (but knowing it's not), and that's the only sure sign of election.

[doctorh]

The Gospel is not an "offer" - for an offer implies that man has the ability to accept that which is "offered"

[donatist]

Hyper-Calvinism is just honest Calvinism, not watered down to make a horrible system look less horrible or more Biblical.

[MisterNbdy]

The question of what is Hyper-Calvinism becomes immediately redundant when one studies what Calvin himself believed. Based on the watered-down version of what most people are told Calvin believed, they would regard Calvin himself to be a Hyper-Calvinist!

A study of Calvin’s own Institutes makes clear the extreme nature of his theological position. For example, he firmly believed that God CHOSE (SELECTED) from the beginning of time whom He would not only save but also whom He would damn to an eternity in hell. He wrote:

“[God] foresees the things which are to happen simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen … For all are not created in equal condition; rather eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any person has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of her or him as predestined to life or death… The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should ... because he saw that his own glory would thereby be displayed … Man therefore falls, divine providence so ordaining, but he falls by his own fault… By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death… Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God… hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory… to the praise of his glorious grace… The rest of mankind, God was pleased… according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will… for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures… to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his righteous justice”.

He goes on to write:

"I say with Augustine, that the Lord has created those who, as he certainly foreknew, were to go to destruction, and he did so becasue he so willed... It is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, becasue he had so ordained by his decree".

This is not Hyper-Calvinism, this is true Calvinism, direct from the pen of Calvin himself.
Those who claim to be Calvinist should actually study what Calvin believed.

[Nnamwerd]

We aren't totally depraved. Protestant anthropology is bunk.

[doctorh]

Denial of common grace is not Hyper-Calvinism

[truth]

If Calvinism is true, it means that God creates disposable people, people without any hope, ” “It means that God not only allows, but micro-manages and sovereignly ordains, every war and every abortion and every rape of a child. It means that Calvin’s god does not love the world; he hates it because it is full of “totally depraved” individuals having apparently created us that way for his own glorification, or is it for his amusement? If Calvinism is true, it means that if that dying child that you held in your arms was not among the elect, then God did not love her. He never had any intention of loving her. She was nothing to Him. In fact, he would delight and find glory in her eternal torture in hell.”
Who are really created in the image of then, God or satan?

“And whenever I raise these points with Calvinists, all they can say is that I should be more grateful for my own salvation! It’s like, ‘as long as my eternal destiny is secure, as long as my life is all planned out and taken care of by God, who gives a damn about family, friends or anyone else!’ How can you be okay with that? How can anyone be okay with that? Why do I feel find this heresy morally offensive?” Only the devil should be at ease with such an abomination!

According to Calvinism the lost hate God because God first hated them. They won't say it that way, but that's what it boils down to.

Is this the God you see in the Bible?

Romans 16 : 17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.

Truth in love