In his well-known work entitled "The Institutes of the Christian Religion", John Calvin said that there are two extremes when it comes to any study of the doctrines of predestination and election. At one end of the spectrum you have those who are anxious to study the doctrine of election merely out of a deep curiosity. This man, said Calvin, if left to himself will try and leave no secret to God but will wander into forbidden bypaths. He warns that when they delve into these doctrines of predestination and election, “they are penetrating the sacred precincts of divine wisdom. If anyone, with careless assurance, breaks into this place, he will not succeed in satisfying his curiosity and he will enter a labyrinth from which he can find no exit.”
But then the Reformer writes about the other end of the spectrum…those who want to avoid any discussion of election and predestination whatsoever! They believe that these doctrines are so deep and mysterious that they are better left untouched. Calvin then quotes Moses in Deut. 29:29 where Moses writes: “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
He has a warning for this group as well when he writes that “we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem wither wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what is in any way profitable to express.”
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At the call of God, Mr. Wagner took up the pastorate of the newly planted Covenant Free Presbyterian Church, located in Lexington, SC, in the fall of 2002. Prior to this, he labored from January of 1989 in the pioneering and establishing of Orlando Free Presbyterian Church,...
