That’s exactly why I crush Calvinism the way I do, and do so with the Word of God.
Unconditional Election, the will bound by sin, NOT free, and Limited Atonement were seen long before John Calvin ever lived, based on scripture. See my earlier post showing this titled:
Calvin did not invent the doctrines of grace
I can understand a person struggling to see limited atonement, sometimes called definite atonement or particular redemption, but there is no way to read the NT with a clear unbiased mind and deny particular redemption
and unconditional election. The Arminian heresy was not recognized or accepted by any major denomination until John Wesley and the Methodists. Methodism removed Article 17 from the 39 Articles of the Church of England adopted in 1571 AD. That is the article on predestination. When a belief system is closer to Roman Catholicism than the Bible and Reformers it has become heretical.
I grew up in a church which taught that "predestination" only applied to believers and was found only 4 times in the Bible. That is at best a half-truth and worse an outright lie based on twisting the KJV translation choices.
The Greek word translated "predestinate" is
proorizo and it is found 6 times in the NT, not 4. The two where the KJV used different words, actually used a phrase or synonym that means the same thing. As seen in the following two:
"For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do
whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." (Acts 4:27-28)
YES! The greatest sin in history was pre-determined, foreordained or predestinated to be done in
whatsoever way God determined. The ASV translates "foreordained" as it does in all 6 occurrences. The RSV, NRSV, and the ESV "predestined", the Douay-Rhiems "decreed to be done".
The second place to which I refer is:
"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even
the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1Cor 2:7-8)
The KJV used synonyms for predestined, "determined before" and "ordained before" in those two verses. On this verse, 1 Cor. 2:7-8, the ASV uses "foreordained" and the RSV, NRSV and ESV use "decreed before".