I recently received an email from a missionary friend that included a photo of John MacArthur with the below quote and was asked to comment on this statement.
“I watched an evangelist the other day, pleading with people to make a decision for Christ, with music playing and constant pleading. That’s something a sinner cannot do. The sinner cannot make a decision for Christ. Christ has to make the decision for the sinner.”
I searched for this exact quote and found it’s from a message MacArthur preached titled I and the Father are One, Part 2, from August 17th, 2014.1 As someone who doesn’t like to be misquoted, I read through the transcript of this message to find the context of which it appears. MacArthur is talking about John 10 with one of Jesus’ I Am statements as the Great Shepherd. MacArthur summarizes what Jesus says in John 8:47 as meaning “you’re not my sheep.”2 Then he goes to the Holy Spirit’s involvement in John 3:8, illustrated with the wind, that the Spirit regenerates whomsoever He desires, arguing that since man cannot recreate himself, the Holy Spirit recreates man based upon the sovereignty of the Father. It’s after these two verses that MacArthur’s statement is mentioned
“I watched an evangelist the other day, pleading with people to make a decision for Christ, with music playing and constant pleading. That’s something a sinner cannot do. The sinner cannot make a decision for Christ. Christ has to make the decision for the sinner.”
MacArthur has already drawn a conclusion, based upon John 8:47 and John 3:8, and uses this illustration of an evangelist to drive home his point. He then goes on to state:
“I believe fully in the sinner’s responsibility to repent and believe. But I believe as well, fully, in the sovereign purpose of God who has chosen His sheep, knows His sheep, calls His sheep...I confess that I have never been able to comfortably harmonize those two realities.”
Here MacArthur attempts to show his humility as a finite person unable to understand an infinite God. And to MacArthur, what may seem illogical, and paradoxical is merely man’s inability to understand the deep workings of God. But is that truly how this topic should be approached? To see an apparent contradiction and chalk it up to divine mystery? Can sovereignty and volition be reconciled? Is MacArthur’s illustration a valid one in light of the verses he highlights?
Let us first consider the statement on its own, how it aligns with MacArthur’s words, and then compare it with the Scriptures.
MacArthur under scrutiny
“I watched an evangelist the other day, pleading with people to make a decision for Christ, with music playing and constant pleading. That’s something a sinner cannot do. The sinner cannot make a decision for Christ. Christ has to make the decision for the sinner.”
The first thing I notice in this statement is an erroneous definition of a sinner. If simplistically defined as one who commits sin, sinners are not merely unbelievers, but a Christian can be considered a sinner, practically, if they are committing sin (Luke 7:47; James 5:20). Many times, a Calvinist will be unclear in their definition, or use a vague term that fits their theology, so people are conditioned that whenever they see such a word in the Bible, they automatically assume it means the same thing every time. This can be seen as the Fallacy of Equivocation or at the least the faulty Illegitimate Identity Transfer. A believer who is a sinner, committing sin, can indeed make a decision for Christ, to stop sinning, and be reconciled back to fellowship. If that was not the case, why then does Paul constantly admonish believers to stop committing certain sins and turn back for fellowship with Christ? Paul seemingly believes a Christian sinning (i.e. a sinner) can make a decision for Christ.3 MacArthur uses a vague term to argue a specific truth, which is faulty.
Secondly, MacArthur states that Christ has to make the decision for the sinner. This reveals that, according to his view, if a sinner (an unbeliever in MacArthur’s view) doesn’t get saved, it’s because Christ didn’t make that decision for the unbeliever. And yet, somehow MacArthur places the blame on the unbeliever for not believing (see his earlier statement). This is quite irrational and illogical. But he gets around it by claiming faux humility and claiming divine mystery, and promoting Unconditional Election.
Thirdly, MacArthur clearly states an unbeliever (i.e. sinner in his mind) can’t make a decision for Christ. This is the foundational belief of Calvinism that leads to the previous two arguments that MacArthur makes. By making this statement, MacArthur reveals his commitment, not to the Bible, but to the philosophy of Total Depravity (or Total Inability), which teaches man is unable to respond positively to the Gospel message. And since man can’t respond positively to it, God has to force man to respond positively and subsequently believe in the Gospel. Ripping Romans 3:10-12, Psalm 14, and Psalm 53 out of their surrounding and book context, the proof-texting fits their philosophical theology. This is why it’s commonly stated if the T in TULIP can be removed, the rest of the house of cards falls, for they all are built on the foundation of Total Depravity.
Just by considering the words in this quote, it’s seen as illogical and irrational. It’s irrational to blame someone for not believing when in reality they can’t believe because they are prevented from believing. And illogical to claim God is love but yet reject His love and desire for all people’s salvation. Is that what Scripture teaches? That people stay in unbelief because God doesn’t make them believe? Absolutely not! Many passages teach that man doesn’t come because they volitionally choose to reject the message (Matthew 23:37, John 5:39-40, John 8:45-46).
Ok, let me stop inferring from the quote and now let’s consider the two main verses that MacArthur uses as proof-texts of Total Inability, John 3:8 and John 8:47.
What about John 3:8 and John 8:47?
John 3:8 doesn’t teach that people received eternal life because the Holy Spirit regenerates those whom the Father sovereignly decides to save. If that is true, then what is John 3:8 about? In this meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, the discussion isn’t about who is regenerated but rather on how someone is regenerated. There is a big difference between the two! This is evident with Nicodemus’ question in John 3:4,
How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Nicodemus doesn’t ask who...he asks how. The who is simple, based upon John 3:16, whosoever believes in Christ. The how is difficult as it’s a spiritual, intangible, invisible process that is only made available by the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration. How does man receive the new man, become a spiritual man, become regened? To this day, no man knows the how this technically occurs, it’s just known that upon belief it does occur.
So, John 3:8 is clearly misused by MacArthur as a proof-text to promote Total Inability. Let’s now address MacArthur’s view of who are not God’s sheep in John 8:47.
The Gospels and the book of Acts are pivotal parts of the transition between the era of Law and Grace. No other time in the history of mankind has Jesus incarnated to take upon the sins of the world, so this was a very unique period of time. And with this transitional period now upon them, there would be a shifting of the Law to Grace. This understanding must be realized for some passages to make sense.
During this period, the followers of John the Baptist became followers of Christ, and the people who rejected John the Baptist, rejected Christ.4 And since John 6-10 is still during this transitional period of history, it’s considered the transfer of John’s disciples to Christ as the Messiah. In other words, those who believed in the Father prior to Christ’s public ministry, would be given to the Son (during this moment of history). This explains why John’s followers left him to follow Christ (John 1:35-37, 3:25-30).
Then when we get in John 10 where Jesus uses the term sheep 13 times. He then contrasts His sheep with other sheep not in that same fold (John 10:16).
If it’s assumed that the sheep that know Jesus are the “elect”, then why would Jesus be seeking other sheep “not of that fold?” He would then be saying He is seeking non-elect sheep, sheep that weren’t predestined to eternal life. And according to TULIP, that can’t be the case. Understanding who the sheep of the other fold are, it’s important to discern who the original sheep are that know Christ. When we realize the other fold is a reference to Gentile/Samaritan believers that Jesus is seeking, He is contrasting them with the first-century Jewish believers who know Him. Therefore, it makes the most sense to reject that these sheep are the “elect” of God, but instead realize the sheep is a reference to the Jewish believers during this transitional period of Biblical history that know the Father, seen by their following John the Baptist, and those are the ones given to Christ, during the transition from Law to Grace.5
Conclusion
In summation, when MacArthur states a sinner cannot make a decision for Christ, he is teaching Total Inability, which if it can be proven to a Calvinist it’s unbiblical, the rest of TULIP falls with it. Total Inability places the blame of an unbeliever’s condemnation solely upon the shoulders of God. It’s unfortunate that the Calvinist sacrifices the love, mercy, and righteousness of God for His sovereignty. While some statements seem to be valid at the surface level (such as the original quote above), once scrutinized, many can be seen to have philosophical inferences inserted, which are not grounded in Scripture. It’s time that the ministry changed its name from Grace to You to Grace to Some of You, so it may accurately capture their teachings.
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Footnotes:
1 https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/43-55/i-and-the-father-are-one-part-2
2 John MacArthur states “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.” Another way to say, “You’re not my sheep.” That’s a stunning statement. You’re not my sheep. We started to see this sovereign purpose of God in salvation very early in the gospel of John.
3 I know that the Calvinist reply is that a Christian can make that decision because they have the Holy Spirit, but I simply use this illustration to reveal the definition of a sinner and how the Calvinist conflates is
4 Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum points this out, and clearly explains this transitional history of the Jewish people in his Life of the Messiah study
5 I unpack this further in my upcoming book LOTUS: A Free Grace Response to TULIP