Calvinists firmly follow Calvin, who said of God, "for, (as he hates sin) he can only love those whom he justifies [i.e., the elect]." Gerstner argues that if John 3.16 "is supposed to teach that God so loved everyone in the world that He gave His only son to provide them an opportunity to be saved by faith...such love on God's part...would be a refinement of cruelty.... Offering a gift of life to a spiritual corpse, a brilliant sunset to a blind man, and a reward to a legless cripple if only he will come and get it, are horrible mockeries."

We agree that it would be cruel mockery to offer salvation to those whom God had no intention of saving and would not help to respond to the offer. But who says that all mankind cannot respond, if they so desire? Not the Bible, which offers salvation to "whosoever will," but Calvinism, which effectively changes "whosoever" into "elect"! So this "cruelty" is imposed by Calvinism itself, beginning with the very first of its five commandments. Yet "moderates," blaming all on "hyper-Calvinists," claim to believe that Go sincerely loves and offers salvation to all, while in the same breath they say Christ did not die for all."

By defining "total depravity" as "total inability," Calvinism says that none can respond to the gospel, not even the elect, until they have been sovereignly regenerated. Yet Christ commanded the the gospel to be preached to everyone-and no one warns the non-elect that it isn't for them. Of course, how could they be warned, since no one knows who they are? So Christ commanded "cruelty and mockery"? And the Calvinist engages in it each time he preaches the gospel!

We preach salvation to those already predestined to eternal damnation? "We must," says the Calvinist, "because no one knows who are the elect." So there is no escaping the fact that if Calvinism is true, then it is a cruel mockery to preach the gospel to anyone except the elect-but there is no way to identify them.

Would it lessen the non-elect's pain for the evangelist to explain, "This good news is only for the elect, so disregard it if you are not among them"? No, that would only add to the confusion. The cruelty is inherent in Calvinism's misrepresentation of God and His gospel.