Friday, July 3, 2015

Revelation 2:21 versus Reformed Theology

Rev 2:21, speaking of the false prophetess Jezebel, we read:

I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. (ESV)

This verse is an odd one, if one holds to Reformed theology. As James White candidly admits, in Calvinism, while God calls all people to repent, the ability to truly repent is only given to the elect. As a result, one would have to conclude that Christ is essentially saying to John that he gave Jezebel time to repent, although never enabled her with the ability to repent as she was never of the elect, and she refused to repent as a result of never being given the ability to repent due to her sexual immorality (Greek: πορνεια). However, there is absolutely nothing in the underlying Greek that hints that anything but the literal, face-value reading is correctly, i.e., Jezebel was given an opportunity to repent, but chose sexual immorality over the Gospel.

"I have her time to repent" in the ESV translates the Greek phrase ἔδωκα αὐτῇ χρόνον ἵνα μετανοήσῃ. Εδωκα is the aorist indicative active of διδωμι, meaning that Christ did give Jezebel something (viz. an opportunity to repent); this is further enforced by the fact that this is a ινα- clause ("so/in order that"), with the objective being repentance (μετανοηση is the aorist active subjunctive of μετανοεω, meaning "to repent")—grammatically and exegetically, all this shows us that Jezebel had the ability to truly repent.


This is yet another instance where Reformed theology is shown to be contrary to biblical theology.