That is to say, John Calvin's beliefs on Absolute Predestination were (of course) the same as Jesus Christ's beliefs on Absolute Predestination. I wasn't even aware that Jesus had made any statements, one way or the other, with regards to Absolute Predestination.
***I wasn't even aware that Jesus had made any statements, one way or the other, with regards to Absolute Predestination.***
John Chapter 6 (Holy Bible)
Matthew 11:20-27 is pretty clearly a direct reference to the Absolute Predestination of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom
in preference to a different, foreknown Predestination which God
could have chosen for them instead, but did not.
That said, the preponderance of Gospel references to Predestination are found in John (I've mentioned before that IMO, the Gospel of John could reasonably be nicknamed "the predestinarian gospel"). Here are some such references...
- ***John 5:21 -- For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.
- ***John 6:65 -- And He was saying, For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.
- ***John 8: 42 - 43, 47 -- Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.
- ***John 10: 14 - 15, 24 - 26 -- I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.... The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father's name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.
- ***John 12: 37 - 40 -- But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts, And be converted and I heal them.
- ***John 15: 16, 19 -- You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.... If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
- ***John 17: 1 - 2,6, 9 -- Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.... I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.... I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours;