Episode Transcript
I want to take a few weeks and talk about the doctrines of grace because I have been asked to. I very often hear people looking for ways to disprove calvinism categorically. When people try to disprove calvinism, I normally will ask five questions.
1. Do you believe that people can make themselves righteous?
Normally, people will answer, “No,” because they believe that only Jesus’s sacrifice can make any person right before God.
2. Do you believe that God’s love is conditional upon your actions or that He expects you to become righteous before His loves you?
Normally, people will answer, “No,” because they believe that God loves them despite their sin, not because they are sinless.
3. Do you believe that Christ’s sacrifice is applied to everyone?
People are typically split on this answer, normally saying that they believe Christ died for everyone but not everyone accepts His salvation. So, most do not believe that Christ’s atoning sacrifice is applied to everyone even if they believe it is available to all people.
4. Do you believe that any person who receives the saving grace of God will ever reject God?
People typically qualify their answer, “If people have really been saved, they won’t leave God. Only people who never actually give their lives to Jesus will leave and never return.”
5. Do you believe that any person who receives salvation can lose it?
People nearly always answer, “No. Once saved, always saved.”
At this point, I typically ask this person why he or she is trying to disprove calvinism and have to explain that they are technically a calvinist based on the way they answered the questions. Yet, people are worried about the scourge of calvinism such that they feel a pressing need to disprove everything about what they think about the category of theological exploration.
Here is what I think has happened. People have a tendency in their flesh to browbeat others who don’t exactly agree with them on everything. Those who would not classify themselves as calvinistic are browbeat based on semantics by those who do classify themselves as calvinistic and vice verse–not because calvinism produces conflict or harshness, but because people are still in sin even if they make a confession using certain terms as unconditional election and limited atonement. On the other side, people are still in sin and feel a need to browbeat others by saying silly things like, “I have a problem with the term, ‘irresistible.’ People say no to God all the time,” without actually understanding the theological claims.
I love to get into semantics, but semantics are not worth dividing the body of Christ–especially when we all actually seem to agree even if we use different theological terms. Consider what the Bible says.
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor? (James 4:1-12).
Before I go any further, let me tell you about my own life. I speak as someone who stands guilty of setting out to argue others into submission. Instead of seeking to understand what others meant, I only argued based on semantics. I was the person who made other people feel dumb for what they believed. Instead of considering their intent, I was the one who took what they said at face value and deconstructed it so that I could win an argument. I was the source of conflict in the body of Christ. Scripture, therefore, condemned me as an adulteress, one who is a friend of the world (because of my worldly ways), and one who is hostile toward God. Scripture called me proud and, therefore, subject to the opposition of God Himself. The words of James, here, called me to repent and submit to God and mourn over the way I did things. I was convicted not to speak against my brothers in Christ, for there is only one judge and lawgiver. Only God is able to save or destroy. Why did I take it upon myself to do so? Why did I do so even when many of those I argued against would affirm the same confessions I did, only using different terms? Why did it matter if they did not accepted or rejected the term “calvinist” or took issue with the semantics of the TULIP acronym if they basically held the same faith in Christ I did? I will tell you, it did not matter. A rose by any other name smells just as sweet.
I fear that in our youth or zeal, we fail to understand that. I know I did. I had a blog and podcasts dedicated to critiquing others even if their intents were in line with my own. They got popular because worldly people like that kind of stuff. But, it does not honor God.
This being said, I want to make my intentions clear at the start. It is not my goal to convert anyone to calvinism. Such a categorical designation is unimportant. What we believe about Christ is important. I believe we err when we consider any category as a whole because we risk committing the sin of hasty generalization–that is, generalizing people and assuming that all people think exactly the same way about all things if they technically fit into our manmade categories. I would much rather look at particular claims and evaluate those according to Scripture. I have been asked to do so by someone I am discipling because she has encountered calvinism outside of her church environment and is uneasy about it. I understand the uneasiness–especially since people in general are not skilled at seeing past semantics in order to look at intent, sincerity, and someone’s basic beliefs. Not only do I hope to bring some clarity to the subject for this individual, but I hope to save young christians from a lifetime of heartache and antipathy by showing that these categories matter much less than we would think–despite how society raises us to thing otherwise or react.
I think it is important to stand against false teaching. It is dangerous to use such a mandate as an excuse to make enemies of those within our own Christian borders. Christ is not divided. Neither are we. As good as the doctrine was coming out of the Young Restless and Reformed movement, the movement left a scar of Christian life and in denominations like the SBC. There is no reason to be restless or feel such a burden to ferociously “defend correct biblical doctrine” if God is truly sovereign and if the Holy Spirit is really working. It was a shame that the doctrines of grace were ever used as an excuse for people to act ungracious. In our time, I think this is what people react against more than the doctrines themselves–because a few so-called calvinists got really prideful and caused such unnecessary conflicts among the body of Christ. So, I understand the reaction. It is why, though I am technically within the category of calvinistic thinking, I do not lead with my theological category. I’m not sure any of us should, except to say, “I am a Christian. If you’d like to know what I believe, let’s talk about particular doctrines instead of making assumptions based on whether we claim to be calvinistic or not or whether we are part of one denomination or another. Let’s talk about those claims over a cup of coffee and a copy of Scripture.”
Most Christians today who are not given over to the prosperity gospel are calvinistic in their thinking, even if they would not admit it. Calvinism is a bit of a misnomer because mosts of those who are calvinistic have not read Calvin’s institutes and would not agree with every single thing Calvin wrote. I, for instance, disagree with Calvin on the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and Infant Baptism. Further, I have formed my own opinions on things that Calvin did not write about–such as the timing of the millennium and the nature of reprobation. Rather, modern-day calvinists look much more like the Puritans than they do Calvin. Though Calvin was Augustinian in his soteriology, we use more Augustinian terms to define our soteriology when it comes to the semantics of it all. So, to get a sense of modern Calvinism, it is better to read John Owen or Augustin than it is Calvin on most topics. Calvin, for whatever reason, just became the name associated with the terminology and line of theological thinking associated with what might better be termed Augustinianism. To be Augustinian carries much less baggage in today’s society, anyway.
To understand calvinism, it is important to understand how and why calvinism became a designation in the first place. Why have “calvinism” if we already have “Christianity.” Like I mentioned before, these categories are unimportant. If we want to understand why they exist or attempt to evaluate any point of view, we must know our history. But simply, after the death of a man named James Arminius, his followers protested the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism in Holland by presenting a Remonstrance which included five points of dissension against the church's official belief statement.
God elects or reproves on the basis of foreseen faith or unbelief.
Christ died for all men and for every man, although only believers are saved.
Man is so depraved that divine grace is necessary unto faith or any good deed.
This grace may be resisted.
Whether all who are truly regenerate will certainly persevere in the faith is a point which needs further investigation (Roger Nicole, "Arminianism," Baker's Dictionary of Theology, p. 64.)
In response, the Synod of Dort met for a period of 7 months in 154 sessions to examine the Scriptures to see if there was any validity to the protest brought before them. Finding no evidence in Scripture to support any of the five points, the synod responded by formalizing the doctrine of the church into five points of defense—points that became known as the Five Points of Calvinism because John Calvin had done such extensive work describing and explaining the systematic theology of the church at the time according to Scripture. So, the Five Points of Calvinism, as they have come to be called, were not developed to protest sound theology or by a group of “restless and reformed” troublemakers. They were the response to doctrine that was foreign to the church in 1610—doctrine that had already been resolved as early as Augustine in his defense against Pelagius a thousand years earlier.
According to the response of the Synod, they believed that God was not to be made out to be subject to humanity and that Christ’s sacrifice alone was efficient for the salvation of God’s people. If God chose on the basis of someone’s belief, then God was subject to that person. If Christ atoned for all people, then He failed and His sacrifice is not affective because not all people are saved. If the grace of God is dependent upon whether or not people resist it, then it is not grace. If people can lose their salvation, then God has not actually forgiven their sin (cf. https://www.ccel.org/creeds/canons-of-dort.html). The argument essentially came down to one qeustion. Does God merely supply what we need to save ourselves, or does God do the saving? The Remonstrance posited that God merely supplies what we need to save ourselves. The 5 Points of Calvinism in response posited that God actually does 100 percent of the saving in Christ alone. If we believe that salvation in in Christ alone, we are technically with the Synod of Dort—we are modern-day Calvinists. In order to disprove Calvinism, you’d have to prove that people must use what God has given to gain salvation for themselves. But, I think that most people trying to disprove Calvinism don’t believe that people must save themselves. All they know is that Calvinism is a bad word and heard a story or experience a Calvinist being worldly or hateful. This is not a problem of Calvinism. It is a problem of human nature. No matter our viewpoint or the terminology we use to define our theological stance, we are all predisposed to the sin nature within us. Without the saving grace of Christ or sanctification, we are all doomed to continue in our sin. I praise God that He desires to teach us His mercy, patience, and love of truth (honesty and sincerity included).
In the next episode, I want to evaluate the first point of each position—the Remonstrance and Dort. My goal is not to convert anyone to my point of view. It is to bring us closer to Christ as we see the two alternatives side-by-side. Since I am also serving in a Southern Baptist Church, I will consider the current edition of the Baptist Faith and Message alongside these points. I encourage you to read the Canons of Dort and the Articles of the Remonstrance. I will provide links in the description. My goal is discipleship. I believe each one is responsible to come to just and godly conclusions. No one else can decide what you believe for you. All I can do is present you with information. We have the great privilege of having copies of Scripture before us. Search the pages of God’s word. Pray continuously. Trust God in grace to lead you to good and proper conclusions. I hope to be of some good to you whether or not you wish to classify yourself as a Calvinist or Augustinian or as a member of any denomination. The body of Christ is full of grace and is not divided. God is good, even when we are not. I feel I must apologize for every so-called Christian who feels a great need to browbeat his or her brothers and sisters into some kind of theological submission. Let’s seek after Christ together with all sincerity.
