There's a Christian doctrine held by the Calvinists, the Reformed, that preaches that before the creation of the world, before the creation of this age and dispensation of human history, God chose a specific group of people that would be His. They would be born during the course of history and time. They would have faith given to them as a gift, given so that they would be able to turn to God, believe in His existence and follow him. They would live their lives on earth, accomplish what they desired, whether for God or not, and upon their death they'd go to heaven. That's God's plan for these chosen people. And not even they could "not chose" God. He had chosen them, He would keep them, He would save them. Scripture is full of references that have been interpreted to back up this very popular belief. Read John 10. Theological scholars throughout the ages and even ones today hold onto this particular belief (John Calvin, John Edwards, John Piper, Mark Driscoll).
Let's assume for a moment that this is right. Let's assume this is the case. My question would be?? What about the unchosen?? Like.....what the hell is the point for them actually being born, existing, living...?? Why?? Just so that they can spend an eternity in hell?? Were they just props on earth, bobbing along and around the 'frozen chosen'?? If I were an 'unchosen' I'd rather not be born thank you!! Destined for hell....and I had no choice in the matter?? I didn't even have a right to chose?! A loving God's plan?! Give me a break!
Then there is the other view in scripture, in the same pages of the Bible, that says "whosoever" would believe....In other parts of scripture, it says that "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." This now propagates that the opportunity is open. Anyone and everyone has the option, the CHOICE, to choose God! No one has preference. No one has a "one up" on anyone else. We are all equal and everyone gets to choose for themselves to follow God or not. I like that. I like it better than what the Calvinists believe.
The only problem is....well....man is inherently evil. Our hearts are wicked. Our propensity is towards satisfying our desires....sexual, greedy, jealous hearts! Who in their right mind would choose a holy, righteous, moral living God? The Bible goes as far to say that all hate God, no one seeks Him or wants Him, no one desires Him or longs to walk in his holy ways. Well, just turn on MTV or Jerry Springer. Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry in USA alone and growing year on year. Human trafficking, drug smuggling and human violence is on the annual increase. Every thing in our world screams at the fact that yes, the Bible is quite right, about the human heart and its intent NOT to desire Jesus. So free will, hoping people would choose God.....? Who will?? No one. Without God's help....no one would choose God. God, out of his mercy, chooses us. But then, we right back to Calvinism.
I'd be interested to hear what you think.
So it all leads back to Calvinism :)
ReplyDeleteWe are born totally depraved and God hating. We use the free will God gives us to resist Him, and we will choose to serve our own evil desires every time. We cannot come to God out of our own will. As you correctly say, if it were up to us to humble ourselves and believe and repent, we never will. God must remove our resistance, replace our hearts of stone, and give us the gifts of grace, faith and repentance. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that by grace we are saved through faith, and this (the grace of God AND faith) is NOT of our doing, but it is a GIFT, so that nobody can boast. If we were somehow able to choose God on our own, to choose to believe the Gospel out of our own free will, then we would have reason to boast, wouldn't we? We could brag that we believed and therefore earned the right to be saved. But God, by predestination and election, and giving grace and faith to His elect as a gift, removes any chance for us to brag about anything, or be proud of anything, or take glory for anything. The glory is all God's!
I wrote about why I am a Calvanist on my website. You can read it here: Why I am a Calvinist [hope you don't mind the link :) delete if you want]
ReplyDeleteSo you're a Calvinist Nick? Really!? So why do you share your faith with others? Why do you preach salvation? Are you helping God out to save the people he has already chosen?? Why preach and share you faith Nick? Why have a heart for souls and cry out to God to save the lost?? He will. He has already chosen those whom he will save; and he doesn't need your help....Why would Jesus send us out to preach to a lost and dying world if he had already chosen his sheep?? Mr Calvinist...please answer this thinking.
ReplyDeleteBecause Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God.
ReplyDeleteRom 10:14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Rom 10:15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"
Rom 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?"
Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Preaching and missionary work is the calling of Christian preachers and evangelists to go out and gather God's elect. To go out and preach the Word of God, so that on hearing the Word of God, God's elect will come to Him and believe. We are gathering the sheep who are predestined to be called. This doesn't make preaching or missionary work unnecessary, it makes it more urgent! The sooner we go out to gather the harvest, the sooner Christ will return. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. But ultimately God is sovereign and He WILL send evangelists to gather His sheep. He will achieve His goals.
What is the alternative? What is the Arminian stance?
We must preach and try to convince people to go to God and believe in God out of their own free will? Will they go? Will they believe? No, they won't. The Bible says none are righteous (Romans 3:10,23), all are hostile to God and will not and cannot submit to Him (Romans 8:7-8), and nobody seeks God (Romans 3:9-18). So, since we know that nobody will seek God or have faith in God out of their own free will, then MY QUESTION TO THE ARMINIANS is, why preach the gospel? Why bother, since nobody will choose to believe?
So the Arminian stance is that we must preach to people so that whoever believes our preaching will repent and be saved? That creates a number of problems, including: (1) It means that salvation depends on the effectiveness of the preacher (so the preacher can boast of what he has done), (2) it means salvation depends on the lost person believing out of his own free will, meaning he has to do something to earn his own right to salvation (so the lost can boast that they were open minded and willing enough to choose Christ), (3) it means that the work of Christ was not finished on the cross, because there is still some work required to be done by the lost in choosing to believe, and (4) it takes away from the sovereignty of God in that it gives man a role to play in his own salvation.
Arminians are therefore saying that there is a condition that man must meet in order to be saved. This is a works orientated gospel, because Arminians are saying that man must bring something to the table to earn the right to come into God's grace.
In contrast to that, Ephesians 2:8-9 says that by grace we are saved through faith, and this is given as a gift, so that NO MAN can boast of anything. ALL the glory goes to God. God shares His glory with no man.
ReplyDeleteYou would have to conclude that, since man cannot come to God out of his own free will, and man cannot do ANYTHING to earn the right to receive God's grace, then the ONLY WAY man can be saved is if GOD REMOVES his resistance, GRANTS him grace, GIVES him faith to believe and GRANTS him repentance. It is all a free gift given to an undeserving man elected by God to be saved. And God achieved this with the cross so that by Jesus paying the price of their sins on their behalf, God is shown to be just AND the justifier of those who He gives faith.
And ALL their sins are covered by Jesus' blood - including their unbelief.
So it all comes back to Calvinism. God has predestined a people for Himself whom He foreknew, and calls them into His salvation.
As I said, this makes preaching and missions more urgent, because in obedience to the Great Commission we are called to preach the Gospel so that His elect can be gathered to the harvest. It also makes our work more exciting and allows us to go BOLDLY to the pulpit and to the mission field, because we know that the salvation of the lost does NOT depend on our performance, but on the HAND OF GOD, and God WILL achieve His goals.
If I can be so bold as to say, I think the simplest way to look at this is to understand that all of Scripture, all of the Bible, and everything God has done, has always only been about God and for the glory of God. Nothing has ever been for man, or for man's glory. Calvinism embraces the sovereignty of God in everything. God chose His elect, God grants His irresistible grace to them, and God saves them - for HIS glory. The Arminian view seems to me to be man centered rather than Christ centered, by placing the onus on man to come to God, and portraying the saved man as being glorious for choosing God. It reduces the cross and the atonement to something that Jesus did to merely open a doorway through which man must choose to enter. That is not a Biblical Gospel.
Nick, I love the chapter you've written. But you have contradicted yourself some what. And in doing so you haven't answered my question. Let me ask it again...why should preachers call people to repentance (obeying the great commission) if GOD is the one whom elects us, calls us, gives us faith, and saves us? GOD will do it. Even if there were NO preachers, God would do it wouldn't he? Because the elect are predestined!! Call them into the harvest?? Are we now helping God do His job? I didn't know God needed help in reaching his elect?
ReplyDeleteAnd this issue of faith coming by hearing - Romans 10:17. Please consider John 10:26 - John says that the elect have been given faith already. The reason they have the faith is because they are the elect. My preaching isn't going to magically give them something God has already provided for them...
I don't see the urgency you are advocating...while at the same time you speak of God's sovereignty and timing. If God is sovereign, and he's mapped out each of our lives, why would my preaching change that plan and cause someone to get saved? If he's elected you, he's elected you. No preaching necessary.
"why should preachers call people to repentance (obeying the great commission) if GOD is the one whom elects us, calls us, gives us faith, and saves us?"
ReplyDeleteBecause (1) it is in obedience to Jesus' command for us to do so, and (2) Romans 10:17 says faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of Christ. So the Word of Christ goes out, then comes hearing, then comes faith. We are not born with faith, because the Bible says we are born in sin and totally depraved - ALL of us. If we were born with faith, we would not have been born in sin, because our faith would have already meant we were covered by Christ's blood. Rather, God predestined His sheep to receive faith on hearing the Gospel - which he sends us to preach. John 10:26 poses no problem to this because Jesus said "but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep." Jesus is not saying they were born with faith. He said they were not His sheep - therefore, they were not predestined to have faith.
Notice How Jesus didn't say "you are not my sheep because you do not believe". He said "you do not believe because you are not my sheep". :)
" if GOD is the one whom elects us, calls us, gives us faith, and saves us? GOD will do it. Even if there were NO preachers, God would do it wouldn't he?"
God DOES do it. But how? By sending missionaries and evangelists. I don't see a problem there.
"Call them into the harvest?? Are we now helping God do His job? I didn't know God needed help in reaching his elect?"
Are God's children not in His service? Are you implying that God would never use His people? Didn't God use Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt? Did God not use Joshua to bring down the walls of Jericho? Did God not use Solomon to unite Israel in a time of peace and prosperity? Did God not use Elijah? Did God not use Isaiah? Did God not use Jeremiah? Did God not use the apostles? Of course He used them. Does that mean they performed the miracles, or God? Obviously God performed the miracles. But that doesn't mean God didn't use them. So why should we believe that God wouldn't use evangelists to preach the Gospel, and through the preaching of the Gospel perform the miracle of salvation? (Romans 1:16)
"Please consider John 10:26 - John says that the elect have been given faith already. The reason they have the faith is because they are the elect. My preaching isn't going to magically give them something God has already provided for them..."
I think you may have misquoted the verse. It's Jesus speaking here, not John. See my comments to John 10:26 above.
What do you believe? Do you believe God has elected a people to Himself whom He will save? Or do you believe that God leaves the choice up to us?
What do I believe? I sleep like a Calvinist and I preach like an Armenian.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, Both Calvin and Arminius were men. Men, natural beings, interpreting God's word, which is spiritual. Both the tenants of John Calvin and Jacobus Arminian were interpreted out of the same Bible. This debate between the two has been going on for over 400 years. And of course it would...broken, imperfect, natural men trying to understand and explain the ways of a perfect, all knowing, all powerful God. No way!
In my gut, I lean a lot strongly towards Calvinism. But even in Calvinism, there are many questions i.e. limited atonement. I'm secure in being a believer in Jesus and His Word rather than hold on to a dogmatic interpretation of a fallen man (sorry John & Jacobus).
I just think challenging ourselves on these issues is a healthy thing as we need to know what we believe; let's be ready in season and out of season, may we have an answer to the faith we hold onto.
Keep running Nick!! Preach it brother!!
I couldn't have offered a better response! Well said, Ross my bro!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree - we will never be able to totally grasp the mysteries of God. No man could ever try to understand everything God does - nevermind put it into words!!! So yes, anything man puts to paper other than by inspiration of the Holy Spirit is bound to contain some degree of flaw. Only the Bible is the perfect Word of God, and inspired by God. Its the only place we can go to for absolute truth, but we still need to pray for wisdom and discernment to correctly divide and interpret the scriptures!
Studies and debates like this don't serve as a stumbling block but to strengthen our faith and give us assurance!
I totally understand the difficulty with limited atonement, and we discussed it before and I leaned toward the Arminian stance that Jesus died for all the sins of all men. But since then I have gained a better understanding of limited atonement and I now embrace the Calvinist view.
So the Calvinist view is that Jesus died for all the sins of some men, while Arminianism says Jesus died for all the sins of all men.
I think John Piper explains it best when he says this: If Jesus died for all the sins of ALL men, then why are not ALL men saved? The Arminian answer is, because some men don't believe. The Calvinist response is, is unbelief not one of the sins Jesus died for, then? Because if unbelief is not one of the sins Jesus died for, then nobody could be saved because Jesus did not die for all sins. Or, if unbelief IS included amongst the sins Jesus died for, then why is not EVERYBODY saved because their unbelief is covered by the blood of Jesus?
It makes more sense to say Jesus died for all sins and for the salvation of only God's elect, because that shows that Jesus atonement was 100% successful. If we say that Jesus died for all the sins of ALL men, knowing that not everybody is going to be saved, we are implying that Jesus' atonement was only partly successful, which is saying the atonement was not perfect.
So if you look at it that way, Calvinism teaches LIMITED atonement, but Arminianism teaches LIMITING atonement.
I can't say I 100% grasp and understand God's design in this, but I do know that I would rather say God has limited His atonement to His elect, than limit the power of the atonement God performed.
Bless you bro!
My concern with Calvinism has always been the idea of God, who is love, essentially creating living human beings, who he claims to love, who are irrevocably destined to an eternity of torment not because of their own will but because of Gods decision. It seems to me to be paradoxical. Arminiasm always made a bit more sense because it lays the blame for a journey to Hell at the feet of man, rather than a loving God.
ReplyDeleteJust my two cents worth. Interested to hear our resident Calvinists explanation - mostly because Nick has made good sense so far.
Well Corvys, that was my whole question from the beginning. What about the 'un-elect'?? Shucks, I'd rather not be born then. Are the un-elect simply props making up space for the elect?
ReplyDeleteI would rather lean towards...
I believe in predestination, and so did Paul. Jesus made reference to it as well. BUT at the same time, there are constant ‘whosoever would believe’ scriptures throughout the NT. Theologians like John Piper would agree with both saying that Paul was accurate when he said in Ephesians 5 that Christ did die for His church, his elected, and they are secure but at the same time Jesus died for ‘all men’ and he ‘reconciled the whole world to God’ in order to open up the gates to whoever else would come….Jesus spoke of servants going to the highways and byways inviting whoever would come AS WELL. Faith does come by hearing the word of Christ (the gospel) so anyone has the opportunity to be saved WHILE his predestined WILL be saved.
From scripture, which carries both ‘doctrines’ hand in hand equally, this is the best way I can reconcile it in my finite mind.
"My concern with Calvinism has always been the idea of God, who is love, essentially creating living human beings, who he claims to love, who are irrevocably destined to an eternity of torment not because of their own will but because of Gods decision."
ReplyDeleteIts a great question Corvys, one that I don't know that anybody has really got a perfect answer for.
As you've seen above, I'm convinced that its clear in the Bible that God has elected and predestined a people for Himself who He will save. But as you say, what does that mean for the rest? Why would a loving God create people just to destroy them - and not just destroy them, but punish them for all eternity?
There are a lot of things we will never really understand until Jesus returns. We cannot expect with our limited minds to perfectly comprehend God's perfect will in everything. But we can be sure that whatever is in the Word of God is true.
But though our answers are bound to have flaws (coming from man who is by definition flawed), that's not to say there aren't any answers at all. For me, John Piper explains it best when he said:
"The meaning I would attach to the statement "God is love" is this: it belongs to the fullness of God's nature that he cannot be served but must overflow in service to his creation. The very meaning of God is a being who cannot be enriched but always remains the enricher. To be God is to be incapable of being a beneficiary of any person or power in the universe. Rather, Godness involves a holy impulse ever to be benefactor. But it is not for us to insist that the best or only way for God to exert maximum love is to treat no individuals unlovingly. On the contrary, Scripture teaches us that "to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy" God does prepare vessels for destruction" (Rom. 9:23; see John Piper, The Justification of God, chapters three and ten, for the exegetic evidence that this text refers to the eternal destiny of individuals).
There is a great article by John Piper that I highly recommend, that goes into more detail and explains God's purpose more thoroughly. Its called The Elect Obtained It But The Rest Were Hardened