Theological Ramblings

As mentioned a couple posts ago, I posted a Calvinism related post on Xanga while this site was inoperable. Here is the text of that post in it’s entirety. Obviously since there were likely to be members of my audience on Xanga who were not familiar with this series, I’ve done some review in it. It should be a good refresher.

“I am a 5-point Calvinist. For those of you who don’t know, John Calvin was one of the teachers/pastors of the Protestant Reformation. The five points of Calvinism is a codification of the Reformers’ Doctrines of Grace. You may be familiar with the TULIP acornym: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints. These are doctrines in the area of soteriology, which is the study of salvation doctrine. If that is now the entirety of your knowledge of the Calvinism debate, I’m sorry but this post is going to be way over your head. Stumble on, my friend. If, however, you know what I’m talking about, read on:

On my Theological Ramblings Blog, (which is temporarily out of service due to a hacker problem that attacked my webhost) I have been writing a series of articles/essays on the Doctrines of Grace, defending their theological validity. The central motivation of my doing this is that within the last couple of years, I have encountered certain individuals who have labeled Calvinism to be ‘a loser doctrine’ and ‘a heresy’. Now, anyone who knows my stance on the Cedarville “Faculty Exodus”/ Brian McLaren & Rob Bell/ Emergent Church/ New Perspectivism thing would know that I think the word ‘heresy” is a very very very strong accusation and should not be used lightly. So I set out to defend myself against the charge of heresy.

I have focused my efforts primarily on trying to show people that there are some fundamental misunderstandings about what these doctrines are, and what they imply. Most of the arguments I have heard against Calvinism have come from equivocations or misunderstandings of the doctrines. Of course, it’s also true that there are many Calvinists who misunderstand these doctrines as well, and therefore misapply them. One of the big time objections I’ve heard is that Calvinism means you shouldn’t evangelize. This is patently false, and yet there are Calvinists who seem to apply the doctrines this way and therefore lend to the misunderstanding. So I wanted to illumine them and allow people to see that maybe they were misguided.

I am posting this here, as opposed to Theological Ramblings, primarily because Theo is out of order, but also because I want to sum up what I have been saying and am going to say on the other blog and to provide a tie in. This post is not at all intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the issue, but I want to highlight some misunderstandings, and the proper truth that could clarify them. I’m only going to briefly hit the first few, but I want to camp on the last one. Because while the main person who spurred me into this effor proclaims himself to be a ‘Zero-Point Calvinist’, I’m not just targeting so called ‘Arminians’ in this series. I’m targeting everyone, but primarily those of you out there who are ‘4-point’ Calvinists who are saying, “Yeah, I buy these four, but this other one I don’t quite think is right”. It’s that fifth one that I want to spend a little time on in this post.

Before I continue, I post some lyrics to two of my favorite songs:

“Pre-trib, post-trib; 5-point, no point; heal me, slay me; free will, no will
As our common ground leads to the moribund…
He came to set the prisoner free
A message of simplicity”

“I just know Jesus is the Way
I just know Jesus is the Truth
I just know Jesus is the Life
I just know Jesus is my God”

My point is that I don’t intend to be divisive or confrontational about this. You are more than free to disagree with me, and to voice that disagreement, but please do it out of a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation, because ultimately what matters is Jesus. If we can agree on “Christ’s body broken and blood poured for the sins of the world” then we can have fellowship. Don’t destroy it by being hateful. Ok, now we dive in:

Total Depravity
The Misunderstanding: Nay-sayers often accuse this doctrine of saying that mankind is as bad as he possibly could be, that there is nothing good about us, and that we are altogether worthless.

Why This Bothers People: Theologians have trouble with this because it implies that we are no longer the image of God, and therefore there is no basis for us to treat our fellow man with respect and love. If that is the case, then there is no basis for any social institutions and we are no better than the evolutionsists who build up their liberal social agendas on some humanistic notion of making the world a better place through human power because we can.

The Truth: We are not as bad as we could be. Total Depravity doesn’t say we are. All it says is that by whatever means it happened, we took part in Adam’s sin and since that day man’s nature has been tarnished. It has not been destroyed, it has been damaged. We are still ontologically good. That is to say, hear me, that at the core of our essence in who we are we are still good. BUT we are all morally corrupt. This means that our default stance is to be opposed to God and in rebellion to him. Many Calvinists misunderstand this and act like there really is nothing good about humanity. If that were true, there would be nothing worth redeeming! No, we still bear the image of God, we’ve just messed it up. Redemption is about trying to restore it. It is true that we are all morally corrupt and will not follow after God for the right reasons. We are diametrically opposed to him. Left on our own, we would never choose him. People can do good things, but rarely out of unselfish motivation and even when it is unselfish, it is not done out of a desire to please God, and the Bible says that is also sin.1

Irresistible Grace
The Misunderstanding: Many people think that Irresistible Grace means that God takes the “elect” and forces them, whether they want to or not, to be saved. The elect can desire to be unsaved as much as he wants, but God will force him into it.

Why This Bothers People: This, in the eyes of many violates the will of man. They say it would be unjust of God to force us into submission to him, because then we would be no more than robots. In fact we would be worse off, because the robot has no will, whereas we have a will that would be squashed causing us to undergo significant strife. This would make us salves to him.

The Truth: The fact of the matter is that we are slaves already. We are slaves to sin and our wills are currently violated every day - even those who have already come to faith suffer the violation of their will by this nagging chain of slavery. Irresistible Grace is about setting us free from that bondage. The objector has the wrong image in mind when he sees the word Irresistible. He imagines a fortress in which we have encamped with our defending army, and God is raging against it with an innumerable force that will inevitably overwhelm us and cause us to submit.

I offer two alternative images. The first comes from my recent experience. I need a car. My pastor the other day e-mailed me telling me he knows someone who is giving a car away for free. Now I ask you, did I take the deal? Was that an irresistible offer? The other image I use comes from a quote my band director used in Junior High and early High School. Mr Chadrick used to say, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink? Yeah, well you can sure salt his oats so he’s gonna to want to!”. We are already in our souls thirsty from salted oats. This is obvious from looking around us. Most of the people in the world acknowledge that there is some fulfillment outside of themselves that they need to seek. They understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with them that they need to fix. Unfortunately, none of them seek this fulfillment where it is actually to be found. Irresistible Grace simply points them to the right source. It’s like we’re all a bunch of horses wandering around in the desert desperately looking for water. There’s a stream nearby, but Satan is working to keep us from seeing it.2 Irresistible Grace takes us over to the water and says, “DRINK!” Now he can’t make us drink, but he can sure help us realize how thirsty we are, and the point of Irresistible Grace is that for those whom God has chosen, he will never fail to get us to see that we do need to drink.

Unconditional Election
The Misunderstanding: That God arbitrarily chooses to love some people and hate others. He therefore decides to save the ones He loves and destroy the ones he hates.

Why This Bothers People: It is a violation of man’s will, and it makes God petty. It also seems to imply that someone can want to come to Christ only to be turned away because they aren’t on the list.

The Truth: Yes. For reasons unrevealed to us, God has elected some to salvation and others to reprobation. Disagree with me? Read Romans 9. It’s clear. The problem is that God’s choice does not mean he does not “Love the world”. God still loves everyone he creates. He simply does not show that love in the same way. I know this is going to confuse you, because it confuses me. This is the doctrine that gives me the most pause, because It’s tough, but I’m forced to conclude what I’m going to say, and so I’ll say it anyway. The premise is that love means willing the beloved’s good. God loves everyone. God elects some to reprobation. It must therefore in some way be good for the reprobate to be reprobate. I don’t understand how that can be. If that makes me a heretic, please show me chapter and verse or denounce my logic by showing me my ambiguous term, false premise or invalid argument. It certainly fulfills God’s will and shows him as glorious, so I can’t argue with it. I do not stand on this nearly as firmly as the others. I’m still searching it out.

As far as the second problem goes, this is absolutely not true. Romans 10:13 says “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”. When someone places their faith in Christ, he does not first check his “election list” to see if you qualify before accepting it. No way! The opposite is true. Because of total depravity and irresistible grace (ie because we are unable to come to him without his divine intervention), nobody will come to him except those who are “on the list”.

Perseverance of the Saints
The Misunderstanding: Once Saved, Always Saved! The biggest load of nonsense on the planet. The “Eternal Security” movement is a load of baloney that would stretch from here to Mars if stacked up straight. The doctrine is that once you have “said the prayer” you are saved for good, and no matter what you do, even if you turn your back on Christ, you will still be saved in the end.

Why This Bothers People: It implies that salvation is somehow a license to do whatever you want. You’ve punched your ticket for eternity, now you’re good. Go do what you want. I once worked at a pizza joint for a Lutheran couple. They did not hold to “Eternal Security”. I was young and naïve and did. Pam constantly pounded on this fact that Eternal Security logically implies that there are no claims made upon a Christain’s conduct. I denied it then, but over time have been forced to agree.

The Truth: The Bible is very clear that sanctification is a necessary part of a Christian’s life, and that those who “persevere to the end” will be saved. 1 John 2:19 also says in no uncertain terms about those who have fallen away:

‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

The truth of the matter is that the elect will indeed persevere to the end, but it is not without trial and struggle. We will all struggle against our sin. This is why the New Testament is replete with encouragements for us to keep striving to be like Christ. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is he who works in you to will and to do his good pleasure”, Philippians says. Perseverance of the saints says that those who have truly been regenerated by the Holy Spirit have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who is our seal (Ephesians 1:14) unto the day. But he is not just some mark that God will look for, he is also the agent that brings about our perseverance. God does not allow his own to fall away. So if anyone falls away they were most likely not a believer in the first place. If they do come back they either a) were not a believer before and are now or b) in a very heightened state of rebellion against God’s work, a fight that the undefeated Holy Spirit won in the end.

Limited Atonement
The Misunderstanding: Calvinism teaches that Jesus did not die for everyone, only for the elect.

Why This Bothers People: This is far and away the most difficult pill to swallow for anyone. They cannot understand how it would be just for God to only have Christ die for some and not for everyone. How can we preach redemption to the world if Jesus didn’t even die for everyone. Wouldn’t we be lying when we say, “Jesus died for you” on the street corner when we hand out tracks?

The Truth: I will admit that this is a very hard truth to accept. But it is absolutely true and necessary. There are many things at work here. Before I begin let me make sure we take a step back here. However you interpret the word “foreknowledge” in Romans 8:29 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined…”, I think that this explanation of Limited Atonement still stands. Whether you believe, as I do that, God’s foreknowledge was an active choice or that it was a prophetic glance into the future to see who would be saved, this is still valid. I contend that whether God wrote the list and then made it happen, or looked at what would happen and used that to compile his list, Christ still died an atoning death for only those on the list. However he arrived at that list, Limited Atonement still stands. Having said that, I need to start by defining my term.

The Atonement is the substitutionary act whereby Jesus Christ on the Cross took our sin upon himself and gave us his righteousness so that he would be treated as we deserve and we would be treated as he deserves.

Read that again. This is the doctrine called “Substitutionary Atonement” and it is most obviously expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”(NIV). The atonement is salvation. Keep that in mind. Once our sin has been exchanged for His righteousness it is finished (as he said!). Yes, this transcends time, because God is an eternal being, meaning he doesn’t live within time, and is therefore not bound by it. At any rate, the idea is that at the atonement, Christ saved sinners. The problem is that those who object to limited atonement say that Jesus died in this way for everyone. They are falling into one of two problems. The first is that they are confusing Atonement with Propitiation. And the second is that they are in fact themselves the ones who limit the atonement.

Those who object to limited atonement most often quote 1 John 2:2, which says “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” Now, aside from the fact that it is not absolutely necessary that the phrase “whole world” apply to each individual person (It could likely mean all types of people - all levels of social stratification, all people groups, all locations, meaning that God has elect all around the world, not just in some - as is the point of Romans 9-11); Aside from that fact, is the fact that the word here is propitiation and not atonement. Propitiation is defined like this:

The satisfaction of God’s righteous fury toward sinners

I remember when I was a kid that when I would do something wrong, my parents would send me to my room. Inevitably they would come in five to ten minutes later with the paddle to administer a spanking in punishment. Put down the phones! Don’t have psychologists go after my parents! I’m glad they did it. I turned out better for it. But that’s not the point. I eventually figured out that this was the pattern, and while I was still young, I used to think that the time it took them to arrive in my room with the paddle was spent in search of said instrument of punishment. I used to actually sit in my room and pray that they wouldn’t be able to find it! LOL. Of course, I have later come to realize that the reason they had me sit in there was two fold. First, they wanted me to reflect on what I had done and why I was being punished. But the second is that they wanted to make sure they were not punishing me in anger. They wanted to calm down before punishing me, so as not to unintentionally punish me too severely - something they would regret later if they did it. So they gave themselves time to calm down. They gave themselves time to be propitiated - to have their righteous anger at the wrong I had done dismissed or abated.

God’s anger toward sinners is absorbed by Christ, but this does not mean that his punishment does not extend to those who do not believe. It is as though my mother became so angry with me one day that she wanted to tear me to shreds (this never happened by the way) and my father stepped in between us and allowed her to pummel him for a while until she calmed down, and then took me aside to spank me in a calm manner. Jesus stands between God and the world and allows God to exhaust his anger on Christ so that he will not act ‘rashly’. Why did he do this? Well it’s obvious. This is another example of how events in our time line seem to keep us in a box. Remember that God is eternal and unbound by time. Had there been no cross, there would have been no cross! Had Jesus not satisfied God’s wrath, God would have obliterated Adam and Eve the very second they bit into that fruit and there would have been no lineage out of which the Seed would be able to come to provide atonement. And it is also because of this that God is patient toward the unbelievers, allowing them to continue in their sin for a season for the sake of the elect who will be saved. This is what is often called, Common Grace.

The second possible error with rejecting limited atonement is that of limiting the atonement. Huh? I keep talking in circles don’t I? Let me put it this way. We are faced with three possible understandings of the atonement. Either

1. Jesus died for everyone in the same way
2. Jesus died for only some
3. Jesus died for everyone, but not all in the same way

I support understanding #3, as you can imply from reading above. Objectors take #1 and accuse Calvinists of #2. #2 is wrong, for it limits Christ’s death in scope, but #1 is wrong for it limits Christ’s death in power. Remember our definition of atonement? If Christ did that for everyone then why is not everyone saved? The answer would of course be, ‘because not all believe’. To which I say, ‘Is that unbelief then not a sin? And if it is a sin, is it a sin that Christ did not die for? If it is a sin Christ died for, why is anyone punished for it? If it’s not a sin Christ died for, doesn’t that change the definition of atonement and destroy salvation?’ I have to give credit where credit is due. Much of these past few paragraphs is a paraphrase of an article entitled “What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism” found on DesiringGod.org, written by “The Bethlehem Baptist Church Staff”, presumably under the direction of John Piper. In it they make this observation:

“…It becomes evident that it is not the Calvinist who limits the atonement. It is the Arminian, because he denies that the atoning death of Christ accomplishes what we most desperately need—namely, salvation from the condition of deadness and hardness and blindness under the wrath of God. The Arminian limits the nature and value and effectiveness of the atonement so that he can say that it was accomplished even for those who die in unbelief and are condemned. In order to say that Christ died for all men in the same way, the Arminian must limit the atonement to a powerless opportunity for men to save themselves from their terrible plight of depravity.”

This is further enhanced when we understand a simple point of justice and that’s that no one can punish the same crime twice. It would be unjust to receive two speeding tickets for the same offense. It would be unjust to go to jail twice for the same robbery. It would also be unjust for God to punish Christ for someone’s sin and then punish that person again for that same sin. So, either God does not punish Christ for any sins of the reprobate and he remains unsaved, or God punishes Christ for every sin of the reprobate and everyone is saved, or He punishes Christ for every sin except that of unbelief in Christ, which makes belief in Christ something we do to save ourselves, or rather something we undo to make ourselves unsaved, which is why it is the obvious logical conclusion to the full-on Arminian that a person who has fallen out of faith has lost his salvation.

What is at stake here is the entire Gospel! Paul says in Ephesians “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” If we’ve provided the merit of being worthy of God’s salvation blessing in and of ourselves (faith), then we have saved ourselves, and we have every reason to boast! Beloved it is absolutely vital to the doctrine of justification by faith that only the elect are benefactors of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. For the sake of preserving the legitimacy and power of Christ’s work on the cross let us not defile it by limiting it’s power! Christ died for all, but he only atoned the elect. Sufficient for all? Of course, Christ is infinite. Applied only to some? You bet.

1Romans 14:23: Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. If something is not done out of faith in Christ, ie with the desire to please God by faith in Christ, it’s sin even if it’s good. “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment,” Isaiah 64:6.

22 Corinthians 4:4: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God”