Tag: Calvinism

God Chose Us Before the Foundation of the World

On By Dave MallinakIn Calvinism, Expository, Gospel Conversations, Hot Topics, Issues Facing the Church

Election is a mystery. I admit it. But the Bible teaches election, so we must as well.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:3-6)

A Few Exegetical Notes

The word “chosen” in verse 4 is the verb form of the word “elect.” Peter uses an adjective form of the same word in I Peter 1:2.

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ…

Peter uses “elect” descriptively, emphasizing the method God uses in saving them that believe. Paul uses “chosen” as a verb, showing what God did on our behalf. Paul emphasizes the result of our salvation – that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.[1] Because God has chosen us, we are sanctified (4), adopted (5), accepted (6), redeemed and forgiven (7), and we have an inheritance (11).

Paul uses the aorist middle indicative “hath chosen.” The indicative points to the reality of the choice. God’s choice is actual, not potential. The timeless aorist tells us the choice is made for all time. The middle voice tells us that God made the choice for His sake, not ours. 

This selection of the saints in this age of grace is the act of God choosing out from among mankind, certain for Himself. These become His own, to be used for a certain purpose.[2]

The context confirms this.

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Why Good People Object to the Doctrine of Perseverance

On By Dave MallinakIn Apologetic, Calvinism, Gospel Conversations, Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Issues Facing the Church

I also think that that little catch phrase, perseverance of the saints, is dangerously misleading because again, it suggests that the persevering is something that we do, perhaps in and of ourselves. Now, I believe, of course, that saints do persevere in faith and that those who have been effectually called by God and have been reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit endure to the end, so that they do persevere. But they persevere not simply because they are so diligent in their making use of the mercies of God. But the only reason we can give why any of us continues on in the faith even till the last day is not because we have persevered so much as that is because we have been preserved. And so I prefer the term the preservation–the preservation–of the saints, because this process by which we are kept in a state of grace is something that is accomplished by God. (R.C. Sproul, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK-QdF64yng)

I understand the “P” in the TULIP to say that the God who saves a man keeps that man to the end. Thus, Sproul and many others have suggested that the “P” would better represent Calvinist theology if it stood for “preservation” instead of “perseverance.” Indeed, the Bible emphasizes not the perseverance of the saints but God’s preservation of the saints.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (Philippians 1:6)

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. (2 Timothy 2:12)

I have attempted to engage honestly with Calvinism, avoiding caricatures while expressing my objections based on Scripture. My main objection has been to the Calvinist tendency to blur or erase the paradox, the mysterious interaction between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility and free will. This tendency shows up in various ways in the first 4 points of Calvinism. But in the doctrine of perseverance, I see a different problem related to what R.C. Sproul acknowledges above. If Sproul admits the problem, I am not alone in my concern. But Sproul and other Calvinists haven’t done themselves any favors.

The word “perseverance” is terribly misleading. Nor do these quotes help things. Consider what a variety of famous (or infamous) Calvinists have said.

Conclude we, then, that holiness in this life is absolutely necessary to salvation, not only as a means to the end, but by a nobler kind of necessity — as part of the end itself. (A. W. Pink “On Sanctification” https://gracegems.org/Pink/sanctification.htm)

Neither the members of the church nor the elect can be saved unless they persevere in holiness; and they cannot persevere in holiness without continual watchfulness and effort.  (Charles Hodge comments on I Corinthians 10:12 https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/hdg/1-corinthians-10.html)

Endurance in faith is a condition in salvation (R. C. Sproul “Grace Unkown” – this article deals extensively with Sproul’s book: https://faithalone.org/journal-articles/book-reviews/grace-unknown-the-heart-of-reformed-theology/)

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Why I Don’t Believe in Limited Atonement

On By Dave MallinakIn Calvinism, Gospel Conversations, Hot Topics, Issues Facing the Church2 Comments

No doubt we’ve all heard Calvinists make statements like this: “Jesus doesn’t love the world,” “Jesus didn’t die for the world,” “Christ didn’t die for all or all would be saved.” As one man said,

The Bible teaches again and again that God does not love all people with the same love. “Loved by God” is not applied to the world but only to the saints.

Defending limited atonement in Chosen By God, R. C. Sproul says,

The world for whom Christ died cannot mean the entire human family. It must refer to the universality of the elect (people from every tribe and nation) or to the inclusion of Gentiles in addition to the world of the Jews. (Sproul, p. 206-207)

Sproul explains that the word “any” in 2 Peter 3:9 – God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” – doesn’t mean “any” in an absolutely unrestricted sense.

Any time we use the word any, we’re assuming some reference–any what? any of which group? Certainly Peter doesn’t say that God is not willing that any person perish. We had to supply that “person” as if it were tacitly understood.

But is there any other possible reference to the “any” besides any human being? Well, obviously, there are other possibilities, not the least of which is a particular class. You have a class here of people, and that word “people” makes up a distinctive class. And if I said any of that class, I would mean any person. Or I could have another class, a class called Jews, and if I spoke of any of that class, it would refer to anyone who is Jewish, or American, or whatever other group I would incorporate within that circle.

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Unconditional Love, Unconditional Election

On By Dave MallinakIn Apologetic, Calvinism, Hot Topics, Issues Facing the Church1 Comment

R.C. Sproul objects – I should say strongly objects – to the notion of unconditional love. In a popular video discussion, Sproul was asked, “When everyone is talking about the love of God, and God loves me just as I am, how would you respond?” He answered,

The kingdom of God is not Mr. Rogers’s neighborhood. I think there are few things more dangerous than preachers out there preaching that God loves everybody unconditionally because the message that is heard by the people who hear that is there are no conditions. I can continue to live just as I’m living in full rebellion against God, and I have nothing to worry about because there aren’t any conditions that I have to meet. God loves me unconditionally. I don’t have to repent, I don’t have to come to Jesus, I don’t have to leave my life of sin. No conditions, no strings attached. God loves me just the way I am. He’s glad that I turned out so nicely…

I don’t disagree with this. At least, not entirely.

In 2011, Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham’s grandson) published his book Jesus + Nothing = Everything.In 2013, he published One-Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World. Tchividjian is a neo-Calvinist, definitely not orthodox (consider his “Upside-Down Christianity” described here). However, Tchividjian has borrowed heavily from classic Calvinist teachings to describe God’s unconditional love. Tullian likes to use edgy language in his descriptions of God’s grace. For example,

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How “Total Depravity” Ignores the Gospel Call

On By Dave MallinakIn Calvinism, Gospel Conversations, Hot Topics, Issues Facing the Church1 Comment

The TULIP completely ignores man’s responsibility and the gospel call itself. It is, in fact, the TULIP more than any other feature of Calvinism that gives non-Calvinists the impression that Calvinism discourages evangelism and teaches men to wait for God to save them rather than repent and believe the gospel. I would go so far as to argue that Calvinism should discard the TULIP and teach what the Bible says as the authority for what we should believe about Christ in His saving work.

The TULIP focuses exclusively on God’s sovereignty in salvation. But this obsession with the sovereignty of God drifts precariously close to a hyper-Calvinistic overstatement of God’s sovereignty, ala A.W. Pink, who couldn’t appreciate any attribute of God without re-hashing God’s sovereignty all over again. Reading Pink’s Attributes of God, one gets the distinct impression that he sees the sovereignty of God as the one attribute that defines all the others, that sovereignty is more important than God’s holiness or love.

I have no wish to understate God’s sovereignty. God is God, and as an expression of the “Godness” of God, the TULIP seeks to glorify God and to remind us that God doesn’t lay aside His sovereign control when it comes to the salvation of sinners. I am very grateful that God gets all the glory, that salvation is His work, and that I am and have always been in His hand. None of this is a denial of God’s sovereignty. Nor is it a denial that the TULIP includes vital truths about God and His work in saving sinners. I am unwilling to join some of my dear friends in repudiating the TULIP as if it contains no truth whatsoever.

But as I have insisted, the Bible doesn’t resolve the mysterious interaction between God’s will and man’s. God’s will is exhaustive. Of that, there can be no doubt. Man’s will and his entire self have been significantly damaged by sin so that from the time of the Fall onward, man’s heart has been hopelessly corrupted, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. To put too much stock in man’s ability would be to set aside what the Bible tells us about ourselves. To diminish God’s sovereignty in our salvation would be to ignore or reject what the Bible teaches us about God. I do not wish to fall into either error.

But we must say what the Bible says, and we must emphasize what the Bible emphasizes. I believe the TULIP goes beyond Scripture in its claims about the interaction between God’s will and man’s.

So much has been written on the TULIP that I couldn’t possibly interact with every explanation or claim. I have two fairly simple presentations of Calvinist soteriology in front of me, both apologetic in nature. The first is Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul. The second is Easy Chairs Hard Words by Douglas Wilson. I recognize that neither of these men has attempted a defense of the TULIP itself, and both provide a substantial explanation of Calvinism that includes the TULIP but doesn’t rely on it. In fairness, both men might agree with some of my critiques. I want to interact with the TULIP itself as it is typically presented since (anecdotally) the TULIP tends to be the go-to expression of Calvinist soteriology. My claim in this article isn’t that Calvinists aren’t more nuanced than the TULIP, but only that the Calvinist reliance on the TULIP is flawed and misguided. And I say this because the TULIP mischaracterizes the gospel by giving only half the story.

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TULIP Trouble

On By Dave MallinakIn Apologetic, Calvinism, Gospel Conversations, Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Issues Facing the Church3 Comments

The relation of divine sovereignty to human responsibility is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. It is plain from Scripture in any case that both are real and that both are important. Calvinistic theology is known for its emphasis on divine sovereignty – for its view that God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:11). But in Calvinism there is at least an equal emphasis upon human responsibility. (John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, p. 14)

I open with this quote because, first, John Frame is a well-known Calvinist, and second, because he accurately describes here the mysterious interaction between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in salvation. Recently, I placed as the tenth on my list of things I wish would change among Independent Baptists, “overstated anti-Calvinism.” In my explanation of that objection, I said that quite often, in their haste to refute Calvinists, many Independent Baptists caricature Calvinism. In response to that article, some friends asked me to explain my objections to Calvinism, which resulted in an initial post in which I objected to the way Calvinists tend to blur the paradox between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in their presentation of the gospel. Now, I want to raise before you the primary proof that in Calvinism, this paradox is either blurred or ignored.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The TULIP does not account for man’s responsibility at all. Period. It gives no consideration to man’s responsibility, and nothing in it would give anyone the idea that man is responsible before God to repent and believe the gospel. If a person learning the TULIP were to take that as the summary of Christian doctrine, they would conclude that man has no part in God’s plan for our salvation other than to wait and hope that God might save him. The TULIP is an effective mnemonic device, for sure. But as far as a summary of Christian doctrine, it falls woefully short. One could argue that the TULIP only gives one side of the coin – later, I will contend that it also goes beyond Scripture in its attempt to describe God’s sovereignty in salvation. But supposing that the TULIP does give one half of the truth, half the truth is not the truth.

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One Last Thing I Wish Would Change Among Independent Baptists

On By Dave MallinakIn Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Issues Facing the Church, Personal6 Comments

Despite those I’ve offended, I can’t help but notice the overwhelmingly positive response to this little series. And though I might undo that goodwill with this post, it has been worth it if I have at least gotten you to consider these things. 

Change, for me, has been a very slow process. I was raised in the fluff of the IFB, and it takes a long time to get rid of that mindset. Honestly, most of the change has come from people who loved me enough to challenge my assumptions and demand that I defend my positions with Scripture. I am thankful for those who have done so (HT: Kent Brandenburg). And I hope to do the same for my readers.

That said, here is this series’s final installment. Think of it as the 39th stripe. The others can be found if you follow this set of links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and for Part 5, scroll down one post (sorry, I can’t link it right now).

Overstated Anti-Calvinism

And there go all my readers. 

You aren’t going to like this. You’ll probably say mean things about me for writing it. But rabid anti-Calvinism isn’t the answer to Calvinism. And Calvinism isn’t a doctrine of devils. 

I heard a preacher say from the pulpit, twice in fact, in two separate sermons, “The God of Calvinism isn’t the God of the Bible.” 

I didn’t say “Amen.” I understand why good men disagree on the Doctrines of Grace. I recognize why good friends of mine despise Calvinism while other friends embrace it. The disagreement won’t likely end in our lifetimes, and I doubt it will end until the Millenial Reign of Christ. But some of the slanders I hear hurled at Calvinism are absolute garbage.

To say that the God of Calvinism isn’t the God of the Bible, one must also maintain that Charles Spurgeon, Adoniram Judson, William Carey, and most other Baptists before the 1900s were all false prophets and today burning in hell. Because historically, Baptists were nearly all Calvinists until the late 1800s. 

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