As Excelsior mentioned in his post earlier this week, we want to be honest in writing to you. Part of this is admitting the biases from which we write. Everyone has biases, but if we’re open about where we write from, it’s easier to understand the goal we have in mind. Theological disagreements between close friends are not uncommon. John Wesley and George Whitefield, arguably the most influential theologians/preachers of the 18th century (alongside Jonathan Edwards) were great friends and disagreed strongly. See Whitfield's letter, here. However, we must remember that the center of the Gospel is love! Even within theological discussion which can become heated (and not wrongly so) we must remember Paul’s admonition to “be angry and sin not.” Though we may not agree on these issues, Excelsior and I are the best of friends. In parting with our normal practice, instead of waiting to post this, we decided it should go up sooner rather than later. This debate can be both heavy and deep; my apologies if the level of intelligibility drops from our previous posts. I pray that God's words and not mine would come through in your reading. :)
The Doctrine(s) of Grace, Augustinianism, Calvinism, Heresy, The Gospel, Reformed Theology, Puritanism, The Great Awakening, TULIP, Christian Hedonism, The Young.Restless.Reformed Movement. It has had many names, some with better connotations than others. The one point these different titles have in common is a focus on God and his sovereign grace. This is the idea that we are saved by Grace alone, as seen in Ephesians 2:1-10 (I will just be giving references throughout, because of the number and length of the passages of Scripture.)
“Grace is not only God’s disposition to do good for us when we don’t deserve it — undeserved favor. It is also a power from God that acts in our lives and makes good things happen in us and for us.” ~John Piper
Reformed Theology (my own preferred term) holds to a few basic tenets:
We Calvinists believe that God is sovereign in salvation, just as He is in all other areas.
1) Our Sinful Nature: Man is radically sinful in our nature. --Due to the Fall. We believe that all men are born dead spiritually in trespasses and sin, with no hope of salvation on their own. But, that Jesus died to pay for the sin of His people. (Eph. 2:1-3, Luke 5:8, Isaiah 63:17, Jeremiah 17:9, Rom 3:23, Rom 1:32) This means that we are completely fallen. Jesus calls us to love him with all of our Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength because these are the parts of us that are fallen--everything!
2) God’s Unconditional Love: We are not saved on the basis of anything we do. --Simply on the basis of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. We believe that God chooses to save us not based on anything we have done, haven’t done, or will do, but rather by God’s sovereign love He predestined us to be saved. We are not saved because God saw we were smart enough to choose him. We are completely dead and in our sin want nothing to do with God. We are saved in spite of ourselves. LeCrae has put it this way in one of his songs:
But then some say "How can God exist when All this evil stuff in the world keep persistin'? Wrong question. Ask again. "How come God ain't' let you feel the wrath from sin?" What you thought last night deserved a first class flight To Hell where God doesn't dwell. You got that right. But He bought back life, on a cross that night. Christ died, you ain't know that he crossed that price. All of God's anger put on His son Then together, through all of eternity. Now He was shunned. Praise God for the life that was won for us Ain't got a beef with God because the son was crushed
In other words, the question we ask should not be why doesn’t God save everyone, but why does God bother to save anyone? In short the answer is He loves us. Romans 9 says that for sake of those He loves He has tolerated “vessals of wrath.” (2Thes 2:11, 2Cor 9:8, Romans 5, 8, 9, Eph 1:3-14, James 1:17)
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3) The Exclusivity of the Gospel: Not everyone will be saved. --Rejecting the heresy of universalism. On this point, Excelsior and I agree, although we believe it for different reasons. When one rejects universalism, which the Scriptures require a believer to do, We have one of two problems. Jesus' death and resurrection either completely atones for the sin of some or incompletely atones for all. In other words, those chosen by God are entirely saved by Christ or we must work up the gumption to get to God and hope we don’t fall away from him. I believe the former is the only Biblically based view, but I will expand upon this in my discussion of point 5.
4) God’s Saving Grace: God’s calling is effectual to save anyone. --Christ’s sheep know his voice. We believe that our nature is so broken by the Fall that even though salvation is freely offered to us that we would never repent and trust in Christ of ourselves, but since we are dead in our sin it takes the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate the heart of man, to give the gifts of repentance and faith, that the man may be born again. If you are saved, you likely remember a moment in time when you chose to ask God to come into your heart. This is true! However, what you don’t remember is God working in and around you to save you so that you would be able to ask him to come into your life. In the book of Ezekiel, God takes the prophet to a valley full of bodies that have completely decayed. The dry bones lie scattered without a scrap of flesh, muscle, or skin upon them. God then asks the prophet “Can these dry bones live?” Ezekiel has seen God do enough crazy things to know the right answer, “Only you can tell, oh God.” God then brings the bones to life and covers them with flesh and muscle and sinews and capillaries. God says “I will take their heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.” This is God acting upon us to save us, after which we are able to respond to his love. (Ezek 37:1-14, Ezek 11:19, John 3:27, John 6:63-65, Phi 1:29, 1 John 5:1, James 1:18, 1 Pet 1:3)
5) The Perseverance of Faith: Once you have been saved, there is nothing that can separate you from God and his love. We believe that those whom Jesus died for, chose before the world began, and regenerated will not fall away, because Jesus doesn’t lose His sheep. If we weren’t saved by something we have done, then we also cannot slip through His fingers. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, He doesn’t lose His sheep. If we have been saved by God, then he has the power to preserve us throughout this life. Pauls writes in Romans that there is nothing which can separate us from God in Christ. The writer of Hebrews then explains that those who seem to fall away from the faith were not saved to begin with. (Heb 3:14, Heb 7:25, Heb 10:14, Rom 11:29, John 15:16, Rom. 8:28-31, 1Cor 1:28-31)
We believe that the Gospel of our salvation glorifies God and humbles man.
These are predicated by the 5 Solae which were previously alluded to in our Sola Scriptura post. They are the idea that we are saved By Faith Alone, through Grace Alone, in Christ Alone, To God’s Glory, and that we come to a knowledge of this through Scripture Alone.
Before closing, I believe it is necessary to explain a historical question. For quite some time, the Doctrines of Grace have been known popularly known as “Calvinism” after the 16th century French attorney, theologian, and pastor Jean Cauvin. (anglicized as John Calvin) It would cause Calvin much consternation to know we are using his name for what he would have simply called the Gospel. In fact, Calvin wrote less on the specific doctrine of predestination than any of the other Reformers. His name has become inextricably connected to these truths though and so I do not shy away from using the term if it makes my explanation more clear. There have been false accusations that Calvin was responsible for the burning of Miguel Serveto Conesa, but this is simply historically untrue. If anyone has questions on anything I have covered in this post, please email or comment. I have only begun to scratch the surface!
<== I disagree with this, in case you were wondering.
I would like to close with this from Charles Spurgeon, one of my heroes in the faith, who explained his own journey this way.
When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul – when they were as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron; and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown all of a sudden from a babe into a man – that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God … I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, I ascribe my change wholly to God. I have my own opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing unchangeable eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross.
I hope and pray this post will draw you closer to God and give you a better understanding of his fierce love, unquenchable grace, and magnificent power.
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/gracelist.html --this site lists most of the scriptures I used along with others so you can read through all of them more easily.
Grace and Peace to You,
Athanasius
P.S. I couldn’t resist using some of these pictures...including the ones which make fun of Calvinism. My apologies if there is an overabundance of them. :)
