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Baptist History and the Points of Calvinism
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
Baptists, Calvinistic or Arminian?
In the last post of this series, I wrote that John T. Christian said in his book on The History of Baptists, that Baptists were more Calvinistic than Arminian. When I wrote that or referenced him, I wasn’t saying that Baptists are Calvinists. At least since the advent of Calvinism, they are more Calvinistic, mainly referring to eternal security. Eternal security very often and for some is shorthand for Calvinistic, setting someone apart from Arminianism.
Even with a Calvinistic resurgence in the Southern Baptists, only 30% are Calvinist. They aren’t the majority. I know some look at the English and American Baptist Confessions to get or have the opinion that Baptists were mainly Calvinists for the last four hundred years. You would be wrong again.
Particular and General Baptists
Particular Baptists, the Calvinist wing of Baptists in England especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, wrote the London Baptist Confession. At the time of their writing of that confession, they represented slightly more of the Baptist churches in England than the General Baptists, the non-Calvinist wing. That Confession did not speak for all Baptists in England. John T. Christian writes about this:
This body (of General Baptists) constituted by far the larger portion of the Baptists of that country, and their history runs on in an uninterrupted stream from generation to generation.
The first Baptists in England were not Calvinists. The Calvinists came later as a separation from the Anglican church in 1633. Calvinism was an unnatural growth for Baptist churches. Calvinist Baptists came first from a break with the Church of England, not an adaptation on Baptist churches. They broke with the Anglicans over such doctrine or practices like infant sprinkling.
Apparently because of the doctrinal problems among the General Baptists, once the Particular Baptists came to England, the latter outgrew the former for a short period. By 1660, Particular Baptist churches outnumbered General Baptist ones, 130 to 110. Anglican England, however, persecuted both Baptist factions until the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary and the Toleration Act of 1688.
Calvinism and Arminianism Both Clash with Historical Baptist Belief
Calvinism does not characterize Baptists. Eric Hankins explains this well in his journal article, Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism Toward A Baptist Soteriology:
Baptists believe in the clarity and simplicity of the Bible. We search in vain for decrees, a Covenant of Works, the distinction between a “general call” and an “effectual call,” hidden wills, and prevenient grace. We react with consternation to the ideas that God regenerates before He converts, that He hates sinners, that reprobation without respect to a response of faith brings Him the greatest glory, or that the truly converted can lose their salvation. Baptists have felt free to agree with certain emphases within Calvinism and Arminianism, while rejecting those that offend our commitments to the possibility of salvation for all and to the eternal security of that salvation based exclusively on faith in the covenant promises of God.
The free offer of an eternal, life-changing covenant with the Father through the Son by the Spirit to all sinners by the free exercise of personal faith alone has been the simple, non-speculative but inviolable core of Baptist soteriological belief and practice. Baptist soteriology (specifically including the doctrines of the sovereign, elective purposes of God, the sinfulness of all humans, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, and the security of the believer) is not in jeopardy and does not need to be reinforced by Calvinism or Arminianism. It can be successfully taught, maintained, and defended without resorting to either system.
Calvinism, Arminianism, and Infant Sprinkling
Hankins continues:
It has been typical of Baptists to believe that anyone who reaches the point of moral responsibility has the capacity to respond to the gospel. While all persons are radically sinful and totally unable to save themselves, their ability to “choose otherwise” defines human existence, including the ability to respond to the gospel in faith or reject it in rebellion.
God initiates the process; He imbues it with His Spirit’s enabling. When people respond in faith, God acts according to His promises to seal that relationship for eternity, welding the will of the believer to His own, setting the believer free by His sovereign embrace. Our assurance of salvation comes not from a “sense” that we are elect or from our persistence in holy living. Assurance comes from the simple, surrendered faith that God keeps every one of His promises in Christ Jesus.
Baptist Insistence on Believer’s Baptism
Baptists’ historical insistence on believer’s baptism is a solid indicator of our soteriological instinct. Historically, neither Calvinism nor Arminianism had a correct word for infant baptism because both were burdened with the justification for total depravity, original sin, and individual election. For many Arminians (like those in the Wesleyan tradition), infant baptism functions with reference to original sin and prevenient grace and plays a role in the faith that God “foresees.” For many Calvinists, infant baptism has become an extremely odd vehicle by which they deal with the fate of infants, an issue that is illustrative of the fundamental inadequacy of the system.
If Calvinism is true, then its own logic demands that at least some infants who die before reaching the point of moral responsibility spend eternity in hell. By and large, Calvinists do not want to say this and will go to great lengths to avoid doing so. Covenant Theology and infant baptism have been the preferred method for assuring (at least Christian) parents that they can believe in original guilt and total depravity and still know that their children who die in infancy will be with them in heaven. While Baptist Calvinists and Arminians do not allow for infant baptism, the fact that their systems allow for and even advocate it is telling.
Baptist Rejection of Covenant Theology
Prevenient grace and Covenant Theology have never played a role in Baptist theology. This frees us to deal biblically with the issue of infant baptism: it is simply a popular vestige of Roman Catholic sacramentalism that the Magisterial Reformers did not have either the courage or theological acuity to address. Privileging election necessarily diminishes the significance of the individual response of faith for salvation, thus creating room for infant baptism and its theological justification. But with faith as the proper center of Baptist soteriology, infant baptism has never made any sense. Our distinctive understanding of the ordinance of baptism celebrates the centrality of the individual’s actual response of faith to the free offer of the gospel.
Hankins gets at the crux of the doctrinal conflict between true Baptist doctrine, actual New Testament doctrine and practice, and the innovation of Calvinism and Arminianism. The doctrinal and practical deviation from scripture of Calvinists and Arminians both clash with the doctrinal and practical sensibility of Baptists. They are a diversion off the true line or trajectory of Baptist churches from their beginning, almost a mutation.
Baptists Not Protestant
Sadly, many professing Baptists embrace Protestantism as their history through Roman Catholicism. This is a new historical revisionism that arose in the late 19th century. Here is what C. H. Spurgeon wrote in the Sword and the Trowel concerning the History of English Baptists in a review of J. M. Cramp’s History:
The history of English Baptists is full of interest. From the first they were peculiarly offensive to “the powers that be.” Henry the Eighth – who did so much for the Anglican Establishmentarians that he ought to be regarded by them as a pet saint, even as he was befooled and belarded by the intriguing Cranmer – when he assumed the headship of the Anglican church which never acknowledged Christ to be its only Head, proclaimed against two kinds of heretics, viz., those who disputed about baptism and the Lord’s Supper; and such as were re-baptised. These Anabaptists were commanded to withdraw from the country at once. Cranmer ordered some to be burnt, and burnt they were.
1357 Date for English Baptists
Mr. Kenworthy, the present pastor of the Baptist church at Hill Cliffe, in Cheshire, has stated that if the traditions of the place are to be trusted, the church is five hundred years old. “A tombstone has been lately dug up in the burial ground belonging to that church, bearing date 1357. The origin of the church is assigned to the year 1523.
It is evident that there were Baptist communities in this country in the reign of Edward VI, since Ridley, who was martyred in the following reign, had the following among his “Articles of Visitation:” “Whether any of the Anabaptists’ sect or other, use notoriously any unlawful or private conventicles, wherein they do use doctrines or administration of sacraments, separating themselves from the rest of the parish?” A fearful crime which many Anglicans of the present day would be as ready to punish were it not that other notions of religious liberty exist and powerfully influence public opinion.
We can trace the same spirit, though in embryo perhaps, in the ritualistic prints of the present age, and indeed in the two delightfully amiable Evangelical newspapers whose unbounded hatred of all outside the pale of their theology and clique is as relentless and unscrupulous as the bitterest feelings of Papal days. All history teaches that state-churchism means persecution, in one form or another, according to the sentiments of the age; and the only cure for the evil is to put all religions on an equality.
True History of Baptists Not Protestant
Spurgeon did not believe the Protestant view of English separatism. He with his mammoth library and well-read wrote the following:
We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents.
Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer, as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.
Spurgeon made statements like this many times in sermons through the years, not from the seat of his trousers, but from what he read of prime sources and other history. He also talked among many English men for years as to the truth of Baptists.
A New Alternative List to the Points of Calvinism (Part Five)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
The last point of Calvinism is
5. PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
He That Overcometh
That language sounds right to me, but especially like “total depravity,” the first point, it depends on how one explains it. Why it seems good is because of certain scriptural language, chiefly two in particular. One, the New Testament describes the truly saved person as him or he “that overcometh” (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 21:7). In an explicit way, 1 John 5:4-5 say:
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. 5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
True believers will overcome or persevere. One of the ways you know a person is not a true believer or who possesses saving faith is that he will not overcome. If it’s true, real, or living faith, it will persevere or overcome. What does someone overcome? Scripture would most characterize it as trials, temptations, snares, or tests, brought by Satan or the world system that Satan orchestrates. Jesus explained it in the parable of the soils as the sun beating on the soil, the stony or rocky does not have root and cannot endure.
Abiding in the Vine
Two, Jesus used the metaphor of abiding in the vine (John 15). Often, because of a wrong view of sanctification, evangelicals messed up this doctrine. “Abide” (meno) comes from a simple Greek word that means “remain.” Truly saved people, people with true saving faith, will abide or remain. They will not defect like Judas or Demas (2 Tim 4:10).
The reason true believers remain, that is, don’t lose their salvation, is that God keeps them. Once in His hand, no man can pluck them out of His hand (John 10:27-30). He keeps them by His power (1 Peter 1:5). Paul expresses it this way in Philippians 1:6:
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.
God began the work of saving grace and He will complete it. Despite the testing of Satan, Job persevered, which testified of His saving righteousness.
Perseverance contrasts with a form of eternal security doctrine that eliminates an enduring or steadfast faith. True and saving faith through the New Testament does endure all the way into eternity. The eternal life of eternal security resulting through faith in Christ continues as more than just a quantity of life, but also a quality of life. The eternal life received by saving faith proceeds from the nature of God. That life of God will characterize the one who possesses it according to His moral attributes.
Regeneration and Perseverance
Is everything that I have described the actual doctrine of the perseverance of the saints? I’m afraid not. For Calvinists, unless regeneration preceded faith, then man’s contribution would have mixed with God’s in a non-saving way. Regeneration as a consequence of faith, Calvinists say, will not persevere. Man thus contributes to and fails at staying saved.
Endure to the End, Shall Be Saved
In other words, every point of Calvinism fits with all the others, so that if one is wrong, all are wrong, no matter how much each one is right. Some thing or many things are right within each point, but enough is wrong to make the point itself in general wrong. Perhaps no point is more right of the points of Calvinism than the perseverance of the saints. Jesus said in Matthew 24:13:
But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
“Shall be saved” is a future tense verb. This is ultimate salvation, what some call “eschatological salvation.” It takes in justification, sanctification, and glorification. If God truly justifies someone, he will endure to the end. Even though it is God keeping and sanctifying, the New Testament describes the cooperation of the believer in this. Paul commands the believer to ‘work out his own salvation with fear and trembling’ (Philip 2:12). Peter explains this as ‘giving diligence to make your calling and election sure’ (2 Pet 3:10).
To emphasize some modification of Calvinism, I will rename this point
5. GOD’S PRESERVATION OF HIS SALVATION GUARANTEES MAN’S COOPERATION WITH IT
Many Calvinists wouldn’t disagree with that point. Many non-Calvinists, who claim belief in eternal security, would reject it. Man cannot cooperate without the will and work of God in saving him. If God does save him, he will cooperate with what God does. This fulfills the teaching in Romans 8:29. Whom God foreknew, He predestined to conform to the image of His Son. Every man God justifies, He also sanctifies.
From my reading of Calvinists, I contend that the points of Calvinism do not change the plan of salvation. I hope you noticed that I didn’t say, “the doctrine of salvation.” A Calvinist would receive and would not reject that (1) every man is a sinner, (2) he deserves a penalty for sin, (3) Jesus paid that penalty, and (4) he must believe in Jesus Christ. I’m saying that Calvinism itself does not change the gospel. The points of Calvinism in themselves do not result in a false gospel or salvation by works. According to historians, Baptists have been more Calvinist than Arminian. I write that, less an endorsement of Calvinism, but as it is a repudiation of Arminianism.
I reject a lot that Calvin believed, his ecclesiology, eschatology, infant sprinkling, and more. The corrupt doctrine in the points of Calvinism, although I’m saying is not a false gospel, has bad consequences. The points of Calvinism as taught by historical Calvinism leads people astray on numbers of doctrines. All false doctrine causes problems. Every problem for every church and every Christian comes to some misalignment with or deviation from the true teaching of the Word of God. This includes several various aspects of the points of Calvinism.
A BETTER LIST
You don’t need Calvinism or Arminianism. Certain aspects of both you’ll find in the Bible. I call on everyone to reject both. Either will send you a wrong direction. Instead latch on to what scripture really teaches, which I hope you will see in the alternative points I provided.
Maybe you don’t even need a list or five points. I’m not saying you do. However, if you’re going to have a list of points, I contend mine is better than Calvinism or Arminianism. It will allow for whatever truth either of those doctrinal positions provide. Instead of conforming to a system, perhaps mine will conform to the full counsel of the Word of God. Let’s review them (look back through the series as all of these points were longer there).
- SPIRITUAL BANKRUPTCY
- ELECTION ACCORDING TO FOREKNOWLEDGE
- AVAILABLE SUBSTITIONARY SACRIFICE
- SUFFICIENT GRACE TO SAVE
- PRESERVED SAINTS COOPERATE
You’re not going to get the fun acrostic T.U.L.I.P. here. I didn’t even try (SEASP?). I warn you, don’t anyone call these the “five points of Brandenburgism.” Okay? And despite not having a pretty flower to remember, just stop and smell some roses while you review these five instead.
A New Alternative List to the Points of Calvinism (Part Three)
The second point of Calvinism is “unconditional election,” and part two of this series said that election is not predetermined. Instead, God elects according to His foreknowledge (1 Pet 1:2). God knows who will believe in Him and elects them before the foundation of the world. Calvinists get unconditional election out of this by changing the meaning of foreknowledge. They say that term means “forelove,” in the sense that “Adam knew his wife Eve” (Gen 4:1) and Joseph did not ‘know’ Mary until after Jesus was born (Matt 1:25).
Turning “foreknowledge” into “forelove” is one of many examples of how Calvinism contorts the meaning of words to get its five points. It really is tell-tale. This stretching of the truth does not comport with the plain meaning of the text. Changing the meaning of “foreknowledge” opens the door to all sorts of new doctrine not taught in scripture. Rather than knowing who would believe, God makes only certain people to believe and others not. It becomes His will to damn people to Hell rather than knowing who wouldn’t believe. This is a big change in the reading of scripture almost entirely through this manipulation of one word.
The first three points of Calvinism are (1) total depravity, (2) unconditional election, and then (3) limited atonement. I named instead the first two (1) each person’s spiritual bankruptcy and (2) God’s election according to his foreknowledge.
3. LIMITED ATONEMENT
More than Atonement
“Limited atonement” is the historical term for this third point. As a bit of an aside to its meaning, I believe that atonement is an Old Testament concept. Christ’s death was more than atonement. His death and shed blood did more than atone for sin. Jesus’ work on the cross removed, took away, or washed away sin. For instance, Israel had a day every year called, Yom Kippur, which means, “Day of Atonement.” This spoke of something that occurred through the blood of animals, which could not take away sin.
In the context of the point of Calvinism, Calvinists say that God atoned only for the sins of the elect. They mean that Jesus died and shed His blood only for the elect. Calvinists don’t take this from any statement in scripture. The Bible doesn’t teach it. It’s what some might call a logical leap that reads like the following paragraph (I’m going to indent it to indicate it is not my position, so as not to confuse).
The Fit Into Calvinism
No spiritually dead person can believe unless God enables them through regeneration. God regenerates those He selects for salvation before the foundation of the world. Since He predetermined whom He would regenerate, Jesus only died for those He would save. He didn’t die for those He wouldn’t save or else that would save them. Therefore, He limits the atonement to only the elect.
Calvinists would say that God gets all the glory for the salvation, because He did everything, start to finish. Some go so far to say that nothing happens, not a single molecule moves, without God causing it. Calvinists would say that if God is sovereign, then He does it all, what they call “monergism.” Again, some Calvinists take this to the extent that if God isn’t doing it all, then man adds something in the nature of works to grace, which is unproveable and false.
Instead of teaching limited atonement, scripture says that God provides an
3. AVAILABLE SUBSTITIONARY SACRIFICE BY CHRIST
Some Calvinists won’t use “limited atonement,” which is a negative sounding descriptor, but “particular redemption.” Even for me, I could embrace something called “particular redemption,” depending on how it’s explained.
I’ve never seen a four point Calvinist reject any other point than this one, perhaps the hardest for Calvinists to believe. It’s a reason why, I believe, for the replacement terminology, “particular redemption.” To make it easier, I also hear Calvinists say that everyone limits the atonement or else God would save everyone. The limitation doesn’t read, however, as though Christ died only for the elect. At worst, God limits the effects of His death — redemption — to only those who believe, or only to the elect. But the latter is not what Calvinists say or mean about or by limited atonement.
Logical Leap
Like with unconditional election, Calvinists take a logical leap with limited atonement. They do it by framing the argument in a way that only their position can stand. It’s however, not how scripture frames this salvation doctrine. Calvinists say that if Christ wasn’t redeeming with His work on the cross then no one is saved. Since He did save, then His cross work must redeem everyone. The Bible does not state this line of thinking or reasoning. At most, it is an inference Calvinists make from scripture, however, one contradicted by verses in the Bible.
Redemption comes through Jesus’ death alone, but only to those who believe in Him. When scripture says that Jesus died for everyone, it does not mean that He provided redemption for everyone. It means He paid the penalty for everyone, but no one gets the benefits of His death without faith. The inference claimed by Calvinists arises from this philosophy of Calvinism already expressed in this series that does not represent a biblical doctrine of salvation.
Availability of Salvation
If Christ died only for the elect, then how could the Apostle Paul write what he did in 1 Corinthians 15:1-3?
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
Paul declared the gospel when he arrived in Corinth. Not everyone received, but those who did receive it (verses 1 and 2) were “saved” (verse 2). However, the message he preached to an unsaved audience, not all of which received it, was “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” By “the scriptures,” perhaps Paul was referring to Isaiah 53:5:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
This teaches Christ’s substitutionary death. If someone believes that Christ died only for the elect, is he telling the truth in preaching that Christ died for the sins of that audience? This was the typical gospel preaching of Paul and it included, “Christ died for you.” I continue to preach that to everyone and mean it.
Scripture Not Limited Atonement
The combination of many different verses proclaim that Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice is available for everyone.
Romans 5:6, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Hebrews 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
2 Peter 2:1, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”
1 John 2:1-2, “1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
I agree with the truth from Jesus “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3:15). Jesus would preach that message to unbelievers, many of whom never went on to believe (John 12:46). The system of Calvinism clashes with obvious New Testament teaching.
Christ Died for Everyone
Christ died for all men in that His substitutionary sacrifice was available to everyone, if they would believe on Him. And, everyone is without excuse as to believing on Him (cf. Rom 1:20). It would sound like a legitimate excuse from someone, if he said, “Christ didn’t die for me,” if that’s what really happened.
When Jesus explains why people don’t receive salvation, He doesn’t say what Calvinism says: not predetermined, didn’t get irresistible grace, and He didn’t die for them. No, He says things like we see in Luke 13:3, “Except ye repent.” Or, He says the culprit is hard, thorny, or stony hearts (Matt 13). Explaining even apostates, Peter says ‘they deny the Lord that bought them.’ He bought them and they still denied Him. Calvinistic inferences contradict the plain teaching of scripture. Explicit statements outdo, undo, and exceed inferences and even something greater than inferences, implications. If you’re a believer, you’ve got to go with what God says. That’s your doctrine.
Faux Intellectualism
These opaque, murky points of Calvin should recede in the face of unadulterated true statements of God. Their continued embrace seems a desperate grasp of faux intellectualism. The following may trigger some, but it also sounds to me like a kind of virtue signal. It lays out an intricate contraption of theology impressive in the nature of Rube Goldberg. It takes just those types of twists and turns to end a pristine quest of human ingenuity.
The points of Calvinism wilt like day old salad in the face of not many mighty or noble are called, because to wrap your brain around Calvinism requires egg headed genius orbiting in an intellectual satellite thousands of miles above earth. Calvinism has the mighty and noble on speed dial. The foolishness of preaching is not incomprehension and contradiction.
More to Come
A New Alternative List to the Points of Calvinism (Part Two)
Almost required in the world of theology is coming down for one or the other, and only one or the other, Calvinism or Arminianism. I oppose this requirement. Because such a requirement exists, people invent and label a new position such as Provisionism. Or, they dredge up an older, rarely mentioned one, like Amyraldism, very difficult to explain or understand. Such as these seem to attempt to fill a gap between the two poles of Calvinism and Arminianism. Some people will just say, Biblicism, declaring that neither pole represents the Bible. We should admit that everyone thinks they’re taking a biblical position.
For myself, I listen, I hope, through a biblical grid. I want to believe one position or the other is the truth, but I also desire biblical persuading. When I give ear to Calvinism, I’ve got problems, even when I’m trying hard to believe it. When I hear the points of Calvinism, an alternative arises in my mind from biblical exegesis. I’m calling the first point. . . .
1. EACH PERSON’S SPIRITUAL BANKRUPTCY
Another alternative arises in my mind with the second point,
UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
I’m calling this second point. . . . .
2. GOD’S ELECTION ACCORDING TO HIS FOREKNOWLEDGE
Chosen through Belief in the Truth
Unconditional election doesn’t conform to the Bible. A great verse that expresses the condition is 2 Thessalonians 2:13:
But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.
Paul writes that God from the beginning has chosen to salvation through belief of the truth. Belief of the truth is the condition. God chooses or elects from the beginning and “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4). Ephesians 1:4 also says “elect in him.” That’s another condition. God doesn’t choose those out of him, but in him. 2 Timothy 1:9 says;
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
Before the world began, according to His grace God called those in Christ Jesus. 1 Peter 1:2 says:
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
Election According to Foreknowledge
God elects according to His foreknowledge. “Foreknowledge” comes from a Greek word, it won’t amaze you, that means, “to know ahead of time.” God knows everything. Nothing occurs to Him.
Among other reasons, God elects before the foundation of the world and from the beginning because (1) He is not bound by time. He exists in what some call “an eternal present,” which is seen in His name, “the I AM.” God just is, and then (2) He is omniscient. He knows everything in eternity past, present, and eternity future.
Who Does God Elect?
Since election is according to God knowing ahead of time who He saves and who He doesn’t, then He can elect before the foundation of the world. This, however, is where the rub comes for Calvinists. God elects whom He foreknows. Who does God elect? Who are the elect?
On this, you should consider Romans 8:29-30:
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Perhaps you already know this passage. As you work your way through these two verses, you can see that God foreknows whom he justified. Whom does God justify? Those who believe in Jesus Christ. This agrees with 2 Thessalonians 2:13, chosen through belief in the truth. Romans 5:1 says that God justifies by faith. What does God foreknow? He knows who believes in Him before the foundation of the world and those He elects.
What difference does that election make? It secures that person. God knows who will be with Him in heaven forever. That gives security for the believer, the justified person.
The Decider?
What would the Calvinist have as a problem with what I’m writing here? I’ve heard it and read it. Calvinists will say that God is the Decider. They might take that from some place like John 1:12-13:
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
This is a place that says faith precedes regeneration. God gave power to become the sons of God to those who receive and believe on Jesus Christ. Calvinists will say that man deciding is “the will of the flesh or the will of man.” They also say that God isn’t sovereign if man is decider and not God.
Nowhere does scripture make an issue over who is the decider. The way scripture reads, man does decide. The Calvinist very often would equate that to salvation by works. They make the decision a work. Faith is not a work and faith is the deciding factor.
Even with a man deciding by faith in Jesus Christ, God still also decides in advance, because He elects before the foundation of the world. God has also worked much in the life of the person who receives and believes on Jesus Christ through many different scriptural means without which God wouldn’t save him.
Men Made Up Unconditional Election
Men made up unconditional election. It isn’t in the Bible anywhere. I understand that Calvinists will say that God predetermines who He will save. I like to call this, picking people out of the pot of humanity. Scripture doesn’t present salvation like that. God elects those in Christ. He chooses people with a standing in grace. They believe first, but they can’t believe, like I explained in the first post, without the Word of God. A man gets revelation from God and He believes. God foreknows his faith and everything else about him.
If deciding is believing, then deciding isn’t a problem. And deciding is believing. It could only be “believing” because scripture doesn’t use “decider” in its language. Someone can’t believe without God working in him. God is still sovereign and He still gets all the credit.
More to Come
A New Alternative List to the Points of Calvinism
When I listen to a presentation of the points of Calvinism, very often my mind goes to alternative scriptural points to replace them. I think of what the Bible says about the point and I can’t agree with it. Usually I go into a hearing of Calvinist teaching with a desire to agree and believe. Actual scripture gets in the way of my agreeing and believing with the points of Calvinism.
Scripture Challenges Calvinism
Not Biblical
Sure, the points of Calvinism persuade Calvinists. They claim it’s scripture that does it. I don’t see it in scripture, even with my trying to become as persuaded. Calvinism doesn’t do it for me.
What I want to do with this piece is to say aloud what I’m thinking when I hear Calvinism presented. I can’t write everything on it. Hopefully what I’ll do is write down the kind of content I’m thinking when someone espouses Calvinism. My opinion is that Calvinists have their Calvinistic position to defend, much like someone from some religion tries to protect his religion when confronted with scripture. I await presentations that just expose scripture, not read into it.
When I say, the points of Calvinism, I mean what people call, the five points of Calvinism, also known by the acronym, TULIP. All five points of Calvinism interconnect, depend on each other and feed off of each other. I understand when someone says he is one, two, three, or four point, if not five point. To take less than five, someone disconnects one or more from the group. Because of this interconnection, I reject all five points.
Calvinism Unnecessary
I get how someone could question my rejecting every point, since two of them especially make some sense scripturally if taken out of the context of all five points as a group. I mean “total depravity” and “perseverance of the saints.” I could explain those two as the truth, but I don’t believe that Calvinists would agree with that explanation. I’d rather just reject all five points and start over from scratch.
God won’t judge me for not agreeing with a point of Calvin. It’s more important that any one of us believe what God said in His Word about the doctrine of salvation.
Calvinists sometimes attack those who disagree with their position, representing them as not believing certain biblical doctrines. They can easily turn their foes into people who don’t believe in God’s sovereignty or who do believe in some form of salvation by works. I deny these charges. Calvinists often allow these points to define them. The points become consuming and weave into many other of their other doctrines. They often treat those who reject Calvinism as irretrievably messed up in their beliefs.
What should someone make of the points of Calvinism?
TOTAL DEPRAVITY
The Calvinists at Ligonier Ministries say this:
When it comes to total depravity, the inability of which we speak is first and foremost moral inability. In our fallenness, though we have a will and can discern the good, we lack the ability to choose rightly, to exercise our wills in the proper direction of absolute dependence on God and submission to His will.
Total Inability
Total depravity sounds scriptural. The two terms seem right, so what’s wrong? By total depravity though, Calvinists mean, as you can read above, “total inability.”
“Total inability” doesn’t bother me either. It comes down to what Calvinists say about total depravity and then total inability.
Personally I won’t use the words “total inability” because I know Calvinists use them. They are not words from scripture. However, I read lines in the Bible that say the equivalent of total inability. I even like the two words as a description of a lost man’s condition. When Calvinists use those words, they are taking them much further than scripture.
The argument for Calvinists says that men are unable to respond to God for salvation. Men are dead and since they’re dead, they don’t have the capacity at all to receive Jesus Christ. Everything so far I agree with, so what’s the problem? Where Calvinists get into trouble here is their solution to man’s deadness and his inability to respond.
Regeneration Precedes Faith
Many Calvinists teach that God must intervene in the way of regenerating a man so that he then can respond. People have called this, “regeneration precedes faith.” This is not how scripture reads about the doctrine of regeneration. The Bible is clear and plain in many places that the opposite is true. Faith precedes regeneration.
It’s true that men cannot respond. They are dead and they cannot seek after God. Naturally they do not. Something Calvinists get right here is that God must do something to allow or cause someone to believe in Him. Men don’t just on their own stir up their desire to believe in Jesus Christ. God does make the first movement toward man and that’s what scripture teaches. Without God’s working, no one could believe in Jesus Christ.
The other points of Calvinism also describe what Calvinists think of total depravity. A man is so unable to respond to God that God must intervene in the way of what Calvinists call “irresistible grace.” God apparently works in an irresistible way for a man to receive Jesus Christ. These two ideas go together in Calvinism, total depravity and irresistible grace. If God’s grace is irresistible, then also God must unconditionally choose whom He will save and whom He won’t.
God Uses Revelation
The way scripture reads is that even though man is unable to respond to salvation and can’t believe on His own, God does work in his life .God does initiate salvation. Man cannot believe in Jesus Christ without God’s initiation and without His enabling. What God uses is His revelation. He uses man’s conscience, His own providence in history, and the Word of God that is written in man’s heart.
If a person will respond to the general revelation of God, we see in scripture that God ensures he will also get His special revelation, which is God’s Word. Every man is without excuse regarding salvation, because God and His grace appear to all men. Through God’s working through His Word in men’s hearts, they can then respond and receive Jesus Christ. Most do not believe, but the ability from God is available to every man through God’s revelation in order to believe.
An illustration of the power of God that enables a dead man to receive Jesus Christ is Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead. The Word of God is powerful, so the words, Come forth, allowed Lazarus to rise. It allowed for Lazarus to come. This also fits with what Paul wrote in Romans 10:17 that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Not everyone who hears the Word of God will believe. Yet, a man can believe because of the Word of God.
Salvation Is Of the LORD
You can embrace man’s inability and deadness. It’s true. This does not require a solution of irresistible grace and unconditional election. Jonah was right when he said, “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9). Salvation centers on God. This Calvinistic view of inability does not square with scripture. It is unnecessary for giving God the credit for salvation. I would contend that what scripture actually says is what gives God glory, not an exaggeration or manipulation of what God said.
Evangelists need to preach the Word of God as their spiritual weapon to pull down strongholds (2 Cor 10:3-5). They partly do that because of the inability and deadness of their audience. True preachers proclaim what God said. That’s all that will work for the salvation of men’s souls. It’s like what Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15:
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation, not some mystical regeneration that precedes faith.
Spiritual Emptiness and Bankruptcy
The deadness that Ephesians 2:1 and 5 address might parallel to physical deadness. Someone dead can’t hear. I’ve noticed that when I’ve attended funerals. Men should not turn spiritual death into something so dead that not even the Word of God is powerful enough to allow the dead man to respond unto salvation. Scripture is the way, not an invented mystical and extra-scriptural experience.
God is sovereign. He does it His way. His way is not a novel innovation, which is what this regeneration-precedes-faith is.
Let’s just call it “spiritual deadness,” “spiritual blindness,” or even “spiritually empty or bankrupt” in fitting with Matthew 5:3. I’m fine with “total depravity,” but knowing what Calvinists mean by that, I won’t use those words. This is part of starting from scratch. Everyone sins and falls short of the glory of God. God’s revelation also reaches to those lost souls enabling everyone also to believe, not just those predetermined to do so.
More to Come
Reformed Systematic Theology v. 1, Joel Beeke & Paul Smalley
I recently finished reading Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology vol. 1: Revelation and God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019). I had purchased it on Logos Bible Software and, because I thought it had lots of good features, also purchased a physical copy with Reformation Heritage Books (which may be cheaper than getting it on Amazon, which I linked to above with an affiliate link. They currently have the entire four volume set at a heavily discounted price. I have not read volumes 2-4 (yet!) so I cannot comment on their quality.) I read almost all of the 1158 pages of the book on my phone in small snippets of time, such as when going up and down in an elevator, or standing in a line, and so on. I am about 60 pages into volume two, reading it in the same way. Let me commend to you being purposeful with the time God gives you; there are many time-suckers on a typical cell phone and on the Internet, but you can choose to avoid them and do something useful when you have a minute or two or five here and there.)
Positive features of Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology vol. 1: Revelation and God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019).
There are many positive features of volume one of Reformed Systematic Theology. These include:
1.) The book consistently seeks to make doctrine practical. While it seeks–and achieves–theological precision, it consistently applies doctrine to life. The book does not just seek to increase one’s mental comprehension of Biblical teaching, but seeks to be the instrument of the Holy Spirit in applying the truth of Scripture to transform the whole man. As Dr. Beeke is the president of the Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, we should not be surprised that, as an heir of the Puritans, he seeks to apply doctrine practically to life. The authors explain their purpose in writing as follows:
This systematic theology explores the classic teachings of the Reformed Christian faith from a perspective that is biblical, doctrinal, experiential, and practical. Today’s churches need theology that engages the head, heart, and hands. Too often, we have compartmentalized these aspects of life (as if we could cut ourselves into pieces). The result has been academics for the sake of academics, spiritual experience without roots deep in God’s Word, and superficial pragmatism that chases after the will-o’-the-wisp of short-term results. The church has suffered from this fragmented approach to the Christian faith. However, we have learned from the Reformers, the British Puritans, and the Dutch Further Reformation divines an approach to Christianity that combines thoughtful exegesis of the Holy Scriptures, rich exploration of classic Augustinian and Reformed theology, an experiential tone that brings truth into the heart, and practical applications for life.
Joel R. Beeke, “Preface,” in Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 17–18.
This practical emphasis is commendable, and it makes the book an edifying read.
2.) Reformed Systematic Theology is consistently conservative, evangelical, and Reformed in its theology. While Scripture does not teach Calvinist soteriology, if one is aware of the standard imbalances in Reformed doctrine, there is not much else in terms of “bones” to spit out while one eats the meat. There are no unexpected strange doctrines, but a solid presentation of the doctrines of revelation and of the infallible, inerrant Bible and of the God of Scripture, with the only things that are off being the standard errors of Reformed theology (in terms of theology proper, getting too close to making God the author of sin by saying that He decrees sin and justifying the horrifying Calvinist doctrine of reprobation). While I would not just hand this book to a new Christian and tell him to believe everything it says, I would not be concerned about giving it to someone training for the ministry who knows the problems with Reformed doctrine and is inoculated against them from Scripture. I believe people in the latter class could be greatly blessed by much good Biblical explanation and practical application in this book.
3.) Reformed Systematic Theology uses the King James Version as its base Bible version. I believe that Dr. Beeke preaches from the KJV, so this is not surprising, but it is still refreshing to not have to read lots of quotations from inferior modern Bible versions. On occasion the ESV is quoted, but the large majority of the time it is the KJV, which is a blessing for King James Only Christians.
4.) Interestingly, Paul Smalley is a Reformed Baptist, while Joel Beeke is a Reformed paedobaptist. I cannot agree with the paedobaptism, but I am thankful that at least one of the two authors is a minister in a Baptist church, even if it is a Reformed Baptist congregation.
5.) When it is appropriate Beeke and Smalley make warnings such as: “Worldliness diminishes a man’s soul and makes him petty; knowing God ennobles a human being.” (Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019], 509). It is great to read a systematic theology that warns against worldliness and points one, instead, to knowing God as the cure for it!
6.) The book discusses doctrines, such as Divine simplicity, that I am afraid that graduates from many Baptist Bible colleges and institutes will give you a blank stare if you ask about them. (Do you know what Scripture teaches about Divine simplicity? If not, maybe you should read the part of Reformed Systematic Theology about that doctrine and find out what it is.)
7.) My physical copy of Reformed Systematic Theology is a quality hardcover book that is well-made and easy to read. It is also written in well-written and engaging English. It is scholarly and excellently done.
Concerns with Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology vol. 1: Revelation and God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019).
1.) My major concern is, naturally, that the Bible does not teach unconditional election and reprobation, limited atonement, or irresistible grace in salvation (and, depending on how one defines things, total depravity and the perseverance of the saints could also have problems). Reformed Systematic Theology is unabashedly Reformed. One who has not already read independent Baptist systematic theological works such as Robert Sargent’s Landmarks of Baptist Doctrine from Bible Baptist Church Publications would be well-advised to start there before reading a Reformed systematic theology, even one that has the commendable features mentioned above.
2.) While I am thankful that Reformed Systematic Theology uses the Authorized, King James Version, it does not have a section on the preservation of Scripture. The book’s outline on the doctrine of revelation is at the bottom of this blog post (please see down there).
You can see that there is a lot of good stuff in there. However, there is nothing either supporting or denying the perfect preservation of Scripture. One who recognizes that he has all of God’s Words in the Old and New Testament Textus Receptus will not have his faith attacked, but neither will he have it confirmed.
3.) I also do not want people who read this book and are encouraged by its good English, its many edifying and encouraging practical applications, and its solid theology in many areas to become improperly enamored with Reformed paedobaptist theology. I do not doubt that Dr. Beeke is a sincere and converted man whom I expect to see in heaven, but the special presence of Christ is not in his Reformed paedobaptist organization. If you can explain and defend why Reformed soteriology is wrong and why, in the doctrine of God, Scripture does not teach that God ordains sin or unconditionally reprobates people for His glory (!!), you may get many blessings from this book. Maybe you will even find it engaging enough to read the whole thing on your phone while waiting in lines and going up and down in elevators and the like.
–TDR
Here is the outline of the section on the doctrine of revelation. I did not take the time to re-introduce all the tabination, so please pardon the fact that everything is just in a straight line.
X. Theological Fundamentals of Divine Revelation
A. Biblical Terminology of Divine Revelation
1. Old Testament Terminology
2. New Testament Terminology
B. Basic Biblical Perspective on Divine Revelation (Genesis 1–3; Psalm 19)
1. The Revelation of the Sovereign God to His Image Bearers
2. The Revelation of God by His Creation (General Revelation)
3. The Revelation of God by His Word (Special Revelation)
4. The Response of God’s Servants to His Word (Applied Revelation)
C. Summary Statement on the Biblical Doctrine of Divine Revelation
X. General Revelation
A. General Revelation: Biblical Teaching
1. Revelation around Man in Creation
a. General Revelation of the Divine Nature
i. It Reveals God to a Limited Degree
ii. It Reveals God in an Open and Plain Manner
iii. It Reveals God according to His Will
iv. It Reveals the Invisible God
v. It Reveals God’s Divine Nature
vi. It Reveals God throughout History
vii. It Reveals God through His Created World
b. General Revelation of Divine Wrath in a Fallen World
2. Revelation within Man
a. General Revelation according to the Image of God
b. General Revelation via the Human Conscience
3. The Use and Efficacy of General Revelation
a. The Universal Knowledge Granted through General Revelation
i. God Exists, and Created All Things
ii. Atheism Is Folly
iii. God Has a Unique Nature as God
iv. Idolatry Is Wicked
v. God Holds Man Accountable to His Moral Law
vi. Sinners Are under God’s Wrath and without Excuse
b. The Universal Response of Mankind to General Revelation
c. The Proper Christian Use of General Revelation
i. The Church’s Missiological Use of General Revelation
ii. The Church’s Doxological Use of General Revelation
B. General Revelation: Philosophy and Science
1. Christianity and Rational Philosophy
a. Not Necessary in Order to Know and Glorify God
b. Teaches Some Valid and Useful Truths
c. Proposes Systems of Thought Antithetical to the Gospel
d. May Be Used Only with Radical, Biblical Critique
e. Recognizes Legitimate Methods of Reasoning
2. Christianity and Empirical Science
a. Operates with Delegated Authority
b. Can Investigate Nature with Confident Rationality
c. Must Work from a Posture of Intellectual Humility
d. Must Realize That Its Conclusions Possess Only Human Certainty
e. Should Pursue Knowledge with Prayerful Dependency
f. Limited by Its Ultimate Insufficiency to Make Us Wise
g. Must Work with God-Fearing Integrity
h. Should Make Use of Its Findings to Promote Grateful Doxology
C. General Revelation: Natural Theology and Theistic Arguments
1. Various Rejections of Natural Theology and Theistic Arguments
a. Karl Barth
b. Cornelius Van Til
2. Toward a Biblical, Reformed Approach to Theistic Arguments
a. God Testifies to Himself through the Natural World
b. Belief in God Is a Valid Presupposition of Human Thought
c. The Proper Posture of Human Reason Is to Fear God as His Servant
d. The Sinner’s Mind Is Alienated from God, and Cannot Reason to Its Creator
e. The Philosophy of Non-Christians Is Distorted by Satan
f. A Right Use of Reason Depends upon the Spirit-Illuminated Word
g. Christians May Make Rational Arguments from Creation to God
h. Christians May Use Arguments to Show the Foolishness of Those Who Deny God
i. The Wise Use of Theistic Arguments Varies with Culture and Education
j. Christians Should Beware of Glorying in Human Wisdom
k. Theistic Arguments Are Appeals to Divine Witness in Creation
l. Theistic Arguments Are at Best Like the Law That Convicts but Cannot Save
D. Some Historical Perspective on Natural Theology and Theistic Proofs
1. Ancient Roots of Natural Theology
a. Pagan Literature: Varro, Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno
b. Early Christian Apologists: Aristides, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian
c. Early Greek Fathers: Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and John of Damascus
d. Latin Christianity: Augustine
e. Assessment of Ancient and Early Christian Natural Theology
2. Medieval Development of Natural Theology
a. Muslim and Jewish Scholarship: Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides
b. Christian Medieval Scholasticism: Anselm and Thomas Aquinas
c. Assessment of Thomist Natural Theology
3. The Reformation’s Critical Interaction with Natural Theology
a. Critique of Natural Theology: Luther and Calvin
b. Critical Appropriation of Theistic Arguments: Vermigli, Junius, and Turretin
c. Assessment of Early Reformed Views of Natural Theology
XI. Special Revelation: Theological Introduction
A. Special Revelation: Biblical Teaching
1. The Trinitarian, Mediatorial Work of Special Revelation
a. The Son Is the Only Mediator of Divine Revelation
b. The Father Is the Sovereign Author of Divine Revelation in the Son
c. The Spirit Is the Effective Agent of Divine Revelation in the Son
2. The Finite Human Character of Special Revelation
3. The Manifold Historical Modes of Special Revelation
a. Supernatural Verbal Revelation
b. Supernatural Visual Revelation
c. Supernatural Providential Revelation
d. Supernatural Incarnational Revelation
4. The Personal, Propositional Content of Special Revelation
B. Errors Regarding Special Revelation
1. Special Revelation Extended to Hierarchical Tradition
2. Special Revelation Subordinated to Human Reason
3. Special Revelation Diffused to Harmonize All Religions
4. Special Revelation Redefined as Holy Encounter
5. Special Revelation Confined to Historical Events
XII. The Bible as the Word of God
A. The Word of the Prophets and Apostles Is the Word of God
1. The Word of God Preached through the Prophets and Apostles
2. The Written Word of God: The Old Testament
3. The Written Word of God: The New Testament
B. The Spirit’s Inspiration of the Written Word of God
1. The Reality of Verbal Inspiration
2. The Extent, Meaning, and Implications of Inspiration
a. Extent: Plenary Inspiration
b. Meaning: God-Breathed Word
c. Implications
i. Authority
ii. Veracity
iii. Sufficiency
iv. Clarity
v. Necessity
vi. Unity in Christ
vii. Efficacy
XIII. The Properties of the Written Word
A. The Authority of the Bible
1. The Source of the Bible’s Authority
2. Biblical Authority and the Church
3. The Authentication of the Bible
4. Biblical Authority versus Personal Autonomy
5. Practical Implications of Biblical Authority
B. The Clarity of the Bible
1. The Perspicuity Controversy
2. Practical Implications of Biblical Clarity
C. The Necessity of the Bible
1. The Necessity of the Gospel for All Mankind
2. The Publishing of the Gospel in Written Form
3. The Preservation of the Gospel to the End of the Age
4. Practical Implications of the Bible’s Necessity
D. The Unity of the Bible in Christ
1. The Great Theme of the Bible
2. The Manifold Forms of Christ’s Revelation
3. Practical Implications of the Bible’s Unity in Christ
E. The Efficacy of the Bible by the Spirit
1. The Word and the Spirit of Conviction
2. The Word and the Spirit of Life
3. Practical Implications of the Bible’s Efficacy by the Spirit
F. The Inerrant Veracity of the Bible
1. Inerrant Veracity Defined
2. Inerrant Veracity Clarified
3. Biblical Teaching on Scripture’s Inerrant Veracity
4. Practical Implications of the Bible’s Veracity
5. Objections to Inerrancy
a. Human Fallibility
b. History Is Not Essential to Religion
c. Contradictions with Modern History and Science
d. Contradictions in the Bible
e. Theological Novelty
H. The Sufficiency of the Bible
1. Biblical Sufficiency Defined
2. Biblical Sufficiency Clarified
2. Biblical Teaching on Scripture’s Sufficiency
3. Practical Implications of the Bible’s Sufficiency
XIV. The Cessation of Special Revelation
A. Arguments for Charismatic Continuationism
1. God’s Ancient Promise
2. The Eschatological Last Days
3. Cessation at Christ’s Second Coming
4. The Spirit’s Ministry to the Body
5. Edification of the Saints
6. God’s Command
7. Historical Movements
8. Personal Experiences
9. The Reality of the Supernatural
10. The Silence of Scripture
B. The Uniqueness of the Apostolic Age
1. The Apostles of Jesus Christ
2. A Biblical Pattern of Miraculous Ministry in History
3. Apostles in Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches Today
C. Practical Implications of the Apostles’ Ministry
1. We Must Receive the New Testament as the Word of God
2. We Should Distinguish between Modern Teachers and the Apostles of Jesus Christ
3. We Must Beware of False Apostles and Prophets Working Wonders
4. We Must Seek the Power of the Holy Spirit
D. The Cessation of Revelatory Gifts Such as Prophecy
1. The Finality of Christ
2. The Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets
3. The Fallibility of Modern “Prophets”
E. Pastoral Concerns about Evangelical Prophecy
1. Continuationism Tends to Put People in Bondage to Individual Leaders
2. Continuationism Tends to Put People in Bondage to Presumptuous Beliefs
3. Continuationism Tends to Put People in Bondage to Human Thoughts, Impressions, and Feelings
XV. Applied Revelation for Practical Fruit
A. Personal Fruit of Applied Revelation
1. Personal Faith in the Scriptures
2. Personal Study of the Scriptures
3. Personal Experience through the Scriptures
B. Familial Fruit of Applied Revelation
C. Ecclesiastical Fruit of Applied Revelation
1. Transformation in Corporate Life
2. Balance in Pastoral Ministry
3. Zeal in Evangelism
4. Dependency in Leadership
5. Priority in Education
6. Saturation in Worship
D. Societal Fruit of Applied Revelation
E. International Fruit of Applied Revelation
F. Doxological Fruit of Applied Revelation
Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 29–35.
Calvinism, Unconditional Election and Baptismal Regeneration
Did you know that there is a connection between the heresy of the baptismal regeneration of infants and unconditional election and reprobation in Calvinism? In the chapter “Calvinism is Augstinianism,” by Kenneth Wilson, in the book Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen & Steve W. Lemke (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2022), Wilson notes:
The major influence on Augustine’s AD 412 reversion to his prior deterministic Manichaean interpretations of Scripture was the arrival of Pelagius and Caelestius near his North African home in late AD 411. Augustine previously admitted (AD 405) he did not know why infant baptism was practiced (Quant.80). But the conflict with Caelestius and Pelagius forced him to rethink the church’s infant baptismal tradition and precipitated his reversion to his pagan DUPED [Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Eternal Destinies, that is, unconditional election].26 Caelestius had argued that infants did not receive baptism for salvation from sin but only for inheritance of the kingdom. Augustine’s polemical response to Caelestius in AD 412 was logical: (1) Infants are baptized by church tradition; (2) water baptism is for forgiveness of sin and reception of the Holy Spirit; (3) some dying infants are rushed by their Christian parents to the bishop for baptism but die before baptism occurs, while other infants born of prostitutes are found abandoned on the streets by a church virgin who rushes them to the baptismal font where the bishop baptizes them; (4) these infants have no “will” and no control over whether or not they are baptized to receive the Holy Spirit to become Christians. Therefore, God must unilaterally and unconditionally predetermine which infants are saved by baptism and which are eternally damned without baptism (unconditional election).27 God’s election must be unconditional since infants have no personal sin, no merit, no good works, no functioning free will (incognizant due to the inability to understand at their age), and therefore, no choice.
In his next work that same year, Augustine concluded if this is true for infants, then unbaptized adults also have no choice or free will (Sp. et litt.54–56). The Holy Spirit was received in water baptism, transforming the person into a Christian with a free will. Since humans have no free will before baptism, God must unilaterally choose who will be saved and infuse faith into those persons. Augustine taught even when “ministers prepared for giving baptism to the infants, it still is not given, because God does not choose [those infants for salvation]” (persev.31). Infant baptism became the impetus for Augustine’s novel theology when he reinterpreted that church tradition and reached a logical conclusion. By doing this he abandoned over three hundred years of church teaching on free will. According to the famous scholar Jaroslav Pelikan, Augustine departed from traditional Christian theology by incorporating his prior pagan teachings and thereby developed inconsistencies in his new anthropology and theology of grace, especially his “idiosyncratic theory of predestination.”28[1]
So the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation is connected to Augustine’s doctrine of baptismal regeneration of infants and the damnation of all infants who are not regenerated in baptism. Since the infants cannot choose whether or not they will be baptized and receive forgiveness through baptism, their eternal salvation and damnation is by God’s will alone; they have no free will to receive Christ or reject Him, as in the large majority of modern Calvinists who follow Jonathan Edwards in his work against the freedom of the will. The infants that are tormented forever because they never were baptized are unconditionally reprobated, and the infants in paradise because they were baptized are the unconditionally elect. Since this is (allegedly) true for infants, it must be true for everyone else as well—eternal salvation and damnation is by God’s unconditional choice alone—an Augustinian innovation in Christendom which was reproduced by John Calvin and the Reformed tradition. (Of course, John Calvin also believed in baptismal regeneration.)
Let me add that the book Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke is valuable for mature Christians and church leaders, and it contains many valuable and Biblically sound criticisms of Calvinism. However, there are a diversity of viewpoints represented in the book, including not just non-Calvinist Baptists who still believe in eternal security, for example, but full-blown actual Arminians such as Wesleyans who affirm the terrible false teaching that true believers can be eternally lost. Because some chapters in the book are written by actual Arminians, I would not recommend the book for new Christians who might over-react against Calvinism and adopt Arminian heresies. Pastors or other mature Christians who are simply not going to become Arminian can gain a good deal of profit from the book.
–TDR
26 Wilson, 285. See also Chadwick, Early Christian Thought, 110–11.
27 Augustine, Pecc.mer.1.29–30. In contrast, ca. AD 200, Tertullian had rejected infant baptism, stating one should wait until personal faith was possible (De bapt.18).
28 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 278–327, quotation at 325.
[1] Kenneth Wilson, “Calvinism Is Augustinianism,” in Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2022), 222–223.
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God Does NOT Love Everyone? An Error of Hyper-Calvinism, part 3 of 3
Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? Hyper-Calvinism says “yes,” but Scripture says “no!” In part 1 and part 2 of this series, I summarized the first portions of my study God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error. This final part will summarize the final portion of God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error, to which readers are encouraged to refer for more information.
Hyper-Calvinism Employs Exegetical and Logical Fallacies
When Arguing God Does Not Love the Non-Elect:
Texts on God’s Hatred
Hyper-Calvinism may contend that some passages of Scripture prove that God does not love the non-elect. For example, the Bible states:
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Romans 9:13)
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. (Psalm 5:5)
5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. 7 For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.” (Psalm 11:5-7)
These passages clearly teach that God hates the wicked. But they do not say that God does NOT love them at the same time. Jehovah is perfectly capable of having love in one sense for a wicked person while hating him in a different sense. Indeed, Psalm 5:5 states that God hates “all” workers of iniquity, so even the elect, before they believe, are hated by God in one sense while being eternally loved by Him in a different sense. If God can love and hate the elect at the same time in different senses, He is perfectly capable of doing the same for the non-elect.
Furthermore, Romans 9:13 is not even about the individuals Jacob and Esau. Paul quotes Malachi 1:2-3, which speaks of God’s special blessings on the nation of Israel, blessings withheld from the nation of Edom. Consider Malachi 1:1-5:
1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. 5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel. (Malachi 1:1-5)
Romans 9:13 never denies that God loved Esau—God is able to love sinners in one sense while hating them in another. More fundamentally, Romans 9:13 is not even about the individual people Jacob and Esau at all, except insofar as they are the progenitors of the nations of Israel and Edom.
These passages of Scripture are simply taken out of context by hyper-Calvinism.
Hyper-Calvinism Employs Exegetical and Logical Fallacies
When Arguing God Does Not Love the Non-Elect:
Texts on God’s Special Love
Advocates of hyper-Calvinism can also argue that Scripture speaks of God’s love in passages that limit His love to the elect. There are indeed passages of Scripture that show that Jehovah has a special love for His believing people. However, this no more denies that God loves the non-elect than does the fact that a Christian husband has a special love for his wife proves that the husband hates everyone else. Hyper-Calvinism needs texts of Scripture that affirm that God does not love some people, not passages that say God does love some people. There simply are no such texts in God’s Word.
Hyper-Calvinism Makes Further Exegetical
and Historical Fallacies
Hyper-Calvinism also makes other fallacious exegetical arguments. Indeed, hyper-Calvinism does not even accurately represent the teaching of John Calvin. Calvin, speaking about the rich young ruler in Mark 10:21, wrote: “Jesus beholding him, loved him [Mark 10:21]. … [A]ll the creatures of God, without exception, are the objects of his love. … God is sometimes said to love those whom he does not approve or justify … Christ … love[d] a man [like the rich young ruler] who was proud and a hypocrite, while nothing is more hateful to God than these two vices[.] (John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2 [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010], 398–399.)
Thus, the teaching of hyper-Calvinism that God does not love every individual grossly misinterprets Scripture while also misinterpreting history. Even John Calvin did not teach the hyper-Calvinist notion that God loves only the elect. Since neither the Bible, nor even John Calvin, taught this false idea, you should not teach or believe it either. Reject such a slander on the character of God and recognize that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error for more information.
–TDR
God does NOT love everyone? A Hyper-Calvinist Error, part 2 of 3
Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? Hyper-Calvinism says “yes!” Scripture says “no!” In part 1 of 3 in this series, I summarized the first portion of my recent composition God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error. John 3:16, Mark 10:21, and 1 John 2:2 refute the hyper-Calvinist idea that God loves only the elect. Scripture is plain that God loves the entire world-every single person.
If Hyper-Calvinists Were Right,
Then Christians Should Not Love Their Enemies
Christians should be like God. If God loves every person, then they should love all men. If God has nothing but an everlasting hatred for the non-elect, then they should strive with all their might to purge out any love that they have for lost sinners from their bosoms and have nothing but an eternal and everlasting hatred for them, (allegedly) like God. However, the Lord Jesus taught:
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)
Christians must love their enemies because God loves His enemies. When they love their wicked, unregenerate, Christ-and-Christian hating enemies, they are being like their Father in heaven. The Sermon on the Mount does not say, “Love your elect enemies and bless the elect when they curse and hate you. If the non-elect do it, though, show eternal hatred to them.” Believers must “increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) because God loves all men, not the elect alone.
The Quran Agrees with Hyper-Calvinism,
but the Bible does Not
Hyper-Calvinists need specific passages that teach God does NOT love the majority of the world that rejects Christ and is eternally lost. It would not have been hard for God to include such statements in the Bible. After all, the Quran is filled with them. For example:
Q 2:276 Allah hath blighted usury and made almsgiving fruitful. Allah loveth not the impious and guilty.
Q 3:32 Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance).
Q 3:57 And as for those who believe and do good works, He will pay them their wages in full. Allah loveth not wrong-doers.
The Quran is full of such statements-when I went through the Quran from cover to cover as part of my preparation for my debate with the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally I found the seemingly constant drum-beat of Allah’s lack of love for this group and that group a sharp contrast with the teaching of God’s Word, the Bible.
While the idea that God does not love unbelievers is all over the Quran, the number of statements in holy Scripture such as “God does not love person X” or “God does not love people like Y” are equal in number to the statements such as “Christ did not die for person X” or “Christ did not die for group Y”–namely, zero. Both limited atonement and the hyper-Calvinist doctrine of God’s lack of love for the vast majority of mankind are completely absent from Scripture.
Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error for more information.
–TDR
God does NOT love everyone? A Hyper-Calvinist Error, part 1 of 3
Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? That is the teaching of hyper-Calvinism. I recently put together a study entitled God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error where I examine that question. I will be summarizing the argument from that larger study in three blog posts. Please read the larger work using the link above for more information.
God Loves The Entire World,
So the Idea that God Does Not Love the Non-Elect is False
John 3:16 reads: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This passage plainly teaches that God loves everyone in the world, and the word “world” does not mean “the world of the elect” as hyper-Calvinists and many Calvinists allege. None of the 187 uses of the Greek word kosmos (“world”) in the New Testament use the word “world” of the “world of the elect.” This Calvinist idea is simply reading into Scripture what it does not say. 1 John 2:2 specifically distinguishes between the elect and the world while positing that Christ died for not the elect alone, but also for the whole world:
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
John 3:16 is conclusive proof that God loves the entire world—including those who never believe and consequently perish in their sins.
Jesus Christ Loved Individual Non-Elect
And Eternally Lost Sinners: God Does Not Love Only the Elect
The Lord Jesus’ love for the unconverted rich young ruler proves that God’s love is not limited to the elect alone:
17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? 18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. 19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. 20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. 21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. 22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. 23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! 24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 26 And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? 27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. (Mark 10:17-27)
The Son of God loved this unconverted hypocrite whom Scripture presents as a paradigm of large groups of lost men who trust in their riches. The Lord Jesus Christ clearly does not love the elect alone. His love for the rich young ruler is an instance of the eternal love manifested by the Father, Son, and Spirit towards the fallen and lost world spoken of in John 3:16.
Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error to learn more. The What is Truth? blog also has a variety of articles on Calvinism.
–TDR
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