Showing posts with label Election. Show all posts

Today, after having read Dan Phillips latest blog over at Pyromaniacs where he mentions his New Years resolution to read at least three chapters of Scripture a day, so as to read the Bible in a year, I decided I would attempt to read six chapters a day, so as to read the Bible twice in a year. Not that I am a one upper or anything, but I figure six chapters really isn't a whole lot considering the amount of free time we Americans have in our day and age. So, I decided to start with one of my favorite prophets, Jeremiah. After having finished my allotted daily reading rather quickly, it came to mind that this coming Sunday, the Church I attend will start an exposition on the book of Jonah, so I decided to read that.

The LORD of salvation gave a message to Jonah to preach, and he preached it. Jonah even preached it reluctantly, and yet, what happened? The Word of God that is living and active accomplished it's purpose...it did not return to the LORD of salvation void, but did all that the LORD had willed it to do. Imagine that...amazing isn't it? Since salvation belongs to the LORD, and since He brings about that salvation when His Word is preached, shouldn't we be out there preaching His Word. Shouldn't we be forgetting all this nonsense about appealing to people's innate fallen natures, and just be out there boldly proclaiming judgment and repentance. Yes, I know...all the polls say people don't respond to that negative stuff, but the polls obviously do not take in to account that salvation belongs to the LORD.

I am currently reading a very good book by Pastor Steven Lawson called, "Foundations of Grace: A Long Line of Godly Men." In the preface of the book, lies a quote by Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, which at first glance comes across as quite shocking, and seems like an embellished attempt to push a pet doctrine, but as I get deeper into the book, and more importantly, as I search the various passages within the Scriptures that Steven Lawson expounds upon, the more I find myself agreeing with Mr. Warfield's statement.

"The world should realize with increased clearness that Evangelicalism stands or falls with Calvinism."

Steve Lawson rightly defends this assertion by proclaiming that, "the lofty truths of divine sovereignty provide the greatest and grandest view of God...for without the theological teachings of Reformed truth concerning God's sovereignty in man's salvation, the church is weakened and made vulnerable, soon to begin an inevitable decline into baser beliefs, whether she realizes it or not." Lawson continues by saying, "Once yielding the high ground of Calvinism, a self-absorbed church puts its full weight onto the slippery slope of Arminianism, resulting in a loss of its foundational stability. Tragically, however, the descent rarely stops there. Historically, man-centered doctrine has served only as a catalyst for an even greater fall. Rappelling down the slippery slopes of Arminianism, one is soon to find the church sinking deeper and deeper into a murky quagmire of heretical ideas. Such a descent inevitably gives way to liberalism, the utter rejection of the absolute authority of Scripture. From liberalism--given enough time--the church always plunges yet lower into ecumenism, that deadly philosophy that embraces all religions as having some part of the truth. Continuing this downward spiral, the church plummets into universalism, the damning belief that all men eventually will be saved. Yet worse, universalism gives way to agnosticism, a degenerate view that one cannot even know whether there is a God. Finally, the church falls into the deepest abyss--the hellish flames of atheism, the belief that there is no God."

I know a lot of people who would disagree with these statements, a lot of people. One major problem, and I believe the biggest reason why so many people would be opposed to the above sentiments is that the word "Calvinism" means so many different things to so many different people. Calvinism is such a loaded word; everyone has their own ideas and notions about what Calvinism is or what it supposedly espouses. Along with that, you find just as many people having varying opinions on what "hyper-Calvinism" truly is. For that very reason, I think it is best to steer away from those types of terms and badges that carry so much baggage, and really just deal with what the Scriptures have to say, because seriously, that is what it is all about. What has God really revealed to us in His Word?

Over the next few blogs I am hoping to take a closer look at the true Biblical teachings of God's sovereign grace, His predestination and election of sinners, man's total depravity, man's role in salvation (if any), God's love for the world, and anything else contained in the Scriptures related to what we typically label as "Calvinism" or "Arminianism" so that we can see clearly what God has truly told us concerning these things.

recently blogged about how God causes His true Church to grow, mentioning that it does this by the means of divine selection in which the Word is the instrument that God has ordained to reach those who He has chosen. I wanted to spend some time in this post focusing more on the doctrine of election and how, what is often referred to as Calvinism, is actually completely and totally a biblically sound doctrine, and also what that means for us practically speaking. At the same time, I will show the faulty thinking in what is usually called Arminianism, and how having a Soteriology based on such error leads to folly in various practical issues of the Christian walk.

1 Peter 1:1-3
"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead"

This verse is a great starting point. Peter says here that we are "chosen", which literally means "elect" in the original Greek, and as we all should know, election itself carries the notion that someone besides ourselves has decided to pick us, because obviously, you can not elect yourself. So right away Peter is unapologetically pointing to the fact that us being elected in Christ was apart from any decision we made on our own behalf. On top of that, Peter then says that our election was made by the foreknowledge of God, which tells us that there was some sort of pre-arrangement involved. Paul elaborates on this point in Ephesians 1 by saying that we were chosen before the foundations of the world, giving further proof that this election has nothing to do with us whatsoever. These themes are not unique to Peter's epistle but are found in practically every book of the New Testament. There is a continual mention of being called, chosen, and elected, all by the foreknowledge or predestination of the Almighty. Now, this election by the foreknowledge of God is then compounded here with Peter saying God's "great mercy has caused us to be born again." This is an extremely important analogy because no one causes their own birth, we can not contribute to that at all whatsoever, it is solely based off of the decisions of someone other than ourselves. This fact and analogy is echoed in the 3rd Chapter of the Gospel according to John.

John 3:1-8
"Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, 'Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.' Jesus answered and said to him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Nicodemus said to Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?' Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.'"

Do you see the profoundness of what Christ said? No one will see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. No one will enter heaven unless they are chosen. No one will have eternal life unless they are elect. Nicodemus, desperately wanting to know what he can do to be born again asks his question, and Christ explains how one is born again purely by the will and divine selection of the Holy Spirit, telling Nicodemus that just as the wind blows here and there as it wishes, so does the Holy Spirit do as He pleases, bestowing grace and a new birth to those who have been elected. God's sovereign election is not some new idea to the New Testament, but found all throughout the Old Testament Scriptures with the Lord of Hosts saying, "Israel, Mine elect", and seen even more specifically when YHWH says to Moses, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion" (Exodus 33:19). There is not a shred of wiggle room for anyone to take credit for the fact that they have been saved lest anyone should boast, because God has made it abundantly clear that we are called...taken from darkness while we were dead in our trespasses, being slaves to our lusts and sins but God being rich and mercy and compassion has caused us to be born again. (Ephesians 2:1-9) Think about that...we were dead in our trespasses...dead men don't make decisions, dead men are exactly that...dead, lifeless, a corpse, that is, until God intervenes breathing life into us and taking us from that darkened state and transferring us into the light of His kingdom. Over and over we see these analogies of how we were utterly helpless to do anything about our sinful state and would have stayed there without the sovereign election of God.

Now, what about free will? Everyone always talks about how we are free and have free will...that God endowed us with freedoms and has given us the gift of free will so that we can choose to do whatever it is that we may want to do whether it be good or evil. However, is that true in the light of Scripture? The Scriptures makes it clear that the only freedom that we truly have is that we are free to choose what type of sin appeals to us the most, that is the limit of our freedom. We are free to pick our poison concerning iniquity and sin. Beyond that we have no freedom, we are definitely by no means free to choose to follow Christ because Romans 3:10-18 says, "as it is written, 'THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE. THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING, THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS; WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS; THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN. THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.'" Clearly man is utterly depraved and incapable of coming to any sort of saving faith in Christ apart from God's sovereign election and that is why God says "no one seeks God". This passage deals a deathblow to all those "seeker sensitive" Churches out there that have tried to make Church more appealing to the non believer in hopes of getting him in the doors. These Churches are believing the lie that we ourselves are sovereign and have the ability to choose between good and evil. This is the exact lie that was told to Eve in the Garden, when the serpent said to her, "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen 3:4-5) The word "knowing" can also be translated to discern, to discriminate, to distinguish, giving the idea of choice. Do you see Satan's lie? Telling Eve that she would be sovereign, that she would be her own god, able to choose between good and evil. This is why Arminianism is faulty, it contradicts what Christ said in John 15:16 which says, "You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit"...forget what you heard, or what you thought you knew, we are unable to come to Christ for salvation, but rather, the Father draws us to Himself (John 6:44). Arminianism gives us the impression that we are sovereign over our own lives, and leads us to believe that we can distinguish and choose between good and evil, when Scripture is totally clear that it is God who plucks us from the fire and makes us follow after Him so that all the glory would be His alone (Phil 4:20). That way no one can say they were smart enough or clever enough to have found God, or take credit for having lead someone to Christ, for the Almighty has predestined and chosen them from infinity past to be His people and His possession by His own sovereign will for His own good purpose and pleasure (Eph 1:3-12).

If we believe that we have the ability to get people saved, and that through the manipulation of a person's will, we can get them to produce their own salvation, then we might as well support the idea to market Christ like any other thing for sale on any given T.V. commercial. It would make sense then to do whatever it takes to scheme and find any way possible to finagle a person with anything that would stir their emotions, whether it be music, videos, light shows to the point that truth is minimized and manipulation is maximized. We would then ignore knowing nothing but Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor 2:1-5), and instead focus on style, technique and gimmickry. The big crusades have the counselors, ushers and whoever else is working there go with their wives and stand in the midst of the crowd and once the invitation is given, they are instructed to start flooding the isles making their way to the stage as the Evangelist points at them and says, "look! they are coming to Christ!" in hopes of getting others to be caught up in the flow so as to come forward and say their little prayers and get saved. But is it even a true conversion? You can not manipulate people into the Kingdom. That is exactly why Paul said that he did not come with craftiness or cunning speech but only preached Christ and Him crucified, he did this so that no one could ever point to Paul as being persuasive or that salvation came by any means except the Holy Spirit, Paul wanted it to be clear that the Word was the power of God unto salvation (1 Cor 2:1-5).

Besides producing humility in the believer, knowing that we do not at all deserve this mercy, within this humility there should be thankfulness, and thankfulness should promote righteous living. When we really grasp the concept that we have been elected for no other reason then God's good pleasure and because He has willed to do so, this should move us to be so thankful that we want to honor the One who has chosen us by living an obedient life. Our eyes should not be focused on temporal earthly things but on the things above, not becoming entangled with the affairs of this world so as to live a life pleasing to God (2 Tim 2:3-4). It pleases Him to proclaim His Word. As I have already shown from the Scriptures, God has elected those who will believe and we are instructed to proclaim the truth. Because Christ prayed that we would be sanctified by truth, and the Word of God is the lone source of truth (John 17:17). We are told to preach the Word in and out of season (2 Tim 4:2) and those who are elect upon hearing the Word preached will then be convicted and come to a saving faith (Rom 10:14, 17). This takes all the guess work out of how to evangelize and how to grow the Church. Since we know that upon hearing God's word those who are elect will believe, then we ought to be giving attention to the public reading of Scripture, to teaching and to exhortation (1 Tim 4:13), plain and simple. That is why in Paul's final words to the Ephesian elders, he said, "Now I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace which is able to build you up" (Acts 20:32), he did not commend them to the latest fads and trends and marketing or the latest popular books, for it is the Word alone that plants seeds in the good soil which produces lasting roots that will never be moved (Matt 13). Everything else plants seeds on bad soil that although may produce a plant, it will lack fruit much like the fig tree that was cursed by Christ (Matt 21).