I get a lot of questions. Questions about the Bible, about Greek, about preaching, about all kinds of things. Many times I don’t have the ability to spend the kind of time I would like answering them so I had an idea. When I get a particularly good set of questions, I am going to start posting them here on the site (without any names) and placing them in the category of “questions.” That way someone can look back and see if I have already given what little I know about a particular topic before asking again. Today’s questions were so good I took a good bit of time to answer them so this is a long post. Feel free to ignore it if this does not interest you. If this is helpful, please drop me a comment (not an email) so that I will know that I should do more of this kind of thing.
The question has to do with calvinism, so here is my answer:
Let me start by saying that I don’t want you to think that I believe that being a Calvinist is the most important decision in the world. Our friend Scot McKnight is not a Calvinist and there are many good men and good theologians who believe that the reformed system of doctrine is incorrect. I don’t have any trouble with that.
C.S. Lewis used the illustration of seeing what he called “mere Christianity” as a house. The different systems of doctrine are the rooms in the house. There is a Calvinistic room, an Arminian room, the Dispensationalist room, and the many other rooms that make up evangelicalism. The problem occurs when any one group thinks that their room makes up the whole house. There is an old joke “Did God predestine John Wesley to be an Arminian?” The answer must be “yes.” That answer then shows that no one system of doctrine has all Biblical truth. We are all wrong about something, the problem is that we don’t know, or don’t realize what we are wrong about. If we knew, we would change our mind.
In keeping with the house illustration, all members of the house must be willing to come out of their rooms and “sit in the living room” so that they can speak to people who hold a different view. This helps sharpen, and in many cases change the views of some who seek not just to put forward their system, but who truly want to hold to what the Scripture says. The system or denomination should always come second and should always be willing to be corrected by the Word of the Lord.
Now let’s begin to deal with your specific questions, all of which are very good. First, you ask about the problem with finding Calvinists (I prefer the term “Reformed” but either one works) at your school and say that it is like “finding a needle in a haystack.” Realize that the reformed system of doctrine has been and, in all likelihood will continue to be, the minority position in evangelical Christianity. This does not mean that it is wrong, simply that we don’t decide truth by counting the number of people who believe a certain position. If you were at a different school you might have the same problem finding someone who didn’t believe in Calvinism. Always be willing to back away from the “majority position” if it does not square with the Scripture, otherwise you might find yourself drinking Kool-Aid that has some extra ingredients.
Your next question has to do with the death of Christ and whether or not that was for all of mankind or not. This is a place where theological terminology is very important. I am perfectly happy to say that Jesus died for all people. By this I mean that there are benefits from the death of Christ that come to anyone, Christian or not. Some of the benefits are: hospitals (notice how many are from churches); medical missionaries; other kinds of missionaries; the kindness and grace that flows from the Church to the poor and helpless in the world through organizations like Food for the Poor or any anti-abortion group. Anything that is good that comes from the church is a direct result of the death and resurrection of Christ. So in that sense Christ’s death was for everyone.
It is a different thing, however, to say that Christ atoned for everyone. My view is that the atonement, that is the actual payment for sin made by Christ on the cross, was made only for those whom the Scripture calls “the elect.” You mention John 3:16 so let’s look at that verse a little more carefully.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Notice a couple of things: First notice that God gave his son “that” (the Greek word here is “hoti” meaning in order that), whoever believes in him shall have eternal life. Thus, when one looks carefully it seems that God is not giving his Son so that everyone will have eternal life, but so that those who believe will have eternal life. This leads us to ask the question of “who are those who believe?”
The Calvinist, seeing such passages as Ephesians one where Paul says that we are dead in our sins, understand the Scripture to say that humans cannot respond to God unless God first renews our hearts. That renewing of the heart does not happen to everyone, but only those whom God calls his “elect.” Why God elects certain individuals is for reasons known only to himself. We find evidence of this in Romans 9 where Paul, speaking of the birth of Jacob and Esau says of them
11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,
12 it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”
13 Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”
That is God, before they were born chose one and did not choose the other.
So, Christ’s atonement on the cross actually paid the price for the sin, which is the way that the reformed understand the atonement, it is for those who are the elect. Think of it in this way. Everyone believes that the atonement of Christ is particular. It is just that the reformed believe that it is more particular than some others. To show that everyone believes that the atonement is particular, no one would say that Christ atoned for Satan and his fallen angels; almost no one would say that Christ atoned for those who had already died and rejected God. So you see, everyone has a particular atonement, it is the reformed view that is a little more particular than some of the others.
Your next question is also a good one. If God has already made the decision about who will and will not be a Christian, why should we evangelize? I think that there are several answers to this. First and foremost because our Lord, who died for us, has commanded us to evangelize (Matt. 28:18-20). This should not be seen as a slight answer or command. Second, God ordains not only the end (a person becoming a Christian) but also the means (how a person becomes a Christian). So we all have a responsibility to obey the commands of God, knowing that we are the means that he uses to carry out the things that he has ordains.
Think of it like this. God already knows the day and hour that all of us are going to die. Because of this we could say that there is no reason for us to go to the doctor, take medicine, or even look both ways when we cross the street because God already knows when we are going to die and that is set in stone. That fails to take into consideration that the doctor, the medicine, and yes, even looking both ways when we cross the street are the means that God may have ordained to keep us alive and we should not “tempt God by jumping off the temple” by stepping out in front of traffic. Thus simply because God has ordained the salvation of a particular individual does not release us from the obligation to tell people about the gospel. Just as the doctor may be the instrument that God uses to keep us alive, we may be the instrument that God uses to help someone come to know him and his salvation.
The next two questions are both good, but overlap a little and so I will deal with them together. They are “If God has predestined everything, why should anyone feel remorse?” and “If God has predestined everything, how can he hold man accountable?” You are not the first person to ask these questions. In fact, the Apostle Paul deals with these very questions in Romans 9. Notice how similar the questions are to the questions that you ask.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
This is the same question as “How can God hold man accountable because he has predestined everything?
In Romans 9: 14 Paul says
14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
He is asking here if God should be blamed rather than man because God is the one who predestined it all. There are several things to notice about these two questions. First it is only the Calvinistic interpretation which brings these two questions up. If Paul is not teaching predestination, then why would he deal with these two questions? There would be no reason to deal with them if not for the charge of predestination.
Second, look at the answer that the Apostle gives: In Romans 9
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?
21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
Let me close with a couple of comments. First you should know that there are good scholars who disagree with the interpretation that I have put forward here and so this is not the only way to view these questions. There is value in looking carefully at scholars on both sides of a controversial issue like this. One place to start is with this book.
Here you will get the different views straight from the scholars who believe it rather than a straw man contructed to be torn down.
You might also like the books Why I am not a Calvinist
and Why I am not an Arminian
in which each author seeks to show why he does not believe that the Scripture supports the opposing view.
In my view, one of the greatest defenses of the Calvinistic, reformed view of salvation is a small but brilliant book written by B. B. Warfield called The Plan of Salvation.
Never have I read such a brilliant, logical, clear defense of the reformed way of seeing God’s plan of salvation. It is only 104 pages but every page bears careful study.
One book that has helped many in their coming to understand predestination is by R. C. Sproul.
A second comment is that we all ought to be willing to “come out into the living room” and talk to other brothers and sisters who disagree with us about this. This is one of the reasons that I don’t particularly like the term “reformed faith.” I don’t think that the reformed have a different faith from others in Evangelicalism. We who are reformed ought to be able to talk civilly and kindly. Calvinism is often called the “doctrines of Grace” and yet the reformed are many times the most ungracious people in evangelicalism. If we really believe that we are totally depraved (as we do), and that our minds have been badly affected by sin (as we do), then we, the reformed, of all people should be humble and gracious.
The adjective winsome is rarely found with the noun reformed. This saddens me greatly. I want to change that with the help of the Lord. I know that I am wrong about some of the things that I have written above. The problem is that I don’t know which things. I pray that the Lord will forgive my errors and use his Word to draw people to himself.
For the Lamb,
DSL