Calvinism is a specific way of understanding the biblical doctrine of election and its relationship to God's plan of human salvation. In essence, Calvinists believe that any person who becomes a Christian does so ultimately because God chose before the beginning of the world that that individual should be saved.
Election is a term the Bible uses to describe choices made by God. The Greek word used in the New Testament is "ekloge," which designates a selection of a part out of a whole. "Elect" simply means chosen, and translators use both words to translate the same idea in the original languages. In the Bible, God is often said to choose individuals or groups for certain tasks (e.g., Abram, Levi, Moses, David, Solomon, Zerubbabel, the Twelve, Paul), and Jerusalem is often called His chosen city. Jesus and the angels are both described as elect. But when we speak of the "doctrine of election," we refer to the election of people to be God's people. In the Old Testament, Israel is called "elect" in Isaiah 45:4, 65:9, and 65:22. New Testament believers are called "elect" in Matthew 24:22, 24, 31; Mark 13:20, 22, 27; Luke 18:7; Romans 8:33; Colossians 3:12; Titus 1:1; and 1 Peter 1:2. In addition, the Bible describes God's "choosing" a people for Himself in both testaments (Dt. 4:37; 7:6-7; 10:15; 14:2; 1 Kin. 3:8; 1 Chr. 16:13; Ps. 33:12; 135:4; Is. 14:1; 41:8-9; 43:9-10, 20; 44:1-2; 48:10; 49:7; Jer. 33:24; Ezek. 20:5; Matt. 20:16; 22:14; Mk. 13:20; Acts 13:17; Eph. 1:4; 2 Thes. 2:13; Jam. 2:5; 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 17:14).
Because the Bible is so explicit about election, just about all Christians who believe the Bible agree that believers are elected, or chosen, by God. The point of disagreement is what election means. To some, election means that God chose specific individuals to salvation and guaranteed that they would be saved. Others hold that God chose believers collectively–in other words, God's election was His determination to offer salvation so that He would have a people, but that persons are not individually elected. Still others believe that God elected that those who would become believers would achieve their final salvation, becoming like Christ and having eternal life, but that their initial act of faith was not foreordained. The first of these views is the one we call Calvinism.
To quote Charles H. Spurgeon, the famous Baptist soul-winner of nineteenth-century England: "We only use the term 'Calvinism' for shortness. That doctrine which is called 'Calvinism' did not spring from Calvin; we believe that it sprang from the great founder of all truth. Perhaps Calvin himself derived it mainly from the writings of Augustine. Augustine obtained his views, without doubt, through the Holy Spirit of God, from diligent study of the writings of Paul, and Paul received them from the Holy Ghost and from Jesus Christ, the great founder of the Christian Church. We use the term then, not because we impute an extraordinary importance to Calvin's having taught these doctrines. We would be just as willing to call them by any other name, if we could find one which would be better understood, and which on the whole would be as consistent with the fact."
John Calvin (1509-1564) was a Frenchman who turned to Protestantism while studying in Paris. He fled Paris because of persecution and eventually ended up in Geneva in 1541, where he became the leader of one branch of the Protestant Reformation. (Other branches were led by Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Knox.) Geneva became a haven for Protestant refugees. Calvin was a prolific writer, giving commentaries on 49 books of Scripture and writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin's primary beliefs were not much different from those of other Reformers, and Martin Luther wrote more extensively on election and free will than Calvin did. Both of them followed Augustine's understanding in combating the theological departures of the Roman Catholic Church. But Calvin's name is important because it was his followers in the Reformed churches who most ardently defended the "Calvinist" understanding of salvation.
Calvin's writings codified the beliefs held by pretty much all the Protestants of that time, with the exception of the Anabaptists, whose descendants are now called Mennonites. Most of the major confessions of the first two hundred years of Protestantism, from the Belgic, Heidelberg, and Helvetic Confessions to the Westminster Confession, to the early confessions of the Particular Baptists, are Calvinistic. Even the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, adopted in 1571, have a Calvinistic flavor. In addition, the Geneva Bible, which was the major English Bible before the King James gained widespread acceptance, was filled with notes by Puritan Calvinists. And a number of Calvinists helped translate the KJV itself.
Calvinists generally do not consider their beliefs about election to have come from Calvin, but rather to be part of the basic teaching of evangelical Protestant churches. They commonly call these teachings the "doctrines of grace," since they consider God's grace to be the basis for election and salvation. (Lutheran theology is not technically Calvinistic, but it does place a similar emphasis on God's sovereignty in matters of salvation and justification by faith.)
The main breaking point between the Catholic Church and the Reformers was whether one's justification came directly from God through faith or indirectly through the sacraments of the church. The Roman Catholic Church taught that grace and works operated together in producing salvation. People were justified by grace through the administering of the sacraments, and Purgatory "preserved human dignity" by allowing people to do something to atone for their own sins. When the Reformers rejected these teachings, the Church held the Council of Trent and, among other things, pronounced eternal condemnation on all those who taught that salvation was by grace through faith, apart from works and the sacraments of the Church. The Council of Trent was in direct opposition to the Protestant emphasis on salvation by grace through faith alone.
The Protestant understanding of election was part of their heavy emphasis on God's grace. If God were to elect people based on their actions or decisions, then it would be a salvation based on works, not on grace. No human act could have any saving merit; salvation had to be sola gratia, all of God and none of man.
Protestants were also mindful of a fifth-century controversy in which Pelagius had stated that people were essentially good and capable of achieving their own salvation. Augustine had opposed Pelagius with the doctrine of election and other biblical arguments, sounding very much like Calvin at many points. Protestants wanted to defend themselves against the heresies that had plagued the Christian church, and so they were quick to proclaim their biblical faithfulness on issues from the Trinity to the nature of Christ to the doctrine of election.
Because Calvinism was so important to the Reformers, the main theological system that incorporates the Calvinistic understanding of salvation is called Reformed theology.
The Anabaptists, the majority of whom became known as Mennonites, and the General Baptists under John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, adopted a different understanding of the doctrine of election than most Protestants did, but they offered no direct challenge to other churches' teachings on the subject. Their differences with established churches were based primarily on religious liberty, the nature of baptism, and the sacramentalism of the Church of England.
The most famous challenge to Calvinism came from Arminius (1560-1609), a Dutch theologian whose teachings gained a wide following. Arminius' followers, who were called Remonstrants, accused the Reformed churches of teaching heresy, making God the author of evil, denying the salvation of infants, and relieving men of moral responsibility for their actions. These accusations necessitated the Synod of Dort in 1618, at which representatives of the Reformed churches gathered to hear and rule on the Arminian perspective. This international synod met dozens of times over the course of seven months to give the Remonstrants a fair hearing.
Notice that today, nearly anyone who does not believe in Calvinism is labeled an "Arminian," even though most would disagree with at least some of what Arminius taught.
The Arminian position presented at Dort can be stated as five points.
First, God elects people on the basis of His prior knowledge that they would choose to believe (their foreseen faith).
Second, Christ's death did not actually atone for the sins of the elect, but instead made salvation possible for all people; God then applies forgiveness to any who accept it, but the gift must be accepted to have any effect.
Third, humans are marred by original sin, in that they are inclined toward sin, but the will is still free to choose either good or evil. (Arminius did not believe humans were essentially good; in fact, he was in agreement with Calvinists as to the depth of human depravity, but he believed the Holy Spirit graciously overcame that depravity and enabled all men to choose whether to be saved or not.)
Fourth, regardless of the Holy Spirit's work within a person, that person is completely free to reject God, as well as to accept Him; God's grace is always resistible.
Fifth, it may be possible for a true believer to fall away from salvation because of sin, or to renounce Christianity and die unforgiven. (The Remonstrants simply suggested further investigation on this last point. Few believed that anyone had actually ever lost their salvation.)
The Synod of Dort responded with the five "Canons of Dort." These canons are usually considered the defining statements of Calvinism. Each canon consists of a number of articles, similar to that found in any confession of faith, followed by a number of rejections of what the church called false teachings (including Arminian ones). The canons state, essentially, the following:
First, God's election is of individuals to salvation; it is totally unconditional, based solely on His gracious will.
Second, Christ's death was propitiatory; that is, it appeased God regarding sins. As a result, the penalty is paid for all the sins for which Christ died. Since only some are saved, Christ's death was effectual only for those who would believe. Nevertheless, this limitation of the atonement was not because of any insufficiency in Christ's death.
Third, original sin so corrupts mankind that every part of the person is depraved. The will is in opposition to God until it is regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, the regeneration of the Holy Spirit ensures that an individual will believe in Christ.
Fifth, since salvation is totally in God's hands, no believer will finally fall away from salvation.
Essentially, yes.
The acronym comes from the terms theologians use for each of the synod's five heads of doctrine. In the order given above, they are:
Placing the third point first gives the acronym "TULIP." This mnemonic device is so common that some Reformed congregations advertise their Calvinism by adopting the tulip as a logo for their church.
Three-pointers and four-pointers are those who can buy into some of the points but disagree with others. It is not necessarily inconsistent to do this. Most evangelical Christian understandings of salvation meet some of the points but not others. For example, the common lay-level view among Baptists affirms perseverance of the saints and, to some extent, human depravity, and it redefines "unconditional" election to mean conditioned on a person's faith rather than works (which was actually what Arminius asserted). On this basis, many Baptists call themselves three-point Calvinists.
The issue here, though, is whether one can call one's self a Calvinist without adopting all five points. Calvinism is more than just the sum of five isolated doctrines. It is an entire understanding of God's plan of salvation. Rejection of any of the five points, or of other doctrines such as substitutionary atonement or the importance of preaching, reflects a different understanding which, however similar to Calvinism, or however affirming of predestination, is not properly Calvinism.
A summary of the Calvinistic perspective is this: God ordains or permits all things that come to pass, including human decisions, and nothing can thwart His decrees. It is for this reason that He knows all things, past, present, and future. For reasons inconceivable to us and unrevealed in the Bible, God allowed sin to enter the world, and humankind to fall. Adam's fall caused all his descendants to have a sinful nature from their conception, so that they are unable to do good and are at enmity with God. None of this is understood to make God the author or approver of evil. Because of His justice, God had to punish people's sin; a penalty had to be paid. But because of His love, just as God chose Israel, He also chose to redeem a people for Himself from every tribe, nation, and tongue. God did not choose everyone, and He made His unchangeable selection based only on His sovereign, gracious will, without regard to anything intrinsic to anyone. The Bible refers to these people as the elect. Their election is to salvation itself and is not simply a promise to complete the salvation of those who have already believed. To show His love and provide for their salvation, God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross. There God's wrath was poured out on Jesus, paying the penalty for all the sins (both original and actual) of these chosen people and thus satisfying God's justice.
Each one of the elect is born in sin, just like everyone else, and is indistinguishable from the non-elect. But throughout that person's life, God is at work preparing him or her for salvation. The means which God has ordained for bringing the elect to salvation is the sending out of believers to preach the gospel aggressively and persuasively to all people without distinction. At some point, through the preaching of the gospel and the faith which God provides, the Holy Spirit regenerates the elect individual, who is thereby born again. The elect one, now having a nature capable of responding to God, then responds through faith and repentance, which are gifts from God, embracing Jesus as Lord and Savior. At this moment the believer is declared righteous (justified) by the imputation of Christ's righteousness, adopted as a child of God and heir of Christ, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit as the seal of salvation. The process of sanctification (being made holy) continues throughout the believer's life through the working of the Holy Spirit, and it is not complete until the believer meets God at death. But despite the believer's occasional sins, God keeps all His people so that not one will fall away and all of them will be glorified at the Resurrection upon Jesus' return.
With regard to the non-elect, those who are not chosen to salvation, all but the most extreme Calvinists acknowledge God's love for all people and that He takes no pleasure in the death of any one. Christ demonstrated both God's love and God's justice to everyone while on the cross, and His resurrection universally demonstrated His identity and God's power. All are without excuse, because God has made Himself known through these means and in creation itself, and has placed a sense of right and wrong in each one's heart. Furthermore, everyone has sinned willfully against God, and so God would be just to condemn everyone. Yet Calvinists do not believe that God actively condemned the non-elect out of malice, but rather "gave them over" to their own desires. God still commands all people everywhere to repent, and those who oppose God's general invitation to salvation do so by their own choice.
In the end, those who choose Christ enjoy eternal life, to the praise of God's glorious grace, and those who choose to continue in sin suffer eternal punishment, to the praise of God's glorious justice.
So it can be seen that all five points are present and necessary in this view of salvation, but there is much more present as well. In fact, it is possible that one could give assent to all five points and yet not quite be a Calvinist.
Yes, Calvinism is orthodox in that it upholds the theology and Christology of the ecumenical councils universally recognized throughout Christendom.
First of all, Calvinism affirms the basic concept of God. God is deeply personal, as shown by His love for His creation, His hatred of sin, His conscious acts of decreeing and permitting, and the fact that He has a will. God's most essential attributes, including His omniscience, omnipotence, immutability, love, mercy, faithfulness, grace, justice, and holiness, as well as His revelatory nature and involvement in worldly affairs, are all very obvious in the Calvinistic view. God is also shown to transcend space and time by decreeing His plan of salvation before the beginning of creation.
Second, Calvinism upholds the doctrine of the Trinity. God the Father is the One Who chooses the elect and ordains the means for their salvation; it is He Who creates mankind and pours out His wrath on the Son He loves. God the Son is the only fitting sacrifice for sin, and it is His infinite, perfect righteousness which is imputed to all believers to make them acceptable to God. God the Holy Spirit changes the human heart and empowers the believer to act righteously. All these are divine prerogatives exercised by the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, who are one God.
Third, Calvinism is in harmony with the historic understanding of the nature of Christ. Christ is fully God, and only as God could Jesus provide a sufficient atonement; He is also fully man, and only as a human could Jesus suffer and die. Only as both could Jesus be a mediator between God and His creatures. Nothing in Calvinism suggests a mixture of these two natures, or a division of Jesus' person. There is no distinction between Jesus' historical life and His identity as the divine Messiah whom Christians worship. Calvinistic creeds have always been very strong in affirming Christ's resurrection and His offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, as Christ continues to speak through the gospel, offer intercession to God for His people, and reign over His kingdom.
Yes, Calvinism is evangelical in that it upholds the necessity of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, based on the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone (sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, sola Scriptura, soli Deo gloria).
Calvinism stresses God's grace more than any other major system, hence the term "doctrines of grace" to describe the Calvinistic distinctives. Calvinism leaves no room for good works to have any part in salvation, except as the inevitable result of the Spirit's influence in the life of the believer. Salvation itself is accomplished only through the work of God. The seed of regeneration is the preaching of the gospel of Christ, and so there is no other name in which one can believe and come to salvation. It is from the writings of Calvinists that we find many of the early descriptions of the Bible as infallible, and Calvinists consider their beliefs based on biblical revelation as opposed to any other authority. Finally, Calvinists are adamant that election not be seen as elevating one group of people above the rest; rather, the elect are "by nature neither better nor more deserving than others, but with them involved in one common misery."
The Synod of Dort made a special exhortation to this effect: that Calvinists "conduct themselves piously and religiously in handling this doctrine, both in the universities and churches; to direct it, as well in discourse as in writing, to the glory of the Divine name, to holiness of life, and to the consolation of afflicted souls; to regulate, by the Scripture, according to the analogy of faith, not only their sentiments, but also their language, and to abstain from all those phrases which exceed the limits necessary to be observed in ascertaining the genuine sense of the Holy Spirit, and may furnish insolent sophists with a just pretext for violently assailing, or even vilifying, the doctrine of the Reformed Churches."
Furthermore, quite a number of evangelicals have been Calvinists. Famous evangelicals of the past include John Owen, Matthew Henry, Stephen Charnock, Matthew Poole, Jonathan Edwards, B. B. Warfield, Grace Livingston Hill, Andrew Murray, Gordon H. Clark, J. Gresham Machen, J. Barton Payne, and G. E. Ladd. Many of these evangelicals, especially those from Princeton, were instrumental in defending the other major defining evangelical doctrine, biblical inerrancy. Present-day evangelicals include James M. Boice, Michael Horton, Erwin Lutzer, Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz ("Bruce & Stan"), Jerry Bridges, Robert Coleman, Kent Hughes, Philip Graham Ryken, R. C. Sproul, and D. James Kennedy.
Calvinism as a system is neither originally nor exclusively Baptist, but then neither are such "Baptist" doctrines as the priesthood of believers, local church autonomy, and baptism by immersion. Nevertheless, an overview of Baptist history demonstrates that Calvinism has a strong place in the tradition.
Tom Nettles, in a book titled By His Grace and For His Glory, examines the writings of the most prominent people in Baptist history and finds that most of the Baptist leadership has been Calvinistic. Names include Henry Jessey, John Spilsbery, John Bunyan (author of The Pilgrim's Progress), Benjamin Keach, Andrew Fuller, William Carey (the father of Baptist missions), Luther Rice, Adoniram Judson, Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, John Gill, Isaac Backus, Jesse Fuller, Basil Manly Sr. and Jr., J. P. Boyce (founder of Southern Seminary), John Broadus, C. H. Spurgeon, and E. Y. Mullins. A diverse number of leading Baptists today are Calvinists, such as John MacArthur, Al Mohler, Millard Erickson, Don Whitney, Bruce Ware, Timothy George, Don Hustad, Ronald Nash, John Piper, Mark Dever, and Wayne Grudem.
While it is a bit of an oversimplification, it may be said that the Baptist churches from the 1600s to the 1800s fell into two major camps. The first, General Baptists, opposed Calvinism. The second, Particular Baptists, were strongly Calvinistic. In England, the Particular Baptists became most numerous but eventually joined with the General Baptists. Late in the nineteenth century, the resulting Baptist Union fell into heresy, prompting C. H. Spurgeon to withdraw his church from the union. Today it is one of the only Baptist churches in England that remains evangelical.
In America, the first major Baptist associations, in Philadelphia and Charleston, adopted the Particular Baptists' Second London Confession. Many portions of this confession were drawn almost word for word from the Puritans' Westminster Confession, considered by many to be the most eloquent Calvinistic expression of faith. Many of the General Baptist churches turned Particular or died out, and the more Calvinistic churches became so common they were known as Regular Baptist churches. From the revivals of the eighteenth century came Separate Baptists and Free Will Baptists, who rejected Calvinism. The larger Southern and Northern Baptist Conventions more or less maintained their Calvinistic stances into the early twentieth century. The SBC's first confession of faith, the Abstract of Principles drafted for Southern Seminary in 1858, reflected the Calvinism of Charleston's confession and was the consensus view among Southern Baptists at that time. Today, very few Baptist churches are openly Calvinistic, although the Southern Baptists maintain a strong belief in eternal security, which is essentially the doctrine of Perseverance of the Saints.
Arminianism in America was best popularized by the preaching of John Wesley, and after his time many US denominations shrank away from Calvinism. Alongside the tradition of the Philadelphia and Charleston confessions, Baptists in New Hampshire drew up a confession to show the beliefs Regular (Calvinistic) Baptists had in common with the anti-Calvinistic Free Will Baptists who were gaining popularity in that region. The resulting New Hampshire Confession, while a very incomplete expression of faith, and without the Reformed distinctives of the other confessions, gained popularity through its publication in two widely sold church manuals. The Southern Baptist E.Y. Mullins was greatly affected by the New Hampshire confession early in the twentieth century. Then when in the 1920s the SBC was forced to deal with the Fundamentalist controversy, Mullins happened to be president at the time. He chaired a committee to draw up a confession of faith, and used the New Hampshire Confession as a model. The resulting Baptist Faith and Message therefore had very little explicitly Calvinistic doctrine. Mullins' writings, including the BFM, were reinterpreted by the very non-Calvinistic Herschel Hobbs in the 1960s, and it was Hobbs who revised the BFM in 1963. Hobbs rejected Calvinist notions of unconditional election and particular atonement.
Also during this time, catechisms were falling out of use among Baptists, theological education was diminishing at the lay level, and Baptists began to look at their history more for missionary motivation than for doctrinal continuity. Revivalistic preaching focused more and more on individuals' choice to believe, and sin was conceived of more as a relationship problem with God than as an offense to His justice. The first generation of Southern Seminary professors retired, and the next group of teachers was decidedly less insistent on teaching Calvinism to their students. Seminaries founded west of the Mississippi were in regions where Calvinism was less common or even unknown. Sermon illustrations compared salvation to a present which had to be accepted and unwrapped to be received, or to a check which had to be cashed to have any value. By the mid-twentieth century, the Presbyterians (formerly the staunchest defenders of the doctrines of grace) had long since slipped into liberalism, and Baptists usually only heard about Calvinism when talking about the Pilgrims or some other people from centuries past. Add to these reasons the Baptist tendency to look at isolated doctrines as opposed to theological systems, and to prefer application and pragmatic "relevance" to abstract theology, and it is little wonder that Calvinism has fallen by the wayside.
Recently, the teaching of Tom Nettles and a few others has sparked small revivals of Calvinism in Baptist churches and seminaries, resulting in the establishment of the Founders' Conference. The current president of Southern Seminary, Al Mohler, is a Calvinist who has become a very public spokesman for Southern Baptists on a number of contemporary issues, and so several of today's SBC Calvinists are teaching under his leadership at Southern. (Southern does not, however, have a primarily Calvinistic faculty.) The 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith and Message retained the articles on salvation and grace essentially unchanged from 1963. Recently, Baptist leader Paige Patterson has stated that there is room among Southern Baptists for people holding anywhere from one to five of the points of Calvinism.
1. Regarding election, the BFM (1963/2000) says, "Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is a glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility." Calvinists would agree with this statement, although the unconditionality of election is not explicit here. It is implied, however, in the statement that it "comprehends all the means," meaning that the circumstances by which one is saved are part of God's sovereign choice.
2. As for the atonement the BFM states, somewhat nebulously: "in His [Jesus'] death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin." The 2000 revision adds the word "substitutionary" before "death." The statement could be taken in the Arminian sense that Jesus merely made salvation possible by His death. But later, it says that Jesus "by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer." Here Jesus' death was effectual, and that specifically for believers. This is also in accord with the Calvinistic view, though it is still very subtle and says nothing objectionable to an Arminian.
3. In its article on man, the BFM says of the Fall, that "man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence; whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin, and as soon as they are capable of moral action become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore every man posses dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love." Here the BFM speaks much more gently than the Calvinistic view by its silence on man's inability to do good, and by saying he is simply "inclined" toward sin. The original BFM in 1925 described man as "in bondage to sin," and the New Hampshire Confession originally said men were "wholly given to the gratification of the world, of Satan, and of their own sinful passions." Calvinists in the SBC call this trend toward softer language the "ascent of lost man" in Baptist theology. Nevertheless, the departure here is more what the BFM does not say than what it does say.
4. The BFM affirms effectual calling: "Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." Note first of all that regeneration is the cause of repentance and faith, not the result. Furthermore, this response is not spoken of as optional or only possible, but assumed. This is the strongest remnant of Calvinism in the BFM.
5. The perseverance of the saints is the point which nearly all Southern Baptists affirm enthusiastically. "All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end.... They shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." On this point the BFM is unambiguous.
So we see that, while the Calvinism of the Baptist Faith and Message is in some ways very subtle, it is still present, and in any case, Calvinism is in harmony with the confession.
Calvinism, or Reformed theology in general, is predominant in the following denominations: National Primitive Baptist Convention of the USA (1 million members), Presbyterian Church in America (200,000 members), Reformed Church in America (200,000 members), Primitive Baptists (72,000 members), Evangelical Presbyterian Church (56,000), Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches (40,000), remnants of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (40,000), Reformed Baptists (300 to 400 churches), Orthodox Presbyterian Church (20,000 members), and about ten other denominations, each with memberships between 1,000 and 10,000. A large number of Congregationalist churches are also Calvinist. Nearly all churches in these denominations classify themselves as evangelical or fundamentalist, and most (non-Primitive) support education and missions programs.
Here is the dangerous question. For if you learn what Calvinism is, what Calvinists believe, and how the system came to be, then you are simply better informed. If you discover that Calvinism fits within the successive realms of belief you find legitimate (orthodox, evangelical, Baptist), then you come to accept and approve of those who hold to it. But if you find Calvinism to be the system taught by the Bible, then you are bound to accept it and believe it for yourself. Such a change is not the purpose of this document, but I will nevertheless attempt to make a biblical case for Calvinism. The reader is asked to judge the argument on its own merits. Any decision you make in this regard is between you and the Holy Spirit, and is open to development as you grow in your own spiritual and scriptural understanding of the faith.
What follows may seem like a proof-text argument, but it is instead a listing of the verses which lead Calvinists to their conclusions. The reader is encouraged to examine these verses in their respective contexts.
OK. There are a number of ways to present the case, but I'll proceed by going through the summary given above:
| 1. God ordains or permits all things that come to pass, including human decisions, and nothing can thwart His decrees. |
| Support: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Gen. 50:20); "The LORD said to Moses, 'When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go" (Ex. 4:21); "But He is unique and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does. For He performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are with Him" (Job 23:13-14); "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted" (Job 42:2); "The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps" (Prov. 16:9); "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD" (Prov. 16:33); "He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take away from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him" (Ecc. 3:13-14); "It is I who says of Cyrus, 'He is My shepherd! And he will perform all My desire.' And he declares of Jerusalem, 'She will be built,' and of the temple, 'Your foundation will be laid'" (Is. 44:28); "I am the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these" (Is. 45:6b-7, cf. surrounding verses); "Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it" (Is. 46:11b); "But now, O LORD, You are our Father, we are the clay, and You are the potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand" (Is. 46:8); "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?'" (Dan. 4:35); "For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs" (Hab. 1:6); "The LORD is righteous within her; He will do no injustice. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He does not fail" (Zeph. 3:5a); "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God" (Rom. 8:28a); "Also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:11). |
| 2. It is for this reason that He knows all things past, present, and future. |
| Support: "You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all" (Ps. 139:2-4); "Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure'" (Is. 46:9-10); "Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matt. 10:29-30); "Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God" (Jn. 16:30); ""Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You" (Jn. 21:17b); "For God is greater than our heart and knows all things" (1 Jn. 3:20). |
| 3. For reasons inconceivable to us and unrevealed in the Bible, God allowed sin to enter the world, and humankind to fall. |
| Support: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned..." (Rom. 5:12). "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam...But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died.... The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.... For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one.... So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.... For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners..." (Rom. 5:14a, 15a, 16a, 17a, 18a, 19a). |
| 4. Adam's fall caused all his descendants to have a sinful nature from their conception, so that they are unable to do good and are at enmity with God. |
| Support: "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. 6:5); "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Ps. 51:5); "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool" (Prov. 28:26); "All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way" (Is. 53:6a); "For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on Your name, who arouses himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities" (Is. 64:6); "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9); "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil" (Jn. 3:19); "But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man" (Jn. 2:25); "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (Jn. 6:44a); "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" (Jn. 15:4-5); "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'" (Rom. 3:10-12); "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not" (Rom. 7:18); "Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:7-8); "Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" (Eph. 2:3); "The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will" (2 Tim. 2:25-26).. |
| 5. None of this is understood to make God the author or approver of evil. |
| Support: "Therefore the LORD has kept the calamity in store and brought it on us; for the LORD our God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which He has done, but we have not obeyed His voice" (Dan. 9:14); "Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness with favor" (Hab. 1:13a); "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'... You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?' 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?" (Rom. 9:14-15, 19-20); "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust" (James 1:13-14); "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 Jn. 1:5). |
| 6. Because of His justice, God had to punish people's sin; a penalty had to be paid. |
| Support: "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain" (Ex. 20:7); "Who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished" (Ex. 34:7); "Whatever has a defect, you shall not offer, for it will not be accepted for you" (Lev. 22:20); "The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished" (Nah. 1:3a); "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD" (Prov. 17:15); "Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not right.' O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways" (Ezk. 33:20); "Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood.... Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Heb. 9:18, 22). |
| 7. But because of His love, just as God chose Israel, He also chose to redeem a people for Himself from every tribe, nation, and tongue. |
| Support: "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers" (Dt. 7:6-8a); "In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, 'Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance'" (Is. 19:24-25); "Simon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name" (Acts 15:14); "God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.... 'I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice" (Rom. 11:2,4b-5); "just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him" (Eph. 1:4); "Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds" (Titus 2:14); "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Heb. 8:10); "In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures" (Jam. 1:18); "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy" (1 Peter 2:9-10); "And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them'" (Rev. 21:3). |
| 8. God did not choose everyone [not all will be saved]. |
| Support: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matt. 7:13-14); "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast our demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness" (Matt. 7:23); "Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love Me.... You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father'" (Jn. 8:42,44); "Jesus answered them, 'I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father's name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep'" (Jn. 10:25-26); "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you" (Jn. 15:19); "I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours" (Jn. 17:9); "Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you; and that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men; for not all have faith" (2 Thes. 3:2); "And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come" (Rev. 17:8). |
| 9. and He made His unchangeable selection based only on His Sovereign, gracious will, without regard to anything intrinsic to any one. |
| Support: "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and He will not make it good?" (Num. 23:19); "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes" (Jn. 5:20); "Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20); "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth" (Rom. 9:11, KJV); "For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." (Rom. 9:15-16); "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:29); "For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7); "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me" (1 Cor. 15:10); "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph. 2:8-9);"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." (Jam. 1:17). |
| 10. The Bible refers to these people as the elect. |
| Support: "Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days" (Mk. 13:20; cf. Matt. 24:22); "For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect" (Matt. 24:24, cf. Mk. 13:22); "And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven" (Mk 13:27; cf. Matt. 24:31); "Now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?" (Lk. 18:7); "Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies" (Rom. 8:33); "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering" (Col. 3:12, KJV); "according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness" (Titus 1:1a, KJV); "elect according to the foreknowledge God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1:2a, KJV). |
| 11. Their election is to salvation itself and is not simply to the completion of the salvation of those who have already believed. |
| Support: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13); "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" (John 3:6-8); "And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48b); "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be [not because we were] holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:4-6); "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13); "But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:4-5); "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" (1 Pet. 1:3). |
| 12. To show His love and provide for their salvation, God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross. |
| Support: "I am the good shepherd, and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep" (Jn. 10:14-15); "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Rom. 5:8-10); "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18); "For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups [Jews and Gentiles] into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in His flesh the enmity...so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity" (Eph. 2:14-16); "For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him" (1 Thes. 5:9-10); "We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us" (1 Jn. 3:16a) |
| 13. There God's wrath was poured out on Jesus, paying the penalty for all the sins (both original and actual) of these chosen people and thus satisfying God's justice. |
| Support: "Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.... the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.... But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering" (Is. 53:4a, 6b, 10a);"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation1 in His blood through faith." (Rom. 3:23-25a); "knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin (Rom. 6:6-7); "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21); "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13a) "And walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma" (Eph. 5:2); "Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. 9:26); "And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed" (1 Pet. 2:24); "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit" (1 Pet. 3:18); "And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (1 Jn. 2:2); "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 Jn. 4:10). |
| 1A propitiation is that by which God's wrath is appeased concerning sins. All sins for which Jesus has propitiated God are by definiton forgiven. |
| 14. Each one of the elect is born in sin, just like everyone else, and is indistinguishable from the non-elect. |
| Support: "And hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous but sinners" (Mk. 2:17); "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Lk. 19:10); "For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7); "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ" (Eph. 2:1-5a); "For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them" (Col. 3:6-7); "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all" (1 Tim. 1:15); "For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds, which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy" (Titus 3:3-5a). |
| 15. But throughout that person's life, God is at work preparing him or her for salvation. |
| Support: "The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps" (Prov. 16:9); "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28); "Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge" (2 Cor. 5:5); "And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me..." (Gal. 1:14-16a) [This particular assertion is best demonstrated observationally rather than explicitly stated, but it is in accord with God's providential working of all things.] |
| 16. The means which God has ordained for bringing the elect to salvation is the sending out of believers to preach the gospel aggressively and persuasively to all people without distinction. |
| Support: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come" (Mt. 24:14); "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you" (Mt. 28:19-20a); "Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel'" (Mk. 1:14-15); "The sower sows the word.... And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold" (Mk. 4:14,20); "And He said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Lk. 24:47); "And according to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ'" (Acts 17:2-3); "So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are at Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew and also to the Greek" (Rom. 1:15-16); "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will the believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?" (Rom. 10:14-15a); "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 1:17a); "...in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.... For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4,6); "Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some from good will.... What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice" (Phil. 1:15,18). |
| 17. At some point, through the preaching of the gospel and the faith which God provides, the Holy Spirit regenerates the elect individual, who is thereby born again. |
| Support: "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'" (Jn. 3:5) "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life" (Jn. 6:63); "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word" (Eph. 5:25); "When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions" (Col. 2:13); "He saved us...by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7); "For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard" (Heb. 4:2); "For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Pet. 1:23); "For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are [now] dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live by the Spirit according to the will of God" (1 Pet. 4:6) |
| 18. The elect one, now having a nature capable of responding to God, then responds through faith and repentance, which are gifts from God, embracing Jesus as Lord and Savior. |
| Support: "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (Jn. 3:18); "When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, 'Well, then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life" (Acts 11:18); "...solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21); "Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?" (Rom. 2:4); "What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth" (1 Cor. 1:5-6); "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8); "The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will" (2 Tim. 2:25-26). |
| 19. At this moment the believer is declared righteous (justified) by the imputation of Christ's righteousness, |
| Support: "Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses" (Acts 13:38-39); "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith...for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:21-25a,26); "So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification for all men. For as through one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5:18-19); "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21); "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified" (Gal. 2:16, KJV). |
| 20. adopted as a child of God and heir of Christ, |
| Support: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name" (Jn. 1:12); "And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified" (Acts 20:33); "But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you...that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me" (Acts 26:16a,18b); "For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him" (Rom. 8:14-17); "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God" (Gal. 4:4-7); "He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will" (Eph. 1:5); "Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light" (Col. 1:12); "So that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7); "Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?" (James 2:5). |
| 21. and indwelt by the Holy Spirit as the seal of salvation. |
| Support: "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you" (Jn. 15:16-17); "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom. 8:11); "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16) "Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge" (2 Cor. 1:23-24); "Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge" (2 Cor. 5:5); "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1:13-14); "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30); "We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us" (1 Jn. 3:24b). |
| 22. The process of sanctification (being made holy) continues throughout the believer's life through the working of the Holy Spirit, and it is not complete until the believer meets God at death. |
| Support: "For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification" (Rom. 6:19b); "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life" (Rom. 6:22); "If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom. 8:10-11); "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." (2 Cor. 3:18); "For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord–for we walk by faith, not by sight–we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:4-8); "For this is the will of God, you sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality.... For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification." (1 Th. 4:3,7); "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Th. 4:23); "Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work" (2 Tim. 2:21); "For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11); "Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14); "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy'" (1 Pet. 1:14-16); "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us" (1 Jn. 1:8). |
| 23. But despite the believer's occasional sins, God keeps all His people so that not one will fall away |
| Support: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life" (Jn. 5:24); "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day" (Jn. 6:39-40); "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life" (Jn. 6:47); "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one will snatch them out of My hand" (Jn. 10:27-29); "Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ?.... For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:33-35a,37-38); "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18); "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6); "For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day" (2 Tim. 1:12); "If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself" (2 Tim. 2:13); "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 Jn. 2:1). |
| 24. and all of them will be glorified at the Resurrection upon Jesus' return. |
| Support: "For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. 6:5); "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.... Just as we have borne the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.... Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed" (1 Cor. 15:42-44,49,51-53); "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is" (1 Jn. 3:2); "Blessed and holy is the one who as a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years" (Rev. 20:6). |
| 25. With regard to the non-elect, those who are not chosen to salvation, all but the most extreme Calvinists acknowledge God's love for all people and that He takes no pleasure in the death of any one. |
| Support: "'For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,' declares the Lord GOD. 'Therefore, repent and live'" (Ezek. 18:32); "Say to them, 'As I live!' declares the Lord GOD, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?'" (Ezek. 33:11); "Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him" [referring to the rich young ruler, who rejected Him] (Mk. 10:21); "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!" (Lk. 13:34); "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" (Jn. 3:16); "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:3-4). |
| 26. Christ demonstrated both God's love and God's justice to everyone while on the cross, and His resurrection universally demonstrated His identity and God's power. |
| Support: "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31); "Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:25-26); "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men" (Titus 2:11, KJV) |
| 27. All are without excuse, because God has made Himself known through these means and in creation itself, and has placed a sense of right and wrong in each one's heart. |
| Support: "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world" (Ps. 19:1-4a); "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His divine attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:18-20); "For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.... For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them" (Rom. 2:12,14-15) |
| 28. Furthermore, everyone has sinned willfully against God, and so God would be just to condemn everyone. |
| Support: "God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day" (Ps. 7:11); "The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Ps. 14:2-3); "'I am not doing this for your sake,' declares the Lord GOD, 'let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel!'" (Ezek. 36:32); "And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone'" (Lk. 18:19); "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:12,23); "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). |
| 29. Yet Calvinists do not believe that God actively condemned the non-elect out of malice, but rather "gave them over" to their own desires. God still commands all people everywhere to repent, and those who oppose God's general invitation to salvation do so by their own choice. |
| Support: "As they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations, so I will choose their punishments and will bring on them what they dread. Because I called, but no one answered; I spoke, but they did not listen. And they did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight" (Is. 66:3b-4); "And He was saying to them, 'You are from below, I am from above; you are of the world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins" (Jn. 8:23-24); "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31); "Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them...and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper" (Rom. 1:24,28); "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death" (James 1:13-15); "This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, 'The stone which the builders rejected, this became the very corner stone,' and, 'a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense'; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed" (1 Pet. 2:7-8). |
| 30. In the end, those who choose Christ enjoy eternal life, to the praise of God's glorious grace, and those who choose to continue in sin suffer eternal punishment, to the praise of God's glorious justice. |
| Support: "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Mt. 25:46); "Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissentions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:19-21); "For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life" (Gal. 6:8); "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life" (1 Jn. 5:11-12); "And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:14); "And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away" (Rev. 21:2-4); "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8). |
Usually, opponents of Calvinism will attack the five points one by one, rather than attacking the entire system at once. Those who buy into some of the points but not others will only attack the points with which they disagree.
Often cited are the warnings against apostasy in Hebrews: "For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance" (Heb. 6:4-6a); "For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries" (Heb. 10:26-27). Paul also tells the Galatians, "You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace" (Gal. 5:4). Perhaps most significant are parables in which the master casts unfaithful servants into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (e.g., Mt. 25:30).
Calvinist explanations of these verses generally state that the one falling under judgment has never truly believed. In the case of Galatians 5:4, "falling from grace" is not the loss of salvation but the departure from true doctrine; the tenor of chapters 3-6 shows that Paul believes the Galatians are still Christians. Some regard the Hebrews 6 passage as hypothetical, or at least negated by verse 9: "But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way." They say this makes salvation antithetical to the foregoing situation. Arminians generally regard these explanations as cop-outs: if someone appears to have fallen, they either weren't saved to begin with or are merely backslidden. However, Arminians have difficulty dealing with many verses which very clearly assure believers that their salvation is eternal and not dependent upon works.
Arminians cite these verses which present people as resisting the Holy Spirit: "You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did" (Acts 7:51); "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith" (2 Tim. 3:8). They also argue that many have felt stirrings in their heart toward salvation, but have resisted and eventually died without receiving Christ.
Calvinists respond that they do not hold that no one ever resists the Spirit's influence, or that the non-elect are not invited to salvation. The usual explanation of this doctrine is that the elect receive an effectual call–not simply an invitation or the general operation of the Holy Spirit, but regeneration of the self, to which the person willingly responds in faith and repentance. God saves no one against his or her will, nor do faith and repentance take place passively. The pattern in the New Testament is that when one is given "grace," it is saving grace which changes the heart. To the Calvinist, it would be absurd to speak of one being born again without then becoming a Christian. There is a variety of opinions among Calvinists as to how the Spirit operates with regard to the non-elect, but all agree that saving grace ensures the salvation of the elect.
Calvinists also note a difference in vocabulary between the gospels and Paul's writings. The synoptic gospels generally use the term "call" in the sense of a general invitation which may be turned down, as in the saying, "Many are called but few are chosen" (Mt. 22:14 et al.). Paul, however, tends to use "call" in a more definite sense, as in his calling to apostleship. In this case, being called and being chosen are synonymous or at least co-extensive.
One final verse Calvinists must address is Jesus' lament for Jerusalem: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling" (Matt. 23:37). Arminians say Jesus obviously desired the salvation of the Jews but was unable to save them. Calvinists, however, point to the context. This concludes Jesus' denunciation of the Pharisees, who "shut off the kingdom of heaven from people" (23:13-15) and share the guilt of their fathers' murder of prophets (23:29-36). So Jerusalem refers not to the Jews in general, but to their hypocritical leaders. Jesus weeps not for them but for their children, whose way was blocked not by their own unwillingness but by the deceit of the Pharisees. If this provides problems for the Calvinistic emphasis on God's inviolable decrees, it provides even more problems for the Arminian focus on the individual's response to God.
Arminians have two strong proof-texts for their belief that election is based on foreseen faith: "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29); and ". . . who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Pet. 1:1b-2a).
Calvinists argue that God's foreknowledge is a determinative kind of knowledge; foreknowledge is the equivalent of election, not simply foreseeing what will happen of its own accord. They also note that from a logical standpoint, even God's foreknowledge of what will happen under certain circumstances is determinative if He chooses to create a world in which He knows those circumstances will take place; He could just as easily have created a world in which they did not. This fact has led some modern Arminians, such as Gregory Boyd and Clark Pinnock, to reject foreknowledge altogether and promote a God who does not know the future decisions of His creatures.
Evangelical Arminians do not deny original sin, nor do they advocate salvation by works. Their point of departure here is that fallen man still retains the ability to obey God's commandments. This they refer to as free will. Any of the calls to repentance serves as support for this line of argument. If man is unable to respond to God's offer of salvation or to His commands, then He is feigning at best and taunting at worst by giving them.
Luther combats this argument most directly throughout his book The Bondage of the Will. First of all, he says, such calls and commands serve a number of purposes: they make us aware of our sin, let us know what God requires, and give believers a way to tell if their actions proceed from the Spirit or the flesh. Luther additionally gives the example of a man who stubbornly proclaims his hands to be free when they are tied behind his back; the man must be challenged to move his hands himself before he will realize they are bound. Calvinists also note that the will is not bound by God's restraining them from doing good, but by their own sinful condition.
More importantly, Calvinists make a distinction between necessity and compulsion. Just because God cannot sin does not mean He is not exercising free will when He does right. Jesus in His incarnation retained His divinity, and so He necessarily was not going to sin. But all orthodox Christians believe that Jesus made His decisions voluntarily and still possessed the ability to choose one path or the other, without compulsion. His decision was in accord with His nature, and both the Father and the Son are praised for their righteous acts. And the Bible prophesies that Satan will remain evil until the day he is sent to eternal torment, so we know he will not repent. But he remains blameworthy for his sins nevertheless. The same can be said about fallen man, who necessarily makes the voluntary choices which accord with his sinful nature and is morally responsible for them. To summarize, Arminians define free will as freedom from any determinative influence in one's desires or decisions. Calvinists define free will as the ability to choose what one wishes to choose at that time, regardless of whether the wish is predetermined by other factors. And so, both Arminians and Calvinists believe in free will, but they define it differently. Still, the confusion leads many Calvinists to avoid the term one way or another. For further discussion by Calvinists on this point, see R. C. Sproul, Willing to Believe, and Ronald Nash, Life's Ultimate Questions, and the classic Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards. For a good discussion from an Arminian perspective, see Norman Geisler's article on "Free Will" in Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (1st edition).
Most "four-point Calvinists" have trouble with this doctrine. Any of the verses which state that Christ died for "all" and wishes "all" to be saved can be used here to confront it: "For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf" (2 Cor. 5:14-15); "But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone" (Heb. 2:9); "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9); "And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (1 Jn. 2:2). The various "whosoever will" verses are also commonly cited. Also significant is 1 Timothy 4:10: "For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers."
The formula for many Calvinists, one which was considered (though not accepted) by Calvin himself, is that the atonement was "sufficient for all, efficient for the elect." In other words, Christ died for everyone, but not all are thereby forgiven. But most Calvinists understand the evangelical doctrine of substitutionary atonement to mean that whatever sins Christ paid for are paid for, period. All those for whom Christ died will be saved.
As for the verses, Calvinists are quick to point out their similarity to other verses which, if "all" were to mean every individual in the world, would mean that everyone will be saved. Such verses must be interpreted in the context. In 2 Corinthians, for instance, if "all died," then all are forgiven; Paul, when discussing dying with Christ, declares, "for he who has died is freed from sin" (Rom. 6:7). Likewise, 1 John speaks of Jesus as a propitiation, which cannot fail to result in a pardon for the sins for which it is offered. Most Calvinists say that "ours" refers to that church, or to Jewish Christians, while "the whole world" embraces beleivers globally. Many translations obscure the parallels in Hebrews 2:8-10, in which the author repeatedly uses the word "all," emphasizing the totality of Jesus' authority ("for whom are all things, and through whom are all things," etc.), so that the word is naturally used there even without universal reference. In 2 Peter, "any" and "all" directly follow "you," the scope of the statement at hand. One could translate as follows: "not wishing for any of you to perish but for all of you...." Alternately, the statement could simply be stating that God does not take pleasure in the death of anyone (as He says in Ezekiel), and that those who do not repent in time would never have repented, regardless of how much time was allowed.
The last verse, 1 Timothy 4:10, is seen as another way of saying that there is no Savior for anyone except God. No one can claim another Savior. There is also a distinction in the sense in which God is the Savior of unbelievers and of believers. He is the Savior of believers with regard to the atonement, and of unbelievers with regard to the universal demonstrations of His justice and mercy. With this distinction in mind, it may be equally correct to say that Christ died for all (with respect to demonstration) and that He died only for the elect (with respect to atonement). Another common Calvinistic formula is that such verses apply to "not to all without exception, but to all without distinction."
One other defense by Calvinists, presented by John Piper in The Pleasures of God, is that God often saves through a remnant. In Romans 11, Paul declares that "all Israel" will be saved, through the faithful remnant, and the return from Babylon is called the restoration of Israel, even though most of the tribes never returned from captivity. Just so, Jesus saved the world by redeeming a remnant of people from every tribe, nation, and tongue.
Again, this is the stickiest point among Calvinists, and many, such as Millard Erickson and E.Y. Mullins, have rejected it without this difference of interpretation causing friction with more consistent Calvinists.
Those with inhibitions about Calvinism tend to focus on this point. Calvinism seems to picture a God arbitrarily predestining people to heaven or hell in a cosmic game of "Eenie, meenie, miney, moe," when He could just as easily draw everyone to salvation by one means or another. He did not send Jesus to redeem all mankind, but only a privileged few, leaving the rest with no hope, no love, and no chance.
Calvinists vehemently disagree with this presentation of their faith. They believe God is saddened by sin and desirous that all would come to Him. Why God does not save everyone and why He allowed sin in the world in the first place are questions which have dogged Christian apologists throughout the history of Christianity, because they are not answered in the Bible. Calvinists say they are simply taking the Bible at its word that God is a God of justice, who must punish sin and is just at allowing rebellious sinners to go to hell. Perhaps Calvinists' strongest point is that sinners do not go to hell because Christ did not save them, but simply because they are sinners and thus deserve hell. It is the result of their own voluntary, conscious choice.
Calvinists cite in their defense the parable of Matthew 20, in which the employer pays some of his employees better than they deserve. This is unfair by human standards, to be certain, but it is just, because the money is his to do with as he pleases, and he abides by the agreement he made with all the workers. Just so, God can do as He pleases, not only with His mercy, but with His creatures themselves, and His judgment fulfills, rather than breaks, His promises in Scripture.
With regard to God's glory, one might say that if He saved none, His mercy would be unknown and His justice would be resented by all; if He saved everyone, His justice would be unknown, and His mercy taken for granted. If He saved most, but a few were lost, those few would appear "undeservedly" singled out for punishment, maligning His justice and His election. Saving a minority brings the maximum appreciation of God's mercy and a recognition and praise of God's justice from the perspective of persecuted believers.
The amazing thing, say Calvinists, is not that God elects only a few, but that He saves any at all. His decision to provide His Son as a substitute shows love and mercy beyond any sort of obligation or expectation. This should inspire believers to confidence and comfort in God's love and compel them to declare God's love to all nations so that the full harvest may be brought in.
There are some hyper-Calvinists who have opposed missions and evangelism, most of whose denominations have taken the name "Primitive." They see any means taken to persuade men as infringing on God's sovereignty and denying the unconditionality of saving grace. Others have simply declared the gospel and waited dispassionately to see the results. But that is not the biblical example, and that is not how Calvinists have historically declared the gospel. The missions movement among Baptists was begun by Calvinists like William Carey, Luther Rice, and Adoniram and Anne Judson, and the First Great Awakening was fueled by the preaching of staunch Calvinists Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Consider the ardent appeal Whitefield gives:
"I offer you salvation this day; the door of mercy is not yet shut, there does yet remain a sacrifice for sin, for all that will accept of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will embrace you in the arms of his love. O turn to him, turn in a sense of your own unworthiness; tell him how polluted you are, how vile, and be not faithless, but believing. Why fear ye that the Lord Jesus Christ will not accept of you? Your sins will be no hindrance, your unworthiness no hindrance; if your own corrupt hearts do not keep you back nothing will hinder Christ from receiving of you. He loves to see poor sinners coming to him, he is pleased to see them lie at his feet pleading his promises; and if you thus come to Christ, he will not send you away without his Spirit; no, but will receive and bless you. O do not put a slight on infinite love–he only wants you to believe on him, that you might be saved. This, this is all the dear Saviour desires, to make you happy, that you may leave your sins, to sit down eternally with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Let me beseech you to come to Jesus Christ; I invite you all to come to him, and receive him as your Lord and Saviour; he is ready to receive you. I invite you to come to him, that you may find rest for your souls. He will rejoice and be glad. He calls you by his ministers; O come unto him–he is labouring to bring you back from sin and from Satan, unto himself: open the door of your hearts, and the King of glory shall enter in. My heart is full, it is quite full, and I must speak, or I shall burst. What, do you think your souls of no value? Do you esteem them as not worth saving? Are your pleasures worth more than your souls? Had you rather regard the diversions of this life, than the salvation of your souls? If so, you will never be partakers with him in glory; but if you come unto him, he will supply you with his grace here, and bring you to glory hereafter; and there you may sing praises and hallelujahs to the Lamb for ever. And may this be the happy end of all who hear me!"
It must be admitted that many Calvinists object to the word "offer" with reference to grace and salvation, preferring the term the Bible uses, "set forth." The argument is that an offer is by definition something that is intended for the receiver but may potentially be refused. But this question of vocabulary is a matter of doctrinal precision and does not devalue the means of evangelism for conversion.
Unfortunately, this is one area in which many Calvinists need to improve. It is a fault all too common among believers who have a comprehensive theological system and thus believe they have all the details worked out. It is difficult for some Calvinists to believe that their system is not obviously the biblical one, and some have hesitated to consider Arminians to be truly evangelical. A number of leading Calvinists, such as Al Mohler and Philip Graham Ryken, call for humility and submission. They strive to live by a statement written anonymously in 1878: "We believe in the five great points commonly known as Calvinistic; but we do not regard these five points as being barbed shafts which we are to thrust between the ribs of our fellow-Christians. We look upon them as being five great lamps which help to irradiate the cross; or, rather, five bright emanations springing from the glorious covenant of our Triune God, and illustrating the great doctrine of Jesus crucified."
For a concise statement of my beliefs about salvation, see my Declaration of Faith.
