Why called but not chosen?

The choices of the called were what caused them to not be chosen.

Matthew 22:1-14

‘Contradictory’ Bible teachings that are nonetheless both true

Over at SBC Voices, Dave Miller has an excellent section on the “contradictory” teachings in the Bible that are nonetheless true — like the trinity, the deity of Christ, predestination and freedom — in an excellent post entitled Am I a Calvinist? You Make the Call!

Two things are affirmed in scripture which cannot both be true according to human logic.  But “his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.”  There is a divine logic, a divine intelligence which is beyond human grasp, beyond the understanding of the greatest minds in the world.

• God is one.  God is three.  Both cannot be true, but the scripture affirms both.
• Jesus is fully man.  Jesus is fully God.  Both cannot be true, but the scripture affirms both.
• Jesus is equal to the Father in essence.  Jesus submits to the Father.  Both cannot be true but the scripture affirms both.
• God chose those who would be saved before the foundation of the world.  A genuine response of faith, of the human will, is required to appropriate the salvation that God gives.  Both cannot be true but both are affirmed in scripture.

Essentially, I believe that a lot of the debate is an attempt to make us choose one side of an equation when both sides are affirmed in scripture.  Did God choose us, or do we have to make a response of faith to God?  I believe the Bible teaches both, so don’t ask me to choose just one side of the equation.  I’m willing to leave resolution of these antinomies in the logic and intelligence of God which is beyond my abilities.

Well said.

Read the full post here

 

Unconditional election

A Calvinist must insist human will plays no part in salvation; otherwise he would have to admit human will could bring about apostasy.

Who died on the cross for us?

Anyone who affirms election but not freedom — or freedom but not election — has got only half the truth.

I’m deeply saddened to see a spirit abroad in the Church like the one in the Corinthian congregation: “I follow Paul … I follow Apollos … I follow Peter.” The body of Christ is being divided into factions. Wouldn’t Paul ask us: “Was it Calvin who died on the cross for us? Were we baptized as Wesley’s disciples?”

Double predestination and apostasy

I’ve been chewing more on the Spurgeon quote about both election and freedom being true. I’ve realized that Spurgeon actually talks about “responsibility” in that sermon, not freedom. His focus is on the twin truths that “everything is fore-ordained” yet “man is responsible for all his actions.” Responsibility is not the same thing as freedom, and focusing on responsibility does make it a little easier to get my mind around the issue.

But my American mind gravitates toward the issue of freedom. I want to argue about the unfairness of being held responsible without being truly free. Some seem to resolve the problem by saying we are “free enough” to be held responsible, but how free is free enough? What does “free enough” mean if it stops short of full, genuine freedom? I want to fuss, like the objector in Romans 9:19, “Haven’t we simply done what God made us do?” And I accept Paul’s response in v.20: “Who are you, a mere human being, to criticize God?” (NLT)

But even if responsibility and freedom are not the same, doesn’t the first imply the latter? I think it is easier for an American to process the issue as predestination and freedom, rather than “sovereign grace and man’s responsibility,” as Spurgeon cast it.

Even if it’s easier for us to grasp the issue that way, and even if we can bring ourselves to affirm that we believe both to be biblical and therefore true, the rationalist in me still tries to impose one on the other. The issue becomes especially sharp when you reach the far end of each doctrine: that some people may be “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” (9:22) and that authentic believers may divorce themselves from Christ and be lost in eternity.

I can affirm both sovereignty and responsibility. I even can affirm both predestination and freedom. But can I affirm both the possibility of double predestination and apostasy? If we know in our minds that both predestination and human freedom are true, why do we struggle so much with accepting both double predestination and apostasy? I have wrestled through one side of that equation, but the other offends my individualistic sensibilities.

What about “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction”?

One way some translators attempt to soften the impact of Romans 9:22 is by casting it as a theoretical proposition: “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,” as the NKJV puts it. The italics indicates ‘what’ is not found in the original. But if you accept the truth that God predestines some to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29), doesn’t it follow that others are not predestined to be conformed? Or that others are predestined to not be conformed?

If you explain the concept of predestination as the idea that God, in his foreknowledge, knew who would choose him and prepared an appropriate destiny for them, does that really solve the paradox? Doesn’t that submit God’s sovereignty to human freedom? (I’m just asking. If you can explain this to me, I’d be grateful.)

Some of us struggle with the idea of double predestination because it runs against the grain of our culture or our religious upbringing; others resist the idea of apostasy, though for Americans I suspect it’s more because of training than culture.

If we agree that the Bible teaches both election and freedom, why do we find it so hard to accept the implications of both? If we rebel against the idea of double predestination, is it because we are more committed to freedom than election? If we resist the idea of apostasy, is it because we are more committed to election than freedom? (Again, I’m just asking.)

The question of the Trinity has been settled among us for 17 centuries or so, despite the fact that we can’t exactly explain how it is that God can be both one and three. The truth that Jesus was one person with a nature both fully human and fully divine – hypostatic union – has been nailed down for at least 16 centuries. Have we lived with the paradox for so long that we no longer feel the tension between those assertions?

If we have come to terms with these doctrines and accepted our human inability to resolve the tension, why do we continue to argue about predestination and freedom? Some of us are enamored with human freedom and reject the idea that God knew from the beginning – chose from the beginning – to prepare eternal destruction for some of us. Others are in thrall to predestination and reject the idea that, like Israel, people elected by God might still reject his purpose in their election and be lost in eternity. It seems to me that both sides are forced to ignore or misinterpret certain passages of Scripture to justify their views.

I have recently listened to people who presented themselves as compatibilists – affirming both divine sovereignty and human responsibility – who nevertheless rejected one or the other of the implications: that God predestines some to hell or that it is possible for the elect to divorce themselves from Christ.

A lot of us actually do the same thing, in effect, with the doctrine of the Trinity or hypostatic union. We say we believe Jesus was both fully divine and fully human, but we tend to diminish one aspect or the other. One acquaintance argues that Jesus only knew the divine will and could not sin because of that. Yet that seems to rob Jesus of his humanity and runs counter to the witness of Scripture: ”My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39) We affirm a Trinity, yet another acquaintance, who can explain the Father and Son in great detail, still doesn’t integrate the Holy Spirit into his teaching and practice in any manner nearly as significant as the other two.

Even when we affirm the paradoxes of faith, our tendency is still to gravitate away from one element of the paradox. I used to reject out of hand both the predestination of the lost and the possibility of apostasy. That changed as I began to see how some commentaries twist the Scripture out of shape to make it conform to the authors’ bent toward election. Now I’m wrestling with my cultural filters and the resistance to God’s sovereignty my society has been ingraining in me for most of my life.

I wish I knew someone who was a thoroughgoing compatibilist.

Seven convictions about Southern Baptists and Calvinism

Seven convictions I carried away from the Building Bridges conference on Southern Baptists and Calvinism:

(1) There are a lot of misunderstandings and stereotypes about what Calvinism is: “Calvinists aren’t evangelistic.” There also are misunderstandings and stereotypes about people who don’t hold to Calvinism: “Non-Calvinists don’t believe in eternal security.” We need to work hard to be sure we understand exactly what someone else believes, rather than assuming we know what they believe because of a label we have assigned to them. The only way to get past misunderstandings and stereotypes is to listen to each other with open hearts and minds. We agree about a lot more than we disagree about.

(2) The issue isn’t what Calvinism teaches but what the Bible teaches. If a doctrine held by a Calvinist has a basis in Scripture, I have no grounds to disagree, even if his explanation of the doctrine is somewhat different than the way I would describe it. If a doctrine held by a non-Calvinist has a basis in Scripture, I won’t argue with him either, even if my own thinking about the teaching is somewhat different. We have to realize that no two people are going to see things exactly the same way. Instead of arguing, we need to try to find what the Lord would teach us through the people we disagree with. Paul exhorted the Corinthian church to agree and not be divided, that they should allow themselves to be “made  complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1 Corinthians 1:10-13) We all follow Christ and should not identify ourselves in terms of some man’s teachings.

(3) Southern Baptists have been influenced by Calvinist teaching, and there is no arguing about that. It’s an historical fact. Most every Southern Baptist in history has agreed with one or more points of Calvin’s teaching; some have agreed with most of what he taught. Even in the act of disagreeing with Calvinistic teaching, we are being influenced by it. Again, it is more important that we take our focus off of Calvin and put it back on Christ and the Bible. We need to identify the fundamentals of biblical Baptist doctrine and agree on those, laying aside our disagreements on non-essentials until the day the Lord himself clarifies the truth for all of us.

(4) The biggest difference between Baptist and Calvinist teaching probably is in the area of church order, not Reformation doctrine. Baptists have historically been a congregational people, while Calvinists have been presbyterian. The truth is, many Southern Baptist churches actually are run by the deacons, not the congregation, and votes in business meeting only ratify what the deacons already have decided. An argument could be made that churches like that are in effect presbyterian, not congregational. On the other hand, 17th-century Calvinists baptized infants and persecuted Christians who practiced believer’s baptism. Even the most Calvinist Southern Baptists today are not about to adopt all the teachings of John Calvin and his followers. By the same token, virtually all Southern Baptists completely agree about teachings like original sin and complete depravity, and about salvation by grace through faith. If we are going to have a discussion about Calvinism, let’s focus on our Baptist distinctives about church order.

(5) The biggest difference between Southern Baptists on the issue of Calvinism probably has to do with election and free will. Some people emphasize the Bible teaching that “for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29) Others focus on the Bible truth that God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:18b) We realize that there is a tension between those teachings, and we sometimes make the mistake of emphasizing one over the other. The fact is, the Bible teaches both and both are therefore true, even if we don’t understand how to reconcile them. Non-Calvinists need to accept that the Bible teaches that if God made some people to be “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,” we are in no position to object. (Romans 9:20-22) Calvinists need to agree that salvation comes by grace through faith (Romans 10.9-10); God requires repentance and the obedience of faith. We can’t explain how both election and free will can be true, any more than we can explain how Jesus was both fully God and fully man, but the Bible teaches it. We should submit ourselves to the truth and refuse to argue.

(6) Where we think we disagree with a brother over an issue of being too Calvinistic, or not Calvinistic enough, we need to remember Paul’s admonition that where strife and divisions exist, it is because we are carnal and behaving like mere men. (1 Corinthians 3:3) We know that “the works of the flesh” include contention, outbursts of anger, and dissensions, while the fruit of the Spirit includes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and gentleness. (Galatians 5:19-23) We must be very careful to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:3) All of us agree that we are surrounded by lost souls and that we are commanded to preach Christ crucified for their salvation. We all agree that Christ expects us to reach out and serve “the least of these.” We all agree that Christ commanded us to make disciples of all the world’s peoples. We serve and proclaim Christ, not Calvin or “non-Calvin.”

(7) We need to be busy with the work of the Kingdom, not arguing about the finer points of systematic theology, because we don’t know when the Lord will return. We want him to find us serving as “faithful and wise stewards,” because the punishment awaiting a disobedient servant is too awful to contemplate (Luke 12:40-48).  If he returns to find us arguing about election or free will, rather than preaching the Gospel and equipping the saints, we aren’t going to be hearing him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”