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have not always been a Calvinist. As a matter of fact, I was raised in the context of a liberal Methodist church, so long before I ever became a Christian, my mind was poisoned with a blend of liberalism and Wesleyan theology. And after I became a Christian, it was several years before I finally came to the point where I could affirm the biblical doctrine of election without trying to explain away clear statements of Scripture like Ephesians 1:4 (which says that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world). Or Romans 9:15-16, where God says, "'I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.' So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."I resisted those ideas for years. I knew the word election is biblical, but I had a friend who explained it this way: "God voted for you the devil voted against you. You cast the deciding vote."
That made perfect sense to me.
Very early in my Christian experience, I went to a small church in the town where I attended college, and my Sunday-school teacher there was decidedly anti-Calvinistic. Almost every week, he would warn us against the dangers of putting too much stress on the sovereignty of God. Almost every week he would work into his lesson the idea that human free-will is sovereign, and the choice is ultimately left entirely up to each sinner to decide what to do with Christ. That seemed reasonable to me. It reinforced what I was inclined to believe anyway.
But at the same time, in my own study of the Scriptures and my reading of church history, I kept running into biblical statements and doctrinal issues that posed a severe challenge to that sort of free-will theology.
Then one Sunday while this guy was taking prayer requests, a girl in the class raised her hand and asked, "Should we really be praying for our lost relatives? It seems like it's a wasted effort to pray to God for their salvation if He can't do any more than he has already done to save them."
And I vividly remember the look on the face of this Sunday School teacher. This was clearly a question that had never occurred to him. So he thought about it for a moment, and you could see the wheels in his head turning while he tried to think of a good reason to pray for the salvation of the lost. And finally, he said, "Well, yeah, I guess you're right." And from that Sunday on, he never accepted any more prayer requests for people's lost loved ones.
That didn't seem quite right to me, even as a dyed-in-the-wool Arminian. I had just done a Bible study in Romans 10:1, where Paul says, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved." Not only that, I began to wonder why we should pray about anything in the realm of human relationships if God never intrudes on the sanctity of human free will. You know: Why should I pray for God to move my English teacher to look favorably on my work when she graded my paper if she is ultimately sovereign over her own heart? Those were questions I couldn't answer.
And the more I studied the Bible, the more it seemed to challenge my ideas about free will and the sovereignty of God. One by one over a period of more than 10 years, the doctrines of election, and God's sovereignty, and the total depravity of sinners became more and more clear to me from Scripture.
It was a sermon series by John MacArthur on the doctrine of election from Ephesians 2 that finally turned me into a full-fledged Calvinist, and that was at least 15 years after I first came to the Lord.
So I know what it is like to be baffled by these truths and to resist what seems like a dangerous tendency to go overboard with the doctrine of God's sovereignty. I've been there, and I feel your pain.
229 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 229 of 229“This is where good hermeneutics is so essential.”
Indeed.
”Do you begin to see the purpose of national election here?
I would ask you…
National election to what?
Johnny:
If Paul is writing about national and not individual salvation in Romans 9, then Romans 11 should refer to national and not individual salvation as well, in which case Romans 11:23 has no bearing on the regeneration of individual Jewish believers, and the promise that saved me is not a promise at all.
That being said, in Romans 11, Paul does seem to be envisioning a time in the future when a significant number of individuals from a nation will be saved, which is tantamount (but not equal) to a kind of national salvation.
"In Romans 9, Paul takes it back to the individuals--twins in their fetal state--and speaks of their individual election before the foundation of the world. Romans 9:10-12 makes this fact inescapably clear." -Phil
I like to look back to Romans eight, and start from there, or Romans 3, but that's a bit to far back to stay in the immediate context.
And so Paul is explaining election without a doubt. The elect of Israel, for not all are children, are they?
Romans 8:33 says: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?"
A good friend of mine, and Bible prof teaches the corporate thing. he even says, "This is so clear." Amazing! I see it completely the opposite, and say, "How could it be any clearer?"
"The question posed for the Apostle is: How can a covenant promise of God be regarded as inviolate when the mass of those who belong to Israel, who are comprised in the elect nation in terms of the OT passages cited above (Deut. 4:37 et al.), have remained in unbelief and come short of the covenant passages?...Paul's answer is not collective election of Israel but rather 'they are not all Israel, who are Israel.' And this means, in terms of the stage of discussion at which we have now arrived, 'they are not all elect, who are of elect Israel.' As we found above, there is the distinction between Israel and TRUE Israel, between children and TRUE children, between the seed and the TRUE seed. In such a distinction resides Paul's answer to Israel's unbelief." - John Murray, From James M. Boice's commentary.
It seems to me that God decided that as man's free will (Adam in the garden of Eden) got him into this mess, He would grant man free will to accept His solution.
That doesn't make God any less powerful, it's about how God applies His power.
Yes no doubt you will tell me that my theology is faulty, but hey your finite mind isn't going to understand God either.
Phil,
I'm getting into this late, I know, but I had a few questions I wonder if you wouldn't mind clearing up.
In your response to WWB's quotations of Calvin speaking on the decree of God to make some reprobate and some elect, it didn't look like you directly dealt with what WWB was concerned with. You focus on what makes the reprobate that way and claim it isn't directly God, but God removing Himself from the reprobate and using secondary causes. But that seems to be missing the greater point of the reason why any of those things happen at all, namely the causative decree of God.
It seems to me that, if you are correct, the primary cause for any individual action is the initial decree of God which happened in eternity past. All that happens thereafter, secondary causes and incidental occurrences that lead up to any specific event (which all also occur because of the decree of God), happen only because of the initial decree from God that they will happen. If this decree is causative, as you seem to think, and not simply a decree to allow something to occur, then God is the reason, it seems, for the reprobate being evil. That seems to be where the logic leads. Secondary causes don't seem to alleviate this conclusion, because the secondary causes are only acting according to the primary causer, ie God.
This is like if I moved a stone with a stick. The stick is the secondary cause of the stone moving, but it's still me doing the moving of the stone.
Can you explain why this is incorrect?
In response to Johnny D on Romans 9 you said, "Witness is exactly right. Malachi is speaking of the nations that descended from those two individuals. In Romans 9, Paul takes it back to the individuals--twins in their fetal state--and speaks of their individual election before the foundation of the world. Romans 9:10-12 makes this fact inescapably clear."
Unless his point is to show that the corporate election of God is not based on ethnic heritage, the works of man, nor on what man wants, but on what God chooses. That's why the Jews had gone astray because they were focusing on those things and not the way God had chosen (see v. 30 for that). Have you considered that interpretation?
Thanks for your time, and God bless :)
Johnny...I've observed your behavior in the Pyro threads for some time now. I simply choose not to engage you.
jules
I enjoy Johnny Dialectic's interactions on this blog. He is a constructive contributor to what makes this blog the unique entity that it is.
It's just that when it comes down to a few critical differences between Calvinistic and Arminian soteriology, we suddenly see things very differently.
Stefan...I simply prefer not to be goaded.
Jules:
True enough. This all started with his assertion that you were misinterpreting Romans 9, which was news to me, and I was glad to see such a thorough response.
Seriously, if Romans 9 to 11 is not about the promise of individual election and salvation (or at most, the election and salvation of individuals who constitute a nation), that would bring into question the entire means that God used to bring me to faith in Christ: a sermon series on those three chapters.
This has been an object lesson in not letting our systematic theology colour a plain reading of Scripture, something we are all prone to do.
Phil, it is only "inescapably clear" because you have only seen it through Calvinist presupps lo these many years.
Look VERY carefully at verse 12. “The older will serve the younger.”
SERVE...this is obviously not about salvation or individuals, it is about which nation shall have precedence. Malachi's commentary makes THAT "inescapably clear."
The entirety of Ro. 9 is about election...to SERVICE. In specific, service in the carrying of the covenants down to Jesus.
Have a gander at Genesis 25:23 again. Does the Lord say "You have two individuals in your womb"? Or is that word "nations" there?
Johnny:
Then what is Romans 9:6 about? Paul is explicitly making a distinction there between individuals and the nation, a distinction that he picks up again in 9:27 and 11:1, 4-5, 7, and 14.
"Phil, it is only "inescapably clear" because you have only seen it through Calvinist presupps lo these many years."
And you see it through...?
JD, I think you know better than to say something like that bro.
Piper sermon on Exodus 9:8-17. Preached Feb 9, 2003:
http://desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2003/124_The_Hardening_of_Pharaoh_and_the_Hope_of_the_World/
Piper's view of unconditional hardening and reprobation is found as early as "The Justification of God."
The following is an excerpt of the MP3 sermon (linked above) that I had typed out. John Piper comments on his quotation of John Stott’s citation of Leon Morris:
“Fifth, the objection to Paul’s answer or Paul’s statement given in verse 19 shows that Paul did not deal with the sovereignty of God the way we deal with it today when we try to defend God. You see the objection they raise in verse 19: ‘You will say to me then’–now what has he just said? He has just said, He hardens who He wills. He hardens who He wills. And they say: ‘You will say to me then, well why does He still find fault?! For who can resist His will?!’ Answer: Nobody. That’s the lesson he drew from Pharaoh. Now at this point, at this point, amazingly, otherwise thoughtful, reasonable, good commentators lose their senses–and say the most unbelievable things. I’ll read you one excerpt from a commentator that you would all recognize as a very good one. I quote from him often, and he writes on this verse:
“‘Neither here nor anywhere else is God said to harden anyone who has not first hardened himself.’ That Pharaoh hardened his heart against God and refused to humble himself is made plain in the story. So God’s hardening of him was a judicial act, abandoning him to his own stubbornness.”
Now let me say calmly and firmly. That’s the opposite of what this text says. Can I say that calmly with no loss of control. That is the opposite of what this text says. That’s frightening. When otherwise good commentators take a text and make it stand exactly on its head. Now here’s my argument–my fifth argument:
If Paul agreed with that, he’s got a ready made answer in verse 19, help us Paul! Why does He still find fault? Tell us the answer that the commentator had. He’s got an answer why don’t you have an answer?! His answer is: It’s a judicial act. He deserves to be hardened. He did something prior to the hardening that brought the hardening upon him. That’s what the commentator says, you say that. Help us!
The reason Paul doesn’t say that is because it isn’t the answer. And it isn’t true. Because he just said: ‘He hardens whom He wills,’ not ‘He hardens who deserves to be hardened.’ We just can’t submit! And so Paul says in response to this question–a heartfelt pointed question: “Who are you O man, to answer back to God?’
So my fifth reason is that the answer Paul gives to the objection, why does He still find fault? is not the modern answer–or the old one. It is, bow down and accept the mystery.”
I was decidedly anti-Calvinistic and hyper-Arminian until I sat under the teaching of a pastor who patiently explained the Biblical doctrines of grace to me for a period of 5 years. However, I still considered myself a "very balanced" Arminian UNTIL I heard John MacArthur on the radio saying that there is a paradox in divine election and human responsibility. My pastor later confirmed this, calling it a mystery. I thought these were rather un-Calvinistic statements, but they made me think - A LOT.
Later, I discovered historic Calvinists almost unanimously hold this ingeniously balanced position, a position that rightly incorporates the significance of human freedom within the absolute sovereignty of God. All my Calvinistic straw men fell over dead, and I suddenly saw the real thing. I couldn't believe I had missed it all those years, when I thought Calvinists were simply fatalistic Christians. The Reformed view is much more complex, much deeper, much more weighty than that. I wish I could say the same for Arminianism.
Thanks for the good post.
Derek
To alleviate any possible confusion or consternation on the part of certain Calvinists, Piper, while holding to a minority position among the Reformed world with unconditional hardening/reprobation, does not hold to active efficient hardening but passive.
Something related to this issue:
d. God actively causes the reprobate to hate His glory, persecute His people, and oppose His gospel, that He may justly punish them. [Exo 7:3; 9:12; Jos 11:20; 1Sa 2:25; Psa 105:25; Rom 9:18; Rev 17:17]
http://www.outsidethecamp.org/ccfii.htm
Johnny D:
Concerning your "nations" scheme, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on 1 Chronicles 5:2 - where the "Scepter" and the "birthright" promises are mentioned. I'd be most interested in hearing your thoughts concerning birthright promises toward Joseph, pertaining to national (Israel) blessings.
Thanks,
Rick
I remember when you gave this talk at the Shepherds' Conference a few years ago. It was great. I am thankful for your clear (and witty) messages on Calvinism/5 Solas/Reformed theology over the last few years at ShepCons.
Johnny Dialectic: Olan, answer the question I asked Jules: What is the point of Malachi 1:2-3? Individual salvation or the fate of nations?
It’s both unless you overlook the overall context of Scripture for the sake of establishing an unbiblical doctrine. Not only do we understand from the account in Genesis that God’s choice of Jacob over Esau was for individual salvation, we also understand it from the New Testament – “That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal” (Hebrews 12:16).
In Romans 9 it is the individual selection unto salvation that Paul is dealing with. That is the overall context of the book of Romans which is the Holy Spirit inspired explanation of the Gospel of individual salvation.
Johnny Dialectic: And BTW, let's not forget that just as individual verses in Romans 9 are in a larger context; so is Romans 9 itself. You can begin to get a better handle on it by going back to 3:1 and reading from there, esp: "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God."
LOL! Romans 3 is actually arguing against national salvation and the false notion that most Jews held that they were guaranteed salvation because they had the Law. This is why they hated Paul and accused him of preaching against the people, against the Law, and against God – a charge that Paul was already anticipating and heading off in Romans 2:17.
The Jews' views of national salvation brought them to false conclusions about the Gospel.
Paul sets the context for this passage with this first bookend by expressing his extreme sorrow over the separation of his kinsmen(Israelites) from the Savior. He would willingly take their place, if he could, being accursed and cut off(read unsaved).
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. ~Romans 9:1-3(ESV)
So then this passage is salvific in nature and the idea of service is only an illustration in that salvation is by election. IOW, the service of Esau to Jacob serves(pun intended) to prove that salvation is by God’s choice not because of some established norm or birthright.
Look again at the passage JD…
though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." ~Romans 9:11-13
So God’s purpose of election “might continue” (remain unbroken) Rebekah was told that in spite of tradition and birthright God chooses that Esau would serve Jacob, that God chose to love Jacob and hate Esau. And all of this is not based on some inherent goodness or badness of Jacob and Esau, but on God’s sovereign choice.
So what is the purpose of God’s election? Is election for service in view here or election to salvation? The remaining verses of this chapter are clearly speaking about salvation as the context was set with the first bookend in verses 1-3. Then we have this closing bookend at the beginning of chapter 10…
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. ~Romans 10:1
You have to be really trying to ignore the obvious subject of the salvation of the Jews here and superimposing the idea of election is for service alone.
Have you ever read Ephesians 1 and 2?
The idea that Paul is willing to die, and go to hell, forever seperated from the Savior because of service is beyond ludicrous...
and I mean that in the most loving way.
A big point in Romans 9 is vv. 31-32:
"but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone."
It seems that all that came previously in the chapter is Paul defending God's right to save whom He chooses. (And He chooses to save those who put their faith in Christ.) It seems like the Jews believed that God would save anyone who followed the law rigorously or who was a physical descendant of Abraham. And Paul used examples where God did not use those criteria in choosing people.
Paul is definitely arguing that election is unmerited, but I see no reason to believe that he's arguing that it's UNCONDITIONAL. Romans 9 doesn't disprove unconditional election, but I don't see how it proves it either.
My goodness at the can o'worms.
This wasn't a deciding factor for me (Scripture was, though I was reluctant but had been brought to a place where I was willing to bow the knee to whatever the truth of Scripture was, and was given illuminating grace and a voracious hunger for it --- because Christ came and got me, breaking my uplifted arm and subduing this rebel who wanted nothing more to do with Him)....but it was tremendously helpful in finding the line so that I wouldn't cross over into hyper-land:
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0239.htm
"..but I don't see how it proves it either."
How about God says, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."
It's not how we run, or exert ourselves, or even will, but to the Lord, who shows mercy to whom He purposes to.
God shows mercy to all those He knows, and loves, from before the foundation of the world.
The huge question is why He would love any rebel, who doesn't want his love, and is unthankful.
God also hardens whom he will. And, rally, I would think we should all be hardened.
Yet, the 'world view' of the Church today is that God loves all humans the same, and hopes we all will accept Him. They miss the truth of God's wrath and holy anger, which hovers over this dark and perverse world, and which will be poured out.
Mercy means we receive what we don't deserve. Absolutely zero worthy of any goodness from God.
All of this makes God's mercy and grace so much greater than we could ever imagine!
It's beyond comprehension that he loves us, and died for us, and has included us in His righteous kingdom, to inherit all things as brothers and sisters of Christ the King of kings!
Stefan, thanks for your kind words. I appreciate your spirit of engagement here. In fact, most folks who post regularly here are respectful even when engaged in heated debate, and I hope I return the same favor.
Re: Romans 9. There is SO much to be said...but let me try to give an overview statement for the whole of Romans.
The book can be summarized, IMO, as having one main focus: how can someone be right with God? Key phrase: The righteous will live by faith.
Paul, as a "bottom line," wants everyone to know that "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (10:13).
Inside that overall message is an objection: from ethnic Jews. "Hey! What about us? The chosen people? The ones with the Law?" It is this objection that Paul is dealing with in 9:6 ff. (but actually begins back in 3:1 ff.) That's why it's an argument about national election and God's right to do with any nation as he sees fit.
Now, within those broad contours there's a whole lot of study to do on individual verses, but if we don't get the big picture right, we'll never get the details right.
That's my overall point. Thanks again.
"That's why it's an argument about national election and God's right to do with any nation as he sees fit."
I heard a preacher once say, "How odd, of God, to choose, the Jews."
God certainly did choose Abram.
Why did he choose Abram, out of all then men in the earth?
Because he loved him, of course.
But why did he love him, and call him?
What do you think JD? Just curious.
BTW, one of my best friends, who is an amzing Bible teacher and prof, who is non-reformed, sees Romans 9 the same way you do. And I don't think I respect any believer in Christ more than he. Though we have had our heated discussions over the years.
Don:
That was a verse penned by one William Norman Ewer, to which someone (possibly Ogden Nash) replied:
(How odd of God
To choose the Jews,)
But not so odd
As those who choose
A Jewish God
Yet spurn the Jews.
Johnny:
In Romans 9 to 11, Paul seems to be writing on the principle of individual salvation (in a national context), and over against the principle of national salvation, for precisely the reason you stated: "the righteous shall live by faith."
Very nice. A Reformed United Methodist will be very pleased to share this on his Facebook wall..
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