Building Bridges: Southern Baptists and Calvinism

Many of you are probably aware of the Nov. 26-28 Building Bridges conference held at the Lifeway Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina. This was a historic meeting that discussed Calvinism and it's role in the Southern Baptist Convention. From the accounts I have read, this meeting was a huge success.

All the messages are freely available here and I really hope that folks on both sides of the theological divide will take time to listen to the sermons. I've saved the messages to my computer and I'm listening through them now. So far both sides have (for the most part) presented their case maturely and with a spirit of Christian charity.

Soli Deo Gloria!

If Election is True, Why Evangelize?

This segment of the Amazing Grace DVD addresses the question that most people ask when first exposed to the Biblical doctrine of Sovereign Election:

God's Sovereignty vs. Libertarian Free Will

Another clip from the Amazing Grace DVD. This time dealing with the topic of God's sovereignty and human freedom. The quality is not the best, but it is well worth watching... Ideas have consequences. And when man's freewill is elevated above God's sovereignty, it only leads to problems: theologically as well as socially!

Atonement: Payment or Possibility?

A helpful video segment on a very controversial topic:



From the video Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism

I, Robot?

Soon after shifting into the Calvinist camp, one of the first arguments I encountered against my theology was "Calvinism makes man into a robot."

At first glance, this argument sounds logical; for if God has predestined every single detail of everything that happens in Creation (up to and including who is saved), how then can humanity be anything but bunch of robots?

By our very experience in life, we can see that we do make choices. That is, we make real choices that result in real consequences. Yet, somehow in a way that I do not understand, all of our choices are made freely, and yet, preordained by God before the foundation of the world.

To demonstrate this how God's decree and men's choice work together, I ask you to consider the following example from Acts 27:

During Paul's voyage to Rome by Sea, the ship encountered a terrible storm. During the storm Paul tells the sailors that an angel visited him by night and told him that no one would perish, yet the ship would be lost. Later on, some of the sailors decide to escape on a small boat, but Paul tells the Centurion and the soldiers "unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved." The soldiers decide to heed Paul's warning and cut the ropes to the small boat and abandon their escape plan. Later the ship wrecks and all 276 souls survive just as the angel foretold.

In this narrative we can get a glimpse of how the choices of men and God's sovereign decree work hand in hand. Paul knows that no lives will be lost because the angel of the Lord told him so, yet, Paul takes action when he sees the men act in a way that will lead to disaster.

Every person on the ship was making choices -of their own volition- concerning everything they were doing. Every choice they made had a potential outcome; yet out of all the possible outcomes, of all the choices that were being made by every person, the final outcome was, in fact, that which God revealed to Paul.

Concerning this passage, the great Baptist theologian John Gill has written:

"[T]his teaches us that the end and means, in the decrees of God, are not to be separated; nor is any end to be expected without the use of means; and means are as peremptorily fixed, and are as absolutely necessary, and must as certainly be accomplished, as the end."

As Gill has stated, God decrees the end and the means to bring about the appointed end. There's not one choice we will ever make, nor action that we will ever undertake that will fall outside of God's providential control. God's control includes actions good and evil alike.

As a matter of fact, the most heinous act in history -the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ- was the totally the fault of wicked men, and yet, predestined by God to take place! (see Acts 2: 22-23) Though men intended to murder Jesus out of the evil in their hearts, God planned Christ's death to redeem His people from their sin.

Even in spite of the example I have given from Acts 27, some will protest that God simply foresaw the outcome of Paul's situation. Likewise, they will also say that God simply foresees who will choose to be saved and who will not -and that He predestines everything accordingly. Many will do this with the intention of "getting God off the hook" for not choosing to save every human being.

Dr. Wayne Grudem explains why the idea of the predestination based on foreknowledge is incorrect:

"The idea that God's predestination of some to believe is based on foreknowledge of their faith encounters still another problem: upon reflection, this system turns out to give no real freedom to man either. For if God can look into the future and see that person A will come to faith in Christ, and that person B will not come to faith in Christ, then those facts are already fixed, they are already determined.

If we assume that God's knowledge of the future is true (which it must be), then it is absolutely certain that person A will believe and person B will not. There is no way that their lives could turn out any differently than this. Therefore it is fair to say that their destinies are still determined, for they could not be otherwise. But by what are these destinies determined? If they are determined by God himself, then we no longer have election based ultimately on foreknowledge of faith, but rather on God's sovereign will. But if these destinies are not determined by God, then who or what determines them?

Certainly no Christian would say that there is some powerful being other than God controlling people's destinies. Therefore it seems that the only other possible solution is to say they are determined by some impersonal force, some kind of fate, operative in the universe, making things turn out as they do. But what kind of benefit is this? We have then sacrificed election in love by a personal God for a kind of determinism by an impersonal force and God is no longer to be given the ultimate credit for our salvation." (From Grudem's Systematic Theology Ch. 32)


Are we really robots? No... The Apostle Paul said we are clay -and the Potter has the right to do with the clay as He sees fit!

You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? (Romans 9:19-21 ESV)

Soli Deo Gloria!

Photo from Wikipedia.

It Depends Not on Human Will

Once upon a time, I was researching some theological issues that were on my mind. In particular I was interested in Freewill. So I typed the word "freewill" (and other variations) into my Bible software to search and see what the Bible taught about the subject. Several hits came up and I read them all in context.

Do you know what I found?

I found lots of verses in the Bible where the word "freewill" was used. Almost everyone of those references were about "freewill offerings." I also found a single passage in Ezra 7 where king
Artaxerxes made a decree that "all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem..." (v:13 KJV)

Do you know what I did not find?

I did not find one didactic passage of Scripture in which a Prophet, The Lord Jesus, or an Apostle laid out any doctrine about God giving man an autonomous freewill that is immune to the influence of the Fall of Adam, in which man could therefore freely choose to accept or reject Jesus.

Let me restate that for clarity: I did not find one place in the Bible were anybody taught about God giving man a "freewill to accept Him or reject Him," nor did I find anything in the Bible about God having to "respect man's freewill choice" as I have heard proclaimed by many modern Evangelicals. The fact is, there's no such teaching in Scripture.

The popular Christian doctrine of "freewill" is a phantom doctrine. It's amazing to me how some Evangelicals place so much doctrinal emphasis on "freewill" when there's not one didactic passage in all the Bible they can point to in support of their theories about it! Please bear in mind that I made this discovery not by reading something a Calvinist wrote, but while I was a Semi-Pelagian!

With my denial of the popular conception of Freewill, am I then saying man is an automaton? To answer that, I shall quote the great Puritan scholar John Owen:

"We grant man, in the substance of all his actions, as much power, liberty, and freedom as a mere created creature is capable of. We grant him to be free in his choice from all outward coaction, or inward necessity, to work according to election and deliberation, spontaneously embracing what seemeth good unto him. Now, call this power free-will if you, or what you please, so you make it not supreme, independent, and boundless, we are not at all troubled." -A Display of Arminianism Ch. 7

We have a liberty to make choices, but those choices will always be dictated by our nature and will never escape God's Providence. If, as the Bible clearly teaches in Romans 6, lost men are slaves unto sin, how then can he have a "freewill" to choose to be saved? Slaves are not free! Those who are slaves to sin must be freed in order to become servants of Christ!

Most Christians will proclaim that salvation is of the Lord. They will affirm that God is to get all the credit. However, almost always, they will qualify that by saying something like "but God has given each human a freewill to choose or reject Him."

What does the Bible say about man's will in relation to being saved? I will provide two very clear statements:

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:11-13 ESV)

Here John shows us that people are Born Again not because of their bloodline, nor because of their own will, but by the will of God!

In Romans 9, when Paul is discussing why God chose and loved Jacob and yet rejected and hated Esau, Paul says this:

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 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 depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (Romans 9:14-16 ESV)

Note that last sentence! Paul clearly states that "it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy"!!

We see from these two passages that God is in total control of salvation. God, by the preaching of the Gospel and power of the Holy Spirit, brings dead sinners to life through regeneration thus liberating their fallen, sinful, rebellious will so that they may then freely choose to repent and follow Christ! In this way it is God alone who receives all the praise and glory for the salvation of a sinner.

It is solely because Christ is the author and finisher of our faith that Paul can say:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)

(It must also be noted that it's not just Reformed theologians who believe man's will is not autonomous. There are many branches of science in which the existence of freewill is debated.)

Soli Deo Gloria!

Decisional Regeneration: The Plague of Modern Evangelism

Please see also my Rant called Decisions or Disciples: What's the Goal?

Man is the Master of his Destiny?

"If man is in total control of his future, then he should at least be in control of his own body. Instead, he is subject to involuntary yawning, sneezing, breathing, swallowing, sleeping, salivating, dreaming, blinking, and thinking. He can't even control hair and nail growth. He automatically does these things, irrespective of his will. God has set his body in motion and there is little he can do about it. He also has minimal control over his daily bodily functions. His kidneys, bladder, intestines, heart, liver, lungs, etc., work independently of his will. It is ludicrous to say that man controls his future when he has trouble predicting the stock market, political outcomes, earthquakes, and even the weather, let alone having control over these things." --Ray Comfort

(taken from The School of Biblical Evangelism Textbook, p 477)

So, you disagree with Calvinists, eh?

Well, don't worry, because you are not alone...

There's plenty of people who disagree with Calvinists on the issues of Free Will and Predestination.

To see a some of the groups who will stand with you against Calvinists on these doctrines, please check out this post by Josh Hitchcock.

Proof Text Found!

For God so loved the world, that He gave man an autonomous Free Will, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. -Pelagius 3:16

Arminian Contradictions

"If salvation depends upon free will, what do you mean by praying that God will have mercy upon all men, and save them with an everlasting salvation, and then tell the congregation that God has done all He can to save them, and the matter now rests with them, whether they will be saved or not? Surely, such vain jangling can never be acceptable to God, however it may feed the carnal mind of man; for if God has done all He can, why pray for him to do more? And if He has not done all He can, why tell the people He has? Strange as such contradictions may seem to a sensible mind, they are frequently produced in the course of one hour by an Arminian preacher." --From a letter by Willian Gadsby (1773-1844) to Edward Smyth.

-Appearing on p. 91 of the April 2006 edition of the Primitive Baptist publication "Advocate and Messenger."

Take the Freewill Challenge

Take the Freewill Challenge!

There is no disputing that both saved and unsaved people have a Will to make choices. I don't think a single Reformed Christian would dispute that. We all make choices everyday. What clothes to wear, what food to eat, there's no doubt life is full of choices. The point of contention between some Christians usually arises when the discussion turns to just how much the sinner's Will plays in the conversion experience.

In some theological systems, the will of man is elevated to an almost idolatrous level! I have heard many good sermons go terribly wrong when the preacher interjects humanistic theology by declaring, "God always respects man's freewill to chose or reject Him" or "God has given man a Freewill to choose or reject Him". Once upon a time, statements like I just quoted, sounded like good preaching, but not anymore! There has been a radical shift in my theology. A few years ago, I learned that is only by God's effectual Grace, working in a lost sinner's heart, that a man's fallen Will is then liberated so that he can then freely chose to Repent and follow Christ!

I realize what I have just written flies in the face of popular Evangelical theology. Some will even label me a heretic for such theology, but that's okay with me. The fact is, had God not granted us the desire and faith to be saved, we would have never chosen to be saved on our own! Ephesians 2 tells us that a sinner is DEAD in trespasses and sins. This illustrates to us the dire situation of the sinner. A sinner has no power to save himself apart from the working of God in his soul. Charles Spurgeon once said, "When we shall see the dead rise from the grave by their own power, then may we expect to see ungodly sinners of their own free will turning to Christ".

In his book The Sovereignty of God, A. W. Pink wrote, "What is the Will? We answer, the will is the faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all action. Choice necessarily implies the refusal of the one thing and the acceptance of another. The positive and the negative must both be present to the mind before there can be any choice. In every act of the will there is a preference - the desiring of one thing rather than another". You see, the Will of man is not autonomous or uninfluenced by outside pressures. The will chooses that which the heart of a man truly desires. Sinners reject Christ because their Will is bound to sin.

Some will still dispute my position. Some will still contend that it's a "Freewill Choice" that makes all the difference in someone being saved, yet in Romans 9:16 (ESV) the Scripture plainly tells us that God's mercy in Salvation "depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy". In John 1:12 (ESV) the Bible tells us that those who are children of God "were born, not of the blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God". How much more plain can that be? The Word of God plainly states that man's Freewill is not the central hinge upon what Salvation hangs! Why then do preachers and theologians teach the total opposite and rob God of His rightful position as the Sovereign God of the Universe who alone changes the hearts of evil men?

Reformed Christians have often been slandered by people who teach that we believe God, "turns away sinners who want to be saved, and forces others into the Kingdom against their Will". This is totally false. I believe all Calvinists would affirm that God will save ALL who come to Him through Christ Jesus. We believe that "whosoever believes will be saved". The difference is that we understand that the "whosoevers" will never WILLINGLY believe or come to God, unless God first liberates their fallen Wills, so that they can then freely choose to believe and serve Him. Remember, God has already commanded all sinners to repent! Every man has been commanded to come to Christ, but fallen man lacks moral ability to do so!

In conclusion, the title of my Rant is "Take the Freewill Challenge" and that's exactly what I want you to do --especially if you totally disagree with my theological postion! I want Christians to see that "Freewill" is not as wonderful as some people teach. So with that in mind, I want you to exercise your Freewill and CHOOSE, for the next 12 days, to not sin in word, in deed, or in thought. I want you to use your Freewill to love God with ALL your HEART, MIND, SOUL, and MIGHT (and love thy neighbor as thyself) every second of everyday! "Will" yourself to be "perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect"!

In this challange I am including sins of commission as well as sins of omission! If the Will is totally free from all outside influence and is totally autonomous as some people teach, this ought to be a problem at all! You must simply exercise your Will and CHOOSE to do it!

Semper Reformada!