Intro & Overview
Tom Shrader begins a series on the doctrines of grace, explaining how Calvinism emerged historically as a response to Jacob Arminius's teaching that salvation is a joint venture between God and man. Using passages from John 6 and 10, he demonstrates that Jesus taught salvation is entirely God's work - God chooses, draws, saves, and secures His people without human contribution. This foundational teaching sets up seven weeks exploring how God saves sinners through His sovereign grace alone.
“God saves sinners - God the actor, saves the action, sinners you and me the recipient of that.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (2006)
Recorded: 2006
Duration: 54 min
Themes: salvation, grace, sovereignty, election, security, redemption, faith, mercy, new believer, questioning salvation, doubting security, seeking assurance, church member, bible study participant, theology student, pastor
Scripture: John 6:44, John 6:65, John 10:11, John 6:37, John 10:27-28, 2 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Romans 8:28-39, Jonah 2:9, John 3:16, Revelation 3:20
Theological Themes: calvinism, doctrines of grace, arminianism, soteriology, predestination, perseverance of saints, total depravity, unconditional election
Full Transcript
Today, we start a new series, new in the sense that this is the first Sunday of the series, but it's a series that is familiar to many of us. It's titled God's Plan for Salvation. We teach it in the fall of the even-numbered years, so that would be now. It is one of the staples at East Valley Bible Church.
It is significant to us. If you think through this for a moment, if we're going to devote seven or eight Sundays every other year to some very specific teaching on a topic, you know it's important to us. If you want to understand East Valley Bible Church, doctrine is an important part of that church. So it is significant.
It is, for some of you, brand new. Some of you are caught totally off guard, you just happen to be here, and this is part of it. Some of you have heard, perhaps, things about the study, but never been through it. Numerous of you have been through the study, and I appreciate the comments that I get.
Why This Study Matters
This is representative of a couple of them, emails. One writes this: "I love the times when you teach this important stuff. I can't believe it's been two years, I learn new things each time," so that's important. Another one, and this captures it as well: "I'm thrilled that you're going to be presenting this series of messages again. I've had an opportunity to listen to you teach on this topic two times, and through the truths I learned from the teaching and from God, God has radically changed my life."
So that's our intention, is that we look at God's plan for salvation, and what we're talking about here is really how God saves you. There's a fundamental sentence that almost everybody who says they're a Christian would kind of check off and agree to, and in three words it goes like this: God saves sinners. We kind of all say okay to that, well what this series is about is really elaborating on that, expanding on this, talking about how He saves people. We're talking about the experience of salvation that you might have had, and contrasting that with what the Bible says about what occurred theologically within that same setting.
Common Questions and Reactions
Almost every Connect One class, somebody will say, because what that class consists of is an explanation about East Valley Bible Church, meeting some of the leadership team, going through doctrinal statements and values and all these kinds of things. And then I come in for my part, which almost always is just Q&A, I find that to be the most effective. You know, let's find out what's on your mind, not on mine.
Almost always somebody will say, "I am here because you are a Calvinistic church, and that's why I'm here, and I'm here for that." Which usually prompts somebody else to say, "What's a Calvinist?" And then somebody else will say, "You know, I was warned about this, okay? I told my friends that I was going to go to East Valley Bible Church, and they said, well I'd be really careful there, because they are that Calvinistic church, and you need to watch out." And it's always said with a little shot in it, isn't it? "Oh, you believe that stuff, Calvinists."
A Timely Discussion
Our timing is good, by the way, let me show you the cover of the latest edition of Christianity Today. It speaks to the very topic that we're at right now. It's a guy wearing a t-shirt, picture of Jonathan Edwards, it says, "Jonathan Edwards is my home boy," which probably doesn't go together. But the article, if you turn to the inside, says, "Young, restless, and reformed: Calvinism is making a comeback and shaking up the church."
Well, Calvinism has been shaking up this church since November 3rd, 1991. It is interesting to me, and what that article goes on to say is, especially among young people, that there's this resurgence of not just interest, but acceptance and understanding that God is sovereign in all things, including salvation.
Now, when we start talking about words like Calvinism, and I go back and forth, and some of my friends would never use this term, some of my friends would never do this series, out of the scripture, I find indeed does flow these truths. But it is really helpful, I think, to pull these truths together and put them in some systematic way. That's my feeling anyway.
Addressing Misconceptions
So you may have been here six months, you could have been here almost two years and say, "I've never even heard this term Calvinism. Are you guys ashamed of this?" We'd say no, we're not ashamed of this. But sometimes just to use the word, and just to say that it's been accomplished, is not beneficial either. So much confusion on the word.
This is really one of my favorite stories that illustrates it. I was teaching at Forest Home, and Forest Home is a Christian camp over in California. On a typical summer type family camp, there'll be tons of families, and there'll be kids and students, and I'll have sessions with the families, with the adults. I'll do a morning session, and typically we'll do it, I guess we start on Sunday, really. So I would have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I do six sessions.
About the second or third session, people are beginning to warm up to who you are a little bit. And the evening of the third night, we're done with the morning session, evening session, and it's our time for adults only, the kids are off doing their things. They're out at these tables, it's poolside, the candles are lit, it's a great night. There's people sitting, though they don't know each other, there's a few people who do, and so they're hanging together, people are mixing, mingling, all that stuff.
There's one table there with four or five couples that I've met the first couple of days, and they're all from the same church. So I'm kind of going around and saying hello to everybody, and on my way to bed, it's past my bedtime. And so there's that table, and I stop and say hello, and these people are all from the same church, and like we were talking about last week, struggling.
Sermon Part 2: Understanding the Labels
I was on a retreat recently at Forest Home, and I met some pastors who were struggling a little bit with their church. It always makes it difficult when it's the elder team and the pastor that's there struggling, but nonetheless, they're the ones struggling. They said, "Tell us about your church." So I would tell them about East Valley Bible Church, as I would see it.
They'd say, "Well, are you part of a denomination?" I would say, "No, we aren't." They'd say, "Are you an independent church then?" I would say, "Well, I guess so in that term." "What do you teach?" We would say, "The Bible. We teach the Bible." "Well, is there anything distinctive about your church?"
Normally, I would just let that sit - I'm not up for that - but I thought I'll never see these folks again, so let's just drop a little bomb on there. So I said, "Well, we'd be Calvinistic."
The Reaction to Calvinism
So the one guy - this always starts this intramural discussion - said, "What's a Calvinist?" And the other guy said, "Well, that's the people that believe that God ordains everything and that we're just robots." The other guy said, "Well, I don't think he's a Calvinist." The other guy said, "Well, I think he is." The other guy said, "Well, he's not." He said, "Well, he said he is." He said, "Well, he can't be. Look at him." I always like that too - apparently Calvinists are tall and thin, I guess, handsome.
So I just walked back to my cabin laughing and enjoying the night, knowing that I've ruined their week. But part of that, you just get a glimpse there of what happens when you introduce this word - there's all this misunderstanding. So my view has been for years since we started really at East Valley Bible Church is that you have to just hit this head on.
We have to understand that people from East Valley Bible Church, as you talk to other people in the community, you find - I find very few people are neutral about East Valley Bible Church. They tend to either love us or hate us. I'm okay with that. I wish they all loved us, but it rarely ends up that way. I think the dividing issue, and the reason that people are so clear on that is because we're very clear on who we are and what we believe.
Why This Matters
So when you come to this idea of Calvinism, what is that? What's it mean? What's it going to do? Now, again, I want you to understand that some of you were upset in your world because you're going, "I don't know anything about this. What have I gotten myself into? What's going on here?" So what you need to do is really kind of just relax and let us work our way through this as we define what Calvinism is, as we try to examine and see if those people by the pool at Forest Home really did know what was going on.
Why? Try to understand, why is there such a reaction to this? Why do people respond so strongly to this idea? Part of it is, again, you're dealing out of ignorance. Almost always when somebody says, "You're not one of those Calvinists, are you? I wouldn't go to that church," if you ask them like two questions, they're stumped. They don't know anything about it.
But it's like calling somebody really a racist or a bigot or a fascist. You just throw that term out, and it's a very destructive term. It bothers me a great deal, and it's hard for me to mask it, but it bothers me a great deal when people talk about me or us in those terms, and yet really have almost no idea what they're talking about.
Or say, "I know exactly what it means," but then they'll go, "It really doesn't make any difference. It really doesn't matter. It's comparable to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It doesn't matter anything. It's totally theoretical." Did you get that second email? These truths have changed my life.
Two Competing Views
There's two competing views, and again, I know when we use labels, they can easily - we can miss some, and there's nuances and subsets. I got all that figured out, but for our purpose, we'll use at least these two labels today, these two terms: Arminianism and Calvinism. They're two competing views.
Arminianism says this, and I want to be as true as I can to this. I want to just present this. In a minute, we'll just go through exactly what Jacob Arminius taught. But in a nutshell, here's what he says: Listen, salvation is a joint venture between you and God. God is powerful. God does some very important things, but He's not going to intrude in this idea of salvation.
I used to attend a church where the pastor said this: "God's voted yes about your salvation. Satan's voted no about your salvation. Now you cast the deciding vote." That would be pretty accurate view of Arminianism.
Calvinism would say, "Well, no, you don't have a vote. This is totally about God, that God chooses those that'll be saved, they will be saved, none will be lost. All will be secured, not through this world, but through all of eternity. And salvation is utterly, entirely, completely a work of God." So you can see, these are two opposing views.
Personal Experience and Impact
Now the reason this matters is that ultimately, what you believe has to flesh itself out in the way you live. It'll affect, for example, your evangelism. It will affect your view of God. Arminian, Arminius has a big view of God, but not nearly as big as the biblical view of God.
I can speak, I think, to this with some level of credibility in that for my life as a follower of Christ, it began as an Arminian. I believed that God had saved me, but I believe it had gone like this: I had a mustard seed of faith. I brought my mustard seed, He expanded on it. That's kind of how I saw it. If you said to me, "Well, what do you do about this choosing thing?" I would say, "Well, I'll have to get back to you on that, I don't have it figured out."
In fact, I had been a Christian a while, and I'm invited to kind of a dessert, and this guy's speaking, and he's talking about the sovereignty of God. In fact, he's using the A.W. Pink book.
That night, we were all done in the kitchen, and he said to me, "What do you think of this?" I said, "I think you are absolutely full of it. I don't think this is even close to being true. I asked Jesus into my heart. I came to Christ in repentance faith. I did this." He said, "Well, I don't believe that lines up with what the scripture says." I said, "Well, it lines up exactly with what I just told you what happened. I can take you to the place, to the time."
The next day, I was reading through 2 Thessalonians. I happened to hit verse 13. It says this: Paul, writing to this church at Thessalonica about the church itself, said, "We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation." I said, "Wow, that kind of lines up with what this guy was saying last night." This is probably a barometer of how sharp I am—almost Thessalonian in nature—it took me three years from that point to figure this out.
Where You Are in This Journey
If you're here in the room, we've had a lot of people here today with study guides, and we provided you those. You can still pick some up. It will be really helpful to follow through. Some of you are here thinking, "I've already been through this. I got it. I'm really just polishing off the edges. It's just a refresher class for me." Some of you are at the other extreme and say, "I am so lost. I haven't got the foggiest idea of what you're talking about. I just want to get out of here." Then there's a bunch of you that are in between.
I hope that by the end of this day, you'll at least be committed to seven weeks of this. You see here in your bulletins the schedule. We provided it so if you tear off the guest registry card, this will also detach, and you've got the teaching schedule that we'll have here as we work through this series.
The Series Schedule
You have this week, then next week. Next week, we're going to talk about man—you, me, how we are as we come into this world. We talk about the term natural man or fallen man. It's the condition that we have as we come into the world. The following week, Susan and I will be gone. The next week, we'll look at part two of the discussion of man, and then we'll talk about election—what does that mean?
Then we'll talk on the 22nd of October about the atonement, or Jesus' death on the cross, and what was accomplished there. Then on the 29th, I'm going to be at the 7-10 retreat teaching. The following week, by now you already have it marked on your calendars, I hope. November 5th, we're all going to be out at Sneff Farms that day. We'll start early that morning, and we'll have our time of worship together, and then lunch together. We'll have some stuff for the kids, and a few other things, and just be a real celebration.
I'm really excited to see everybody in one place at one time. I think it's going to blow you away when you see it—blow me away as well. Then on the 12th, the 19th of September, we'll finish up the series. So you have the schedule there in front of you.
Two Burdens
As I start today, I want to tell you, there are two burdens. One is mine, and one is yours. Here's my burden: My burden is to communicate clearly to you. I have a friend that used to say this to me all the time: "Don't speak merely to be understood, but speak so you cannot possibly be misunderstood." That's my burden. That's my burden through this.
Consequently, more than at any other time in the teaching, I'll be very deliberate, methodical, repetitive. I'll come at it again, and again, and again. I'll say the same thing, in many instances the same way, but hopefully say the same thing a few different ways as we continue to take this doctrine of grace and take it like a prism, and God just opens up different aspects of it to us.
Your Burden
There's also a burden on you, and it's a burden to listen closely, to not let yourself get distracted, to take advantage of the study guide, which will be really helpful to you. Many of the quotes and all of the things are in there, and you'll be able to follow along today and make some notes. As I said, if you don't have those, you can pick them up on the way out.
Also, to not get distracted in the normal ways. You've got children with you. Children in a service are a special challenge, and especially in something like this, because if you miss a little bit of this, you can get way off track very, very quickly. We try to say this every week: if you want to bring children in with you, that's fine, but you need to know it does not take much to—even if they're well-behaved, and you pick up a well-behaved baby and put it on your shoulder—you've distracted everybody behind you, going, "Oh, isn't that baby cute?" By the way, the next two weeks, we'll disprove that theory about how cute that baby is. But eliminate the distractions.
Avoiding Mental Distractions
Let me tell you another distraction. You'll get sidetracked. I'll say something that you'll have a response to, and it will distract you. Your mind will go off on a rabbit trail. If that's true, what about this? And you'll be gone. You need to resist that. Now, I'm not saying don't think. I'm saying, you know, if you're thinking, "Well, wait a minute, what about John 3:16?" write down, "What about John 3:16?" We'll get right back in the game.
I think by tonight or somewhere, Josh can send me a message on one of these screens, I think, but I think by tonight at nine o'clock-ish, this message will be on the web. So with the study guide and the message on the web and all the stuff, you can access a lot of information.
Also, resources—the books are out there. You saw two giant book tables. There's a book called "The Five Points of Calvinism." I think there's six or seven books, and we ordered 20 or 30 of each.
Webster's Definition of Calvinism
We ordered 120 copies of a book called The Five Points of Calvinism. They've re-released it, expanded it a bit, and made the print a little larger. It's a wonderful book, so you'll want to get your hands on that. But there's a burden on you and a burden on me, and together, we need to really communicate to one another and listen to one another.
Father, open our eyes and ears and hearts to the truth you have for us. God, I pray that you would take all of my inadequacies and you would use them in some way that would allow these wonderful truths of your glory and your majesty and your power, that you would allow us to begin to comprehend them. I pray especially for those who, by their presence here today, have said yes, I'm interested, and yet they are confused, and they will wrestle with some of these truths - in some instances because it's brand new, and in others because it's contrary to everything they've ever heard. God, give us a sense of patience. Let us be deliberate as we work our way through this truth. We pray it to you in Jesus' name, amen.
If we talk about Calvinism, here is Webster's definition of Calvinism. This is how Webster defines Calvinism: "Christian doctrines of John Calvin and his followers, especially those doctrines of predestination and the salvation of the elect solely by God's grace." That's Webster's definition. It is a group of Christian doctrines of Calvin and his followers.
Calvin Taught These Things, But Didn't Invent Them
Now I will say this to you 500 times in these seven weeks, so please get this: Calvin taught these things, but Calvin did not invent these things. They flow from the pages of scripture. It's identified as Calvinism, and it has for centuries been the dominant view, really, of the church.
Virtually all of the great theological minds of history line up on this side that would say yes, I would agree with these doctrines. Some may have little subtle disagreements, but you go through Augustine and Calvin and Luther and Knox, Zwingli and Owen, Jonathan Edwards - the greatest mind that America ever produced, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica - Bunyan, Whitefield, and Spurgeon. If you even fast forward to where we are now, theologians of our day like Sproul, Packer, pastors like MacArthur, Boyce, John Piper, and C.J. Mahaney would all line up on this side. They are the followers of this truth that is identified with Calvin's name, though it flows from the pages of scripture.
In fact, today, what I want to do at the end is to let you see how Jesus teaches these truths, and hopefully today, help you understand how this whole term of Calvinism even came into being. But again, just hang in with this definition of Webster. It teaches two things: the doctrine of predestination and salvation of the elect solely by God's grace.
Understanding Predestination
That word predestination is a compound word with two parts: pre, meaning beforehand, and destiny, the place we are going. So we are going to a destination that was selected for us beforehand. In its most elementary form, predestination means that our final destination has been decided by God. Whether we're in heaven or not is determined by God.
God has intervened in the lives of some, not in the lives of all. He has intervened in the lives of some, and in those lives, He has changed a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. In fact, this whole idea opens us up to something, and I think we'll talk about it in a little bit later in session four, about double predestination. It raises the question: does God predestine people to hell? And the answer is no.
This whole idea of predestination has in it the idea of God intervening. So we all come into the world lost, and what predestination teaches as it relates to our salvation is that God intervenes in the lives of some, not everyone, some, and those are the ones that He has chosen to spend eternity with Him in heaven.
The Questions This Raises
Now, for some of you, that raises a whole bunch of questions, doesn't it? Why would He choose some? Why wouldn't He choose everyone? Why didn't He choose my mom or my sister or my spouse? Doesn't seem fair that He would choose some and not all? Those are all great questions, aren't they? That's why it's so important for you to be here all seven weeks as we work our way through and answer those questions.
And that very thought may be contrary to your experience. My experience is on March 8th, 1980, I'm sitting at McCormick Ranch in my car about 8:27 in the morning, something like that, and it was at that moment that I made a decision for Christ, or I asked Christ into my life, or repented of my sin, or said a sinner's prayer.
What we're talking about in this series is not did you or did you not do that. What we're talking about in this series is why did you have that response? How come you responded? How come you and a couple of buddies or a couple of gals went to a luncheon and there was a speaker and you responded and they didn't? Or they responded and you didn't? It's not about our faith; it's about the source of that faith.
Salvation Solely by God's Grace
In fact, that's the second part of the definition: that salvation of the elect is solely by God's grace. I said at the beginning, almost all the time when I sit down with somebody and say they're a Christian, I would say, "God saves sinners, do you agree with that?" And they would say, "Absolutely, I agree, God saves sinners." And I would have too for years.
But now as you begin to push them and you begin to put some definition around it, they go, "Well, I don't... I'm not really... no, I guess I can't really sign off on that. No, I think I played a role. I think I made that decision. I was a five-year-old; I asked Jesus into my heart." You've got all those terms.
We will use this sentence over and over again - three words: God saves sinners. God, the actor. Saves, the action. Sinners - you and me - the recipient of that. We're saved by grace.
And we played no role in that. By its very definition, grace means unmerited favor. By its very definition, there's nothing I could possibly do to merit or to earn unmerited or unmeritable favor. This whole thing is not about, and this kills you, I know, this whole thing is not about you. It's about God. It's about His grace and His mercy and His love for His people.
As I said, this really is nothing new. This is as old as the pages of the Scripture. About 160 or 170 years ago, Spurgeon said it this way, and I quote, "I have my own private opinion that there's no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what is nowadays called Calvinism. It is but a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel unless we preach the sovereignty of God."
That's what we're talking about. The gospel is that we were lost and there was nothing we could do to save ourselves. Everybody goes, "Yeah, and I was helpless and hopeless." Yeah, well then somehow the Arminian makes a leap and said, "But I did do something. Oh, God did something first. Jesus died, but then I made the leap to accept that." And do you see what's at stake? The minute I go down that road, I begin to maximize man and minify God.
The Danger of Man-Centered Theology
If I play a role in my salvation, I get bigger and bigger and bigger. But if I understand God did it all, here you go, and God chose you. And let me tell you why—in spite of you. Don't get all excited and say, "Well, God chose me. Boy, I must be something special. He had a whole bunch of people to choose from and look and He chose me." No, He chose you in spite of you, not because of you.
Interesting, as I listen to parents talk about how unfair the Ames test is, because their kids don't know history and they should know history, I've discovered we don't know a lot of church history either. Let me give you the background of how this whole Calvinism thing came into play.
The Historical Background of Arminianism
Calvinism doctrine dates to 1618, 1619. The New Dictionary of Theology talks about the early 17th century. It writes this: "Considerable discussion had arisen in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century concerning the understanding of divine sovereignty. This centered on a period in the teaching of Jacob Arminius, a Dutch seminary professor."
Now, for centuries, and really, I'm probably out on a limb just a bit here, but probably to the earliest in the 20th centuries, the mainstream of the Orthodox Christianity would be what we identify as the doctrines of grace or of Calvinism today. There was always an aberrant view, but it was just that—it was an aberrant view, a minority view. Arminius began to teach in the Netherlands early in the 17th century, and what he attacked was God's sovereignty, especially as it relates to salvation.
He then took this and put it in a form, a document called the Remonstrous Document that was issued in 1610, and it had five points to it. And here's what Arminius taught: that the election of God is based on the foresight of man's faith. In other words, you gotta deal with this election because it's all over the Bible. So Arminius said, "I gotta find a way to explain this away, so here's how he explained it away: God looks down the corridors of time, He sees who's going to choose Him, and God chooses them first." That's what Arminius taught.
The Five Points of Arminianism
Then he taught that the intention of Christ's death was the salvation of all people, that Christ died so that everyone could be saved. Arminius doesn't really teach that anyone is saved through Christ's death. It's that salvation is made possible.
Here's the third thing, and listen closely here: that fallen man is incapable of doing anything without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Now we on the surface would say that's right, but again now we got to get into the details. Arminius would say this: fallen man is incapable of doing any good without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is intervening in everyone's life wooing them, trying to convince them, giving them some ability to understand this. So that his fourth point—saving grace could be resisted.
Years and years and years ago my kids were in a play, a Salty play. Now if you get younger kids now you know Veggie Tales but probably not Salty. Well Salty was the big blue singing song book and they cranked out these tapes and these catchy songs, and when we would go on vacation we would sing these. I got pretty sick of Salty—that's the point I'm trying to make here. We would sing them and sing them and sing them and sing them, and they would act them out and they were wonderful ways to teach the kids.
Well my kids are singing one song one night in this play and it is that God is a gentleman—the Holy Spirit is a gentleman—"I'll always knock before He comes in." And some of my friends said, "You know we need to boycott Salty," and I said, "Well I think we can probably work our way through this." And they sang it and we were fine and we sat, and as the crowd was clapping and saying, "Isn't this great," there was a little sadness in my heart that would say, "Do you not see the heresy of that?" It's the Revelation 3:20, "Behold," you know God's standing at the door knock and, "Oh I just, I hope you, I hope you open, I wish you'd open," and but God's not a gentleman in this area. He's more like a DEA agent who kicks your door in and rips your heart out and gives you a new heart, and if He doesn't do that you'll never respond. But Arminius says no no.
And then whether you could be truly generated and lose your salvation—Arminius said that that takes more study. So those were his five points.
The Response to Arminianism
So see how everybody talks about the five points of Calvinism. Calvinism isn't—and Calvin didn't invent these five points nor were these points invented to stand on their own. They were created from the pages of Scripture to respond to this false teaching.
The damage is identified for us in the comments of J.I. Packer. Here's what he writes: "Arminianism made man's salvation dependent ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man's own work." God gets involved. God does some things. But it's not about Him. It's a joint venture. God's the general. He does some stuff. You're the limited partner.
The Synod of Dort's Response
So the Remonstrance document comes out in 1610. The Synod of Dort in 1618 - a gathering of church leaders - comes together for this purpose: first, to examine the five points of the Remonstrance and to compare them. This is really important. Here's our third time already - not with Luther, not with Calvin, not with Augustine - but to compare them with Scripture and say, "Well, is that what Scripture teaches?"
After study, what they discovered is they are incompatible with Scripture. Therefore, they rejected the teaching of Arminius and his followers.
Let's hit a pause button for a second. Let me read to you what Steele and Thomas write in their book on the five points. Here's what they write: "No doubt it will seem strange to many in our day that the Synod of Dort rejected as heretical the five doctrines advanced by the Arminians, for these doctrines have gained wide acceptance in the modern church. In fact, they are seldom questioned in our generation. Salvation was viewed by the members of the Synod of Dort as a work of grace from beginning to end. In no sense, they believed, did the sinner save himself or contribute to his salvation. The ability of fallen man to believe the gospel was itself a gift from God bestowed upon those whom God had chosen to be the objects of His unmerited favor. It was not man but God who determined which sinners would be shown mercy and saved. This, in essence, is what the members of the Synod of Dort understood the Bible to teach."
The Historic Church vs. The Modern Church
I want that to sink in because here's what they're rejecting. They're rejecting the idea that God chooses based on something we do. They're rejecting the idea that Christ intended to save all people. They're rejecting the idea that man, apart from the total, complete work of the Holy Spirit, can embrace or understand the gospel. They're rejecting the idea that some will respond to grace and some won't. And they are saying, "No, you can know whether in fact you can be saved or not."
What Steele and Thomas are saying is those five things that the historic church rejects are five things that have become ingrained in the modern church. That's why you begin to get this visceral response for all sorts of reasons. But that's why you begin to get that. There are not very many churches who would teach this doctrine. Or if they did, would be unwilling to teach them frankly. And if they did, I doubt they would teach them with maybe the prominence that we give them at East Valley Bible Church.
The reason we do that is not because I give a rip about Calvin. Couldn't care less. Not even a good name. Don't care about Luther, Knox. Those are all fine guys. MacArthur, whatever. But this is what Jesus teaches us in the Gospels. This is what Paul teaches us. This is what flows from the pages of Scripture - that God had a people always, beginning as early as the book of Genesis, and then a new people were saved by grace through faith, through the gospel, through the death of Christ.
The Five Points of Calvinism
What the Synod of Dort said is it's not enough just to condemn these things or reject them. We have to respond to them. And the response is what we identify as the five points of Calvinism.
I want to read these five points to you, and then come back and we're going to give you a chance to get in your Scripture a little bit here and we'll start to dig. Let me just read you these five points. As they respond, essentially their response is exactly the opposite of what Arminius was teaching.
Number one: Fallen man on his own cannot believe the gospel. Natural man, in his own condition, cannot believe this. He will not, to be sure, but this is a stronger statement. This says he cannot.
Number two: God's choice of the sinner is the cause of his salvation. God's going to choose those that will be saved. He chooses some and not all.
Number three: Christ's death actually saved His people. It is not that He made salvation possible. When He said "It is finished," it actually was designed for that purpose - to save His people from their sin.
Number four: God's grace always accomplishes its saving purpose.
And then fifthly, they said this - those chosen by God and redeemed by Christ and given faith by the Spirit - they're saved forever.
Two Contrasting Systems
See how those are pitted against each other? This is totally about God. God chooses. God saves. God determines. God designs. Arminius is saying, "Yeah, God does a whole bunch of stuff, but ultimately you decide. You determine. You vote." In one, God is magnified and man is minified. In the other, man is magnified. This is all about Him.
Here you go. Open your Bibles, if you would, and we're going to flip and change between - we're going to the Gospel of John, chapter 6 and chapter 10. Now again, obviously this is going to be brief and incomplete. We are going to spend two weeks on the first point, and then a week on point two, a week on point three, and take point four and five and combine them into one week. But there's all sorts of documentation out there. My intent here is not to bog you down, but in some cases to whet your appetite and to pray that God will open your eyes and you'll dig deeper in this.
The First Point: Total Inability
Here's the first point of Calvinism: Fallen man on his own cannot believe the gospel. Jesus speaks, recorded by John. John chapter 6, verse 44: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."
Now the key word is the third word: "No one can come." This verse speaks not about permission but ability. No one. Fallen man. Natural man. Natural...
man does not have within him the ability to come to Christ. Obviously not the desire but doesn't have the ability. Second Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14. Natural man cannot understand spiritual things. Natural man. Man apart from God. You and me as we come into this world we do not have the ability to grab that gospel.
There's a second thing. God's choice of a sinner is the cause of salvation. John chapter 6 verse 65, Jesus again speaking, similar, reinforced, if you will, again, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it's been granted to him." Unless the Father's initiated that, verse 44. Unless the Father draws him, pulls him, compels him, moves him. No man on his own cannot come to Christ or understand spiritual things, and a sinner will not come to Christ unless indeed it's been granted him by the Father. He's been elected by the Father.
Christ's Death Actually Saved People
Here's the third thing, Christ's death actually saved people. Look at John chapter 10 verse 11. John chapter 10 verse 11, again, it's the words of Jesus, "I'm the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep." Now who are the sheep in this picture? The church. He didn't die for the goats.
When the angel appears to Joseph, the angel says, "Joseph, Mary's pregnant, you'll have a son, name him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sin." That was His mission, that's what He accomplished on the cross. When Jesus said, "It is finished," what He meant was, the sacrifice necessary for the salvation of the people were done. The price was paid.
God's Grace Always Accomplishes Its Purpose
Here's the fourth thing, and again, remember, we're going to talk about each one of these points. Here's the fourth thing. God's grace always accomplishes its saving purpose. John chapter 6 verse 37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me. All that the Father gives me, all that the Father has chosen, they will come to me."
I can't resist just reading, and again, you don't have to turn there, you can make a note, we'll spend a chunk of time on this. Romans chapter 8 verse 28, you know that, "And God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." This is a wonderful truth. And then Paul says this, "For those whom He foreknew He predestined, and those that He predestined He called, and those that He called He justified, and these that He justified He glorified."
Now that whole idea is this, everyone that was predestined is also everyone who was called, who is everyone who was justified, who is everyone who was glorified. There were none lost along the way. All that He had chosen come to Him.
Great Comfort in God's Sovereignty
That's why, after this, Paul just moves into just the practical side of it. He said this, "What should we say to these things? If God's for us, who's against us? Who will separate us from the love of Christ, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, the sword?" Romans 8:37, "In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor any other created thing is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."
Now that should be a source of great comfort to you. When I hear God has chosen me, that may generate all sorts of thoughts in my life. When I say He knows everything about me, that could be scary in and of itself, but here's what it says. Since He's the one who chose you, we can say to you with great confidence, "He who began the work in you will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus."
If this was dependent upon you, I don't know that you could last till 11:54. It's now 11:53, if you're wondering. I don't know if you could make it, but it's not about you, it's not about you hanging in there. His purpose won't be deterred.
Eternal Security of the Chosen
In fact, that's the fifth point, those who are chosen by God and redeemed by Christ and given faith by the Spirit are saved forever. Look at John chapter 10, verse 27-28. This is in the process of Jesus dialoguing with some of the Jewish leaders, and Jesus is in the process of this, we'll just take it, lift it out of that section, verse 27. "My sheep hear my voice, I know them, they follow me. I give them eternal life, they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand."
Now when we talk through that in the life of Christ, I spent whatever the Sunday was, we unpacked this, we went through this, and when we were all done, I don't know if you remember, I said, look at, you see what's going on here? Jesus is a Calvinist. In fact, there were some students that came in the next week to six o'clock service, and they had these shirts made, "Jesus is a Calvinist." Well it would be better said if Calvin taught what Jesus taught, that's what we're saying.
But you see all those points right there? "My sheep hear my voice," it's undeniable, they hear my voice, they'll follow me, "I give them eternal life," nothing's going to take them out of my hand, there it is, all right there.
God's Glory in Salvation
So one of the authors writes this, "A proper discussion of salvation centers on God, not on man. And the primary goal of redemption is the manifestation of the glory of God." God's glory is manifested even in the punishment of the wicked. There is this beautiful picture of God's glory as we will one day as His elect be with Him perfect forever in paradise, but His manifestation of His glory is also seen in the punishment of the wicked, where sin is judged, and people are separated from Him forever.
And what we see there is God's, what do we see, His what? His justice. We see His mercy for the elect, we see His justice for the balance, for the rest. This is all about God and who He is.
One author who summarizes his discussion on Calvinism and Arminianism writes this, "What's at stake in this conflict is clear, ultimately it's our view of God. Each doctrine that draws attention away from what human beings can..."
accomplish is declared. What he's saying is in this idea of Calvinism, we are taking away man and stripping him bare so that we embrace those words Jonah spoke in Jonah chapter 2 verse 9: "Salvation is of the Lord."
So there's your overview and your introduction.
Ground Rules for Our Study
Let me give you the ground rules. We need rules—I'm not a big guy for rules, but you need some in a discussion like this.
Number one: the Bible is our final authority. I guarantee you, I know, I've done it myself and I've been engaged in millions of hours of conversation on this, it seems like, and people want to come up and say, "But here's my experience, here's what's happened to me." Let me say it again, third or fourth time today: I know that for many of you there was this point in time in which you invited Jesus into your life. I understand that. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about why did you? There is election—I don't know how you'd possibly get away from that in the scripture. What we're talking about is election and finding its existence in God and who He is.
Here's the second rule, and this is contrary to how most of us live: we will proceed logically. We're going to keep this thing in sequence. We're going to take it in an orderly fashion. When you get the study guide you'll see lesson one will precede lesson two, which will be followed by lesson three. We're going to go right through this, and it's for our own good. If you start messing around with lessons six and seven, you don't have the foundation that's laid in those first few lessons. We need to begin there.
Number three: we'll try to answer the "what if" questions later or as they arise. In fact, it was in that article on Christianity Today—you know, "I love God did everything"—and he said, "Why would you evangelize?" That's a really good question. In fact, it's such a good question that it has inspired me to do a series after God's plan of salvation, I don't know how long it'll be, I've never done it before, on evangelism. I want us to understand, and I don't want us to be laid open to this charge: "Well they don't really care about people." Sure we do. But just as God has ordained who He'll save, He's also ordained the means, and the means tends to be through people sharing the scripture. Evangelism is important.
Addressing Common Objections
What about John 3:16? "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." Absolutely. It's got nothing to do with what we're talking about. Great verse. But it's got nothing to do with this. What it says is, whoever believes will be saved. Calvin would say, "Yeah. What's the point? Why do you believe?" That's the issue.
Here's the fourth thing: I'm going to ask you to set aside your background, because for some of you, your backgrounds, though they're beautiful traditions in some instances, for some of you they're obstacles. Almost always I will have somebody who will come up to me and say, "My dad is the godliest guy I know, and my dad thinks that this is a bunch of hooey." Okay. I got that. "The godliest woman I know was my Sunday school teacher, and she just asked me to ask Jesus in my heart, and she doesn't embrace this at all." And I understand that.
I understand when you say, "I've been in church three years, five years, ten years, twenty years, and I've never heard this? That doesn't make sense." Yeah, I can't help you with that, man. Wrong church, okay? And I don't know what else to tell you.
Why Don't Churches Teach This?
Well, why? Why wouldn't churches teach this? I'll give you a couple of reasons. Obviously, one would be what? They don't believe it. I mean, if you don't believe it, I wouldn't expect them to teach it. Some would say we believe it, but they'd say it's too hard, it's too complicated, it's easily misunderstood, and it's divisive. I got that. The gospel's divisive. I think it's really important.
Some would say we teach it, but we don't think the people could handle it. Or some would say we teach it, but it's not important. Let me say to you, I think it's hugely important because I think it will take your view of God and make it bigger, and your view of yourself and make it smaller. So that you can begin to pursue the task that John the Baptist gave us when he spoke of Jesus and said, "He must increase and I must decrease."
A Plea for Patience
I know at this moment that some of you are having a real reaction to all of this. And I just plead with you to hang in there. Our dealing with this really runs contrary to your background and to your experience and to the culture. I got that. The first time that I taught through this, when I taught limited atonement, a third of the people left and never came back. And that was more—not the doctrine—that was more how poorly I think I taught it.
I got this email, I like it. You know, in response to the email that said this is coming out: "Hey Tom, thanks for the heads up. We appreciate your teaching on the doctrines of grace. We're beginning to suspect that whenever the church gets too big, you teach this subject to thin out the crowd."
You know what? My suspicion is, and it's a dangerous game, but I think part of why people are attracted to East Valley Bible Church are these truths. When I read an article like the article in Christianity Today, it puts a smile on my face. When I begin to see that God's spirit is alive and working in the church, and you know where it's happening, the subtitle of that was "young, restless, and reformed," especially among the young people. When I talk to a lot of men who are in ministry in churches, young men, they're embracing the doctrines of grace.
And I think one of the—and this is a totally unfair type of discussion—but I think one of the great things or secrets about East Valley Bible Church are the doctrines of grace, because they're true. And when God opens your eyes to see this, it lights you on fire. It changes your whole
relationship with Him. It's exactly Isaiah. And that whole thing with Isaiah, we forget the very end where God says, I got some work to do, who should I send? And Isaiah says, send me.
We sit up here in many churches and try to coerce people into serving and doing things, but they haven't had the beginning part of Isaiah's experience. They haven't seen God and who He really is, and themselves and who they really are. Now I'm ready to live for Him. This is really important.
Worth the Struggle
And for those of you who are struggling, either because you've heard it so many times, you know it, which I'm not sure about that, should be able to teach it if you're that sharp, or if it's brand new and you're resisting it, I'm telling you the struggle is worth it. This will change your life. The minute it changes your view of God and your view of yourself, it'll change the way you live.
Let's pray together. God, we thank you for these truths, these wonderful, marvelous truths that you use to open our eyes, to see you as who you really are, and to begin to understand this gospel. God, we pray that as we explore this truth, you would get bigger and bigger in our thinking, and we would fit into the place you have for us. God, we love you and praise you, worship you in Jesus' name, amen.