Calvinism & Arminianism Contrasted

Transcript

GRM 952
1/29/2006
Calvinism & Arminianism
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


We’ve talked for several of our studies about the matter of the sovereignty of God, and that sovereignty over all things and that sovereignty particularly as it relates to God’s work of salvation. And I just want to walk through the contrast between Calvinism and Arminianism on what are known as the 5 points this evening, review those matters to remind you of the view that we hold and the difference there is between Calvinism and Arminianism. And this one point where we differ from what is sometimes called traditional or classic Calvinism is on limited atonement. And I would recommend to you again this little red book by Norman Douty, The Death of Christ. We have it in Sound Words if you’re interested in the subject of limited atonement. And why we would hold to an unlimited atonement versus a limited atonement.

We’re going to talk about Calvinism and Arminianism and I’m going to be using the terms. Within Calvinism there is variation and within Arminianism there is variation, so I’m going to be talking in generalities. That doesn’t mean every Calvinist would follow this line exactly, or all Arminians would follow the line. But for simplicity we will categorize generally recognizing that anytime you use a title or deal with a category you’re going to have variations within that category. And I think that’s important to keep in mind. Sometimes we try to tar people because they fit within a general camp, but they may not hold a particular point within that camp that is under criticism.

I think the issues in what are called Calvinism, Arminianism are very important issues. They are not just dusty, musty theology for those who are interested in reading about such things, but they really affect the way you live your life. They are crucially involved in the whole matter of presenting the gospel and how God is working His plan of salvation and matters related to our security. And are we secure. I was reading an article by a professor in the last couple of weeks at a seminary that is traditionally Calvinistic, but he has abandoned his Calvinism. And he says that means I no longer believe we have what would be called eternal security or the perseverance of the saints. Well that’s a serious matter to me. If I can lose my salvation sometime this week, I want to be clear on that. If I can’t, I want to know that I’m on firm ground and why.

Calvinism basically teaching that God is sovereign in His work in the world, and is sovereign in the work of salvation. Arminianism basically has man working together with God in what is transpiring in the world, and man working together with God to bring about salvation. God has done His part and now man must do his part so that salvation is realized. And so it is a team effort, if you will. We’ll talk about the matter of grace and how the Arminians see grace, how the Arminians see depravity. I would say that Calvinistic theology is more centered on God and has God as its center, Arminianism, even though we don’t want to misrepresent them, believes that God has centrally worked in salvation but man is at the heart of their theology.

Calvinism comes from the name of John Calvin. The doctrines associated with Calvinism did not originate with John Calvin. John Calvin lived in the 16th century, first half of the 16th century, 1509-1564. He was a French theologian and great reformer. He promoted these doctrines but the doctrines associated with John Calvin’s name had been promoted 1100 years before Calvin by Augustine, who lived at the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th century, 354-430 A.D. So we use these men but understand the doctrines aren’t inseparably joined to them. They may have been used to bring a certain order to them, represent them in a popular way, whatever. But they don’t stand or fall with the man. One of the popular works attacking Calvinism spends much of its time attacking the character of John Calvin and a man of this character, then his theology couldn’t be good. It’s an irrelevant argument, it’s an argument ad ?????, thinking if you discredit John Calvin you’ve discredited the theology of Calvinism. The issue is, what does the Bible teach. But it’s convenient to use Calvinism as the title and it’s generally used.

The same with Arminianism. Comes from Jacobus Arminius, and he lived the last half of the 16th century. So John Calvin died in 1564, Arminius was born in 1560, 4 years before John Calvin died. And he lived to 1609. So Arminians carry their name from Arminius, and he again wouldn’t have originated these doctrines. Some of these issues were debated and argued between Augustine and Palageus. Palageus was a contemporary of Augustine and his name is associated. We have the Palagians and semi-Palagians, and generally the Arminians we’re going to talk about would be more semi-Palagian, rather than Palagian. Palageus, back in the days of Augustine, he didn’t believe in original sin and depravity. But the Arminians that we’re going to be talking about, Arminius and his doctrines, and then the views that are really popularized and associated with the Arminian doctrine as popularized by John Wesley, who was 200 years later after these Reformers.

Calvinism, salvation depends totally upon God and His work. If God does not intervene directly and sovereignly to act upon a heart and move a person to faith, they’ll never be saved. The Arminians will believe that all men have the ability to respond to truth. So it is a matter of their action. One person put it this way, thus Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and because his own, not God’s in him. We are going to walk through what are traditionally known as the 5 points of Calvinism. Interestingly, it seems that these 5 points were solidified after Calvin. Really, Arminius, who lived after Calvin, seemed to be the originator of the 5 points and the 5 points of Calvinism were a response to Arminiusts, by those who followed what we would call Calvin’s theology. The TULIP acronym—total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints—is the way we generally summarize these 5 points. At Indian Hills we are what are called moderate Calvinists, or you could call us truly biblical Calvinists. We hold to 4 of the 5 points. We eliminate the one that is not truly biblical—limited atonement. All right, let’s just walk through these and then I want to say some things about the contrast.

The first is total depravity. And some of these things we’ve talked about more than others and so I won’t say as much about them in our discussion together in this study. As I’ve tried to emphasize, your understanding of sin is absolutely crucial. And as we were talking about in our study of Corinthians earlier today, the failure to maintain a biblical view of sin begins to undermine everything in our theology and in our practice, the way we live. If we don’t have a clear view of sin and sin’s impact on the human being, our theology cannot be correct. And our practice will thus be accordingly incorrect. Remember when God directs Paul to unfold in the greatest detail the gospel of Jesus Christ in the book of Romans, he spends almost the first three chapters talking about the doctrine of sin. Because you have to understand sin before you can go on to talk about righteousness as provided in Christ. You have to have those two things clear before you go on and talk about sanctification and how we are now to live in light of the righteousness of Christ which has been provided for sinful, corrupted human beings. So the doctrine of depravity is crucial.

Total depravity simply means man is corrupted in every part of his being by sin. Sin has so corrupted man that he is incapable of doing anything that pleases God. He’s controlled, dominated, mastered by sin. He cannot do otherwise. Sin is the characteristic of us by birth. We have to look at a few verses. Look at Romans 5:12, what we call Adamic sin. We are the descendents of Adam. Adam was the federal head of the race and he acted as our representative, and when he sinned we all inherited his guilt and sin. And Romans chapter 5, great discussion of this. Some believe this is one of the greatest theological sections in all the Word of God, beginning with verse 12 and following. We’ll just look at verse 12, therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. Sin was in the world and infected everyone in light of Adam’s action. Now Paul contrasts the law. When the law came it clarified what sin was, the Mosaic law. But men were sinners before the Mosaic law was given, Paul’s proof of that is verse 14, death reigned from Adam to Moses. And death is the penalty for sin. So men were sinners as a result of Adam's action, and the proof of that is they died. Read Genesis 5, so-and-so begat so-and-so and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died. Death reigned all the way down until Moses. All the law did was clarify and make sin more specific. But sin goes back to Adam.

Go back to Psalm 51, in the middle of your Bible in the Old Testament. And David here is talking about his own personal act of sin. This psalm was written after had had been confronted by Nathan regarding his sin with Bathsheba, the heading of the psalm tells us of that. In verse 4 David talked about his personal guilt, against you, referring to God, you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight. There is his personal act of sin. But note what he says in verse 5, behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. David says I was a fallen, sinful human being from the moment of conception. Not that the act of conception was sin, but the sin nature, his guilt was passed on from Adam. From the moment of conception sin was present in him. And so he was born a sinner. His actions come out of what he is and David sees no excuse in this. He’s a sinner by birth, and he’s a sinner by choice. Verse 4, he exercised his choice. Verse 5, the root character was there from birth.

Go over to Psalm 58:3, the wicked are estranged from the womb. Those who speak lies go astray from the womb, from birth. So we’re born sinners, we are born corrupted. I’ll say something more about this. But interestingly Arminians and Calvinists are in agreement on this point. John Wesley remarked that he was within a hairbreadth of being a Calvinist on this subject of the depravity of man and we were born sinners.

As fallen beings we never do what is pleasing to God. Now sometimes with the doctrine of total depravity we get confused because we look around and see people doing good things, acts of kindness, acts of showing mercy and help. And on the relative level among human beings obviously not everybody is doing the worst of evil. We easily see differences, even among fallen human beings. Some act very kindly, are easy to be with, pleasant, helpful. Others are mean and spiteful. You say well, they’re good people. But no fallen sinner ever is acting out of a desire to bring honor and glory to the living God and in willful submission to that God. So we’re incapable of doing anything that is ultimately pleasing to God.

You can go over to Romans again, chapter 3, we keep coming to Romans 3. And you can leave a marker in Romans, I’m not sure how often I’ll come back to Romans, I’ll refer to it at least. But in Romans 3:12, all have turned aside, together they have become useless. This is God’s evaluation of the human race and every individual within it. There is none who does good, not even one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So this is what we are and this is the way we function. I was reading about a philanthropist giving a large sum of money, but nowhere in that is he doing this because I recognize the living God who has blessed me, given me life, provided His Son to give me salvation. And to honor Him I would give of my………… No, that’s not there. So on a relative, comparing one human being with another we’d say what he is doing is good. But it is not done ultimately to honor the living God, the one to whom all glory and honor and praise is due. It’s done by one who rejects Him and refuses to bow before Him, so ultimately it is not good. From God’s perspective he is classified as one of the useless. All of us here, apart from His intervention in grace, are useless, as far as fulfilling the role of honoring Him with our will and our obedience.

So we are totally depraved. You are in chapter 3 verse 10, there is none righteous, not even one, none who understands, none who seeks for God. And as you can tell, these are all quotes from the Old Testament, most of them from the Psalms. This is consistent teaching, Old and New Testaments. Ecclesiastes 7:20, there is not a just man, a righteous man upon the earth who does good and sins not. I mean that’s just biblical truth.

Turn over to I John 1, the last verse on this. I John 1:8, if we say that we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves, the truth is not in us. Those who deny the reality of their sinful condition, and that would tie to that they’re born sinners, they’re sinners in Adam. The reality that by nature they are children of wrath as Ephesians 2 says. There are those who have no truth. They have rejected again what God has said. Verse 10, if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, His Word is not in us. Descriptions of unbelievers, unregenerate people, who do not have the Word of God abiding in them. So if you deny the reality of your sinful character, you deny the reality that you do sinful things, both mark you out as a rebel against God. One who rejects Him and His truth. Here we are sinners by birth, we are sinners by choice. And that is what we are. That doesn’t mean man always conducts himself as wickedly as he could, but it does mean every part of his being is corrupted by sin.

Now the Arminians agree with this, and we’re going to talk about the Wesleyan Arminians, those from John Wesley. They basically agree with total depravity. They, though, believe that God has provided grace for all men so that all men by God’s grace, in spite of being born sinners, being depraved, are the recipients of God’s grace. And have been given the ability, if they so choose, to respond and believe the gospel. I’ve brought up the hymnal so I could sing a few bars for you. No. Pull out your hymnal and go to the Table of Contents in the front. And that’s not numbered so I can’t tell you, so just thumb through. It’s 1, 2, 3 right after the Acknowledgements page, on the back of that you have the next page, the Contents—Hymns and Readings. And you come down to Salvation, hymns relating to salvation, bold print. You’ve got that with me? You’ll note the first section under that, Prevenient Grace. I believe this is a Nazarene Publishing House, isn’t it? Lillenas? Yes. Do you know what prevenient grace is? It’s from the Latin word that means to come before, to precede. Remember in the King James Bible in Thessalonians that we who are alive shall not prevent those who have died, because in the 1600s when the King James translators did the English Bible the word prevent meant to precede. So now in our updated more modern English we have replaced it because the word has changed meaning. Prevenient grace is what the Arminians believe is the grace that God gives to all mankind that will enable them to overcome their depravity, their sinful condition, and respond. It’s not specific grace, because it’s given to all men as a general ability.

You go through this section and all the hymns, at the top and in the corner will say prevenient grace, because they would see these as hymns relating to the ability God has given to all men to respond to the gospel. And so it is man’s choice. That’s where we get to God has done all he can do, now it’s up to you. And so when you read about prevenient grace, that’s how it’s used. I mentioned Augustine. Augustine used prevenient grace in a different way, he used it the way use it and we’ll talk about that later so you don’t get confused.

So interestingly, Calvinists and Arminians are in agreement on total depravity. Where they part ways regarding total depravity, the Arminian believes God has, if you will, nullified the impact of total depravity by giving sufficient grace to all men to be able to respond positively to the gospel if they so choose. Calvinists say total depravity means that man will not respond without a special work of grace.

Okay, so that leads to the next step, from total depravity to unconditional election, the U in the TULIP acronym. And we’ve talked about this so we can just highlight it. Unconditional election means what it says—without any conditions involved, God sovereignly chose from among depraved human beings to save some. He chose some to be the recipients of the salvation that He provides in Christ. This choice was unconditional because it wasn’t conditioned upon foreknowledge in the sense of looking ahead to see what they would do. Wasn’t conditioned as we talked about in Romans 9, upon either of the twins doing good or bad. Because it’s not based on works. It was the pleasure of God. Now I don’t believe in a double predestination, I don’t believe that God predestined men to hell and predestined men to salvation. God sovereignly chose some to salvation, He just left the rest where they are. Remember we were all dead in our trespasses and sins until God sovereignly intervened, right? So men are not lost by the choice of God, men are lost by their own choice, their own sin. Men are saved by the sovereign choice of God. So I don’t believe the Bible teaches what we call a double predestination. Now those who are not saved are going to be sentenced to hell, but they’re not lost because of God’s decision. God never takes the responsibility for their lostness, they are responsible for their lostness, we are responsible for our lostness.

This sovereign work of God took place before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1. We looked at a number of verses on this, so I just mention 2 to you. Ephesians 1:4, just as He chose us, there is His work of election, in Him before the foundation of the world. This work was done before the creation, and in that sense the Arminianss and the Calvinist are on the same ground, because the choice was made before the foundation of the world. That’s a settled fact, now that we’re in time. II Timothy 1:9, Paul refers to the power of God, the one who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity. When was His purpose and His grace settled? His purpose determined this and His grace settled for us from all eternity. So God sovereignly determined.

Now remember He could have done what He did with the angels who sinned. He could have left all humanity in their lost condition and simply sentenced them to hell. That’s what He did with angels who sinned, Hebrews 2:14. He never provided salvation for fallen angels, never had His Son become an angel and die to pay the penalty for angels. So for their sin angels will spend eternity in hell, the angels who sinned. God is not obligated to save sinful beings, He is obligated to mete out justice on personal beings who sin. So be careful we don’t lose our way here. We start to think, wait it’s not fair, God selected some and not others. Well God is not obligated to select anyone. If He sentenced everyone to hell, that would have been fair. Now from among those who rebel against Him, who do not want His salvation, who are His enemies, who hate Him, as Romans 1 says, He has sovereignly determined that He will intervene and move upon some to believe in Him. That’s why we say the amazing thing in the Bible is not that some people are going to hell, it’s that any are going to heaven. Because that takes the special, divine intervention of God.

Generally Arminians believe that God did elect some to salvation based upon His foreknowledge, of His knowing ahead of time that some would believe the gospel when given the opportunity. And so He chose them in light of His foreknowledge in that sense. So they believe in a conditional election, conditioned upon man’s response, man’s action in believing. And that’s why we say it is in the Arminian sense, salvation is a work of God and of man. They have to join together. Well we say, don’t the Calvinists believe man has to believe? Yes, but the Calvinist believes man only responds in faith as a result of God’s moving on his will to believe. So it’s a sovereign work of God that faith is included in the salvation that God applies to us through His grace.

Limited atonement. In the Calvinistic system they believe in the limited atonement. This basically is the doctrine that teaches Christ did not die for all men, He only died for the elect. Since God only intended to save the elect, there was no purpose in having His son die for those He did not intend to save. In fact, that would be wasting the death of Christ. I do have a hard time following the rationale for this, and it is a rationale, it is a logic, because I do not believe it comes out of scripture. I believe it is a logical deduction that they try to impose, then, upon scripture. And once you deny a universal provision if salvation, then you begin to have to adjust scripture in what I believe is an unnatural way to fit the system. And I think limited atonement is imposed on scripture, really not coming out of scripture.

I think the scriptures overwhelmingly teach that Christ died for all men. It wasn’t God’s intention to save all men, but the provision of His Son was a provision for all men. That does not mean if He died for all men then there has to be universalism. Because if He died for all men then all men’s penalties are paid, then there can’t be double jeopardy, they couldn’t go to hell. We say well that makes sense. Well it may seem logical but it’s one of those areas that I refer to periodically, it may seem logical but it’s not biblical. God made provision, but He chose to apply that provision only to the elect. But the provision was made for all men, so it’s not a frustration of God’s plan. His death for all men did not save all men. I find it hard to follow the logic of this because you understand, even the elect are lost. Ephesians 2, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were by nature children of wrath even as the rest, the unbelievers. The death of Christ saved no one, the death of Christ did not save the elect. You were born lost, even though you may be saved today. And if you weren’t saved until you were 42, up until you were 42 you were lost, you were dead, you were the enemy of God, you were by nature a child of wrath even as the rest. The death of Christ saved no one. It is only when that death is specifically applied by a sovereign work of God that salvation occurs. So Christ died for all men, therefore all men must be saved. No, because it was never God’s intention in light of what He has revealed regarding His plan to save all men. He made a provision for all men, but that was only applied to those who respond in faith as a result of His sovereign work.

I have a whole list of verses but go to I Timothy. We have looked at some of these before and you can look at the resource I mentioned if you want to delve into this in more detail. I Timothy 4. And I Timothy 2:6 talks about, verse 5, there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all, a testimony given at the proper time. Chapter 4 verse 10, for it is for this we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. He’s the Savior of all men. But of course He’s the Savior in a special way of believers, because they have had His saving work applied to them so that they have been washed, sanctified and justified.

Go to II Peter 2. While you go there let me just read you Hebrews 2:9, we see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. II Peter 2:1, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Here are false teachers doomed to hell, but the Master bought them and that His death was a provision for them.

Flip back to I John, since you’re this far back. I John 2:2, He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Chapter 4 verse 14, we have seen and testified that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Now the Calvinists who believe in limited atonement say well we’re talking about the world in the sense of all kinds of people, Jews and Gentiles alike. I don’t think that stands the test, and we don’t have time to walk through repeated use. But what you want to do is just go through I John and look at all the uses of world and write it down and say how will I sort this out? Because when you get to chapter 5 verse 19 we are told, we know we are of God and that the whole world likes in the power of the evil one. Does that mean the whole world, or does it not mean the whole world? The whole world lies in the evil one, and this is the world for whom Christ died. He is the propitiation for the sins of the world, the satisfaction. That doesn’t mean everyone is saved, but He is the one who made provision.

Limited atonement is sometimes called particular redemption, because it is a redemption just for particular people, the elect. Now the Arminians would hold to an unlimited atonement, as the moderate Calvinists would, since they believe that Christ had to make provision for all men since the potential has to be there for all to be saved. Some of the Calvinists who hold to limited atonement say well then if you don’t hold to limited atonement you really are an Arminian, and you hold to an unlimited atonement because you believe all men have the ability to make the decision and be saved. And it’s just not an honest argument. You may disagree over the point of limited/unlimited atonement, but to say that those hold to unlimited atonement, therefore are holding to unlimited atonement because they believe all men have the ability in themselves to make the decision to be saved, is just not true. So they’re building a straw man. And if you don’t hold to all 5 points then you can’t be a Calvinist, you can’t be part of our group, you’re out. There are variations within it. We are unlimited in our atonement, so we say we believe in TUUIP, and they believe in TULIP. So we hold to an unlimited atonement, that’s why we are moderate Calvinists, 4-point Calvinists.

Irresistible grace. Irresistible grace is the I in the TULIP and that means that the Holy Spirit works in an irresistible way to draw the elect to salvation. And this is also referred to as the efficacious call. It is efficacious because it’s always effective. God’s call to the elect always will result in their salvation. He is always effective in bringing them to salvation. So in Paul’s epistle when he talks about God’s calling them, it is always a call that has been effective. When Jesus used the word call in the gospels He used it of a general call. Many are called, but few are chosen. The general invitation went out, but only the elect respond. But as Paul uses the word call he uses it in the efficacious sense, he only uses it of the call that has gone out and resulted in the salvation of the elect.

Irresistible grace, go to Romans 1:6. He talks about here the gospel and the provision of the Son of God, Paul’s preaching of the gospel. Verse 6, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ. So you see here, writing to the church at Rome, you are the called of Jesus Christ, you have experienced that special, efficacious call that has resulted in your salvation. To all, verse 7, who are beloved of God in Rome, called saints. We are saints as a result of the call of God. Chapter 8, and we’re going to come back to this in a moment, but look at chapter 8 verse 30. Whom He predestined, He also called; whom He called, He justified. You see the call always results in salvation. So those that were predestined to salvation were called of God. Those who were called of God were declared righteous by God. Those who were declared righteous by God were glorified by God, will be glorified by God. So the call is the effective call to salvation.

Turn over a few pages to I Corinthians 1. We talked about this when we started our study of I Corinthians. I Corinthians1:9, God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Down in verse I Corinthians 1:23, but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Verse 26, consider your calling, brethren, not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen. So you see the call is in the context of the chosen, and His sovereign work of salvation. So this call guarantees that the elect will come to believe in Christ.

The Arminian believes that man is free, that God’s prevenient grace has overcome the effects of depravity and sin so that we are in a somewhat neutral state even though we are infected by sin, that power of sin has been overcome so now we are in a position to be free to choose. So it is not the call of God that brings about salvation, it is a general invitation and men can respond or not respond. We would believe in irresistible grace. And without that no one will respond. There is none that seeks after God, they’ve all turned aside. I mean they just don’t. It takes the special, divine intervention of God to bring a rebellious sinner to salvation.

And the last point is the P in the TUUIP, the perseverance of the saints. And this is the doctrine of the security of the believer, sometimes called eternal security. But most Calvinists would not care for the term eternal security because it is a passive term. Perseverance of the saints gives you more of an action. It’s not just that the saints sit back and do nothing and God carries them to glory, but they persevere and so their salvation is secure. Salvation is the work of God from beginning to end. Go back to Romans 8. Remember that list, verse 29? The end of verse 28 he’s talking about those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son. Verse 30, and these whom He predestined He also called, these whom He called He also justified, these whom He justified He glorified. From God’s perspective it’s all done, even the glorification is as good as done, because that is part of the package of salvation that God has guaranteed in Himself. Now the Arminians believe since salvation was a result of your choice, you can lose that salvation by your own choice. I chose that salvation for myself on my own initiative, and I can choose to give it up, to abandon it, to turn from it. So in other words, I may not persevere. I don’t have eternal security because I may lost my salvation tomorrow. I got the salvation by my own choice, I can give it up by my own choice. And so the Arminians would see that man is sovereign in this.

You’re still in Romans 8, jump down to verse 35, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword? Verse 37, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. I am convinced that neither death, not life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is our security.

Turn to Philippians 1:6, last verse. Many of you could quote it, but I want you to have it in front of you. Philippians 1:6, for I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. The Calvinists see that salvation is God’s sovereign work from beginning, from before time. God selected from among fallen, sinful human beings who wanted nothing to do with Him, who deserved nothing but hell. He determined that He would save some, and He has. He chose some for salvation, those that He has chosen come to that salvation by His grace through faith. And that is His work. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God. That salvation is the gift of God, it is the result of His grace. And that includes the faith that is part of the salvation that is God’s sovereign work.

We are secure, but as a result of His work the saints do persevere. So it’s not a matter, well I’m saved, doesn’t matter what I do. I can do as I please and what I want. I shared with you the president of the seminary that I attended used to say in our theology class, since we were going to be great theologians, that when God saved you He saved your wanter, and now you don’t want to do what you used to want to do. And now you have that supernatural, special desire to want to do His will. Doesn’t mean we are consistent all the time with it, but nonetheless there is a change. Isn’t that true? Believers can sin, but believers can’t go back and enjoy sin like the unbeliever does. There is a wretchedness for the believer because it’s not me anymore, it’s not what I am. I have an overwhelming sense, as I’ve shared with you, a person who had been part of this congregation and into sin and through discipline left with some others under the discipline of the church. And one person came back and said you know the years I was out there, every day, every day I was miserable. I don’t think the people who made the profession and who were with me were saved, because they weren’t miserable. They were enjoying their sin. I was doing the same sin but I couldn’t enjoy it anymore. A believer can sin. Only God knows ultimately the heart, but there is a testimony. Some of you heard the testimony from that person who is now with the Lord. Miserable out there, I couldn’t live there, wasn’t me. We’ve been changed.

The distinction in the systems is significant, and I find it a great blessing and encouragement to know that God is sovereign, He’s in control. I am His servant, and as we talked about, we still beg men to be reconciled to God. We become all things to all men that we might by some means save some. But understand that it will take God’s sovereign work, that’s how sinful we are. That’s how sinful I am. If it weren’t for His special grace. Why me? I don’t know, but that he sovereignly chose to save me and bring me to Himself just makes it all the more amazing. I can’t say well God and I worked together and we got it done. I fought, and I was opposed, but He moved in such a way, brought me to the place I wanted to believe in Him and saw my need. And so I will be a trophy of His grace. I won’t be parading around heaven with a sign, God and I did it. No, I’ll be there because He did it, it’s all grace. And all the glory goes to Him.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for such a salvation. Thank you that you’ve unfolded your marvelous plan. Lord, we are amazed that you would choose to save wretched, sinful human beings, that you would provide your Son to be the Savior. But Lord, men would scorn that salvation, they would trample underfoot the blood of Christ by which they were sanctified. Yet, Lord, in sovereign grace you have overruled and have chosen some from among rebellious men to be the recipients of the free gift of life. We praise you for that grace. We thank you for the privilege of sharing that message of Christ with others so that by your grace they, too, might come to the Savior. Thank you for the precious day in your Word, thank you for the fellowship that will follow. I pray that you will bless our conversation, encourage our hearts. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.