500 Candles for Calvin

Ah, Calvinism.  The subject of so many late-night dormroom conversations (at least, if you went to a Christian university or Bible college.  And yes, we really did talk about these things.  What else were we going to discuss?  Relationships??)  Anyway… I am a postmodern.  I can deny it, try to hide it, run from it, deplore it.  But it is as much a part of who I am as it is everyone of my generation.  Postmodernity is woven into the fabric of my generation’s very makeup, so I choose to embrace it and hope to rise above it.

One of the main tenets of postmodernism is the return to old things–ancient things– such as symbols, relics, stained glass, and sculpture.  In a word, things that are concrete.  What was old is new again.  So it should not come as no suprise that my fellow postmodern ministers and their congregants are finding value in the very things that the generation that went before tried so hard to leave behind.  The baby boomers struggled to detach themselves from the moorings and trappings of religion… and in many ways they succeeded.  Look at the culture around us.  But for better or worse, my generation is looking for something foundational, missional, or otherwise connected.

Calvinism seems to gaining a new momentum in popularity among these young protestants.

Time Magazine recently lauded “New Calvinism” as third on a list of 10 ideas changing the world right now.  It initially seemed a bit odd in my mind to call Calvinism ‘new’.  In fact, just this month the venerable John Calvin celebrated his 500th birthday.  But then I discovered the ideology behind the shift and it makes a little more sense (but only a little).  As stated by Mark Driscoll:

1. Old Calvinism was fundamental or liberal and separated from or syncretized with culture. New Calvinism is missional and seeks to create and redeem culture.
2. Old Calvinism fled from the cities. New Calvinism is flooding into cities.
3. Old Calvinism was cessationistic and fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. New Calvinism is continuationist and joyful in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
4. Old Calvinism was fearful and suspicious of other Christians and burned bridges. New Calvinism loves all Christians and builds bridges between them.

In Mark Driscoll’s words, What is “new” about the “new Calvinism?”  The 2 things that separate the new Calvinism from the old Calvinism is that the new Calvinists still believe that it is their responsibility to win every person to Jesus and the new Calvinists are not angry about Calvinism.

… Interesting, but more semantics than substance from my perspective.

So Calvinism.

Calvinism is, in effect, the doctrine of election (or predestination).  It stresses the sovereignty of God over all things in life.  Calvinism stresses the complete ruin of humanity’s ethical nature against a backdrop of the sovereign grace of God in salvation.  It teaches that fallen humanity is morally and spiritually unable to follow God or escape their condemnation before him and that only by divine intervention in which God must change their unwilling hearts can people be turned from rebellion to willing obedience.  This plays out in 5 ways:

1. Total Depravity - Every person born into this world is enslaved to the service of sin.  We are not by nature inclined to love God with our heart, mind, or strength but rather are inclined to serve our own interests and reject the rule of God.  I would not choose God unless He first chooses me.
2. Unconditional Election – Those whom God saves is not based on their own merit or virtue, but is solely an act of his mercy.
3. Limited Atonement – Christ’s work on the cross was sufficient for all and efficient for the elect.
4. Irresistible Grace - when God sovereignly purposes to save someone, that individual certainly will be saved.
5. Perseverance of the Saints - since God is sovereign and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything else, those whom God has called into communion with himself will continue in faith until the end. Those who apparently fall away either never had true faith to begin with or will return.

Concerning the finer theological points of Calvinism, I’ll refer you to Daniel Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary, who has this to say on the finer points:

Election does not mean that God merely knew who would believe and on that basis elected them. This really would not be election or “choice.” God would not be choosing us; rather, we would be choosing him and he would simply know about it. (Further, the devil, a creature, would be put on a plane equal to God.) The consistent testimony of scripture is that God is the one doing the choosing, not us. [Romans 9:6-21; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:4].

Election does not obliterate human responsibility. Each person is held responsible before Almighty God as to what they will do with his Son. [Ephesians 2:3].

Election is necessary because we are totally depraved sinners. In other words, we would not choose God unless he first chose us. Non-believers are portrayed as unable to do or think anything which would move them one step closer to God. There is nothing they can do or say which would please God.  [Romans 3:10-23; Ephesians 4:17-19]. In fact, non-believers are spiritually dead until the Spirit of God calls them: that is, they are unresponsive to anything outside the realm of sin (Ephesians 2:1-3).

The process of election, as worked out in our own lives, does not violate our will. That is, the doctrine of “irresistible grace” does not mean “divine coercion,” as if God bullies you into submission to do his will. Rather, it is compelling persuasion. The devil has blinded the eyes of the world (2 Cor. 4:4) and once our eyes have been enlightened by the Spirit of God, we see clearly what God has done for us. Further, if grace were resistible, this would mean that the person who can resist God’s will is a strong and powerful individual and those who can’t (and thus those who get saved) are weaklings. That is not the biblical picture.

The means of election is always through human agency. That is, God uses other believers to communicate the gospel to the lost. Cf. Romans 10:14-17. Therefore, we cannot excuse ourselves from sharing the gospel by saying, “If he’s elect, God’s going to save him anyway. He doesn’t need me to do the job.” Consequently, the doctrine of election should motivate us to share the gospel–not out of fear but because we want to be used by God to do his will.

Election does not contradict any of God’s attributes and, in fact, is a direct outgrowth of his love (Eph. 1:4-5).

Election is not just to salvation, but to sanctification and glorification. [Eph. 1:4-5; Rom. 8:28-30]. In other words, those whom God has chosen are chosen not just to be saved, but also to be sanctified.

The question of whether God is fair or not in choosing some but not others diminishes how great our salvation is–and how much our sin permeates us. If God were fair, we would all go to hell. If he saves one person, he is infinitely merciful. Actually, three basic questions arise when discussing election: Is God fair? Doesn’t this make us robots? Why should I evangelize? All three questions are answered in Romans 9-11, the great passage in the Bible which deals with this doctrine. Romans 9 answers the question of our choice, Rom 10 answers the question of the need for evangelism, and Rom 11 answers the question of God’s fairness. It should be noted as well that Paul’s theology here is not in a vacuum; he begins (vv 1-3) by almost wishing that he could go to hell if it would mean that just one of his Jewish brothers would get saved!

Many folks want to seek a balance between God’s sovereignty and human free will. A balance needs to be sought, but this is not the place. Nowhere do we read in the Bible that God is not sovereign over our wills. Further, we have the explicit testimony of Romans 9 to the opposite effect. As well, there is an inherent imbalance between a creature’s will and the Creator’s will. What right do we have to claim that these two are equal?

The doctrine of election is analogous to that of inspiration. God has inspired the very words of scripture (2 Tim 3:16), yet his modus operandi was not verbal dictation. Isaiah was the Shakespeare of his day; Amos was the Mark Twain. Both had widely divergent vocabularies and styles of writing, yet what each wrote was inspired by God. Luke’s style of writing and Greek syntax is quite different from John’s, yet both penned the Word of God. We read in 2 Peter 1:20-21 that no prophet originated his own prophecies, but was borne along by the Holy Spirit: “1:20 Above all, you do well if you recognize this: no prophecy of Scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, 1:21 for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (NET Bible). Thus, we are presented with a mystery: Each biblical writer wrote the very words of God, yet each exercised his own personality and will in the process. The message originated with God, yet the process involved human volition. The miracle of inspiration, as Lewis Sperry Chafer long ago noted, is that God did not violate anyone’s personality, yet what was written was exactly what he wanted to say. This finds parallels with election. The mystery of election is that God can choose unconditionally, yet our wills are not coerced. We are persuaded by the Holy Spirit to believe. Further, we have the sense of free will in the process, just as the biblical authors did. That is, the biblical authors did not always know that they were even writing scripture, even though God was directing their thoughts.

Summary: the biblical doctrine of election is that it is unconditional, irresistible, and irrevocable. All this to the glory of God–without in any way diminishing the dignity or responsibility of man. To put this another way: A large part of maturing in the faith is this: we each need to make the progressively Copernican discovery encapsuled in the words, “I am not the center of the universe.” Or, as John the Baptist put it, “That he might increase and I might decrease.”

Happy Birthday John… from all of us.