We have been critiquing Morris Chapman’s article in the August 2007 edition of SBC LIFE. He said this: “The Baptist Faith and Message agrees that both the work of grace and the responsibility of man are necessary elements in the salvation experience.” This is simply a shocking statement to one that has been drinking from the wells of Scripture and the wells of older writers on a salvation that is of grace alone and worked by God alone. There are other statements that are of great concern as well. “If we are swept up in a Convention-wide debate between those who believe in five-point Calvinism and those who don’t, especially so soon on the heels of the Conservative Resurgence, we will do irreparable harm to the Kingdom of God and our Convention.”
I believe that there are massive errors in the previous statement, but perhaps part of the issue involves certain presuppositions. One of those simply must be addressed at this point. The driving issue for some of us is not some sort of distinction between five-point Calvinism and those who don’t hold it, but the God-centered nature of theology and the Gospel itself. It is becoming more and more evident in our day that the distinction between many five-point Calvinists and those who don’t hold to that is relatively small. It seems to be true that it is thought by many Calvinists and non-Calvinists that the real issue is over the five points rather than the issue of the nature of Christianity and the Gospel. It is with utter dismay that I hear “Calvinists” say that the Gospel they hold to is the same as others but that they (the Calvinists) just have a more pure understanding of how things work.
Perhaps we need to go back once again to the roots of Protestantism which was rooted in Scripture. When Luther broke with Rome it was not over the issues of certain points of Calvinism as stated theologically, it was over the issues of the will and the Gospel. The reason that the doctrine of the will is so important is because, of necessity, it is the place where the doctrine of depravity and the Gospel of grace meet. A person can call himself a “five-point Calvinist” and still have a Gospel that is just like how a conservative Arminian would teach it. But according to Luther, the teaching on the bondage of the will was necessary to safeguard justification by grace alone which is the heart of justification by faith alone. The discussion within the Convention will not even get to the real issues unless it gets to the issues of the Gospel of grace alone through faith alone and a thorough God-centeredness in the Gospel and all things. If the issue is focused on modern Calvinism, it will probably miss the Gospel.
In all frankness if the issue is just over the five-points of Calvinism nothing will be accomplished. There can be agreement or disagreement on these issues and nothing will really change. What must happen for there to be change is to get at the deeper underlying issues. One can be a five-point Calvinist (whatever that may mean to so many) and still not truly believe in the depravity of his or her own heart. It can be nothing more than an intellectual teaching and it might even be something learned from a creed or a history class. But until that person has learned the depths of depravity of his own heart and learned that he needs grace every moment to do any spiritual good at all, that person has not learned depravity. The issues of Reformed theology as a whole cannot be distinguished from the “Five-points of the Reformation” or it will become nothing but a heartless and man-centered doctrinal formulation that deceives people about the Gospel.
A Calvinism that focuses on creeds more than the experiential aspects of Reformed theology is out of balance and is most likely not focused on the heart of Reformed or biblical theology. Reformed theology puts importance on the creeds but it also puts a vital importance on the work of God in the heart. The Gospel of grace alone is far more than an assent to a creed, though it is that as well, but it is the living God in the soul of a sinner saving that sinner by grace in the heart and then working in the sinner to persevere by grace. The Gospel of grace is not about starch in the shorts to make people stiff and solemn, it is about grace in the heart that causes people to love and adore the God of such grace. It might be the case that many people assent to the teachings of Calvinism and yet don’t have a true knowledge of grace in the heart. The issue must not be about the five-points of Calvinism, it must be about the grace of God in the heart which is what the Gospel is. Jesus Christ died for sinners so that they would be broken of their own self-centered lives (which can be lived as a five-point Calvinist or as an Arminian) and to be turned to God by grace in the heart. It has been reported that many of the religious people in Jerusalem believed in the doctrine of election and yet had no grace in the heart. Many other people believed in free-will in Jerusalem and also had no grace in the heart. The Gospel of grace alone that works in the hearts of people and then lives in the hearts of people to strengthen them to live by grace should be the issue. If we will not discuss that, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. All else will simply be external religion regardless of the tag we assign to it.
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