God Loves… Himself

We are now looking at issues within Calvinism that might give us a hint at problems that will actually be masked by seeking peace between those who believe in the five-points and those who don’t. True Christianity is at a very low level in the United States and it could be that the issues between Calvinists and Arminians are actually hiding the real problems that are within Christianity. If we continue in our man-centeredness, though we may hide behind Reformed creeds or talk about God, we will never get at the deceitful and hateful hearts of human beings who do not believe but are able to deceive themselves and others within the confines of Christendom. While we may be content with setting out a loving and gracious God at all times, we must be careful to set out the full extent of God’s love. His love is not focused on human beings as if He is in heaven weeping over the state of human affairs. God’s love is focused on Himself and within His triune Being. He loves holiness and justice which means He loves Himself since He is a holy and just God. Let us look at some verses that are not mentioned much in our modern but diluted version of Christianity.

Psalm 5:4 – For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. 5 The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. 6 You destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.

Psalm 7:11 – God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day. 12 If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready. 13 He has also prepared for Himself deadly weapons; He makes His arrows fiery shafts.

Psalm 90:5 – You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep; In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew. 6 In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew; Toward evening it fades and withers away. 7 For we have been consumed by Your anger And by Your wrath we have been dismayed. 8 You have placed our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

Proverbs 6:16 – There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, 19 A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.

Hosea 9:15 – All their evil is at Gilgal; Indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels.

Matthew 25:41 – Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

John 3:36 – He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

God is not a warm ball of fuzz in the sky who is harmless to sincere people regardless of their lives. God does not wink at sin and heresy. We are not like God and we do not proclaim the truth of God when we do not talk about sin and God’s hatred for sin. Psalm 5:5 tells us that God hates all who do iniquity which is surely saying the same thing that those who don’t obey the Son have the wrath of God abiding upon them (John 3:36). The doctrine of man’s depravity is very deadly and serious not because it makes human beings unhappy and causes things to happen they don’t like, but because God hates all who do iniquity and His wrath abides upon them. If God loves His own glory and all things that reflect His glory, it must be true that His love for His own glory will move Him to hatred and wrath for those things that hate what He loves most. While people shudder at the thought of a sermon by Jonathan Edwards that speaks of God bending His bow and aiming His arrow at the hearts of men, women and children, he drew that imagery straight from Holy Scripture. It is a manifestation of God Himself that He hates and aims His bow at sinners ready to make his arrow drunk with the blood of sinners. To be ashamed of that is to be ashamed of God and of Holy Scripture despite our protestations that we believe in inerrancy. Is it a wonder God is not blessing us with Himself since we are ashamed of Him? It is also true that we don’t truly love human beings if we are willing to leave them in their sin and God’s wrath by saying sweet and gracious things to them.

If we think that God’s love is such that He must love evil and evil human beings, we have not begun to understand the love of God. While it is true that there is a benevolence of God that is upon all human beings, we must balance that with the hatred and wrath of God since God has revealed those things in Scripture as well. If we ignore this part of God’s love for His glory, we also don’t understand the true nature of depravity or of the character of God. Sin is not just a little wrong that humans do, but sin is a horrible evil, which is an act of hatred against God and His glory. All sin is directly against God no matter what it does to human beings (Psalm 51:4). Sin is the worst thing that a human being can do because it is an act of hatred against God who is the God of love. Sin is like the devil and takes his side against God. Sin is to use the image of God (all are created in His image) and what He has made for the purpose of His glory and use it to be like the devil in self-love, self-sufficiency and pride.

It is true that people have to water down the biblical teaching on sin to have peace with those who profess Christ within any denomination and without. It is not, however, true love, though it will make others happy and give the appearance of being nice and like Christ. While it may be easy to hold something of a belief in depravity, it is a very hard thing to believe it and teach it as it really is with conviction. In fact, it requires true love to teach depravity in all of its horrors and we know that true love has its origin only from God. If the wrath of God indeed abides upon all who do not profess faith in Christ and upon all who profess faith in Christ but do not have Him in reality, it is not love to be gracious and winsome within churches, denominations or Christendom. True love must speak as there is no love in that which is not true. Orthodoxy can be attained in our day by assenting to a creed, but that is not the same as loving the truth as the glory of God shines in and through it.

If I am correct that the theology and methodology taught and practiced in the American aspect of the visible church is horrendously man-centered, then the wrath of God is upon us now. We are being handed over to judgment and God is hardening out hearts toward Him. We can see this from Romans 1:18-32. This passage is not just for pagans who have never heard of God, but for all who suppress the truth about Him in unrighteousness. God hardens hearts and turns people over to their own selfish and self-centered hearts and lives. That describes the American aspect of the visible church very well. 2 Timothy 3 describes this very well too: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these” (vv. 1-5). These verses also describe the visible church in America very well. A whitewash of the five-points of Calvinism will not cover this rotten and godless wall of religious profession. Notice that in verse 5 these people are said “to hold to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” People are given over to being lovers of self, lovers of money, and are boastful and arrogant. That sure describes a lot of people within the visible church in the United States today.

The two main problems continue to come up no matter where we look. People are man-centered rather than God-centered and therefore they have a low view of the depravity of man. It matters little what theology a person holds if s/he has not felt the weight of sin on the heart and has been broken by it. This is why I keep saying that the disagreement over the five-points of Calvinism may be hiding the real issues. Until a person has been broken in the depths of the heart in reality an understanding of the truth of the doctrine of depravity has not been reached. Until a person has been broken from all of his or her strength in self and collapses in helplessness before God, crying out for mercy, that person does not understand the doctrine of depravity from a God-centered perspective.

Romans 8:6-8 is a classic statement on the depravity of humanity and the total inability of mankind: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” This text cannot be twisted and turned as a wax nose, but it must be faced up to. The unbeliever is not a person that can please God in any way and has no ability to do so. The unbeliever has a mind set on the flesh and that is death. That mind that is set on death is not just uncaring about God, but it is actually hostile toward Him and cannot (has no ability to) please God in any way. Aligned with that is Ephesians 2:1-3 which tells us that before men are converted they are dead in their sins and trespasses. What ability does a dead person have to raise him or herself from the dead?

If we take those two passages and look at them from a man-centered way, though some might think it is God-centered, we find a way out of the obvious meaning. We will say that the person can make a choice and God will give grace for the person to get out of the bind that s/he is in. A modern Reformed person will say that the person needs to hear the Gospel over and over again and God will give the person faith. Both sound plausible enough and even somewhat focused on God. However, the texts do not say those things. Both texts declare God’s view of mankind. Both texts tell us that human beings are dead in sin. Both texts show the utter inability and helplessness of human beings in sin. Why won’t modern evangelists tell people they are evangelizing these things? A dead person cannot please God in any way so why do we think a dead person can believe which does please God? A dead person is dead to spiritual things and is totally focused on the flesh and is hostile to God. If we water these things down enough to get a dead person to pray a prayer, we have not told that person the truth about him or herself and we have not told them the truth of the character of God. Their prayer and moral reformation would have come from the flesh and they are now convinced they are on their way to heaven while the wrath of God abides on them and they are still hostile toward Him. We have become those who cry “peace, when there is no peace.” A whitewash of the five-points of Calvinism over a rotten wall is not enough to undeceive all those who are perishing. They need to see who the true God is and who they really are. They need to be delivered from the true nature of their depravity into the true kingdom of the living God. Instead of trying to please men we must be those who please God. After all, that is what is truly good for men. It is not true love to please men without seeking to please God first and foremost.

The real differences between Calvinism and Arminianism will not be seen if the five points are the focus of the discussion unless one looks at the heart of the issue. In our day the issues have become more academic rather than practical. One way of noticing the real differences is to look at a similarity like evangelism. The Arminian way of evangelism ends in telling the sinner to make a decision. The theology behind that is that the sinner by his or her free-will and choice applies Christ to him or herself. That would be denied in words yet it is the logical conclusion of that practice. But modern Reformed people do the same thing. The theory is said to be different in that the Calvinist says that God works in the sinner who then chooses. However, other than the statement that God works in the sinner there is no real difference in the way evangelism is done. Both camps, then, practice evangelism in essentially the same way. If the theology and practice of evangelism points to what a person really believes, one is led to suspect that the doctrine of depravity between the Arminians and the Calvinists of our day is not much different despite what the creeds say. This makes it much easier to have peace at this level.

Surely we can see something is wrong when one person claims to be a five-point Calvinist and another claims to be an Arminian and both practice essentially the same type of evangelism. Let us start with the “T” (total depravity) of Tulip and see if this can be in truth. It may be that a professing Arminian really agrees with the “T” or it may be that the professing Calvinist does not really agree with the “T.” But the case is quite clear that people who disagree on this issue cannot practice evangelism in the same way. If the historical way of approaching this is true, then the inability of man is an important teaching that would greatly influence the way evangelism is done. Christ did not die and leave the rest up to man, but what we see in Scripture is that if the Holy Spirit does not apply salvation to man the death of Christ would be to no avail. The Reformed person that is consistent with historical theology and Scripture does not leave salvation up to the prayer or choice of man to apply salvation to him or herself. It took God in human flesh to purchase salvation and that takes God the Spirit to apply it.

Notice at this point what has happened. If the evangelist is man-centered (regardless of whether s/he is a Calvinist or an Arminian) the evangelist will look at sin from a man-centered way (you have done wrong), present the work of Christ with a man-centered focus and then give the person something to do from a man-centered focus. A God-centered focus will focus on sin as a crime against God’s law and against God Himself. A person’s problem with sin is not that he has done something to make himself unhappy, but that he has sinned against God. The real issue with the cross and work of Christ is that it is focused on God and not man. The cross is all about the glory of God and only when it is taught as all about the glory of God is there any hope for man. Then the application of salvation must be by the Holy Spirit and not the person himself. A professing Calvinist that is man-centered will never teach the truths of depravity beyond a surface level and therefore the God-centered nature of repentance and grace will not be seen. A person can profess the five-points of Calvinism and stand for them against and still be man-centered. Man-centeredness cuts out the heart of Reformed and biblical doctrine and virtually destroys it.

If we want to be like Christ in truth, then we must get back to a God-centered theology and practice in all things. Christ taught the depravity of human beings without shame and without equivocation. He did that because He was God-centered in all that He believed and did. The heart of being like Christ is to be God-centered in theology and practice. The heart of being Reformed is a breathing forth after God and panting after the display of His glory in the world. Without it Reformed theology becomes Arminian in practice and Arminian theology becomes Pelagian in practice. What the world needs now is churches full of the living God and not those who are man-centered in theology and practice whether they are professing Calvinists or Arminians. We must repent of man-centeredness in our theology and practice. After all, God is still God-centered in His theology and practice.

Former BLOGS critiqued 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.” There are other statements that are of great concern. “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.” The issue has moved beyond Morris Chapman’s statement as such to looking at other things. For example, can it be that the real issue is not between those who believe in five-point Calvinism and those who don’t? It could be that the issues between Calvinists and Arminians are actually hiding the real problems.

The stated concern in the above article seems to be about not harming the Kingdom of God and “our Convention.” If God is not at the center now, the harm has already been done regardless of what theology one holds. The real question is whether God will restore it to a focus on Him in reality. It appears that many in the SBC have baptized a man-centered theology and practice with a few verses. This is true in professing Calvinists and Arminian churches alike. In operating on business principles numbers and offerings are the real focus though termed with other names. If numbers or offerings are down, we come up with a program to pump that up. Of course we will find a few verses and Christian phrases to tack on, but the real heart of the issue is numbers and offerings. Why do we want to start churches? Apart from some pious terminology, the reasons could be many. It is, after all, how the great machine continues on. But where is God? Where are the broken hearts seeking God? Oh sure we have a few prayer meetings where we offer up a few “prayers” asking God to bless our plans, but why have we not truly sought His wisdom to begin with? Perhaps we even offered up something we call “prayers” before we started even though we knew what we wanted to do before. But where is God? If He did withdraw Himself, would we notice? Could it be that He has withdrawn and that is the real problem? The Arminians think the answer is in evangelism and the Calvinists think the answer is in theology. In reality the answer is God Himself. If the churches do not do what they do with God at the center, whether Arminian or Calvinist, they are not being a true church in truth. If our theology is not truly centered on God we have a wrong theology and wrong practice.

Let us be blatantly and brutally honest. If we took out the word “God” from many of the programs would they continue on as if nothing had happened? If we did not tell the name of many of the SBC churches and had people watch services by video of some sort, would they be able to tell much difference between those and many of the nice but secular self-help talks? What has happened to biblical preaching these days? One could search for a long time to find God in the midst of many sermons than an occasional mention of His name. We would rather offend God than people and would rather exalt man and diminish God in the name of God. Where is God? We even have well constructed expositional sermons that we think is a sign of a return of biblical preaching but in fact man is still the center of it rather than God. We can even speak of God in man-centered ways. This is also true in Calvinistic churches. We use Calvinism in a man-centered way and as such are guilty of idolatry in the Calvinistic doctrines.

Those who are true believers in the churches are starving to hear of the glory of God, yet we continue on with our self-help and self-esteem messages in order to fill the pews. Some Calvinists teach Calvinism in a way where they expect people to come hear their orthodoxy. It almost seems as if doctrinal orthodoxy is thought to be a magical formula for church growth. Meanwhile, true believers are starving for God while many stand firm with doctrinal Calvinism instead of feeding the people with the glory of God. Where is God in reality in what Calvinists and Arminians are doing other than the use of His name at a few points? The doctrinal distinctions are seen as intellectual distinctions alone without being important distinctions until they are applied to the soul in a God-centered way. People will spiritually starve under Arminian and Calvinistic teaching alike unless God is declared to them in His glory through Christ. Without God at the center of all that is preached, taught and done in a local church the doctrine will make no real difference. Intellectual Calvinism will kill a church as effectively as the Pelagianism that is so alive in the professing Arminian congregations. In reality, there is a lot in common between a dead Calvinism and practical Pelagianism. Neither position acts like it believes that the depravity of man is in the heart and that man must be made alive by the Spirit of God. It is also true that many Arminians are in truth practical Pelagians and many Calvinists don’t really believe in depravity despite their protestations to the contrary. We can see how peace can happen between the two camps when there is a difference between the stated doctrines but the practices are the same. The leaders talk peace and the people don’t hear the glory of God in truth.

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 continues to be a shocking statement in contrast to Scripture and the older writers who all spoke of a salvation that is of grace alone by the works of Christ 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.”

At this point I am not critiquing Morris Chapman’s article but have moved instead to critiquing what goes under the name of “Calvinism” today. In the last BLOG I tried to set out that one could call himself a “five-point Calvinist” and yet not have grace at all. There are probably many people that call themselves “Calvinists” that are not converted. In the last BLOG the real issue was over grace and that of a real grace in the heart and not just one agreed to by the intellect. I John was written for a specific reason: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (5:13). John did not write asking people if they were Calvinists or Arminian. What he wanted to know was whether they had eternal life in their soul or not. If a person is trusting in the fact that he is a Christian because he is a Calvinist of one stripe or another, that person is quite deceived. One is not saved by the points of Calvinism; one is saved by Christ alone. One is not saved by an assent to something as true, but only because the Spirit has applied them to the person.

Am I at this point denying the truths of Reformed theology? Not at all. I am simply asserting them in a way that stresses life itself and rather than in just as a creed or a doctrinal formulation. On the one hand I would tell Arminians that they teach something far different than Luther and the Reformers did even though they use the same words Luther did by describing the Gospel as justification by faith alone. Though Arminians use the same words as Luther did, they teach the opposite of what Luther did on the subject. So when a Reformed person can say that he teaches the same Gospel as his “Arminian brothers” do, we can know that something is terribly wrong somewhere. The Reformed person has at some point, though he may still hold to his beloved “five-points” in some way, actually fallen from his five-points as informed by sola gratia. The other option is that those who are calling themselves Arminians have actually moved from the Arminian position. The truth of the matter remains that the doctrines must be applied by the Spirit or they are nothing more than words to the brain.

Let us be very clear on this. There is enough bad terminology around that one can call himself a “five-point Calvinist” and really be more in line with historical Arminianism. One can call himself an Arminian and in reality be more in line with historical Calvinism. Along with the terminology and definitional issues, we have the polarization and inflamed rhetorical issues. What we must do is get beyond the rhetoric and get to the real issues at hand. Unless Jesus and Paul were mistaken (sarcasm intended), there is only one Gospel of Jesus Christ. All those who teach a false Gospel are condemned without exception whether that person is a professing Calvinist or a professing Arminian (Galatians 1:6-10). What that means is that there can be peace or war in the SBC between professing Calvinists and professing Arminians and both sides could be condemned for teaching a false gospel. The peace being sought could simply be an effort to please men rather than God (Gal 6:10).

What that should also show us is that it is so easy to get away from the main issues at hand. How frightful it would be to be a staunch protector of Reformed theology or of Arminian theology and teach a false gospel. How needful it is to search our own hearts and see by Scripture if eternal life is really there rather than fight for a system as a system. It matters little if the founders of the SBC were Calvinists or Arminian if the present generation does not stand for the Gospel itself and actually has the Spirit of the living God in their hearts. We must never be moved from what the two main issues are. The first main issue is the Gospel of grace alone which is the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ. In one sense that is what I have been trying to stress in the past two BLOGS. The second main issue is that of doing all to the glory of God out of a true love for God. It is being God-centered in all that we do because of the God who is at the center of His people’s hearts and affections. This will be addressed starting with the next BLOG. But for now, remember that both the system of Calvinism and the system of Arminianism can be used to deceive people as to the real Gospel. That is said by a Reformed person.

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.

We will continue our critique of Morris Chapman’s article in the August 2007 edition of SBC LIFE. Here is a representative quote from that article again: “The Baptist Faith and Message agrees that both the work of grace and the responsibility of man are necessary elements in the salvation experience.” In contrast to that here is a quote from Joseph Alleine: “If ever thou wouldst be savingly converted, thou must despair of doing it in thine own strength” (An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners). In the last BLOG we looked at James 1:18 and John 1:12-13 and saw that God regenerates sinners according to His will and not theirs.

But what would cause God to save sinners when they have nothing in themselves that would cause or move Him to save them? A look at Titus 3 will help with this: “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7). This text tells us the reason that God did not save and the reason that He does save. He does not save us on the basis of deeds done in righteousness. Perhaps the reason is that we have no righteousness as set out in Romans 3:10: “There is none righteous, no not one.” What does this verse tell us about something other than grace being a necessary element in salvation? It tells us that God saves according to His mercy and result of that is that sinners are justified by His grace. This text wipes away any act of man that contributes to salvation. If a person has “free-will” and it is that will that must move in order to be saved, then that will must be a righteous will and not a totally depraved one. That will that must move must be free from the power of grace in order to be free. But the text tells us without one bit of equivocation or shame that one is saved according to the mercy of God and the mercy of God alone. There is nothing in man that contributes to salvation and so there is nothing of man’s responsibility that is a necessary element in the salvation experience. It is all of grace.

Romans 3:23-24 shows the real cause of salvation as well: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” This text tells us the nature of grace and simply blows away any thought of man being able to add to grace or contribute anything to his salvation. Justification is a gift. But what does that mean? It really means that justification is without cause in man. John 15:25 uses the same language about Jesus: “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.'” The words “without a cause” is from the same Greek word that is used as “a gift” in Romans 3:24. Salvation is without a cause in man. There was no cause for Jesus to be hated in Jesus, but the cause of the hatred for Him was found in the depraved hearts of those who hated Him. In the Gospel there is nothing but God as the cause to save sinners by His grace. The cause of salvation is not the “free-will” of man or of anything in man. There is nothing about the responsibility of man that contributes to the grace of God in salvation in the slightest or in any way. Salvation is by grace alone.

Romans 4:4-5 simply seals the case even further: “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Here the text tells us that if a person tries to work for salvation that person is not saved. Salvation is to the one that does not work for salvation. We must get that idea in our heads and to sink deeply into the depths of our being. It is only when a person gives up trying to save self or contribute to his or her own salvation that a person can be saved. If there is something about men’s will that can contribute to salvation and that not be the working of the will and so be a work, someone will have to do a lot of explaining to get that one across. A person must give up all efforts of self and all of his or her own willing in order to be saved by grace alone.

We then move on to Ephesians 2:1-10. Without quoting the verses, we see what a person that is dead in sins and trespasses can do nothing in the spiritual realm but sin. The person that is dead has no spiritual life and no spiritual will. The will is not free as it is in bondage to the devil, sin, selfishness and love for the world. What would move God to save one like that? The person’s choice? No, a person dead in sin will only choose sin and nothing but sin. What can that person contribute as a necessary part of his or her salvation? What moves God to raise that person from the spiritual dead but His great love and mercy? There is nothing that man can do that is a necessary element in the salvation experience. It is all by the uncaused (in man) mercy and grace of God. God only needs Himself.

We will continue our critique of Morris Chapman’s article in the August 2007 edition of SBC LIFE. Two BLOGS ago I set out to show how it is simply impossible to interpret the words of that article in any other way than setting out Reformed teaching on one side and Arminian teaching on the other. When the author uses the words that “The Bible teaches both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man,” there can be no question that he is meaning the Arminian view of the responsibility of man when taken from the context of the article itself. In the last BLOG we looked at some of the language of the article and how it is dangerous to add something to grace. In this BLOG I would like to focus in on how dangerous it is to add something to grace.

Here are a few quotes from the article again: “The Baptist Faith and Message agrees that both the work of grace and the responsibility of man are necessary elements in the salvation experience.” Once again, “since the Baptist Faith and Message embraces both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, it is reasonable for Southern Baptists to expect professors to teach both elements as necessary for the salvation experience.” And even again, “For the sake of reaching the world for Christ, can we not agree that both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man are necessary ingredients in our salvation?” At least one main reason that theologians have asserted the sovereignty of God in salvation is because that protects grace and grace alone. If the term “responsibility” is used as historical Arminians use the term, it means that the will has a power that is free from external forces to it and hence the will is free. A free-will that must be exercised apart from external forces is a will that is free of grace and so salvation would not be by grace alone or by faith alone.

Let me give a quote from another famous old author: “If ever thou wouldst be savingly converted, thou must despair of doing it in thine own strength” (Joseph Alleine, An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners). We must wrestle through this statement and in it we will see the massive danger of saying that “The work of grace and the responsibility of man are necessary elements in the salvation experience” (Morris Chapman in the August 2007 edition of SBC LIFE). We should go to Scripture and compare the two statements with Holy Writ. We will test these two statements first by James 1:18: “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” Here we see that being born again is of the will of God who acts through the word of truth. The result of the exercise of His will is that believers are a kind of first fruits of His creatures. This text mentions only one primary cause and that is the will of God. This text mentions only one secondary cause and that is the word of truth. The text mentions the results of the two causes and the fruit is to be His creatures. There is no mention of the works, responsibility, power or will of man.

We can go to another text and test it. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). In this text we see that there is a present tense in verse 12 of those who believe, but verse 13 speaks in the past tense of those who were born. Many see from the way the text sets out the tenses that it teaches that the birth happened before the belief. Either way, however, the rest of the text makes things very clear. Of whose will is the causative power to make men children of God? The text tells us that this birth is not caused by the person’s nationality. The text tells us that this birth is not caused by the will of the flesh nor of the will of man. If man is responsible from the Arminian position, what good does it do at this point? Man is not saved by a choice, but man is saved because God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Rom 9:16). These texts speak to the issue of the will of man and they say very clearly that salvation does not depend on the will of man.

What determines and then moves and causes the new birth in man? It is the will of God. We see that very clearly in John 1:13. It tells us that the new birth is not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man. This text very clearly moves the free-will argument out of the picture. Man is born again by the will of God. Where is the Arminian view of responsibility at this point? Man has no ability apart from the grace of God. If man has no ability apart from the grace of God, then free-will in the sense of salvation is null and void. If man has no ability apart from the grace of God, then man is saved by the will of God alone and that would be by grace alone. Let us marvel at the glory of the grace of God in salvation! There is nothing in man that would move God to save man. There is no other necessary element to salvation other than the grace of God. Period, period and a thousand periods!!