I Don’t Care for Daises, Either

Last month we considered Calvinism’s view of salvation, forming the acrostic T-U-L-I-P. But someone has observed that Arminians have a flower, too–the daisy: “He loves me; He loves me not….” This refers to the question in the fifth Arminian point which wondered about the possibility of true believers losing their salvation. More of that later.

It is a danger-fraught process to set in concrete a system of theology and then attempt to fit every scripture into it. F. F. Bruce (ironically just after he tells us he is “an impenitent Augustinian and Calvinist”) states:

There is a great danger, when once we have adhered to one particular school of thought or adopted one particular system of theology, of reading the Bible in the light of that school or system and finding its distinctive features in what we read. (From the Foreword of God’s Strategy in Human History, by R. Forster and P. Marston.)

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we arrange Bible information in our heads in some systematic way as we attempt to understand “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). Yet the Word of God is not a systematic theology text. We often find ourselves dissecting the butterfly to find out how it flies, only to discover that we have, by our dissecting, made sure that it will never fly again.

When we consider God’s ways with men, what we are seeking to understand is a miracle. In response to Nicodemus’ query: “How can these things be?” the Lord Jesus said, in effect, “Nicodemus, if you can’t track the movements of the wind, how will you trace the moving of the Spirit? If you can’t understand natural birth, how will you grasp spiritual birth?”

Yet God has taken great pains to explain something of His ways in salvation. He has used pictures, types, and shadows in the Old Testament; He has given many step-by-step conversion stories in the Gospels and the Acts; and Paul especially has written tirelessly, under the Spirit’s tutelage, of the amazing anatomy of salvation.

We ought to have a ravenous hunger to know what has happened to us as a result of being saved (and what can happen to everyone who will “repent and believe the gospel”). Others certainly have been curious about our salvation: “Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently…which things the angels desire to look into” (1 Pet. 1:10, 12). You remember that the prodigal’s older brother had to ask a servant what was going on in the father’s house. Would it not be a sad thing if we found, on arrival at the Father’s House, that the angels knew more about our salvation than we?

The fatal flaw in Arminianism is the so-called “falling-away doctrine.” The Arminians who pled their case at the Synod of Dort first raised a doubt concerning eternal security in their fifth point:

Whether they are capable, through negligence, of forsaking again the first beginning of their life in Christ…of becoming devoid of grace, that must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scripture, before we ourselves can teach it with the full persuasion of our minds.

But they stated without equivocation in their “Opinion of the Remonstrants”:

True believers can through their own fault fall into horrible sins and blasphemies, persevere and die in the same: and accordingly they can fall away and get lost.

This introduces with it a host of errors. For example, if I, having truly believed, can lose my salvation through committing some “horrible sins,” did Christ’s death not cover those sins? No, say the Remonstrants:

…we heartily reject the following doctrines…namely…that all present and future sins are now forgiven.

The Remonstrants are honest when they call these statements “Opinions.” Often those who believe one can “fall away” from Christ (really “fall out” of Christ!) argue their case not so much from Scripture as from logic. Their two main points: i) they know some who they say were true Christians who cast off their belief and now repudiate the gospel; ii) if you believe in eternal security, nothing will hold you back from going out and living like the devil. It is “harmful to piety and good morals.” Such thinking harbors four fatal flaws:

1. It elevates human discernment to the level of divine omniscience. Of the Lord we read, “…Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man” (Jn. 2:24-25). Peter, assuming such knowledge, declared,”And we [including Judas] believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” But Jesus answered, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (Jn. 6:69-70).

It is “the Lord” who “knows them that are His” (2 Tim. 2:19). But just as certainly as the Lord knows, the Christian shows, for the verse concludes, “And let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

However, the evidence is sometimes misleading. In the story Jesus told of the four kinds of soil, three of them appeared to give acceptance to the seed. Later it was seen that one piece of ground actually preferred weeds to the good seed, and only later did the superficial acceptance of the shallow ground become obvious. Only one type of ground represents those who are truly saved.

2. It misses the true motivation for holiness in the life–love to Christ cultivated by the Spirit through the Word. No amount of guilt or slavish fear can produce godliness. That experiment was tried with Israel and  proved legalism to be useless in producing holiness.

At this point Calvinists and Arminians sound strangely similar. Does it not remind us of the devil’s logic regarding Job, to say that people would never desire a relationship with God unless forced into it? The devil thought Job was being paid off for his relationship with God. The Calvinist thinks a person must be “sweetly forced” into salvation or he would never come willingly. The Arminian believes a sinner may come willingly to Christ, but must be held in that relationship through fear of losing this not-necessarily-eternal life. To see how similar the positions are, listen first to an Arminian, respected Lutheran commentator, R. H. Lenski:

Referring to 1 Cor. 9:24-27: What a calamity when a professing Christian finds himself “rejected” in the end! How much worse when one of the Lord’s own heralds has this experience!…The fact that he is an apostle is not yet proof to him that he will be saved (1 & 2 Corinthians, p. 388).

But prizes and crowns, rewards for faithful service, should not be confused with the gift of salvation. Yet Calvin sounds amazingly similar in his observations:

In short, [Paul] says that what they had attained so far is nothing, unless they keep steadily on; because it is not enough that they once started off on the way of the Lord, if they do not make an effort to reach the goal.

So it is that while many churches espouse Calvinistic soterology officially–Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, Presbyterian–many in the pews have concluded that the perseverance of the saints means just what it says–that you must persevere if you are to be saved. And no wonder when Calvin comments thus on 1 Timothy 4:16:

The zeal of pastors will be greatly increased when they are told that both their own salvation and that of their people depends upon their serious and earnest devotion to their office (Commentaries, Vol. 3, p. 82).

How refreshing to turn from the surmisings of men to the clear declaration of Scripture: “Therefore [justification] is of faith, that it might be by grace” (Rom. 4:16). His grace in every way is undeserved, and our faith in Him, once placed in Christ, is maintained by His High Priestly ministry: “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Lk. 22:32). “Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded (disappointed, put to shame)” (1 Pet. 2:6).

3. It makes a false distinction between sins that can cost you your salvation and others which you can commit without jeopardizing your security, strangely like the Catholic system of venial and mortal sins, which puts some sins beyond the ability of Christ to cleanse. But He “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity” (Titus 2:14). “There is…no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

4. It denigrates the cross work of the Lord Jesus. Are not “all present and future sins…now forgiven” to every true believer? “And you…hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col. 2:13). See the resemblance between the Calvinist and Arminian again. The middle point of the Tulip declares that Christ died only for the elect, not for all men. The Arminian believes His death is sufficient for all men, but not for all sins. In both cases, they believe in a limited work of Christ on the cross. If this is so, the promises of God cannot mean what they say. Leaving mere logic aside, hear the certain statements of the Lord: “…whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life…He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (Jn. 3:16; 5:24).

Thus in the multitude of those who profess to believe the gospel of God’s grace, precious few have both assurance and eternal security. I am so happy to be one who does, and it stirs my heart to love Him all the more. I am neither a Calvinist nor an Arminian. I am content to rest on the sure word and work of my blessed Saviour.