This post follows my announcement Calvinism: Planting My Flag.

Why I Am A Calvinist

I call myself a Calvinist not because I have been convinced by arguments or reasoning of Calvinist thinkers but because I have become convinced that the Calvinist understanding of the Bible is correct. That is to say, I am a Bible believing Christian and what I believe the Bible teaches about God, man, and salvation is roughly in line with the theology of Calvinism.

My Calvinism, then, is best expressed by appeals to Scripture. It is in the Bible that we learn that all people are thoroughly sinful, enslaved to sin, unable and unwilling to do anything but go their own way, living in rebellion to God. It is in the Bible that we learn the only way a person could desire salvation is if God first frees them from their enslavement to sin. In the Bible we learn that God only frees (transforms, regenerates – more on this in a moment) certain individuals and that not everyone will be saved or can be saved. Calvinism does not come from the mind of man, it comes from the Word of God.

I want to discuss Calvinism using roughly the categories contained above: the nature of man; the process of salvation; and the will of God.

The Nature of Man

The book of Romans gives us the starkest and most compelling picture of man as a completely sinful being, living openly and actively in rebellion against God. Listen to how Paul describes mankind in Romans 3:11-18 (in this passage he is bringing together several Old Testament passages):

“No one is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

This is not a pleasant picture of humanity. Some have argued that such views of people are overly harsh. Especially today we find many people who believe in the essential goodness of mankind. But we cannot escape the fact that once we get past Genesis 2 the biblical picture of humanity is very bleak. There is no rosy picture, no optimistic outlook of people who are simply misguided at times. We are sinful from conception on. How can this be? We see people perform acts that seem to be good. How can anyone claim that even the most praiseworthy acts of unbelievers are sin? The simplest answer is that their acts are performed for the wrong reason and to the wrong end. Saint Augustine said that God has made us for himself. Everything people do should be done with God in view and for the purpose of bringing him glory. In Romans 14:23 Paul tells us that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. The unbeliever does not act out of faith in God or for the glory of God. At best they might possibly act on behalf of another person (if their good acts are not simply to assuage their own consciences) but that is not good enough. We are to do good works on behalf of and for the benefit of others but we were created to do everything through faith in and for the glory of God. Anything not done in this way is sin.

Salvation is something made available through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. All people are called to repent and have faith in Christ. Because of his atoning death for us, all who repent and believe will be saved. The call to repent is issued to all people. The non-Calvinist believes the field is essentially level – that all people are equally able to respond to the gospel. Fallen man, though fallen, has been enabled to turn in faith to Jesus Christ for salvation. The problem with this view is it cannot be found in Scripture. As already mentioned, the biblical picture of man is bleak. In addition, we find passages like Ephesians 2:1-2: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world… All people are dead in their sins. Nothing in the Bible indicates that all have been slightly revived so that they can respond to the call of the gospel; everyone is dead. In the coffin, in the ground, dead in our sins. Unable to move toward Christ to accept the free gift of his grace.

In John 6:44 Jesus himself tells us that people are unable to respond to Christ on their own. We will look at it again in more detail later but it fits in well here: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…” On their own no one can accept Christ, no one can be saved. As we have seen, it is not just that people are unable, they are also unwilling. There are no people who want to be saved but cannot. Left to themselves, no one desires salvation. People are satisfied living life in their own way. They want nothing to do with God. No one wants to go to Hell but left to themselves people will rely on a million other ways to avoid Hell, never turning to God for salvation.

The Process of Salvation

If no one is able to receive salvation, responding to Christ by faith, how then could anyone be saved? The disciples of Jesus asked a similar question when told how hard it is for a rich man to be saved, Matthew 19:23-26:

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

From beginning to end salvation is of God. From the work of Christ on the cross to our ability to receive salvation to our final glorification in Heaven everything about our salvation is worked out by God.

Let’s back up to Ephesians 2 where we earlier learned that everyone is dead in their sin. Just a few verses later we find the following, Ephesians 2:4-5:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved…

First we read that we are all dead then we find that it is God who makes us alive. Now, before you think that this shows God reviving all to be able to respond to the gospel, be sure to note the continuity in this passage: those who are made alive are joined with Christ, are saved, and – later in the passage – are joined with him in Heaven. In other words, those who are made alive will be saved. They are not revived and given the choice whether or not to respond. If they are made alive, they are made alive to salvation and are saved.

This is where the irresistible grace part of Calvinism comes in. Those who are changed by God will be changed. There is no question about it – they are not enabled to respond and they might or might not, they will receive the gift of salvation offered in Jesus Christ. It is not so much that these people will want to resist but cannot do so; rather, they will not want to resist. Once a person has been made alive – born again, regenerated, transformed – their new desire will be for Christ. When their bodies finally die they will go to be with God in Heaven, and they will be delighted and will give glory to God for the salvation he has given to them.

The Will of God

No one can be saved unless God makes them alive. Those who are made alive will be saved. Not everyone is saved, so God must not make everyone alive. Thus we see that God wants some to be saved but not others. (We could perhaps conclude that God is only able to save some and is unable to save others but responding to this notion is too big a rabbit to chase in this entry.) This is perhaps the most controversial aspect of Calvinism. Particularly in the modern world we believe that fairness and justice means treating everyone the exact same way. When we try to apply this to God, however, we begin to run into problems. God is not guided by popular ethics.

The first thing we must do is remember that we are all sinners who deserve punishment for our sins. We have all made ourselves guilty by living in rebellion to God. Such rebellion is part of our very nature as creatures who are dead in our sins. That God would send anyone to Hell is not an evil act of a spiteful deity, it is the just act of a righteous and holy God who cannot ignore sin. That God would save anyone is simply an act of divine mercy and grace. No one deserves salvation. If anyone is saved, it is an act of mercy.

Earlier I brought up John 6 and said we would return to it. It is time to return. Note the words of Jesus in John 6:35-40:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

And John 6:44:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

The message in these is uniform and only supports what we have already said, though we see a few more of the inner workings. Only those who are drawn by the Father will be saved. All those drawn by the Father are given to Jesus. All those given to Jesus will be held firm, never cast out, held secure to the end. All those given to Jesus will be raised with him on the last day. In other words, all those given to Jesus will be saved. Those not given to Jesus will not be saved. Those not given to Jesus were not chosen by the Father, the Father chose not to draw them.

I believe that God has the power to save all people. I also believe that God does not delight when anyone perishes. He desires the salvation of all people. I believe that God loves all those whom he has made. But God does not choose to save all people. Why not? The universalist escapes the question by saying that God does, in fact, save everyone. The open theist escapes by saying that God is unable to save everyone. But all others, Calvinist and non-Calvinist alike, must answer the question. Both the Calvinist and the non-Calvinist have the dilemma of a God who could save everyone but chooses not to do so. If God can save everyone but does not do so, God must desire something more than the salvation of the individual.

The non-Calvinist would generally answer that God values free human choice and response. Only love which is freely given is of value to God. He would not want to receive love and devotion that came about only because of a work he himself did in the individual. So God is willing to allow people to go to Hell in order to preserve their free will.

The Calvinist, on the other hand, responds by saying that no one is able to love God. There is no free will response to God because there is no free will ability to love God. Humans have free will but their will is so bent and corrupt that the only desire of humans is to sin. Thus, left to ourselves, we would only exercise free will to sin against God.

The person who has been transformed by God, however, still acts on the basis of free will but of a free will that has been made new. That individual will desire God and will freely respond to Jesus Christ. There is no doubt that he will respond, but there is also no doubt that the person who has not been transformed will not respond to God.

That still leaves the question of why God does not save everyone. The Calvinist answer comes from Romans 9. In my opinion Romans 9 and John 6 present the most compelling, overwhelming case for Calvinism. They are not the only passages to support Calvinism, not by far, but they are the clearest and I have yet to hear a non-Calvinist interpretation that sounds at all convincing.

In Romans 9 God is addressing the question of why all Jews are not saved. His answer to that could be expanded out to the question of why God would allow anyone, Jew or Gentile, to perish in his sins. The central argument is found in Romans 9:19-24:

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory– even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

What Paul suggests is that God chooses to save some but not all so that his glory would be magnified all the more. This is one of the places where I still struggle some with Calvinism. How is God glorified when many people go to Hell? The answer given by Jonathan Edwards is probably correct but I am still wrestling with it. (I do not know the original source of this. I have heard John Piper and others refer to this from Edwards but I forget where he discusses it.) Essentially, Edwards argues that for God to be fully glorified he must be fully revealed. God is love and mercy but God is also wrath and justice. God does show love and extend mercy but he also has wrath and carries out justice. If everyone were saved then God’s characteristics of wrath and justice would not be revealed. We would not see them at work. In order for us to see God’s wrath and justice there must be “vessels of wrath” (as Paul put it) that will be subjected to punishment. God would not be just if those vessels of wrath were punished without cause. Their punishment is in fact just. Everyone who goes to Hell goes there because of his own sins. And we all deserve Hell. None of us is righteous. Those who are saved from Hell are saved only because of the mercy of God.

The last part of this discussion – why God desires the salvation of all but does not save all – is explained well by John Piper in his essay Are There Two Wills In God?

That is about enough for this post. I had intended for this to be shorter. I had also intended to post it earlier in the day. Failing in my first intention led to failing in my second.

This post is not so much intended to stir up debate as it is to simply declare what I believe and why I believe it. If it helps you make better sense of the Bible, praise God! If you wish to debate it,  feel free. But be civil.