Over the last few weeks, the internet has seen several discussions on infant salvation. Some of those discussions were started, oddly enough, as ways of launching assaults against Reformed Baptists. I’ve been reading from Loraine Boettner recently and came across the following and thought some might find it helpful. It addresses, among other things, charges that the Westminster Confession of Faith and/or Calvin himself taught that some children who die will not be saved, and whether or not there is room in Reformed theology to believe that infants who die will be saved. Boettner argues that not only is there room in Calvinism for this view, only Calvinism can consistently teach that children who die will be saved.

The following comes from Presbyterian theologian Loraine Boettner, from his book The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, and deals with the question of infant salvation: Read the rest of this entry »

Having just discussed the difference between monergism and synergism, it is now time to explain what brought these to mind.

While studying Ephesians 6:23-24, I was surprised to note two demonstrations of monergism. Now, biblical evidence of monergism can be found over and over again, I just did not expect to find it here:

Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.
Ephesians 6:23-24

Take a moment and see if you can spot the two ways this passage presents monergism, the belief that salvation is entirely the work of God. Need a hint? The first way is found in verse 23; the second way starts with verse 24 but reaches back to verse 23.

Monergism in the gifts of grace

The first way is fairly straightforward. In blessing the Ephesians, Paul calls for them to receive peace, love, and faith. These would each be given to us by God’s grace – that is, we do not merit them; God gives them to us freely by his own good pleasure. Peace and love would be two-dimensional: peace between man and God, love between man and God, peace between man and man, love between man and man. Faith is one-dimensional: faith in God. Paul describes each of these as gifts coming from God. Neither faith nor love nor peace come as a result of our own free-will decision for Christ, nor as a result of our effort or achievement. Even saving faith comes as a gift from God (see also Ephesians 2:8-9). And love, which demonstrates the work of God in us (see Romans 5:5 and 1 John 4:12), is given to us from God.

So here is monergism. It is as Peter says in 2 Peter 1:3-4: God has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Every bit of it comes from him, none of it comes from us. We do not cooperate in any independent sense, for any effort we perform is carried out through the strength he gives us. Paul reinforces this point over in Philippians 2:13: …it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Salvation belongs to our God, and praise be God that he has given us salvation, making us his children.

Monergism in the qualification for grace

The second example of monergism is harder to spot, so bear with me. In verse 24 Paul says, Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. In verse 23 Paul already blessed them with gifts of grace, so in a sense Paul goes from being specific in verse 23 to more general in verse 24. “I bless you specifically with these aspects of God’s grace, but more than that I bless you with the full measure of God’s grace.”

In verse 24, this blessing of grace is qualified with the limiting phrase, all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. While God extends some grace to everyone, the grace Paul has in mind (God’s covenant blessings for his people) is only for those who love God with true, lasting love.

On the surface, this might look like evidence of synergism. “See!” a synergist might note, “Paul says we have to love God in order to receive grace! We cooperate with him!” The problem with this argument is what Paul has just said in verse 23. We already noted that love comes as a gift of God. Romans 5:5 helps illustrate this when Paul says, …God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. This does not just mean God’s love for us, it also means our love for God. The Holy Spirit pours God’s love into our hearts and with that love we love God. 1 John supports this point over and over again, as in 1 John 4:19: We love because he first loved us. His love is the source of our love.

So love itself is a gift from God, but we cannot receive gifts from God (grace) until we love him (Paul’s limiting statement in verse 24), but we cannot love him unless he gives love to us. Is there any way to receive God’s grace? There are two parts to resolving this dilemma.

God extends grace

Simply put, unless God extends grace to us and pours his love into our hearts, we are hopeless. We cannot love him unless he fills us with his love. The monergistic system becomes necessary: it is impossible for us to love God; we cannot cooperate to receive his grace. He must do it, or we are hopeless.

With grace comes love

And in fact, he does do it. God extends grace to those he chooses to save. Among other things, he pours love into the hearts of his elect, giving us his grace. But verse 24 seems to indicate that love must be present in order to receive grace, so I must love God to receive grace from God. What actually happens is that love and grace are born in us simultaneously. Immediately as God extends grace to us, our hearts fill with love for him. It is inevitable: his grace to us creates our love for him. We cannot receive this kind of grace and still refuse to love him.

This is like someone opening his eyes. Assuming you are not blind (a safe assumption, unless someone is reading this blog entry to you), when you open your eyes, you immediately begin to see (yes, you were already seeing the back of your eyelids, but that doesn’t count). You will not see unless you open your eyes, but sight comes immediately as the eyes open. We can say that sight comes because we opened our eyes, but we cannot say that it comes after we opened our eyes. As you open your eyes, you are able to see.

Another illustration is fire. When you strike a match, which happens first, light, or heat? We might say that the light comes from the chemical reaction caused by the heat, but light and heat are simultaneous products of fire. (Both illustrations – fire and eyesight – come from John Piper.)

So it is with this love (and faith and peace) and God’s grace. As he gives us his grace, we are filled with love for him, faith in him, and peace with him. They come immediately with his grace. Now, growing in Christ is a process that will take the rest of our lives, but the process is begun in an instant when God, completely on his own (monergistically), works salvation in us.

There are two types of Christians in the world: monergists and synergists. These terms describe what people believe about the role of God and man in salvation. Most theological labels have limited usefulness because of imprecision. Most non-Calvinists are not Arminian, yet most non-Calvinist are called Arminian. Similarly, many Calvinists do not agree with many of Calvin’s beliefs yet they are still called Calvinists. But monergism and synergism are precise enough to provide a clear distinction among Christians.

Synergism

Synergism is the position of the non-Calvinist and expresses the belief that God and man cooperate in salvation. The classic illustration of synergism is that God extends his hand halfway and waits for us to reach the other half. God may do most of the work for our salvation, but the final act to bring salvation is something we do: we pray a prayer, we exercise faith, we repent and turn from sin to God. Each of these would be considered acts performed without the superimposing work of the Holy Spirit. That is, while the Holy Spirit may woo or draw us, the determining factor in our salvation is our free-will decision to accept Christ.

Monergism

Monergism is the Calvinist position and expresses the belief that salvation is entirely God’s work. We do not cooperate. We do not grasp Jesus’ outstretched hand. We are not the final determining factor. Every step of salvation is God’s work. Thus, those saved have been saved because God elected (chose) them, God drew them, God regenerated them (caused them to be born again), God gave them faith, and God turned that faith toward himself.

John and Jane

Another way of seeing the difference is demonstrated with John and Jane. John has become a Christian, Jane has not. What makes them different? Why has John accepted while Jane rejects? The synergist would answer that John and Jane both made free-will decisions to accept or reject. John is a Christian because he reached out and received the salvation extended to him by Jesus Christ and Jane is a non-Christian because she rejected salvation. Jane could have decided otherwise and could have reached out to receive salvation.

The monergist would answer that neither John nor Jane is capable of independently reaching out to receive salvation. The corruption of sin has blinded the minds of all people so that no one would receive salvation. So John is a Christian only because God intervened in his life to awaken him and create faith within him, while Jane is a non-Christian because God has not awakened her from her sin. Both John and Jane deserve judgment for their sins. God will not be unjust when he condemns Jane to Hell for her sin. Though she was never awakened from her blindness, hers was a blindness caused by her own sin.

Much has been made about the resurgence of Calvinism in the SBC. More young people, and not a few older pastors, are embracing a theology of salvation that closely resembles that which was taught by John Calvin. 

The label Calvinism is a convenience. Use the word and people (sometimes) know (sort of) what you are talking about, though to my surprise I see several people claim the title Calvinist who really aren’t very Calvinistic in their thinking. But the label tends to imply something untrue: that people have studied the teachings of John Calvin and have devoted themselves to those teachings. The truth is that Calvinists are those who have studied Scripture and have drawn conclusions from Scripture similar to the conclusions drawn by John Calvin.

What we have in the SBC is not a resurgence of Calvinism but a resurgence of Scripture. Conservatives won the struggle in the 80′s and 90′s to move the denomination away from liberalism, but too many conservative pastors did little more than give lip service to the Bible, failing to use the Bible any more than the liberals. I attended a revival service several weeks ago during which the preacher talked a lot about how important the Bible is but he never once faithfully unfolded Scripture. He used a few springboard text and filled his long sermon with personal anecdotes. This can also be seen in most of the material that comes out of Lifeway. I often get angry when I look at how they handle various texts. Irresponsible, shallow, misleading, sour milk, frequently missing the point, using the word of God as a springboard to the things they want to talk about. These things happen too often in the SBC but by the grace of God this pattern just might be changing.

Again, what we have in the SBC is not a resurgence of Calvinism but a resurgence of Scripture. We have people faithfully studying the Scriptures. The end result is their theology looks like that of John Calvin. But these people are also talking about and teaching the Bible with greater faithfulness. This in itself can be a challenge to churches that are not used to well grounded biblical preaching but it is a challenge we must push through if we are to grow in the Lord.

Praise God for the resurgence of the Bible in the SBC. May it continue and may it spread.

My sermon on Ephesians 1:4-6, referred to previously, is now online at the Immanuel Baptist website.

I’ve just recently started preaching through Ephesians at my church and Sunday I’ll be tackling Ephesians 1:4-6. Due to the differing opinions over the interpretation of these verses, Sunday could be an interesting day. There will be more such days by the time we are through with Ephesians, though most of the landmines are past by the end of chapter two.

Below are my notes about the text itself. These are not sermon notes, just some thoughts about the verses. The sermon audio should be online sometime Monday. Please pray for all to go well with the service.

Ephesians 1:4-6

4 just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him in love, 5 having predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ into him, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace with which he blessed us in the beloved.

v4
he [the Father] chose us in him [Christ]. The Father did the choosing and gave us over to Christ. Paul matches exactly what John records Jesus saying in John 6:44 (no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.), John 6:37 (all that the Father gives me will come to me…), John 6:65 (no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father) and John 17:24 (they also, whom you have given me…) etc. The possible challenge is John 15:16 (You did not choose me, but I chose you). Jesus said he did the choosing. Two possible responses: 1, Jesus is speaking in the sense of the triune God. I, God, chose you. Or 2, Jesus is speaking to his disciples and the application might be limited to them so he is saying he chose these disciples whereas in salvation the Father chooses who will be saved. Either way the point is clear that individuals do not do the choosing.

He chose us before the foundation of the world. Various expressions like this seem to reinforce the point that our being chosen has nothing to do with us. God loved us before we ever could have done anything to merit his love. He chose us before we could have shown any reason to be chosen. The foreknowledge view seeks to get around this but in doing so it defeats the purpose of the text. What else would words like this mean if not that God chose us without anything in us being a consideration?

He chose us to be holy and blameless in love. This speaks highly of the need for a holy life. Verse 5 shows that adoption is one of the goals of our having been chosen but Paul first tells us that we were chosen to be holy and blameless. In Exodus 19:6 God told the Israelites that they were to be a holy nation. In 1 Peter 2:9 this gets applied to the church. 1 Peter 2:9 further shows that this way of being is so that we would glorify God – proclaiming his excellencies – a point also drawn out in Ephesians 1:6. Recognizing that God chose us for salvation and holds our salvation secure is not a license to sin. Those who are his are his and will fight sin. Sanctification is, as Charles Hodge puts it, “the only evidence of election.”

We are to be holy and blameless in love, reminding us that holiness does not mean being a Pharisee. We are to be loving people, showing the love of the Lord as we live a holy life for the glory of God.

v5

God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. First he chooses the people then he predestines them. Choosing them singles them out. Predestining them for some action assures the action will take place. They are predestined for adoption, so all who are chosen will be adopted into God. Specifically, they are adopted into the Father through Jesus Christ. Thus Jesus says in John 14:6: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” There are several reasons why we can only access the Father through Christ. One reason is that the Father has chosen to extend adoption only through Jesus. Even if a person could live a perfectly holy life, always free from all sin, they would still need Jesus in order to be adopted into the Father. Only in Christ can we address God as Father.

God’s choice to predestine certain individuals is based on the purpose of his will. This reinforces what we saw in v4, that his choosing is not based on something within humans. Someone advocating the foreknowledge view might say, “Yes, according to the purpose of his will, and the purpose of his will is to choose all those he sees choosing him.” But that is not supported by the text and, again, would weaken the force of the text. Salvation is in God and from God and given to those God has chosen. According to the purpose of his will means given to those determined by God, not to those who have determined God for themselves. Boice says, “One problem is that an election like that [foreknowledge] is not really election. In such a reconstruction God does not preordain an individual to anything; the individual actually ordains himself.”

v6

This verse reveals the third and highest purpose of God’s choosing: to the praise of his glorious grace. Why are we chosen for holiness and blamelessness? Why are we adopted? So that we might praise God and he be glorified. The particular attribute of his character that is uplifted is his glorious grace. God’s actions draw attention to different aspects of God’s character and nature. In Romans 9 we learn that those not saved by God are used by God to glorify his holiness and justice. Here we learn that those saved by God are used to glorify his grace and mercy. Salvation is not simply a matter of making my life better and keeping me from Hell. Salvation is a matter of glorifying the grace of God. Yes, God loves us. Yes, he desires that which is good for us. But we are not the center of God’s affections. We were created for God’s glory and told to worship and serve him and no other. We are to be God-centered. Likewise God is God-centered and not man-centered. We lift him up, he lifts up himself.

Finally, Paul says that this grace is given to us in the Beloved. This is certainly a reference to Jesus, he is the beloved through whom comes the gift of saving grace. Time and again in these three verses Paul stresses salvation as a gift entirely of God’s work and grace. This is not a response to those who would challenge his monergistic soteriology but is rather a reminder to the believer of how good and gracious God is and how great our debt is to him. These verses are praise and though they are deeply theological, Paul assumes his readers will be on the same page as him. Monergism is assumed, not argued for. And God is praised for giving us such great grace through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is sort of backwards but I still have hope it may someday be true.

HT: Tim.