COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Shortly after we left Adventism I encountered one of Christianity’s ongoing discussions—a discussion about which I knew almost nothing as an Adventist. I began to realize, however, that this particular discussion was actually more of an argument among some people, and people on both sides of the issue were polarized to the point of hostility.
Richard and I began to receive emails, sometimes accusing us of being “Calvinists”, other times accusing us of being “Arminians”. Each of these labels was said as if it were an epithet, a term intended to put us to shame.
We had to plunge ourselves into learning about these ideas; they had never been part of our Adventist religious instruction. I toon realized that people would come to verbal blows to protect their unique views. In fact, people left our Former Adventist Fellowship Forum over the intense disagreements created over this discussion. And as the debates around us raged online, I found myself increasingly driven to understand these “isms”: what actually was Calvinism, and what was Arminianism?
At the most simplified level, the arguments seemed to be over whether people are elected by God for salvation and for damnation, or whether people are personally responsible to choose to follow Jesus to be saved. At a deeper level, the five points of the Calvinist “TULIP” generated much heat—especially that “L”: Limited Atonement.
I began searching to find Bible passages that might explain what was true—and even there I cousin’t resolve the issue. On the one hand I found verses such as these:
Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love, by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He graciously bestowed on us in the Beloved.—Ephesians 1:3–6 LSB
Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to become] conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.—Romans 8:29–30 LSB
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out.”—John 6:37 LSB
And when the Gentiles heard this, they [began] rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.—Acts 13:48 LSB
On the other hand, I found texts such as these:
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.—2 Peter 3:9 LSB
For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.—1 Timothy 4:10 LSB
And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your house.”—Acts 16:31 LSB
Therefore they said to Him, “What should we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”—John 6:28, 29 LSB
It seemed that I could find as many texts to support God’s foreknowledge and election as I could find to support the Lord’s command that individuals repent and believe. I struggled with the attempts I read to reconcile these verses. For example, I read a defense of God’s “limited atonement” that argued that John 3:16 was not a text declaring God’s universal love for the word:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”—John 3:16 LSB
The “world”, according to many Calvinists, does not mean all humanity. Rather, they argue, it refers to those who are elected and chosen by God to believe. In this way they make “the world” refer to those through the ages whom God foreknew and predestined.
I tried—I really did—to understand this interpretation of “the world”. Yet I knew that if no one explained this logic to me, I would never see this meaning by simply reading the passage in context.
In the same way, I struggled to understand the Arminian argument that God’s foreknowledge and election might be explained as God looking ahead through time and seeing in advance who would decide to follow Him. Yet I realized that this explanation completely dismissed God’s eternal sovereign choice and knowing. If His omniscience was really just the ability to see our decisions in advance, then He really wasn’t “sovereign”. His election would be just a label to explain His deferring to our free will in advance.
Both Are True
One day, after reading another heated debate on the FAF Forum over the issue of election and free will, I prayed. I vividly remember the desperation I felt to be able to explain and understand this issue. I knew that neither argument adequately dealt with the passages I was reading, and I was feeling as if I just wasn’t smart enough to understand these things. The emotion and the shame that always emerged when these discussions became heated just didn’t seem to represent the peace that passes understanding, and I wanted to be able to moderate these questions with confidence instead of fear.
I remember where I was standing when I prayed, “Father, please show me what is true!” I was walking into the house from our back patio as I prayed, and as I opened the door, the thought came to me, “Both are true.”
Both are true! That thought felt as if a light had come on in a dark place. Who was I to systematize and reinterpret Scripture to make it harmonize with a theological presupposition? My “job” was to believe God and His word. If God’s word didn’t harmonize these verses, how could I?
I realized that from God’s perspective, none of what He tells us in His word is contradictory. He is eternal, outside of time—and He knows what we cannot know.
I realized that from God’s perspective, none of what He tells us in His word is contradictory. He is eternal, outside of time—and He knows what we cannot know. He tells us what is true, but He doesn’t show us all of reality. What He does reveal is Himself—and I must trust Him. The words He has given us in Scripture are truth, and even when I can’t explain the mechanism, I can know that each one means what it says. God does elect, foreknow, and predestine His own. He does hold each person responsible for his own sin—and He does command us to believe.
Ironically, the more I trust that His word means what it says, the less troublesome these apparent contradictions seem to me. In God these conundrums resolve. He alone knows HOW these things “work”, and I can trust Him. He is stable and consistent. In Him I am secure.
Bumping Into The “Isms”
Recently I received an email from a young man who, with his wife, is leaving Adventism. He is grappling with all the “things” we face as our Adventist worldview collides with biblical reality—and he is discovering this same debate that all of us encounter. I am sharing below his question and my answer to him.
On another note, I have been confused about the Calvinism vs Armenian arguments. A while back I had started attending what I thought was a nondenominational church here and there, but eventually I found out that they were reformed Baptist and were calvinist. I’ve always been taught Calvinism is bad cause that means God wills for bad things to happen. I realize now that there is much more nuances to that, but am still confused. What are your thoughts on Calvinism vs Arminianism?
Response
First, the “isms” are theological constructs that are not actually named in Scripture: think Calvinism, Arminianism, Dispensationalism, Adventism….you get the idea. These are human efforts to systematize a theological construct or worldview.
Second, the Bible tells us what actually is true. Yet if you consider what we know about certain aspects of truth, they can appear contradictory: God is transcendent and also immanent. We have to lose our lives to save them. God is sovereign over all, and He knows our thoughts before we ever speak them (Psalm 139), yet we are responsible for our own sin, for believing God and trusting Him. Pastor Phil Bubar, who hosted several FAF conferences at his church in Michigan over the years, once told us, “I’m not a Calvinist or an Armininan; I’m a biblicist!”
I tend to agree with that personal label! People who claim Calvinism and the TULIP model tend to vary in many ways. Even within Calvinism, some people are more biblical than others. One pastor we know has said that some days he’s a 5-point Calvinist, and some days he’s 4 1/2! Yet Calvinists say there’s no such thing as a 4 or 4 1/2 point Calvinist.
In short, the labels summarize biblical truth in a bit of a reductionist way, in my opinion. I’ll walk through the five points and explain how we see them:
T: Total Depravity
This doctrine is clearly taught in the Bible. Ephesians 2:1–3 describe our spiritual death that is our true nature. See also Romans 3:9–18, John 3:18 and 36.
U: Unconditional election:
The Bible doesn’t use this particular phrase, but it does teach that the elect are His from the foundation of the earth, and all that the Father gives the Son will come to Him; He loses none of them. Election, predestination, and being foreknown are clearly taught in Ephesians 1:11, Romans 8:29, 30; Acts 4:28, and more. God knows His own.
L: Limited Atonement:
This is the step that elicits the most disagreement. The argument for Limited Atonement is that if Jesus’ blood paid for all the sins of all humanity, then everyone would be saved. Thus, pure Calvinism says that Jesus’ blood only paid for the ELECT, not for the sins of the unelected. They say this because, they argue, Jesus wouldn’t “waste” His blood on people who wouldn’t be saved. If Jesus’ blood paid for all humanity, then either everyone would be saved—or salvation would include the necessity of a person’s choosing Christ. This idea, say the most rigid Calvinists, cannot be true because salvation is entirely a work of God.
In our opinion, this argument is hopelessly unsolvable. Scripture clearly says that God so loved the WORLD that He sent His Son. Salvation is open to all. At the same time, God knows, sovereignly, who are His before anyone comes to faith. Yet God’s foreknowledge cannot be said to depend upon human choices. That would not be sovereign.
The issue is that humans don’t like living with mystery. In the Bible a mystery is something that hasn’t yet been revealed.
The issue is that humans don’t like living with mystery. In the Bible a mystery is something that hasn’t yet been revealed. The HOW of salvation has not been fully revealed to any of us. Yet we know this: We must hold biblical revelation in a certain amount of tension. Clearly Jesus’ blood is sufficient to pay for all human sin. Clearly we are commanded to believe. Clearly the elect are predestined and foreknown. Clearly no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. Clearly no one can snatch the believer from the Son’s and the Father’s hands. How do we resolve these apparent contradictions?
We don’t. We have to recognize that both are true. Whatever the Bible says, is true. We are asked to BELIEVE God’s word, not to resolve it. We aren’t told how things “work” from God’s perspective. Clearly from His eternal, sovereign position, there are aspects of truth we can’t see from our mortal limits. We know that in God, what appears contradictory to us is not contradictory in fact. We are asked to believe and to trust God. The surprise is that, the more we take His word at face value and believe, praying that He will teach us what He wants us to know, the less confusing these theological conundrums become.
Jesus’ blood paid for human sin; He died for the sins of the world, and He is not willing that any should perish. At the same time, He foreknows His own. Our only proper response is to trust Him. When we do, a remarkable thing happens. It’s like approaching a doorway with the words, “Whosoever will may come” written over the doorway. When we go through that door and look back, the words over that side of the door are, “Chosen from the foundation of the world.”
God’s word reveals truth and reality. We aren’t asked to balance and reconcile it. We are asked to trust God. He makes His word and will more and more clear.
I: Irresistible Grace
Again, this is not a scriptural term, but the idea is that God’s grace to call people to repentance is irresistible because it is from God. The argument goes that the elect will not be able to resist God’s grace; the non-elect will not experience God’s irresistible grace. I have problems with this reductionist view. The Bible doesn’t describe “grace” and “belief” this way. Always we are commanded to believe. Never are we told that only the elect experience God’s grace. And always we are told that the Father draws those who come to the Son (John 6:44).
P: Perseverance of the Saints:
I do believe this. The Bible is clear that those who are true believers and born again will be kept by the Father and the Son, that God completes what He begins in us, that we are known by God from the foundation of the earth.
I wouldn’t let Calvinism and Arminianism get in the way of attending a church if the preaching is clear and biblical and there is true Christian fellowship. The born again can fellowship even if their secondary understandings differ. The real issue is: is the gospel central? Is God’s word honored and taught? Is the Trinity believed? Are the people born again and worshiping the risen Christ? Ask the Lord to teach you what is true. His word truly is inerrant and grounding. Truth IS, and Jesus IS TRUTH. His word cannot fail, and even though there are apparently contradictory things, from an eternal perspective they do not contradict. We are asked to trust Him. †
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