Posted on 01/01/2004 3:21:04 PM PST by Gamecock
Arminians must be nervous wrecks.
I was thinking about this while raking leaves on my front lawn. If I believed, as Arminians do, that sinners can choose to accept or resist the gospel, I’d be a nervous wreck. If I thought for a moment that the grace of God could be resisted and that even Christians - by sinning - can fall from the state of grace, I’d go nutzo. And I’d be a mess, believing that I could be doing lots more to persuade those sinners and redeem those fallen believers.
If it’s true, as Arminians argue, that salvation is a matter of human choice, I don’t know how I could live with myself. After all, here sinners are dying all around me, and what am I doing? I’m raking leaves. There are rest homes within a few blocks of my house, where sinners die each day. There are hundreds of people at the mall who need to be impressed with the message of the gospel. There are thousands of students over at the University who need to have their objections answered.
And what am I doing? I’m raking leaves, I’m eating lunch, I’m playing with my kids, I’m doing church work. All the while, sinners are dying and going to hell, in part because my yard took precedent over their souls, on the Arminian view. Tragically, the choices those souls made were not under the influence of my witness.
To make matters worst, I know I’ve been a bad influence on others, from time to time through my life. There was that kid in the 7th grade that I hated for pushing me off the bus. He knew I was a Christian, and I’ll bet he’s never forgotten my reaction to him and is even now using that as an excuse to keep God at arm’s length. How many people have I had that effect on? If I were an Arminian, and believed that sinner’s fates depended on the choices they make, conditioned by the testimony of people like myself, how could I live with myself?
This question comes up because of something a friend said over breakfast the other day. He told me that a relative, hearing that he was going to a church pastored by a Calvinist, said “Calvinists are lazy.” I thought later I should write a little response to that, but instead I napped.
Today, however, I am well-rested and want to answer this old objection to a high view of the sovereignty of God. The objection goes like this: since Calvinists believe that God predetermines everything that occurs according to His plan, Calvinists must therefore believe evangelism to be pointless. Since God has already elected the elect, Calvinism’s critics maintain, there is little motivation for Calvinists to get out there and win the lost. So, they’re lazy. That’s how the argument goes.
Of course, this objection has a twin, the “Why pray?” argument: if Calvinists believe that God has preordained everything that occurs, why should Calvinists pray? You know, how else will God stay up-to-date on stuff that might have escaped his attention?
This much-debated subject is covered elsewhere more thoroughly and eloquently. But I need to respond, since I don’t think Calvinists are lazy. To the contrary, I think Arminians must be exhausted or guilt-ridden (my upbringing proved this: whenever you want to guilt Arminians, just mention evangelism - “Sinners are dying and going to hell because you’re not witnessing!”). I think Arminians must be nervous, while Calvinists are rightly confident in God. You know, the God depicted in the Scriptures. The one who controls politics (Dan. 2:27; 4:17), nature (Mt. 5:45; Job 37:3-13; Lk. 8:22-25), weather (Ps. 42:7, 148:8) the past, present and future (Eph. 1:11). You know, that really powerful, biblical God.
He’s the God who controls what we call chance (Prov. 16:33), and He sends good and bad (Is. 45:7). We needn’t try to get him “off the hook” for tragedies by using the a-word (“God only allowed this or that to happen”), since he doesn’t allow things, he causes them. He “causes all things to work together for good” (Rom. 8:28). History’s greatest tragedy - worse than 9/11 or the slaughter of the innocents - was the murder of Jesus, an event planned by God according to his pleasure (Is. 53:10).
God determines the fate of all men, as well. How could he control politics and history if He didn’t (you couldn’t have a crucifixion without a Judas, for instance)? Think of notable biblical examples like Pharaoh, Jacob, Esau, Saul, David, Joseph, and the “objects of his wrath” (Rom. 9:22).
Because God saves, and not me, I can relax in my confidence in His sovereignty, instead of being paranoid because of some assumed personal responsibility.
I know some people resist this emphasis on God’s sovereign control and authority. Me, I’m thrilled with it. I’d rather that my fate for eternity rest in the will of a wise, just and merciful God, and not in me. I’m a little flaky. I know that some people think that my belief in the sovereign election of God makes me a puppet. Of course that’s silly: I’ve never done anything I didn’t want to do. So while God’s election doesn’t make me a puppet, of course I can’t do anything to controvert the will of God. What kind of a God would he be if his plan could be foiled by Dale Meador of Medford, Oregon?
Yep, I’m thrilled that my salvation is determined by God and not my choice. Like the rest of my species, I was dead – not merely ill – in my sin. So I’m delighted that my fate for eternity is bound up in the always-wise predetermined plan of God (Eph. 1:4, 5, 9, 11) and not my fickle attitudes. Else, I would have something to boast about (Eph. 2: 8,9), were it my decision.
On this, I agree with other “lazy” Calvinists like preacher George Whitefield, America’s greatest theologian Jonathan Edwards, Dutch pastor and politician Abraham Kuyper, untiring English abolitionist William Wilberforce, missionary to American Indians David Brainard, the courageous Presbyterian missionary John G. Paton, the “Father of Modern Missions” William Carey, “Amazing Grace” author and evangelist John Newton, the “Prince of Preachers” Charles Haddon Spurgeon, influential author Francis A. Schaeffer, preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones, teacher R.C. Sproul, author R.C. Sproul, Jr., and pastor John Piper.
So, back to the statement made by my friend’s relative: are those of us with high views of God’s sovereignty lazy? I turn the question back to the critics: what are they doing, arguing such matters? Since they suggest that Calvinists are lazy because Calvinists believe in the sovereign election of God to salvation, they must believe it is the choice of man that matters. If they actually believe that a man’s fate for eternity rests primarily on his or her decision, what are they doing wasting time arguing such matters? On their view, people are dying without enough information. Unbelievers are dying and going to hell because these evangelists are not there to press them to make that fateful decision for Christ, on which their fate for eternity rests.
What is my friend’s brother-in-law thinking? How can he vacation or relax or work or linger over a meal, while people on his block and in his town are dying because he’s not there to give them the information he thinks they need, or press them to the decision that he thinks they must make? How can he live with himself? What about all the things he’s said, that were flat wrong or merely imperfectly worded, that might have doomed someone to eternity because he gave the hearer the wrong impression of the Christian faith? Or what about his sinful or inconsiderate actions, which might have led to some soul’s eternal damnation because that soul was “turned off” to Christianity by the brother-in-law’s deeds?
These are all plausible results of the view that men are responsible for salvation, and not the Lord alone. How could the belief that men are responsible for their salvation not leave you frantic?
The truth is that Calvinists believe that the offer of the gospel is for all men, and are compelled by their delight in God and obedience to his word to lead winsome lives before the unbelieving world. In this way, the Lord might use their earthly display of His love as a means by which God will draw some unto Himself. At the same time, God’s sovereign choices cannot be thwarted by the Calvinist’s reluctance to do so. Praise God, God’s use of willing hearts is not the same thing as fantasizing that we are responsible for any man’s salvation.
There is no contradiction between God’s sovereignty and our privilege in proclaiming the gospel or, for that matter, in praying. On the subject of prayer, Jesus repeatedly calls attention to how close and sure his kingdom is (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7; etc.), but nonetheless tells his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” Of the importance of evangelism, in the face of God’s control over all things, John Piper writes:
Jesus promised with absolute certainty, that this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14, RSV). In other words, the great commission will be completed. There is no doubt. Yet Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19) and to “pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send our laborers” (Matthew 9:38, RSV).1
Are we Calvinists sometimes inclined toward selfishness or laziness? No doubt. But no one is going to hell because of our sloth or conceit, just as no one is going to heaven because of our skill or zeal. None will be lost by Jesus, as He promised.
Dale Meador is pastor of Bear Creek Church in Medford, Oregon.
Notes 1. John Piper, “Praying For What Cannot Fail”, A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life (Multnomah Publishers, 1997), p. 115.
pony
But if you're right, we might just end up wasting our time on a bunch of reprobates. Heck, we might all be reprobates. Better for you guys to just thank God that he made you better than the rest of us.
It seems a bit like freedom from relevance. Did God create us as irrelevant beings?
Is it that your choices don't matter, that what you choose has no meaning outside yourself? Or that you don't really have choices, "choosing" is an illusion?
I honestly don't get it. I get the resoning/philosophy of it, but I don't get how it is true based on reality. You are not God, but you do have choices and your choices do matter and have meaning outside your self.
I do love that confession.
How true this is , it is peace in the storm..Christ said "be still" and the storm stopped .
Luk 8:25 And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.
When we know that God is sovereign over all things , we need never fear the storm.."all things work together for the good of those that love him and are called according to His purpose."
Exd 14:13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day:....
It is well with my soul..
"Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." - Genesis 15:1
From a fellow Calvinist:
"If God would have painted a yellow stripe on the backs of the elect I would go around lifting shirts. But since He didn't I must preach `whosoever will' and when `whosoever' believes I know he is one of the elect" -C. H. Spurgeon
(Did you also miss the list of notable Calvinists contained within the article?)
Why do you make the huge assumption that we Catholics, for example, consider you Calvinists to be on the right road? Why do you assume that we are not here precisely to bring Truth to you in this place?
Have you ever considered that if you are lazy and fail to evangelize, the reason it does not hurt God's plan is perhaps because you are not a part of it in any way? How can a lazy man "bear much fruit?" And what happens to those vines that do not do so?
The great assumption of many around here seems to be that "I'm already certainly part of God's plan, therefore I needn't worry further". This clearly needs to be reexamined.
An interesting point...
Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.
So you believe God positively wills to occur to us (1) sin, (2) death, (3) sickness and disease, (4) suffering, (5) misery, (6) despair, (7) sadness, (8) lonliness, (9) natural catastrophes, (10) maimings, (11) disabilities, (12) spiritual ignorance, (13) conflict, (14) etc.???
Maybe the dullness of insomnia is slowing my brain, GC, but for the life of me, I wasn't able to find a reputable, official Catholic website that suggested veneration of the alleged Holy Foreskin of Christ. What I've seen is a crack-pot site that is into UFO and paranormal stuff found by drstevej, and some encyclopedia entries that refer back to the Middle Ages, a timeframe when (I am sure), even the Catholics will admit there were some rather egregious misrepresentations by individuals within the Roman Catholic church.
However, those Calvinists who have been obsessing on the foreskin of Christ over the past two days or so have really been trying to use sensationalism to win their theological argument. Using a medieval superstition (which I doubt was ever official Catholic dogma, and probably very few still believe it anymore) to try to discredit Catholicism is a cheap shot, and doesn't really prove anything.
Let's lay off the foreskin thing, please. It really makes us look childish.
They are inappropriate for Free Republic though.
So please stop with it.
As far as their miraculous power, which is from God using them as an instrumentality to benefit us, we can see this in the New Testament, such as Acts 19.12. These handkerchiefs and aprons are what we would call second class relics (items touched to the body of a holy person, in this case, St. Paul). In the Old Testament we see this also with the bones of Elisha the Prophet 2 Kings 13.20-21, which would be a first class relic. I can't see how any Christian could dispute this concept - that God can and does use physical things to bless us that are connected to holy people.
As far as the relics of the person themselves, these are somewhat like a highly emotionally charged picture, which is why we put them on par with Icons. In days before photographs, I would imagine anything once connected to a person would exercise great emotional meaning for those left behind by their death. "The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp", Chap. 18, (AD 155) says:
The centurion then, seeing the strife excited by the Jews, placed the body in the midst of the fire, and consumed it. Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps.
The disciples of St. Polycarp thought of his bones a precious memory that would strengthen the resolve of those yet to endure the test, and remind all of the joy of his life and death in the Lord.
No Catholic I am aware of worships the relics in terms of adoration, which is for Christ alone, but we do stand in awe before them because we feel we are in the presence of holiness Christ has wrought in one of our brothers or sisters. We believe that grace does not just inhere to the soul, but also rejuvenates the body and makes it holy and worthy of the resurrection to life. Since grace cannot be lost after death, the bodies of those who die in the Lord remain incredibly holy objects, which God has frequently made use of in communicating miracles to us. We give them veneration because they are really holy, just like we might venerate the Altar in the Church, or the image of the Cross, or some other object. Its a matter of reverence and awe before something God has wrought miraculously.
As far as the relic of the Holy Foreskin, which has exercised such morbid curiosity around here for the past several days, I'm sure it was held in especial esteem because it would, theoretically, be the only physical portion of Our Lord's Sacred Body which was not taken up into heaven. Frankly, I had never heard of this relic until a couple of days ago. Most relics I am aware of are whole bodies incorrupt, collections of bones of various sorts, or small flecks of bone, or bits of the true cross and the like.
Lastly, regarding the use of relics, any celebration of relics is in the Catholic Church is in the context of Christ who has made them what they are. In the Mass, we might venerate a relic of the saint of the day. But the Mass itself is about adoring and thanking Christ for His many blessings and mercies showered upon us through the cross, resurrection, and ascension, the memory of which is what is celebrated and made present in the Mass; since it both (1) makes the one sacrifice of the cross present to us, (2) makes us part of the resurrection by giving us communion with the forever living Christ, (3) makes us joined to the ascension when we lift up our hearts to the Lord and renew our hope of ascending at the end of our mortal life. Don't be distracted from this central focus on Christ by a few incidentals. We certainly aren't. Rather, the incidentals are reminders of God's continuing work in our Church down to the present.
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