Published: September 14, 2014 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: The Five Points of Calvinism - Part 2
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well last week we began our series on the five points of Calvinism and talked about the historical background of the remonstrance --is that were presented
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before the states-general of holland by the armenians the armenians and their response the states-general at the Synod of dort presenting a
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summary statement of Calvinism or reformed theology that has come under the the acronym tulip the five points of
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Calvinism at the end of class I read a passage from Arthur Custance then I want to look at again because I know if you
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read it here it meditate on it a little bit it's awfully strong stronger than most people speak in today's church
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Custance was not all that long ago I think he died in the 1990s his writings are still easily available online the
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armenians haven't blocked the the links yet but he writes every departure from the doctrine of election in any degree has been a departure from the gospel for
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such departure always involves the introduction of some obligation on man's part to make a contribution towards his own salvation a contribution he simply
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cannot make this is unrealistic with respect to God with man to man excuse me and dishonouring with respect to God there are no shades of truth here this
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is an all-or-nothing doctrine those are hard words and they would lead to the question I think naturally our
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Armenians Christians did anybody think that last week okay
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right possibly yeah in that statement that's on my god you know my God's not like that my god doesn't create people just to destroy them that's another favorite my god doesn't drag people kicking and screaming to
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heaven and thank God my God does right
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okay that's that's well put a consistent Arminian that means that means somebody who follows through with the thought and
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the logic the the most consistent or many in today are the open theists who claim that God himself does not know the
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future but his participating in the passage of time has an adventure along with man and that is a prevalent teaching in the modern American church
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today God God is is in this with us and he's no more sure of how it's going to turn out than we are now that that
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thought scares me but that is not a Christian thought that is not a biblical world and life view and so yes a
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consistent Arminian I would say is probably not a Christian but the fact is most Armenians are not consistent and I
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have yet in 35 years of being a believer and 20 years of being a Calvinist I'm not sure I've heard more than one person
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in all that time actually boast about what they have done for the Lord or that they received
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salvation rather than God saving them if you if you listen to most Armenian preachers or just believers in the pews they attribute their salvation to God
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and that's perhaps the most inconsistent inconsistency or the excuse me the most consistent consistency among our minions is that they do attribute their
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salvation to the work of God a
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consistent Calvinist well yes I there are people who are well I don't think I'm you know I don't think that's how it's called hyper-calvinism and and that is an error because it is
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detrimental to the mission of the church in evangelism it basically teaches that since God knows those who are his there's no need for for evangelism there's no need in fact there were those
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who said that the gospel should not be preached because there may be non-elect in the audience and I'm not kidding now
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this was popular during the Puritan era there were a few it was an aberration but they said you know you would be casting your pearls before swine and you can't know who the elect are and who do
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not elect are it's really kind of analogous to the Roman Catholic Church not giving the cup to its communicants because it might spill okay and so we
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don't preach the gospel because there might be non elect not nun unbelievers but not elect meaning they will never be believers in the audience and you would be casting pearls before swine now
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that's hyper-calvinism that's hyper-calvinism inconsistent Calvinism goes under the heading of four point Calvinists you ever heard of a four point Calvinists four point
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four point 4.5 back again they're asymptotically getting closer huh four-point calvinists it's the L they're two hips they don't
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like the L the limited atonement and we'll talk about the four point Calvinists but I want to make it clear having read cost Custance two things
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first of all I agree with him I do believe that every departure from consistent Pauline ISM augustinianism Calvinism reformed theology and that's
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what it's been called throughout the ages every departure from that teaching is a departure from the gospel that's on the one hand sounds like those who do
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not agree with reformed doctrine are not Christians so I want to say on the other hand I don't believe that I do believe that there are many within Armenian
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churches many Armenians as I do believe that there are probably many Roman Catholics who are in fact Christians they're regenerate that does not mean
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that their particular denomination or their particular church structure is teaching and preaching the gospel for instance I I do believe there are regenerate Roman Catholics I do not for
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a moment believe the Roman Catholic Church preaches the gospel now they introduce works and a synergism like we talked about last week between God and
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man in a similar way to arminianism they have this in common and Custance points that out in that they they both
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introduced some contribution that is to be made by man towards his own salvation and I have to agree with Custance that
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in reading the Bible these are contributions that man simply cannot make and we'll be talking about that as we go through David the book Custance it's called the
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sovereignty of grace by arthur Custance
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but today i want to talk about the the foundations of arminianism how did they come about does God present himself anywhere in scripture has a committee is
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there any place in scripture that you can think of where God before he makes a decision asks man for his opinion I mean Paul's doxology in Romans 11 he
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says he has not sought the counsel of man you know his his ways are too deep for man to comprehend and he certainly doesn't ask man's advice his salvation
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presented in the Bible as a cooperative effort I don't believe that it is now we'll deal with some difficult passages
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where it appears that our faith is is up to us it's something that we bring to the table that we believe and then we
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are saved but it seems to me and it has seen for a couple of decades that the preponderance of biblical teaching is that salvation is of the Lord and that
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he saves or he has mercy upon those he will have mercy and he hardens those whom he will harden but he straightens and no man can bends and he bends and no man can straighten now the evidence I
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think of a sovereign God who is sovereign in all things who knows the end from the beginning for those open theists who believe that he doesn't know the future he's the Alpha and the Omega
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the beginning and the end that it's such a strong teaching in Scripture that it's natural to ask how did anybody come up with a different teaching how did James
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Arminius come up with his cooperative teaching how did Pelagius come up with his idea that there is a latent goodness within man that simply needs to be fanned by
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example and by encouragement and man can actually effectuate his own salvation that was Pelagius is teacher we're all
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born our minions well now yeah we are and and it does seem on the other hand in the instance of salvation when we
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each individually came to know the Lord we did believe right and I don't imagine that any of us felt any violent coercion
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to do so we we were convinced of the truth of the gospel of our need for salvation of the reality that there is
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no other way to the Father but through the Sun and we acquiesced in a sense we surrendered and it does seem like that's very Armenian and when we preach the
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gospel as Peter did at Pentecost we say repent and believe and so on the outward appearance it looks very Armenia it
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looks like it is up to the sinner but then we read what the Bible has to say about the sinner about his depravity about his inability about his deadness
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in trespass and sin and we come to realize that that which we thought we did we did only by the grace of God and the faith that he first put in us by the
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regenerative work of the Holy Spirit in giving us a new heart a heart that then responds in faith to God the process of it and that's why I believe that there
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are Christian Armenians we're not saved by our theology we're saved by grace through faith and so all of us have error in our theology we have blind
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spots we have miss apprehensions about God about ourselves about what God has done and by God's mercy by God's grace we are not kept out of
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eternal life because of those errors so I don't believe that error prevents a person from being a believer now when
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that error transcends into the teaching of it of it and two statements that actually malign God as he has revealed himself in the
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Bible well then I think the person is on thin ice does that make sense you know when people start to say well that's not my god well you know it doesn't really
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matter whether it's your God it matters whether your God is the God and He has revealed himself and we need to conform our thinking to him
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essentially take you you you cannot will yourself contrary to your nature right I've often used the example it doesn't matter how much a cat desires to bark the cat can't bark it is contrary to its
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nature what it does do it does freely according to its nature does that make sense change the nature you change the will
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right so if we have a fallen nature because of sin then it is illogical to say that we can will salvation the
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nature needs to be changed first so that will all come out Elizabeth hopefully as we talk about total depravity but I want to give a brief Calvinistic response to
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these two philosophies these are the pillars of arminianism
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no they're human that's why I say their philosophical not theological in other words some does does the Bible teach divine sovereignty and it does teach
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divine sovereignty in election we read that passage in Romans nine do be not ok does the Bible teach let me put it this way does the Bible teach human responsibility ok can they be
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incompatible no they cannot be incompatible and so only man's reasoning could say that they are ok any believer
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who reads two things in the Bible that appear to be at odds must accept through faith that they are compatible the
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Calvinist responds that sovereignty and
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responsibility are both taught I'm going to say they're both scriptural and
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therefore compatible
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and that's what we're going to try to do through this session is look at the scriptures that teach these points it may be that we cannot figure out at
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least not fully how they are compatible but I do think if we accept that they are compatible we will find out to our
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satisfaction how they are biblically compatible but if they're both taught in Scripture who are we to say they're incompatible now the way the Armenian
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does this is by redefining election and we'll talk about that when we talk about unconditional election if you want to make these incompatible these two
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incompatibilities compatible you can redefine the terms to make them sell or you can accept that their compatibility
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may be beyond our comprehension the Armenian redefines terms so as to make them compatible logically the Calvinism
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said the Calvinist says the compatibility of these two biblical doctrines is beyond my comprehension that makes sense okay and the next one
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really kind of touches on this one the obligation is of the essence of humanity
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the analogy here is a phenomenon that is common in warfare and that is self-inflicted injuries men coming back from the front to the aid camp with a
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bullet wound in her foot and it was very obviously made by their own weapon and in most armies when that becomes
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apparent they are either court-martialed that would be the Western armies of Great Britain and the United States or shocked which would be the German or the Russian army okay
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army okay self and self-inflicted inability is a characteristic of sin but obligation is of the essence of being a soldier right
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in fact our obligation intensifies the sin of our inability rather than our
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inability lessening our obligation we are obligated by the very essence of being made in the image of God does that make sense
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make sense obligated to obey God and to give Him glory obligated to do what he commands we are obligated all men are obligated
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his inability is self-inflicted right
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it is not natural it is it is unnatural in the sense that it is not part of being human part of being human first of all Adam was not created a
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sinner right so we go if we go back to the original design he was without sin that is what we read of as the imago Dei
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the image of God how he came to sin we'll we'll talk about later but he did he fell and when he fell all of his
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processes were changed his nature was changed that is the nature we inherit from our Father from our earthly father
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Adam Jesus Christ did not inherit that nature he was born without sin the
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consistent ones do not they move toward Pelagius in that the inconsistent ones do they accept the federal headship and we have to talk about that the Bible
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teaches that when Adam sinned we all sinned because we were in Adam when he sinned but it also teaches you know that's not fair I didn't do it well it
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also teaches that those who are in Christ bear the righteousness of Christ because they are in him the principle that caused us to be born in sin is the
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very same principle that enables us to be saved who can't apply that to the Angels okay so there's no there's a lot to talk about here but the just a very
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brief thing if anything is scriptural then it's seeming incompatibility has to be due to some limitation of our
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understanding not to anything wrong with the doctrines taught and the second is we are obligated to God by virtue of the
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fact that we are created we are his creation our inability is self-inflicted and actually intensifies our obligation rather than limiting it our time is up
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let us close in prayer her father we do humbly ask for the effectual call the
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general called is very Armenian and you're right it does give the impression of a free will on the part of the sinner
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to believe but when we read in the scripture we realize as Jesus said to the Pharisees to the scribes he did not
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say you are not one of mine because you do not believe he said you do not believe because you are not one of mine
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and you know and the order there is very indicative of what we're talking about did you ever comment feeling
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it's probably more the the de-emphasis of the Old Testament in the modern church is probably more a product of dispensationalism which is generally with the interesting exception of John MacArthur it is generally an eschatology
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held by our minions dispensationalism but dispensationalism because it hermetically sealed the different economies of God through the ages tens
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to de-emphasize the old testament except as they perceive it applying to the next era than the millennium okay so I don't
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know that our minion ism itself leads to a de-emphasis of any particular part of the Bible but dispensationalism does well I'm saying you know you asked the
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question and I asked the question as I read the Bible let's first with Romans 3 in Romans 3 and we'll talk about that the Lord willing next week when we begin with the T total depravity in Romans 3
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the Apostle Paul basically harvests the Old Testament for its opinion of man's condition and starting with feet that
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run to evil and going to lips that possess the venom of ASPs he basically says that man is wicked from head to toe
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and he's a nice man again using Old Testament scripture one right after another a concatenation of passages from different places in the Old Testament he denies to man the ability or the even
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the interest in seeking after God and when you read that you think how could anybody think that man has anything to
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bring to the table towards his own salvation and so what I want to present to you is that Arminianism is not really a theological
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view it's a philosophical view now I don't have a problem with philosophy philosophy is etymologically the love of
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wisdom and so there's nothing inherently wrong with philosophy as long as it's not what Paul calls vain philosophy as long as it's philosophy that aligns with
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what God has revealed as truth in in the world but Armenian Armenian theology is really more of a philosophy and it's
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founded on two pillars the first is that divine sovereignty in election is
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incompatible with human free will that
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we have in the Bible this idea that God elects but that man is responsible through his own will to believe
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sovereign election which is what the Calvinist believes and teaches is to the Armenian incompatible with human free will this is the dragging of sinners kicking and screaming into heaven okay
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that God does not force himself one writer actually calls Calvinism the doctrine of election the Calvinistic doctrine of election divine rape that's
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the term he uses this is the oh the Armenian feels strongly about this and often in conversation is is very
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intemperate with with his words but that is a phrase that is used among Armenians that sovereign election is divine rape
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the second pillar the second philosophical pillar comes from a phrase aught implies can what this means is
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that divine command necessitates human
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ability to obey because we ought to believe in God that implies that we can
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believe in God that our obligation is
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proportional to our ability Eric
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right and it is actually a very old view because this is the view of Pelagius but you're right that we do tend or in specially debtors prison that's a good analogy that inability led to further
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inability and what what the Arminian teaches is that if we decrease in our teaching man's ability we they're
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thereby decrease his obligation Paul says that this was the argument against his teaching we read last week in Romans
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chapter 9 you will say oh man who is he that answers back to God for who can defy his will who can resist his
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will in other words if if if God chooses and I'm not able to respond and God hasn't given me the ability of respond well then how then can God hold me accountable Elizabeth did you have a
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this one right well this one actually appeals both of these are very appealing to our human judgment we think of it maybe this way would would you think it
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right for a parent to punish a a five-year-old for not being able for not doing his long division problems I
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haven't met very many five-year-olds that can do long addition you know we they're they're unable to do it would you think would you think ill of a handicapped person unable to hit a
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baseball their their inability does in fact limit their the expectation of their performance and so if the calvinist comes in and teaches that man
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is totally unable then how then can God hold him to account for his sin it's
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like I didn't have a choice in a sense it's true we don't have a choice even the plowing of the wicked is an
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abomination to the Lord that's from the songs I believe are Proverbs I want to address these two and we'll go into them in more detail as we talk about the
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different points of Calvinism Neal
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well the concept of free will is something that we're gonna have to talk about at length especially with total depravity and irresistible grace because both of those touch upon the will you
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have to define your terms defining your terms is very important and we're gonna try to do that as we go through this do
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you really have a free will in other words in this life God and your salvation notwithstanding can you always to what you want know right do you often
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do what you want yes doesn't that mean that there's a nuance involved with the understanding of free
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will that maybe we're arguing at the extremes when the truth is is somewhere in between that we can't say that we
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have complete free will because our will is bound by circumstances beyond our control we didn't choose our families for example he didn't choose the family
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you were born into you didn't choose their socio-economic level you didn't choose well for most of us I don't think we chose the country into which we were
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born well you certainly didn't choose which one you were born you may have chosen to move here you didn't have there are a lot of aspects of life in which you don't have free will okay so
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that at least says that when we talk about human free will there are some obvious and understandable limitations to free will on the other hand are we
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drones are we automate our we puppets No and the Bible doesn't present us that
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way are we responsible for our decisions absolutely it's the man who sins who will die right I mean that's a biblical principle that we are responsible ok so
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there there are a lot of different factors that have to be kind of unfolded unpacked we also have to look at the biblical teaching of Adam before the
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fall versus Adam after the fall if we want to look at a man who had the highest degree of free will with relationship to God would that not be
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Adam but when he sinned what happened to that will it became bound to sin and
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under bondage of a sin nature and that's another aspect of free will you can't flap your arms and fly and if
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it is your will to do so there's a hospital downtown called Marshall Pickens to which people will let your loved ones will