Friday Phil

The Arminian position has always been perplexing to me.  Even when I was one I at least attempted to logically work through what I believed.  I am glad for those who were patient with me when I was in the pupa stage of becoming a full fledged reformed thinker.  And I am certainly glad for those who now tolerate my understanding or lack thereof as I continue to work through ideas.  And I think this is where we as the reformed will make the most impact on our friends who have not yet been “converted.” In gentleness, love and much patience show them how their position is illogical.  And really it will not take a Spock intellect to do so since their position, although strongly held, is weak. 

In this week’s Friday Phil, Phil does this very thing by taking aim at the belief that God is at once sovereign and that man can over ride that sovereignty at will and refuse God.  To us we readily see the inconstancy of this position and they will too but they have so much personally invested in their position that they will not let go without persuasion and time.

So consider this classic repost from Dec 2008        

The Arminian Problem in Simple Terms

by Phil Johnson
12-22-08

If God knows the future with certainty, then the future is (by definition) already predetermined. If tomorrow is predetermined and you don't want to acknowledge that the plan was decreed by God, you have only two choices:

1.  Some being other than God determines the future and is therefore more sovereign than He. That is a kind   of idolatry.

2.  Some impersonal force does the determining without reason or coherence. That is a kind of fatalism.

So anyone who denies that God preordained whatsoever comes to pass but wants to avoid both fatalism and idolatry is logically compelled to deny God's omnscience.

That of course, is precisely the rationale that has led so many to embrace Open Theism.

The more sensible option—and the biblical one—would be to abandon Arminian presuppositions and acknowledge that God declared the end from the beginning, and that He works all things according to the counsel of His own will.

Evangelism as a Biblical Command

It has been stated that the New Testament is the Old Testament unfolded.  If this is true then the major tenants found in the Old Testament should be found in the New Testament.  It is the purpose of this paper to explore one such tenant, that is biblical evangelism as revealed in both the Old and the New Testaments, and to defend its command for a believing Church to evangelize the world with the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

First, it is imperative to define what is intended with the usage of the word evangelism.  The word ‘euaggelizo’ literally means “to announce good news”[1] and carries with it the idea of carrying it to some place or person.  Jesus exemplifies this in Luke 4:18 where He testified of God and of Himself that He was anointed to preach the Gospel and that He had been sent to heal the broken hearted.  Further, we certainly are familiar with the command found in Matt 28:19 where the emphasis is on “go… make disciples.”  This word ‘euaggelizo’ is found many places in the New Testament and is always seen in an active sense carrying good news (the Gospel) to someone else.

The most common New Testament translation of ‘euaggelizo’ is preach and is found over 50 times in the New Testament.  It is always in the context of evangelistic preaching.  This is the forth telling of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is commanded of all believers, not just those whose vocation is the preaching of the Gospel.

Paul in his second letter to Timothy instructs “do the work of an evangelist.”  While the letter is certainly addressed to Timothy, it has broader implications to the believing church as a whole.  John MacArthur states that “the related verb ‘euangelizo’… and the noun ‘euangelion’… are used not only in relation to evangelists but also in relation to the call of every Christian to witness for Christ and to proclaim the Gospel of salvation.”[2]  

The example of evangelism is seen very early in the New Testament chronology.  In Luke 1:19 God sent Gabriel to “bring … glad tidings” to Zacharias.  Again in Luke 2:10 the angel evangelizes the shepherds with the good news of the birth of Christ.  And it seems fitting that the last evangelism will be from an angel of God preaching the “everlasting Gospel” to the world (Rev 14:6).

The Old Testament equivalent of ‘euaggelizo’ is ‘basar’ and means, as one would expect to, “publish, bear (good) tidings, preach, show forth”[3] and is in the “active voice indicating that this is a continual action to bring about a result or fact.”[4]  From the grammar alone we see that the act of evangelism is a continual work, one that we never put to rest.  The life of the believer is one of continual witness that only ends when the Lord brings the believer into eternal rest. 

The Old Testament command to evangelize is a little more difficult to see.  While there are specific instances where God anointed men “to preach good tidings” as in Isa 61:1, ‘basar’ is most often seen in the results from obeying this command.  For example, in Isa 42:6 God speaks to Isaiah “I the LORD have called You in righteousness…, as light to the Gentiles;” this verse has implications prophetically of Christ but immediately for Isaiah and the nation of Israel to be an evangelizing witness to the Gentile world. 

Notice that the result of this evangelism would be that the Gentiles would have light or illumination.  Without evangelism those that would come into the light will remain in darkness.  For just as it pleased God to confound the wise by the foolishness of the Gospel, it is the same “foolish” preaching that brings the lost out of darkness into the light (1 Cor 1:18-25).  

It must be noted though that Israel as a nation was by and large a failure as evangelists for God.  The Bible Encyclopedia states that ”Israel was largely a failure in carrying out her mission, [but] the large number of God-fearers at the beginning of the Christian era show that her magnetic attraction and proselytizing efforts were not entirely unfruitful.”[5]  Mostly the Bible gives specific instances of individual and external witness. 

 

In Dan 3:16-18 three humble Hebrews witness to a furious king of the power of God with the result being that God was exalted among the people.  Later, in chapter 6, Daniel’s unwavering witness of God produced an opportunity for the king to decree that all men must fear the God of Daniel.  In Jonah 3:1-10 we see the evangelistic witness of the reluctant prophet Jonah.  And the result of that witness was that “the people of Nineveh believed God” and repented of their sin. 

From the beginning it is God setting the example.  He sought out Adam and Eve in the garden showing them the condemnation of their sin.  It is God telling them of the woman’s Seed bruising the head of the serpent.  It is God that provided a Lamb without spot or blemish.  It is the Christ that came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Clearly the biblical command and the example provided by God is to evangelize the world.  We must make every effort to teach a disobedient church of God’s instruction.  In “Working for God” the author states “in all our efforts to waken the Church to evangelize the world, our first aim must be to raise the standard of life for the individual believer of the teaching: As truly as a candle only exists with the object of giving light in the darkness, the one object of your existence is to be a light to men.”[6]  We must be reminded that “…he who wins souls is wise” (Prov 11:30b). 

So for the Reformed we must not, indeed we cannot, if we are to be pleasing to God, rest in the fact that the sovereign decrees of a sovereign God come to pass, therefore no effort on our part is needed.  On the contrary, God has chosen redeemed man to carry the good news of salvation to a lost and dying world.

---

[1]New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance, PC Study Bible Formatted Electronic Database. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.

[2]John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary of 2 Timothy (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), 185.

[3]Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.  Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved.  Used by permission.

[4]The Complete Word Study Bible Copyright © 1991, 1994, 2002 AMG International, Inc.

[5]The Encyclopedia of Bible Knowledge, A Life of Christ, © Copyright 2001 by Cornerstone Bible Publishers. 

[6]Working for God, PC Study Bible Formatted Electronic Database Copyright © 2003 Biblesoft, Inc.  All rights reserved.

Your Friday Phil

The Guys over at Pyro finish their post of the offense of Calvinism this week with Phil pulling off the Trifecta.  So as usual I have reposted here... Enjoy! 

Oh you gotta love the frog.

Trifecta

by Phil Johnson

Since we have featured two posts about Calvinism already this week, why not a third? I've always liked the symmetrics of three-point sermons anyway.

What follows is an excerpt from one of my Shepherds' Conference seminars in 2007. You can download the entire message for free HERE. In that seminar I argued that everyone who truly believes the gospel has already embraced the core principles of Calvinist truth. Even the most ardent Arminian, if he is trulyevangelical, is a Calvinist when it really counts. Here's an excerpt:


y trek from Arminianism to Calvinism took more than ten years. Every time one of my arguments against Calvinist doctrines would fall, I would be forced to embrace some doctrine that I had heretofore been desperately trying to argue against.

But I never had any sense of defeat. It was more like I was resolving nagging conflicts in my own mind. Because I kept discovering that the truths at the heart of Calvinism truly are the doctrines of grace—principles that I had always affirmed: God is sovereign, Christ died for me, God loved me before I loved Him, He sought me and drew me and initiated my reconciliation while I was still His enemy. Those are all biblical truths, and I believed them even when I was a gung-ho Arminian.

So embracing Calvinism was natural—and inevitable—because all I was doing was ridding my mind of wrong ideas and faulty assumptions about human free will and other notions like that, which are not even taught in the Bible—so that I could wholeheartedly affirm what I really believed anyway: That God is God, and He does all His good pleasure, and no one can make Him do otherwise, and He is in control and in charge no matter how much noise evildoers try to make.

And not only is He in charge, He is working all things out for my good and His glory.

That's Calvinism. And if you believe those things, you have affirmed the heart of Calvinist doctrine, even if you call yourself an Arminian. Those are the basic truths of Calvinism, and if you already believe those things, you are functioning with Calvinist presuppositions.

There's more. If you are an authentic Christian, you know in your heart of hearts that you weren't born again because you were morally superior to your unbelieving neighbors. You were worthy of God's wrath just like them (Ephesians 2:1-3). According toEphesians 2:4-6, it wasGod who quickened you and showed you a special mercy—and that is why you are a believer. You already know that in your heart. You don't really believe you summoned faith and came to Christ in your own power and by your own unaided free will. You don't actually believe you are morally superior to unbelievers. You therefore must see, somewhere in your soul, that God has given you special grace that He has not shown everyone.

You also believe God is absolutely sovereign over all things. I know you do, because you lean on the promise of Romans 8:28. And that promise would mean nothing if God were not in control of every detail of everything that happens. If He is not in control of all things, how could He work all things together for good?

Furthermore, you pray for the lost, which means in your heart, you believe God is sovereign over their salvation. If you didn'treally believe He was sovereign in saving sinners, you'd quit praying for the lost and start doing everything you could to buttonhole people into the kingdom by hook or by crook, instead. But you know that would be folly.

And you pray about other things, too, don't you? You pray that God will change this person's heart, or alter the circumstances of that problem. That's pure Calvinism. When we go to God in prayer, we're expressing faith in His sovereignty over the circumstances of our lives.

You believe God operates sovereignly in the administration of all His providence. You say things like, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that" (James 4:15)—because you believe that God works all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph. 1:11), and nothing happens apart from his will.

Nothing is more biblical than these doctrines that are commonly labeled Calvinism. In a way, it is a shame they have been given an extrabiblical name. Because these truths are the very essence of what Scripture teaches.

Your Friday Phil

The guys over at Pyro continued their posting of the offense of Calvinism from last week so this week I will continue that same line.  However, your weekly Friday Phil will actually be a "Taste of Turk" (hey I try).  Turk, aka Centuri0n, operates "A Flame of Fire" site that is worth an afternoon's perusing.  Anyway Phil will be back next week with his concluding thoughts.  See you then.

Election Results

by Frank Turk

So spring fever has apparently sprung amongst those who find Calvinism offensive -- Phil gave his perspective on the topic on Friday (bringing out the usual suspects and their kin to fuss against such a thing), and over atEvangel Anthony Sacramone (they will obviously let anyone contribute over there) shook a fist at the "weird or noxious ideas" that "a God this horrible just happens to explain why the world looks the way it does" (meaning: Calvinism is bad).

And it all comes down to one thing, really: election results.

Now, by that I don't mean, "the tally of all the votes so we can finally end the discussion by democratic consensus." By that I mean thinking about what it means to say that God saves men.

Listen: the argument over election is not over anything else. It is only over how intentional God was and is and shall be to save anybody. The Calvinist and the non-calvinists of all stripe all believe that man needs to be saved. The Calvinist and the non-calvinists of all stripe believe that Jesus is the Savior of men. These are not the questions. It is also not the question of whether or not God intends to save men: both the Calvinist and the non-calvinists believe that God wants to save men.

The question is only this: are those who are saved saved specifically and intentionally by God because it was His plan all along to save them personally by drawing them into the assembly of all believers, or does the phrase "whosoever will" guide our understanding theological so as to understand that the divine will is not in fact determinative for who specifically will be saved, but is rather an open invitation through which God will have a very pleasant surprise at the end of all things to find that many men have in fact taken him up on the offer?

"That's not very fair, cent," comes the sincere and irenic non-calvinist. "We believe that God has foreknowledge of whosoever will, so it's not a 'surprise' to him at all. God knows who will and will not come to faith, and that's how the elect are numbered, for example, in the Lamb's book of life."

Let me be honest: I admit that my formula there is not very fair and I agree that the non-calvinist formulas for defining God's foreknowledge leaves God unsurprised by what seems to us to be "the future". But it troubles me deeply to see the non-calvinist argue as if they themselves don't believe their own explanations -- and therefore I make my unfair arguments to cause them to retreat to their foundations in the hope of showing them their biblically-fatal flaws.

I'm not mean or stupid: I just want people to be honest with themselves.

Here's what I think -- I think that what we want as Christians is to show people that God can be understood and somehow inserted into the world we think we live in. We think that bringing people to God is like bringing people to meet a friend of ours whom they ought to know and like because we have so much in common -- or maybe they are just interesting folk. The problem is that God is not like anyone, and when we compare us to him, we are the pale imitation. We are the ones who come up lacking.

So when we say things like, "well, God sort of 'remembers the future' -- he doesn't cause it, but he 'knows' it because he can 'see' it, sort of like Sonny & Cher ..." we are making God like us. But here's what God says about His relationship to the future:

Remember the former things of old:
for I am God, and there is none else;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning,
and from ancient times the things
that are not yet done,
saying, My counsel shall stand,
and I will do all my pleasure:
Calling a ravenous bird from the east,
the man that executeth my counsel
from a far country:
yea, I have spoken it,
I will also bring it to pass;
I have purposed it, I will also do it.

Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted,
that are far from righteousness:

I bring near my righteousness;
it shall not be far off,
and my salvation shall not tarry:
and I will place salvation in Zion
for Israel my glory.
[Is 46:9-13, KJV]

There are a lot of things that you can say about that passage, I guess, but there are a few couple of things you have to admit about it:

[1] This is a passage where God speaks explicitly about two things at least: the inevitability of salvation, and the basis of the inevitability of salvation. Zion is going to receive salvation and righteousness -- and it's not because God can see how it comes together. It is because He is God, and there is none like him, and he declares the end of things from the beginning. This has to put to rest any talk of God passively knowing the future -- somehow taking it in. God doesn't get awareness of the future: He declares it -- that is, what he says, goes.

[2] God is not merely declaring the ends, but also the means. That part about the ravenous bird and the foreign agent -- that's saying that not only will God say, "here's what I'm going to do," but also, "this is how I am going to do it." This may be poetic language, but if it is, then as a metaphor is it using the lesser example to point to the greater reality -- and that if the metaphor is, "I will use either a bird or a man as I please," the reality is that God will use all thingsas he pleases, and He does please.

So when we start talking about election results -- that is, the consequences of God's choice to save -- we should be certain that we are somehow connecting to what God actually says about the consequences of His choice to save. He will certainly save "whosoever will" repent and believe -- from our human perspective, which is notprescriptive of the future but is in fact consequential to the passage of time. But God's relationship to the future is not like ours, and we shouldn't try to make it like ours -- because let's face it: we would screw up the future if it was up to us, and we have hope that the future is in fact not screwed up but eschatologically perfect.

And with that big theology word to satisfy the watchbloggers, I leave the discussion open. Play nice.

Your Friday Phil

One of my favorite Preachers has come to be Phil Johnson over at GTY.  I think it's his direct style and reliance upon God's word which most appeals to me.  Phil on Monday posted this over at the Pyromaniacs which I found typical in my own evolution into a proper understanding of God and His relationship to the salvation of man, so I thought I would repost it here for your consideration.

Notes from a Reluctant Calvinist

The following excerpt is from a message I gave to a group of college students about five years ago. I'm posting this excerpt to encourage you to listen to the entire message, titled, "The Story of Calvinism," which you can download (or stream) from HERE.

     have not always been a Calvinist. As a matter of fact, I was raised in the context of a liberal Methodist church, so long before I ever became a Christian, my mind was poisoned with a blend of liberalism and Wesleyan theology. And after I became a Christian, it was several years before I finally came to the point where I could affirm the biblical doctrine of election without trying to explain away clear statements of Scripture likeEphesians 1:4 (which says that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world). Or Romans 9:15-16, where God says, "'I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.' So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."

I resisted those ideas for years. I knew the word election is biblical, but I had a friend who explained it this way: "God votedfor you the devil voted against you. You cast the deciding vote."

That made perfect sense to me.

Very early in my Christian experience, I went to a small church in the town where I attended college, and my Sunday-school teacher there was decidedly anti-Calvinistic. Almost every week, he would warn us against the dangers of putting too much stress on the sovereignty of God. Almost every week he would work into his lesson the idea that human free-will is sovereign, and the choice is ultimately left entirely up to each sinner to decide what to do with Christ. That seemed reasonable to me. It reinforced what I was inclined to believe anyway.

But at the same time, in my own study of the Scriptures and my reading of church history, I kept running into biblical statements and doctrinal issues that posed a severe challenge to that sort of free-will theology.

Then one Sunday while this guy was taking prayer requests, a girl in the class raised her hand and asked, "Should we really be praying for our lost relatives? It seems like it's a wasted effort to pray to God for their salvation if He can't do any more than he has already done to save them."

And I vividly remember the look on the face of this Sunday School teacher. This was clearly a question that had never occurred to him. So he thought about it for a moment, and you could see the wheels in his head turning while he tried to think of a good reason to pray for the salvation of the lost. And finally, he said, "Well, yeah, I guess you're right." And from that Sunday on, he never accepted any more prayer requests for people's lost loved ones.

That didn't seem quite right to me, even as a dyed-in-the-wool Arminian. I had just done a Bible study in Romans 10:1, where Paul says, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved." Not only that, I began to wonder why we should pray about anything in the realm of human relationships if God never intrudes on the sanctity of human free will. You know: Why should I pray for God to move my English teacher to look favorably on my work when she graded my paper if she is ultimately sovereign over her own heart? Those were questions I couldn't answer.

And the more I studied the Bible, the more it seemed to challenge my ideas about free will and the sovereignty of God. One by one over a period of more than 10 years, the doctrines of election, and God's sovereignty, and the total depravity of sinners became more and more clear to me from Scripture.

It was a sermon series by John MacArthur on the doctrine of election from Ephesians 2 that finally turned me into a full-fledged Calvinist, and that was at least 15 years after I first came to the Lord.

So I know what it is like to be baffled by these truths and to resist what seems like a dangerous tendency to go overboard with the doctrine of God's sovereignty. I've been there, and I feel your pain.