calvinism
CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM
by Ray Shelton
The legalistic misunderstanding of salvation and of the need for salvation lies beneath many of the theological and practical controversies in the history of the Christian church. This is particularly true of the Calvinism/Arminianism theological controversy. This controversy began in the early seventeenth century when a Dutch theologian named Jacob Hermann (1560-1609), better known by the Latin form of his last name, Arminius, tried to show the unscriptural character of some aspects of the dominate Calvinistic theology of his day. His disciples, called Arminians and Remonstrants, several years after Arminius’ death, expanded his doctrines into five main points known as the Five Points of Arminianism. The Arminians presented to the Dutch Parliament a Remonstrance, a carefully written protest against the Calvinistic or Reformed Faith, and a National Synod of the Dutch Church was convened in Dort in 1618 to examine the teachings of Arminius. After 154 sessions, which lasted seven months, the Five Points of Arminianism were found to be heretical. The Synod of Dort reaffirmed the Calvinistic theology as consistent with Scripture, and formulated a summary of Calvinistic theology known as The Five Points of Calvinism. These have been set forth in the form of an acrostic, forming the word TULIP.
The following are the “Five Points” of Calvinism:
1. T – Total Depravity or Total Inability
2. U – Unconditional Election
3. L – Limited Atonement
4. I – Irresistible Grace
5. P – Perseverance of the Saints
These present the fundamentals of the theological system known as Calvinism. They form a coherent and logically consistent system of theology. Given the acceptance of the first point, Total Depravity or Total Inability, the other “Points” follow logically and necessarily. Since all men are unable to save themselves because of their sinful nature (Total Inability), then God must sovereignly choose who will be saved and who will not be saved (Unconditional Election). And since only the ones chosen (the Elect) must have their sins atoned for, if they are to be saved, Christ need die only for the sins of the Elect (Limited Atonement). And since the Elect can do nothing because of their sinful nature to turn to Christ and receive His atonement for their sins, God alone in His grace can overcome the resistance of their wills and give them a new nature by which they will willingly receive Christ’s atonement (Irresistible Grace). In order to guarantee that all the Elect will finally be saved, God sovereignly keeps the Elect from doing anything by which their salvation may be lost (Perseverance of the Saints or The Eternal Security of the Believer).
Arminius rejected the Unconditional Election of the Five Points as unscriptural. He argued that God chooses those to be saved whom he foreknew would believe in Christ. According to Arminius, election is conditional; God’s choice is conditioned by His foreknowledge of whom will believe. Calvinists reject this conditional election arguing that God foreknows only what He has sovereignly willed to take place. They argue that everything that takes place including the choices of man was immutably determined and fixed by God in eternity, and that all that happens is nothing but what He had ordained to be before anything was created. God’s foreknowledge then depends upon the purpose and the plan of God and that God foreknows only what he has willed to take place. Arminians reject this determinism arguing that it leaves no place for man’s free will which God gave to man when He created him, and also it makes God the cause of sin and evil in the world. The Calvinist attempts to counter this argument by replying that sin is caused directly by man and the evil in the world is caused by Satan and his fallen angels; God is therefore not responsible for sin and evil. God wills only the good, because His nature is good, not evil nor sinful. “But,” the Arminians asks, “where did the evil and sin come from? If God wills everything, then God must have willed the evil and sin.” The Arminians argue that man and the angels must have free will and that sin and evil are caused by the wrong choices which they make by the exercise of their free wills. Thus sin and evil is not caused by God but by those beings that God has created with free will. But the Calvinist reply that by the fall man has lost his free will and his nature has become corrupt or sinful. Man thus is totally unable to do anything to merit salvation.
Arminius himself did not reject the Total Inability of the Five Points. He believed profoundly in original sin, understanding that the will of natural fallen man is not only maimed and wounded, but that it is entirely unable, apart from prevenient grace, to do any good thing. He held that by the fall man has lost his free will and his nature has become corrupt or sinful. Man is totally unable to do anything to merit salvation. His followers have not always agreed with him on this point, and have modified the doctrine of original sin to teach that man since the fall is partially unable to do any good thing. In order to allow for man’s free will, they teach that man’s sinful nature does not determine his choices, but it is only a tendency to sin. The sinful nature only hinders man from doing the good.
Arminius also rejected the Limited Atonement of the Five Points as unscriptural. Christ’s atonement is unlimited. He understood such scriptures that say “he died for all” (II Cor. 5:15; compare II Cor. 5:14; Titus 2:11; I John 2:2) to mean what they say. Some Calvinists, such as the Puritan John Owens, argue that the “all” means only all of those who have been elected to be saved. Arminius also rejected the Irresistible Grace of the Five Points, arguing that saving grace can be resisted and rejected. Since some men have resisted God’s saving grace and rejected it, these men are lost and not saved. They are not saved, not because God did not choose them, but because they did not choose God; they resisted and rejected the saving grace of God. Arminius also rejected the Perseverance of the Saints of the Five Points arguing that since the believer still has free will after conversion, he could reverse his decision of faith in Christ and reject Christ, and thus lose his salvation and be eternally lost.
The following are the “Five Points” of Arminianism:
1. Partial Depravity or Tendency to Sin
2. Conditional Election
3. Unlimited Atonement
4. Resistible Grace
5. Conditional Security of the Believer
It may seem from the above discussion that Arminianism is defined by way of negation of Calvinism. And in some cases this may be true. But the Arminian view is based on a positive affirmation that all men are free moral agents both before and after conversion. This conviction has been called Pelagian by the Calvinists. Arminianism is not Pelagian; it does not teach salvation by works any more than Calvinism does. Although it does not reject salvation by works in the same way as Calvinism does, Arminianism still does reject salvation by works. It rejects salvation by works because man’s works fall short of the divine standard of holiness and therefore man cannot be saved by them. Calvinism, on the other hand, rejects salvation by works on a different basis: because of his sinful nature, man is not able to earn salvation.
Both Arminianism and Calvinism see the need for salvation in legalistic terms. Man needs to be saved because he is a guilty sinner and a sinner by nature. Although disagreeing over the doctrine of Total Depravity, they both hold to a doctrine of the sinful nature. But even here they understand the sinful nature differently. Calvinism defines it in such a way that man cannot do anything to save himself and thus God must sovereignly choose who will be saved and who will be lost (Unconditional Election). Arminianism defines the sinful nature in such a way to allow for man’s free will and thus as only a tendency to sin and a hindrance to doing good. In order to allow for man’s free will, they teach that man’s sinful nature does not determine his choices, but it is only a tendency to sin. The sinful nature only hinders man from doing the good; thus man falls short of divine perfection, the holiness of God. But in spite of these differences they both see that man needs to be saved because he is a guilty sinner, a sinner by nature.
Although Arminianism rejects and modifies all of the Five Points of Calvinism, it does not reject the legalistic assumptions of the Calvinistic theological system. Arminianism, like Calvinism, defines sin and righteousness in terms of law. They both understand sin to be basically a transgression of the law, the breaking of the rules and a falling short of the universal divine standard of perfection. Sin is considered to be a crime against God, and the penalty for these crimes is spiritual, physical and eternal death. Until this penalty is executed at the last judgment, man is under the burden of an objective guilt or condemnation which must be punished. Thus man needs to be saved because he is a guilty sinner. But man also needs to be saved because he does not have a righteousness which God can reward with eternal life. This righteousness is conceived legalistically as merits, that is, that quantity of righteousness which entitles its owner to a reward of eternal life. Thus man needs to be saved, not only because he is a guilty sinner liable to eternal death, but also because he does not have this legal righteousness which entitles him to eternal life.
Calvinism is based on two basic assumptions which are legalistic in character. The first assumption is about man and the second is about God. Calvinism assumes that man cannot save himself because he is not able to do the good works necessary to earn salvation. This assumption is clearly legalistic. It assumes that salvation is by meritorious works but man is not able to do those works. The truth is that salvation is not something that is earned by merits, but a personal relationship to God that God offers to man by the grace of God as a gift and man enters into by faith in God, receiving eternal life as a gift. Man cannot save himself by works, not because he cannot do the works, but because salvation is not by meritorious works; it is a gift of life, a personal relationship given by God in His love and grace and entered into through faith ( Eph. 2:8-9).
The second assumption is about God and follows from the first. Since man cannot earn salvation himself because of sinful nature, God must earn it for him. Augustine believed that God gives His grace to enable man to earn the meritorious works which would save him. The Calvinist deny this view of grace and sees grace as the unmerited favor of God in which God gives to the elect the righteousness or merits earned for them by Christ’s active obedience. That is, God in Christ has earned for them eternal life that they themselves cannot earn because of their sinful nature. But the Calvinist is wrong; the righteousness from God (Phil. 3:9) is not the merits earned by Christ’s active obedience but is a right personal relationship to God through faith: faith reckoned as righteousness, the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:4-6, 13). And God puts man into this right personal relationship to Himself by His grace, not by vicarious meritorious works earned for them by another. The grace of God is not just the unmerited favor of God, but it is the love of God in action to save man from death to life ( Eph. 2:4-5).
Calvinism’s view of salvation is monergistic, that is, God alone is active in salvation, because it believes that since man’s nature is sinful and man does what his nature is, then all the acts of man are sinful and he cannot do any righteous act to earn salvation. Therefore, God alone must do it for him. Calvinism, denying the Augustinian view that God does these meritorious acts by the grace of God that man receives from God through the sacraments, asserts that God alone does these meritorious acts through the active obedience of Christ; Christ has earned salvation for us. God alone is active in man’s salvation. Not only is the grace of God the work of God but so is faith, since salvation is “by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:8). According to the Calvinistic doctrine of Irresistible Grace, the faith that receives the grace of God is also the work of God. But the phrase in Eph. 2:8, “and this not of yourselves, it is a gift of God”, refers to salvation and not to faith. In the Greek of this verse, the demonstrative pronoun translated “this” agrees in gender (masculine) with the verbal participle translated “have been saved”, and not with the noun translated “faith” which is feminine. On God’s side, God gives (“by grace”) salvation and on man’s side (“through faith”) man chooses to receive that gift. Salvation is the gift which is received by faith, not earned by meritorious works. Even though faith is the act or choice of man, it is not a meritorious work which can earn salvation.
Calvinism’s view of salvation is legalistic, because it assumes that all the acts of man are meritorious, either earning merit by his righteous acts or losing it by the demerit of his sinful acts. This view of man is thoroughly legalistic. It views the relationship of man to God as based on merit that the justice of God demands and requires. The righteousness of God is misinterpreted as the justice of God. On this view, the justice of God rewards the merit of righteous acts and punishes the demerit of sinful acts. Because man does what his nature is and because of his nature is sinful, all the acts of man are sinful and cannot earn any merit. Therefore, no man can save himself. If he could do any righteous or good acts or works, then he could earn salvation and save himself. But since all men have sinned, no man can save himself and all men are condemned to eternal punishment for all their sins or demerits.
Even though this view sounds biblical, it is not. Nowhere in the Bible does it teach that salvation is earned by righteous or good works, even in the Old Testament. On the contrary, it teaches just the opposite: man is saved by grace through faith and not by works ( Eph. 2:8-9). Righteousness is right personal relationship to God through faith (Gen. 15:6; Hab. 2:4; Rom. 4:4-6). The righteousness of God is not justice in the Greek-Roman sense of rendering to each what is due to them according to merit, but God acting to put right the wrong and to set man into right personal relationship to Himself, that is, it is a synonym for salvation (Psa. 98:2; Isa. 56:1). The basic sin is not just breaking the law earning demerit, but faith and trust in something other than the true God (Ex. 20:3-4; Deut. 6:4, 14-15; Rom. 1:22-25; 14:23); it is idolatry, trust in a false god. And man does not sin because of a inherited sinful nature, but because of spiritual death received from Adam.
“5:12 Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, because of which all sinned: — 5:13 for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the type of him who was to come.” (Rom. 5:12-14 ERS).
Man’s nature is not sinful or good, but is what he choose it to be; if he chooses a false god as his ultimate criterion of his choices, his choices will be sinful. Since men are spiritually dead, that is, not spiritually alive in a personal relationship to God, they will choose a false god as their ultimate criterion of their choices of how they will think or act. God opposes man’s basic sin of idolatry and the sins that follow from it; this opposition is the wrath of God. And if a man continues to serve his false god, refusing the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, he will receive eternal death, the wages of this slavemaster. This has nothing to do with merit or demerit, nor with the execution of justice in paying the penalty for law breaking. Romans 6:23 is about the slavery of sin and its consequences; the word “sin” in the singular there refers not to the sinful nature but to sin as a slavemaster, who pays the wages of eternal death. And this eternal death is not the penalty of sin, but is the wages paid by sin as a slavemaster.
“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23).
Sin as a slave master is the false god that a man chooses as his ultimate criterion of all his choices. Thus all men sin in choosing a false god and from this false god as their slavemaster they receive the wages of this slavemaster, eternal death. God does not choose just some to be saved, leaving the rest to be damned. But each man chooses his god and lord; if he chooses a false god that becomes his slavemaster, then he will receive the consequence of that choice, eternal death. But if he chooses to receive the true God as his God and His gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, His Son, acknowledging Him as his Lord, he is saved. God has chosen to save all men, if they will receive that salvation. God has not chosen just a few to be saved, but all men. But not all men will be saved, not because God has not chosen them, but they have not chosen Him. Each man must make his own choice of which god he will have as his ultimate criterion of choice, to be his god and lord. God does not make that choice for him. In the preaching of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the spiritually blind and sets their wills free from the slavery of sin to their false god, so that they can choose the true God. Then if they refuse to choose the true God and to receive His gift of life, they are left in spiritual death and in their sin.
The slavery of sin is not a sinful nature but the choices made in following a false god; it is not a determinism by one’s nature but the self-determinism by one’s personal choice according to one’s false ultimate criterion. And salvation is not a determinism by God that overrides the determinism of the sinful nature. God’s sovereignty in salvation is not a determinism but is the setting of man free from the bondage of sin to a false god so that he is free to choose the true God. Biblical theology is not deterministic in either sense. Calvinism misinterprets God’s sovereignty deterministically in such passages of Scripture as Rom. 8:29.
“Those whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom. 8:29)
The Greek verb here translated “foreknew,” proginosko, means “to know beforehand.” It is used in general to refer to knowledge that is previously had (Acts 26:5; II Pet. 3:17). The Greek verb is used only 5 times in New Testament, two times in the letter to the Romans; here in Rom. 8:29 about believers and in Rom. 11:2 about Israel. The fifth occurrence is in I Pet. 1:20 about Christ “having been foreknown before the foundations of the world.” The Greek noun, prognosis, translated “foreknowledge,” occurs twice in the New Testament, in Acts 2:23 about Christ and in I Pet. 1:2 about believers as the elect or chosen ones. Paul uses the verb here to refer to God’s knowledge of believers before they knew God. It is equivalent to choosing beforehand someone as God did Israel (Rom. 11:2). It does not refer to the omniscience of God whereby God knows all things before they happen. Paul is here talking about God’s personal knowledge and not His objective knowledge of all things. The Greek verb here translated “foreordained,” proorizo, literally means “to set boundaries beforehand,” hence, “to decide upon beforehand, to appoint, designate, and choose beforehand.” It is used 6 times in the New Testament, twice in chapter 8 of Romans (in verses 29 and 30) twice in Ephesians 1 (in verses 5 and 11), Acts 4:28 and I Cor. 2:7. In none of these places does it mean a causal determinism that makes free will impossible. As Paul says in Eph. 1:11, God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Although some theologians have interpreted these words as teaching such causal determinism, Paul’s choice of words do not say that all things are causally determined by God. The translation of this Greek verb proorizo as “predistined” makes Paul seem to teach this determinism.
Calvinism is wrong in interpreting the slavery of sin as a determinism of the sinful nature and Arminianism is wrong in not taking the slavery of sin seriously in their stress on the freedom of the will. Neither of them recognize the Biblical truth that the basic sin is idolatry and that man sins in choosing a false god as his ultimate criterion of all his decisions because he is spiritually dead. They both distort the Biblical theology of salvation in their dispute about man’s free will. Salvation is neither a monergism on God’s part nor a monergism on man’s part; it is the free gift by grace on God’s side that is received through faith on man’s side ( Eph. 2:8-9).
In the popular Christian understanding, the issue between Calvinism and Arminianism is the doctrine of the Eternal Security of the believer. Most Christians do not understand that the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism is concerned with more than this doctrine, as we attempted to show above. Under the criticism of Arminianism many Calvinist have modified their Calvinism and have accepted the Unlimited Atonement (that Christ died for all men) and the Conditional Elect (that God choose those who are to be saved on the basis of His foreknowledge of who will believe). This modified Calvinism still accepts the Total Inability (that all men have a sinful nature), the Irresistible Grace (that God regenerates Elect so that can believe in Christ), and the Perseverance of the Saints (the eternal security of the believer). This modified Calvinism like the original or “hyper” Calvinism also asserts the Perservance of the Saints; that is, that the Elect (those that God choose in eternity to be saved and for whom Christ died paying the penalty of their sins and who are called by God’s irresistible grace) shall be preserved unto eternal life in heaven. Both these forms of Calvinism argue that since Christ died to pay the penalty of the Elect’s sins, whether committed before or after their conversion, they cannot be lost nor can they lose their salvation by any of their sins. This doctrine is often expressed as “Once Saved Always Saved” (OSAS). Arminianism denies this doctrine and holds that the one who has accepted Christ as his Savior and is saved is able (though unlikely) to renounce his faith and be lost. Arminius was of the firm conviction that all men are free moral agents both before and after they were converted. Calvinism replies to this denial of their doctrine that their doctrine is based upon Scripture. Then they argue for it from a series of Scriptures.
“Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the Day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6)
They argued that God who is the Author of the “good work” (which God, not man, began in His elect) will “perform it” (continuous tense, or “keep on performing”) until the “day of Jesus Christ,” when the Elect shall receive a sinless (no sinful nature), resurrected bodies.
“3:20 Our citzenship is in heaven, from where also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, 3:21 who shall change our lowly body, that it may be fashoned like His glorious body according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” (Phil. 3:20-21 ERS)
This good work is God’s good work and not ours. Thus the Calvinist argues that the work of salvation is a monergism, God alone does the work of salvation and it cannot fail. The Calvinist argues that it is only the Elect that God has choosen in eternity that will be kept unto eternal life. Jesus prayed in His great intercessor prayer,
“Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He [Christ] should give eternal Life to as many as Thou hast given Him.” (John 17:2).
The Calvinist argues that these whom the Father has given to Christ are only those that God has chosen in eternity to be saved. Jesus said,
“This is the Will of the Father who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all whom He has given Me, but raise him up in the Last Day.” (John 6:39)
Calvinism argues that this passage means that only those who have been chosen by God in eternity are saved and thus cannot be lost. Since we had absolutely nothing to do with “getting saved”, we have absolutely nothing to do with “keeping saved”; salvation is by the grace of God alone and not the vascillating will of man. Hence, the words of Jesus,
“I give them [His sheep] eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.”
(John 10:28).
And quoting the Apostle Paul,
“The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom …” (II Tim. 4:18),
and Jude, as writing
“to them who are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called” (Jude 1),
Calvinism thus argues that the Elect of God are preserved and cannot lose their salvation. Calvinism is correct in holding to the doctrine of the Eternal Security of the Believer, but it is wrong in its arguments for the doctrine. It grounds and bases the doctrine in its deterministic theology of Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace, and its legalistic interpretation of Christ’s death as Limited penal substitutionary Atonement. The true basis of the doctrine of the Eternal Security of the Believer is the love of God for all men and the gift of salvation from death to life through Christ’s death and resurrection for them. Jesus said,
“10:14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know me, 10:15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.” (John 10:14-15 NAS)
Christ laid down his life for the sheep so that they could be made alive with Him in His resurrection. The resurrected Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd. And they become His sheep by receiving the gift of eternal life.
“10:27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they know Me, 10:28 and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:27-28).
His sheep know Him because He gives to them this knowledge. This personal knowledge of the true God is eternal life (John 17:3 NAS). Those who receive Christ receive the gift of eternal life, and this eternal life is the personal knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ whom the true God sent. Thus they become His sheep and they shall never perish. Who are Christ’s sheep? Only those who follow Christ, the Good and Great Shepherd. It is their choice; He calls them to follow Him, but they must choose to accept that call. If they accept that call, they become His sheep and Jesus Christ becomes their Shepherd; that is, their Lord and their God. In other words, He becomes their ultimate criterion of their choices. He knows them and they know Him. That is, they are in a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. As their Shepherd and Lord, He takes care of them as His sheep and no one shall snatch them out of His hand. He gives to them eternal life; and having received the gift of eternal life, they shall never perish.
Both Calvinism and Arminianism cannot provide any basis for the assurance of salvation to the individual believer; that is, the knowledge that one as an individual believer in Christ is really saved and will go to heaven when he dies. Calvinism teaches the Perseverance of the Saints, the Elect, but does not provide any knowledge of the number of the Saints and who are among the Elect. Augustine believed that their number was equal to the number of fallen angels, but that was mere speculation; it has not been revealed. This eternal choice of God of whom will be saved is a “hidden decree”, that is, God has not revealed who are written in Lamb’s book of life (Rev. 20:12, 15). Accordingly, any current believer in Christ does not know that he is among the Elect; he cannot be sure that since he now believes in Christ that he is among the Elect and that he will not deny Christ before he dies. Thus Calvinism cannot provide the assurance of salvation. Neither can Arminianism provide this assurance. Since all believers are free moral agents before and after conversion, they might decide to sin and lose their salvation. In fact, many Arminians believe that every time they sin, they need to be saved again. And if they sin unknowingly, they might not repent of their sin and not be saved again. And if they die before they can be saved again, then they will be eternally lost. Thus according to Arminianism there is no assurance of salvation. But Biblical theology does provide this basis for the assurance of salvation. In fact, the Bible teaches this assurance of salvation.
“Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord is saved.” (Romans 10:17)
“5:10 The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. 5:11 And the witness is this,
that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 5:12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.” (I John 5:10-13)
Jesus said,
“Truly, Truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life.” (John 5:24)
Our salvation does not depend on an hidden decree of God nor on the human will not to sin. Salvation is the gift of God which is received by faith.
“2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it [salvation] is the gift of God; 2:9 not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS)
“3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that all of those believing in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 3:17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17 ERS)
The Apostle John also says about the Son of God,
“1:11 He came to his own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 1:12 But as many as receive Him, to them he gave the power to become children of God, even to those that believe on His name, 1:13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11-13 ERS)
They who receive the Son of God, are born of God; and being born of God, they are the children of God. These have eternal life, and have passed from death to life (John 5:24). They are His sheep and they shall never perish (John 10:28). If they go astray, the Shepherd goes after them and brings them back again to Himself (Luke 15:4-6). They do not lose their salvation each time they sin and have to be saved again. The wandering sheep is still His sheep. If they confess their sin, they are forgiven and cleanse from sin. The Apostle John writes,
“1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not the truth; 1:7 but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 1:8 If we say have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1:10 If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” (I John 1:5-10 NAS)
“2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. 2:2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” (I John 2:1-2 NAS)
This is the present tense of salvation. There are three tenses of salvation.
(1) In the past tense of salvation, Christ has saved us from sin (from trust in a false god), and
(2) in the present tense of salvation He is saving us from sins (from acts not of love), and
(3) in the future tense of salvation He will save us from the opportunity to sin; the temptation (from the world, the flesh, and the devil) to sin will be removed.
These three tenses of salvation are by the grace of God (God’s love in action) and we participate in this salvation by faith (trust) in God. “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” (Col. 2:6). It is not by our meritorious works; it is not earned or kept by our righteousness nor lost by our sins. It is a gift that is received by faith and in which we walk by faith. This is the Biblical basis of the assurance of salvation. Our assurance of salvation rests in God who so loved the world that He gave His only Son for the whole world, and not just for some, but for all who will receive the gift of His only Son, and that all those who have received His gift and believe and trust Him, have eternal life, and shall never perish.
So, salvation is basically from death to life, and hence from sin to righteousness, since man sins because he is spiritually dead ( Rom. 5:12d ERS). This death is not just another name for the sinful nature. Spiritual death is the opposite of spiritual and eternal life. In His great intercessor prayer, Jesus says,
“And this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3 NAS).
This knowledge is not just a knowledge about God, but a personal knowledge of God. Spiritual death is the absence of this personal knowledge of the true God, so that when a man in spiritual death chooses his ultimate criterion of choice, the true God is not a real alternative to the false gods, and he therefore makes his choice of his ultimate criterion from between false gods. Thus all men sin because of spiritual death, since death, both spiritual and physical, spread unto all men, to all of Adam’s descendants ( Rom. 5:12-14 ERS). This death is not a punishment for their sins ( Rom. 5:13-14), but is the result of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:12bc). Calvinism misunderstands this death as a punishment for their sins by misinterpreting the last clause of Rom. 5:12. Neither is this death a punishment for their participation in Adam’s sin; nowhere in the Scriptures does it teach that all men sinned in Adam and that all men participate in Adam’s sin. This is a legalistic theological explanation (called the the Federal Headship Theory) of why all men in Adam die (I Cor. 15:22).
After the Reformation, many Protestant theologians reinterpreted the doctrine of original sin. During the seventeenth century it became known as covenant or federal theology. Among its earliest advocates were the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) and his successor Johann Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575), who were driven to the subject by the Anabaptists in and around Zurich. From them it passed to John Calvin (1509-1564) and to other Reformers; it was further developed by their successors, and played a dominant role in Reformed theology of the seventeenth century. Its emphasis on God’s covenantal relationships with mankind was seen as less harsh than the earlier Reformed theology that emanated from Geneva, with its emphasis on divine sovereignty and predistination. From Switzerland the covenant theology passed over into Germany. The German linguist and theologian Johann Koch [latinized to Cocceius] (1603-1669) set forth in his Doctrine of the Covenant and Testaments of God (1648) and in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1655) the fully developed covenant theology. It spread from there to the Netherlands and to the British Isles where it was incorporated into the Westminster Confession of Faith (1648); it came to have an important place in the theology of Scotland and of New England.
This covenant theology sees the relationship of God to the human race as a legal compact or agreement. It said that God appointed Adam, who was the natural head of the human race, to be the federal (foedus, Latin “covenant”) head or legal representative of the whole race. God then entered into a covenant with the whole race through Adam as their legal representative. According to the terms of this Covenant of Works God promised to bestow eternal life upon Adam and the entire human race if he, Adam, as their federal head, obeyed God. On the other hand, God threatened the punishment of death, that is, condemnation and a sinful corrupt nature, upon the whole human race if he, Adam, as their federal head, disobeyed. Now since Adam sinned, God reckoned his descendants as guilty, under condemnation to eternal death. Adam’s sin is imputed to each member of the human race as their own guilt. And because of this imputation of guilt, each member of the human race has received by inheritance a sinful or corrupt nature. This sinful nature, which is itself sin, leads invariably to acts of sin. And each man in addition to the racial guilt is also guilty for his own personal sins. Thus men carry a double burden of guilt, of both objective and subjective guilt and condemnation. This theory of the relationship of Adam’s sin to the rest of the human race is known in Christian theology as the Federal Headship Theory to distinguish it from the Natural Headship Theory of Augustine.
The Scriptures nowhere teaches that God made a covenant of works with Adam. The covenant theologians claim that Hosea 6:7 teaches that God made a covenant with Adam; but among biblical theologians there are different interpretations of Hosea 6:7. Some take the Hebrew word adam to mean “man”; and that the Hebrew word refers not to the first man, but to men in general. That is the interpretation which the translators of the King James Version (KJV) held and they translated Hosea 6:7 as:
“But they like men have transgressed the covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me.” (Hosea 6:7 KJV)
The NIV (New International Version) translation recognizes that as a possible translation in their footnote “Like men”, but accepts the other intrepretation that it refers to the first man, Adam. And so does the New American Standard (NAS) translation;
“But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant; There they have dealt treacherously against Me.” (Hosea 6:7 NAS)
But the verse does not say that God made a covenant with Adam. It says, “like Adam they have transgressed the covenant.” What covenant? This is the covenant that God made with Israel; in verse 4 God says,
“O Ephraim, what shall I do unto you? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?” (Hosea 6:4).
The “they” in verse 7 refers to Ephraim and Judah; and it is the covenant that God made with children of Israel (the Mosaic Covenant) that they (Ephraim and Judah) had transgressed. Their transgression was like Adam’s transgression; it was a transgression of the command or commands that God had given them, Ephraim and Judah. Adam’s transgression was like Israel’s transgression in that they both had disobeyed the command or commands of God. The only similarity between Adam’s sin and Israel’s sin is that their sin was the disobedience of a command or commands that God had given them, not that they both had a “legal” covenant. Nowhere in Genesis nor in the rest of the Old Testament does it say that God made a covenant with Adam. In the Old Testament there are revealed only four covenants that God made: the Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and the Davidic Covenant; and the New Covenant was prophesied (Jer. 31:31-34). (See my discussion of the covenants in my paper on ” The Covenants of God“) But it is not revealed that God made a covenant with Adam; God had given Adam a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was not a covenant, but a command of God. And it told Adam what would happen if he ate of the tree, but it did not say what would happen if he did not eat of the tree; neither was there any probationary period established by God. This command was not a covenant of works by which God would reward Adam’s obedience with eternal life.
But the Scriptures do teach that Adam as the head of the human race brought spiritual and physical death on the whole human race (Rom. 5:12-19; I Cor. 15:21-22); but this was not a punishment for the sins of the human race, neither personally for their own sins nor as a participation in Adam’s sin ( Rom. 5:13-14). Neither does the Scriptures teach that man inherited a corrupt or sinful nature from Adam. On the contrary, the Scriptures teaches that man inherited death, spiritual and physical, from Adam ( Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:21-22). And according to Rom. 5:12d (“because of which [death] all sinned” ERS) all men sin because of death (“the sting of death is sin”, I Cor. 15:55-56). And this death is not the sinful nature. These are two totally different concepts. The sinful nature is the nature of man that is sinful and the nature of man is what man is – that which makes man what he is and what he does. The nature of anything is that essence of the thing that determines what it is and how it acts. The sinful nature is that nature of man, and because it is sinful, makes him sin. Death, on the other hand, is a negative relationship of separation. Physical death is the separation of man’s spirit from his body, spiritual death is the separation of man’s spirit from God, and eternal death (“the second death,” Rev. 20:14) is the eternal separation of man from God. Spiritual death is the opposite of spiritual life, which is to know personally the true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3). That is, spiritual death is not to know personally the true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. Knowledge is a relationship between the knower and that which is known; it is not a nature nor the property of a nature. Now it should be clear that spiritual death is not the sinful nature; it is a negative relationship between man and God and not the nature of man.
Spiritual death is not the necessary cause but the ground or condition of sin, the choice of a false god. The Greek preposition epi translated “because” in the last clause of Rom. 5:12 means “on the condition of” or “on the basis of”. It does not imply any necessary or deterministic causal connection between death and sin. Man sins by choice, not of necessity. In this state of spiritual death, he chooses freely his false god and thus sins. Then his false god puts him into bondage; he becomes a slave of sin, his false god being his slave master. The Calvinistic doctrine of Total Depravity or Total Inability misinterpretes this slavery of sin and equates it with the sinful nature or the results of the sinful nature, and turns the slavery of sin into a determinism and the denial of human freedom of choice.
Not only do both Calvinism and Arminianism misunderstand the need for salvation legalistically but they both understand salvation through the death of Christ legalistically. Both hold that sin is the basic reason for salvation and that sin was removed by the death of Christ. But Calvinism holds that sins are transgressions of God’s law, crimes, and these crimes were paid for by the death of Christ. And Calvinism argues that Christ had died to pay the penalty only for the Elect, the atonement of Christ is limited to some men, the Elect; it is not for all men. Calvinism argues that if Christ had died to pay the penalty of all men’s sins, then all men would be saved. Therefore, Christ died to pay the penalty of the sins of the Elect alone. But many Arminians, feeling the logic of the Calvinist arguments for a Limited Atonement, hesitated to say that Christ paid the penalty for our sins. These Arminians believe that what Christ did on the cross he did for every person; therefore he could not have paid the penalty, since then no one would ever be lost. Thus they teach that Christ suffered for everyone so that the Father could forgive all the ones who repent and believe. Christ’s death showed that God takes sin seriously and that forgiveness is costly. This view is called the governmental theory of the atonement and it was first formulated by Arminius’ student, the lawyer-theologian Hugo Grotius and further explicated by the Methodist theologian John Miley in his work The Atonement in Christ (1879).
But Calvinism misunderstands the meaning of the death of Christ. Christ’s death is seen as dealing basically with the consequences of sin. From the legalistic point of view, man needs to be saved because he is guilty of breaking the law. Salvation is accordingly conceived of as a removal of that guilt. Justice requires that the penalty be paid before the guilt can be removed. It cannot be forgiven freely but only can be taken away by the paying of the penalty which alone can satisfy justice. Because of the enormity of the guilt – it is against an infinite moral being – finite man himself can never pay the penalty and go free. From this legalistic point of view, man’s sin demands an eternal punishment, and being finite, man cannot meet the infinite demand of justice. If he is to be saved at all, he must be saved by another – one who is man like himself but without sin, but also one who is God who alone can meet the infinite demands of justice. Where is such a one to be found? Only God can provide that one, and God has provided the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty by sending His Son to become man. His death is the perfect sacrifice. It can remove the guilt by paying the penalty. In His death, Christ endured the eternal punishment due to man’s sin.
This penal satisfaction theory of the death of Christ is clearly legalistic. It assumes that the order of law and justice is absolute; free forgiveness would be a violation of this absolute order; God’s love must be carefully limited lest it infringe on the demands of justice. Sin is a crime against God and the penalty must be paid before forgiveness can become available. According to this view, God’s love is conditioned and limited by His justice; that is, God cannot exercise His love to save man until His righteousness (justice) is satisfied. Since God’s justice requires that sin be punished, God’s love cannot save man until the penalty of sin has been paid, satisfying His justice. God’s love is set in opposition to His righteousness, creating a tension and problem in God. How can God in His love save man from sin when His righteousness demands the punishment of sin? This is the problem that the death of Christ is supposed to solve. According to this legalistic theology, this is why Christ needed to die; he died to pay the penalty of man’s sin and to satisfy the justice of God. Redemption is misinterpreted as paying the penalty of man’s sin and propitiation is misinterpreted as the satisfaction of God’s justice. And reconciliation is misinterpreted as as a vicarious act, instead of another, God being reconciled to man by Christ’s death paying the penalty of man’s sin.
The necessity of the atonement is the necessity of satisfying the justice of God; this necessity is in God rather than in man. And since this necessity is in God, it is an absolute necessity. If God is to save man, God must satisfy His justice before He can in love save man.
Both Calvinism and Ariminianism do not understand that Christ’s death dealt basically with death, and then secondarily with sin since all men have sinned because of (spiritual) death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS; etc.). Christ entered into our spiritual death on the cross
(“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Matt. 27:46)
so that we could be made alive with Him in His resurrection ( Eph. 2:4-5). By saving us from death to life, God saves us from sin to righteousness. This salvation from death to life, and hence from sin to righteousness, was accomplished by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, for all men. He died, not just for some men, but for all men.
“But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that he might taste death for every one [pantos].” (Heb. 2:9; see also II Cor. 5:14; I Tim. 2:3-6; Titus 2:11; I John 2:2).
He entered into death for us, both spiritual and physical, so that we could be made alive to God in His resurrection. He became what we were that we could become what He is.
This is why a man needs to be saved; he is dead spiritually and dying physically. Man needs life – he needs to be made alive – to be raised from the dead. And if he receives life, if he is made alive to God, death which leads to sin is removed. And if death which leads to sin is removed, then man will be saved from sin. Thus salvation must be understood to be primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness. And since God’s wrath – God’s “no” or opposition to sin – is caused by sin (Rom. 1:18), the removal of sin brings with it also the removal of wrath. No sin, no wrath. Salvation is then thirdly from wrath to peace with God (Rom. 5:1). Propitiation is the sacrificial aspect of Christ’s work of salvation that saves us from wrath to peace with God. Redemption is the liberation aspect of Christ’s work of salvation that saves us from sin to righteousness. And salvation is a propitiation and a redemption because it is a reconciliation to God. Reconcilation is the representative aspect of Christ’s work of salvation that saves us from death to life. Being made alive to God, death, the cause of sin, is removed, and sin, the cause of wrath, is removed. Christ’s death is a propitiation because it is a redemption;
and it is a propitiation and a redemption because it is a reconciliation to God, salvation from death to life. Reconciliation, Redemption, and Propitiation are the three aspects of salvation.
This salvation (from death, sin and wrath) is exactly what God accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. This is why Christ died, that He might be raised from the dead. Jesus entered into our spiritual death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive in and with Him.
This salvation (from death, sin and wrath) is exactly what God accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. This is why Christ died, that He might be raised from the dead. Jesus entered into our spiritual death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive in and with Him.
“2:4 But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 2:5 even when we were dead in our failures,
made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5 ERS).
And by saving us from spiritual death, Christ saves us from sin. It is by taking away the spiritual death which leads to our sin that God takes away our sin. Jesus died for our sins – literally – to take them away (John 1:29). And Christ died, not just for some men, but for all men. That is, the death and resurrection of Christ is for all men. But it must be received by faith in order for them to be saved.
“10:8 The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); 10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10:10 For man believes with his heart unto righteousness, and he confesses with his mouth unto salvation. 10:11 The scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’ 10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestowes his riches upon all who call upon him. 10:13 For, ‘every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.'” (Rom. 10:8-13 ERS).
The death and resurrection of Christ was not limited just to a few men (the Elect), but was for all men. But they must believe in their hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess with the mouth Jesus as Lord in order for them to be saved (Rom. 10:9-10). God choose before the foundations of the world to save all men in Christ, but only those who believe are in Christ and thus are saved (Eph. 1:4, 13). Calvinism is correct when they affirm that God’s choice or election is not based on or conditioned by any foreknowledge of man’s works; salvation is not by works. But they are wrong when they affirm that only some, not all, are chosen to be saved. On the contrary, God has unconditionally chosen to save all men rather than not to save them. God did not have to save man, but He sovereignly chose in His love to save all men. But not all men will choose to accept that salvation and thus they will perish.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that all of those believing in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 ERS)
God did not love just some men (the Elect), but the world, all men. But only all those who believe in His Son, accepting the gift of His love, have eternal life and are saved through Him. They are saved unconditionally by grace [God’s love in action] through faith, not by works lest any man should boast.
“2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it [salvation] is the gift of God; 2:9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS).
Salvation is a gift that is received through faith. The phrase in Eph. 2:8, “and this is not of you, it is a gift of God”, refers to salvation and not to faith. In the Greek the demonstrative pronoun translated “this” agrees in gender (masculine) with the participle translated “are saved”, and not with the noun translated “faith” which is feminine. Salvation is the gift which is received by faith, not earned by meritorious works. On God’s side, God gives (“by grace”) salvation and on man’s side (“through faith”) man chooses to receive that gift. Calvinism is correct in asserting that God’s grace is irresistible; in the preaching of the Gospel, the grace of God does set free those enslaved to sin, so that they then can choose to receive the gift of life.
But Calvinism is wrong in asserting that only those chosen by God in eternity are enabled to accept the gift of God and cannot resist and refuse the gift. On the contrary, man does not have a sinful nature that must be changed by God’s grace in order that the man chosen by God in eternity can accept the gift of God. The grace of God is not a divine determinism that must overcome the determinism of the sinful nature. God sovereignly created man in His own image, giving him free will (the ability to choose between good and evil) to exercise his dominion over the rest of creation (Gen. 1:26). And at the fall of man, when Adam sinned by choosing evil, God did not take away that freedom nor corrupt his nature so that he can only choose evil. Death, spiritual and physical, was the result of the fall of man. Spiritual death is not the sinful nature, but separation and alienation of man from God. Death is a power (“death reigned”, Rom. 5:14, 17) that separates man’s spirit from God (spiritual death) and separates man’s spirit from his body when he dies physically (physical death). Because of this condition of spiritual death, all men have sinned by choosing a false god as their ultimate criterion of their choices. All men have sinned, not because they have sinful nature, but because they are spiritually dead ( Rom. 5:12cd). Man needs to be made alive, and that is what God has provided through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is what the law cannot do; it cannot make man alive.
“Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed by the law.” (Gal. 3:21).
God did not give His law to Israel to make them alive but to show them what sin is; “through the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20b); the law was not given for salvation from sin. Man cannot earn salvation by keeping the law, by the works of the law, because that law can not make him alive to God. For if man could be made alive to God through the law, then Christ died in vain (Gal. 2:21).
The problem with Calvinism is that it assumes that man can be made alive by the works of the law, and that eternal life can be earned by the works of the law. Hence, Calvinism reasons that man must be totally unable because of his sinful nature to do those works, since the Scripture says that salvation is not by works ( Eph. 2:9). But eternal life cannot be earned; it is a gift. Salvation is not by the works of the law, not because man cannot do them, but because salvation is a gift of life that is to be received through faith, having nothing to do with the works of law. Salvation is not something that can be earned by meritorious works, but is the gift of life in Christ to be received and entered into through faith. When that gift of life is offered in the preaching of the gospel, a man can choose whether or not to receive that gift. That choice of faith is not a meritorious work, but the choice to accept the gift of life in Christ. One’s acceptance of that gift does not earn for him the gift. Eternal life is not a thing, an “it”, a quantity of merit imputed to one’s account, but a person, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
“And Jesus said to him [Thomas], ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.'” (John 14:6).
And a human person is made alive to God and has eternal life when he or she chooses to accept that Person, Jesus Christ, acknowledging Him as their Lord, thus entering into a personal relationship to Him. Then they have God’s Son and eternal life.
“5:11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 5:12 He who has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son has not life.” (I John 5:11-12).