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THE PROBLEM OF PREDESTINATION
by Ray Shelton
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The doctrine of predestination, sometimes called the doctrine of double predestination, was formulated historically by the Christian theologians Augustine of Hippo and John Calvin. The doctrine has been a constant cause of discussion and controversy, since many Christians have not been willing to accept it in any form. Pelagius in the early church and John Wesley in the eighteenth century are two examples of those who did not accept it in any form. What is predestination? Predestination is the doctrine that in eternity God foreordained all things. There are two forms of the doctrine: a wide form and a narrow form.
A. In the wide form, it refers to the fact that the Triune God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass in history. That is, in eternity God has sovereignly determined whatsoever shall happen in history.
B. In the narrow form, it refers to the act of God who in eternity has chosen for Himself a body of people, called “the elect”, that they should be brought into fellowship with Himself, while at the same time He has ordained that the rest of humanity should be allowed to go their own way, which is the way of sin, to ultimate eternal punishment. These two aspects of God’s choice are known as the doctrines of election and rebrobation. Some theologians, while accepting the idea of God choosing some to eternal life, completely reject any decree of eternal rebrobation and the doctrine of double predestination.
II. THE ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM
1. AUGUSTINE
3. EVALUATION OF CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM
Calvinism misinterprets God’s sovereignty deterministically in such passages of Scripture as Rom. 8:28-30, Eph. 1:3-6, and Eph. 1:11-12.
IV. THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM
1. THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE NEED FOR SALVATION
2. THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST
3. SALVATION FROM DEATH TO LIFE
4. SALVATION FROM SIN TO RIGHTEOUSNESS
5. SALVATION FROM WRATH TO PEACE
6. THE THREE ASPECTS OF SALVATION
V. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SOLUTION
1. THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE ORIGIN OF SIN
6. MONERGISM
7. LEGALISM
VII. THE CONCLUSION OF THE PROBLEM
In conclusion, the following statements will summarize our findings concerning the problem of predestination.
1. The problem of predestination is a pseudo problem arising from a misunderstanding of the Biblical teaching concerning the need for salvation. This misunderstanding arises from legalistic concept of salvation as something to be earned by meritorious works and a legalistic misinterpretation of Scripture, particularly of Rom. 5:12 and of Rom. 8:29-30.
2. Augustine introduced into Christian theology a determinism of the human sinful nature (the doctrine of original sin) and a divine determinism (predestination) which completely eliminated the free will of the creatures.
3. The sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology by Augustine to explain why man could not save himself by his meritorious works. But man cannot save himself by his meritorious works of the law, because the law cannot make him alive (Gal. 3:21). That is, salvation is not something that can be earned by meritorious works of the law because it is the gift of life to be received by faith. Thus the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary and unbiblical. The sinful nature is not taught in the Scriptures.
4. Augustine was and Calvinism is wrong in interpreting the slavery of sin as a determinism of the sinful nature. The slavery of sin is not a sinful nature but the result of the choices made in following a false god; the slavery of sin is not a determinism by one’s nature but the self-determinism by one’s personal choice according to one’s false ultimate criterion, his false god as his slave master.
5. The analysis of human freedom shows that man must have a god as the ultimate criterion of his choices.
6. Because man is spiritually dead and does not personally know the true God as a living reality, man chooses a substitute for the true God as his god. That is, man sins because he is spiritually dead (Rom. 5:12d ERS).
“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: — (Rom. 5:12 ERS).
7. Thus the origin of sin is twofold:
a. the historical origin of sin is the sin of Adam, the Fall of man,
b. the immediate, contemporary and personal origin of the sin for each of Adam’s descendants is the transmitted death (spiritual death as well as physical death) from Adam to his descendants.
8. Man has not lost his freedom to choose as the result of the Fall of man in the sin of Adam; man is able not to sin. But since he cannot make himself alive to God and set himself free from the bondage of sin, he cannot save himself.
9. Salvation is basically and primarily from death, both spiritual and physical; salvation from death is man’s primary need.
10. Because salvation is basically and primarily from death, salvation from sin (trust in a false god, idolatry) is secondary. That is, since man sins because of death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), the result of salvation from death is salvation from sin.
11. Salvation is not something to be earned by meritorious works but is the gift of a personal relationship with the true God – spiritual life – to be received by faith (Eph. 2:8-9).
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it [salvation] is the gift of God; 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS).
12. According to the Scriptures, man cannot save himself because he cannot make himself alive, not because he cannot do meritorious works. The law cannot deliver one from death or sin, neither can the law produce life or righteousness. The law cannot make alive.
There is no salvation by the law. And because the law cannot make alive, salvation by meritorious works of the law is in principle not possible and is non-biblical; man cannot earn salvation by meritorious works.
13. Augustine was and Calvinism is also wrong in asserting that only those chosen by God in eternity [the Elect] 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 men (and women) chosen by God in eternity can accept the gift of God.
14. The grace of God is not a divine determinism (predestination) that must overcome the determinism of the sinful nature, but the grace of God is the love of God in action to save man from death to life (Eph. 2:4-5).
“4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” (Eph. 2:4-5; see Rom. 6:8).
Neither is the grace of God just the favor of God that imputes to the believer’s account the merits earned by Christ’s active obedience, so that he will receive eternal life at the last judgment. But eternal life is the person, Jesus Christ (John 14:6), and He is not the reward earned by the merits of Christ. Whoever receives Jesus Christ by faith now has eternal life (I John 5:11-12).
“11 And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life” (I John 5:11-12).
15. God has chosen to save all men, if they will receive that salvation. God has not chosen just a few to be saved [the Elect], 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.
16. 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 finally refuse to choose the true God and to receive His gift of eternal life by faith, they are left in spiritual death and in their sin for eternity.
APPENDIX
THE DECREES OF GOD
The problem of predestination raised another problem: the decrees of God. The phrase “decrees of God” is a theological term for the comprehensive plan for the world and its history that God has sovereignly established in eternity. In Eph. 1:11, Paul refers to “the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (NIV).
The problem of the decrees of God is the order of these events that God has decreed in His plan. The problem is a question of the logical order, not the temporal order of these eternal decrees. This question of logcal order reflected the difference on God’s ultimate goal in predestination and on the specific objects of predestination. This led to a difference of logical order of the decrees of God, which according to their Latin form, are called supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism.
The term “supralapsarianism” comes from the Latin words supra and lapsus. The decree of predestination was considered to be “above” (supra) or logically “before” the decree concerning the fall (lapsus). But infralapsarianism viewed the decree of predestination as “below” (infra) or logically “after” the decree concerning the fall (lapsus); it is sometimes called “sublapsarianism”.
The difference between these two views is evident from the following summaries.
The logical order of the decrees in supralapsarianism is:
1. God’s decree to glorify Himself by the election of some and the reprobation others.
2. As a means to that end, the decree to create those elected and those reprobated.
3. The decree to permit the fall.
4. the decree to provide salvation for the elect through Jesus Christ.
The logical order of the decrees in infralapsarianism is:
1. God’s decree to glorify Himself through the creation of human race.
2. The decree to permit the fall.
3. The decree to elect some of the fallen race to salvation and to pass by the others and condemn them for their sin.
4. the decree to provide salvation for the elect through Jesus Christ.
This difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism on the relation of God’s decree of election and reprobation to human sin of the fall goes back to the controversey between Augustine and Pelagus. Augustine believed that God in His grace must take the initiative in the salvation of man since apart from it all men form a massa damnationis because of original sin; it is for God to determine which of them shall receive grace (the elect) and which shall not (the reprobate). And God has done this in eternity. The number of the elect is strictly limited, being neither more nor less than is required to replace the fallen angels. According to supralapsarianism, this divine choice was made before the creation and the fall of man. And according to infralapsarianism, this divine choice was made after the creation and the fall of man.
PELAGIANISM
Pelagius, who was British by birth, became a fashionable teacher in Rome late in the fourth century. Pelagius, being primarily a moralist, was concerned for right conduct and rejected what he considered the demoralizinngly pessimistic views of Augustine of what could be expect from human nature. Upon hearing Augustine’s prayer, “Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt”, Pelagius was particularly distressed, for it seemed to suggest that men were puppets wholly determined by the movement of divine grace. In reaction to this, he developed a system of theology; the keystone of his whole system was the idea of unconditional free will and responsibility. He taught that God in creating man did not subject man, like other creatures, to the laws of nature but gave him the unique privilege of accomplishing the divine will by his choices. This possiblility of freely choosing the good entails the possibility of choosing evil. Pelagius considered the grace of God as purely an aid to man’s attempt to earn salvation by his meritorious good works. The grace of God is offered to all. God is no respecter of persons. By merit alone men advance in holiness. God’s predestination operates according to the quality of the lives God forsees man to lead.
But this system of Pelagius was considered inadequate as an interpretation of Christianity. Pelagianism, as it was later called, with its excessively rosy view of human nature and its insufficient acknowledgement of man’s dependence upon God, invited criticism. Augustine produced his works, Grace and Free Will and Rebuke and Grace, which contained his arguments against Pelagianism, stressed the necessary preparation of the will by prevenient grace. The doctrine of Pelagius was finally anathematized at the council of Ephesus on 22 July 431.
SEMI-PELAGIANISM
But this rejection did not mean the acceptance of everything in Augustine’s system. In the West, especially in South Gaul, there were many, including enthusiastic supporters of the council, who found some of Augustine’s teachings wholly unpalatable. Chief among these teachings of Augustine was the suggestion that, though free, the will of man is incapable in its fallen state of choosing the good, and the fatalism that seemed inherent in Augustine’s teaching on predestination. This standpoint has been rather unkindly called since the seventeenth century Semi-Pelagianism. It would be more correct to call it Semi-Augustianism. These Semi-Augustinians who, while rejecting the doctrines of Pelagius and respecting Augustine, were not willing to follow the ultimate consequences of his theology. They believed that grace should be regarded as aiding, rather than replacing, free will. From South Gaul, complaints poured in from men, who were otherwise Augustine’s admirers, that the doctrine of predestination paralysed moral effort and verged on fatalism. They argued: surely Pelagius could have been refuted without going so far. Admittedly all men sinned in Adam, and no one can save himself, but the initial movement of faith is the sinner’s own choice. Grace surely assists the man who has begun to will his salvation, but it does not implant that will. And the Augustinian theology scarely agrees with Biblical datum that God wills all men to be saved. The ablest representative of this school of thought was the famous monk of Marseilles, John Cassian (d.c.433).
Cassian taught that though a sickness is inherited from Adam’s sin, human free will has not been totally obliterated. Divine grace is indispensible for salvation, but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice; the human will takes the initiative toward God. In other words, divine grace and human free will must work together in salvation. In opposition to the stark predestinationism of Augustine, Cassian held to the doctrine of God’s universal will to save all men, and that predestination is simply divine foreknowledge.
The debate about Semi-Pelagianism continued well into the sixth century, when Caesrius of Arles convened the council of Orange (529). There Caesrius succeeded in dogmatizing a number of principles against the Semi-Pelagians. But in doing so, the synod did not accept Augustine’s full doctrine of grace, especially not his concept of divine grace that works irresistibly in the predestinated. In 531, Boniface II approved the acts of this council, thus giving it ecumenial authority. Semi-Pelegianism, as a historical movement, subsequently declined, but the pivotal issue of Semi-Pelagianism — the priority of the human will over the grace of God in the initial work of salvation — did not die out.
ARMINIANISM
James Arminius (1560-1609) was born at Oudewater, in the Netherlands, and was educated at the universities of Marburg (1575) and Leiden (1576-81), at the academy at Geneva (1582-83), and at Basel (1582-83). He was pastor of an Amsterdam congregation (1588-1603), and a profesor at the University of Leiden from 1603 until his death in 1609. He did not write a full systematic theology, as did John Calvin, but he wrote considerably both during his fifteen years pastorate and while he was a professor at Leiden. He wrote a treatise on Romans 9 in which he intrepreted this passage, which was used by many Calvinists to teach unconditional predestination, to teach only conditional predestination. His Declaration of Sentiments of 1608, which he presented to the govermental authorities at the Hague, gave his arguments against supralapsarianism (the view that each person’s destiny was determined by God prior to Adam’s fall). He also sought to secure favorable status in United Netherlands for his own kind of teaching on conditional predestination. In addition, he wrote such treatises as an apology against thirty-one incorrect representations of his views that had been circulated for some time. The followers of Arminius’ teachings were called Arminians. Their view was that Adam’s sin was freely chosen but that, after the fall, the eternal destiny of each person was determined by the absolutely sovereign God. In his Declaration of Sentiments of 1608, Arminius gave twenty arguments against supralapsarianism which he said also applied to sublapasrianism. He concluded that all the arguments boil down to one, that unconditional predestination makes God “the author of sin.”
SYNOD OF DORT
When an international church assembly was called by the States General of the Netherlands to settle certain ecclesiastical and doctrinal problems that had been troubling the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, it consisted of thirty-five pastors and a number of elders from the Dutch churches, five theological professors from the Netherlands, eighteen deputies from the States General, and twenty-seven foreign delegates.
At this Synod of Dort (1618-1619), the Arminians tried to depict all the Calvinists as representatives of the “repulsive” supralapsarian doctrine. Four attempts were made at Dort to condemn the supralapsarian view, but the efforts were unsuccesful. Although the Canons of Dort do not deal with the order of the divine decrees, they are infralapsarian in the sense that the elect are “chosen from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault from their primitive state of rectitude into sin and destruction.” (I,7; compare I,1). The reprobates “are passed by in the eternal decree” and God “decreed to leave [them] in common misery into which they have willfully plunged themselves” and “to condemn and punish them forever… for all their sins” (I, 15).
REMONSTRANTS
The Dutch Protestant group composed of the followers of the theological views of Arminius have been called Remonstrants. They presented to the States General in 1610 a “Remonstrance” that reflected their divergence from the stricter Calvinism. Rejecting both the suplapsarianism and sublapsarianism, the document outlined five articles:
1. Election and reprobation are founded on foreseen faith or unbelief.
2. Christ’s death is for all, but only believers enjoy His forgiveness.
3. Fallen man cannot do good or achieve saving faith without the regenerating power of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.
4. Grace is the beginning, continuation, and end of all good, but not irresistible.
5. Grace can preserve the faithful through every temptation, but Scripture does not clearly say that man may not fall from grace and be lost.
When the matter of the Remonstrants came before the Synod of Dort, it had become a political as well as a theological issue. The Remonstrants, who upheld the principle of free investigation, were ousted from their pulpits. Many of them were expelled from the Netherlands, and their theological views were declared contrary to Scripture. While the rigors of persecution soon died down when the political climate became more favorable, the Remontrants were not offically tolerated in the Netherlands until 1795. The movement has retained its appeal and has had significant influence on orthodox Dutch Calvinism which, like the term Arminianism, has been wrongly identified with anti-Calvinist tendencies.
SUPRALAPSARIANISM
The defenders of supralapsarianism continued after Dort. Although supralapsarianism has never received professional endorsement within Reformed churches, it has been tolerated within the confessional boundaries.
Before the Reformation, the main difference between these two views, supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, was whether Adam’s fall was included in God’s eternal order of decrees: the supralapsarians held that it was, but the infralapsarians acknowledged only God’s foreknowledge of that sin. Later, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were agreed that Adam’s fall was somehow included in God’s decrees; also they all insisted that God was in no way the author of the sin. Because of the Reformer’s agreement, after the Reformation the distinction between infra- and supralapsarianism shifted to the difference in the logical order of God’s decrees.
The choice between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism involves the relation of God’s eternal decrees to man’s will –
how can the one be affirmed without denying the other?
If one argues for God’s predetermination of mankind’s fate, this tends to deny mankind’s free will and threatens to make God responsible for sin. On the other hand, if one argues for the freedom of mankind’s will, thus making man responsible for sin, this threatens the sovereignty and power of God, since His decrees then are contingent upon mankind’s decisions.
This argument/dilemma is not new. Augustine and Pelagius argued over the issue which controversy continued until the Synod of Orange (529), which sided with Augustine. In the middle ages, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham questioned Augustine’s position. Luther and Erasmus argued the the issue in Freedom of the Will and Bondage of the Will. Melanchthon got involved and was accused by Flacius of synergism (the doctrine of divine and human cooperation in conversion), and by the end of the sixteenth century the position of Arminius stirred the controversy among the Calvinist, who attempted to resolve the issue at the Synod of Dort.
INFRALAPSARIANISM
The infralapsarians argued that the key to the order of the decrees is that God decreed election to salvation after the fall — not before; hence the name of the name of the view “infralapsarianism.” The supralapsarian view would offer an order in which the decree for election and reprobation occurs before the creation decree. Those on both sides of the issue cite weighty arguments for their positions, quoting Scripture as a foundation. Most Reformed assemblies have refused to make either infra- or supralapsarianism normative, although the tendency has been to favor the former without condemning those who hold to the latter.
THE SINFUL NATURE
The sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology by Augustine to explain why man could not save himself by his meritorious works. But since man cannot save himself by his meritorious works of the law, because the law cannot make him alive (Gal. 3:21). That is, salvation is not something that can be earned by meritorious works of the law but it is the gift of life to be received by faith. Thus the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary and unbiblical.
THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF SIN
The sinful nature is not taught in the Scriptures. Augustine was and Calvinism is wrong in interpreting the slavery of sin as a determinism of the sinful nature. The slavery of sin is not a sinful nature but the result of the choices made in following a false god; the slavery of sin is not a determinism by one’s nature but the self-determinism by one’s personal choice according to one’s false ultimate criterion, his false god as his slave master. The analysis of human freedom shows that man must have a god as the ultimate criterion of his choices. And because man is spiritually dead and does not personally know the true God as a living reality, man choses a substitute for the true God as his god. That is, man sins because he is spiritually dead (Rom. 5:12d ERS).
“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: — (Rom. 5:12 ERS).
Thus the origin of sin is twofold:
a. the historical origin of sin is the sin of Adam, the Fall of man,
b. the immediate, contemporary and personal origin of the sin for each of Adam’s descendants is the transmitted death (spiritual death as well as physical death) from Adam to his descendants.
Man has not lost his freedom to choose as the result of the Fall of man in the sin of Adam; man is able not to sin. But since he cannot make himself alive to God and set himself free from the bondage of sin, he cannot save himself.
THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF SALVATION
Salvation is basically and primarily from death, both spiritual and physical; salvation from death is man’s primary need. Because salvation is basically and primarily from death, salvation from sin (trust in a false god, idolatry) is secondary. That is, since man sins because of death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), the result of salvation from death is salvation from sin. Salvation is not something to be earned by meritorious works but is the gift of a personal relationship with the true God – spiritual life – to be received by faith (Eph. 2:8-9).
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it [salvation] is the gift of God; 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS).
According to the Scriptures, man cannot save himself because he cannot make himself alive, not because he cannot do meritorious works. The law cannot deliver one from death or sin, neither can the law produce life or righteousness; the law cannot make 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 be by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
There is no salvation by the law. And because the law cannot make alive, salvation by meritorious works of the law is in principle not possible and is non-biblical; man cannot earn salvation by meritorious works.
THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF THE GRACE OF GOD
Augustine was and Calvinism is also wrong in asserting that only those chosen by God in eternity [the Elect] 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 men (and women) chosen by God in eternity can accept the gift of God. The grace of God is not a divine determinism (predestination) that must overcome the determinism of the sinful nature, but the grace of God is the love of God in action to save man from death to life (Eph. 2:4-5).
“4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” (Eph. 2:4-5; see Rom. 6:8).
Neither is the grace of God just the favor of God that imputes to the believer’s account the merits earned by Christ’s active obedience, so that he will receive eternal life at the last judgment. But eternal life is the person, Jesus Christ (John 14:6), and He is not the reward earned by the merits of Christ. Whoever receives Jesus Christ by faith now has eternal life (I John 5:11-12).
“11 And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life” (I John 5:11-12).
God has chosen to save all men, if they will receive that salvation. God has not chosen just a few to be saved [the Elect], 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 his choices, 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 finally refuse to choose the true God and to receive His gift of eternal life by faith, they are left in spiritual death and in their sin for eternity.
THE LEGALISTIC VIEW OF THE NEED FOR SALVATION
As the problem of predestination is a pseudo problem arising from a misunderstanding of the Biblical teaching concerning the need for salvation, so the difference between supralapsarians and infralapsarianism is also a pseudo problem. The difference between supralapsarians and infralapsarianism on the relation of God’s decree of election and reprobation to human sin of the fall arises from a legalistic misunderstanding of need for salvation. And this misunderstanding arises from legalistic concept of salvation as something to be earned by meritorious works and a legalistic misinterpretation of Scripture, particularly of Rom. 5:12 and of Rom. 8:29-30.
The doctrine of the sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology by Augustine in the early fifth century A.D. to explain why man can not save himself by his meritorious works. Instead of denying that salvation has anything to do with meritorious works, Augustine assumed that salvation is by meritorious works and he taught that since the fall, because of his inherited corrupt or sinful nature, man cannot do meritorious works to earn salvation apart from the grace of God. Thus Augustine taught that the grace of God which is infused into man’s will by the sacraments enables him to earn eternal life.
But Augustine’s assumption is wrong. According to the Scriptures ( Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 4:4-5), salvation is not by meritorious works, and eternal life is not earned by meritorious works (it is a gift). Therefore the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary to deny that man can save himself. According to the Scriptures, man cannot save himself because he cannot make himself alive, not because he cannot do meritorious works. The law cannot deliver one from death or sin, neither can the law produce life or righteousness. The law cannot make 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 be by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
There is no salvation by the law. The sinful nature is not needed to explain why man cannot save himself, because the law was not given by God for salvation; the law cannot make alive. God gave the law, not for salvation from sin, but for the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20b); that is, to show what should be man’s right personal relationship to God and to his fellow men (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:37-40). This knowledge does not save man but only shows man what he ought to be but it cannot make him to be that. Salvation is only through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, not by the law and not by human self-effort (the flesh). Jesus Christ is Life, and he who has Him has life and is alive to God (I John 5:11-12). Thus according to the Scriptures, man does not sin because of a inherited sinful nature, but because of spiritual death received from Adam.
“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: — 13 for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 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).
“… For if by the offense of one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many.” (Rom. 5:15 ERS)
“For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more shall those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:17 ERS)
“21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (I Cor. 15:21-22)
Thus the Scriptures 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 as 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).
“55 O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting? 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.”
(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. In His great intercessory prayer, Jesus said:
“This is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 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; spiritual death is a negative relationship between man and God and not the nature of man.
This 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.
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 the true 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 false god that a man has chosen.
“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.
MONERGISM
One of the implications of Augustine’s doctrine of the sinful or corrupt nature of man is that salvation is entirely the work of God (monergism), since man, because of his sinful nature, is totally unable to do good works in order to earn salvation by them. According to Augustine, not only is the grace of God the work of God but so is faith, since salvation is “by grace through faith”.
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as the result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NAS)
Thus, according to Augustine’s interpretation, the faith that receives the grace of God is also the work of God. This monergism totally eliminates the human will from any part or place in salvation. Augustine understood the human will, not as a choice between sin and righteousness, but choice according to one’s nature: the choice of sin if one’s nature is sinful, the choice of righteousness if one’s nature is good. So accordingly all men’s choices are sin because their nature is sinful. And the grace of God must enable the will of man if he is going to do meritorious works to earn his salvation. This efficient grace is received through the sacraments. Thus salvation is a monergism, where God does all that is needed to earn salvation, not a synergism, where God’s act of grace enables the will of man to earn salvation, as was taught by the later Roman Church.
Furthermore, in Augustine’s teaching, grace is reduced to something that enables the human will to do good works so that it can earn salvation. These views of Augustine concerning salvation follow from his view of human nature as sinful or corrupt. The Calvinist Reformers denied Augustine’s view of grace and sees the grace of God 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 the salvation that they themselves cannot earn because of their sinful nature. But the Calvinist is wrong; righteousness is not merits but is a right personal relationship to God through faith.
“4 Now to the one who works his wages is not reckoned according to grace [as a gift] but according to debt [something owed since it was earned] 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:4-5 ERS).
And God puts man into this right personal relationship to Himself by His grace, not by vicarious meritorious works that was 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.
“4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus;” (Eph. 2:4-6 ERS).
Calvinism’s view of salvation like Augustine’s 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 earn it for him. Calvinism, denying the Augustinian view that man 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 also is faith, since salvation is by grace through faith.
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as the result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NAS)
According to Calvinism as well as Augustine, the faith that receives the gift of God is also the work of God. The Calvinistic doctrine of Irresistible Grace teaches that God gives the elect a new nature by which they can believe and thus be saved. Thus not only is salvation by grace but so also is faith the gift of God. But the phrase in Eph. 2:8, “and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God”, refers not to faith but to salvation. In the Greek of this verse, the demonstrative pronoun translated “that” agrees in gender (masculine) with the verbal participle translated “have been saved”, and not with the noun translated “faith” which is feminine. That is, salvation, not faith, is the gift of God.
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that [salvation] is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as the result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS)
Salvation is the gift which God has given and is received by man’s faith. And this faith does not earn this salvation by meritorious works. For faith is not a meritorious work. The Apostle Paul in opposing salvation by works refers to meritorious works as “the righteousness of the law” (Rom. 10:5; Phil. 3:6, 9) and as “the works of the law” (Rom. 3:20; 4:2-5; Gal. 3:2, 5, 10). The law was legalistically considered to be the standard by which the merits of good works can be determined. This is a distortion of the Mosaic law and is a characteristic of legalism.
THE LEGALISTIC MISUNDERSTANDING OF SALVATION
Calvinism accepts the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. But the Augustinian doctrine of original sin is legalistic because it presupposes a legalistic understanding of sin and death. According to the legalistic point of view, all sin is a transgression of the law, a crime, and death is always the punishment for those crimes. Death is always the result of sin or, in legalistic terms, death is the penalty of sin; death is the just reward of our sins. But the Augustinian doctrine of original sin is also legalistic because it assumes a legalistic understanding of salvation. Augustine used the doctrine of original sin to establish the need for salvation. Why does man need to be saved? Augustine answered that man needs to be saved because he is a sinner by nature. By this he meant that man is not able not to sin and not able to do meritorious good works because he has inherited a sinful nature from Adam. Man needs the grace of God to enable him not to sin and to do good works by which he can earn eternal life as a reward for his meritorious good works. The doctrine of original sin was Augustine’s answer to Pelagius’s assertion that man was able not to sin and able to do good works to earn eternal life by natural grace. Augustine said that man needs special grace because he lost the natural grace and is now, since the fall, a sinner by nature. Although man needs this special grace to enable him to do good works, men are still saved by good works. Augustine nowhere questions this legalistic conception of salvation. He like Pelagius assumes that salvation must be earned, but since we are sinners by nature, Augustine said that we need God’s special grace to enable us to do so. Thus salvation as well as the need for salvation were understood legalistically.
At the Reformation, the Protestant Reformers (Luther and Calvin) opposed the teaching of the Roman church which since the time of Augustine taught that by the grace of God, which is infused into man at baptism and renewed by the sacraments, a man is able to do good works to earn eternal life. The Reformers agreed with Augustine that man cannot earn eternal life because of his sinful nature but they rejected the idea that grace was something infused into a man to make it possible for him to earn eternal life. Grace, they said, is God’s unmerited favor, and eternal life was a gift to be received by faith. But, they said, this gift of eternal life was earned by the active obedience of Christ during his life on earth. This “merits of Christ” is imputed to the believer’s account when he first believes in Christ. Thus salvation was for them still ultimately and fundamentally by meritorious works. It is true that they said that salvation was not by our works and that eternal life was a gift to be received by faith. But salvation was still by works — not our works but the meritorious works of another, Jesus Christ. It was a vicarious salvation by works. Thus salvation as well as the need for salvation were still understood legalistically.
This classical Protestant explanation of salvation, like Augustine’s and the Roman church’s, mixes grace and works, which the Apostle Paul says cannot be done or grace will no longer be grace ( Rom. 11:6). Paul very clearly teaches that salvation is not by works.
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it [salvation] is the gift of God, 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS; see also Titus 3:5).
Salvation is by grace through faith, and not by works. Man cannot be saved by his good works; he cannot earn salvation by his works.
This is the clear and explicit teaching of Scripture. But not only is salvation by grace but it is also not by meritorious works. Salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works are mutually exclusive and opposing ways of salvation.
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Rom. 11:6)
Thus salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works must not be mixed. The result of such a mixture is that the strong dynamic Biblical concept of God’s grace as God’s love in action is reduced in Augustine’s and the Roman church’s theology to the idea of something infused into man by the sacraments which makes it possible for him to earn eternal life or in Protestant theology to the weak idea of grace as unmerited favor. Grace is no longer grace in these theologies.
Salvation is not by meritorious works, not because a man is not able to do them, but because God does not deal with mankind on the basis of the merit scheme. As Jesus made clear in his parable of the householder (Matt. 20:1-16), God does not act toward us on the basis of our merit but on the basis of His generosity. And because God does not treat mankind according to their desserts, but according to His love, He often puts the least deserving before the more deserving. “The last will be first and the first last.” (Matt. 20:16; 19:30; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30)
THEOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
Both supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism assume a determinism in their statements about original sin and double predestination. Augustine introduced into Christian theology a determinism of the human sinful nature (the doctrine of original sin) and a divine determinism (double predestination) which completely eliminated the free will of the creatures.
But 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 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. 8:29-30. The following is the King James Version translation of Romans 8:29-30:
“29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them also glorified.” (Rom. 8:29-30 KJV)
The misinterpretation of this and other passages of Scripture deterministically gave rise to the problem of decrees of God as well as of the problem of predestination. The Greek verb here in this verse (Rom. 8:29) translated “foreknow,” 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 “predestinate,” which should be 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 “predestinate” makes Paul seem to teach this determinism.
“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. 30 Moreover whom he did foreordained, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them also glorified.” (Rom. 8:29-39 ERS)
SLAVERY OF SIN
And 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 sinful 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 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. 8:29-30. 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.
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it [salvation] is the gift of God; 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS).
On God’s side, God gives (“by grace”) salvation as a gift 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. The choice of a false god leads to bondage, the bondage of sin. Idolatry results in the bondage of sin in two senses.
1. Since idolatry is the basic sin, it leads to other sins. Because a person’s god, being his ultimate criterion of all his decisions, ultimately controls the direction and character of his decisions, the wrong choice of a false god will lead to other wrong choices, sins. A person committed to a false god does not necessarily always have to commit sins. Happily, he is often inconsistent in following his false god. But since his god furnishes him with an entire set of values and motives for his choices, the sin of idolatry will usually invariably result in other sins. This invariableness of sin is one aspect of the bondage of sin. As Jesus said, “…every one who commits sin is a slave of sin.” (John 8:34)
2. The second sense in which idolatry results in the bondage of sin is that idolatry reduces and ultimately will destroy one’s freedom of choice. A false god, having become the repository of a man’s trust and allegiance, proceeds immediately to reduce and ultimately to destroy his freedom. It becomes a straightjacket and a limitation on his freedom. Thus it reduces his freedom of choice by limiting his options as well as his reasons for his choice. Some false gods totally eliminate some areas of life from its followers consideration. Thus a false god circumscribes and restricts the freedom of choice of the person who chooses it as his god; it acts as a frustrating limitation, a ball and chain upon the exercise of the freedom of its worshipper. But a false god also destroys the freedom of its worshipper by denying his freedom. Since a false god is a being that has limited or no freedom or power of choice (it is determined and not self-determining) such a god by implication denies the reality of follower’s freedom of choice. Thus having used his freedom to give this god his ultimate allegiance, the worshipper finds his freedom denied to the point of extinction and himself bound in a miserable slavery. As long as the false god remains his ultimate criterion of decision, he will not have the grounds for rejecting that god, since that god has not allowed him to have freedom of choice to do so. His power of choice having been effectively taken away from him, he is unable to reject the false god and free himself from its bondage. This is the bondage of sin (John 8:34; Prov. 5:22). Man becomes a slave of sin when he gives his ultimate allegiance and devotion to a false god. In fact, the false god is sin personified as a slavemaster (Rom. 6:16).
The true God, on the other hand, preserves and fulfills the freedom of the one who chooses and worships Him. Since the true God is a living God (Jer. 10:5-15; I Thess. 1:9), that is, a being that has the power of self-determination, with unlimited freedom, He can and does affirm His worshipper’s freedom. He gave them such a freedom of choice when he made them. When this Being who has such freedom is made the ultimate criterion of one’s decisions, one’s freedom of choice may be exercised without frustrating limitation. His freedom is not denied or taken away from him. But more importantly, the true God not only affirms the freedom of the one who chooses and worships Him but also fulfills the freedom of the one who commits and devotes himself to Him. This He does by loving him, that is, by acting toward him for his highest good. Now man’s highest good is the true God; because He alone does not deny but affirms the freedom of the one who chooses Him. For when a man chooses the true God as his God, he has found his highest good and obtained true happiness (Prov. 16:20; Psa. 40:4; 84:12; 144:15; Jer. 17:7, etc.). Since the true God is love (I John 4:8, 16), He acts toward man in such a way as to bring man to the choice of man’s highest good, that is, to the true God, and hence the fulfillment of his freedom. He sets him free from the bondage of sin, the slavery to a false god, and brings him to the freedom of righteousness, the righteousness of faith. Just as the basic sin is trusting in a false god, the basic righteousness is trusting in the true God. Righteousness is not a quality that we possess, neither merit that we have earned or have imputed to our account, but it is a right relationship to God; faith in the true God relates us rightly to Him (Rom. 4:3-5). In this right relationship to the true God, man’s freedom is fulfilled and man is truly free. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)