Mere Calvinism

Jim Scott Orrick

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781629956145
• eBook ISBN: 9781629956152
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Written for those in high school and up, Orrick's fresh, evangelistic explanation takes us back to the Bible to examine the heart of Calvinism's teaching—and why those ideas matter.

1

CALVINISM

More Than the Five Points

In Two Sentences, What Is a Calvinist?

The old farmer sitting across the table from me at the restaurant was not a troublemaker at church. In fact, he had been a peacemaker. It was he who had contacted me about becoming the interim pastor of the church where he had spent all of his eighty-plus years. The church was without a pastor because they had found it necessary to fire their former pastor, who by all accounts had proven himself to be an imprudent, impatient, pushy young upstart. He had very nearly split the church. He was a Calvinist.

I do not think it was his Calvinism that got him fired. I do not think so because, during the fifteen months that I served as interim pastor of that wonderful little church, I plainly preached the doctrines of God’s sovereign grace as I encountered those truths again and again throughout a year-long exposition of Hebrews. During my ministry there, the church healed and grew, and when they called a full-time pastor and my ministry there concluded, I was deeply sad to leave a church I had come to love profoundly and whose strong love for me I had felt as well.

All those happy months of my ministry there were still future on that day when I sat across the table from the old farmer. In the absence of a pastor, he was the de facto leader of the church. I had preached at a nearby church during much of the preceding summer, and people from that church had recommended me to him. His church did not interview me before asking me to serve as their interim. I suppose they trusted the people who had recommended me. I also suppose that the farmer had only recently learned that I, their newly called interim pastor, was a Calvinist.

I imagine that when that wise, gracious farmer learned that I was a Calvinist, he must have thought, Oh, no. A Calvinist preacher just came within a hair’s breadth of destroying our church, and now, somehow, we have called another Calvinist to be our interim pastor. I must surmise all this because, if he had these misgivings, he never let a word of it slip out of his mouth that day in the restaurant. Instead, without any prelude, he asked me, “In two sentences, what is a Calvinist?”

I answered something very close to this: “Well, in two sentences . . . First, a Calvinist believes that God always does whatever he pleases. Second, a Calvinist believes that God initiates, sustains, and completes the salvation of everyone who gets saved.” The old farmer had a puzzled look, but he said nothing. I continued, “But probably what you want to know is whether Calvinists believe in missions and evangelism. The answer is yes.” A big smile spread across his wizened, sunburnt face, and he said, “That’s exactly what I wanted to know.” That was the end of our conversation on Calvinism. Our food came, we enjoyed the meal, and as far as I remember, that was the only time anyone in that church ever spoke the word Calvinist to me; and I do not remember ever using the word in my preaching.

What Does the Bible Say?

I am not opposed to the word Calvinism. It is in the title of this book, and I will use it often. I start off this book on the Five Points of Calvinism with this little story in order that I might make the following preliminary observations about Calvinism.

To start, my aim in this book and in my entire preaching and teaching ministry is to explain what the Bible teaches—not to explain what John Calvin taught. I held to what is called Calvinist doctrine before I had read a single page of the writings of John Calvin.¹ I have since read some of Calvin’s writings, and I greatly admire them. Should you ever read his commentaries or his Institutes of the Christian Religion, you will probably be pleasantly surprised at how readable and pastoral John Calvin is.²

I believe what I believe, however, not because John Calvin taught it, or because C. H. Spurgeon or one of my other heroes preached it, or because my parents reared me that way. I believe it because I am convinced that the Holy Spirit has revealed it in the Holy Bible. When he encounters controversial teaching in the Bible, a Bible teacher ought always to be able to point to the Scriptures and say, “I did not write this. I believe it because I believe the Bible, but I did not write this, and this idea did not originate with me. We may not like what this text says; but, if Jesus is our teacher and our Lord, then we are bound to listen to what his Holy Spirit has said and are bound to receive it whether we fully understand it or not.”

My goal in this book is to demonstrate to you, the reader, that the Bible teaches that God always does as he pleases, and that he initiates, sustains, and completes the salvation of everyone who goes to heaven. If after reading this book you honestly do not believe that what I write is taught in the Bible, then reject what I write. I hope you will prayerfully determine right now that you will carefully consider the biblical case I make for what I write, and that if you find that it is taught in the Bible, then you will embrace it as true. “To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isa. 8:20).

I do not think that you must be a Calvinist to be a genuine Christian, but I do believe that you must submit to Christ as your trustworthy teacher and as your Lord. The teachings of the Lord have been given to us in the Bible, and if you see that an idea is clearly taught in the Bible, you are under obligation to receive it. You must never say, “I know that it is taught in the Bible, but . . .” When you see that the Lord has revealed something about himself and the way he acts, even if it is something that contradicts or challenges your long-cherished ideas about who God is, do not deflect the truth by saying, “My God is not like that” or “My God would never do that.” If the Bible asserts something about God to be true, and it could not possibly be true of your God, then you have the wrong god.

A persistent reluctance to submit to the plain teaching of the Scripture is a sure indication that you have not repented of your sinful resolve to determine for yourself what is good and evil. You still have the forbidden fruit in your mouth. Spit it out and receive the words of Jesus: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” ( John 5:24). The focus of this book, then, is not to explain what John Calvin taught but to explain what the Bible teaches.

Calvinism Is More Than Five Points

Another point that my introductory story allows me to make is that Calvinism is more than the Five Points. Before we can make any significant progress toward determining the truthfulness of the Five Points, we need to understand that God always does as he pleases. Nearly every professing Christian who bases his faith on the Bible will acknowledge that God may do as he pleases—but the Bible asserts that God does do as he pleases. “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan. 4:34–35). While sinners may try to resist him, no one successfully resists him. God is the one “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11).

As we are conformed to the likeness of Jesus and gain the mind of Christ, we learn not only to submit to God’s sovereign rule in all things but also to submit cheerfully. We learn to say with our Savior, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father”—why?—“for such was your gracious will” (Matt. 11:25–26). No one but a true believer ever honestly tells God, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Every true believer does say that to God. Cheerful, unconditional submission to the will of God is a condition of our admittance into his kingdom. We must be willing to say “Thy will be done,” even when it comes to difficult teachings that may initially be unsettling.

Two simple statements in the Bible pave the way for everything else that the Bible says. If we believe these two statements, everything else is relatively easy to accept. The first one is the first verse of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” If we believe this, then we believe that God made everything, and this gives him the power and the right to do anything he pleases. The second statement is Psalm 115:3: “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” What God is pleased to do, he does do. Our main job is to learn to be pleased with what pleases God—to conform our will to his.

Since God is good, it is reasonable that his will is best; and since he is all wise, it also is reasonable that his will may sometimes be inscrutable to us. He reveals truths about himself that we could never figure out through our own wisdom. “In the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:21). If we embrace only those doctrines of the Bible that accord with our unaided reason, we have not yet begun to exercise the kind of faith that the Holy Spirit identifies as the faith that results in salvation. For “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Saving faith engages the truth that is above the grasp of mere human reason—the truth that God must reveal. When we receive this super-reasonable truth (this revealed truth that is above reason) and we receive the Christ who reveals it to us, we are “seeing him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27) and can “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:19).

We will encounter ideas about him that we cannot understand, for he is vastly superior to us. He says,

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:8–9)

We ought to expect that such a wise and powerful God will have ways that are far above our ways. When we cannot understand why he does what he does, we must learn to reply,

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”

“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom. 11:33–36)

True peace and happiness come to the person who learns to say with all his heart, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him” (1 Sam. 3:18).

A person who persistently rejects the plain teaching of Scripture is not a believer—but it is also possible to believe many things that Scripture teaches and nevertheless be unconverted. True saving faith transforms those who have it. A faith without works is a dead, useless faith; it is the sort of faith that demons have. “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” ( James 2:19). It is certainly possible to believe the Five Points of Calvinism and still be lost. I have known staunch Calvinists who have totally abandoned the Christian faith. I myself was a convinced Calvinist before I was converted. I remember debating Calvinistic doctrine with my classmates when I was in grade school and junior high school, and I was right—that is, my doctrine was right. I was wrong because I was in rebellion against God. I had submitted to the doctrine of the Scriptures, but I had not yet submitted to the Christ of the Scriptures.

Salvation is granted to those who receive a person—it is not promised to those who merely embrace a theological system, even if it is the right system. I am not, therefore, under the delusion that being a five-point Calvinist is an infallible certificate of Christian authenticity. I have known earnest, Christ-loving Christians who could not have told you what Calvinism was if their life depended on it. I believe the old farmer who sat across the table from me is an example.

It Encourages Missions and Evangelism

That leads me to another preliminary observation. Most people—even most Christians—do not know what Calvinism is. My farmer friend did not, and he still did not even after my two-sentence summary. Because most people do not know what Calvinism is, had he asked me point-blank, “Are you a Calvinist?” I would have said, “I honestly do not know what you are asking me. Could you please ask me what you want to know without using the word Calvinist?” That is not an evasive answer because, until he tells me, I do not know what the average person understands by the word Calvinist. Regrettably, if he has heard anything about Calvinism, it has probably been entirely negative and grossly misrepresented. I accurately anticipated the misinformation that my farmer friend had heard. He had heard that Calvinists do not believe in missions and evangelism. That is false, and it is perhaps the most widespread misconception about Calvinism. Since it is such a common misconception, I will address it briefly now and more fully later.

Some of the most ardent, zealous evangelist...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Calvinism: More Than the Five Points
• 2 Total Depravity: We Have Received a Bleak Diagnosis
• 3 Unconditional Election: The Father Planned for the Success of the Gospel
• 4 Limited Atonement: The Son Secured the Salvation of His People
• 5 Irresistible Grace: The Holy Spirit Supernaturally Calls the Elect
• 6 Perseverance of the Saints: God Brings All His Children to Heaven
• 7 What If?: Less Than the Five Points
• Afterword
• More from P&R Publishing
• More from P&R Publishing