November 13, 2009

  • Why I'm a happy Calvinist! (Resting in the sovereignty of God)

    My response to Revelife's recent post "Why We Fear Calvinism, the Doctrine of Hope."

    Please note: This is written from the perspective of a Christian, one who is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. 

    God has chosen us. We did nothing to be chosen. We couldn't choose Him. We were dead in our sins. We were bound by our sin nature. We couldn't seek Him. We couldn't move toward Him. Yet God moved toward us. He chose to show mercy to us even though we were totally undeserving and totally unworthy. God set His love on us because He loved us. While our minds were hostile to Him, He had already saved us and called us with a holy calling. He sent Jesus Christ to die for us while we were yet sinners, while we were powerless and helpless and unable to love Him. We were condemned to die and be eternally separated from Him but our Lord shed His blood so our sins might be forgiven. There could be no forgiveness for us apart from Christ. We were dead and He breathed life into us by His Spirit. He drew us to Himself. We were incapable of seeing His Kingdom, much less Him. He gave us the faith to believe in Him. Our salvation is all a gift from Him, He is the author and finisher of our faith. It is all of grace. It is all through Christ. It is all to His glory alone so we might boast only in Him and in the cross of Christ.

    We do not understand why God has chosen us and not others. Certainly not on our own merits. We bring nothing to Him but our total depravity. We know we deserve nothing but condemnation, we are no better that those He doesn't choose, yet Jesus drank the cup to the dregs, He took God's full wrath in our place. Why? We don't know. A God who loved us while we were unlovely. All we can do is rejoice in Him and adore Him. We weep for those who do not know Him but we know that all are offered the opportunity to come to Him. It is to the grace and glory of God that He saves any of us. We have all fallen short of His glory and are filled with sin from the top of our head to the tip of our toes. We are sin through and through. He is holiness through and through. Yet He found a way to save us by giving His only begotten Son as a sin offering in our place.

    Our heavenly Father now loves us and accepts us because all our sins have been covered with the blood of Christ. He credits Christ's perfect righteousness to our account. There is now no condemnation for us. We who have been far away from God, unable to approach God have been reconciled to God all because of His mercy and grace poured out at the cross of Calvary. Christ's blood was shed in our place. His body was punished in our place. The spotless Lamb became sin so we might become the righteousness of God. God loved us so much that He wanted to have fellowship with Him, to know Him. His justice and mercy met perfectly in Jesus Christ. A God who was holy could now welcome sinners like us. When He looks at us, He no longer sees our sin but sees the blood of Christ covering our sin. When we do sin, our Father is ready to welcome us back when we confess our sins to Him. He is no longer ashamed us. We have been accepted in the Beloved. He rejoices over us with singing.

    We know our days are all in God's hands. He is sovereign over them all. Is not His sovereignty is our sanity? We can rest safely in His ark, knowing that nothing will harm us there. He will bring us safely through each and every storm. We know that God is working all things for our good even bad things. We can trust He is only allowing trials if necessary and they are all working for His glory and to conform us into the image of His Son Jesus Christ. The fire may get hot, but it is all to refine us and our faith. We sometimes question His will for us, yes, we all have moments of doubt, but let us never be foolish or brutish or ever doubt God's everlasting love for us! Let us never curse Him but sit quietly and rest and wait for Him. He has promised all who wait on Him will not be ashamed. If He is for us for can be against us? He has given us Jesus Christ, therefore will He not freely give us all things? Our judge has become our advocate. Our Savior is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding for us so we might be saved to the uttermost even though we might sin to the uttermost. There is grace greater than our sin. Grace aplenty for the chief of sinners. We are all the chief of sinners. He turned His face away from His Son so He might never turn His face away from us.

    We know that God's love for us in Jesus Christ is steadfast and sure. No matter what we do we can never be separated from Him. Jesus Christ is our anchor who holds in the veil. He isn't going anywhere. God has sealed us with His Spirit. He has promised to keep us. His Spirit will work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. He won't allow us to remain in sin. He gives us the power to overcome sin. Before we were His, we could not defeat sin, but now it no longer has dominion over us. We have Christ's resurrection power working in us to defeat sin so we might truly bear fruits of righteousness to the glory of God. God's Spirit will help us to love Him more and to desire to be holy, and to more and more despise our sin for we will more and more see how our sin grieves our Father. He will complete the work He has begun in us. We never need doubt our salvation. We will persevere to the end by His grace at work in us.

    As George Whitefield wrote, we cannot comprehend these things but only adore Him. Only adore Him! O, come let us adore Him! All glory to God alone for His manifold mercies and amazing grace shown to us through His Son Jesus Christ! Amen.

    Related:

Comments (10)

  • I too am a happy Calvinist. All other viewpoints at their heart make mans free will sovereign and God is apparently subject to it because he can not violate it. Q: In your opening you state "We couldn't choose Him. We were dead in our sins. We were bound by our sin nature. We couldn't seek Him. We couldn't move toward Him. "In arguing these points do you think it better to emphasize that we "cant" choose Him or that we "will not" choose him? Grace and peace!~Michael

  • God bless how are you? Praying for ya!

  • Beautiful response!! I too read that Revelife post, and wanted to respond, just didn't know where to begin. And I thought that by the time I commented, it would be too long. You did a great job explaining Calvinism. And like Michael said, many of them who responded in "like" of the REvelife post just want to place God in their box of understanding free will. One commenter stated that if he (or she) ever believed what calvinism believed, salvation would be unexciting (or something like that). And my thought was "then explain why salvation is the greatest gift, the one thing soooo exciting for calvinists!" They just don't get it. I think that of all "religious" viewpoints in Christianity, calvinism is the most misunderstood. So kudos to you for standing up, and writing it like it is. God bless!

  • Why is it so hard for people to understand our spirit died when Adam sinned and something that is dead can not do ANYTHING for itself. It is totally dependent on someone else if it is to come back to life. I just hate that we call it Calvinism and I'll bet John Calvin would not like the Christianity of the Bible being labeled Calvinism. We are going through Romans right now in Church and we are in Chap 9. It's just awesome. If you want to hear Chap 9 explain as well as anyone I've heard explain it go to http://www.southwoodsbc.org and click sermons and then click Romans. Chap 8 was incredible too. You can download it on your computer and even print out the printed part our pastor gives us to follow if we want. The biggest problem Christians have and even non Christians(but they don't understand the basics) is understanding God's sovereignty. Believe something has complete control of EVERYTHING is just something they don't want to believe. They think we HAVE to have a part in our salvation instead of just praising God for choosing them because of His mercy and grace. I didn't read that post, but then I just don't ever look at Revelife or any of the other ish type sites. I just don't have time. Sometimes I catch stuff and read it if it was rec by one of my subs, but I just don't have time to cruise around Xanga. I'm fortunate to still be up now and see this. Take care

  • I said this on Revelife's main page, but I figured I'd contribute it to this page as well. (Any excuse to give you a couple extra eProps! lol)Wonderful post here- As I've said before, we must be careful not to ignore the elemental truthes found in the theology and to be discerning enough to recognize it's short-comings. I'm not a "Calvinist" because I'm a Christian-- as cliche' as that must sound I believe it's an important distinction. I must have the faith to accept what God teaches me in it's entirety. And I must have the word indwelling with me enough to be able to know what God teaches. I say, as the post says, lets REJOICE, sincerely, truthfully, and whole-heartedly that by God alone we were called, and that we may rest secure in him to protect and sustain us. Let us be on guard lets we be decieved into laying down the cross of Christ and picking back up our own wills and so be led astray. As Jesus' Apostles warned us, be discerning-- but praise be to God that it is HIS SON that saves us from this wretched body!!!!

  • Thanks all for your comments. That past week has been more than a little crazy. I thank God for all of you and really appreciate your encouragement! Rejoicing with you in His goodness and grace to us!@MC_Shann, @izakura, @nicolevw, @UnworthyofHisgrace and @deepestrecesses@revelife

  • "We do not understand why God has chosen us and not others. Certainly not on our own merits. We bring nothing to Him but our total depravity." TRUE! true, not to imply that alone is true.Thanks for your work! Merry ChristmasHunt

  • @Hunt4Truth - You're welcome! I love to exult in God's sovereign grace!  I hope you had a blessed Christmas celebration.

  • Thank you. I am with my son and that is special. He'll retrurn home on Friday evening.I hope you are enjoying the season.Hunt

  • Calvinistic Baptists have more in common with Lutherans on the Doctrineof Justification/Salvation than they do with their Arminian Baptist brethren. When it comes to theconversion of an adult non-believer, Arminians, Calvinists and Lutherans are infull agreement:  salvation occurs when the sinner believes.  Baptismis not a mandatory requirement to be saved.  We have theologicaldifferences on how belief occurs, but we all believe that the second a sinnerbelieves he is saved.  If he dies a second later, he will go toheaven.  He is a Christian.Our significant denominational differences arise when we talk about thesalvation of the infants and toddlers of Christian parents:  how are theseyoung children saved?  What happens if, God forbid, one of them should diebefore reaching the age where they are capable of expressing a saving faith inChrist?  The Arminian answer is this:  God saves all infants and toddlers who die,even the infants and toddlers of non-believers.  They have no hard prooffrom Scripture to support this belief, but they believe that King David'scomments about his dead infant gives them support for their position. Infants who die are "safe" in the arms of a loving God.Calvinists look at their children in this manner:  Their children areeither the Elect or they are not.  Presbyterian Calvinists will baptizetheir infants to bring them into the "covenant" (whatever that is!)of the Church but do not believe that baptism has any salvific value. "If my child is of the Elect he will declare himself to be a believer whenhe is older."A Calvinistic Baptist will not baptize his infant, but looks at Electionin the same way as the Presbyterian Calvinist:  My child is either of theElect or he is not.  There is nothing I can do but bring him up in theFaith and leave the rest to God.Lutherans believe that when God told us to baptize all nations, he meant tobaptize ALL those who are of the Elect.  Many Arminians and Calvinistsassume that Lutherans believe that anyone we run through the baptismalfont will get into heaven.  Not true!  Only the Elect will get intoheaven.  We baptize our infants in the HOPEthat they are the Elect.  Is it possible that some of the infants ofChristian parents whom we baptize are not of the Elect and therefore will notbe in heaven?  Yes!  But that is a mystery of God that we do notattempt to explain or understand.However, we believe we are to do our job of "baptizing allnations" (who are of the Elect) by baptizing our infants and we then leavetheir Election up to God.  We then follow Christ's command to"teach" them in the Faith as they grow up, but when they areolder it will be their responsibility to nurture their faith withprayer, Bible study,  worship, and the Lord's Supper.  If theseinfant-baptized persons abandon their faith and turn their back on God,they may very well wake up one day in hell!  Baptism is NOT a"Get-into-heaven-free" card!  Salvation is by God's grace alone,received in faith alone.No faith--->no salvation--->no eternal life!The Calvinist position on the salvation of infants is very confusing to me… discussioncontinued at: http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2013/07/calvinistic-baptists-have-more-in.html

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naphtali_deer

About me...

Christian hedonist in training. Pressing on to know more and more of the joy of the LORD. Pleading with God to rend the heavens and revive and refresh my own soul, as well as His Church, to His praise, honor and glory.

Thank God. He can make men and women in middle life sing again with a joy that has been chastened by a memory of their past failures. ~ Alan Redpath

My other websites

tent of meeting: Prayer for reformation & revival

(See also Zechariah821. Zechariah821 is a mirror site of tent of meeting, found on WordPress)

deerlifetrumpet: Encouragement for those seeking reformation & revival in the Church

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