Calvinism by Fives

Calvinism seems to spread by fives: five points, five solas, and I bet we could think of other groups of five. Five Reformation countries (Germany, France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, England). Five key Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Huss, Wycliffe). Okay, I know Huss and Wycliffe came earlier….

As most good Calvinists, I know my fives. My TULIP and my Solas. Or do I? I’m starting to read a new book by Joel Beeke entitled Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism. I should mention that my copy is a review copy provided by Reformation Trust Publishing. (Click here for details on how to blog your way to a free Reformation Trust book).

As Beeke works through the history of Calvinism, I’ve learned quite a bit: even though I’m a Calvinist blogger! I learned that the five solas are best understood in light of their Roman Catholic counterparts, and that the five points of Calvinism were actually four. The points were the Synod of Dort’s response to 5 Arminian points, and were actually given in 4 groupings, with 2 of the points treated under one heading (since they were inseparably joined in the minds of the Calvinists).

To help all of you learn your fives, let me provide some excerpts from Beeke’s book that will explain more about these two groups of Calvinist High Fives.

The Protestant response to Roman Catholic abuses gradually settled into
five Reformation watchwords or battle cries, centered on the Latin word solus,
meaning “alone.” These battle cries, expounded in chapter 10, served to contrast
Protestant teaching with Roman Catholic tenets as follows:

Protestant	Roman Catholic
Scripture alone (sola Scriptura)	Scripture and tradition
Faith alone (sola fide)	Faith and works
Grace alone (sola gratia)	Grace and merit
Christ alone (solus Christus)	Christ, Mary, and intercession of saints
Glory to God alone (soli Deo gloria)	God, saints, and church hierarchy

 

[from Chapter 1: Calvinism in History: The Origins of Calvinism, pg. 5.]

Though these points do not represent all of Calvinism and are better regarded as Calvinism’s five answers to the five errors of Arminianism, they certainly lie at the heart of the Reformed faith, for they flow out of the principle of absolute divine sovereignty in the salvation of sinners. They may be summarized as follows:
1. Unconditional election and saving faith are sovereign gifts of God.
2. While the death of Christ is sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world, its saving efficacy is limited to the elect.
3–4. All people are so totally depraved and corrupted by sin that they cannot exercise free will toward, or effect any part of, salvation. In sovereign grace, God irresistibly calls and regenerates the elect to newness of life.
5. God graciously preserves the redeemed so that they persevere until the end, even though they may be troubled by many infirmities as they seek to make their calling and election sure.
Although the canons have only four sections, we speak of five points or heads of doctrine because the canons were structured to correspond with the five articles of the 1610 Remonstrance. The third and fourth sections were combined into one because the Dortian divines considered them to be inseparable and hence designed them as “Head of Doctrine III/IV”.

[from Chapter 2: Calvinism in History: Confessing the Faith, pg. 25-26]

Our Prodigal God

Prodigal has come to mean, in the Christian vernacular, a reprobate wretch.  The word more accurately describes wasteful spending, or even just someone who is free with money.  Tim Keller, following Spurgeon’s example, uses the term to refer to God — God as incredibly free with His grace and love.  God is our prodigal God, in this sense.

Keller has authored a book with that title, and it is to be published by a secular publishing house.  I hope the title grabs people’s attention and gets more to take a look at his book.

The book focuses on the story of the Prodigal son, and in the introduction Keller points out a sermon by Edmund Clowney as being very influential in his Christian life, and a formative influence for the book.  Crossway has kindly made the print version of that sermon available online for free (as a pdf) [HT: Justin Taylor].  It comes from Crossway’s book entitled Preaching Christ from All of Scripture by Clowney.  I really enjoyed the sermon when I read it from my copy of the book a couple years back, so I wanted to be sure to link to the online version of the sermon.  Here is the conclusion of the sermon, but I encourage you to read the whole thing, its a quick and easy, yet spiritually moving read.

Come home to the Father’s love, to the joy of Jesus’ feast. Are
you a prodigal, far from the gate of heaven? Jesus now comes to lift
you up. Are you a smug Pharisee, flaunting the filthy rags of your selfrighteousness
outside the Father’s house? Hear the words of Jesus:
his Father calls you to repent and come home as a little child. Or are
you somehow both at once: prodigal and proud, debased but despising?
No matter; cast all away and hold fast to Jesus.

Or are you a believer? Has Jesus found you like the lost sheep and
borne you home on his shoulder? Then consider the demand this
parable puts on you. You have tasted of heaven’s grace. You know the
embrace of your Father’s love. You know that he rejoices over you
with singing. What does heaven’s joy, his joy, over lost sinners mean
to you?

You say, “It means that I, too, must welcome sinners, be ready to
eat with them, even as I have been brought to his table.” Is that
enough? The true Son, who knows his Father’s heart, did not simply
share with sinners his robe, his ring, his sandals. He went to find
them to bring them home. Where will you look today?

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is
love” (1 John 4:8, NIV).

Beginning with Moses

I just added a new blog to my blogroll.  Beginning with Moses is an excellent resource for all things Biblical Theology, with an emphasis on redemptive historical hermeneutics.  The beginningwithmoses.org website houses lots of articles on various topics, majoring on Biblical Theology, primarily.  And the blog provides updates re: new articles on the site, and etc.

One of their recent posts was on Song of Solomon.  I haven’t taken the time to read the whole 70 page paper, but the conclusion resonates with me.  In a previous post, The Gospel According to Solomon, I argued that the Song should be interpreted in light of Christ and the Church.  The post at BeginningwithMoses, agrees.

This may not be currently popular in academia (see Vern Poythress’ comments to the same in this post), but I believe it is the correct emphasis for our interpretation.

Go check out Beginning with Moses, the blog and the site, and it will be worth your time.

Bob’s Blog Finds: The Apostolic Hermeneutic

In my blog finds I highlight some of the best articles I’ve found online recently. You can see all my blog finds (courtesy of Google Reader) in the sidebar.

It’s been a long while since I posted a Bobspotted Blogroll post.  With Google Reader, it’s easier to share my posts one by one.  Rather then abandon the blogspot idea altogether, I plan on posting Blog Finds posts where I share articles or links one at a time.  This will allow more interaction from you, my readers, and I hope it will serve my blog readers well.

Proponents of Biblical Theology, particularly those who hold to redemptive historical hermeneutics, often speak of the apostolic hermeneutic.  We see how the Apostle’s interpreted the OT Bible and draw lessons for how we should interpret it as well.

Now this approach is often misunderstood or even maligned by other Bible scholars, particularly dispensationalists.  R. Scott Clark addresses this issue in an excellent post (actually a re-post) at his Heidelblog.  I’ll provide some excerpts and encourage you to read the excellent post for yourself.  He provides book recommendations for where to pursue this hermeneutical approach further, too.

It’s isn’t that complicated. Pay close attention here: The Apostolic hermeneutic is to see Christ at the center of all of Scripture. We’re not reading him into Scripture. We’re refusing to read him out of it. There, I said it. That’s what it is. Perhaps the reason our dispensational friends cannot see it is because they are blinded by their rationalism. They know a priori what the organizing principle of Scripture must be and it isn’t God the Son, it’s national Israel….

Yes, Reformed folk (and others) have been reading the bible like this for a very long time. The earliest post-apostolic Christians, in contrast to the Jewish critics of the Christian faith, read the Bible to teach a unity of salvation organized around Jesus Christ. The entire medieval church read the Bible this way as did the Reformation and post-Reformation churches….

What method do we use? It’s grammatical and historical! It reads the Old in the light of the new. It doesn’t set up arbitrary a priori’s about what can and can’t be. We don’t begin with an unstated premise, “All reasonable people know p.” We don’t think that any uninspired hermeneutic (system of interpretation) is superior to Paul’s or James’ or Peter’s.

One need not be inspired to read the Bible the way the apostles did. I’m not even sure it’s proper to say that their hermeneutic was inspired. We confess that Scripture is inspired, but was their way of reading Scripture inspired? I doubt it. As John Frame used to ask in class, were the apostolic grocery lists inspired? No. Can we observe how they read Scripture and imitate it? Yes….

Read the rest of the post for yourself.  And let me know what you think of it.

2008 Desiring God Conference: The Power of Words and the Wonder of God

I am blessed to be a member of Bethlehem Baptist Church, where my pastor is John Piper.  His sermons and writings have made a lasting impact in my walk with Christ.  He is a very humble man, even though he is an evangelical leader with an ever-growing influence.  Desiring God is the ministry our church started to help spread pastor John’s writings and books.  And for the past several years they’ve held a national conference here in Minneapolis.

I haven’t yet attended one, largely because it conflicts with my job schedule and I can’t afford it.  But with Desiring God’s policy to spread sermons in print, audio and video formats for free, I get to enjoy them anyway.  Here’s a run down on this year’s conference.  I haven’t started listening yet, but I’m planning on downloading and listening to all the messages.

• This link will take you to the conference online headquarters with info about the speakers, and all the introductory videos, etc.
• This link will list the links for downloading all the messages or listening/watching them online.
• Here is a list of a series of blog posts at DG’s blog which summarize the 6 messages and 2 speaker panels:

• The Tongue, the Bridle, and the Blessing: An Exposition of James 3:1-12 by Sinclair Ferguson
• Panel Discussion - Piper, Driscoll, and Ferguson
• Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing? by Bob Kauflin
• How Sharp the Edge? Christ, Controversy, and Cutting Words by Mark Driscoll
• The Life-Shaping Power of Story: God’s and Ours by Dan Taylor
• Panel Discussion - Piper, Tripp, Kauflin, and Taylor
• War of Words: Getting to the Heart for God’s Sake by Paul Tripp
• Is There Christian Eloquence? Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross by John Piper

If you did attend the conference, share your thoughts with us.  In the meantime, I think I’ll start with Bob Kauflin’s message.  I have great respect for his wisdom and insights, and he has written some of the best and richest songs I’ve ever heard.

Music Mondays: We Will Dance

Music Monday posts highlight the music which touched my heart on Sunday. I pray the message of these songs will help us all to live in the spirit of Worship all week long.

I know it’s not Monday, but the sickness around here (3 of us have strep throat) pushed this post out a day.  This song has a Jewish sound to it and an expectant hopeful focus on Heaven.  It becomes an avenue of expressing joy to our Lord and Savior.  I hope the message of the song blesses you all today.

We Will Dance
by David Ruis

Sing a song of celebration
Lift up a shout of praise
For the Bridegroom will come
The glorious one
And oh, we will look on his face
We’ll go to a much better place

Dance with all your might
Lift up your hands and clap for joy
The time’s drawing near
When He will appear
And oh, we will stand by His side
A strong, pure, spotless bride

Chorus:
We will dance on the streets that are golden
The glorious bride and the great Son of man
From every tongue and tribe and nation
Will join in the song of the lamb

Tag:
Sing aloud for the time of rejoicing is near (women echo)
The risen King, our groom is soon to appear (women echo)
The wedding feast to come is now near at hand (women echo).
Lift up your voice, proclaim the coming Lamb (women echo)

© 1992 Mercy/Vineyard Publishing

To listen to this song, try this you-tube video clip or search for it on Rhapsody.com.  Here is a free guitar chord sheet with the words.

Other great songs we sang Sunday were:

• In Christ Alone
• I Love You, Lord (with additional verses by John Piper)
• Receive the Glory
• The Solid Rock (arranged by Hall/Austin/Combes)

Legalism And Its Antidotes

Recently we’ve been discussing the sticky issue of legalism.  It’s hard to define, and its easy to use the term as a perjorative against those you think are wrong.  The term is still important, however, because it describes a sin which is deadly.  A sin which in many Christian circles is able to walk incognito, wearing a mask of holiness.  If anything deserves to be studied, legalism does.

I came across an excellent article on legalism by Dominic Smart hosted at beginningwithmoses.org.  I want to provide an excerpt where he discusses what Legalism is, and then encourage you all to go read the entire article.

Legalism isn’t a matter of having rules, structures, limits or instructions in our congregations or individual lives. While they can be overdone, and often are by people of a certain temperament, they are necessary for godly order in any fellowship: God has given many to us in the Scriptures. The opposite of legalism isn’t lawlessness (antinomianism, as some like to call it), which is nothing more than anarchic pride. Nobody is delivered into that. Christian freedom isn’t freedom to do whatever you want: down here none of us is safe to be let loose with such a freedom; up there - well, we’ll be different then!

Legalism is primarily a God-ward thing. It’s a way of making and keeping yourself acceptable to God. From this flows the legalism that is directed towards one another It’s a way of scoring sanctity points in our fellowships, and exerting what one postmodernist called a “truth regime” - it’s about pride, power and control. It simultaneously glorifies man and “unsecures” man. Thus its true opposites are grace and faith.

Yet it is so plausible. The need for order, structures and boundaries feeds our quest for control. Our very ability to keep some rules feeds our pride and gives us the impression that our relationship with God is somehow founded upon this ability. But in the same day, our inability to keep others feeds our despair, which in turn generates more rules and a more strenuous effort to keep them. Since laws and rules can be helpful, legalism seems to be on to a winner.

It often arises out of a good motive: to be holy. We don’t want sin to rule over us, we don’t want to grieve God or to stray from his path. And it is a narrow path compared to the one that leads to destruction. So in order to avoid big sins we add rules to God’s word - hedging sinful territory around with codes that are intended to keep us from it. It is the well-intentioned, keen and committed who are most prone to it. The half-hearted Christian couldn’t really care enough to veer towards legalism (though he or she makes up for it with many other errors). It was the scribes, following good Ezra, who developed “the traditions of men” which people preferred to the word of God: a preference that Jesus blasted in Mark 7.

But all this focuses the mind on self. It takes the mind and heart away from Christ, the Proper Man. It takes our faith away from His sufficiency and misplaces it upon ours. We live to achieve his approval; we forget that we are already alive and accepted in Christ. Ever so plausibly, we are sold a different gospel: one that isn’t really a gospel at all. And the desire not to sin in some big way can be little more than a mask to hide our lack of faith in Jesus, “who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption”. (1Cor 1:30). Holiness is not a matter of living on eggshells with a God who is reserving judgement on us and might turn us away at any moment.

It really is a deadly false thing, this warped alternative, this lie, this all-pervasive and hideous distortion of Christian living…

Dominic goes on to give 8 reasons why legalism is deadly, and he follows those up with eight antidotes to legalism.  The article is a bit lengthy but it will be worth your time to read it.

Why Do We Say “Legalism”

A friend of mine just posted an interesting list of definitions by John Piper on a variety of topics.  He linked to the online sermon or article from which the definition was taken, and gave a summary of the definition.

One of those definitions was legalism.  Let me give Piper’s definition here.

(1) Treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor. . . .(2): The erecting of specific requirements of conduct beyond the teaching of Scripture and making adherence to them the means by which a person is qualified for full participation in the local family of God, the church; This is where unbiblical exclusivism arises.

I think this is an excellent definition, but of course not everyone will be happy with it.  Someone commented on the original post about this definition, taking issue with it.  As I typed an answer to it, I thought maybe my answer could serve as a post here.  His basic objection was to the first part of Piper’s answer.  Why shouldn’t people treat biblical standards of conduct as personal regulations?  Why is it that such actions are construed as legalism or as “earning favor with God”?

Here then is my answer, minus a few introductory statements:

Chris…. you bring up some valid points. But look at Piper’s definition a little more closely: “Treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor.” Piper has many personal rules of conduct that he keeps out of a desire to please God. He does so from love for God, not a sense of rigorous duty. What’s important I think is “by our own power”. For years I was in a system that taught us to “just do it”. If we were really serious about God we would keep these rules and regulations, most of which went way beyond what was spelled out in Scripture. It was hard to toe the line, and we were encouraged to have character and resolve. Yes we were told to depend on the spirit, but the emphasis was on personal effort.

In keeping those rules we felt that we were truly obeying God. And when we saw others who didn’t keep those same rules, part of us, deep inside, thought we were better than them. We felt we were in a sense earning status with God. Our group was more serious about God then other groups. Why? Because we did this, and that. The emphasis was on us. And we didn’t truly have a perspective of God’s grace and a genuine love for all the brothers and sisters we have in Christ.

This is what Piper is arguing against. And while I often bristled against the term “legalism” too. After I came out of the system and thought more objectively, I realized that legalism really did fit. The focus was externals. Not that those aren’t important, but the very nature of the environment we were in promoted the idea of making sure we look good to others by keeping the community’s rules. Since we judged each other on externals so much, and since externals were harped on in the pulpit so often, it became natural to think this way. We were all, to one degree or another, earning favor and status with God. Yes the Gospel was preached but it was presented as a thing to accept mentally and assent to once, and after that you pay God back, in a sense, by keeping His rules. It was not really presented as something you can live by.

What is missing is that in our own strength we are sure to fall. The rules are hard. And when that was acknowledged we were encouraged to vow to do better, to clench our teeth and determine not to give up, to go forward and recommit ourselves to God during the public invitation. To seek accountability and force ourselves to do it. Often manipulative, human-oriented schemes were used to try to belittle those who didn’t persevere. It was a method to try to encourage them to keep on keeping on. In all of this a focus on Christ was lost. The Gospel is all about the fact we can’t keep God’s rules. We need help. And we have a glorious Savior. From the love He’s given me, and in light of the glorious grace of God giving me what I do not deserve, I can have a Spirit-wrought desire to please Him. With that motivation, the rules of what I do or don’t do, are not burdensome. They don’t even really matter. What matters is my love for Jesus and desire to please Him. If I fall, I know I have an advocate, and I am saddened since I displease Him. And I’m again amazed that He picks me up and helps me keep going.

I hope you can see how this “legalism” can be harmful. It can take our focus off of Christ and onto ourselves. And the 2nd kind of legalism points us to our neighbors. We assess whether they are qualified for me to even consider them part of our church. This is doubly harmful because the standards we’re measuring them by are not even entirely Biblical. They are more often a particular application of a Biblical principle.

I hope this helps explain where we are coming from. Terms like this are inflammatory I know. There’s not much we can do about that. But if you see where our objection is to this kind of thing, maybe it helps you understand why we label it “legalism” and why we are against it.

I’d encourage you to check out C.J. Mahaney’s book The Cross-Centered Life, it has an excellent chapter on legalism.

Blessings,

Bob Hayton

Christless Christianity

When I came across Alex Chediak’s post on Michael Horton’s new book: Christless Christianity, I had to wonder if this is not primarily to blame for Ray Boltz’s fall.  In so many ways, American Christianity has become a man-centered mess.  I started (not sure if I totally finished it) a series on this issue in the past, you can find my last post here (which links to all the posts in the series).

Look to my Vodpod widget on my sidebar and watch the 5 minute video clip of Horton explaining why he thinks American Christianity has become Christless.  This is a book that’s now at the top of my wish list!

Christian Musician Ray Boltz Declares He’s Gay

This news shocked me.  But I really appreciate Fred Butler’s assessment on this.  It’s sad, as this reveals Boltz has sung about but very likely never truly embraced the Gospel.  There is still hope for him.  May God convict him.  And may he wisen many of us up to the damning allure of sin.

If you don’t recognize his name, Boltz was a CCM singer who won numerous awards over the years.  He’s most famous for his song “Thank you for giving to the Lord”.