Chapter 9:
Questions and Answers
These questions I will address here are the most commonly asked questions people have for me in discussions.
Do the ideas of Calvinism
make God the Author of sin?
Absolutely not! Strangely enough, yesterday I was listening to an evangelical minister refer to 5-point Calvinism. He said that we mean well but that we make God the author of sin. I thought to myself, “Which Calvinists was he talking to?”
There are as many brands of Calvinism as there are Arminianism. In Arminianism, you have people who would swing as far towards Pelagian without committing heresy as possible (Finney comes to mind). In Calvinism, you will have those who subscribe to an equal ultimacy view which I spoke of earlier in my examination of Romans 9. Some Calvinists do make God the author of sin and they see no problem with that because He’s God and can do whatsoever He wants to do! I already commented on this theology earlier, but I just want to reiterate that the scripture very strongly states that God is Holy and if He is not Holy and causes sin and causes people to disbelieve, then He Himself is the Devil. This clashes entirely with the God of scripture.
If Calvinism is true then it
doesn’t matter what we do or think because God has it all planned out already.
I hear people say this out of an almost sense of desperation. They feel almost hopeless as though they were just guinea pigs in a lab. This is not the case! God created us as dignified creatures; as His image bearers, not test subjects. It is true that we are fallen and that God does not raise up everyone but that should not give us a sense of hopelessness. If we desire salvation and repent we will never be turned away, for God would be breaking His promise to save all who come to Him. What Calvinism is concerned with is the question, “What caused that man to become unhardened and open to the Gospel to the point that he would repent and be saved?” Only God can change a man’s heart, and we look to God as the ultimate cause of faith. The scriptures say that salvation is by grace, through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, according to Paul. Faith is the gift of God (Rom. 12:3).
To answer this semi-question/semi-challenge, indeed, what you do has all the difference in the world, for if you never repent and receive Christ into your heart, you will indeed perish eternally as a lost soul. Indeed you may look back, recognizing that it was God all along who had caused you to repent, turning your will back towards Him. But even then, why complain? Do you think Lazarus complain when Christ raised him, or Jacob complained when he received the promise? Of course not!
If God already knows whom He
will save, why even evangelize?
Right off the bat, because Christ commanded it as the great commandment in Matthew 28. Second, out of genuine love for the lost, because we know that God uses messengers to bring His elect. We should fear for their souls, because if they are not saved by Christ, they will die a thousand deaths in the lake of fire. Thirdly, out of love for God, because we desire to further His kingdom. If we don’t, we should justly question our salvation, for God’s beloved live in obedience to his commandments, not in stark contrast to them.
Perhaps the real question is why does God need us to evangelize if He can just save people? First, I would say that God has converted people without using anyone else in their lives. In Acts, Saul is blinded by Christ, spending days seeing nothing, but hearing the voice of God constantly ministering to his spirit. Yet even then, God used Ananias to touch Paul, removing the scales from his eyes. You see, God has graciously given his people the opportunity to take part in the great redemption!
Although God can convert people on his own, most of the time it is done in conjunction with the minister of the Gospel. In Romans, Paul despairs for the Jewish people and cries our, “How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!”[1] After that, Paul immediately says, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Evangelism is indeed important, for without it, the Gospel could not be spread throughout the earth, making disciples of all men.
In Calvinism you have no
assurance of your faith.
Although God’s choice is firm, to the individual Christian it may not be. In fact, at times it may be in serious doubt. In Calvinism, God has saved you and sealed you. If you are genuinely converted you may fall away, but you will not fall away forever. The mistake most people make is that they see people make a conversion testimony and they seem to display the fruits of the Spirit, but they later fall away and never return to faith. Thus, we reason from our human experience, people must be able to become a Christian and then later fall away if we want. If someone falls away from the flock, we may confidently say with the Apostle John, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us” (1 John 2:19). In reality we don’t know when someone may leave the flock, and no outward sign can truly show us what might happen 10 years down the road, therefore, there is an inability on our part to discern who is truly in the flock and who is lost. Because of this some have said, well you have no assurance of your salvation.
This same challenge can also be turned around on the Arminian. Even if his heart says he is saved right now, he does not know if two years down the road he might be an adamant atheist, staunchly convinced that God no longer exists. You see, everyone, no matter what their theology will struggle with eternal security, but in Calvinism if you’ve got it, you’ve always had it, and if you don’t have it, you never had it at all.
The Apostle Paul felt certain of his own salvation. The Apostle Peter also. In 2 Peter 1:10, Peter challenges believers to “make your calling and election sure.” Later in scripture we find that assurance of God’s call comes through the evidence of the Spirit’s work in our lives, according to 1 John 3:10 and 14. Also, it can be confirmed by the internal testimony of the Spirit with our hearts (Gal. 4:6).