by Jeff Treder
A Really Long Dispute
Calvinism and Arminianism are terms that the history of Christian theology has given us to label the two main sides in a debate that has been going on for nearly two thousand years, kindling schisms and discord (sometimes degenerating into violent persecution) along the way. The issue was first clearly defined in the fifth century, when the main antagonists were Augustine and Pelagius. A thousand years later it was the main bone of contention between Luther and Erasmus, and then, during the next century, between the followers of John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius. The issue may be framed most simply as the question whether it is God or man who determines which ones among us are finally saved and finally lost.
Both sides believe that their understanding of Biblical revelation is correct. Calvinists hold that God’s sovereign works of election, predestination, and regeneration determine who is saved and who is lost. Arminians hold that God genuinely offers salvation through faith in Christ to everyone, and each person’s response to the gospel message determines whether he or she is saved or lost.*
*In support of Calvinism, see John 6:37-39, 44, 65, 8:34, 43-47, 10:14-15, 25-28, 15:16, 17:2, 6-9, Acts 13:48, Rom.3:11, 8:8, 9:10-24, 1Cor.1:22-31, 2:14, Eph.2:4-5, 8, 1Thess.1:4-5, 2Thess.2:13-14, , 2Tim.1:9-10, 2:10.
In support of Arminianism, see Matt.28:18-20, John 1:29, 3:16, Acts 1:8, Rom.10:10-21, 1Tim.2:4, 2Peter 3:9, 1John 2:2.
Perhaps the first thing to observe here is that our salvation does not depend on how we answer this question, or even whether we do. Fighting over it was a tragic and cruel aberration. Still, the issue is historically momentous and continues, in various ways, to divide Christians. A well-founded resolution of it would be a blessing.
One hint that such a resolution may be possible comes when we notice that whichever way we answer the question, the final outcome is the same. If, as Calvinists think, God chooses those whom he will save and enables them, through regeneration, to believe in Christ, then they do believe and, through divinely enabled perseverance, are finally saved. If, as Arminians think, God accepts (elects) those who choose to believe in Christ and who go on following him to the end, then these are finally saved. In either case, those who trust in Christ and persevere in him are finally saved, and those who do not are lost. The outcome is the same either way. It seems most unlikely that this coincidence is accidental or insignificant. But just what does it signify?
A second step toward resolution comes when we observe that the Calvinist view is based on those Scriptures which reveal God’s purposes and actions in saving human beings, while the Arminian view is based on Scriptures which spell out our responsibility in being saved. Moreover, few if any Arminians would deny that God elects and predestines those who are saved (though they believe he does so in response to human choices), and few if any Calvinists would deny that each of us, to be saved, needs to exercise faith in Christ at our conversion and for the rest of our life. In other words, there is much that they agree on. The point of disagreement, however, is still sharp: Whose choice, God’s or the individual person’s, initiates that person’s salvation and determines whether it is carried through into eternity?
The third step toward resolution is the hard one. Each camp needs to give up certain tenets of their creed which, under examination, prove to be Scripturally untenable. Both sides might respond to this that they are being asked to surrender their high ground, to give up the whole store. I don’t think it’s as drastic as that, but let’s consider it and see.
What Calvinists Should Yield
Calvinists should give up the “once saved, always saved” form of assurance of their salvation, at least as this is commonly understood. The problem with this assurance is that it presumes that I can see my own destiny just as God sees it. Calvinists and Arminians agree that God, being omniscient, knows exactly who will finally be saved and lost. But most Calvinists believe that God discloses to each of his saints that he or she has been chosen for salvation—gives them this assurance, by faith, in their mind and heart. Calvinists rest this belief on some of the Scriptures most treasured—and rightly so—by almost all Christians: for instance, Jesus’ declaration that he knows his sheep and they know him, and no one can snatch them out of his hand (John 10:25-30), Paul’s ringing affirmation that nothing can separate us (that is, the elect) from the love of God in Christ (Rom.8:28-39), and John’s statement that “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1John 5:13)
The first two of these passages state something that is certainly true of the elect, but they do not address the question of whether I myself am one of the elect. And the verse from 1John is a good example of the general truth that each Scriptural passage needs to be interpreted in the light of other Scriptures which teach on the same subject. In this case, there are many New Testament passages which teach that we “have eternal life”—that is, will be finally saved—if, and only if, we persevere in our faith to the end of this mortal life. One of the clearest is Heb.3:14: “We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.”*
*See also Matt.24:13, John 8:30-32, Acts 14:22, Rom.11:22, 1Cor.15:2, Col.1:22-23,
1Thess.3:5, Heb.3:6, 10:36, 1John 2:19.
Along with these, there are other passages which warn us in the strongest possible terms against the complacent assumption that I am one of the elect. In the words of Jesus: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matt.7:21-23) (See also Matt.13:3-8, 18-23, Rom.11:17-22, 1Cor.10:12, Rev.3:14-18.) The psychological situation in this belief that I am elect (or doubt thereof) is very subtle and has fascinated thinking people ever since the time of Christ. The practical danger is that assuming I am chosen can lead me into a lenient view of my own sin, which over time can harden into spiritual pride and a seared conscience, as exemplified by the Pharisee praying in the temple (Luke 18:9-14).
Now we must consider whether these passages undermine or even contradict those “assurance” passages which, as I said, we rightly treasure. They do not, for two reasons. First, as Calvinists correctly remind us, the final perseverance of the elect is effected and guaranteed by the power of God. Second, even though I (any I) am not omniscient and thus cannot know with certainty whether I am one of those chosen for final salvation, we all live in the present moment, and I can choose to follow Jesus in that moment. In that moment, where we always actually live, I have full assurance of my salvation by the power of God in Christ. As the Scripture declares (Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21, Rom.10:13), “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” If I am as yet unsaved, I don’t have to worry or even know about election, I just have to want salvation through Christ and ask God for it—“repent and believe.” Throughout my life in Christ I can always call on him in my heart in the here and now, which is the time—the only time!—when “the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” (Rom.8:16) No one, nothing at all, can separate me from my Savior in the circumstance (time and place) in which I really live. As to the future, which I can neither know nor control, I can, and must, simply trust in God—that is, live by faith and hope, as the Bible constantly admonishes us to do. (See Matt.6:33-34, Rom.8:22-25, 15:13, 2Cor.4:16, 5:7, 6:1-2, Php.4:6-7, Heb.3:12-14, 4:7-11, James 4:13-15.) This attitude guards us against a foolish and perilous complacency, on the one hand, and a demoralizing lack of assurance, on the other.
Our trust in Jesus, moment by moment, year by year, is the outworking of our eternal election and predestination. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph.2:10) Divine predestination and our daily life in Christ are one and the same thing, seen from two infinitely different perspectives: God’s eternal viewpoint, revealed in Scripture, and our viewpoint, experienced in all the exhilarating, heartbreaking, confusing ups and downs of human life. This is why Peter tells us to work on building spiritual virtues in our life, in order, over time, “to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2Peter 1:5-11). This serious, persistent building of our assurance in Christ is a very different thing from complacently assuming that we are “eternally secure.”
What Arminians Should Yield
For their part, Arminians should give up the idea that God chooses his people based on their prior choice to receive Christ. Underlying this doctrine is the belief that, even in the aftermath of Adam’s fall, people have free will such that they are able to respond posivitely (or negatively) to God’s offer of salvation in Christ. In fact the Bible does consistently imply that we have free will, but there is one crucial, explicit exception: It denies that fallen people are able to love and serve God apart from a prior work of divine grace in their innermost being.
The Bible expresses this spiritual inability most clearly in a number of “cannot” statements. First, in our fallen condition we cannot sufficiently understand what the issue is—namely, our need for salvation. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1Cor.2:14) Second, we are spiritually blind and cannot even see the light of the gospel when it shines on us: “The god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ ....” (2Cor.4:4) Third, we are enslaved to sin (John 8:34). Since sin is essentially hostility toward God (Rom.3:10-18, 8:6-8), we are not free to embrace what Christ has done for us. Fourth, outside of Christ we are spiritually dead (Eph.2:1-5). Just as people who are physically dead can’t respond to any stimulus or appeal, people who are spiritually dead can’t respond positively to God, even when the gospel is presented to them—apart, that is, from a sovereign work of God within their spirit. That is why Jesus said we must be born again (John 3:3,7). I can’t give birth to myself, physically or spiritually, or even ask for it. God has to do it for me, and then I can thank him for it; our very ability to trust in Jesus is a gift of God (Eph.2:8). When Paul writes, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Rom.8:29), the foreknowing cannot mean merely foreseeing which spiritually blind, bound, hostile, dead people will choose to believe in Christ, as Arminians teach. “Foreknew” here means “loved and chose in advance,” as the context in Romans 8 confirms.
Before God regenerates me, I honestly don’t want to be “saved” or “born again”; my “no” to Christ is genuine and sincere. I can’t want what I don’t want, will what I don’t will. As C.S. Lewis has memorably written, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.” (The Great Divorce, ch.9) Our innate enslavement to self and sin is Hell in preview: being hoodwinked and hopeless and not even realizing it, let alone having the desire or ability to do anything about it. And that is why God’s grace in Christ is such wondrously good news. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36)—free at last to choose life over death.
One of the main promises concerning the New Covenant was that God would give his people a new heart—meaning a new attitude of reverence, gratitude and love toward him (Jer.24:7, 31:31-34, Ezek.36:26-27)—which is exactly what we needed and could not do for ourselves. That is how ordinary, fallen, self-centered people become his people. The leopard can’t change its spots (Jer.13:23), but God can change them.
Positively, the New Testament states repeatedly that God’s choice (election) determines who is saved. His choice is based on his grace alone, not on our character qualities, good or bad, nor on any of our prior actions or choices (Deut.9:1-6, Rom.9:14-18, 1Cor.1:26-31, Eph.1:4-6). Romans 9 is only the most unyieldingly emphatic of these statements. The attempts of Arminian theologians to get around this are strained and should be abandoned. Election is God’s prerogative. Out of all the nations he chose Israel. Jesus chose his first disciples and told them plainly, “You did not choose me, but I chose you ....” (John 15:16) He chose Paul before Paul chose him (Gal.1:15). What else but pride would make us think that we are any different?
But there are a few Scriptures which appear to say that God wants everyone to be saved, and so appear to support the idea that God offers salvation to all and leaves the decision about who will be saved to each individual. The most notable of these are 1Tim. 2:4, which says that God “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth,” and 2Peter 3:9, which says that God “is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.” (NAS)
The first interpretive principle we need to adhere to is that the word of God does not contradict itself. The second principle is that the primary guide to interpreting any particular statement is what the rest of Scripture says on that subject. As previously noted, the New Testament repeatedly affirms that God sovereignly regenerates those individuals he has chosen to save. That is the predominant view of apostolic witness on this subject. Out of numerous examples, three brief ones may suffice here. Paul tells the Thessalonian believers that he thanks God for them “because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.” (2Thess.2:13) Similarly, Luke reports that when Paul and Barnabas preached the gospel in Pisidian Antioch, the result was that “all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” (Acts 13:48) And Jesus describes the Holy Spirit’s work in regeneration like this: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) The main point of the comparison is that the new birth isn’t something we ask for or anticipate; rather, the Holy Spirit works sovereignly and secretly, and we become aware of the new birth after the fact by its effects in our heart and mind, especially our attitude toward the gospel message. God’s work in election and regeneration precedes and enables the human response of faith in Christ. That being so, however, and since in fact not everyone is saved, how can it be consistent for Scripture to say that God wants to save everyone?
The answer is that it doesn’t actually say that. When Paul writes that God wants “all men” to be saved, the meaning is the same as when Jesus said that “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32) The meaning is not that everyone who has lived since Christ’s crucifixion will be saved or will hear the offer of salvation (neither of these is factual), but that God will save people from all around the world regardless of gender, race, nationality or social status. We get a glimpse into the fulfillment of this promise in Revelation 5, when the saints sing praise to the Lamb: “with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” (v.9) God the Father saves his elect by drawing them to Christ (through heart-renewal, as we have seen). As Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ... No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:37,44)
Similarly, when Peter says that God “is patient toward you, not wishing for any [that is, any of you] to perish, but for all to come to repentance,” his words are addressed “to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours.” (2Peter 1:1) The meaning here, in context, is that Jesus will not come again until all the elect have come to faith, which agrees with Paul’s statement that “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.” (2Tim.2:10) God has decided to use human means—people telling other people about Jesus—as the primary way to accomplish his eternal purpose in election. This is why Jesus gave his followers the Great Commission (Matt.28:18-20) and told them “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) The gospel itself “is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes ....” (Rom.1:16)
A classic example of how this works is Peter’s message on the day of Pentecost. He preached the brand-new gospel to a large crowd, and
when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself.” (Acts 2:37-39, NAS)
There is no doubt about who did the heart-piercing—that is the work of the Holy Spirit—and little doubt that those who were pierced by the message were only a segment (though possibly a majority) of the crowd. They were those whom (“as many as”) God was calling, through Peter’s voice, with what theologians term the “effectual call,” the one that invariably works, through the power of the new birth.
The Sum of Our Choices
One of Jesus’ sayings gives an even deeper insight into this question of who gets saved and how:
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matt.11:25-27)
Am I one of these “chosen ones”? The only true answer is another question: Do I want to be? Do I want God to be eternally glorified and worshiped, and I myself to be among the worshipers? If so, I have only to look up, simply as a child, and receive and be received. In a genuine, nontrivial sense, I can choose to be chosen—but only in humility and trust. In any other frame of mind, I won’t want to be chosen.
But doesn’t this “choosing to be chosen” contradict God’s sovereignty in election and regeneration? No, but the reason is subtle. I said before that all our choices as we follow Jesus are the temporal outworking of God’s eternal choices; he works in our heart and mind, patiently over time, teaching us to make the right choices (see Titus 2:11-14). We don’t begin making moral and spiritual choices at our conversion, however. We begin making them about the time we learn to walk, and most human cultures recognize an “age of accountability” around the early teens, when we begin taking responsibility for these choices. Paul has told us to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Php.2:12-13) God’s work in his people begins at our conception, and he is involved in all our choices before, during and after our conversion. Yet we ourselves are making our choices—I choose, freely and genuinely, to nab that cookie—and as adults we are held responsible for them. All human beings make hundreds of moral choices, big and little, right and wrong (more or less) every day, and over a lifetime they cumulatively form our character, who we are. We become the sum of our choices. While the sovereign God has chosen our destiny (divine election), we have chosen it too, whichever way we go. (See Lewis’s The Great Divorce for vivid illustrations of how this works in practice.) In logic, this is not contradiction but paradox—two statements which seem contradictory but which are nevertheless both true. In this case, as in several other fundamental issues in Biblical theology (such as the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ), the paradox is resolved only in the infinite mind of God, and we either accept the truth of both statements (God chooses freely and we choose freely) by faith or reject it in unbelief.
Many of us long for salvation for years before we discover or recognize, and then embrace, the way of salvation. This yearning may be inchoate and uninformed, but it is real and strong, and as it grows it begins affecting our choices. Jesus spoke about this stage in our experience when he said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:44) Our yearning and God’s drawing are the same experience seen from infinitely different perspectives; they are the prologue to our daily walk of faith; they begin the temporal outworking of divine predestination. The main effect of this “yearning” experience is to undermine our adult pride (self-esteem, self-assurance) and expose the simple, vulnerable, lost child that we really are, particularly in relation to God. In the simultaneity of yearning and being drawn we find, again, not contradiction but paradox in the mystery of salvation—the connection, mysterious to us, between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility. Even when satisfied, this yearning (and being drawn) never ends; we can never get enough of God.
On the other hand, of course, many of us grow into adulthood with no yearning for God or salvation, and if we hear the gospel message, its aroma is a stench to us (see 2Cor.2:14-16). Indeed, unless and until God renews our heart, this describes all of us, as God’s word tells us:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. (Eph.2:1-5)
Either way, whether or not God renews our heart and gives us spiritual life, we all get what we want. Whether in the long run we will enjoy having what we want is another issue. In our fallen condition, “want” is more important to us than “enjoy,” because fallenness is self-centeredness. Even if I am miserable, the misery is mine. This bottomless pit of self-righteous self-pity we have observed in other people and experienced ourselves (“all of us”). It is the spiritual death from which God’s grace rescues us.
Our yearning for God is not limited to people raised in Christian homes or in a supposedly “Christian” culture. It doesn’t depend on the circumstances (period, region, culture) in which God places us, or even on whether or not we ever hear the gospel message. Plenty of “pastor’s kids” have no such yearning, though they may go with the flow and even (God alone knows) wind up saved, while plenty of people raised as Hindus, animists or atheists do yearn for “the unknown God.” (Acts 17:23) In drawing his people to himself and saving them, God is not limited by human limitations. He commissions and uses human witnesses for this purpose, as he used Peter on the day of Pentecost, but his power to save is not constrained by our weakness. When Jesus told his disciples how great a hindrance worldly wealth is to entering God’s kingdom, “they were greatly astonished and asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matt.19:25-26) Some of us will be surprised by our company in heaven.
Finally with regard to the Arminian view, it’s worth noting that the Bible never speaks of God offering salvation through faith in Christ. To be sure, when the gospel is preached or taught, we rightly understand that a genuine offer is made to the listeners. But Scripture never puts it that way. The ones making an offer are always (including a uniquely special case) God’s people, offering sacrifices to God in the temple under the Old Covenant, and under both covenants offering praise and worship to God. The Bible speaks of God saving his people, choosing and redeeming and justifying and purifying them, blessing them and providing for their needs, but not of God offering salvation. The one offering that God makes is this: “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Heb.9:14) God the Son, having become the Perfect Man, offered himself in sacrifice through God the Spirit to God the Father. This is the redemption that God has provided for us, and we are told, as our response, to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Rom.12:1)
The reason why the Bible never speaks of God offering salvation in Christ is evident. An offer can be either accepted or refused. But fallen people, as we have seen, are incapable of understanding and accepting the gospel without first being given a spiritual heart transplant. We need more than an offer. We need to be made “a new creation” (2Cor.5:17) by the will of the Father, the sacrifice of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
For the reasons just given, then—of which the foremost is fidelity to God’s revelation in the Bible—Calvinists should give up the “once saved, always saved” form of confidence in personal election, and Arminians should give up the idea that fallen people can choose to be saved without a prior work of God (election and regeneration) on their behalf. If both sides can acknowledge that the final outcome is the same either way, and also acknowledge that Calvinists emphasize those Scriptures which reveal God’s part in our salvation, while Arminians emphasize those which tell us our responsibility, then there is hope of a merry meeting in the broad middle ground of reconciliation.
This understanding of the issue also answers the question of whether God’s promise to us in the New Covenant is conditional or unconditional. Actually, it is both. From God’s perspective—stressed by Calvinists—it is unconditional: His chosen people will certainly be saved eternally. From our perspective—stressed by Arminians—it is conditional: We will be finally saved only if, like Christian in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, we persevere to the end. Since we are finite, not omniscient, we cannot see the future—particularly our own future—with certainty. Because of what God has done for us in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ and the giving of the Holy Spirit, however, we can confidently leave the future in his hands and walk with him in the eternal present. We are all “sinaholics,” and as such we need to deal with our life one day at a time, following what Jesus told us: “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has trouble enough of its own.” (Matt.6:34) As I walk by faith (personal trust in Jesus) moment by moment, God enables me to take the next step, and the next, all the way. Building our relationship with the Three who are the Holy One is the most tremendous, demanding, all-consuming adventure of our life. It was in light of this that Paul encouraged the believers in Philippi to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Php.2:12-13) And he could assure them that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Php.1:6)
Our opening question was whether it is God or man who determines who is finally saved and finally lost. Calvinists correctly maintain that God’s decision is primary, and Arminians rightly emphasize that our eternal destiny is realized through a lifetime of our own unforced choices. The union of these two views can only be achieved by accepting that God’s truth at the point of union is paradoxical to our finite intelligence. Eternity, just like God himself, remains mysterious to us. But where the eternal and the temporal meet, where the infinite intervenes on the finite, when God himself becomes a human being, what else should we expect?
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