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What is it about Calvin that so inspires me? This: his disciplined style, his determination never to speculate, his utter submission to Bible words as God's words, his submission to Christ's Lordship, his sense of the holy, his concern to be as practical as possible; the fact that godly living was his aim and not theology for the sake of it. In a forest of theologians, Calvin stands like a Californian Redwood, towering over everyone else.What a joy it will be to read the Institutes with my wife in 2009, and then blog with the Ref21 gang: Ian D. Campbell, Ligon Duncan, Sinclair Ferguson, Sean Lucas, Steve Nichols, Rick Phillips, Phil Ryken, Justin Taylor, Derek Thomas, and Carl Trueman. Needless to say, I plan on doing a lot more learning than teaching with this group of brothers! Join us at Blogging the Institutes.
I know that the word 'Calvinist' is a theological swear-word in some circles. I am convinced that folk who use the word that way have never read Calvin at all! They may have read about him; but they have not read the careful, reverential way in which he wrote. It is, of course, what Calvin said about predestination that goads certain people. But Calvin was extremely careful not to speculate here. He talked about predestination--in the same way that Paul does in Romans 8 and 9. Rather than introduce election at the very beginning of his treatment on theology (the logical place to put it), he placed it after spelling out what the gospel is and does. Calvin talked about the free offer of the gospel first: that the gospel is for 'whosoever-will'. Only after he has established this does he introduce predestination, and then in the context of re-assuring believers of their eventual glorification (in exactly the same way as Paul does at the end of Romans 8).
"Let us work this out. It means that we need to bring under review all our evangelistic plans and practices--our missions, rallies, and campaigns; our sermons, talks, and testimonies; our big meetings, our little meetings, and our presentation of the gospel in personal dealing; the tracts that we give, the books that we lend, the letters that we write--and to ask about each of them questions such as the following:
The pastoral staff at FBC has been thinking through Ed Welch's When People Are Big and God Is Small. We finished up today with chapters 12 and 13. I was really encouraged with chapter 12, which surprised me with a very church (corporate)-centered emphasis on the Christian life. In a book that lends itself to a fair amount of individual reflection, the reader might expect a discussion of "Love Your Brothers and Sisters" to stress individual effort. But Welch warmly clothed love for brothers and sisters in the robe of local church membership and commitment.
"What was this good news that Paul preached? It was the news about Jesus of Nazareth. It was the news of the incarnation, the atonement, and the kingdom--the cradle, the cross, and the crown--of the Son of God. It was the news of how God 'glorified his servant Jesus' by making Him Christ, the world's long-awaited 'Prince and... Saviour'. It was the news of how God made His Son Man; and how, as Man, God made Him Priest, and Prophet, and King; and how, as Priest, God also made Him a sacrifice for sins; and how, as Prophet, God also made Him a Lawgiver to His people; and how, as King, God has also made Him Judge of all the world, and given Him prerogatives which in the Old Testament are exclusively Jehovah's own--namely, to reign till every knee bows before Him, and to save all who call on His name. In short, the good news was just this: that God has executed His eternal intention of glorifying His Son by exalting Him as a great Saviour for great sinners.
"There is a second way in which you acknowledge that God is sovereign in salvation. You pray for the conversion of others. In what terms, now, do you intercede for them? Do you limit yourself to asking that God will bring them to a point where they can save themselves, independently of Him? I do not think you do. I think that what you do is to pray in categorical terms that God will, quite simply and decisively, save them: that He will open the eyes of their understanding, soften their hard hearts, renew their natures, and move their wills to receive the Saviour. You ask God to work in them everything necessary for their salvation. You would not dream of making it a point in your prayer that you are not asking God actually to bring them to faith, because you recognize that that is something He cannot do. Nothing of the sort! When you pray for unconverted people, you do so on the assumption that it is in God's power to bring them to faith. You entreat Him to do that very thing, and your confidence in asking rests upon the certainty that He is able to do what you ask. And so indeed He is: this conviction, which animates your intercessions, is God's own truth, written on your heart by the Holy Spirit. In prayer, then (and the Christian is at his sanest and wisest when he prays), you know that it is God who saves men; you know that what makes men turn to God is God's own gracious work of drawing them to Himself; and the content of your prayers is determined by this knowledge. Thus, by your practice or intercession, no less than by giving thanks for your conversion, you acknowledge and confess the sovereignty of God's grace. And so do all Christian people everywhere.
"There is a long-standing controversy in the Church as to whether God is really Lord in relation to human conduct and saving faith or not. What has been said shows us how we should regard this controversy. The situation is not what it seems to be. For it is not true that some Christians believe in divine sovereignty while others hold an opposite view. What is true is that all Christians believe in divine sovereignty, but some are not aware that they do, and mistakenly imagine and insist that they reject it. What causes this odd state of affairs? the root cause is the same as in most cases of error in the Church--the intruding of rationalistic speculations, the passion for systematic consistency, a reluctance to recognize the existence of mystery and to let God be wiser than men, and a consequent subjecting of Scripture to the supposed demands of human logic. People see that the Bible teaches man's responsibility for his actions; they do not see (man, indeed, cannot see) how this is consistent with the sovereign Lordship of God over those actions. They are not content to let the two truths live side by side, as they do in the Scriptures, but jump to the conclusion that, in order to uphold the biblical truth of human responsibility, they are bound to reject the equally biblical and equally true doctrine of divine sovereignty, and to explain away the great number of texts that teach it. The desire to over-simplify the Bible by cutting out the mysteries is natural to our perverse minds, and it is not surprising that even good men should fall victim to it. Hence this persistent and troublesome dispute. The irony of the situation, however, is that when we ask how the two sides pray, it becomes apparent that those who profess to deny God's sovereignty really believe in it just as strongly as those who affirm it.
Ian Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching (Banner)
FBC holds about 700-750 folks in a service. Currently, we're running about 300 on a Sunday morning. My fervent prayer this year is to see the remaining 400-450 seats filled with newly converted Christians. I'm asking the Lord to save at least 400 people through the preaching, witness and ministry of FBC. And of that 400, I'm praying that more than a few would be used of the Lord as pastors to His people. And of the 400, I'm praying the Lord would be pleased to save and use another Paul or Augustine or Calvin or Haynes or Stott or Sproul or MacArthur or Priscilla or Lydia or Elliott or Moon or Susannah or Aylward.This book is not about Calvinism and Arminianism. Our concern in the following pages is to deal with the error that lies on the side of Calvinism furthest from Arminianism. But one point needs to be made here on the manner in which Arminianism affects the understanding of revival. Special times of blessing which we call revival are times which see an enlargement of the Spirit's normal work. That being so it must follow that, when the church's understanding of the Spirit's normal work is wrong, her understanding of revival will also be wrong. Is it the normal work of the Spirit to convert sinners whenever they decide upon it? Can men be born again by their own resolutions? If the answer is 'Yes', and if that is how we are to understand Scripture, then it follows that we will look upon revivals simply as times when many make that choice. It was because such a deduction was based upon a wrong understanding of conversion in the last century that people began to see no differences between evangelistic campaigns and revivals; they became regarded as synonymous and capable of being organised by the same means. But if we believe the work of conversion is a work beyond all human ability, and that it requires an act of creative power giving life to the dead, then times of revival will be seen as times which can no more be 'promoted' than can the conversion of a single individual. Certainly the church must labor at all times for the salvation of the lost but whether in the case of one or of hundreds, 'the increase' belongs finally with God (1 Cor. 3:6). (Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching, Banner of Truth, 1995, pp. 28-29)
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