The Calvinist

What is a Calvinist? A cynic? Frozen Chosen? A Debater?

Although it does focus on the person, I do like this poem by John Piper. What the Calvinist ought to be, or strive to be when observed, the godly man observed (Listen for the voices of D.A. Carson, R.C. Sproul, Alistair Begg, Thabiti Anyabwile, Matt Chandler, and Sinclair Ferguson.):

My Favorite Baptists

Lest my preference for the biblical inclusion of children in the covenant dismay my Baptist friends, there are several Baptists in Church History I do dearly benefit from. I thought here I might give my appreciation for the 5 best men that the Baptists have given to the Church:


The Preacher: Charles Spurgeon
Spurgeon is best known as “The Prince of Preachers.” His sermons are rich theologically and display a great talent for understanding the minds of the listener. He would often ask the very questions that the topic would bring up as if the audience was asking him about it. His sermons are definitely worth studying for style and substance. But Spurgeon cared not just for his own ministry, but for the training of the next generation of preachers. Some of his insights are preserved in the classic “Lectures to my Students.” [Iain Murray wrote a great biography highlighting Spurgeon's Calvinism called "The Forgotten Spurgeon"]


The Missionary: Adoniram Judson
Few people (other than my brother) have read any thing written by Judson, because his story is far more compelling. Judson was the first missionary to Burma, a title he was (too) proud of. Of course, God likes to strip us of those things we treasure instead of Him, and so one might read in the story of Judson’s life. To the Golden Shore is the best I know about to read up on Judson’s story.


The Hymn-writer: William Gadsby
Gadsby is perhaps, with Anne Steel, the greatest Baptist hymn writer in history. Gadsby compiled a hymn book for Baptists that infused their theology with much needed grace. Gadsby included non-Baptist hymn-writers Toplady (“Rock of Ages”), Isaac Watts (“When I Survey“), Newton (“Amazing Grace” ) and Cowper (“God moves in a mysterious way”) along with some of his classics (like the one I highlighted a year ago) “The Love of Christ is Rich and Free” and “Jesus the Lord, my Savior” [Many of Gadsby's hymns are being put to modern music by Red Mountain Music and Indelible Grace.]



The Novelist: John Bunyan
Bunyan penned the second most read and published book in the English language (behind the Bible), Pilgrim’s Progress. The book told the story of the life of a Christian through allegory. Bunyan wrote it while in prison for preaching without a licence. Bunyan also wrote Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, an account of his own spiritual journey. It does seem however, Bunyan’s church became a pedobaptist Congregationalist church after getting into some disputes with Baptists over the doctrine whether or not to allow members and communicants that were not re-baptized (much like the Piper and Grudem debate) and he eventually came to see it as needlessly divisive. But he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress as a Baptist so I will count him…


The Theologian: John Gill
I often consult John Gill’s magnus opum: his commentaries on Scripture. John Gill was a particular Baptist preacher who was perhaps one of their greatest theologians. Yet, here is where the my appreciation is the thinnest. Gill has many great insights, but also construed the doctrines of grace in such a way as to lay the groundwork for the hyper-Calvinists (whom Spurgeon called the followers of Gill). So far in reading his commentaries, I cannot tell if Gill himself disparaged the preaching of the gospel to everyone, or whether his followers just didn’t get him (which I am more apt to think). Still, his followers gave the doctrines of grace a bad name in Baptist culture, that Spurgeon was an exception to, and not the rule. Nonetheless, Gill’s commentary usually has a perspective I need to wrestle with.

Matt Bradley: Why I left the Baptist Church

If you visit this site often, you have probably seen in the posts the comments of Matt Bradley. Matt Bradley and Jay Bennett are two of the men from whom I have gained much over the past year just sitting with, talking to, and listening to the two of them argue out theology which has given me a theological vocabulary and understanding of the ministry that made it palpable to me. Matt recently moved to Nashville to be ordained as a minister in a PCA church there. He recently posted his reasons for switching from being a minister in the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) to the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America). If interested, you can see what moved him to change. I’ve never really been part of a Southern Baptist Church, and my church experiences have been a little more positive in other traditions, so my linking does not means I share the same experiences, but just think others reading this blog might find the topic interesting. Go leave him some comments if you do!

Matt Bradley: Why did you leave the Baptist Church?

Part 1: People (good ones in the PCA)
Part 2: Theological Difference
Part 2B: Doctrinal Differences
Part 3: Historical Background
Part 4: Leadership Problems
Conclusion.

Forgiven and Damned?

"Heaven is full of forgiven people. Hell is full of forgiven people. Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for. The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, which version of reality we trust. Ours or God's." -Rob Bell

Now, all traditions confess the strange and wonderful reality of Common Grace, as Matthew puts it, that God "makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

Yet, statements such as "hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for" is what we are left with if we do not confess some limiting of the atonement. To say that God has forgiven people that then end up in hell, and the deciding factor on our fate and distinctiveness is us ignores Paul's harsh rebuke: "For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? " (1 Cor 4:7)

I know many will not agree with the controversial 5th point of Calvinism (Limited Atonement) but we must say that the love of Christ for the Church is different than His love for the world. His love for His Church redeems the Church. When we read in Scripture: "Husbands, love your wives," we know that love because it was modeled in Christ's for the Church as the verse finishes up "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." My wife would not be happy if I told her the love I have for her is just like my love for everyone else. Christianity does not say this. It says "we have been purchased at a price" and "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). If we are forgiven, it means we are the Church and Christ loves His Church with an active love that forgives her and cleanses her. Christ does not love her from afar and let her be damned. That is not the love of a husband for his bride. What makes the Church differ from the world is Christ, and his love and forgiveness that he obtained for the Church with Himself. He did not give Himself and His forgiveness to the world, He gave Himself for His Church. All who Christ purchased in His death are His forever, His effectual forgiving love is particular to His Church, and He loves her with a greater love than what we are proclaiming with a gospel of the glory of man's decision.

Danger!: Baptists teaching the Bible!

Christianity Today has a story about Baptist pastor Joe Elam complaining about the rise of Calvinism in Southern Baptist seminaries. In the story, Elam reported this shocking story:

Though forbidden to do so, a former youth pastor at his church secretly taught predestination to teens, Elam said, sowing seeds of lingering division among several families.

How dare a pastor teach the biblical doctrine of predestination! What next? Will justification be secretly taught?

Do these pastors not even know the traditional teaching of the Baptist churches? In their 1689 confession, Baptists confessed that:

God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass

In the story, the SBC President Page goes on to worry...

...that extremists could undermine the SBC's emphasis on outreach. He isn't impressed by arguments that most convention founders embraced Reformed ideas.

Sounds about right, the worst extremist neglectors of missions have to be those frozen chosen Calvinists like William Carry, and Adoniram Judson, and Calvinistic preachers like Spurgeon and James Boyce barely ever preached the gospel.

The Southern Baptists would be well advised to be conservative about their founding principles, rather than think the last 50 years of drift from their roots is actually their heritage. Word is that Al Mohler, a Calvinistic Baptist, was put up as a potential candidate for SBC president. Might be an interesting year for the SBC.

Page ends the article on the most mind-numbing note:

"The totality of history shows the vast majority of Baptists have not been [Calvinists], so why go back to the founders?" Page said. "I think we need to go back to the Bible."

That's the point.

You might be a Calvinist if..

Just for fun, I've collected some lines similar to the "You might be a Redneck if" but about: "You might be a Calvinist if":

...you changed your testimony from "I have decided to follow Jesus" to "I never wanted to follow Jesus until"

...in the grocery store, you nonchalantly refer to "Lucky Charms" as "providential trinkets."

... You celebrate Reformation Day instead of Halloween.

...you can quote the Westminster Shorter or the Heidelberg at will (and know what each of those are).

...Your teacher tells you that the early reformers were the "biggest close-minded bigots in the history of religion," and you must stifle the urge to yell, "Yeah, those guys were awesome!"

...Your church would never dare take a "free will" offering

...you find yourself peppering everyday conversation with extensive references to church history only to be greeted with quizzical looks from your friends and crickets chirping in the background..

... in eleventh grade, when you read The Scarlet Letter, everyone thought you were crazy for defending the Puritans in the story

... your favorite flower is the TULIP

...you have ever answered the question "How are you doing today" with "better than I deserve."

...You don't like to be asked "When did you choose to start walking with the Lord?" but rather be asked "When did God drag from the clutches of death?"

...you get and laugh at the comic cover at the bottom...

...You can sing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus", but only with major qualifications, so that it's more like "I have decided to follow Jesus (because the Spirit has changed and shaped my will so that I actually want to do so/because God has ordained that I do so)", and that just makes it awkward to the point that it's not worth singing.

And for my Presbyterian friends: You might be a Presbyterian if:

...Church Growth Strategy is Infant Baptism...

".. you hear more than 3 verses read in service during Lord's Day worship

... If a song repeats the same line more than 2 or 3 times you begin to tune out.

...You believe buying books should be the third sacrament.

...When anyone makes a suggestion, your first impulse is to form a committee

...You refer to the Episcopal "Church of the Incarnation" as "Church of the Incantation"

...you have ever had a fight over whether your Baptist friend can claim to be "Reformed"

...Instead of "foolish Pollock" jokes, you tell the same jokes about Methodists.

... your "elders" are like 35 ...

... you're sick of explaining "No, we're not THOSE Presbyterians,"...

...you feel awkward in ecumenical settings when people raise their hands during the singing

...when people ask you who writes the best worship music, you are more likely to reply with the names of Watts, Newton or Cowper than Redman, Tomlin or Stewart

Prone to Wander: Hymn for the week

Last weekend, my church had a sanctuary dedication service celebrating the improvements to the sanctuary and the new organ being completed (yes organ, not amp system). The choir accompanied by the organ and with my wife in robes sang my favorite hymn: Come Thou Fount. Written by Robert Robinson, the song contains lyrics I get all emotional over: "Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God." How thankful I am that Christ did not leave everything up to me to figure out. Yet still "prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love." Yet we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as to save us for "Thy courts above."

1. Come Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,

Mount of God's unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by Thy help I'm come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let that grace now like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

I Shall Lose NONE of Them: Hymn of the Week

"If I am truly saved, can I lose my salvation?"

Well, if the question is about me, then I can only cite my inability. The real question is: “Can Christ lose you?” John seems to like to quote Christ taking offense to the idea that He did not have that ability or power in John 10:28, John 17:12, John 18:9. Christ claims to be a good Shepherd (John 10:14) who seeks sheep that He knows (Luke 15:4).


So can I lose my salvation? Did I gain my salvation? Is Christ that unappealing that if He didn't happen to get me out of that "hell place" by my obeying, I would be done with religion? How is that different from saying "if I knew my wife wouldn't divorce me, what's to keep me from cheating?" Gadsby writes, Christ's love is rich and free. For those who find Romans 8:35-39 to excite their love for Christ more and not entice them to sin: here is a hymn from William Gadsby, a Reformed Baptist. You have to love the Calvinistic Baptists. They are outnumbered in their tradition, and so never tire of repeating the doctrines of grace in their hymns. I love, in verse 4, where Gadsby writes: “He loves through every changing scene, Nor aught from Him can Zion wean, Not all the wandering of her heart, Can make His love for her depart.” :


The love of Christ is rich and free;
Fixed on His own eternally;
Nor earth, nor hell, can it remove;
Long as He lives, His own He’ll love.


His loving heart engaged to be
Their everlasting Surety;
’Twas love that took their cause in hand,
And love maintains it to the end.

Love cannot from its post withdraw;
Nor death, nor hell, nor sin, nor law,
Can turn the Surety’s heart away;
He’ll love His own to endless day.


Love has redeemed His sheep with blood;
And love will bring them safe to God;
Love calls them all from death to life
And love will finish all their strife.

He loves through every changing scene,
Nor aught from Him can Zion wean;
Not all the wanderings of her heart
Can make His love for her depart.


At death, beyond the grave, He’ll love;
In endless bliss, His own shall prove
The blazing glory of that love
Which never could from them remove.

God's Sovereign choice: Hymn for the week

"You did not choose me, but I chose you." -John 15:16.

"We love because He first loved us." -1 John 4:19

I'm a Calvinist, but no one is born that way. It is amazing how at one time the doctrines of grace can produce such anger and then, your heart is warmed to the truth that you did nothing to deserve or merit God's favor. Soli Deo Gloria. If the hymn angers you, most of it is merely Scripture put to rhyme. This blatantly Calvinist hymn was written by Josiah Conder, a Reformed Congregationalist.

My Lord, I did not choose You,
For that could never be;
My heart would still refuse You,
Had You not chosen me.

You took the sin that stained me,
You cleansed me, made me new;
Of old You have ordained me,
That I should live in You.

Unless Your grace had called me
And taught my op’ning mind,
The world would have enthralled me,
To heav’nly glories blind.

My heart knows none above You;
For Your rich grace I thirst;
I know that if I love You,
You must have loved me first.

(sheet music here)

(put to modern music by this guy)

Caedmon's Call

Buy this album. Seriously. Caedmon's Call is pretty much the only Christian band worth listening to lyrically and instrumentally. This blog is for theology and this is the only band from which I hear GOOD theology. SO SUPPORT THEM SO THEY STICK AROUND!!! Derek Webb is back involved in the band, and so is Andrew Osenga, a former member of my old home church of East White Oak Bible Church in Normal IL. EWO's choir director even provides some trumpet support, not much though: its folky.

If you need an endorcement, here's Christianity Today's.

Hymn for the Day. (from preferably dead hymnists)

A while ago, my brother posted on hymns. Hymns, like biographies of saints, are an untapped treasure of the church. I think I might start periodically posting some lesser known hymns (like with the Newton post) from Isaac Watts, John Newton, Charles Wesley, William Cowper, and others. I join my friend Mike Freitag in lamenting how they are slowly being replaced by self-focused choruses like:

Over the mountains and the sea
Your river runs with love for me
[Ain't I great! Well...and the Son]
And I will open up my heart
[really, the Holy Spirit doesn't do that?]
And let the healer set me free
["Let Him"? If you are not free how can you "let Him"?]
I’m happy to be in the truth
And I will daily lift my hands
[Daily? That's some good discipline. Better than me]
For I will always sing
[Ever stop for air?]
Of when your love came down
[What does that even mean? maybe when "Your Son" came down?]

Chorus:
I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever
[Is God's name "You"? Could you really sing forever presently?]

These lyrics are sung, because it preserves the "dignity of man" as important and "empowered." As Mark Noll said, we are what we sing. We don't know what to do with hymns that when they use "I" a lot, talk about our inadequacy and sin like:

A Hymn to God the Father:

Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.

[Thou [God] hast done, not "I will" do. Hmm...and John Donne wasn't even a Calvinist...]

Dr. D. James Kennedy

Dr. D. James Kennedy died in his sleep last night. He pioneered "Evangelism Explosion" that took a Florida Presbyterian Church from tens to thousands, all with new converts. Kennedy would readily admit he never converted a soul, God could only do that. Kennedy was a great preacher and a witty, funny, and ardent Calvinist. R.I.P.

Celebrating Dependence: Calvin and Communion

From a Baptist background, the ministers always explained the "only" or “merely” aspect of the Lord’s Supper. “This is MERELY a symbol of the forgiveness of sins.” It was only described in the negative: Not Catholic. One begins to wonder if this tradition is so minor, so mere, why do we do it at all?

This “mere” idea comes from Zwingli and dominates the sacramental theology of Baptists and Presbyterians, Reformed and otherwise. Yet, Calvin’s mind in Soteriology is acknowledged as far superior. Why not entertain some of his thoughts on the Lord’s Supper?

Turns out Calvin’s Institutes find little “mere” or “minor” in the symbol of Christ‘s blood and body. Some selections:

“As bread nourishes, sustains, and protects our bodily life, so the body of Christ is the only food to invigorate and keep alive the soul. When we behold wine set forth as a symbol of blood, we must think that such use as wine serves to the body, the same spiritually bestowed by the blood of Christ.”

Calvin invites contemplation on the “similitude” of bread and wine to the “giving daily” of the benefits of Christ. I find Psalm 104:15 lists both and their function:

Bread:
“Bread to strengthen man's heart” (ESV)
I may surmise that Christ continually is to be our strength.

Wine:
“wine maketh glad the heart of man, making the face brighter than oil” (JPS)
Christ is to be the gladness of our heart, making our face beam more than oil.

While Christ’s sacrifice for sin was once for all, the Lord’s Supper reminds us of the continual nature in which Christ is the source of our strength and our joy. Our sustaining Providence and the source of our delight. Thus, while we may see baptism as our death and new life with Christ, done once, the Lord’s Supper is the continual coming to Christ for strength and joy. Calvin does not leave the symbolism to the past grace of Christ, but the present and future. We are continually given the benefits of Christ’s “wonderous exchange.” What does Calvin mean by this phrase? He tells us:

“the wonderous exchange…having become with us the Son of Man, He made us with Himself sons of God. By His own descent to the earth, He prepared our ascent to heaven. Having received our mortality, He has bestowed on us His immortality. Having under-taken our weakness, He has made us strong in His strength. Having submitted to our poverty, He has transferred to us His riches. Having taken upon Himself the burden of unrighteousness with which we were oppressed, He has clothed us with His righteousness.”

In the Lord’s Supper, perhaps we ask the wrong question of “Does the bread and wine become Christ?” Perhaps we should ask “Does Christ become our bread and wine?” Our strength and delight.