Assessing Scripture Throughout One's Life Pt 1.

Every once in a while, I think it’s a good thing to test your own beliefs by asking questions, mining the scriptures, and making sure that what you hold to be truth is scriptural, and fitting for God’s people. Nothing is off limits. If you have the truth on your side then you have nothing to fear. Keeping an open mind isn’t about accepting anything and everything, but it is a humble thing to do, if you are willing to grow in your understanding of scripture, or at least come to a fresh understanding of what you already know, and why you believe it. It can also help your discourse with other people, Christians, sects, and maintain respectful engagement over hot button issues. And perhaps, it will help overcome obstacles or road barriers. Certainly, it was through such wrestling with scripture that I came into contact with who God really is, and how he changes me, and continues to change me.

One important thing that I have learned in the growth of my faith is to be patient with myself, with God and with others. It seems whenever someone holds onto a new set of propositions they enter the cage stage and become impatient with everyone else. I imagine them holding their presuppositions like prison bars, and occasionally ringing the cuffs across them to make noise. It’s just creating a stir to get a negative reaction. It makes me wonder if that’s why Jesus told the demons to stop proclaiming him as the Christ, since the people’s expectations still needed to be reformed. And perhaps, there is something to be learned from that. But I find for the most part, people aren’t going to listen right away, and that includes myself.

But it was a fateful night, when one such staunch Calvinist, burst my little Sunday-School-Bible-Stories-Bubble. Predestination? What? I had never even heard of predestination, let alone considered it. Once saved always saved? You’ve got to be kidding me! I soon realized, I hardly read my Bible. Yet at the same time, it completely baffled me how a Christian can come to so many different conclusions than me. And is this really what God is like? I soon realized I hardly, if ever, opened my Bible. But through this experience, I became so tortured by certain scriptures that I came to a place where I started reading the Bible for my own benefit.

From there, it took me four years to really understand what I managed to get myself into. I went from being an Arminian/Lutheran to an Arminian, to being a Lutheran, then to being an Arminian again, to a Calvinist and back to a Lutheran. On that point, I definitely did a lot of “converting.” Sure, I might have flipped and flopped a lot, I was still growing up. But on the positive side, I learned a lot from being on both sides of the spectrum. And I came across a lot of things that I didn’t expect to find in the Bible. I still find that to be true.

One of the things that I learned by going around in circles: the benefits and weakness of both positions. Arminianism makes a solid confession that God wills the salvation of all, and that he is truly love for all humanity. Calvinism, on the other hand, makes a clear confession that God should receive all the glory for our salvation - there is no room for boasting, even in our own choices. And yet on the downside, all the assurance in election is lost in a limited atonement. And Arminianism has a downside too, and leaves the most ultimate choice that there is resting on our own sinful devices - and there have been a lot of crazy things done in the name of growing the church to appeal to the sinful nature, ironically to make converts.

In each instance, I came to both positions through the magisterial use of reason. That is to say, if you find any one of the five points of Calvinism to be true then the rest of the 5 points will be true. Find any one of them to be false, and the rest of the points will be false, and you’ll be an Arminian. It’s that simple really. Or so I thought. But I came back to Lutheranism because I found out that I didn’t have to do this logic chopping with scripture.

Theology doesn’t need to be as intellectually satisfying as much as it needs to be faithful to all of the scriptures. In this way, reason needs to take a ministerial function in theology and serve under scripture; whereas the magisterial use of reason would have itself imposed above scripture, and that I find to be dangerous. I also find it attractive that the Lutheran Confessions foresaw this significant debate, but of both positions upheld some of these unparallel points in polar tension. It is clear that such a position was not in order to compromise or take “the middle” way (like the Anglicans), but rather to affirm what scripture affirms and take the “paradoxical” way.

Is Calvinism Consistent?

2 Peter 2:1 "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."

If "denying the Lord that bought them" is a damnable heresy for these false teachers, then I would also strongly caution against a Calvinism which denies that the Lord has even bought these false teachers, as it is a system which limits Christ's purchase, bringing upon itself a swift destruction of its own. (But, I do recognize Calvinists as Christians, and this destruction has more to do with systems and consistency.)

Let me explain. God reveals himself in two ways: Law and Gospel. Under the Law we find ourselves to be at odds with the will of God, and do not obey at every point, and are sinners. In the Gospel we are sinners declared to be righteous, justified by the works of another - Jesus, our brother and saviour. This Gospel declares to the whole world that Jesus embodies all of humanity and has reconciled us to God, freeing us from condemnation of the law, in his own death. The Gospel reveals God's disposition of grace to all humanity and intends for it to be proclaimed to everyone.

Calvinists systematically confuse Law and Gospel. They filter the atonement through a matrix of inscrutable eternal decrees which land on nobody. Try as they might, by explaining away the non-elect, excluding these from the sacrificial atonement, they rob themselves of their own assurance and transfer it to their own inner-being and works which by default are still locked in the chains of sin. After all, if you cannot know God's disposition toward you by looking at the cross (who knows if you are elect?), you start looking inside of yourself for your salvation. Trying to repent and believe without assurance of Christ's all availing sacrifice for you is like trying to be free from sin with God's word of law still condemning you.

To have Christ is to have his assurance of his forgiveness. But this assurance doesn't originate from inside of yourself. This word comes from the outside and works its way in you, creates faith, repentance and delivers forgiveness of sin. It is a word that comes with all the power that it proclaims. "You are forgiven." On the other hand, a word that withholds the direct forgiveness of sin is powerless and creates no genuine faith, because it turns faith inward on itself, rather than outward to Christ and his saving work accomplished at Calvary. Faith must not look to itself for forgiveness (otherwise it would be like plucking out your eyes to look at yourself), but is merely the instrument through which we see Christ as he is truly for us. Direct your assurance from where the forgiveness comes from, a gift of God, the humble form of a servant, a Word that suffers to be rejected.