Calvinism and the Sovereignty of God
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FREE WILL vs. THE BIBLE
Which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God (John 1:13).
Of
his own will begat he us with
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures
(James 1:18).
And
a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which
worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were
spoken of Paul (Acts 16:14).
The
king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth
it whithersoever he will (Prov.
21:1).
For
he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy (Rom. 9:15-16).
Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace,
wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved… In whom also we have obtained
an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who
worketh all things after the counsel of his own will (Eph. 1:3-6, 9).
"...
and I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, 'If any man
doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he
knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.' It may seem a harsh sentiment; but he who in
his soul believes that man does of his own free will turn to God, cannot have
been taught of God, for that is one of the first principles taught us when God
begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that He gives both;
that He is 'Alpha and Omega' in the salvation of men." (Charles
H. Spurgeon from the sermon 'Free Will A Slave' (1855) referring to
Luther's book The Bondage of the Will which is listed with other resources on this
topic after this article).
"Free will" is
represented by "Arminianism teaches" below.
Arminianism teaches: '... and as many as believed were ordained to
eternal life.'
THE BIBLE TEACHES: 'AND AS MANY AS WERE ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE
BELIEVED.' (Acts 13:48)
Arminianism teaches: "For many are called, but few choose."
THE BIBLE TEACHES: 'FOR MANY ARE CALLED, BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN.'
(Matt. 22:14)
Arminianism teaches: "Make your decision for Christ.:
THE BIBLE TEACHES: 'All things are delivered unto me of my Father:
and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.' (Matt. 11:27)
Arminianism teaches: "I accepted Jesus as my personal
saviour."
THE BIBLE TEACHES: 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you
(John 15:16). Also: But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me.' (Paul's testimony
in Galatians 1:15,16)
Arminianism teaches: "God can't save you unless you let him, it
is your choice."
THE BIBLE TEACHES: 'So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of
him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy...Therefore hath he mercy on
whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.' (Romans 9:16, 18).
Arminianism teaches: "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for
your life."
THE BIBLE TEACHES: '(For the children being not yet born, neither
having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth:) It was said unto her, The
elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved but Esau
have I hated.' (Rom. 9:11-13).
Arminianism teaches: "God wants everyone to be saved."
THE BIBLE TEACHES: 'And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to
know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all
these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive;
and hearing they may hear, and not understand...'(Mark 4:11,12).
The Need for an Uncompromising and
Vigilant Witness Against Arminianism
Warnings from the pulpit and
denunciation of the errors of Arminianism are not now heard as once they were.
Even in pulpits where the truth is preached, it is to be feared that, in some
cases, a faithful witness is not raised against Arminianism. The cause of this
may be due in a measure to the fact that in defending the cause of truth new
forms of error have to be exposed and assailed, with the result that the old
enemy is left so far unmolested as if it were dead. Unfortunately this is not
so; Arminianism is very much alive in the pulpit, in the theological and
religious press, and in the modem evangelistic meeting . . . . . When we bear
in mind the horror with which our forefathers regarded Arminianism, the modern
attitude to it indicates how far the professing Church has drifted from the
position of the theologians of those days." ('The Reformed Faith" by
the Rev. D. Beaton, p. 18).
Arminianism was the false gospel of John
Wesley and his followers in the eighteenth century, and of D. L. Moody in the
nineteenth. It is the stock-in-trade of well nigh all the popular evangelists
of this century from Billy Graham downwards. The gospel halls of the Brethren,
Open and Closed, are nurseries of Arminianism. The active agents of the Faith
Mission and the Salvation Army, notwithstanding the moral and social results to
the credit of the latter, spread the plague on every side. All the sects which
have sprung up in these latter times, however divergent in their doctrines and
practices -- Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostalists,
Mormons, Christadelphians, Cooneyites, etc., etc., have all in common, the
fatal lie of free-willism. It is Satan's sovereign drug, which causes the soul
to sleep in delusion, and the end of such delusion is death. "Free
will," says Spurgeon, "has carried many souls to hell but never a
soul to heaven."
Arminianism is armed to the teeth in
enmity to true and vital godliness. Where it flourishes its fruits are a
superficial goody-goody form of godliness -- the lamp and the light of the
foolish virgins which went out in death and in despair. The Declaratory Acts of
1879, 1892 and 1921 in Scotland, and in 1901 in the Presbyterian Church of New
Zealand threw open the flood-gates to the deluge of Arminianism. Spiritual
death and desolation followed. The fat land was turned into barrenness, and the
Churches adopting these Declaratory Acts are now well on the road to Rome. The
'sovereign drug' of Arminianism has flourished beyond the wildest dreams of
priests and Jesuits. It is not by open and unabashed passing of nefarious
Declaratory Acts that Satan as an angel of light now works. Subtle infiltration
is his present policy and technique. What need there is for the 'denunciation'
and the 'horror' the Rev. D. Beaton refers to, as the cloven-hoof of
Arminianism is unmistakably seen far within the tents of the popular
evangelical conventions, fellowships, and unions of our day! The Scripture
Union, the Inter-Varsity Fellowship, the International Council of Christian
Churches, the conventions of the Keswick fraternity etc., are all riddled with
the cancer of Arminianism.
FROM: Arminianism:
Another Gospel
(Free MP3 and PDF), by William MacLean
"What is the heresy of Rome, but
the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ — the bringing
in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the
heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the
Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself
here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching
Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism.
It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing
else... nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they
are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of
damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor." - Charles Spurgeon, A Defense of
Calvinism (free MP3 sermon).
FOR FURTHER STUDY:
Calvinism
and the Sovereignty of God
A
Display of Arminianism by John Owen
Spurgeon's
Sovereign Grace Sermons by Charles Spurgeon
An
Antidote Against Arminianism (1700) by Christopher Ness
God's
Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men 1 of 2 by Jonathan Edwards (Free MP3)
The
Doctrine of Absolute Predestination by Jerome Zanchius
The
Free Offer of the Gospel (c. 1840) by John Colquhoun
LUTHER,
MARTIN
The Bondage of the
Will (tenth printing 1998)
The
Bondage of the Will is
fundamental to an understanding of the primary doctrines of the Reformation. In these pages, Luther gives extensive treatment
to what he saw as the heart of the gospel. Free will was no academic
question to Luther; the whole gospel of the grace of God, he believed, was
bound up with it and stood or fell according to the way one decided it... This is the greatest piece of writing that came
from Luther's pen. In its vigour of language, its profound theological grasp,
and the grand sweep of its exposition, it stands unsurpassed among Luther's writings
(front and back cover).
Luther recognized this book as his
most important work and even said that if all his other books perished, he
would hope that this one, along with his Small Catechism, would be the only ones to remain. As noted above, this is one of the most
important books of the early Reformation, for it deals with what Luther saw to
be the heart of the Gospel.
Luther here refutes the Romish notion of
"free will" in man and upholds the absolute sovereignty of God in the
salvation of sinners -- as well as justification by faith alone. Luther
clearly saw the issue of free will as the primary cause of his separation from
Rome.
In this book he replied to the Roman
Catholic scholar, Erasmus, and his diatribe The Freedom of the Will. Though disagreeing with just about everything
else Erasmus wrote, Luther commended Erasmus for recognizing the crux of the matter at issue between Rome and the Bible
believers, the debate over "free will." In this regard Luther wrote,
that unlike
all the rest, you alone have attacked the real issue, the essence of the matter
in dispute (i.e. man's so-called free-will--RB)... You and you alone saw, what
was the grand hinge upon which the whole turned, and therefore you attacked the
vital part at once; for which, from my heart, I thank you.
"This book is most needful at the
present day," noted Atherton in 1931, for "the teachings of many
so-called Protestants are more in accordance with the Dogmas of the Papists, or
the ideas of Erasmus, than with the Principles of the Reformers; they are more
in harmony with the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent than with the
Protestant or Reformed Confessions of Faith."
It is easy to see how a lack of
doctrinal and historical study is leading many into serious compromise with the
false ecumenical apostasy espoused by Rome and other idolatrous beliefs which
cry up man's ability to save himself (as with Arminianism) and to devise his
own methods of worship (as with those that oppose the Reformation's regulative
principle of worship in favor of their own will worship). In this area, many
"Protestants," even now, bow down to Rome's humanistic,
anti-Christian idol of free will.
It is our hope that God will use
Luther's classic to give you the strength to remain faithful to His Word; this
being a great place to start a new Reformation, for as the translators write
concerning this book, "Nowhere does Luther come closer, either in
spirit or in substance to the Paul of Romans and Galatians."
Available at http://www.swrb.com/catalog/L.htm
The Bondage of the
Will by Martin Luther
(OFFSITE)
Free at: http://www.covenanter.org/Luther/Bondage/bow_toc.htm
FIRST
TIME ENGLISH TRANSLATION!
CALVIN,
JOHN
The Bondage and
Liberation of the Will: A Defense of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice
Against Pighius (1543, 1996)
"In the belief that the 1539
edition of Calvin's Institutes,
and in particular its chapters on free choice and predestination, constituted a
greater danger than did the other 'Lutheran' writings, the Dutch Roman Catholic
theologian Albert Pighius wrote a response entitled Ten Books on Human Free
Choice and Divine Grace (1542).
Calvin, when he saw Pighius's work, felt a pressing need to respond to
Pighius's first six books, that is, those on free choice. The result was The
Bondage and Liberation of the Will
(1543). The Bondage and Liberation of the Will is undoubtedly the most significant of
Calvin's works hitherto not translated in English. This is in striking contrast to Luther's study
on the same topic, which is one of his best-known publications." This is Calvin's "fullest treatment of the
relation between grace and free will, and contains important material not found
elsewhere in his writings. It
also contains far more discussion of the early church fathers than does any
other of Calvin's works, apart
from the Institutes. It is
high time that this major work is made available to those whose knowledge of
Calvin is confined to English translations" (back cover). 303 pages.
Available at http://www.swrb.com/catalog/C.htm
PINK, A.W.
The Sovereignty of God
(Baker Book House edition)
This is the best contemporary book
explaining the foundations of Calvinism. This book is like a key that, by God's grace, opens the door of
understanding to some of the most blessed truths in Scripture. From the myriad
of testimonies that we have heard concerning how God has used this book, we
think that we can safely say that this is also the best book to pass on to
those that you want to introduce to Calvinism. This is the full, unedited Baker
Book House edition. Indexed.
Available at http://www.swrb.com/catalog/P.htm
The Sovereignty of
God
This is the edited Banner of Truth
edition of Pink's book.It leaves out the three following chapters: "The
Sovereignty of God in Reprobation;" "God's Sovereignty and Human
Responsibility;" "Difficulties and Objections." It also does not
contain the four following appendices: "The Will of God;" "The
Case of Adam;" The Meaning of "Kosmos" in John
3:16;""I John 2:2." However, it does contain some very
helpful editorial footnotes that the Baker edition does not contain.
Available at http://www.swrb.com/catalog/P.htm
This book is also available in the FREE
BOOKS file on all Reformation Bookshelf CDs (CD
SUPER SALE) at: http://www.swrb.com/Puritan/reformation-bookshelf-CDs.htm
Free at: http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/ (OFFSITE)
4710-37A Ave., Edmonton, AB., Canada T6L
3T5
(Reformation resources at great
discounts!)
Email: swrb AT swrb.com
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