Introduction to the Doctrines of Grace

behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

You know, so whose fault is it that we're unsaved and lost in our sin? Ours. The problem's not the strength of God's arm. The problem isn't the dullness of his ear. It's that we have chosen sin instead of God. We're to blame. And we're so much to blame that it's actually to the glory of God that he judges sinners in their sin. So, putting these two verses together, when it comes to the fact that some are saved and others are lost, I think that Calvinists and Arminians and, you know, all Christians should be able to agree to the following axiom, you know, God should get all the credit, we should get all the blame. God gets the credit, we get the blame. If we're saved, it's because of God. If we're lost, it's because of us. And when it comes to doing theology, the question is, well, how do we systematically put the pieces together and all the truth that Scripture tells us, how do we put it together in a way that is true to that, is true to God's Word, and sort of logically coheres? That's the key question. And, you know, when Calvinists take issue with Arminians saying that, you know, we're the ones who choose God, Well, it's because we want to protect giving God all the credit in salvation. We want to make clear that salvation is all of his grace, that we can't boast at the end of the day that the reason I'm saved and that person isn't is because I was a little bit smarter, I was a little bit more holy, and I chose to follow Christ and they didn't. No, God chose me. But then on the other hand, when Arminians take issue with Calvinist saying that God chooses us, I think it's primarily out of a desire to protect God's justice in condemnation. They're concerned that if we say, well, God chooses, well, then salvation's not in our control. And therefore, we're not fully to blame. You know, if we don't choose God, in fact, they say, well, if you say God's the one who chooses, you make it seem like it's sort of partially God's fault that some are lost and not saved. So again, I think both sides are kind of trying to say, well, God should get all the credit and we should get all the blame. The question is, how do you put the pieces together? Now, most Calvinists, including myself, are basically gonna say, well, the way it fits together is because if we're saved, it's because God chose us. And if we're lost, it's because we chose sin. Now again, as we try to put those pieces together, there's some logical tensions that are gonna come in. You know, how is God fully sovereign and how are we responsible at the same time? There's some areas that we're not gonna be able to totally explain, but we're gonna say, but hey, it's what the Bible says. And just like with Christology, just like with the doctrine of the Trinity, there's mystery there. But this is how it fits together. Now, Arminians on the other hand are just gonna say, we don't buy that, we don't think Your way of trying to explain it and put it together works. So they're gonna try to deal with that tension in another way. They're gonna say, actually, for us to choose God, well, it doesn't take any of the credit away from God. Faith isn't a work, it's a gift. And then they're also generally going to say, well, God's not to blame for some people not being saved because at the end of the day, God just isn't sovereign over every detail. God willingly relinquishes some of his sovereignty so that we can have true freedom. That's going to be the way they're going to try to explain that. So here we are with the question, well, who's right? How do we make up our mind? How do we approach this? And by this point, I hope I've kind of piqued your interest for the rest of the study, cuz that's what we're gonna dive into in the coming weeks. But for tonight, I just wanna introduce two crucial questions that I hope we keep coming back to and kind of become increasingly clear as we go along. And the questions are, number one, how sovereign is God? And number two, How sinful is man? How sovereign is God? How sinful is man? And in your notes, I've got these two charts listed there. I almost didn't include them because I know there's no way to do justice to this in, you know, the five or ten minutes we have for tonight. But they're there. I hope they're helpful. I think we're going to come back to them as we go along. So if you're kind of new to this and you don't catch everything, that's totally fine. Don't be worried about that. This is just trying to introduce some things. But as we think first about this question, how sovereign is God, notice that first chart where we've got open theism, Arminianism, reformed, hyper-Calvinist. And I just wanna start with those two in the middle, of course, the Arminian and the reformed slash Calvinistic view. And notice that the Arminian is gonna say that in salvation, God is omniscient but not sovereign. So God is not sort of actively controlling or choosing in advance who's going to be saved, who's not. But God's omniscient. That means he knows. So even before the beginning of the world, God foreknows exactly who's going to choose to come to him, who will reject him. He's omniscient. Now, when it comes to man, we have freedom. We have free will. Now, even Arminian is going to qualify that because sin affects our will. But at the end of the day, we have this freedom, this capacity to either choose God or not. And, well, let me come back to mystery after I explain reform. Then the reform view says, in salvation, God is sovereign, right? So God chooses us. He's sovereign over every detail of everything in life. Not only salvation, but everything altogether. And man is responsible. Now, not free, we can talk about differences in how reformed versus Armenian understand free will, but the key thing that a reformed person is going to emphasize is not so much human freedom, right? Because, well, yeah, we're slaves of sin. Our freedom is missing in many ways, but the key is that we're still totally responsible. And so, for reformed theology, the mystery, the tension is going to be between God's sovereignty versus man's responsibility. That's where there's mystery. That's where, you know, how do you explain exactly how this fit together? And at some point we have to say, we can't. It's beyond us. Just like the Trinity or Christology is beyond us. But I want to point this out because in Arminian theology, there's also mystery. It's just in a different spot. You know, it's not that, you know, reform says, well, there's mystery, and then Arminian comes along and can just sort of explain everything, and there's no mystery at all. No, for them, the mystery is how can God be omniscient, and yet man can be free? Because if freedom means, you know, I can choose what I want, but God already knows what you're going to choose tomorrow, how are you free to choose something else? And that understanding of freedom, it feels like it can't fit with God's omniscience. And so what I want you to notice is that there's open theism, which is basically what happens when an Arminian turns into a rationalist. And we take rationalism and you apply it to Arminian thought and you say man is free, therefore I'm going to rationalize from that, you deny God's omniscience. If I'm free, God can't know the future because I have to be free. And then you're clearly denying the plain teaching of scripture, right? You just moved outside altogether the realm of sort of orthodox doctrine of God. On the other hand, if a reformed person becomes a rationalist, and we wanna say, okay, we're gonna get rid of the mystery, God is sovereign. Well, what's gonna happen is, notice the hyper-Calvinist under man is at least partially not responsible. We start thinking things like, look, if God chooses us before the foundation of the world, he's already chosen who's gonna be saved. What difference does it make if I share the gospel with my neighbor? If God chose them, well, they're gonna be saved either way. So therefore, my action is unimportant. Or if you're trying to tell someone to believe, they think, well, If I'm a slave of sin, it doesn't matter. I'm not responsible to respond to this. I just sit back and wait for God to do something to me. It's on him. So hyper-Calvinism is where the reformed person turns into a rationalist. Arminianism is on the other side. And therefore, the question is not who has mystery, who doesn't. The question is, who's placing the mystery in the right spot? Who's putting the mystery where the Bible does? You know, and so rest with this. Does the Bible ever limit God's sovereignty to protect human freedom? Or does the Bible just seem to assert God is sovereign and we're responsible at the same time? You know, does the Bible try to limit one of the, you know, is sovereignty ever limited? Or is it just asserted? Is that where the mystery seems to be? And then on the other side, how does the Bible talk about God's omniscience? I mean, does it feel like there's this tension between God being omniscient and humans being free? Or does the Bible just seem to move right past the omniscience to the sovereignty? And actually lead us to conclude, well, yeah, of course God knows everything, because he actually foreordains everything. He's in control to that degree. And so I would certainly argue that I think reform theology is placing the mystery in the right spot. But again, that's something we can come back to. Now briefly, the second chart there, particularly wrestling with the question, how sinful is man? And we will definitely come back to this next week when we think about total depravity. But this is especially getting at the question of what kind of effect Did original sin have on us? How has the fall of Adam affected you and I? Now, Pelagianism, Pelagius was a heretic early on. He argued against St. Augustine. And Pelagius wanted to say, well, basically, there is no original sin. We're born into the world a blank slate. just like Adam. So on that understanding, salvation is based on our works, and we must obey the law to go to heaven. But Catholics, Arminians, Reformed, all of us are going to say, no way. The Bible is so clear that actually Adam's sin had serious consequences for us. We inherit a corrupt, sinful nature and are unable to be saved apart from God's grace. And I think sometimes we as Protestants kind of mischaracterize Catholics by saying things like, well, we believe in salvation by grace through faith. They believe in salvation by works and human merit. And any Catholic who knows their theology is gonna say, no, of course not. I believe I'm saved by the grace of God. And then we might say, but don't you believe in works contributing to your justification? But they're gonna say, but You know, the faith, the hope, and the love that justify me, you know, are only there by the help of the grace of God. You know, they're going to want to say that, look, at the end of the day, you know, I'm saving somebody else isn't because I cooperate with God's grace. I need God's help. But I choose to cooperate with it, and therefore, as I believe, as I work, as I do all these things, I become saved. And what I want you to notice is that this is where there's a little bit of similarity between that and the Arminian view, because Arminianism also ultimately comes back to this idea of cooperating with God too. Of course, like us, like Reformed, Arminian is going to say that no salvation is by faith and faith alone, right? It's the same basic understanding of the gospel. But, you know, if you say to an Arminian, well, how could you as a sinner choose to place your faith in Christ? I mean, how serious is sin? I mean, how did original sin affect you? Well, most Arminians are still going to say, well, sin is really serious, you know, and In fact, in one sense, sin would have prevented me from even choosing Christ, but God gives enabling grace. Sometimes we call it provenient grace, right? God provides grace, but it's grace that we have to cooperate with, right? It's grace that at the end of the day, I chose Christ because God made it possible, but I cooperate with his grace, and the decision I made, then I was saved because of this cooperation. Part of the reason I go into that is because sometimes people will kind of hear Reform versus Arminian and just say, well, I'm in the middle. I just believe that it's God's grace, and it's our choice, and there's just this mysterious cooperation. And actually, I want to say, well, in some sense, that's very similar to Catholicism, right? That there's a cooperation at play. And that's kind of what Arminians are going to wind up saying. There's this cooperating. But at the end of the day, by cooperating, you're the one making the difference. Man. But Reformed theology, this is where Reformed theology is different because it's going to say, no, no, no, sin is so serious. Sin goes so deep that salvation must depend on something more than cooperation with God's grace. We have to be changed by God's grace. That even the faith we exercise to receive the gift of salvation is itself a gift of God. is a result of the working of God's grace in our life. And therefore, at the end of the day, unlike the other three systems of thought, the determining factor in salvation for Reformed thought is not the will of man, but the will of God. that God is the one who chooses us, he saves us. Now, I was hoping we would have enough time to entertain some questions and talk about a little application, but I think we're at time for tonight. Would love to entertain questions individually afterward, and next time we're gonna come back and begin talking, pick up where we left off, talking about the doctrine of total depravity. So, let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time to wrestle with hard questions, to wrestle with the depths of the gospel. Lord, I pray that this study would be encouraging and unifying. I pray that even as our minds are stretched and we peer into depths of understanding that we don't fully understand, Lord, I pray that we would grow in awe of you. I pray that we would grow in awe of your grace. I pray that we would grow to treasure the gospel and our salvation more and more. Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.