Why Do You Believe in Calvinism? An Open Letter to a Fellow Believer

We preach the Gospel, first, because Christ commands us to (this is true whether or not it makes sense to us.) However, the complete sovereignty of God in salvation does not deter us from proclaiming the Gospel, rather it liberates us to do so. It means we can rest in the fact that though the duty is ours, the results are God’s.

A person’s salvation does not depend on us thinking up a “new angle”, finding the perfect book or sermon to give them, or coming up with a better gospel presentation that will “work”. If we ultimately were the ones who chose God, rather than him choosing us first, it would make us more sovereign than God, for we would control our ultimate destiny more than He does. All God would be able to do is offer, plead, and wait for us to make the final call…or not. Isn’t it more honoring to the sovereignty of God to believe him when he says, “Those I have foreknown, I have called, and those whom I have called, I have justified, and those whom I have justified, I have glorified.” (Romans 8:29-30).

This is not confusing. In fact, we as humans practice this balance between human freedom and the sovereignty of God all the time, yet for some reason, we find it extremely repulsive when it comes to that same balance in our own salvation.

My little brother just went to heaven the day before Thanksgiving, due to a fatal injury after he fell off a horse. We rested (and continue to rest) in the fact that God is sovereign, that Isaiah’s life was not cut short, but that God had numbered each of his days while yet there were none of them (Psalm 139:16). Yet we did everything we possibly could do in our human ability (as did the first responders, airvac team, doctors, nurses, neurosurgeon, etc.) to heal him and bring him back to us again.

We did not do this because we didn’t believe God was sovereign, but rather because we knew he was and that he had called us to do all possible to protect that life, even though ultimately, Isaiah’s life was in his hands and God chose to call him home.

Imagine the burden we feel when we think it is ultimately up to us. Did we fail to save my little brother? Maybe if we had just tried harder, or done something differently?

In our flesh, we struggle with the what-ifs, but the promises of God and the truth in Scripture bring us back to this fact: Isaiah’s life was never in our hands in the first place. And yes, we do everything in our human power to obey God in love and faithfulness (God calls us to help the hurting, to protect our family, to bring healing, etc.), but ultimately, the only reason we do all in our human ability to the obedience of God is because God is sovereign over the outcome.

In the same way, we preach the good news of the Gospel to a lost and dying world, not because God isn’t sovereign over the outcome, but because he is.

If spreading the Good News is merely to glorify the Lord, well, the Jews and the Old Covenant did fine with that, hence no need for Jesus nor a New Covenant.

The Jews fell short of glorifying God, as do each and every one of us (Romans 3:23). That’s why Jesus died. Our purpose for which we were created is to glorify God, but we failed in our purpose and have all rebelled against God. The Jews broke the Old Covenant. They failed again and again and again. The only “good news” the Israelites spread was that God had promised that Someone would come who kept the covenant they broke, and who would take the punishment they deserved for breaking it. They were saved by looking forward in faith to the Savior to come, just as we are saved by looking back to the Savior who has come.

Per Calvin, you and I either have been gifted with salvation, or we have not, and there is no choice in the matter; to give Man choice in the matter is to dethrone God’s sovereignty.

For a better explanation than I could give, I would recommend Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, and Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards (both men believed and taught the same thing in these books from different angles, and both men believed in the 5-points and the Doctrines of Grace.)

I would like to make one thing clear, however: Neither Scripture, nor Calvin taught that man’s choice does not come into salvation at all, but rather that we only choose Christ when he has first chosen us (John 15:16). Again, it is God’s amazing grace to us that this is the case, that He changes our hearts to want to choose Him. For if we are dead in sin as the Bible teaches (Ephesians 2:1), we cannot choose Him. And if we are enslaved to sin (John 8:33-36), children of the devil (John 8:44), lost in darkness (John 3:19), and lusting after the passions and desires of our heart (Ephesians 2:3), which is sick and desperately wicked above all things (Jeremiah 17:9), then we will not choose Him. God in His love, resurrects us from our deadness (which is why it is called Regeneration) (Ephesians 2:4-7). He chose to do before you or I were even born (Ephesians 1:4). He calls us to Himself in His grace, and, ONLY because He has done this, are we able to choose Him (John 15:16).

Likewise, per the flawed argument on abortion refuted above, if a mother aborts you, then you had no value, a logical loop; if God didn’t choose you, then you had no value to Him either.

The Bible teaches that every human has inherent value (hence why abortion is wrong), and our value is determined by God because he is our Creator and we are made in his image. But God didn’t choose me because I was more valuable than another person – I have absolutely nothing in me that could compel a just and holy God to save me, and there are many ‘better’ people (from a human perspective) that would seem to deserve it more. But that’s just it: none of us deserve salvation. God loved us before we were lovable, while we were still sinners and at enmity with him (Romans 5:8), thus it is by grace we have been saved, not of works, lest anyone should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

As a logical corollary, He made some saved and some not, since He is omniscient.

God certainly is omniscient, but I wasn’t quite understanding the argument here. Some people believe that God, in his omniscience, looks down the corridors of time and foresees who would choose him and who wouldn’t, and thus calls the ones to himself he saw would have chosen him anyway.

This is not what Scripture teaches, and it is not a belief taught in Calvinism. To say that God is omniscient is true, but God did not save us because he saw we would have chosen him. Rather we only choose him because he chose us first.

As another logical corollary He has also allowed His Son to be slayed for no reason.

I think it is Arminianism, not Calvinism that has this logical flaw. If Jesus really did die for everyone in this world, and this gift of salvation is extended to every person, then that means that Christ has died for people who ultimately went to Hell. This would mean God is unjust, as that person’s sins were paid for and punished, not once, but twice. Christ would have paid for that person’s sins on the cross, and then that person would pay for their own sins again in Hell.

Instead, what Scripture teaches is that Christ died for all those whom he has chosen from before the foundations of the world, and that of all those whom he has called and chosen and died for, none will be lost (John 6:39, 17:11-12). That is a glorious promise. That is why it is impossible for Jesus to have died for no reason.

He is evil if He dooms some to hell and others by His choice alone to heaven, making them pay a price for His choice,

Paul argues this point better than I could. In fact, he devoted entire chapters to this doctrine, with perhaps the most clearly worded and in-depth explanation in Romans 9.

Paul has just ended in chapter 8 with his grand climax, on how there is no condemnation for those in Christ (In other words, once again: Christ did not die for people who are in Hell.) Chapter 8 ends explaining that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

But Paul begins chapter 9 talking about how this is a struggle for him: “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises…” (v. 2-4)

In other words: “I struggle with the fact that I am saved, and other Israelites are not. Why would God choose me and not choose them?”

Paul continues: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel (nation and ethnicity) belong to Israel (true Church of Christ), and not all are children of Abraham (saved through the covenant of Abraham) because they are his offspring (physical descendants of Abraham). ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” (v. 6-8)

So Paul is saying that just because someone is a Jew, or a physical descendant of Abraham and of the nation of Israel, does not mean that he is a part of the true Israel: the Church. God has chosen some but not chosen others, from before time began. How do we know this?

Paul continues: “When Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls – she was told, ‘The older shall serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (v. 10-12)

Again, why would God do that? Paul says so that his purpose of salvation might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.

How could God do that? How is that fair?

Paul answers this: “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’” (v. 14-15)

So how does God make that decision? Are some of us better than others? Does God look down the corridors of time and see what we will choose before we choose it? No.

“So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.” (v. 16)

Why does God do this?

“The Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” (v. 17-18)

How can there be a Hell…

since the caprice of His will to forgive is sufficient payment?

Paul assumed we would ask that question: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” (Paul continues): “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” (v. 19-21)

God, like you explained so truthfully:

is bound by His Word, by His Law, by His covenants in order to be pure, holy, righteous, and just. Yes, He is sovereign and, yes, He is loving and, yes, He is omniscient and, yes, He is righteous, and, yes, He is just  –

Paul agrees with you. But he asks us: “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory – even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles.” (v.22-24)

Why would God call us? Do we choose to become his people and then he accepts us because we choose? Do we love God first or does he love us first?

Paul goes back to the Old Testament:

“As indeed he says in Hosea,
‘Those who were not my people I will call my people,
And her who was not beloved I will call beloved,
And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
There they will be called, ‘sons of the living God.’” (v. 25-26)

Do we have nothing to do then? Are we without hope and have no command of faith in our salvation?

No, for after Paul has made blatantly clear that it is God who chooses us he tells us in Chapter 10 to, therefore “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead (and) you will be saved.” (v. 9)

Paul continues the entire rest of the chapter speaking about how we must proclaim the Gospel of good news, not because we don’t believe God is sovereign to save, but because we do.

 Again in Romans 9 God tells us that it is through his calling those whom he has chosen, that he is glorified (vv. 11, 16-18, 23, etc.) Sola Scriptura is based on the biblical command to believe what God says about himself in his word and to trust him, even when we don’t fully understand in our human ability.

Again, we follow Christ, not Calvin and when the two disagree, it is Christ we must obey and trust, not the flawed conclusions of another sinner like ourselves. Calvin did not think of the 5-points or the Doctrines of Grace. Rather they were found in Scripture thousands of years before his time. My foundation is not the “flawed, illogical, isogetic doctrine of a man raised in Catholicism”. I’m quite certain Calvin was flawed and my hope or interpretation of Scripture, therefore, cannot rest in another sinner. But I am quite certain this isn’t just what Calvin teaches, this is what Christ teaches, and that’s why I believe it.

If God gave us a choice to love him while we were dead and enslaved to sin, we would choose not to. That is why he must change us, and make us alive in Christ, before we can come to him willingly. We reject God in our sin. He loved us before we loved him.

He give us the choice, just as He gave Adam the power to choose the fruit of the trees of Eden, just as He gave Adam the power to transfer title to the earth to Lucifer.

You’re right that Adam had the power to choose in the garden, but his power to choose is different than ours is, as he was not yet enslaved to sin, but we are.

 Augustine explains it this way, saying that there were four stages of free will throughout history:

1. Posse peccare, posse non peccare (Man’s state pre-fall. This is what Adam had: Able to sin, able not to sin.)

2. Non posse, non peccare (Our individual state after the fall and before our salvation: Not able not to sin);

3. Posse non peccare (Our individual state after the fall and after our salvation: Able not to sin);

4. Non posse peccare (Our state in heaven: Unable to sin).

In other words, we actually don’t have the power to choose like Adam did. Adam could have chosen to love God, but He didn’t. We can’t even choose. God must choose us first.

On a different note, God never gave Adam the “power to transfer title to the earth to Lucifer”. God is just as much God now as he was before the fall and as he will be when he comes to redeem the earth. This earth is not in the power of Satan. It is in the power of our sovereign God, and the fall did not undermine his sovereignty, nor could Adam, nor can Satan. God is sovereign over Satan, and Satan is defeated already. His end is sure, and he can do nothing apart from God’s holy will.

Grace is a beautiful revelation given to Martin Luther, but Calvinism inadvertently befouls it. (John 3:16-18)

Saving Grace is a beautiful revelation given to each of us in Scripture, which God in his grace revealed in his Word to Martin Luther, and which God in his grace, revealed in his Word to John Calvin, and which God in his grace, reveals in his Word to all of those whom he has called to himself.

If we do believe in grace, and that it is not by our works we are saved, then we must ask why we chose to follow Christ in the first place? Were we just smarter than someone else, or more righteous, or better people? None of us can say that of ourselves. If it is truly by grace we are saved, then it is truly a gift from God, and is not something we can bring to ourselves through our own fallen and depraved wills, but only something he can choose to give us.

Praying every blessing for revelation and understanding….

Thank you for your prayer. I’m glad we both serve a God who can and does choose to reveal himself to our understanding, and that it is not by our own power that we see him, but by his sovereign hand that he gives us eyes to see and ears to hear. That is why we pray such things after all: because God is sovereign to reveal himself to our understanding if he so chooses, but we know, because he tells us, that it is ultimately up to him.

Soli Deo Gloria,