I was thinking about why I’m inclined to become a 5-Point Calvinist. I remembered several instances where some people brag that nobody can shake their beliefs. Some people are presented with the Gospel many times over and yet they’re not saved. Some are given so much evidence but harden their hearts. Some people grow up in a Christian school environment since pre-school but aren’t saved. Some people have already heard the Gospel before I was even born. It saddens me to think about how some people are aware of the existence of certain Christian parishes, heard the Gospel, and are still not saved. Some people may have heard of the preaching done by these Baptist and Protestant missionaries. However, some people just get harder and harder to the Gospel no matter how much you pray for their salvation. Yes, pray for someone’s salvation, do witness to people, but accept God’s will if He says no.
I would like to note that there’s such a thing as the “great Calvinist divide”. Personally, I find that to be a childish thing. David W. Cloud is an Independent Baptist who still embraces Calvinists as brethren if he sees signs of true conversion. Even some non-Calvinist Baptists acknowledge the contributions of Calvinist scholars (such as the King James Version or KJV), that Charles H. Spurgeon was a Calvinist, and that John Calvin had his writings. Some refuse to have the label of Arminianism (which is actually the lose your salvation crowd) and Calvinism prefers to be neither. Cloud is one. Ray Comfort of Living Waters is another even if he preaches eternal security. Paul Washer is a Calvinist but doesn’t make it aqn issue. I don’t want to make an issue out of it like I was once KJV but embraced non-KJV-only brethren and Calvinist brethren.
Looking at man’s total depravity for answers
If there’s an explanation that I can accept–it’s the total depravity of man. The statement itself should be differentiated from utter depravity. The late Robert C. Sproul Sr. had a distinction in “TULIP and Reformed Theology: Total Depravity” which can help explain what it really means:
In the Reformed tradition, total depravity does not mean utter depravity. We often use the term total as a synonym for utter or for completely, so the notion of total depravity conjures up the idea that every human being is as bad as that person could possibly be. You might think of an archfiend of history such as Adolf Hitler and say there was absolutely no redeeming virtue in the man, but I suspect that he had some affection for his mother. As wicked as Hitler was, we can still conceive of ways in which he could have been even more wicked than he actually was. So the idea of total in total depravity doesn’t mean that all human beings are as wicked as they can possibly be. It means that the fall was so serious that it affects the whole person. The fallenness that captures and grips our human nature affects our bodies; that’s why we become ill and die. It affects our minds and our thinking; we still have the capacity to think, but the Bible says the mind has become darkened and weakened. The will of man is no longer in its pristine state of moral power. The will, according to the New Testament, is now in bondage. We are enslaved to the evil impulses and desires of our hearts. The body, the mind, the will, the spirit—indeed, the whole person—have been infected by the power of sin.
I like to replace the term total depravity with my favorite designation, which is radical corruption. Ironically, the word radical has its roots in the Latin word for “root,” which is radix, and it can be translated root or core. The term radical has to do with something that permeates to the core of a thing. It’s not something that is tangential or superficial, lying on the surface. The Reformed view is that the effects of the fall extend or penetrate to the core of our being. Even the English word core actually comes from the Latin word cor, which means “heart.” That is, our sin is something that comes from our hearts. In biblical terms, that means it’s from the core or very center of our existence.
The Theopedia also defines total depravity as follows:
The doctrine of total inability teaches that people are not by nature inclined to love God with their whole heart, mind, or strength, as he requires, but rather all are inclined to serve their own interests and to reject the rule of God. Even religion and philanthropy are destructive to the extent that these originate from a human imagination, passions, and will.
Total depravity does not mean, however, that people are as bad as possible. Rather, it means that even the good which a person may intend is faulty in its premise, false in its motive, and weak in its implementation; and there is no mere refinement of natural capacities that can correct this condition. Although total depravity is easily confused with philosophical cynicism, the doctrine teaches optimism concerning God’s love for what he has made and God’s ability to accomplish the ultimate good that he intends for his creation. In particular, in the process of salvation, it is argued that God overcomes man’s inability with his divine grace and enables men and women to choose to follow him, though the precise means of this overcoming varies between the theological systems.
What happens is this–man has zero ability to look for God. To think people have the free will to believe (limited as it is) is usually taught in the non-Calvinist circles. However, the bad news is found in Romans 3:10-20. Right now, I’ll be quoting from the KJV which is, by the way, a Calvinist translation.
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17 And the way of peace have they not known: 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 are mentioned by the Apostle Paul. The big problem is that no one really seeks after God His way. All have gone astray and no one does good in the sense that they are free from sin. It’s taught in the postmodern world that it doesn’t matter what religion you practice–you still worship the same God. That’s one big fat lie because their interpretations differ from the non-negotiable truth. Islam denies Jesus is the Son of God. Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, Confucianism, etc. are all polytheistic. I practiced 3 religions back then–Catholicism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Atheism denies the existence of God. To say that “just be a good person and you’ll go to Heaven” fails. It works in works of fiction like mythology, comics, cartoons, etc. but God is too perfect to allow one iota of sin into Heaven. How can they seek God if the god they seek isn’t the God of the Bible? Taoists may call the Jade Emperor “God the Father” but he isn’t Yahweh. Some may say Allah of Islam is Yahweh but the word simply means god, not God. I used to think Allah was the Arabic name of God until I did more research. Some even say Allah is actually the moon god. Islam and Judaism both deny Jesus is the eternal Son of God and pervert the Old Testament religion with occult materials like the Koran and the Talmud. Both the Koran and the Talmud are perversions of the Scripture, not Scripture.
People become so comfortable with their religion that they don’t see themselves as prisoners. It’s heart-breaking to think some alumni members in Chinese Christian schools are still not saved. The baccalaureate services preach the Gospel and review the message of salvation. Graduation services take place and the school chaplain gives the message of salvation. Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties, etc. hear the gospel. Students have heard the gospel from the time they entered to the time they graduated. However, they are still stuck in false religion. Maybe, another thing I might hear from a Buddhist was to say, “Well Christian or Buddhist, we worship the same God.” Some might even want to present Jesus as an avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism or simply another good teacher in Buddhism when he isn’t. Sadly, the message was preached for so long but nobody ever got saved. Some had a temporal “conversion” but were revealed to be never saved (1 John 2:19).
A bigger problem is James 2:10-11. James 2 has been so often used to teach salvation is by faith plus works. However, what James was talking about is salvation results in works. Martin Luther didn’t originally understand it until he gave it further study after he mistakenly called it an epistle of straw. Here’s the tragic fact–you can spend your whole life doing good works but you do just 1 sin–you are out of God’s standard. That’s what Romans 3:19 also declares. If you broke a single commandment of God–it’s as good as having broken them all. In short, that’s what total depravity is about. Even the best of one’s good works are tainted with sin.
Why a divine calling is absolutely necessary
The next part of TULIP is unconditional election. Sproul Sr. talks about it in “TULIP and Reformed Theology: Unconditional Election“:
This doesn’t mean that God will save people whether they come to faith or not. There are conditions that God decrees for salvation, not the least of which is putting one’s personal trust in Christ. However, that is a condition for justification, and the doctrine of election is something else. When we’re talking about unconditional election, we’re talking in a very narrow confine of the doctrine of election itself.
So, then, on what basis does God elect to save certain people? Is it on the basis of some foreseen reaction, response, or activity of the elect? Many people who have a doctrine of election or predestination look at it this way. They believe that in eternity past God looked down through the corridors of time and He knew in advance who would say yes to the offer of the gospel and who would say no. On the basis of this prior knowledge of those who will meet the condition for salvation—that is, expressing faith or belief in Christ—He elects to save them. This is conditional election, which means that God distributes His electing grace on the basis of some foreseen condition that human beings meet themselves.
Unconditional election is another term that I think can be a bit misleading, so I prefer to use the term sovereign election. If God chooses sovereignly to bestow His grace on some sinners and withhold His grace from other sinners, is there any violation of justice in this? Do those who do not receive this gift receive something they do not deserve? Of course not. If God allows these sinners to perish, is He treating them unjustly? Of course not. One group receives grace; the other receives justice. No one receives injustice. Paul anticipates this protest: “Is there injustice on God’s part?” (Rom. 9:14a). He answers it with the most emphatic response he can muster. I prefer the translation, “God forbid” (v. 14b). Then he goes on to amplify this response: “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. 15). Here the Apostle is reminding his reader of what Moses declared centuries before; namely, that it is God’s divine right to execute clemency when and where He desires. He says from the beginning, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” It is not on those who meet some conditions, but on those whom He is pleased to bestow the benefit.
In short, the hardness of man’s heart can be found in Romans 9:18:
18 Therefore hath he (God, emphasis mine) mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. (KJV)
It will take a great act of mercy before anybody will accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. In fact, John 6:44 and 6:65 have Jesus telling the crowds that no man can come unto Him except if God the Father draws them to Him. John 5:40 says that they will not come. The problem is these people are so hard in sin that they will not come. It takes the divine intervention and initiative of God the Father to draw them unto the Son before salvation can even take place.
Later, John 15:16 has Jesus tell the disciples this:
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
The apostles were chosen by Jesus. Peter had to be convinced by Jesus before the former could even follow. The same was true for his brother Andrew. Matthew the tax collector didn’t look for Jesus–Jesus looked for Matthew (Matthew 9:9–13, Mark 2:13–17, and Luke 5:27–28). Some can say that Zaccheaus was looking for Jesus. We don’t know if Zacchaeus had some shallow motives or not. What we know is that Zacchaeus was told by Jesus, “For I must dine in your house today.” Jesus chose to dine in Zacchaeus’ house while the latter only wanted to see Jesus for some reason (Luke 19:1-10). Later, Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9) was on his way to persecute Christians. Saul had no free will except to hate the followers of Jesus. Saul is even called the chosen vessel to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles.
We could start reading more of these verses of being foreordained to salvation:
Acts 13:47-48
47 For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. 48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. (KJV)
Romans 3:28-30
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (KJV)
2 Thessalonians 2:13
But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: (KJV)
Besides, we can read about it in Matthew 20:15 and 22:14 that many are called but few are chosen. That’s why it happens that not everyone who graduates from a Christian school will be saved. Not everyone who hears the Gospel will be saved. It’s because unless a divine calling is done–these people can hear the Gospel all they want and reject it. Somebody can hear the Gospel even as early as 3-4 years old, grow up in a Christian school, and is still not saved! Some people hear the Gospel when they’re younger and even when they’re older, you hear people plead with them to get saved, but they never get saved. A Christian can even be as nice as they want, get them to soften (somewhat), and then still reject the Gospel. They can just say, “I heard the Gospel many times already so get lost!”
Yet, some people hear the Gospel a few times or much later in life and eventually get saved. Some don’t even have much hearing of it and they get saved. Just think that a person can get transferred to a Christian school later in life. It can be as late elementary or middle school or early high school. However, think that they later get saved while others who grew up in the school have become Gospel-hardened. This would take us that the need for election is there. The family can still tutor them in the Bible studies just for the sake of passing. You need to study the Bible subject even if you’re a Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. if you’re in a Christian school. They can get 100 in all their Bible exams but still reject the truth. It’s pretty much like I can study Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim theologies (which are partly taught in Asian and World history) and never believe in any of them.
Not all can resist God’s grace either
This brings us to irresistible grace. God’s grace can be resisted. People have a history of resisting it. However, when God elects the person or calls the person, it can no longer be resisted. I mentioned earlier about people who have heard the Gospel only a few times or later in life. What can explain it is that God’s grace can’t be resisted if the person was chosen for salvation.
R.C. Sproul explains it in “TULIP and Reformed Theology: Irresistible Grace” as follows:
In addition, when He exercises this grace in the soul, He brings about the effect that He intends to bring about. When God created you, He brought you into existence. You didn’t help Him. It was His sovereign work that brought you to life biologically. Likewise, it is His work, and His alone, that brings you into the state of rebirth and of renewed creation. Hence, we call this irresistible grace. It’s grace that works. It’s grace that brings about what God wants it to bring about. If, indeed, we are dead in sins and trespasses, if, indeed, our wills are held captive by the lusts of our flesh and we need to be liberated from our flesh in order to be saved, then in the final analysis, salvation must be something that God does in us and for us, not something that we in any way do for ourselves.
God’s grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it. —R.C. Sproul
However, the idea of irresistibility conjures up the idea that one cannot possibly offer any resistance to the grace of God. However, the history of the human race is the history of relentless resistance to the sweetness of the grace of God. Irresistible grace does not mean that God’s grace is incapable of being resisted. Indeed, we are capable of resisting God’s grace, and we do resist it. The idea is that God’s grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it. It is not that the Holy Spirit drags people kicking and screaming to Christ against their wills. The Holy Spirit changes the inclination and disposition of our wills, so that whereas we were previously unwilling to embrace Christ, now we are willing, and more than willing. Indeed, we aren’t dragged to Christ, we run to Christ, and we embrace Him joyfully because the Spirit has changed our hearts. They are no longer hearts of stone that are impervious to the commands of God and to the invitations of the gospel. God melts the hardness of our hearts when He makes us new creatures. The Holy Spirit resurrects us from spiritual death, so that we come to Christ because we want to come to Christ. The reason we want to come to Christ is because God has already done a work of grace in our souls. Without that work, we would never have any desire to come to Christ. That’s why we say that regeneration precedes faith.
So the non-elect can resist the grace of God. However, those who are elected are made willing by sovereign grace. The sovereignty of God is an act of mercy towards people who can only reject God’s way. What happens is that unless God intervenes–that person will remain hardened to the Gospel. The choice of salvation can only be made by man when God intervenes. Yet, some people somehow still find it even harder to believe that they didn’t have any free will to believe the Gospel of Jesus.
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