Calvin And Jesus
Calvin – “I've decided to be a fatalist. All events are preordained and unalterable. Whatever will be will be. That way if anything bad happens, it's not my fault. It's fate.”
Hobbes trips Calvin and responds – “Too bad you were fated to do that.”
Calvin shouts back – “THAT WASN'T FATE!”
Bill Watterson named our favourite 6 year old after John Calvin. Predestination is a hard thing to avoid if you spend any time tinkering with Calvinism. But I have a question for John, or anyone who would call themselves a Calvinist. It’s this: Can you really believe all that you say you do and still say that justification is by faith? Where is that coming from, you ask… OK, I’ll back up a little. (beep, beep, beep…)
Calvinism says that regeneration precedes faith. English translation: You have to get the AC hooked up to the bolts sticking out of your head before you can believe. That appears to be Calvin’s view of us “dead in trespasses and sins” – We’re all Frankensteins. If that’s the case, life begins not with faith, but with, well… life. God must just zap us, regenerating us, and then we start to believe. So, justification, or giving us a right standing with God, is because He regenerated us, not because of faith. Faith then, would be a byproduct, not a cause.
Now don’t get me wrong. Faith doesn’t save anybody. Yes, you read that correctly. Jesus saves, not faith. It’s the object of faith that makes saving faith saving, not the faith. I don’t have to have a certain kind of faith or a particular degree of faith to be saved. I just have to have my faith (or confidence) in the right object – The Lord Jesus. He even saves those with weak faith (Romans 14:1). But if we are honest Calvinists, we can’t say that justification is by faith. We would have to say that justification is by regeneration. Faith isn’t a part of the equation at all.
As much as I appreciate Calvin’s contribution to Theology at a very dark time in the history of the Church, there’s been quite a bit of light since. He was dealing with folks that had stripped the Gospel of grace, and made the shed blood of Christ insufficient to save anyone. We can thank the Lord for the Reformers in many ways. But Calvin believed in infant baptism and Luther thought James should be fired from the Canon like a circus performer. They didn’t have the monopoly on truth, to say the least. They leaned heavy on the Sovereignty of God, and not heavy enough on man’s responsibility. They got off kilter.
We are “justified by faith” (Romans 5:1), and not by regeneration. Jesus asked sinful and utterly depraved people to believe in him, because in fact they could. It would have been an evil taunt otherwise. When Hobbes tripped Calvin, he discovered that even in a predetermined world, there was a little elbow-room. There’s not much, and it’s no “island of righteousness”, but there’s just enough to say, “Lord I believe – Help my unbelief!” You know what, even “dead faith” is a candidate for salvation. That’s how gracious the Lord Jesus is.
BJ
Hobbes trips Calvin and responds – “Too bad you were fated to do that.”
Calvin shouts back – “THAT WASN'T FATE!”
Bill Watterson named our favourite 6 year old after John Calvin. Predestination is a hard thing to avoid if you spend any time tinkering with Calvinism. But I have a question for John, or anyone who would call themselves a Calvinist. It’s this: Can you really believe all that you say you do and still say that justification is by faith? Where is that coming from, you ask… OK, I’ll back up a little. (beep, beep, beep…)
Calvinism says that regeneration precedes faith. English translation: You have to get the AC hooked up to the bolts sticking out of your head before you can believe. That appears to be Calvin’s view of us “dead in trespasses and sins” – We’re all Frankensteins. If that’s the case, life begins not with faith, but with, well… life. God must just zap us, regenerating us, and then we start to believe. So, justification, or giving us a right standing with God, is because He regenerated us, not because of faith. Faith then, would be a byproduct, not a cause.
Now don’t get me wrong. Faith doesn’t save anybody. Yes, you read that correctly. Jesus saves, not faith. It’s the object of faith that makes saving faith saving, not the faith. I don’t have to have a certain kind of faith or a particular degree of faith to be saved. I just have to have my faith (or confidence) in the right object – The Lord Jesus. He even saves those with weak faith (Romans 14:1). But if we are honest Calvinists, we can’t say that justification is by faith. We would have to say that justification is by regeneration. Faith isn’t a part of the equation at all.
As much as I appreciate Calvin’s contribution to Theology at a very dark time in the history of the Church, there’s been quite a bit of light since. He was dealing with folks that had stripped the Gospel of grace, and made the shed blood of Christ insufficient to save anyone. We can thank the Lord for the Reformers in many ways. But Calvin believed in infant baptism and Luther thought James should be fired from the Canon like a circus performer. They didn’t have the monopoly on truth, to say the least. They leaned heavy on the Sovereignty of God, and not heavy enough on man’s responsibility. They got off kilter.
We are “justified by faith” (Romans 5:1), and not by regeneration. Jesus asked sinful and utterly depraved people to believe in him, because in fact they could. It would have been an evil taunt otherwise. When Hobbes tripped Calvin, he discovered that even in a predetermined world, there was a little elbow-room. There’s not much, and it’s no “island of righteousness”, but there’s just enough to say, “Lord I believe – Help my unbelief!” You know what, even “dead faith” is a candidate for salvation. That’s how gracious the Lord Jesus is.
BJ
posted by BJ at 8:45 a.m.
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