Has God ever revealed to us why we should evangelize the lost? Indeed he has. In Acts 18, Paul was opposed vehemently in his gospel mission. He was about to leave Corinth out of fear and discouragement, but God in a vision at night revealed to Paul a confident truth:
“Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them” (Acts 18:9–11).Notice that God did not say, "Paul, there is a possibility that some people might get saved if only they use their free will to cooperate with my grace." Nor does God say, "According to my crystal ball, I foresee that there will be people who will be in the right place at the right time and the right disposition who will get saved." Nor does God say, "there are a lot of people in this city, play the numbers game and you are bound to get some saved." Instead, this is about God's purposes and his people. And this is precisely what gave Paul the confidence to stay in that city for a year in a half.
Why is it that most people do not play the lottery? (forgive my carnal analogy for a moment). It's because they have no guarantee that they will win. Suppose people had the guarantee that if they played the lottery every day for a year, they would eventually win the lottery on a given day. Everyone would play the lottery!
It is roughly the same phenomenon with evangelism. Calvinists have the confidence that God's elect are out there, and they know that if they consistently proclaim the gospel, God's people, the elect, will hear his voice and become saved.
Arminians do not have this foundation or confidence since in their theology it is possible that at this point of time until the Lord comes back, there will not be another soul saved, since for them salvation is not decreed, but ultimately dependent on the enslaved human will. Hence, there lack of foundation for evangelizing the lost.
Believer: Where do you want to find your confidence in evangelism? God's sovereign grace, or the enslaved will of Man?
All of you and none of me! Praise God that you have ordained it to be!
We have the Great Commission. You evangelize because Jesus says to do so. And besides that we continually see success. So I don't see the problem. Also, the verse you quoted references Paul not being harmed, not success in evangelism. This could mean all kinds of things that aren't Calvinistic, which I would go into if I weren't hunting and pecking this comment on.my phone.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this affects your main point in this article, but...
ReplyDeleteCalvinists have the confidence that God's elect are out there, and they know that if they consistently proclaim the gospel, God's people, the elect, will hear his voice and become saved.
Or not. No guarantee that the Lord will grant salvation to anyone to whom I preach.
Another excellent verse that teaches Alan's point even more clearly is 2 Timothy 2:10
ReplyDelete"I endure all things for the sake of the elect, in order that they too may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it, eternal glory."
Another is Revelation 5:9 - some from every tribe and nation and language and people have already been purchased/redeemed by the blood of the lamb. redeemed - Aorist tense
Evangelism and missions is the outworking in history of the God's sovereignty; the elect will come to Him.
that is also what 2 Peter 3:9 means more - context of the whole chapter - the reason why Christ has not returned yet is because the elect are still out there among all nations - they are the ones who have not repented yet, but will, when they hear the gospel.
God is patient with you (v. 9) meaning the believers, the church - to do evangelism and missions and live holy so the others of the elect may be won.
consider the patience of our Lord to be salvation. (v. 15) salvation for who? for those who are elect, but have not been won yet, have not heard the gospel yet. They must hear and repent and believe in order to be saved. Romans 10:13-15
I believe this article underscores the nature of true evangelism being "obedience" to the Faith not "obedience" to the results of the "Faith" once delivered to the Saints; the results of obedience to the Faith is victory over the world, our salvation. Having salvation in this life is no guarantee we will be blessed in this life. In fact the Scriptures tends to lend to the idea we will suffer persecution.
ReplyDeleteSome people want an assurance "by an experience" of salvation Christ's blood secured, our eternal redemption in this life experience, not persecution. Salvation has its place in the next life, not this one. In this life we are governed by the law of sowing and reaping.
Faith and what obedience to this Faith secures in this life is trouble in a lot of ways, trouble for God's Elect!
There is no guarantee to God's Elect the Elect will get to live the American Dream in this life if you are fortunate to be born into an American household. One stark reality I have found in a lot of countries I have visited is the desire for the have nots in those countries to have a little and a lot of what the haves have. There is a perception that if I can just emigrate to the United States I will have what I have not now in the land of my nativity!
If the haves in the land of their nativity don't bring parity into the world of the poor (true evangelism) and those struggling to get out of poverty, a mounting crisis ensures as we are witnessing in a lot of places these days in the world as portrayed through the various news mediums, internet, radio, t.v. and print.
Evangelism works in every nation the same results if the one evangelizing is anointed by God. If it did not Jesus would not have said:
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Mat 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
I guess the focus should be on "hastening" the day of the Lord's return and not building our little testimony to the Faith once delivered to the Saints?
2Pe 3:12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
It seems the endgame for the one is not the same as the other?
To the one, it is peace on earth and goodwill towards man resulting in a comfortable life on earth while to the other it is as much and more as Jesus is quoted teaching:
Mat 10:34 "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteBut what does "elect" really mean? We know what Calvinist theology says it means, but you are begging the question by using your definition of that term in that verse as some kind of proof. Everything you reference here works quite well with something like molinism, too, so these are just not the proofs of Calvinism that you seem to think they are. I could give you lots of other verses that suggest the opposite, too, as im sure you know. Verses talking about human free will and how God desires all men be saved, etc. Put together, molinism makes the best sense of all this data, in my opinion.
the elect - chosen from the beginning by God for salvation
ReplyDelete2 Thessalonians 2:13
But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.
Ephesians 1:4-5 - chosen before the foundation of the world
Romans 9:11-23 - chosen before they did anything good or bad - so it does not depend on the man who runs or wills, but on God who has mercy
John 6:35-65
Molinism cannnot stand under the weight of all that Scripture.
Actually, molinism works fine with your examples. Arminians tie themselves in knots trying to.explain away scriptures about the elect while calvinists tie themselves in knots trying to explain away scriptures about free will. Molinists get out of the deal relatively knot free, happily, as molinism fits both sets of scriptural data far better than its alternatives.
ReplyDeleteJesus said, "Truly, Truly, he who commits sin is the slave of sin." John 8:34
ReplyDeleteWe have free will to choose what we want, but our wants are enslaved to sin. We don't have the moral power to choose what we ought, until the Spirit of God changes and frees the will. (Ezekiel 36:26; John 1-10; Acts 16:14)
John 1-10 was meant to be John 3:1-10
DeleteI feel the opposite. I don't know that I've seen an in-context verse that came close to giving credence to Molinism over other positions. At least in my experience, the Arminians and Calvinists usually attempt to turn to the Scriptures first while Molinism is more of a philosophical logic. Don't really feel it works that well anyway, but I would think that it would be a more supported position by theologians if there were verses that obviously seemed to support Molinism.
ReplyDeleteNeither does Acts 18:9-11 say that "God's people, the elect, will hear the gospel and become saved." As you quote, they *are* saved already. Hence, when the term elect is used it never refers to *potential* prechosen people. The "people" are receptive of Paul's teaching *because* they "are" already saved! Your reading of this isolated passage is fundamentally flawed.
ReplyDeleteThree questions: (1) How do *you* know for a certain that you are elect, and therefore able to evangelize? (2) How do you objectively rule out the notion that your faith is not a temporary faith that God has bestowed on you, as Calvin teaches? (3) Can you provide documentation from the writings of Arminius where he teaches "salvation is dependent upon the enslaved human will", or so along those lines?
Failure to provide any source documentation once again shows that Calvinists pick up oppoment's arguments in the same way a dog picks up fleas.
1 John 5:13
ReplyDelete"These things I have written to you who believe in the name in the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life."
The whole book of 1 John tells us the tests of how we know we have eternal life.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteThat continues to beg the question: How do you *know* to a certainty that you are one of the elect for whom the promise of 1 John applies? How do you bridge the epistemic gap between you and those promises?
For all you know you can be a reprobate that's been consigned to eternal torment; perhaps all you have now is a temporary common grace that will feign out at the end! How do you objectively rule this out?
You can quote all relevant promises 'til you're blue in the face, but Calvinists are dilusional if they think they can *know* with the same scriptural certainty that they are the elect for whom the promises apply.
Simple - I believe in the name of the Son of God. It's what 1 John 5:13 says.
ReplyDeleteI didn't ask what you believe, rather I asked how do you bridge the epistemic gap between your belief and the propositional content of promises in 1 John?
ReplyDeleteI suspect you're clueless as to what's being asked.
2 Corinthians 4:6
ReplyDeleteFor God who said, "light shall shine out of darkness" [Genesis 1:3] has also shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ"
Romans 8:16 - "the Spirit testifies within us that we are children of God"
Galatians 4:6
the only answer is that the Holy Spirit convinces our hearts about the promises of the word.
Drat, if only 1 John 5:13 answered BOTH of those questions!
ReplyDeleteOr maybe I posted that verse b/c I knew where you were going and was hoping you'd walk right into the trap laid. Which you did. Thanks!