Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: The Bible and Calvinism

  • Divine Foreknowledge and the Five Points

    Divine Foreknowledge and the Five Points

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 6, 1987.

    About this sermon

    The series closes with the five points summarized once more and a look at the Arminian view of divine foreknowledge associated with Dr. Craig. Real mystery remains in God’s eternal prescience, even while affirming the ‘already and not yet’ character of our heavenly life in Christ.

    More sermons from Ephesians · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Paul writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. Having predestined us for adoption as His children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. He has made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself. That in the fullness of time He might gather all things together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth, in Him. In whom we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His own will, so that we might be to the praise of His glory, who were the first to hope in Christ. After you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom, after you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. This Spirit is the guarantee, the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

    We have come to the seventh and final message in this series entitled The Bible and Calvinism.

    It has been an interesting journey, though not without complexity. We have reviewed the five points, the traditional five points, once again, known to us by the acronym TULIP. The T, total depravity, gives us our doctrine of humanity. The U, unconditional election, gives us our doctrine of God. The L, limited atonement, gives us our doctrine of Christ. The I, irresistible grace, gives us our doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And the P, perseverance of the saints, gives us our doctrine of the Church.

    We have not only reviewed these five points once again, but we have also examined the historical background from which they emerged. We have recalled once more the struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We have come to understand anew the context in which these doctrines were formulated, first upon the foundation laid by Calvin, then further developed by our Dutch ancestors as they sought to uphold the truths of the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, and later reaffirmed by our English and Scottish forebears, who likewise sought to preserve these same truths. As is fitting, our journey has been in the Word and with the Word. In our messages, we have directly quoted from thirty-two books of the Bible to establish our case. In the end, the Bible provides us with an infallible foundation for the convictions we hold dear.

    Given the weight of this evidence, how can anyone stand before the flood of testimony from Scripture concerning God’s absolute freedom and His absolute sovereignty in all things? Yet, the majority of Christendom at this point in history does just that.

    William Lane is an articulate man. He is well spoken and makes no apology for his views. He traces his doctrinal heritage to the seventeenth-century resistance to Calvinism, a movement that has come to be known as Arminianism, named for its founder, Jacob Arminius.

    Dr. Craig has written a book called The Only Wise God. When we have finished reading the book, we are not certain that the God he describes is as wise as he claims. He has written this book, which turns out to be a classic defense of the Arminian doctrine of God’s foreknowledge, based on what Scripture teaches.

    What is the Arminian doctrine of God’s foreknowledge? Simply this: because God knows all things—past, present, and future—he therefore foreknows all things. His foreknowledge takes precedence over every kind of activity in which God is engaged. His foreknowledge precedes even his foreordination, his predestination, and his election. Therefore, God’s decision to act in a certain way, or to save a particular person, is based solely on his foresight.

    In other words, God chooses you because he foresees that you will choose him. God chooses you because he foresees that you will, in time, believe the gospel. The basis of God’s choice of you, then, is your choice of him—the Arminian doctrine of God’s foreknowledge.

    There are serious errors in this position. First, it makes even God’s foresight entirely dependent on human will. You can see this clearly. Second, as has been regularly pointed out, it completely misunderstands the biblical concept of God’s foreknowledge.

    This word in Scripture does not refer to God’s acquisition of information prior to events actually occurring. Instead, it pertains specifically to God’s relationship—his intimate relationship—with his people. It is the biblical sense of knowing that is at work in the word for knowing. This word then pertains specifically to God’s relationship to his people and his love. Read “know” as “love.” That love which was set upon those whom he is calling to himself before time began, from before the foundation of the world.

    That is the sense of it in Romans 8, where it is used, and that idea, though the word is not expressly used in Ephesians 1 and 4, is present there nonetheless. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. But there is yet another and more serious fallacy, and one which is often overlooked by Calvinists themselves. You see, this Arminian doctrine of the foreknowledge of God assumes a single-dimensional, one-dimensional understanding of the person of God. Hang with me. Let me explain this.

    According to Dr. Craig, God is a being who knows and experiences time, as you and I do. Therefore, God, like us, passes from the past into the present, just as we do. Although God, unlike us, knows all things past, present, and future, he, like us, only experiences those things when they have become present. He experiences them at the same time his creatures do. Well, what about this? To be sure, there is that sense in which God limits himself by and for his creation—a creation that is time-bound, in which there is past, present, and future. And we see in Scripture God moving through the events from Genesis to Revelation, as if he was experiencing them at the same time at which those in his creation were experiencing them.

    And that speaks to us of God’s marvelous condescension, that He would limit Himself in that way. But this is only one dimension to our consideration of our great God. And I might say a self-limiting and self-restrained dimension at that. This single dimension, this one-dimensional God, is quite intelligible to us. For He conceived a plan and then He sets about to realize that plan. We as Calvinists hold that He will realize that plan certainly, completely, and infallibly. Still, while it is true that we have before us our God in keeping with this single dimension, a being that we can, in some sense, understand.

    Yet, we, in keeping with our Calvinist conviction, must acknowledge that our God is also incomprehensible to us. When we are faced with Him and His incomprehensibility, He leaves us awestruck and dumbfounded. For our God, in His essence, is not bound by time, by the succession of moments, or hours, or days, or years, or eons. Our God, in a way that is beyond our comprehension, encompasses the entirety of time.

    He not only knows the end from the beginning; He is spoken of in Scripture as being the end, as well as the beginning. He is called the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is, who was, who is to come, seemingly impervious to time. He is the one who reveals Himself to Moses at the burning bush with that great statement of self-definition: “I am that I am.”

    There is no past tense in God. In His essence. And there is no future tense in Him. In His essence. In His transcendence, He simply is not subject to time as we know it. There is, then, a sense in which He stands at the end, at the end, at precisely the same moment He stands at the beginning. And we, standing before such a God as this, are thrown into the company of the simplest child. Is there a profounder question asked than that by the child? “Dad, who made God?”

    Think of it. When your mind attempts to understand this question, it is as if there is a short circuit. It is as if your mental energy is drained. You cannot conceive of a being who had no beginning. You cannot conceive of such a being. But when faced with God, who is the beginning and the end, seemingly transcending time itself, our minds again experience a short circuit, and our mental energy fails us. How can there be such a being? Before Him, we are all overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed. Who is God like our God? Truly, our mental energy is exhausted in contemplating Him. We must confess that our God’s knowledge of the future is not limited to a part of His omniscience.

    That is precisely what the Arminian claims. The Arminian denies that God is present in the future. But you see, when the future arrives, God is already there. And He has been there. This teaching is so wonderful that the comfort it brings is inestimable. For you, all things are as certain as the existence of God. For you, not to reach the end to which God has predestined you, not to attain that goal, not to persevere to the inheritance, would be like God abandoning His own being, His existence. But because He does exist, the future for you is guaranteed. And that is why, you see, you need not worry. Because everything is already secure. He is there. Even in the moments you have not yet experienced. He is already there. And it will be alright.

    Our God therefore remains, yes, a multidimensional being. He is, in one sense, comprehensible to us, yet in another, a mystery and utterly unfathomable. But we, his creatures, are different. There is a sense in which we, like our God, are single, one-dimensional beings. We experience our moments, our days, one by one, as these moments of time give way to further experiences in time. Yet interestingly, strangely, marvelously, the incomprehensible begins to impact us. The incomprehensible even intrudes into our experience so that we are faced with it in an unmistakable way.

    For while it is true that we, along one dimension, a single dimension, are enduring our pilgrimage, enduring the journey that is laid out for us, persevering in it unto the end, as Scripture speaks, there is also, marvelous to say, another dimension that comes and intrudes into our lives. For we, too, know the future.

    The goal of our faith, the objective of our perseverance, is glory. This is our inheritance from God. This is heaven itself, purchased for us through the blood of Christ. And by this, we know our destiny. Yet in the most remarkable way, incomprehensible to us, we, by grace, have been granted not only to know the future, but to experience it now.

    This is the force and the power of Ephesians 1:3 through 14, and this is the vantage point from which the apostle speaks. He speaks of our experiencing the future in two ways. In verse 3, he tells us that we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. This is more than just an awareness of those blessings or an experience of their benefit. Paul is talking about an actual participation in the heavenly places, because of our union with Christ.

    Later, in verses thirteen and fourteen, he speaks about the Holy Spirit, who mediates to us the realities of our destiny and the realities of our inheritance above. The Holy Spirit comes bearing with him the certainty of our inheritance, and the certainty of the peace that belongs to it. Now it is out of the background of this kind of realization and certainty that the greatest articulation and the greatest confession of God’s absolute freedom and his absolute sovereignty arrives.

    For you see, to participate in the future realities of the inheritance, in the future realities of heaven, places you at the end. And it is from the vantage point of the end that you now look back upon all of life, upon your entire existence, and indeed upon the entirety of the history of the world. What you see is testimony to God and his workings, not to your own righteousness, or your own ability, or your own cleverness, or anything else. The conclusion of the matter is the magnification of grace, for in the conclusion, at the end, at the consummation, it becomes abundantly clear to you that you did not have one thing to do with your salvation. It was all of God, every bit of it, and thus, thoroughly and completely, by his grace that you were saved.

    So then. The key. The perseverance of the same. As we thought of it last week, a journey to our destination. But as we consider it this week, the participation in the world, the participation in the end. The objective of our journey is already present, even though our journey is not yet complete.

    So now, what is that hymn that arises from the people of God as they contemplate the magnificence of His workings from all eternity for their sake? All of grace, all of grace, is unmerited love, is undeserved favor. Father, we will not be moved except by Your Spirit, and therefore, Lord, may we be moved indeed in our contemplation of the great incomprehensible God. And may we be moved, Lord, by the testimony You have borne to us of Your inexplicable grace—its wonder, its magnitude—how we are overwhelmed as we think of what has been done for us, and that this has focused in Christ and been applied by Your Spirit. Even now, Lord, as we, in the present, participate in future things in a mysterious and wonderful way, may we be prompted with Your saints in every age to sing the hymn of praise: All of Grace. All of Grace.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Perseverance of the Saints

    The Perseverance of the Saints

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 29, 1987.

    About this sermon

    Three reasons for preaching in a redemptive-historical way come first, before turning to the perseverance of the saints. The church is, collectively, Christ’s own body, so our perseverance finally rests on God’s, not our own.

    More sermons from Romans · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Romans 8, and we will begin in verse 28. You might not be able to keep from saying this as I read it. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. 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. 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.

    What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God he left? It is God that justifies us. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

    Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written. For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    Today, O Lord, as your Son travels across the face of the earth, so also does your Word. And that testimony concerning yourself, what glory is it after all that the heavens declare? Is it not the glory whereby you have redeemed for yourself a people, and that through your outstretched arms? Lord, today that message is heard in every continent, and congregations gather that they may hear the word. Lord, as we have hungered, so may we be satisfied by your word.

    Amen. My habit has been to give to you exegetical messages. of what has been called a redemptive historical type. That is, messages that move through a particular passage, a particular passage in the Bible, while endeavoring always to relate that passage to the broader concerns of God’s program of salvation, historically culminating, as it does, in the person and work of Jesus Christ. My messages have moved through particular passages, while endeavoring always to relate that passage to the broader concerns of God’s program of salvation historically culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ. My hope in this regard has been threefold.

    First, to place before you the Word, the Word of God. As I have said many times, echoing Surely what we hear in scripture itself, your life is found in the word of God. To that end, we neglect the word to our detriment. If I have been the reason for anyone becoming negligent of the word, its private reading or its public hearing. I repent here and now. Be in the Word and don’t miss those opportunities that you have for being in the Word. It is your life.

    Second, my hope has been to convince you of the essential historical basis for your faith. The history of God’s redemptive work is a factual, substantial frame of reference, one into which you have been introduced because of what God has done for you. I cannot emphasize this too much, because I think that our habit of mind is to dismiss history as that subject we put up with, endured, when we were in junior high, high school, or maybe in college. But please understand, the Bible’s approach to this matter You are introduced in Scripture not to a make-believe world, not to an imaginary world, not to a mythological world. You are introduced to a world of realities. And there you are confronted with the drama, the historical drama, of God’s redemptive program as it focuses upon his people, his activities for them being their redemption. The significance of this is that as you read that history, you are not reading a history that is removed from you, distant from you, an abstraction from which you are disassociated, rather you are reading your own history. The story in the scripture is your story, and as such, you are a participant in it and not a spectator.

    That is the significance, I might add, of God’s covenant. My hope has been, by way of the word, to persuade you about grace and its magnitude. I know that it is often the case when we speak about grace that we consider it exclusively as God’s gift and in light of our own unworthiness, we being sinners. I do not mean any disrespect, but my effort with regard to preaching, as it focuses on grace, is to bring you even beyond that description of it. My effort has been directed towards the objective which says, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, and therefore we have been positioned by grace in this drama of redemption in such a way that that drama’s fullness and its finality have already been played out upon the stage of the world for our eternal benefit. Thus, even in our present circumstance, we enjoy, through this grace, our God’s eternal beneficence. It has been in the interests of expounding this grace This grace which is ours through our God, because of Jesus Christ, that I have embarked on this current series of messages for Bible and Calvinism.

    The style and the approach of these messages have been different. These messages could be called topical in style. and analytical in approach. Rather than ordered around a particular text, they have developed a theme. And being analytical, they are more logical in their development instead of dramatic, or historical, or even existential in the best sense of that word. Oftentimes, these kinds of messages, the topical, are easier not only to construct, but to understand. They are useful, therefore, in that they not only set before us a compact presentation of a doctrinal interest, they are also able to supply us a breather if there has been a heavy diet of messages of the redemptive historical time.

    Now, as you know, I am thoroughly committed to the first type of preaching, the type I described first of all. But my experience has taught me that the second type often comes as a welcomed refreshment to both people and preacher. This has been something of a hiatus. But if you are longing to get back to those exegetical messages of the redemptive historical type. My destination will be after the Christmas season, the pastoral pitfalls and a little unfinished business.

    We will be taking up Second Timothy and also type. In following our exposition of those books, we will resume our messages on Matthew six and seven with an eye towards completing our messages on the Sermon on the Mount. For the present, we have this topical series on the five points of Calvinism to complete, and we have arrived at the fifth and last point, namely, the perseverance of the saints. This particular subject we will consider in two parts, the first part this morning and the second next week. Specifically this morning, we will look at perseverance in terms of the journey of the people of God and God’s promises concerning our success in that journey. And next week, we will look at perseverance in terms of our destination, where we are headed, and God’s bountiful blessing to us from and in glory.

    Perseverance of the Saints. That journey under God’s sovereignty, in which we are sustained by the promises of God, and that infallibly. Perseverance of the Saints. That journey under God’s sovereignty, in which we are sustained by God’s promises, and that infallibly.

    Here we may need something of a different orientation that is usually given to this point in Calvinistic doctrine. For as I have suggested to you as we have gone through the five points, each one of the points is a corollary to a doctrine which Calvinists hold dear. Specifically, I have related this last point to our doctrine of the Church. And it is well to remind ourselves of this fact.

    For too often, as we move through the five points, it is so easy for us to become exclusively oriented to the individual and the individual’s place in the economy of salvation. Now, I don’t mean to gainsay the comfort that is gained by root of that individual concentration. Me, in my predicaments, speaking to me about the kinds of security that are extended to me through these wonderful doctrines of the Scripture. Me then delighting in those securities and delighting in them to the full.

    But our habit of mind too often is to leave things at that level, as if the concern of those early Calvinists or the concerns of Scripture itself were exclusively individualistic. We take stock, for instance, of the first point of Calvinism, total depravity. It is the individual, we say, and we say again, and specifically me, that is totally depraved. The individual, we go on, is the object of God’s unconditional election, and with our thoughts concerning our own individual unconditional election, there we stop.

    As far as the benefits of Christ’s atoning death, we tend to think of those benefits exclusively in individualistic terms. are the recipient of the Holy Spirit’s irresistible work upon us in grace. But by the time we get to the fifth point, we have pushed upon us in an unmistakable way an explicit reference to the collectivity of the people of God.

    It’s the perseverance of the saints, you see. It might be well for me to say a word about the saints. Individualism has even prevailed there in a rather unfortunate way in that the Roman Catholic Church has made the saint truly an individual exclusive in his or hers identification, to the point of removing those Saints from the general company of the people of God. So here it is, the perseverance of the Saints, a point at which we cannot avoid our doctrine of the Church. the company of the reading.

    That assembly which is the Lord. Now you might think that. Present day Calvinists. Would do well at this point. That they would not fail to point out to us. The corporate character of God’s workings with regard to his plan. Nevertheless, I consulted three classic texts this last week.

    Systematic theologies written by tried-and-true Calvinists, and treatments of the five points of Calvinism by other tried-and-true Calvinists. In those three classic texts, with regard to this specific point, the perseverance of The Church wasn’t even as much as mentioned. To give you an idea of how far we have strayed from our Reformation moorings, all I need do is encourage you to read the final book in Calvin’s Institutes.

    The Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints according to Calvin is a sub-point of the Doctrine of the Church. The larger issue is the perseverance of the Church, Christ’s body. The Church of Jesus Christ shall, in fact, endure through every trial, persevere through every ordeal, overcome every failing every stumbling every fall every descent into sin even and in the end, according to the Word of God, enter glory purified and without blemish.

    And you have God’s Word on it. I remind you of those Old Testament passages where the church is seen within the figure of the nation of Israel, and within the picture of that remnant which God is preserving for himself. Statements like that spoken in the midst of Israel’s declension during the days of Samuel, for instance. For the Lord will not forsake his people. What are those messages of Isaiah? Again, a prophet writing in times of severe declension amongst the people of God.

    Can a woman, he writes, forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, that woman may forget, yet I will not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hand. And again, for the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee.

    Isaiah 54. And in the New Testament, what further passage do we need? Amazing to me! was the absence of citation with regard to this passage in the treatment of this particular point of Calvinism. In the volumes I reviewed this past week, Matthew 16 verse 18.

    Upon this rock I will build my church And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It’s appropriate that we read this morning from Psalm 107. For in that psalm, there is mention made of the gates of death. And that’s what is in the mind of Jesus when he makes mention here of the gates of hell. What is in view is the strongest thing beneath God. In all the world, there is nothing stronger than death, the last enemy.

    Yet, even the gates or the counsels of death will not prevail against the Church. Yes, the Church shall persevere in her journey to glory. As Calvin said, perseverance becomes hypothetical or exceptional, apart from the church. The Westminster Confession of Faith says, apart from the church, there is ordinarily no possibility of salvation. It is in this context, then, that we take up those classic texts concerning the Lord’s care for us all, for His own, and for us individually. as part of the church, as members of the body, receiving these promises and abiding in them. Think of those statements that we have rehearsed time and time again from John’s gospel.

    Whosoever believeth shall not come into condemnation. I give my sheep eternal life, says Jesus. He that believeth in me hath eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day. They shall never perish,” he said. From Paul we have those glorious statements. There is now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. Our life, he writes, is his with Christ in God. He that has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. It is God who worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

    We have been chosen unto salvation. God hath chosen us from the beginning to salvation through sanctification and belief of the truth. All of this, quotations out of the epistles of Paul. And what further evidence could we gather from the letter to the Hebrews, or Peter, or John’s letter, or Jude, or the book of Revelation? But know that I suggest gives us more comfort, more encouragement, more of that spirit of certainty before our God than that one which we read today. It is with you as it is with me. Oftentimes you have found, have you not, found yourself pulling that passage out and reading again and again. And by the time you’re done, you’re in the ceiling. You’re no longer on the ground.

    We could have a period of testimony here this morning, and each one of you, I dare say, could get up and tell of an instance in your own life when that passage specifically spoke to you. It speaks to you, as I have suggested, from within the context of our considerations about the doctrine of the church, God’s promises to his people, Christ’s love of his bride, and the fact that they will not be denied. But in not denying you, in not being denied themselves, rather, they will not deny you. of every good thing. This passage then inspires comforts.

    The saints, those individuals whose journey, though distressing, ends at that place to which the Church shall be infallibly brought in the end. the saints persevere to the end. Now one last word is appropriate for you, and as we have gone through these passages, as you thought a little bit about the doctrine this morning, maybe you have already leaped to this conclusion. Why in the end It seems as if it isn’t the same who are persevering. But rather it is God who is persevering with his things and for his thing and therefore the perseverance doesn’t depend upon us as much as it depends upon him and our perseverance is only the reflection of his perseverance with us and for us.

    So even more so. Don’t despair. Don’t despair in your life. Please. Remember your father’s care and his love and his mercy. He’s not forgetting. And he will never forsake you. Never. Father, refresh us in our knowledge of you. Teach us again about your Church and how dear to you she is. And that we, as members of the Church, are promised that as she endures, we too shall endure. and we have your word on that. Comfort us, then, Lord, when things look desperate or even when sin overtakes us and compromises us. May our confidence be not our righteousness, not our merit, but our God who perseveres with and for us. We glorify you through Christ.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Irresistible Grace and the Holy Spirit

    Irresistible Grace and the Holy Spirit

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 22, 1987.

    About this sermon

    Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones becomes the text for weighing the modern Pentecostal understanding of the Holy Spirit against the teaching of Kuyper, Vos, and Gaffin. Irresistible grace is the Spirit’s work of uniting us to Christ, not mere religious excitement.

    More sermons from Ezekiel · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Ezekiel 37, and some of you know what is coming. We are beginning from the first verse. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He carried me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of a valley that was full of bones. He caused me to pass by them all around. There were very many bones in the open valley, and indeed, they were very dry.

    He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, You know.” Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’” Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews upon you, bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you. You shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

    So I prophesied as I was commanded. As I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking. The bones came together, bone to bone. When I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them on the outside. But there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are cut off for good.’”

    Therefore, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, all my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land. Then shall ye know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. Then from John chapter six, verse sixty-three, it is the spirit that giveth life. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.

    With me briefly. Our Father, your servants called of you speak with that word which is given them by you, and Lord oversee their consciences that they would not speak except in keeping with your word. May their voice then be but a witness to the word, which, in company with the Spirit, brings life to those who are dead. Father, may we, quickened by you, live continually by the power of your Spirit, consciously seeing our lives as those that are beneath your gaze, preserved by you. For Christ’s sake.

    There was a young man who attended my father-in-law’s church for a couple of months. After that time in that congregation, the young man approached my father-in-law with his question. He was what you might call a spirit-filled Christian. During his months under my father-in-law’s preaching, he had concluded that there was no experience for teaching about the Spirit in his church. My father-in-law was not hesitant, and I think that those of you who know him realize that he is not one to hesitate.

    Responded by calling the young man’s attention to the classic statement concerning the work of the Holy Spirit that appears in the confession and in the catechisms of this church. You want to talk about the work of the Spirit? The work of the Spirit undergirds everything that I say. For, you see, we cannot speak about the application of redemption and salvation without speaking about the Holy Spirit. How are we going to speak about the effectual call? My father-in-law went on. How are we going to speak about justification or adoption or sanctification? Turning to the apostles, he began to expound on the last paragraph of that section, which concerns our belief in the Holy Ghost. But not only that—recognizing as well that this section goes on to relate the Holy Catholic Church to the Holy God, to the Holy Ghost, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. The Holy Spirit, he concluded, is utterly indispensable to the message of this church. And if you have not understood that, then you haven’t really been listening.

    Our time has been described as a period of crisis with regard to the third person of the Trinity, a crisis surrounding the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The trauma arises from the latter part of the last century and continues into our own. It has taken two forms. One is seen in the reaction of modernism toward the traditions of the church and the traditional confession with regard to the Spirit and his operation. The other is seen in the rise of the holiness movements and the Pentecostal movements, which we know well. The trauma overtook the Reformed church at the turn of the century, when an alliance formed between those who might be called somewhat Pentecostal and those who were fully modern.

    They wanted to bring about change in the creed. They looked at the Westminster Confession of Faith and decided that, since the confession did not have a special chapter on the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit had somehow been neglected. They believed a new chapter should be added to speak specifically about the Holy Spirit. But the issue at stake in that debate was not whether the Holy Spirit had received adequate attention in the confession. Rather, the question was, when all the arguments were set aside, whether the attention the Spirit had received expressed the views of those now dissenting. The confession’s position regarding the Spirit focused on the Spirit’s work in applying redemption.

    You may recall in your confession and in your catechism that those sections are strongly Calvinist—uncompromisingly Calvinist. It was this Calvinism to which those who were objecting were, in fact, objecting through their questions and arguments about the Holy Spirit.

    Now, this is not to say that the Holy Spirit is not worthy of our special attention and our special study. Nor is it to say that there may not have been some neglect by theologians in the Reformed tradition during that period. Yet, from that period came some remarkable contributions to the Reformed church’s understanding of the Spirit and His work. I have in mind two Dutchmen: one named Abraham Piper, and the other named Herman Hoeksema. Hoeksema was a statesman, a politician, and an educator.

    He was also an editor of a newspaper, and he wrote a devotional for that newspaper, week by week. When he had completed a series on the Holy Spirit in those devotional sections, the collection would comprise over six hundred pages in a volume now entitled The Work of the Holy Spirit. Kuyper’s interest in those essays and devotionals was this: that the Holy Spirit is deeply involved in, and interested in, our daily lives, and we must be conscious of His operations day by day. His presentations of this theme were very popular, quite direct, easily understood, and easily digested.

    The other Dutchman was Gerhardus Vos, a transplanted Dutchman who lived in this country. His approach to the Holy Spirit was much more theological, certainly from the perspective of a professional theologian. But no less intense. Vos’s understanding of the Holy Spirit pushes the Reformed church in a direction that, formally, you have been unwilling to go.

    For thus realize that the Holy Spirit is actually the one who mediates to us the realities of our hope. It is the Holy Spirit who is specifically called the down payment of our inheritance, the earnest of that which is promised to us. The Spirit comes from another world and is given to us as a gift, and His presence means to us the mediation of the realities of the world to come.

    And though a little more difficult to grasp, no less practical, no less compelling, no less meaningful, for the Christian in the Christian daily walk. The direction that was struck by these two Dutchmen has been enhanced by a theologian of our own time, and one who has stood in this pulpit and preached to this church, Richard Gaffin. He has carried on that work with regard to our vision of and appreciation of the Spirit in terms of the certain availability of the Holy Spirit to the Church. There is no question about that. Dr. Gaffin has pressed that upon all who will listen.

    The Spirit was given to the church at Pentecost. Therefore, the issue is not the arrival of the Spirit. Rather, the issue is our experience of being filled with the Spirit. The issue is not our access to the Spirit, but our being filled with the Spirit. This concerns the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. Even if it is true that in Reformed circles there was a certain neglect due to God’s providence, there have been men raised up to help us and encourage us in our doctrine of the Spirit, in our thinking about Him, and in our experience of Him.

    Regarding my own ministry in relation to the person of the Holy Spirit, it could be said—and said well—that my ministry is characterized by a concentration upon Jesus Christ. I would expect each of you to say the same if you were to describe my ministry or my preaching along certain lines.

    Indeed, the concentration has been upon Jesus Christ, the Son. It has been upon His person and work, and upon the grace that is ours through Him. A model for this pulpit could well be Colossians 3:11: “Christ is all in all.” At the same time, the ministry of this pulpit could be characterized by devotion to and passion for God the Father, in keeping with the goal stated in 1 Corinthians 15, where it is said that the Son delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, and in verse 28, “God is all in all.” Or, somewhat more subtly, the ministry of this pulpit could be characterized in terms of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit standing central in our law. As we reflect upon the message of the New Testament regarding the Spirit, and as that Spirit is contrasted negatively.

    Settle her again. For instance, the flesh and the spirit are in antithesis, representing two dominions. The spirit is the principle of operation and life in one, while the flesh is the principle of operation and spirit in the other. These dominions are in conflict—one under judgment, the other adorned with glory.

    Truly, as Paul says, the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. But this pulpit could also be described as relating to the Holy Spirit in a covenant. This covenant seeks to help you appreciate the sentiments of the apostle Paul in Second Corinthians, chapter three, verses.

    Not the letter, for the letter kills. Rather, the ministry of the Spirit stands opposite the ministry of the letter. The letter brings us into bondage and leaves us under the sentence of condemnation. The Holy Spirit is central to the ministry, just as the flesh is contrasted with the spirit, and the letter is contrasted with the spirit. Yet this contrast is not only negative. The Holy Spirit is also central to the pulpit and ministry of this church and to your lives, because the spirit is identified by the apostle Paul as the fountain of liberty. Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty; there is freedom.

    One need only think of the Spirit as the principle of the age to come. Consider the age to come, its vast expanse. There you have room to move. True liberty abounds in the glory of the world and the age to come, and it is the Spirit who now mediates to you the realities of that world. You are set free, so that you might live beyond the oppression of sin, beyond the oppression of the law, beyond their tyranny, in the realm of liberty and freedom.

    That the Spirit, as we have seen this morning and as we have read, is also the fountain of life. Over against this, the Spirit is specifically identified as the giver of life. It is often said that the Spirit is like the one described in Second Corinthians three. The Spirit is like righteousness, as stated in Romans eight. One of the passages we have read this morning is from John’s Gospel, chapter six, verse sixty-three.

    Once more, these words are on the lips of Jesus. The Spirit is what gives life. Now it is at this final point—when the Spirit is recognized as the fountain of life—that He becomes the focus.

    For us, in our consideration of our Calvinistic confession, we are at the fourth of the five points of Calvinism: our doctrine of the Holy Spirit, primarily considered under the doctrine of irresistible grace. Why did the Calvinists insist upon this point? Because they were convinced of the biblical foundation, as it relates to the fact that our Scriptures tell us that the Spirit is the giver of life, the fountain of life, and life itself. This testimony is found throughout Scripture, and it is nowhere more evident than in the Gospel of John.

    The Gospel of John, in its first twelve chapters, could well be called the book of signs. As your mind reflects on these chapters, you recall the mighty works that Jesus performed. He turned water into wine in John two. He healed the son of an official in John four. He healed a man who had been lame for thirty-eight years in John five. He multiplied the loaves and fishes in John six. He healed the man who was born blind in John nine. And in John eleven, He raised Lazarus from the dead.

    All of these signs, but signs of what? Signs that life is flowing through Christ. Signs of that life that is running through Him by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is one. And thus, as we move through these signs, it is as if we are going through a progression. I often think of those chapters in John’s Gospel as a sequence of events, similar to a competition where the difficulty increases with each step. You begin with water turned to wine, and you end with the raising of a man who has been dead for four days.

    The theme, then, is the progressive revelation that life is attached to Christ, and He supplies that life through the Spirit. But as we come to this conclusion, we easily look back through all the other chapters and realize that this has been the message of John all along. We think of that passage in the message where it says, “My life is found nowhere else, and it is found specifically in the Spirit.” This is the same message Jesus gives to Nicodemus in John 3. The sovereign activity of the Spirit is what is emphasized: it is the Spirit.

    That is why, unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. The Spirit blows where He wills. You cannot tell where the wind comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. In John chapter one, it speaks about those who are sons of God: they are born not of human will or the will of the flesh, but of God. God gives them birth.

    Here is the culmination of all the Old Testament expectations regarding the appearance of the Spirit, the Spirit of promise. In Joel chapter two, the prophet says, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” Zachariah says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord. What can be said or added to what we have read in Ezekiel chapter thirty-seven? That remarkable story of the dry bones, except for the Spirit, represented in this chapter by the breath or the wind called for by the prophet, the bones do not live.

    The testimony of Scripture is overwhelmingly clear: we are dead unless the Spirit gives us life. And if the Spirit gives us life, then truly we are alive. Who can resist His power? Yes, the doctrine of the Spirit, known as irresistible grace, may be neglected by those who have been preaching the gospel and preaching it truly. I do not think the message has been absent. Yes, we are made alive by the Spirit. We are not dead in our sins.

    Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for the word concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Though it may be true, our Father, that Your Church has not reflected as much upon the Spirit and His work as she ought, yet there has been a constant line of testimony, a voice that is heard repeatedly concerning the ministry of the Spirit in the lives of the saints. O Lord, we pray that Your grace may abound to us, Your children, as we reflect upon the Spirit and His call. For surely by His call we have been brought near to You, and now by His power we remain near to You.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Limited Atonement

    Limited Atonement

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 8, 1987.

    About this sermon

    A brief history of Calvinism shows that believers learn it like a language, over time. Limited atonement follows, with the Calvinistic and Arminian positions side by side.

    More sermons from John · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. This parable Jesus spake unto them, but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.

    I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

    I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and know of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep have I, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

    Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of my Father?

    Our Father, throughout the world, in this day, your people are gathered in various locations. They are congregated beneath your rule and authority, manifest in Christ, whose body the Church is. Father, your word comes to your own to refresh your own and to strengthen them. And Father, we, claiming to be your own, would receive the word as it is received in many places this day. May we receive it, Lord, with love. May we lay it up in our hearts, cherish it, and practice it in our lives. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    We are living in a time when Calvinism is not widely popular. Not that this should concern us greatly. Not that it should concern us much, whether or not the truth is popular. Nevertheless, I believe this is a fair assessment of our situation. We are living in a time when Calvinism is not widely popular.

    We can, however, find comfort in the knowledge that Calvinism has expressed itself with unique zeal and wide effect at various times throughout the history of the Church. This reflection upon it can be a great source of joy to us. We recognize, for instance, that even in a very early and undeveloped form, the influence of Augustine lies at the foundation of Catholicism. We can say that Augustine was a Calvinist before his time, and his influence was remarkable, though within a generation of his death many of his teachings had been compromised. Still, the flame that he ignited burned brightly. And interestingly, the essential doctrine of Calvinism—regarding God’s work of salvation—burst once more upon the world through a sixteenth-century Augustinian monk named Martin Luther.

    It was, of course, more fully developed in Calvin through Calvin himself, and from him it thrived in Switzerland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Germany, in France, in England, in Scotland, in the American colonies, in the Far East, and in Africa. James Proud, a great teacher of Church history at Oxford, said of Calvinism, “This was the religion of your fathers, which overthrew spiritual wickedness and hurled kings from their thrones, and purged England and Scotland for a time at least of lies and charlatanry. Calvinism is the spirit which rises in revolt against untruth, the spirit which has appeared and reappeared, and in due time will appear again, unless God be a delusion and man be as the beasts that perish.” This Calvinism of which Froude speaks is nevertheless a learned language.

    In other words, this Calvinism is not our native tongue, for our native tongue is consistently natural, while Calvinism is consistently supernatural, and as such it must be rehearsed by us constantly in order that we may keep it fresh and active in our thoughts and actions.

    And like any learned language, if you do not use it, you lose it. I have thought of sending that line to Robert Shuler. Like any learned language, if you do not use it, you lose it. Here, if I may say, is a compelling argument for your use of the Confession. Just reading it. Here is a compelling argument for your use of the catechisms of the Church. Yes, you are reading them, but also you are committing the catechism to memory.

    Our forefathers realized that what they were seeking to help people understand was, after all, a learned language, and therefore that language had to be practiced. It had to be rehearsed, it had to be reviewed again and again, so that it might be firmly established in the mind and also become the expression of the heart. Not merely memorization or repetition for the sake of memorization and repetition, but so that we might be familiar with the central doctrines of our faith and with the truths we hold dear.

    If you need encouragement to begin, if you need a strong motivation to take up the confession once more and read it, please consider these words as that motivation and that encouragement. If you do not have a confession of your own, and I hope you do, obtain one. If you cannot find one elsewhere, simply use the hymnal. At the back of the hymnal, you will find the confession in full. If you need a catechism, ask for one.

    We will supply you. But also in terms of rehearsing our Calvinistic heritage and our doctrine. It is no mystery to me that Calvinists have not only been those who have insisted on memorization and rehearsal of the doctrines of the faith, but they have also been those who have insisted on literacy. They have insisted on literacy because they want people to read not only the Catechisms and the Confession, not only the Catechisms, Confession, and the Bible, but also to read good Calvinistic literature and to be familiar with it. It is not surprising to me that the lion’s share of strong, weighty, and substantial theological works are regularly read by Calvinists. Nor is it strange that Calvinists have been behind the recent movement to revive the practice of reading Christian literature. The major publishing and distribution companies in this country today all have their roots in Calvinism. Since Calvinism is a learned tradition, and since we do well to be familiar with Calvinistic literature, do not overlook the opportunity to engage with it. This is a way to regularly involve yourself with the great statements of Reformed and Calvinistic thought through the centuries.

    All of these, then, which we have discussed, are wonderful opportunities to rehearse what we are striving to master, so that increasingly it is no longer a learned language, but one that is spoken easily and naturally, and that comes readily from our tongues at all times.

    I dare say that those periods of greatest strength for the Church of Christ have been those in which the church has been forced, for whatever reason, to concentrate upon that learned language— the language that is consistently supernatural in its character and in its intent. Those times when the Church has been compelled, both corporately and individually, to pursue mastery of that language of the supernatural. And I dare say that for you in your personal life, as if your personal history were like the history of the church herself, those times of greatest zeal, greatest happiness, and greatest productivity have been those in which this supernatural language— in which all glory and praise are given to God— has had its way with your heart.

    So while it may be a day in which Calvinism, according to the press notices, is not thriving, still it is a day in which we can be active by ensuring that our beloved, though learned language, is increasingly becoming the language we know best, the language we speak from our hearts. You may be saying, “But isn’t Calvinism just another way in which man has endeavored to avoid the language of the Bible? Better to spend my time in the Scriptures than in the catechisms and confessions. Better to spend my time in the Scriptures than in Calvinistic literature.” I agree. Far better. But don’t you see?

    Your Calvinism has sought, in what I consider the best way, to come to grips with the language of Scripture itself. I say this because, above all other expressions of Christian faith, Calvinism has carefully considered what we have come to call the whole counsel of God. That is, the full range of the biblical record, including those doctrines of God’s eternal predestination and election that are often considered unpopular. But equally, if not more importantly, Calvinism has focused on the clear teaching of the Bible about the end times, its doctrine of our promised and eventual destination.

    For we are those who are destined—indeed, predestined—to see the glory of God. To paraphrase the great Calvinist from the turn of the century, B. B. Warfield, the Calvinist is one who has stood in the presence of the glory of God. There will come a day when we shall surely stand before God in all of His glory. And in that day it will be more clearly evident than it is now that from beginning to end, our standing before God is the result of His direct and sovereign oversight of our lives. He predestinated us, chose us, and worked for us and in us to bring us to Himself, so that before Him we may confess that all things are from Him, through Him, and to Him, forever and ever. Amen. Because of our commitment to this biblical perspective—both in terms of the whole counsel of God and in terms of our ultimate end, where we will stand before His presence and before His glory.

    It is because of our commitment to these things that we have insisted upon teaching the so-called hard doctrine of total depravity. Our doctrine of man is not very flattering to man, but it is biblical, true, and absolutely essential to the Bible’s gospel of sovereign grace. Man is affected in all of his parts by sin and corruption, so that he cannot, of himself, be commended before a holy God. Unconditional election, our doctrine of God, again not very flattering to man, but biblical and absolutely essential to the Bible’s gospel of sovereign grace. The cause of God’s election does not reside in us. It is not conditioned by anything in us, or upon anything in us. Rather, its basis is found in God, and in God alone. He is the source, and to him be all praise.

    Limited atonement, our doctrine of Christ, again not very flattering to man, but biblical and absolutely essential to the Bible’s gospel of sovereign grace. This is the point to which we have come in our consideration of the five points of Calvinism. We have come to the doctrine of limited atonement.

    This doctrine teaches us that Christ, in his death, shed his blood and gave his life as a saving sacrifice for the elect, for the chosen of God. In other words, Christ died for his sheep. Not for everyone. He died for his sheep, and that is why I have read for you the first eighteen verses of John chapter ten, so that it might be impressed upon you that it is not Calvin saying these things, nor is it Augustine, nor any recent-day Calvinist. It is Jesus Christ who is saying these things.

    Now, it is not as if we must wait for the fourth gospel to hear this. All we need do is open to the first gospel and read in its first chapter. That remarkable statement by the angel to Joseph—“You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins”—reveals the divine purpose. It is impossible to move beyond Genesis 1 and not acknowledge the absolute sovereignty of God. Who instructed God in how to create Adam? Why those specific chromosomes? Do you see it? This is the work of God’s absolute sovereignty.

    I am utterly amazed that people who call themselves New Testament Christians can read beyond chapter 1 in Matthew and still not be convinced that the design behind God’s saving activity was that Christ should come and offer himself as a sacrifice for his people.

    How rich John’s gospel is with this teaching. How fully it is filled. I do not know about you, but you might wish to immerse yourself, as I do, in John chapter six. The remarkable events of that chapter, as well as the profound words spoken by Christ himself.

    In verse 37 of that chapter, he says: “All that the Father gives me will come to me. Not only is this a matter of sovereignty in the call, but it also affirms that those who come do so because of the sovereign choice of the Father. For them and for them alone has Christ come. For them and for them alone will he die.” Nothing seems clearer to me than this truth as we read through John chapter 10.

    “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me. They hear my voice, and they follow me.” And what can we say about Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17? Again, it is unmistakable. The purpose of Christ’s coming, as expressed in his prayer, is for his elect, just as it is in his death. His prayer is but an extension of his priestly work. The other part of that priestly work is his death. And what can we say of Ephesians 1?

    Over and over again, throughout the entire New Testament, this reality confronts us. It is stated, restated, expressed explicitly and implicitly, assumed, yet remains undeniable. Now, admittedly, the doctrine of limited atonement has been misunderstood. The Calvinist is saying to us, and we as Calvinists are saying, that the atonement is limited in its application. It is specifically directed to the elect. But while we say this, there is also a sense in which we affirm that the atonement is not limited at all. For it is not limited in its effect, nor in its power.

    Christ’s death is a sacrifice of unlimited power and strength, in that it fully addresses the sinner’s condition. Therefore, Christ’s death fully satisfies God’s demand for justice and righteousness concerning sinners—those who are called, those for whom Christ has come. It is because the Calvinist affirms that the atonement is limited in application but unlimited in effect and power that he is able to say that Christ’s death is effective. On the other hand, those who oppose Calvinism or deny it—especially those known as Arminians—hold a position that reverses the true situation. They claim that the atonement is unlimited in application, meaning that Christ died for everyone without exception. It is unlimited in application.

    They go on to say that Christ died for everyone, but that the atonement is limited in its effect and power. For if Christ died for all, yet not all are saved, then His death was not effective for all. This is why the classical Arminian has been forced to admit that although Christ died for all, as they say, His death cannot save anyone.

    All that it can do is provide an opportunity for salvation. The best that the Arminian can say is that Christ’s death provides an opportunity for the salvation of everyone, a salvation that belongs to those who recognize the opportunity through their own effort and according to their own judgment. It is no longer grace, do you see? It is no longer grace. Christ’s death is not complete. It is incomplete. And in the end, it proves to be so powerless as to be of no value to you at all. Why believe in Christ in this way?

    I think that Lorraine Vettner, a prominent advocate of Calvinism in this century, has one of the most fitting illustrations regarding the distinction between the Calvinist position on the Atonement and the Arminian position. Think of two bridges. Think of the bridge to nowhere in Pittsburgh. According to the Arminian, there is an incredible bridge that can accommodate everyone, but it only takes you out into the middle of the river and then stops. It is now your responsibility to find a way to continue. If you can, may God bless your cleverness and your ingenuity. The Calvinist says there is a narrower bridge.

    It is not narrow in width; it is wide enough. In fact, its dimensions are perfect. This bridge goes all the way across the river. Christ did it all. His sacrifice was complete, and though limited in application, it is unlimited in power and effect. So that if you are in Christ and claim it as your own, be assured that you are on the bridge that takes you clear across the river. What a Christ. What a God. What a gospel. There is no other gospel than this. Believe it.

    Let’s pray. O Lord, though we are brought up short by our doctrines and humbled again and again by them, still we would rehearse them. Though they be a learned language, Father, by our rehearsing we pray that this language would increasingly become the language of our hearts. Father, we ask that we might bow before You, and that through Christ, who in His death provided the full and complete atonement, we may be brought over the bridge of that atonement. In the end, we may stand before You and Your glory with exceedingly great joy. These things we pray, and we ask for the strengthening of our souls and the souls of others like us who believe these precious things. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Meaning of Unconditional Election

    The Meaning of Unconditional Election

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 1, 1987.

    About this sermon

    Arminian doctrine took shape through a specific history, and the five points of Calvinism make clear what ‘unconditional’ election means. Election and regeneration produce good works and even faith itself, and never the reverse.

    More sermons from Ephesians · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Ephesians chapter two verses one through ten. And you have been made alive. who were dead in trespasses and then. Well, even in time past, he walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now workers in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the last of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were, by nature, the children of wrath, even as others.

    But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace, we are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

    For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.”

    Oh God, you send forth your word, and the rich harvest, it comes forth. And it comes forth for your sake, as your church takes shape. Lord, your servants, all of us, bow before you. we who have become the beneficiaries of your word. And Lord, we acknowledge that we are part of the harvest. And Lord, how we rejoice in the harvest that is gathered by you. Your servants throughout the world, they preach today, the harvest shall be gathered and you are glorified. Amen.

    In 1609, Jacob Arminius, a Dutch theologian In the following year, 1610, his followers issued their five articles of faith. These five articles were presented to the state of Holland and its church. in the form of a protest called the Remonstrance. At this time, the Dutch churches held to the Belgic Confession of Faith of 1561 and the rightly famous Heidelberg Catechism of 1563. The Dutch churches held to these documents as the official expression of their doctrinal position.

    Both confession and catechism were thoroughly Calvinist. The followers of Arminius, later known as Arminian, were lodging five complaints against the classic statement. Concerning the faith. Taking exception to their teachings about divine sovereignty, human depravity and the consequences of those doctrines.

    Essentially They were overturing the Church of Holland, desirous of obtaining a revision of the standards in keeping with the statements of their five points. In 1618, eight years after The lodging of this protest, the National Synod of the Dutch Reformed Churches, convened in the city of Dort. And by May of the following year, that synod had completed its work on what now are called the Canons of Dort. five chapters written especially to refute the five articles of Arminian faith. Now these chapters are expansive, but they have been distilled and popularized in the so-called five points of Calvinism. and have come down to us in the popular form of the acronym PHILIP, in which each letter in that word signifies a cardinal doctrine held by the Calvinist or the Reformed faith. supplies us with our doctrine of man, that man is totally the prey.

    The you is our doctrine of God. God is absolutely sovereign in his salvation of sinners, and his election is unconditional, thus the you, for unconditional election. The L is our doctrine of Christ. Not one drop of Christ’s blood is wasted upon the cross, for his atoning death is directed specifically towards and limited to the elect. The R is our doctrine of the Holy Spirit. He applies God’s grace, the efficaciousness of Christ’s death, irresistibly upon the elect. The I, therefore, coming from that word, irresistible. The P, preservation of the saints, our doctrine of the Church, namely God’s those for whom Christ has died, they alone shall persevere until the end.”

    Thus far we have considered the key our doctrine of man, total depravity, and by that we have reminded ourselves that when we speak of the total depravity of man, we are not saying that man is as sinful or as wicked as he can be, but that man in all of his faculties is affected by sin and he is thus corrupted in such a way that he cannot commend himself before God. on the basis of his own righteousness or his own marriage. We have also considered, in part, the you for unconditional election. We considered the you, first of all, in the broadest manner. as it pertains to God’s sovereign election and the reality that on every page of the Scriptures from beginning to end, that doctrine is manifest and clear. God’s sovereign election has been defined as that profound mystery in God’s eternal decree, expressing his perfect freedom in choosing, calling, saving whomever he will. This morning, we continue our reflection upon the you by concentrating on the unconditional of that election from God.

    What does it mean to say election is unconditioned? Well, it means that God’s choice of you, his choice of me, his choice of his people is not conditioned by anything in us, and that the reason for that choice is found in and rests solely with him. What does it mean to speak of election as unconditional? It means that God’s choice of you, of me, of His people, is not conditioned by anything in us, but the reason for His choice is found in and rests solely with Him.

    You walk out of the door this morning on your way to church. possibly feeling particularly fine because you were on your way to Grace Church, that bastion of Calvinistic orthodoxy. You looked across the street and you noticed your neighbor, and for a moment, however brief, you felt that twinge of superiority, since not only was he not a Calvinist, he doesn’t even go to church, and you have no indication of his spiritual vitality whatsoever. In fact, you thought to yourself, again, momentarily, however fleetingly, that you have some very attractive features inherently distinguishing you from your neighbor. Ones which made you an obvious choice by God over him. But such thoughts are a direct contradiction of the Calvinism you hold. The reasons are not found in you. You do not create the conditions for your election in any sense. That decision rests in and with God solely.

    Ephesians 1 verse 4 tells us, He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Now, were you there informing God? That is, before we had opportunity in this life to even exhibit those resilient characteristics, of our personality, we are told that God chose us.

    This is explicitly stated with regard to Jacob and Esau. Most people don’t like to consider what the Apostle Paul has to say about these boys. They were not yet born and had not done either good or evil, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of his call. So it is said, the elder will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I love, but Esau I hate.

    Now if you want to check that out, It is found in Romans 9, verses 11-13. You see, not only does this passage present the sovereignty of God’s election, but it makes the call of God the root cause. It makes the call of God the root cause of the distinction between Jacob and Esau. and going beyond that, looking at it even a bit closer, specifically it excludes works as the reason for that call.

    But it might be, in the end, all of grace. Now the same sort of thing Paul says to Timothy The second epistle, the first chapter, the ninth verse, God saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our words, but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago, or before all ages. God’s election is unconditional. There is no place, fear, or strife.

    But even beyond this, you see, while we may be tempted to flatter ourselves, we are compelled to take into account the biblical testimony concerning our nature, we’ve already spoken about that with regard to the first point of Calvinism, namely total depravity. Not an inherent goodness, not all those redeeming features, none of these things catch God’s attention, and none of them provide the basis of his choice of us. Scripture testifies that we are sold under sin.

    Ephesians 2.1 tells us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. What does a dead man have that he can commend to anyone? Nor is it a matter, as some have suggested, of God foreseeing our works down the corridors of history. and the particular wonderful features of our character down the corridors of history, and making his choice on the basis of his foresight of the works that we will perform or the faith that we will exercise. But hear out the testimony of the Word and the consistent testimony of the Reformed Church, God’s election, His call, is the cause of our good works. The positive features of our character are the result of his electing grace. Paul tells us we were chosen that we should be holy and without blame before him.

    Again, Ephesians 1.4. the impact of Ephesians 2.10. Our recreation in Christ, we who were dead, is unto good works.

    Those good works do not provide the basis for our recreation, our election, but they are the result of our election. And notice the order of things in John fifteen sixteen, where Christ said, You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. The fruit bearing comes after the choosing. No, good works are the result, not the ground of our election, and similarly with our faith.

    God does not choose us because he foresees our faith. We are told once more by Paul in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13, God chose us from the beginning to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. Our sanctification and our belief come on the heels of God’s electing purpose and choice of us. I am amazed, I am amazed that people can continually read John 3 and miss the point. That chapter begins with Jesus speaking about the utter impossibility of a man doing anything to save himself, let alone find something within himself that enables him to commend himself to God.

    I have heard sermons, and I know you have too, in which we are led to believe that the faith that is spoken of by Jesus in John 3.16 actually becomes the condition of the movement of the Spirit. And Calvin, with all of his energy, resisted that, and we should resist it too. Does faith and repentance precede regeneration? Do they, in some sense, precede God’s election? No, God’s election is unconditional, and our salvation rests in Him. The Spirit blows where it will. You hear the sound of it. You can’t tell where it’s going, where it came from. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.

    The honor, absolute sovereignty of God in choosing sinners for salvation. The election is unconditioned. It is not conditioned upon our character, our good works, or even our faith or the foresight of the same. Its cause rests in God, in the mystery of His will. It rests in His love. It rests in his inexplicable grace, which he pours out then in time upon the undeserving, who in themselves can lay no claim upon him.

    Will it be by grace and grace of love. Will it be by God’s choice, or by some other? No. When I walk out the door on a Sunday morning and look across the street, and I spy my neighbor in his yard at his door, I cannot content myself that there is some inherent quality in me that makes me better than him. Not at all. He is God’s grace. And because it is, we praise him all the more. election, the U of II, a doctrine solidly anchored in the Word of God and in the testimony of the Reformed and Presbyterian Church for generations.

    Father, if we take it all in, we are melted. For if we search ourselves for the reason, the reason is not apparent. And therefore we are cast upon you, and the reason is known only to you. And communicated to us, then, in terms of your love. A love inexplicable. but real, vibrant, active in this world, we ourselves being a testimony to its activity and its triumph.

    We pray our God that we would not in any way minimize the cost to you in the demonstration of that love and the procurement of sinful human beings for your kingdom. Therefore, may Jesus Christ, our Savior, be exalted even in our consideration of your unconditional election. This we pray in his name, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Unconditional Election

    Unconditional Election

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 25, 1987.

    About this sermon

    The book of Job frames the contrast between Arminian and Calvinistic views of unconditional election, in both its corporate and individual dimensions. Only the cross of Christ, still to come, transforms Job’s view of God.

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    Sermon transcript

    Now, if you are reading this morning from the book of Job, the book of Job will be read from Chapter thirty-eight, verses one through twenty-one; Chapter thirty-nine, verses one through fourteen; and Chapter forty-two, verse one. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

    Gird up your loins like a man, for I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who laid its measures, if you know? Or who stretched a line upon it? On what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

    For who shut up the sea with doors when it burst forth, as if it had issued from the womb? When I made the cloud its garment and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and set limits for it, and established bars and doors, and said, ‘Hitherto shall you come, but no further, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, so that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken from it? It is turned like clay to the seal, and they stand as a garment; and from the wicked their light is withheld, and your mighty arm shall be broken.

    Have you entered the springs of the sea, or walked in the search of the depths? Have the gates of death been opened to you, or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death? Have you perceived the breath of the earth? Declare, if you know it all.

    Where is the place where light dwells? And where is the place of darkness, that you might take it to its boundary and know the path to its dwelling? Do you know it because you were born then, or because the number of your days is great? Chapter forty, verses one through fourteen.

    The Lord answered Job and said, Shall he who contends with the Almighty instruct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer. Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am dust. What shall I answer You? I will lay my hand on my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer; yes, twice, but I will proceed no further. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Gird up your loins now like a man. I will question you, and you shall declare to Me. Will you also annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified? Have you an arm like God, or can you thunder with a voice like His?

    Deck yourself now with majesty and excellence, and clothe yourself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad your wrath, and look with pride upon all who are proud, and bring them low. Look on every one who is proud, and bring him low, and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together, and bind their faces in secret. And I also confess to You that Your own right hand can save you. Chapter forty-two, verse one. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. Who is he who hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have spoken what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

    Here I beseech You, and I will speak. I will demand of You, and You shall declare to me. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Go with me briefly. In Your Spirit, O God, You come like a whirlwind, and before You we not only tremble and quake, we are undone. Dear Lord, may we face You in what You have said to Your servant Job, and in all Scripture. We pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    Our messages have been on the Bible and Calvinism. And thus far, we have considered the matter of God’s sovereignty in a general way. And we have gone on from there to take up the familiar five points of Calvinism. The organization of these five points has been helpfully laid out for us in the acronym, which spells the word. We have considered the key, namely, total depravity or total inability, by which we have contended, according to Scripture, that mankind is totally unable to come to God in his own power by his own strength.

    Even worse, men and women apart from God are dead in their trespasses and sins. And unless God therefore intervene, we are lost in our sinful state. This morning we are moving on to the two remaining points. You are speaking to us about unconditional election. If total depravity, the T, gave us our doctrine of man, then the U, unconditional election, gives us our doctrine of God. We will be considering this morning the matter of God’s election generally, and then next week we will be looking at it more closely in terms of His unconditional character.

    The biblical doctrine of election, of God’s election, is not like the elections with which we are familiar. It is not like a political election or the casting of ballots in a democratic society or organization. Nor is it like the definition of election offered by one Arminian evangelist. His understanding of election, a term he could not avoid, being clearly written throughout the whole of Scripture, was this: God votes for you, the devil votes against you, and you cast the deciding vote. No. That is not the biblical doctrine of election. Rather, this doctrine, in keeping with what Scripture says throughout, is the profound mystery in God’s eternal decree, expressing His perfect freedom in choosing, calling, and saving whomever He will. Let me repeat that. Election, according to God’s word, is that profound mystery in God’s eternal decree, expressing His perfect freedom in the choosing, calling, and saving of whomever He will.

    This doctrine, both outside the church and within it, has been hated, maligned, and condemned. In this decade, the hatred has been expressed in no uncertain terms by a certain TV evangelist. It came home to us here at Grace Church through the fellowship in Oakdale. As Dan Knox was solidifying his Calvinism with the congregation there, troubles began to arise. Many in that fellowship could not accept the doctrines of Calvinism, and defending those who rejected them was a TV evangelist who was preaching and producing material at that time, railing against the doctrines of Calvinism as if they had come from the pit of hell. Let me tell you: the doctrines that we hold dear come from the mouth of God. They do not come from the pit of hell. You may recall that the TV evangelist I have in mind was Jimmy Swagger.

    This doctrine of divine election, hated, maligned, and anathematized by so many, could not be written more clearly or consistently throughout the entirety of Scripture. Rejecting it does not refute it. The rejection of it only testifies to a lack of correspondence between the one who rejects it and God himself. This doctrine of election, contrary to what so many believe and hold, is an exceedingly broad doctrine.

    There is a breadth to it. There is a length and an extension to it, a scope to it, that some have taken advantage of. It is as if the doctrine of election were a train traveling along a line with many stops. But because it is like a train traveling along a line with many stops, many well-intentioned and Bible-believing Christians are provided ample opportunity to get on and off at any point they choose.

    But for the deepest and most unadulterated impact of this doctrine, one must get on and stay on until the end of the line. Some, for instance, in considering the doctrine of election, have suggested that election pertains to groups of people, not individuals. We would hardly deny that the doctrine of election pertains to groups, to a body of people, to a nation in particular. Without question, as we review the Old Testament, we find that God’s election is corporate.

    It deals with the nation of Israel. Amos, in chapter three, verse two, says this: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” asserting the election of Israel. Psalm 147, verse 20, says this: “He hath not so dealt with any nation as he has with you, Israel.” And Deuteronomy, a book which could easily be designated God’s book about election, says this in chapter seven: “For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for his own possession above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth.” And later, Moses writes this: “Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even above all peoples.”

    This affirmation that election is corporate—that it has to do with a body of people, a nation—is the first point. But that is not all. While the entire people of God are designated as the elect, it is evident from the history of Israel that not all ultimately prove to be such. Thus, as we move forward, election becomes more focused and even more specific.

    For example, while the northern tribes of Israel were deserting the Lord, the Lord affirmed His sovereignty and His electing power before Elijah. He said, “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” And speaking of the northern tribes under the figures of Joseph and Ephraim, Psalm 78 tells us, “He chose Judah, the southern tribes.”

    You see, there is the breadth of election. We are confronted with it at the first stop on the line, but then there is a narrowing, an election at work within the election of God. You must stay on the train to the end of the line. But you see, we have not yet reached the final depot. For the doctrine of God’s election is even more specific. Not only does God elect the people, not only does He reserve for Himself a remnant among His people, but He is at work electing, choosing individuals who make up that remnant.

    We might think that Abraham’s journey from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan was his idea, that one morning he woke up with the thought, I need a change. It is time to pick up and move. I need a change of venue. Not so. Abraham moved in response to the call of God. He was specifically chosen.

    That is the testimony of Genesis twelve, and at the end of his life, he says, “The Lord, the God of heaven, took me, took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth.” That Lord of heaven Himself says about Abraham, “I took your father Abraham from beyond the river and led him through the land of Canaan.” Joshua 24, verse 3.

    No one, and I underscore that, no one should be able to read the stories of Abraham, Abraham’s children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, without being deeply moved by the truth of God’s sovereign election. That God chooses not Nahor, Abraham’s brother, but Abraham, not Ishmael, but Isaac, not Esau, but Jacob, not Reuben, but Judah.

    The testimony of the Old Testament concerning election is pervasive, thorough, and corporate. It is also spoken of in terms of a remnant. But finally, and unmistakably, in terms of individuals directly, the objects of God’s choice. His call is saving. This is confirmed by the capstone. In Psalm sixty-five, verse four: “How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You.”

    The doctrine of election was at work in the Old Testament, but it does not disappear or lose its importance in the New Testament. When we examine the New Testament, we find that this is not true. The New Testament builds upon the Old Testament, both corporately and in terms of the group. Israel is acknowledged as God’s chosen people in both the Old and New Testaments. At the same time, we are told that the church, the Church of Jesus Christ, is the elect of God, and this is true corporately. Therefore, when Paul writes to various congregations, he does not hesitate to address them collectively as the elect of God.

    This is only the first stage. There is also a refinement in the New Testament, as there was in the Old Testament. For Jesus was at work from the beginning in separating out His disciples from Israel. He separated them from the whole of Israel and from the crowds.

    Later, as the Church takes shape, the Apostle John says, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Thus, the affirmation of an election within election is active in the New Testament, as it was in the Old Testament. While the church is called the elect, not all who are in the church are elect. Just as there was a remnant in Israel, so also there is a remnant in the church by election. Jesus says, “The elect will not be led astray.” Matthew 24, for the sake of the elect. God has chosen, and the last days will be shortened. Mark 13. He said, “I know whom I have chosen.” John 13. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” John 15. “All that the Father has given Me will come to Me.” John 6. And He prayed not for the world, but for those whom the Father has given Him, out of the world. John 17.

    Paul tells us in his address to the Romans that nothing can be laid to the charge of God. He says, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” He tells the Thessalonians, “God chose you from the beginning for salvation.” He tells Timothy, “I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation.” In the very first verse of his first epistle, Peter writes to the elect. He calls them such. He identifies his readers as the elect race of God, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a people for God’s own possession.

    This election, therefore, according to the New Testament as well as the Old Testament, pertains to the body, to the group—Israel, the church as a whole—but also to that remnant within Israel, within the church, and finally to individuals who will stand before God. In Romans 11, only those who were chosen obtained the promise. And again, in Romans 9, it does not depend upon the one who wills or the one who runs, but upon God who shows mercy. And again, He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.

    So there it is. The Bible’s declaration of divine election. That profound mystery and God’s eternal decree expressing His perfect freedom in choosing, calling, and saving whomever He will. The impact of that revelation is shattering. The impact of that truth is awesome. For it introduces us to a God who is increasingly a stranger in the world, sadly, even in the Church. This affirmation of God in His sovereignty introduces us to a God so unlike the God ordinarily presented by and believed in by too many Christians.

    A God who, because of His respect for personal boundaries, refuses to intrude upon anyone’s life or interfere with your affairs. A God, out of His sense of justice, who respects your right to privacy. A God for whom your freedom is the most important principle in the universe, and He would not dare violate that. Can you imagine? A God who, in the end, is so utterly powerless before your will that He must wait for you before He can act, or first obtain your permission before He can accomplish His purposes. We recognize the Arminian God and we recognize the liberal God.

    But we are not like that. Surely we are right, are we not? Surely we have it correct, do we not? We are the ones who boarded the train at the beginning of the line and traveled all the way to the end. And now we are about to disembark, feeling quite satisfied with ourselves. But we are not like that Arminian over there, or even that ungodly Liberal.

    I may well be a card-carrying Calvinist. I might be one for reasons other than good ones. I may be one because of logical and psychological pressures. I, because of my view of life and reality, have been compelled to bow before the necessity of God’s sovereignty. I am a person, for instance, who believes in order. I believe in authority, and when I am looking for some sort of religious expression of that conviction and those commitments, I find it best in Calvinism. I see, logically and psychologically, that there is no other way for order and authority to be maintained except through a rigorous Calvinism, an insistence upon God’s absolute sovereignty and its corollary, his divine election. If I find myself in this situation of this conviction, even though I may be a card-carrying Calvinist to a very deep degree and in a quite serious way, I have settled for something far less than I ought to have. In fact, my failure to break beyond this logical and psychological necessity leaves me in a state of stagnation, and a state in which there is erected between God and myself, despite my orthodoxy, a barrier.

    Now, if you want to read about the destruction of the barrier, I commend to you the Book of Job. The barrier, even for Calvinists, must be blasted away. And that is exactly what God is about, even for those who have confessed His sovereignty. Though Job did not initially confess God’s sovereignty, it is evident from the beginning of the book. But by the end, it is as if he is a new man, because the barrier has been shattered through the experience of suffering which he underwent.

    It is as if for the first time he has faced God. My view of God is not adequate any longer. It is as if I must lose God to see him. I must lose God to gain him. Whatever my ideas were of God, they end up being worthless in comparison to what is now unveiled before my eyes. I had heard of you by the hearing of my ears, but now my eye sees you. Is Job the exception? No. Do you remember Abraham on Moriah?

    There he is, placing the knife upon his son. There he is, at that moment, in his cross, offering the thing he loves most in the world, surrendering it before the sovereignty of God, before God’s absolute command and demand. And he does not withhold his hand in that trial. Abraham meets himself, and he meets his God as never before. Before that, Abraham may well have said, as Job did, “I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.”

    It was not an easy thing for the Apostle Paul. You read in Romans 9–11, where his heart was deeply attached to his countrymen according to the flesh. How do you think he endured it? They were being rejected. But it was through the trial of confronting Christ on the cross, and the absolute sovereignty of God, that the man was shaken to the very foundations of his being. Nothing would ever be the same again. He could no longer look at Israel in the same way.

    I had heard of You by the hearing of my ear, but now I see You. All of these, a chorus in unison, saying the same thing, all pointing to the one whose cross is central. There, in the trial, in the garden, confronted with God’s awesome will and sovereign power, the Lord Jesus Christ said, “Not My will, but Yours be done.” Now I will say to you one more thing: this is the only root of blessing. It is not a second blessing. It is not a charismatic experience. It is not an out-of-body experience.

    It is a confrontation with the absolute, unqualified sovereignty of God. The fact that He, in His freedom, chooses, calls, and saves whomever He will, and does whatever He desires. And whatever my God ordains is right. Is right. The barrier must come down. Your life up to this point may well have been within the bounds of Calvinism. But it is, no less, a near hearing of the year.

    What we need, through the cross of Christ, echoing in the experience of Abraham, Job, and Paul, is to see our God with clear understanding. You know how Job concludes: “Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Amen. O Lord, we would see you, our God, even more fully than Job saw you, for we would see Jesus, and we would understand that the suffering of Job is merely a foreshadowing of the cross of Christ. Lord, may we be submissive, may we realize the full scope, depth, and breadth of your sovereignty, your election, and the unique freedom you possess, by which you choose, call, save, and love whomever you will.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Total Depravity

    Total Depravity

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 18, 1987.

    About this sermon

    The evil in public and private life shows total depravity, and Scripture defines sin as touching mind, emotions, and will alike. Against that bleak picture stands Christ’s conquest of sin on our behalf.

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    Sermon transcript

    Our scripture reading this morning is from Romans chapter 5. We are beginning with the twelfth verse, and we will read to the end of the chapter. This is Romans 5, 12 through 21. Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.

    For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. even over them that had not sinned, after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that is to come.

    But was as the offense, but not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many are dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, This has abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sins, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

    Let us pray briefly. Now, Lord, in this circumstance, we beseech you that your word that does not return to you void would in fact accomplish your will in our lives. Is it a matter of turning us from sin, then, Lord, let us return. Is it a matter of encouragement in distress? Lord, may we be encouraged. Are we doubtful with regard to our salvation? May we receive from your word assurances of your love. Lord, we pray that if we are in need of rebuke, encouragement, strength, your word would be granted to us in full measure. We ask also that if salvation is that which is needed, that salvation may come today to sinners in need. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.

    We have spelled out for you the five points, the so-called five points of Calvinism. To many of you, these five points are well known. Historically, you are aware that Calvin was not responsible for the five points. But later on in history, those five points were developed as an answer to many who were denying the truth that Calvin was endeavoring to put before the church. Those five points are presented to us in the famous acronym to the five letters. Each of those letters reminding us of a central central doctrine of our faith and confession.

    The key of the two is for total depravity, and that will be our subject for this morning. This is our doctrine of man. The U is our doctrine of God, that God in his electing grace is not conditioned in his choice of us by anything in us at all. Not his foresight of faith in us, not our righteousness, not anything meritorious on our part at all. rather than God’s election is unconditional, thus the U of TULIP, unconditional election. The L is our doctrine of Christ and his saving death. Our confession is that Christ died for the elect, that he shed his blood for his elect And therefore, we speak of the atonement as limited, and thus the L. The I is our doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

    The grace extended to us by God through His Holy Spirit is irresistible. What power in the world can resist God? If God is at work and chooses to do thus and so, who can stay his hand? Our doctrine of the Spirit is that the grace of our God by the Spirit is irresistible, thus the I. The P of TULIP is our doctrine of the Church. We believe in what is called the perseverance of the saints, that those who are called of God supplied by him with grace, will in fact endure for eternity in the embrace of the Lord.

    The five points, then. Tulip, T-U-L-I-P. This morning we are faced with the first of the letters. T, our doctrine of man and the matter of total depravity. It sounds ominous, doesn’t it? It sounds fierce, foreboding, and well it might be. What is wrong? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with us? What is wrong with the world?

    The truth of the matter is, as difficult as I, you, us, the world, as difficult as it is for any of us, all of us, to admit it, The problem, the difficulty with us in the world is sin. There is a tragic failure, generally, in the modern world, and in this of course not different from even the worlds, the ages that have preceded There is a tragic failure in the world to come to grips with this truth. There is a tragic failure in the world to come to grips with the broad sweep of evil. This is quite ironic that we could be so blind that the world could be so blind in the midst of a century that has witnessed the greatest in terms of their scope the greatest atrocities in the history of civilization and yet the world congratulates itself.

    That it is not barbarian. The culture. And by and large quite well behaved. If you need a lesson in the scope, the magnitude of evil in this century, I encourage you to pick up a tome written by Paul Johnson entitled The Modern World. It is awesome. It is devastating.

    We live a bit insulated, somewhat isolated, drawing around ourselves certain comforts and protections that shield us from the harsh true reality of things as they are. When the world Our world is faced with something of the magnitude of the evil at work in it.

    It seems that it can only be jolted, and that among a few. Take, for instance, Mr. Johnson and his book, The Modern World, by what is obvious and what is outlandish and what is bizarre. Those crimes, those transgressions and offenses that cry out for headlines, as if they were walking up the street and slapping you in the face, demanding of you an acknowledgement.

    When there is that occasion to take stock of the evil in the world, It is a very short-sighted approach indeed. Only that which is most obvious, outlandish and bizarre. I think that this is why we are having such a great difficulty, especially as we are influenced by the media. For you see, the media approach to evil is not in terms of evil subtleties.

    I think, for instance, of one of the more popular TV programs of the last few years, Hill Street Blues. Now, there were evils and crimes out in the street, and they were plain and clear, demanding redress. But while you are witnessing these crimes out in the street, you are also witnessing the going on in the bedrooms of the people who were supposed to be taking care of the problem of crime in society, with no sense, no sense of the evil, the subtlety of that evil at work as well there. behind the closed doors, as much as in the streets. Domestic evil, private sin, is always portrayed as normal, the way things are. It’s just being human. I can kill I’m not in the habit of ripping people off. I can’t help but think of that magnificent exchange, regardless of what you think of the participants.

    The Watergate hearings. John Ehrlichman is being examined. He is being examined by Lowell Weicker, Senator Lowell Weicker. The discussion is about the matter of public versus private morality. Ehrlichman is contending that though there may have been faults in his behavior, there are certainly other faults that need redress, and those faults are found in senators as well as presidential henchmen. and the evils that he had in mind were those like the fact that Senators come to the chamber inebriated, outlandishly drunk to conduct the business of this country. The writer’s response is, that’s nobody’s business. Ehrlichman’s immediate retort is, Mr. Senator, that position is completely and utterly indefensible. And Ehrlichman, despite his crimes, was right. The division, then, between public and private morality, where the private life hid from view, domestic evil, if you will, is portrayed as normal, just being human. just being yourself, and whose business is it anyway?

    Well, in the midst of all of this, one might well ask the question, whatever became of sin? Someone did ask that question, Carl Menninger. In a book that he wrote a number of years ago, I don’t commend the book to you in its view of sin and theology, but I do commend to you the question, whatever became of sin. And he had reference, not just simply to society at large, he was referring to the religious establishment. He was referring to those who were supposed to be pointing out sin and providing a remedy for sin in the lives of people. But there is. even within the church, an improper understanding of the matter of evil and sin as a testimony to a growing blindness, possibly even a willful blindness on the part of the church herself.

    For some, now you see, sin has been translated. It’s been translated into terms that are appropriate to the 20th century. Sin is the failure to recognize your self-worth. That’s what you’re told. Sin is the failure of anyone to live by the philosophy or the psychology, I’m okay, you’re okay. why it doesn’t exist. You see, that’s no fault theology. No one’s to blame. None of us are guilty.

    I sat in a classroom in the theology department in Duquesne University The professor was having obvious difficulty, he was struggling with this whole matter of sin and its definition. I think you can appreciate his dilemma as he expressed himself in conclusion. He said that sin is separation from God. Any ordinary Christian believer conversant in the word knows that he’s bypassed a great deal to get to that point. He is talking about sin in terms of its effects, because he does not want to consider sin in terms of its actions. What is sin?

    Have you wept over it? Has it broken your heart? broken the heart of somebody else’s. You know firsthand. What is. Sin is portrayed in many ways in the Bible. To begin with, sin is described to us in a way that we might not quickly understand. First of all. It is described for us to find for us as an estate. As a domain into which you have entered the domain, the realm of sin and environment, if you will.

    This is what is at work when David, the king, makes his confession in Psalm fifty one. You remember what he says, in sin did my mother conceive me. He doesn’t have in mind there an act by his mother. He has in mind there an environment in which his conception took place in the domain of sin, in a world in which sin abounds, in which everything in that world is affected by sin.

    We try to acknowledge this in our catechism. All mankind is born in a state of sin and misery, says the catechism. It’s a condition. It’s an environment. It is a state into which we have been introduced, and according to David, from birth. But sin is more than a state. Sin is an act.

    We hear elsewhere in Scripture. First, John three, four, that sin is lawlessness. Remember how the confession Defined in the catechism in any one of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God, you cannot avoid it. As much as my professor at Duquesne University was trying to avoid that clear and proper truth, it cannot be avoided. Sin is action. It is lawlessness. It is rebellion against God, against his law, against him. against the standard that we find in Jesus Christ.

    But as Jesus Christ has told us, informed us, informed us well, sin, this rebellion, is more than an act, an action, that we can gauge by transgressing a societal barrier. like murder, adultery, lying. You see, as is made clear by Jesus and by the word, sin also is an attitude. Paul says, Whatever is not of faith, but does not arise from the attitude of faith, the conviction of faith is sin. When Paul then deals with sin, he doesn’t merely deal with those overt acts of sin that are obvious and plain. He deals with attitudes of heart. Malice, envy, hostility, pride. So sin, according to the Word, is an estate, it is an act, it is an attitude. We are told that it is original.

    What does it mean to speak of original sin? Original sin is what is being expounded for us when we read Romans 5. We are told that originally our head, Adam, transgressed, and we, his children, were in him in that act, and therefore we, too, come into this world sinners.

    Just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all because all sin. The old Puritan rhyme, in Adam’s fall we sinned all. And sin is actual. Don’t think that it’s merely Adam’s fault for We’ve all added our contribution. By concrete acts of disobedience and rebellion against God and sin is universal.

    There isn’t one person in the world today who is not a sinner for all have sinned. They come short of the glory of God. Romans three twenty three. It is personal. And it must be personal to each one of us. The man who goes down to his house, justified according to Christ in his parable, is that one who said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. All of this, then, true with regard to the biblical portrayal of sin and a state, an act, an attitude, original with Adam, actual with us, universal and personal.

    But having understood what sin is, then we are compelled to understand what toll it takes, what it does. The effect of sin is total. The effect of depravity is total. Thus, T in Tulum, total depravity, our doctrine of man. It affects the entirety of our personalities.

    There isn’t one aspect of our personality that isn’t infected by the disease, by the cancer. At the center of our personality is what the Bible calls the heart, and we are told in Jeremiah that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can understand that is the truth. Because this is the case, sin permeates us thoroughly, be it our minds, our emotions, our wills.

    It renders us incapable in ourselves. It renders us incapable of acceptance with God. God is holy, perfectly holy and righteous. How do we, as sinners, appear before him? Left to our natural estate in sin, we are cut off from him. The natural man, we are told by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2.14, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. He cannot understand them. We are told by Paul in Romans 8, those who live in the flesh cannot please God. We are rendered completely incapable of pleasing Him.

    We who are affected by sin, this incapacity, this inability is then labeled as a spiritual death. While living, we are dead. So Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 2, we are dead in our trespasses and sin. A dead man does nothing. Before God, we are, as it were, dead, incapable, utterly incapable of saving ourselves.

    That is what necessitates a savior. If you are not a sinner, you don’t need a savior. If you are not a sinner, the Christ of the Bible is of no help to you whatsoever. The Jesus of the Word is of no value to you. We are told, God sent his Son into the world to save sinners.

    And then Paul says, among whom I am the chief. We are landed then in spiritual death, which leads on to physical death. The wages of sin is death. After that, the judgment is appointed once for man to die, and then the judgment, Hebrews 9.27. The impact, the effect of sin.

    Well, given that starting point, you see, the only way we can go from here is up. Well, you see, you started from the bottom. And it’s much more hopeless than you imagine. It’s not just the weight of your own particular sins that are weighing upon you.

    The confession of those sinners that we find confessing in Scripture is such that it’s as if coming to expression in them is the sin of the whole world. The weight of the transgression of all humanity is upon them, and they are acknowledging it. What hope can there be? Not just my sins, but everybody’s sins. How do I get out of this condition? Is there any rescue at all? Not from me. That’s clear enough. Looking into my heart, I know the truth, and I know that there is no good thing that dwells in my flesh. In and of myself, I stand under condemnation.

    But you see, do you understand, answering the magnitude of evil, answering the full description of sin is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one sent as God’s answer to sin. Do you understand what’s happening before that, too, in Bethany, when Jesus is standing outside of that tomb and calling for Lazarus?

    The man is dead. What can he do? Can he hear? No, he can’t hear, unless by the power of God his ears are opened and he responds. to that which has the power of life in itself. That’s who you’re faced with. After you have been confronted and sobered, confronted by and sobered by your sin, who greets that? when he comes out of the tomb who greets him first? His only hope and your only hope the living Christ who gives life to those who are dead Now, this he does in order that you might not live in sin anymore. So that already, for you who believe already that magnificent power of life is at work in you, no more slaves to sin, it having dominion over you. You rather being liberated. Go on from Romans 5 and read Romans 6, that magnificent chapter.

    In which part of the state of the Christian, that one who is turned from sin to God, no longer living as a slave to it, but as one who lives as a slave to righteousness, the spirit of God given to you, given to me that we might resist him and stand against the evil. against the wiles of the devil.

    What has God done then for sin? He has sent his son into the world to die upon the cross, taking our sins upon him, that this one who is without sin might become sin for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him. What has he done, what has God done about our sin? He has sent to us his spirit to give us life from the dead, that we might in this life yet resist sin unto glory. And what has he done about our sin?

    He has promised us through his son and through his spirit that he is going to come, he is going to remove all sin from us. He is going to wipe every tear from our eye that we have shed in contrition before him, and he is going to introduce us to an environment, to an estate, to a world in which acts and attitudes of sin are utterly impossible.

    Utterly impossible. And that is your hope. Can you imagine a world and a life in which sin can’t even happen? Hasten the day. Bring it quickly. come quickly. The tragedy of a soul bent down by iniquity and sin. The confession of my heart Be merciful unto me, O God, a sinner. The testimony of us all, that sin has infected us thoroughly. That our depravity has touched every aspect of our personality. We incapable, then before you, our God. yet what capability we lack you supply in your son by your spirit unto a day when all sin will be removed and we in perfection will dwell with you in God

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • God’s Sovereignty and the Five Points

    God’s Sovereignty and the Five Points

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 4, 1987.

    About this sermon

    The series opens with what it means to be an Orthodox Presbyterian (a church ruled by elders) before introducing the five points of Calvinism centered on God’s sovereignty and predestination. Many of history’s most influential theologians were themselves Calvinists, all pointing back to the cross of Christ.

    More sermons from Ephesians · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Our scripture reading this morning is from the first chapter of Ephesians, Ephesians 1, verses 1–14. Here is the word of God. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.

    Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. He predestined us to adoption as His children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. He has made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the fullness of time He might gather all things in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth, in Him. In Him we have also obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ. In Him you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. And when you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

    Father, you have taught us that your word is our life, and that this word is the life of the world. For we would not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of our God. Truly, the nations wait for you and for your law, and now in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the perfection of your law goes forth, the perfection of your command and intention, your purpose, your will. So as your word is preached today, we beseech you, Lord, that we may observe the gathering of the harvest, that our souls may delight and your soul may delight as well in this, the perfection of your work, which you have purposed from before time.

    We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. We are Orthodox Presbyterians. You can check the sign outside, the recently rehung and repainted sign. It tells us that in bold letters. You can check the front of the bulletin. We are an Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We are Orthodox Presbyterians. That is to say, we are straight-line Presbyterians.

    We affirm in our own understanding of our lineage from that line of Presbyterian purebreds who hold their Presbyterianism with great conviction and without embarrassment before the world, regardless of the cost. Now, in this, we being what we might call straight-line Presbyterians are distinguished from those who are mainline Presbyterians. The mainline Presbyterian Church in this country, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, has its own particular heritage, it seems, a heritage which has become increasingly blurred and nondescript as far as it compares with what originally was intended. The departure from that original intent is remarkable and obvious. We are then straight-line Orthodox Presbyterians, if we can define Orthodox with the word straight-line. A straight line from that source of origin in our heritage centuries ago, but also a straight line in what we contend for, what we say we believe.

    Now, not only are we straight-line Presbyterians, we are fiercely Presbyterian. We hold our convictions with such determination that recently, in an article published in the Expository Times, written by John Kent, he described us as those fierce Presbyterians of the twentieth century. We are called fierce. Fierce with regard to what? Well, you see, there are two principles that are held as axiomatic to Presbyterian conviction, and so it is suggested, even by those who have no sympathy with us whatsoever, that we hold those axioms with great tenacity.

    As it pertains to our form of government, we hold firmly that God’s people are to be ruled by elders. We do not believe, we do not advocate, and we do not accept a hierarchical form of government—a form of government that peaks in one or a few individuals who have authority over the entire Church across its wide expanse. Nor are we congregational, for we do not believe, as some do, that all matters of the Church’s life are to be decided by majority vote. We do not believe that the power of the Church is vested solely in the congregation as a whole. We find no justification for that in Scripture, regardless of what some may say. Instead, we maintain that God’s people are to be ruled by elders, by presbyters. Thus the name Presbyterian. God’s people are to be ruled by elders, as they have always been ruled by elders, and even to this day, in keeping with that pattern, they are ruled in the same way. By holding this conviction, we say, even to those who may arise within our own circle, that rule by elders is not a New Testament innovation, nor is it a system devised due to practical pressures during the apostolic period.

    Now, believe it or not, even within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, sentiments like that are beginning to be heard. But if we take John Kent’s statement seriously—that we are fiercely Presbyterian—we do not give in at this point in any way. We hold this principle tenaciously: rule by elders. A principle that is plain and clear for God’s people in His Word throughout. In the Old Testament, yes, even there the people of God were ruled by elders. In the New Testament, no less, and that is our conviction.

    I think it is interesting to note in this regard that there are more people who hold Presbyterian views than we would ordinarily think. I was reading a survey of churches recently, and the developments that have taken place in those churches over the last century. In the great majority of churches, at least within this country, despite the denial by those churches, they are, in the final analysis, governed in a Presbyterian manner. They make decisions for the congregation in a Presbyterian manner. You might find those leaders sitting in a Methodist Church or even in an Episcopalian Church, but they serve in those congregations in a manner that reflects Presbyterian governance. It seems that even congregationalism is being drawn toward a Presbyterian direction—now meeting for regional gatherings, even having national conventions that resemble the Presbyterian form of government, the Presbyterian General Assembly. This pattern is being reflected there.

    We are called fiercely Presbyterian, not simply because we have held to the principle of rule by elders. Even more importantly, we have been defined in this way because we have held with greater tenacity to our Reformed and Calvinistic heritage and doctrinal convictions. Now, I think we are all familiar with the usual approach to our Calvinistic convictions in this regard. When we speak of our Reformed faith and our dependence in some way upon Calvin and his teaching, the five points are invariably mentioned. We have learned them through the acronym associated with them.

    The key point is this: our doctrine of man teaches that man is totally depraved. In the Tulip, our doctrine of God teaches that God elects unconditionally, that is, without regard to anything in us—whether faith or good works, or the promise of such. The reason for our election is found in God alone. The “Y” declares to us our stand regarding the atoning death of Christ: Christ died for his own, for the elect, and not one drop of his blood was shed in vain, not one drop was wasted. The “I” presents our doctrine of the Holy Spirit: the Holy Spirit’s call is irresistible and effectual. The “P” is our doctrine of the Church: the Church of Jesus Christ will endure, and the saints of the Lord will persevere to the end. Our Reformed faith is thus helpfully presented through this acronym. Now I fully feel the weight of what some have observed.

    Specifically, Leonard Koppus, in reviewing the situation in the Reformed Church, found that simply focusing on the five points was not sufficient. He then wrote a book entitled Are the Five Points Enough? The subtitle of that book was The Ten Points of Calvinism, in which the five points were only one part. Thus, you see that there is much more to the Reformed faith and to our Calvinistic convictions than just these five points, though they have been a helpful way for us to understand what we believe. Whether it is the five points, the ten points, or the ten points with one point being the five points, you can see how this discussion could continue indefinitely.

    The focus, without doubt, in our faith is the sovereignty of God—the absolute sovereignty of God. This means that those who are Calvinistic, those who are Reformed or Presbyterian, are those who have fully acknowledged and submitted themselves to the absolute sovereignty of God in all of life, in all of history, and in all that exists. The centrality of God’s sovereignty, His rule over all things, and His power, which no one can overthrow, is fundamental. In this regard, we have typically spoken of certain key terms.

    When reflecting on God’s sovereignty, we have also mentioned His election, His sovereign choice in saving sinners. We have emphasized that this election is not a decision made in time as an emergency measure because of human sin, but rather it is something that was established before the foundation of the world. In accordance with God’s choice of sinners, He elects a people.

    We have also spoken about His predestinating purpose and the fact that He is determining destiny, even specifically our destiny, from before the very beginning of time. It is impossible—I say, impossible—for these facts to be denied. It seems that they cannot even be overlooked, even though they are by many. After all, the testimony to God’s sovereignty is plain on every page of Scripture. And repeatedly throughout, you find indications in the stories and language that describe God’s predestinating purposes and His electing choice.

    Now it may well be that Reformed believers are guilty of playing their own intellectual games in order to make everything come out right in the end. Yet that charge laid against the Calvinist or the Presbyterian, the one who embraces the Reformed faith, is hardly as serious as the charge that can be laid against those who completely deny that God is absolutely sovereign, that He is predestinating, and that He is electing, and that this has been true from before the foundation of the world. For that seems to be a plain and clear denial of what Scripture teaches.

    How do we review the testimony we have read from Ephesians 1? How can you avoid the impact of what the apostle is saying? You have verse four: “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” There it is: that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. Then, verse five: “He predestinated us to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.” Verse eleven: “Also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things according to the counsel of His will.”

    And where will the testimony end? Is it merely a feature of the book of Ephesians? I tell you, no. You find it in every one of Paul’s epistles. Consider Romans—you cannot read through Romans without encountering the truth of this doctrine, God’s choice. We all recognize the significance of Romans 8, do we not? There it speaks clearly about God’s predestinating purpose and how He will bring many sons to glory through His predestinating work and will. Consider Romans 9.

    Read that chapter. It is overwhelming. In it, Paul presents the case for God’s election, His electing purpose. In doing so, he does not rely solely on the New Testament. He appeals to the Old Testament. He quotes from Genesis and from Exodus. He speaks of Jacob and Esau, how anyone can read that story and still fail to grasp the reality of God’s absolute sovereignty. This truth is difficult, yes, it has been called difficult, but it remains clear: God made the choice. Must I read from that ninth chapter of Romans? It may leave you deeply moved. Verse eleven: “For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, in order that God’s purpose, according to His choice, might stand—not because of works, but because of Him who calls.” It was said to her, “The older will serve the younger,” just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” Verse sixteen: “So then it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy.” For the Scripture says of Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires and hardens whom He will.

    Now, whatever effect this has on us internally as we wrestle with the ninth chapter of Romans, one thing we cannot deny is the clear message Paul is conveying. We may not like it, or the world may not like it, or many in the Church may not like it. But we cannot avoid it.

    Do you have the statement from Peter? Do you think Paul is the only one who holds to this view? Peter agrees with it. The church is called an elect race by him. Jesus Christ himself is called the elect and precious stone. The people of God are called the elect of the Lord by Peter. But is it only the apostles? Jesus does as well, the one who serves. In the fifteenth chapter of John, the sixteenth verse, Jesus says, You did not choose me, but I chose you. And in the sixth chapter of John, the forty-fourth verse, he says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Did Luke believe in the doctrine of predestination and God’s election? Listen to what he writes as he recounts the missionary activity of the early church. Must all missionaries be Arminians? They are not. Neither was Luke. Neither was Paul.

    But here, what Luke writes in his thirteenth chapter, the forty-eighth verse, speaking of those who respond to the message of the gospel, he says, As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Would you like to go through the book of Revelation and discuss the Lamb’s Book of Life? From the perspective of the prophet speaking in that book, he tells us that things were inscribed before the foundation of the world. All matters, then, seem settled in God. Our firmly held Presbyterian conviction. As is true with church government, you see, there are many people in many churches who are more Presbyterian than they wish to admit.

    I remember listening to a world-famous Methodist preacher. I do not mind mentioning his name: Eugene Leiter. He was the great force behind the American Bible Society and responsible for much of the translation work done in this century. He was a prominent man who translated Scripture. He was hopelessly universalistic in his theology, but this is what he said.

    When I am walking around, I am a Methodist, by which he meant an Arminian. But on my knees, I am a Calvinist. Because there, I cannot avoid confidence in the absolute sovereignty of God. If I do not have that confidence, why pray? Well, there we are. Here we are.

    We hold to a form of church government that we do not feel is negotiable. We hold to doctrines that we do not feel are negotiable. Yet, in our current situation, although there may be supportive voices from people like Dr. Nida, there is also a certain kind of compromise and capitulation among churches that do not have the word Presbyterian in their name.

    Still, the fact is that you, and I, may feel quite alone, quite isolated in the general temperament of our society and church at this time. We have watched, for instance, the way things have developed in this century, taking them as an example.

    In the mainline church in 1903, pressure was brought upon the General Assembly to compromise its position regarding the strong Presbyterianism and Calvinism of the Westminster standards, and that pressure was successful. The confession was revised. In 1906, the merger was completed between the larger mainline body and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, a denomination that had rejected Calvinism and held that the doctrines of grace were offensive to the modern American mind. Then, in 1934, the General Assembly convened, and the president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Dr. John McNaughter, who was an old United Presbyterian from North America, stood on the floor of the General Assembly of the mainline Presbyterian body. He openly ridiculed the Westminster standards, and he received a standing ovation. Calvinism was gone.

    The strength of Presbyterianism was being eroded. This is the general state of affairs, leaving those who hold to their Presbyterian faith somewhat alone and isolated in an age that seems hardly ready to accept them or what they have to say. But in the midst of that.

    I want you to remember a few things. I want you to remember the scriptures we reviewed today and the power of the scriptures. I have told you that on every page of the Word there is a testimony to the absolute sovereignty of God. I also want you to remember this: all major movements that have been productive for orthodoxy within the church have their roots in a Calvinistic understanding. Now I am going to say something that may surprise you. Do you know that at its roots the Roman Catholic Church is Calvinistic?

    Its greatest theologian from the fourth century was a thoroughgoing Calvinist. His name was Augustine. Do you realize that after he had taught and after he had fought against his archenemy, Pelagius, Pelagius and Pelagianism gained influence in the Roman Catholic Church and remained dominant for over a thousand years.

    Until. Until Luther, did you know that Luther was a Calvinist? It is true; Lutherans may not be today, but Luther was. All you need to do is read his book, The Bondage of the Will. He is even stronger and more resolute than Calvin. He strongly opposed Erasmus, his archenemy.

    Of course, Calvin was a Calvinist, and we know that. The roots of the Reformation are certainly in Calvinistic doctrine and teaching. Do you know that the Church of England has its roots in Calvinism? That its earliest leaders were all thoroughgoing Calvinists, and that the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Confession of Faith of that church, is a Calvinistic document, clearly stating the absolute sovereignty of God. Today, Anglicans and Episcopalians may not be Calvinists at all, but their origins are in Calvinism. Did you know that the Baptists who gained influence in the 1600s were Calvinists?

    Can you name one? John Bunyan. John Bunyan wrote *Pilgrim’s Progress*. John Bunyan was a thorough Calvinist. Do you realize that the modern missionary movement is utterly and thoroughly Calvinistic? William Carey, the man who pleaded before his English opponents that the gospel would be spread from the civilized world, as he understood it, to the third world of his day, was a convinced and thoroughgoing Calvinist. Calvinism is not the enemy of evangelism, nor of missionary work. Would you believe it? Despite all their public protestations, and here I offer their hymns as evidence, that John and Charles Wesley were very close to Calvinism in much that they wrote. For the Church to sing, well. If you feel alone, if you feel like you are the only one holding up these doctrines in these days, please do not despair. Remember the scriptures we reviewed, and remember the short survey of the history of the church.

    Warfield said that the Calvinist is the person who has seen into heaven and seen something of the matchless glory of God. Such a person, said Warfield, can never be the same again. In closing, there is one other thing I would like you to remember. I do not want it to sound as if I am standing here with an inflated chest, encouraging you to have a similar inflated chest. Pompous, proud, convinced you are right. I want you to remember the cross of Jesus Christ.

    That one who understood better than any of us the absolute sovereignty of God. Who, in humility and grace, and with that love that is beyond the love of this world, gave himself to others so that they might be helped and encouraged. You too, in imitation of him, give yourselves. The truth of your rightness will be played out in the rightness of your lives. And there is only one standard for that. And that is the cross of Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our Father, we would acknowledge that you are perfectly and absolutely holy. We would plead with you for our own submission to the truth of this teaching.

    A glad submission, but one free of arrogance, that we might be found in the form and fashion of our Savior, truly a servant, so that the cross of Jesus Christ is being manifest in us. In this way, Lord, we may even improve on the heritage that has been given us, and that by the powerful working of your Spirit within us, you yourself receive the glory, the honor, and the thanks.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.