The 'C' Word - Part 2: So What Are the Five Points of Calvinism?

            So just what are the five points of Calvinism?  You might also ask, “Why does it matter?”  It matters because what we think about God and how He operates in the universe matters.  It matters because if you are a Christian, you should know why you became one.  The five points of Calvinism summarize the story of God’s redemptive work in the world.  My pastor once summarized the gospel with this statement: “God saves sinners.”  I think that is a perfect summary statement to describe Calvinism as well.  God saves sinners. 

            The Five Points of Calvinism are really a response to the Articles of Remonstrance, which were the work of Dutch theologians a several hundred years ago in response to the Reformed view of salvation.  These theologians, which became known as Arminians (after their leader, Jacob Arminius), came up with five key articles.  Arminians came to the conclusion that: 1) Men are totally depraved, which is the one point that Calvinists and Arminians agree upon; 2) God conditionally elects who will be saved by his foreknowledge of their own faith; 3) The atonement of Christ accomplishes the same thing for every person on the planet, namely that the sins of every single person were paid for at the cross of Christ (This is by far the most controversial point and will be dealt with extensively in a later post.  For now, let’s just say that the sins of every single person on the planet were dealt with on the cross such that if they repent and believe they will be forgiven.  This is not really the same thing that Arminians believe); 4) God’s saving grace is ultimately resistable; 5) and finally, that true Christians can fall away from the faith and perish eternally.

            The Five Points of Calvinism correspond to the Articles of Remonstrance.  John Calvin didn’t come up with “The Five Points of Calvinism” as we have come to know them.  Those who followed in the tradition of Calvin came up with five direct responses to the articles listed above.  Let’s take a look at what those five points are.

T.U.L.I.P. – The Five Points of Calvinism

            The Five Points of Calvinism have been given the infamous acrostic TULIP.  Though we might do some damage to this acrostic in the posts to come in order to better clarify what the doctrines of Calvinism actually teach we can use TULIP for now to summarize the points.

1.  Total Depravity – This is the one point that these theologians agreed upon.  Men are totally depraved, meaning that sin has affected the “totality” of our being (heart, mind, will, emotions, etc.).  Every part of us is ravaged by sin, therefore we are totally depraved. 

2.  Unconditional Election – The doctrine of unconditional election, as taught by the Apostle Paul in Romans 9 and Ephesians 1, states that God chose those who would be saved before the foundation of the world apart from any foreseen faith or merit on their part.  In other words, it is only by God’s grace and pleasure that he chooses to save anyone.  There is nothing in the elect that caused God to be gracious to them.  Out of his own loving-kindness he has chosen a people for his own possession.

3.  Limited Atonement – The doctrine of limited atonement (a.k.a. “Particular Redemption” or “Definite Atonement”) emphasizes the fact that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25).[1]  The value of the atonement has not been limited.  The blood of Christ is valuable enough to pay for the sins of every single person on the planet.  Rather, the “limited” in the term “limited atonement” refers to the fact that the actual accomplishments of the atonement are limited to the elect.  In other words, there is a design in the atoning work of Christ for the elect that isn’t there for the non-elect.  This is by far the most controversial of the five points. 

4.  Irresistible Grace – This doctrine also has a pretty misleading name.[2]  Irresistible grace does not mean that the grace of God is unable to be resisted.  We all know that we resist God’s grace every single day, all day long.  So then what does it mean?  It means that when God decides to open the eyes of a spiritually blind person to “see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4), He does it.  By sovereign power, God effectually calls the spiritually dead to life and brings them to Himself.  When Jesus called Lazarus to “come forth” from the dead, Lazarus didn’t resist Him.  Rather, he came to life and obeyed Him.  That is exactly what the doctrine of irresistible grace teaches. 

5.  Perseverance of the Saints – This doctrine could probably be better named “Preservation of the Saints,” but I have no problem with the traditional title.  This fifth and final point of Calvinism simply communicates that God causes those who are truly His to persevere in the faith until the end.  This doesn’t mean that Christians do not ever backslide or fall into sin for a season.  It means that we fight the fight of faith until the end, with all the ups and downs that come along with it.  Others who have come to disagree with Calvinism but still believe that God keeps His own eternally usually call this “Eternal Security.”  I prefer the term “Perseverance of the Saints” because it draws attention to the fact that those whom God has saved will continue in the faith till the end. 

My Own Story with Calvinism

            Those are the Five Points of Calvinism.  There are many godly men and women that do not believe that this is how God operates to save sinners.  I used to be one of them.  In fact, I used to say some pretty ugly things to people that believe what I wholeheartedly believe now.  I once told a Calvinist girl with whom I was arguing about this issue that she didn’t serve the same God as me.  Yeah, I know.  That is pretty ridiculous.  I thought Calvinists were terribly wrong at best or unconverted at worst.  I flat out hated Calvinism and wouldn’t even listen to a preacher if I knew he was a Calvinist.  All that changed when I started taking distance learning courses from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, IL.

            I was taking a course entitled “The Church and Its Doctrines.”  It was basically a survey of systematic theology.  We studied the doctrines of God, salvation, the Bible, etc.  When we came to the study of salvation, I was confronted with the teaching of unconditional election.  At first I just blew it off and said to myself, “Well, I have to learn about this stuff but I don’t have to believe it.”  Studying unconditional election in that class inevitably led me to Romans 9.  It was while I was studying and reading Romans 9 for a few nights in a row that I came to this conclusion: I could no longer in good conscience hold to the view that I had about how God operates in saving sinners.  The text was telling me in plain English that God was sovereign in choosing whom He would save and whom He would give justice.  I just had to submit to his inscrutable ways and trust that He is good.  That is exactly what I did.  It didn’t happen overnight, but I came to love the sovereignty of God and his eternal plan to rescue sinners.

R.C. Sproul’s Encounter with Calvinism

That was about three years ago.  Since then I have read the stories of many other men who dealt with this same problem.  In the first chapter of R.C. Sproul’s book, Chosen by God, he speaks of his encounter with the biblical ideas of unconditional election and predestination.  It is very similar to mine so I want to close this post by sharing his experience.  It is a pretty lengthy quote but I think it is worth reading.  During his undergraduate years he was confronted with the Reformed view of predestination.  Here is his experience:

I did not like it.  I did not like it at all.  I fought against it tooth and nail all the way through college.
I graduated from college unpersuaded of the Reformed or Calvinistic view of predestination only to go to a seminary that included on its staff the king of the Calvinists, John H. Gerstner…I challenged Gerstner in the classroom time after time, making a total pest of myself.  I resisted for well over a year.  My final surrender came in stages.  Painful stages.  It started when I began to work as a student pastor in a church.  I wrote a note to myself that I kept on my desk in a place where I could always see it.
[The note read] YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BELIEVE, TO PREACH, AND TO TEACH WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS IS TRUE, NOT WHAT YOU WANT THE BIBLE TO SAY IS TRUE.
The note haunted me.  My final crisis came in my senior year.  I had a three-credit course in the study of Jonathan Edwards.  We spent the semester studying Edwards’ most famous book, The Freedom of the Will, under Gerstner’s tutelage.  At the same time I had a Greek exegesis course in the Book of Romans.  I was the only student in that course, one on one with the New Testament professor.  There was nowhere for me to hide.
The combination was too much for me.  Gerstner, Edwards, the New Testament professor, and above all the Apostle Paul, were too formidable a team for me to withstand.  The ninth chapter of Romans was the clincher.  I simply could find no way to avoid the Apostle’s teaching in that chapter.  Reluctantly, I sighed and surrendered, but with my head, not my heart.  “Ok, I believe this stuff, but I don’t have to like it!”
I soon discovered that God has created us so that the heart is supposed to follow the head.  I could not, with impunity, love something with my head that I hated in my heart.  Once I began to see the cogency of the doctrine and its broader implications, my eyes were opened to the graciousness of grace and to the grand comfort of God’s sovereignty.  I began to like the doctrine little by little, until it burst upon my soul that the doctrine revealed the depth and riches of the mercy of God.[3]

I hope that you have this same experience when you encounter the truth about God’s merciful plan to save sinners.

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     [1]All Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version.

     [2]Like the doctrine of Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace is a somewhat misleading term.  “Effectual Calling” is a much better term to use in that God’s call to the elect accomplished what he intends for it to do, namely effectually call them to Himself.

     [3]R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1986), 11-13. 

The ‘C’ Word: A Series on the Five Points of Calvinism

Calvinism: One Misunderstood and Misrepresented Aspect of Biblical Theology
“Did you hear that? I think he said the ‘C’ word?” You might be asking, “What is the ‘C’ word?” The “C” word that many Christians seem to despise, particularly in American Evangelicalism, is the word “Calvinism.” There are even Christians who hold to the tenets of Calvinism that don’t like the label. I can relate to that. There is a sense in which I don’t like to be labeled a Calvinist because of all of the misunderstanding and confusion about what classical Calvinism actually teaches. This is due in large part to the caricatures and misrepresentations that come from those who disagree with it. Additionally, there is a part of me that doesn’t like to be labeled a Calvinist because to some it gives off the impression that I am following Calvin rather than the teaching of Jesus that is found in the Bible. Either way, I can relate to those Calvinists that do not wish to carry all that baggage that comes along with the term “Calvinism.”
With all that being said, I have come to the place where I no longer shy away from being called a Calvinist. I am happy to stand with those that believe God is sovereign over all things, including the salvation of sinners like me. Just because I believe that John Calvin was right about the way God saves sinners doesn’t mean that I follow a particular man more devoutly than I follow Jesus. That would be like saying anyone who has a MacArthur Study Bible really doesn’t follow Jesus, but rather, John MacArthur. Everyone knows that is an absurd statement. Just because someone uses a MacArthur Study Bible to better understand the biblical text doesn’t mean that they follow MacArthur rather than Jesus. The same is true for Calvinists. Just because we agree with Calvin and others in the Reformed tradition pertaining to their understanding of salvation doesn’t mean we follow them rather than Jesus.
Different Tribes within the Camp of Calvinism
Just like there are many tribes within evangelicalism, there seem to be many tribes within the Calvinist camp. I have heard people describe themselves as “four-point Calvinists.” Others go as far as to say they are “four-and-a-half-point Calvinists.” I have even read of a pastor that was comfortable with three out of the five points. In my own opinion, when you are down to three points you might as well just abandon the label altogether. And although I have questions for the “four-pointers” and “four-and-a-half pointers,” I am not out on a crusade to eliminate the usage of the labels “four-point Calvinist” or “four-and-a-half-point Calvinist.” I understand what those labels mean and we will deal with them in more detail when we discuss the third point of Calvinism, namely “Limited Atonement.”[1] For the sake of clarification, this series of blog posts will be defending the classical or traditional teachings of five-point Calvinism. The next blog post will be a summary and brief explanation of each of the five points. After that, the remaining posts in this series will be spent unpacking each of the points in more detail.
Learning from the Old, Dead Guys
I think Calvin rightly understood the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the salvation of man. Contrary to what you may have heard Calvinism is not some strange, abstract, theological construct that the Protestant Reformers placed upon the text of the Bible. Rather, it is a biblical theology derived straight from the text of sacred Scripture that dates all the way back to the church father, Augustine, around the fourth or fifth century. I don’t agree with Calvin on everything and you don’t have to either. In fact, outside of the essentials of Christianity and the five points that bear his name (which he did not articulate as “The Five Points,” but more about that in the next post), there isn’t much that we do agree on (i.e., mode of baptism, covenant theology, etc.).
However, we need to be willing to learn from those who came before us and devoted their lives to studying the Scriptures. You have probably heard this saying before, but there is no such thing as a Long Ranger Christian. This is particularly true when it comes to theology. We need to test what we think about God by not only comparing it to what the Bible actually teaches about Him, but also to what the Church has already been saying about Him for the last two-thousand years. That is what we are going to do in this series of blog posts. What does classical Calvinism actually teach us about God and how he saves sinners? We will find out over the next several blog posts.

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[1]The term “limited atonement” is a really misleading term to use for the third point of Calvinism. There are two clearer and more helpful terms to use for this point, namely “particular redemption” or “definite atonement.” This will be discussed more in the blog post on this particular point of Calvinism.