Calvinism Redux
Since my last post, I’ve received a couple of emails from people asking me to discuss the merits or my concerns with Calvinism with them privately. I decline the invitation. Let me explain some reasons why.
Last week I was greeted with the opportunity to discuss Jesus’s resurrection with one of the most prominent theological scholars of this century. I have several of his books on my shelves and I have learned quite a bit from him. In our discussion, I pointed out that the Word demonstrates that Jesus ascended into heaven on the third day and that the Acts 1:9 account constitutes a different ascension with different ramifications. He confessed that he had never heard of two ascensions before and that he wanted to investigate. In some prior posts, I dealt with this third-day ascension in defense of John MacArthur’s Charismatic Chaos tome that holds that there is no Holy Ghost baptism for today. (see The Birth of the Church). In those posts, I show that Jesus blew life into His disciples in John 20:22 and the Baptism is a second definite experience. On another post, I dealt with Kenneth Copeland’s interpretation of Hebrews 5:14 that “senses” refers to physical senses which it does not. Finally, this coming Monday, I intend to begin a series of posts dealing with the Resurrection and the Blood. The first post will show that John MacArthur, William Mounce, N.T. Wright, and John Piper (and practically everybody else) have wrongly interpreted John 19:30 to mean that Jesus’s mission ended at that moment in time. My point is that all of these great ministers of the Gospel have missed it one way or the other.
I have used some of John Calvin’s materials in some of my own Word studies. For instance, his rendering of Romans 8:11 is quite better than most other ministers’. He, however, was not a foundational apostle. He did not write scripture and he might have missed it in certain areas or along some scriptural lines. To hold that a Christian’s heart is “dark and black and awful” (using Challies’s phrase) is one glaring error that comes to mind. As stated in my last post, one day I will have to give an account to the Lord for the light I walked in. So I regularly consult various sources like theologians such as N.T. Wright, Greek scholars such as William Mounce and Daniel Wallace, and preachers as diverse as John MacArthur and Kenneth Copeland. In fact, one of my favorite ministers has just an 8th grade education, but he knows the move of the Spirit. As I look over my bookshelves, I do not see a single minister who hasn’t missed it somewhere, including all of my favorites. That doesn’t warrant a monthly bonfire and I will continue to use these men’s books and materials. Becoming a Calvinist proselyte doesn’t really allow for this type of approach to the Word and I am much too anti-establishment anyway. If Calvin’s theological model, TULIP, is as infallible as many seem to say it is, then my own studies should get me to the train station whether I ever open The Institutes or not.
On this blog, as one may see from my comments with David Pearson and others, I love discussing scripture and I am not squeamish about hard ones. In my mind, everything Word is on the table and I welcome intelligent questions and points of view.