Arminianism: It Robs the Gospel of its Personal Nature

Human-Centered Salvation in Arminianism

Experiencing 17-hour jet lag, believe me, flying back to the East Coast is a snooze in comparison to flying across the Pacific Ocean. What do you do when you're asked to speak in that context? Well, you go with what you know.

And so why don't you turn with me to Romans 8 while I give you the background of my thinking here. I did this morning listen to a lecture delivered by an Arminian scholar, he's a philosopher, but he does address theological issues.

And he's teaching through the doctrine of salvation. And I have often pondered the reality of what you have to do to try to maintain a focus upon man as the centerpiece of the plan of salvation, which is what Arminianism really is.

It is a man-centered faith. While God the Father decrees salvation and God the Son dies to make salvation a possibility, and the Spirit comes and convicts and does everything the Spirit can do, the triune God is giving 100%, but it's up to man.

God's trying, God tries, but man disposes. It's in essence what synergism is all about, all of man's religions. And I've been pondering what you have to do with various divine truths to substantiate such a perspective.

One of the things that truly is a, it's frightening, it's sad, and I don't know why more intelligent, well-read Arminians don't seem to see this. But in essence, you depersonalize the gospel. What do I mean by that?

Well, in the most extreme form of Arminianism, you have what's called those people who do not even believe that God knows what free agents, free creatures can do. And therefore, the future is open. There are various possibilities that might, at least they're consistent at that point, have a sovereign man, is if you have a God who doesn't know.

Play my debate with Bible study. Actually, since no one remembers, I could do it again and get away with it. I don't remember if we did or didn't, but I remember asking Dr. Sanders in that debate, when God created the universe, did he know you would exist?

There's no way he could know that you were going to exist because you are the result of so many free will choices of free creatures over so many generations, it wouldn't be possible for God to know you never exist.

Now, that's what I mean by impersonal. That is, God did not create with any personal plan for an individual in mind at all. He couldn't. But most Arminians, thankfully, are not theists, of course. Now, this gentleman I was listening to this morning, Dr. William Lane Craig, is probably one of the best-known Arminian philosophers out there.

And he was teaching through justification, and it was odd because section 10 of the lecture was on justification, and section 11 jumped over to basically eternal security or something, I don't know. But he was going through various texts presenting an Arminian understanding of security, which strikes me as odd because the Arminian perspective is that, of course, you can truly be in Christ, truly be a Christian, and yet lose your salvation.

The Golden Chain of Redemption in Romans 8

So what kind of a... And he worked through this tremendous text, beginning at verse 31 of Romans chapter. Fox, this evening, will take away what he had to say, and we can basically just rejoice together that we don't.

You know that Romans 8, 28 through 30 is called the Golden Chain of Redemption. We'll go ahead and read it. And we know that God causes all things to work according to His purpose. For those who before knew, He also predestined to become conformed the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.

These who He predestined, He also called. These who He called, He also justified. These whom He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all. How we not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns?

Christ Jesus, He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? For tribulation and distress, just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

That all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, or things present or things to come, or any other created thing, is in Christ Jesus.

We know that after this tremendous golden chain of redemption that finishes in verse 30, we have this explication, this explanation based upon Paul's rhetorically asking, what then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who is against us? Now clearly there is a specific audience in mind. Clearly this is not, this is family language, this is not language that can be used by those who remain in their rebellion against God.

Already in verse 28 there had been a discussion about those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose. We're gonna see very clearly in verse 33 that the us here is the elect. And so there is a very specific audience in mind here.

And if God is for us, who is against us? Why could there be no one who could be against God's people? Because of what it says, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

So here you have not only the self-giving of the son, the giving up this term to deliver him is normally used in sacrificial language. He delivered him over for us all, which I'm not trying to go through everything in the text, I don't wanna get the Arminian misunderstanding, but I just noticed that in passing, this is a tremendous text, is very clear that the giving of the son here, he is given over very clearly defined, he is delivered over for us all.

It's his own son that has been delivered over for us. And that is in him that he gives us all things. Clearly, God does not give all things to every single person. Those who justly experience God's wrath, or as they say in Australia, so they say, and I guess we're the ones they all have men out on that one, it's UK and Australia, it's all wrath, and we're the only ones.

God's wrath comes against them justly and properly, it is only to God's people that free grace is given. But notice, these are very personal things. Can you imagine, if you're thinking ahead, try to think of this in the Arminian understanding, to where the elect is just simply a nameless faith.

It would be like if we talked about the electors, who knows who the electors are. Do we, does anybody else in here even look at the list? Nobody does, they're just those people. From the Arminian perspective, this elect group is just a nameless, faceless group that God has said, well, if you get into this group, then these things will be yours.

But it's up to you whether you get in, and it's up to you whether you stay in. So keep that in mind as you think of these words. Who could really say, if God is for us, who is against us? Only those people who can work up the faith to stay in this group.

If you remain faithful, then you're in this group. But you gotta get that, you gotta work that up. That's you, it's not, faith can't be a divine gift. It's not the work of the Holy Spirit. It's gotta come out of you, you see.

And so, he did not spare his own son for a group, a nameless, faceless group. God can know from eternity past who's gonna be in it, if it's all up to man, if man, I mean, think about it. If God can really know what man's gonna do, is man really free?

That's why the open theists go the direction they do. He did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all. Well, I thought he was delivered over for every single human being. How's there any difference from the Arminian group?

Who will bring a charge against God's elect? How do you bring a charge against nameless, faceless people? How can you even discuss bringing a charge outside of just simply general sin? Well, they were all sinners.

It has to be just a general concept. When the text says, who will bring a charge against God's elect, God is the one who justifies. And here's where the system really breaks down as far as I can tell.

Because Dr. Craig likes to try to defend Sola Fide, justification. But that's not, it's not a, because only, and so it really breaks down, just as the golden chain of redemption breaks down in the Arminian scheme, because you can't have the same audience all the way through it.

They have to have a general universal call and then individual justification, individual glorification. It falls apart at that point. In the same way here, I don't see how this can even begin to hold together.

God is the one who justifies. Who does God justify? I suppose on some level, you could say cosmic justification. Paul's been discussing the book. He's been talking about the God who justifies. And who does he justify?

The one who has faith in Jesus. So it's very individual. It's very personal. This declaration of being free of condemnation, of being right with the judge, is not made for a faceless group that you can go in and out of.

It becomes impersonal in that way. It's not a word of justification about you. It becomes a word of justification about a group. And if our justification, and it is Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

If that's no longer a personal justification, if that's no longer a personal proclamation, but it's just, well, anyone who fulfills these conditions in this group, that's why it's not overly shocking to me that in listening to this man speaking a number of months ago as he laid out different schemes of justification, faith, he had the, and the opposite of that for him was the, and he opted for a modified view versus the reformers when Arminianism took shape and form, just identified it as a hopeless return to Roman Catholicism because that's what it is.

So it becomes impersonal. God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns Christ? Jesus is he who died, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. For whom does Christ intercede?

How can Christ intercede for a nameless, faceless group when the identity of that group changes? How does that work? What's the nature of that intercession? What's the result of that intercession? In fact, we might well ask, how can we have intercession when Hebrews tells us that Jesus is able to save to the utter completely those who draw nigh unto God through him?

And yet from the Arminian perspective, he's interceding for this group, but he can't keep people, people can enter and leave all because of what? What is the Arminian synergism? A change of the doctrine of justification, a change of intercession.

This impersonal idea that the election spoken of in Ephesians chapter one is of a group, not of individuals. Now don't get me wrong, there's many times right here, who will bring a charge against God's elect?

Is that a group? Of course it's a group. You can talk about the elect of God as a group, but that doesn't make the impersonal, that's the key. It's just a group and man determines the identity of the people.

Biblically, it is a group, but it is a distinct group known to God, not because he just looks down the corridors of time and sees what may be his good will. And so this beautiful text, who will separate us?

There's a reason why Arminianism has led to universalism, because when you really boil it down to its essence, you've either got to just abandon biblical teachings and reach for universalism, or recognize this system gives you absolutely no grounds.

Because when you really think through what they're saying is who will separate us from the love of Christ? Well, who's us? Well, it's not me individually, it's me if I do this, if I remain faithful. But you can't have a divine faith, you can't have a will of God that's being accomplished and bring a certain people to salvation then it's you, you.

God's already tried his best. God's put out 100%, the deciding factor. And so as I listened to this, and I noticed this is in a church, his own church, that this is going on. I noticed in his class, he has Bob the Calvinist, and he has another guy who's a Catholic.

Boy, do they ask interesting questions of the same. They're always contrasting, as you'd expect. The irony is that you can tell, Dr. Craig doesn't, he wants to be constantly saying something about Roman Catholicism, but his theology is closer there than is over here.

So I was listening to this today. As I listened to the very personal promises found here in this text, being taken away from people by simply saying, and I just thought, this myth of man's atonement. If you're willing to give up promises like this, I'm so thankful that we don't labor under that misapprehension.

So when we read this text, we can see that God's love indeed has been set apart.