THE HERE I STAND THEOLOGY PODCAST Not Calvins Idea! The Doctrine of Grace Episode 1 of 6

Will you recant or will you not?

Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple counsel, who have so often contradicted.

Podcast Introduction and Guest Background

Here we are, live from the heart of Ramsey Manor, in the studio. We have a special guest in the studio with us, BG. Also by the way, this is the Here I Stand Theology Podcast. This is going to be a special installment.

We're going to be doing a five to six, depending on how far we get, maybe more, maybe less, I don't know, but a special series on the doctrines of grace. Again, BG stands for Brother Gregory. Greg Madison will have him introduce himself here in just a moment.

I do want to remind everyone that the Here I Stand Theology Podcast is a ministry of the Reformation Baptist Church, so we are accountable for everything that we say. We will not teach false doctrine.

If we seem and sound like we are getting out there, do not hesitate to bring to us the.

Scripture.

We'll be glad to look at that with you. But in any case, so Greg, how are you doing?

I am doing quite well, thank you. Very, very excited to be here. So thank you very much. It's a wonderful time.

First time in the studio.

It is. It is, I know.

On show, anyway.

I know.

I'm so privileged.

So again, we are glad that we are getting to do this. We've talked a lot about this. We're finally getting started on it. And tonight, probably you may hear in the background, our family's in the living room, but that's okay, hey, because family's important.

When you have kids, you just sort of, you just drown all that out. You don't even notice it anymore.

Background noise.

Whatever.

Children screaming.

It's all right.

Big sister torturing her little brother.

Oh, it's great. It's great.

Ambiance.

It is. It is.

It totally is. Just wait every now, now and then. And then you get good at deciphering the screams if it's just whining about something or somebody's really injured. But, you know, you pick it up. There are nuances.

It's so good.

It's like a dialect.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So.

Greg Madison’s Testimony and Church Life

So, Greg, before we get started, before we get into our content tonight, tell the audience about yourself. Introduce yourself, where y 'all are from, where y 'all are at now. What's going on?

Sure.

Absolutely. So I am. I am Greg Madison, also known as Brother Gregory. I have the Unmerited Favor podcast. You can find me in a very few places, Spotify, YouTube, so on and so forth. So that's that's about the extent of my Internet presence.

Other than that, myself and my family originally from from way up north in Connecticut and only moved down to Tennessee last year. We we fled. We fled the the Democratic People's Republic of Connecticut and we arrived here in actual America.

So.

So we're we're enjoying things quite well.

And you're getting ready to celebrate your one year anniversary.

Yes, absolutely. One year anniversary is March 16th. So 316 providentially enough. But but yeah.

Yeah.

So we're looking forward to that. It's been it's been quite the year.

Now we're not talking about your wedding anniversary.

No, it is the move anniversary.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't remember what my wedding anniversary is. No, that's not true.

You just said that on air.

No, that's fine. I joke with my wife on that all the time. No, I still remember.

So how many years have you been married?

Fourteen. Awesome.

I'll go with that.

Sure.

Why not?

Right.

Yeah. Somewhere.

Somewhere around there.

How many children?

We have two kids, a boy and a girl.

Awesome.

Yeah.

They are totally different people. It's amazing. It's amazing how different they are and also how differently one feels about them. You know, my my daughter is my little girl and I will I will die to protect her.

And then my son, you know, he falls and I'm like, get up, kid, man up.

But he has he has just acquired the ability to run.

Oh, yeah.

Correct.

Yes.

Yeah.

And he is he's a kid who should never have learned how to run because he's he's one of those crazy kids. So, you know, our daughter, we dodged that bullet. She was very peaceful throughout all of her years.

And then this kid, man, as soon as he could move, it's just like insane, chases everything, runs at everything, throws things. He's got a great arm, though. So, you know, there is that.

All right.

So where do you go to church at?

I go to church at Reformata Baptist Church here and here in good old Tennessee.

Knoxville.

Knoxville.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I attend in here. We been here now for I don't know. We joined up a few months after we had moved down here.

I think June or July.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We we looked around, couldn't find a lot with with good sound theology and then found found this and so started coming and we've been here ever since.

Praise the Lord.

Oh, yeah.

Praise the Lord. Greg and his family have been a tremendous addition to Reformata Baptist Church, so you need to know that. I know I tell you that regularly.

Yes, you do.

But I'll say it publicly. I ain't scared. I'm not going to hug you. I'm not going to hug you on here because it looks awkward in the camera.

Right.

And we got wires and everything. It's just it's just won't work.

Yeah.

So. So.

The Doctrines of Grace and Why Calvin Did Not Invent TULIP

So let's introduce our topic tonight again. This is beginning a series on the doctrines of grace. We are basically tonight. The plan is to simply be to discuss the fact that the doctrines of or that the tulip acronym was not invented by Calvin.

But before we do that, let's play a little bit of intro music here.

Yeah.

The two of us. You and I. You and I. All right.

So Greg is a and I'm I'm not ashamed to say this. He is a resident theologian at the church. He is a man full of much wisdom and much knowledge. And he is only what, 37, 38, 38, I think.

Yeah. Yeah.

We'll go with that.

He is but a young man.

I am.

And again, the BG thing is something kind of new that I think we're starting with, Greg.

Yes.

Hopefully it catches.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the happy Calvinist is a new thing for me, Greg. We discussed this a little bit.

I did.

I took issue with it because there's no such thing as a happy Calvinist. It is a prerequisite to be miserable. In fact, there is a there's a saying that the greatest fear of any Calvinist is that somewhere someone might be happy.

So that may be another another goal that we have here is to dispel the notion that Calvinists that reform folk cannot be happy, right? That you don't have to be a stick in the mud, right? To be holy.

Right.

Of course.

Of course.

Calvin, who spoke extensively about the joys of grace, was one of the least miserable people.

So.

The Remonstrance of 1610 and the Synod of Dort

All right.

So let's begin with the fact that Tulip isn't a Calvinist idea. So back in 1610, there came to be known something called the remonstrance. It was take it was took place basically by the followers of Jacobus Arminius after he passed away.

He passed away in 1609. And really, they just kind of ran with a kind of ran with his ideas and incoming call.

Right.

Incoming call.

It's fine.

It's fine.

The building isn't on fire. So Jacob Arminius, his followers just kind of took off. And I've said this before on another podcast episode, the pastors panel with Truth and Love Network. And I'll say it again.

I think. Have you done a whole lot of reading on the remonstrance?

I have not. No, no. My knowledge is not that extensive.

So most of what I've read, it's almost as if, which you can see it happening. Followers of someone after they die kind of take off and they kind of start inserting their own angles and their own views and their own ideas.

Yeah.

And I think to some degree, this is what happened with Arminius and his followers because Arminius held to the Belgic Confession, which is soundly reformed.

I love it.

Soundly reformed.

It's one of my favorites.

Yeah.

No, I absolutely love the Belgic Confession. It is fantastic.

There was an interesting, just getting into this, an interesting article on ccel .org Philip Schaff wrote concerning the Armenian controversy. It corresponded to the Pelagian and Jansenist controversies in the Catholic Church.

It involves the problem of ages, which again and again has baffled the theologians and philosophers and will do so to the end of time. The relation of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Of course, it started with the doctrine of predestination, turned around five articles after the remonstrance, which came to be known as five articles or five points of Calvinism.

Here's a new term that we both just discovered today, hence the term quinquarticular controversy. So if you're watching this and you really want to impress your theological friends, ask them about the quinquarticular controversy.

It started with the doctrine. So Calvinism represented the consistent, logical, and conservative orthodoxy. Arminianism became, as Schaff writes, an elastic, progressive, changing liberalism. And liberalism has always been a challenge within the church and should be challenged.

As well, I found out that, you know, with the rise of the Molinist controversy nowadays, that it is said historically, though, that Arminius, part of his theology came from a what's the word? Not Judaistic.

Jesuit.

Jesuit.

Yep.

Kind of came out of a Jesuit theology.

Right, because Molin, he was a Jesuit, and yes, yeah, so that makes sense. I kind of jokingly referred to his Molinism as the Roman Catholic form of Arminianism. But you know, the commonality, of course, being that they are both still established on salvation by works.

So whereas with one, you have to obey all the law, and with Arminianism, you only have to obey one. But in either way, you're still obeying some law in order to be saved.

So let me so talk on that for just a minute about the just give us kind of an overview of the difference between the five points of Calvinism and the five points of Arminianism, which I'll bring up while you're doing that.

Right, good. Because I don't have the as beautiful as the details for each are, but again, as you had mentioned, that the five points of Calvinism were a response to the Arminian doctrine that was presented to be taught as truth.

So at least back in the day, liberalism had enough respect to ask if it was okay to show up at church. And so there was the Arminianist doctrine was being presented, the Arminian doctrine was being presented.

And so the good Christian men formed the Synod of Dort, from which we have the Canons of Dort, which were the conclusions from that Synod, from that council that was formed. And it was the response to the Arminian points of doctrine.

So Arminianism actually caused the creation of what is known as five-point Calvinism, which has a clever little acronym of TULIP, which I, for being a Calvinist, I'm not I mean, I think I can remember them all for TULIP, because again, Calvin didn't come up with TULIP.

And Calvin's main contribution to Christianity isn't the doctrine of predestination. Calvin's main contribution, the unique contribution, if you will, is the Holy Spirit. Calvin wrote at length about the third person of the Trinity.

And so much of what we know and understand about the biblical doctrines relating to the Holy Spirit come from Calvin's works. So Calvin wasn't obsessed with predestination. He mentioned it because it's in Scripture, but that wasn't his soapbox.

But there are unfortunately now a lot of Calvinists who are only Calvinist by name because of TULIP. And then they just abandoned the rest of Reformed theology, which is very tragic.

That would be the young, restless, and Reformed crowd, right? So TULIP, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. Those are the acronym, that's what the acronym represents.

So again, with those being designated, they were not something that Calvin came up with, but they were given actually as five theological answers to the problem of Arminianism. So Arminianism came first.

Yes, yes, yep. And so the Canons of Dort effectively put that together. And that was their conclusion. So each of those points represents the response from that synod on those matters. And then we had it nicely packaged into a clever little thing, which then we get to use flowers for.

So I'm sure that was intentional.

There are no really manly flowers, though. You'd think that they would have came up with a Venus Flytrap acronym.

I know, I know. And that's the thing with flowers. I'm like, you know, flowers, I don't think are inherently masculine or feminine, but no, I don't need any or want any, so.

Conditional Predestination and Human Autonomy

So the five articles of the Remonstrance are not in order with, are not necessarily aligned side by side with the acronym for TULIP. But the first of the articles of the Remonstrance was conditional predestination.

Obviously, in response to limited atonement, right?

Right.

Arminius taught that God elects individuals to salvation based on his foreknowledge of those who, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, believe in Jesus Christ and persevere in the faith. This doctrine is sometimes called conditional election.

So maybe it's the unconditional election that he's confronted with. It's, in short, a person's salvation is conditioned upon him or her choosing God. Again, something very big today. If you are a YouTuber, you cannot turn on the YouTubes unless you see a Leighton Flowers.

Video.

Now, you're not real familiar with Leighton Flowers, right?

No, I avoid the internet.

He's got a thing, he's got a thing, I mean, about James White. He won't let up on James White. But, you know, don't grab an angry dog by the ears, is what the Scripture says. So that's a dangerous thing.

So unconditional election in the TULIP acronym versus the conditional predestination in the Arminian article, the view that God elects individuals to salvation based solely on his will and not anything inherently worthy in the individual or any choice that he or she makes.

So talk a little bit about conditional predestination from the Arminian view for a moment.

Right.

And so with that, I mean, you have it. It's a desire to retain one's autonomy and really is sort of the underpinning of a lot of the debate when it comes to the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.

Now, not to not to, of course, defend anything that is not biblical or anything that may be heresy, the the fact that God is sovereign and that man is accountable are two clear doctrines in Scripture and they are a mystery, however, and so which is why you have the different camps and the different views on how all of this works, because we don't fully understand how all of it works, because clearly man is accountable for all that he does and says he will be held accountable for all that he does and says by God and God is absolutely and ultimately sovereign.

And so you do end up with a lot of different a lot of different things. And Arminianism being one of them, I think, though, the failing of Arminianism is that desire to try to keep some human autonomy.

It's not really a matter of, well, we want it to be as biblical as possible. It's more so if we don't have libertarian free will, then what's the point? And to be fair, the the first generation Arminians were far more educated in in reformed theology than modern Arminians.

I mean, modern Arminianism is the weirdest stuff I've ever heard. I mean, at least these men still knew their scriptures. They still knew the writings. We've gone all all kinds of crazy with them anyway.

Well, just the term. I mean, just the term conditional predestination. So God's predestinating purpose for us basically is what this is saying in the Arminian view is God's predestinating purpose for us is conditioned upon what we allow him to do or not to do.

Right, right.

I know.

And the conditional and the conditional being, I mean, really, it gets down to that point of if you believe that the cross of Christ makes men savable as opposed to believing that the cross of Christ saves men.

And that's really the big point on conditional versus unconditional. So if Jesus died for the world, every single person, then that means that his blood only made them savable as opposed to saving them.

But yeah, and then which means then that the individual has to choose. And as I said, to choose something is still an act. It's still a matter of obedience. It also assumes, and this gets into Pelagianism, which is the belief that man is inherently good, his nature is inherently good.

I believe Romans don't say that, though. It says there are some that are good. There are some that are righteous. There are some that seek after God.

Oh, yeah, sure.

That was it. Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, God flooded only a partially corrupt world.

Sarcasm, by the way. Sarcasm in case anybody is wondering. None good, none righteous, none seek after God.

Right, absolutely. And so there's that matter of believing that one can choose salvation is to choose righteousness and to do so by their own will assumes that one's will is capable of righteousness, whereas Scripture is very clear that we are dead in our trespasses and dead men cannot choose.

You know, dead men get no vote. And one of my favorite examples, in a very literal fashion, was that Jesus did not ask Lazarus if he wanted to be raised from the dead.

Exactly.

There was also no doorknob on the outside of his tomb. Christ just called forth and Lazarus rose from the dead. So, you know, how you feel about it does not matter.

It's almost like Jesus is sovereign over life and death. Right, right. And everything. The heavens and the earth are the Lord's and he does according to his pleasure in the heavens and the earth.

Right, absolutely.

Universal Atonement, Effectual Calling, and the Necessity of Grace

So you touched there a little bit on, really got into the second point of Arminianism, which was universal or unlimited atonement. We won't go into the limited atonement today because we want to kind of set that.

Sure.

You know, we'll have the depth. We'll go into the scriptures on that. But we just want to kind of, we'll kind of look at these today.

We'll leave them wanting more. I get it.

Exactly.

Exactly. All right. So universal atonement, you said it. I think you stated that so perfectly, right, that Jesus didn't die to make salvation, just make salvation possible. But he provided.

Right.

How did you word that?

Right.

Oh, so the cross did not, the cross perfectly saves. It did not make men savable.

Amen.

So, and that's really the, that main distinction on the atonement part of it. Limited versus unlimited.

Yeah.

And so the third point of Arminianism really is the only point that we, we can really have agreement on. I mean, it's amazing that really, if, if they taught this concerning total depravity or deprivation, how they can, how you can get the rest of it wrong.

Right.

Is a mystery.

Right.

And when you, I mean, and you'll, you'll, you'll run into this even when having discussions with, with generally biblically sound Arminians, regardless is that you can use the same terms, but you're talking past one another.

Because Arminians clearly believe God is sovereign.

Yeah.

But they don't use that term the way that Calvinists use that term. Unless of course, you're talking about things that don't really matter because the advice from any Arminian is it's, it's all right that that didn't work out.

God has someone special for you. And I'm like, well, that doesn't sound like free will at all. God, God has a, God, you know, I'm like, no, you can, you can pick and choose.

That goes kind of into the Joel Osteen theology. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Oh, absolutely. That, that actually sounds like irresistible grace. In fact, God has a plan for your life, whether or not you want it.

So that leads us to the fourth point of Arminian doctrine. Grace is necessary. So it's needful, but they say it is resistible. So of course, Arminianism rejects the Calvinist belief in irresistible grace or effectual calling.

Teaching instead that people have a free will to resist the grace of God and to reject his call to salvation.

Right.

So, right.

And that's the same, my, my, my same issue that I have with with any legalism. And you see this also because Roman Catholics will agree on the necessity of grace. Arminians will agree about the necessity of grace.

Everyone's pretty much on the same page of the necessity. The distinction is the sufficiency. And so for the work-based theology and for work-based salvation, grace is necessary, but it is insufficient.

It still requires an action by man, independent of a provision of God. Whereas the reformed understanding is that grace is not only necessary, but it is also sufficient.

So, just some more old, just some names. Some folks may not understand, may not have ever heard here. And they're fun to pronounce. So, what folks may fail to realize, we're just doing the succinct, the short, giving you the intro on this, but the remonstrance of 1610 in an article.

Who wrote this? I've started to really like his preaching, the Robert Godfrey preaching. Have you listened to him preach much?

I have not, no.

Oh, dude, seriously.

Okay.

Seriously, he's good. He's Dutch reformed. He's a good guy.

I love the Dutch reformed.

But in an article there on Ligonier, he wrote this, the remonstrance of 1610 was a rather long document. The executive officer of the state, Jan van Oldenbarnevelt.

Nailed it.

Saw immediately how explosive the document was and wanted to try to keep it a secret. As with most government secrets, he was soon widely known and evoked the reaction that Oldenbarnevelt had feared. The orthodox Calvinists soon issued a response that became known as the counter remonstrance of 1611.

And these Calvinists came to be called counter remonstrance. So, which came first, the remonstrance or the counter remonstrance? The remonstrance.

Right.

Right.

Standing against that. And it's just these little things like this in really getting down in our theology and looking at and understanding our theology and understanding the heart of our theology. We were talking a little bit, if you would, don't mind, on our way home from Bible study last night, talking about the importance of church history.

Can you share a little bit about the importance of church history?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

In relation to this particular.

Right, right. Because our current problem is that for most Christians, church history begins at the moment of conversion, which is an absolute disservice to the thousands of years of church history. But even on this particular doctrinal issue, a lot of the things with which we may struggle or even the things that we believe that we've learned from whatever organization or institution we belong to.

Up, we aren't aware that there may have already been debates on this, that there may already have been, you know, actual, you know, God fearing men, well-educated who wrote and debated these things at length.

And we just ignore that and all that has come before us because, boy, history is boring, sort of a sort of a mentality. And then we just form our own conclusions on these things or we think, oh, yeah, sure, that's good enough because it makes sense to me.

And then we hardly scratch the surface of Christianity, you know, and to the point that I always bring up, even just that notion of universal literacy was a Protestant idea. And it was everyone should have to read because everyone should be able to read scripture so that they can challenge doctrine that they hear.

And it was a way of guarding the church against false teachers. And history does that as well. Our knowledge and understanding of history helps guard us from, again, those same things that plagued the church for so long, ever occurring again.

So, so it is, it is critical. Church history is critical. And I only really realized that a few years ago because I was definitely of the, you know, whatever about history sort of camp.

And that's a normal place to be really for folks. You can't, you can't, you can't fault folks, but you can fault folks for remain. You can't blame blame them for ignorance unless it's willful ignorance.

Right.

Right.

I mean, I think my, the turning point for me was, was actually a sermon series on the Song of Songs, which was my least favorite book. And it was my pastor's favorite book. And so he did a sermon series.

And I was always, I didn't know where I stood on that because it's, you know, you go back and forth on that book. His leading argument was, it's the Song of Songs, which means it has to be about Christ.

Christ is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. Therefore, if the greatest song ever written, it could only have been written about Christ. And so at that point he converted me on it. But from there, you then realize how much Christ loves the church.

Amen.

And then you see throughout all scripture, how much Christ loves the church. Because when you grow up in a modern evangelical world, you think that Christ loves the world, that Christ has a heart for the lost, which, mind you, is a quote nowhere in scripture.

And from that, it was that realization of, boy, Christ really loves the church. I don't think that highly of the church. I'm wrong. And that was really the catalyst of, let me pray about this to love the church as Christ loves the church.

And as a part of that, there is the history of the church because that is who she is and who she has been and where she has gone. And so as one who is to love the church, you should know all you can about her.

Hence the delving into Christian history.

And we'll never plumb the depths, as they say.

Never.

Oh, there's too much. There's too much. There's so much that's written.

Yep.

All right.

So let's hit this last point of Arminian, the articles of the remonstrance, the possibility of falling from grace. Now, we could have gone into a lot more in depth on these, but we just want to kind of, again, set the stage because what we want to focus on are the actual doctrines of grace in the coming episodes.

So the last article of the remonstrance is the possibility of falling from grace. It's the fifth article. The remonstrance did not utterly reject the idea of eternal security, but admitted the need, although it was later adopted as an established doctrine.

So you talk for just a moment about the possibility of falling from grace from the Arminian perspective, and I'm going to see if I can find the actual article to read it.

So I like the admitting the need for further study. So the Arminian, apparently, the original Arminian idea of this was we're not overtly against the perseverance of the saints, but we need to do more research, I guess, was kind of the punt on that one.

Right, right. But either nobody followed through or they concluded something. But regardless, it then became codified as a point of Arminianism. And this is one of the less common points of modern Arminianism.

Most Arminians really take issue on the beginning, the election piece. And again, I think that's very telling. That's very indicative of that idolatry of self will. We want our will to be like God's will.

We want free will because most Arminians don't have an issue with the perseverance of the saints, which is actually, I mean, in one way is good. In one way is bad. It's good because that's actually biblically sound because you cannot lose your salvation.

However, on a logical and rational level, that's a failing of modern Arminians. Because if you can choose your salvation, you should be able to lose it. It makes rational sense because perseverance only comes about because of the sovereign will of God.

Since you did not choose to be saved, you cannot choose yourself out. But I mean, if you can vote to join the union, you should be able to vote to leave the union. So, you know, that whole thing doesn't usually work out in history.