John 3:16 Conference: Former Calvinist in the Q&A Session

The Conference, Its Sponsors, and the Missing Side of the Debate

A few weeks ago, a conference took place under the direction of Jerry Vines Ministries. In fact, according to the set of DVD tapes, tapes? DVD videos, you can tell how old I am, I have here, which I want to thank Mr. Kelly and Mr. Harris for.

According to them, this was sponsored by Jerry Vines Ministries, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and Luther Rice University and Seminary.

I have already begun to comment on this conference on the dividing line, because my name came up in the midst of the conference. I'll have more to say about that later. But I've also criticized the conference, simply because if the individuals who are speaking here were known for their willingness to interact on a meaningful level, on a deep biblical level, and if they were known for their accurate representation of the best that Reformed Theology has to offer, then I wouldn't have any problem with them getting together as a group and doing a presentation like this.

But the fact of the matter is that's not what they're known for. Instead, the synergistic side, the side that rejects the perfection of the work in Christ, and they never say that, but what they mean is Christ's work makes us savable, but does not actually save.

That is the position that they are espousing. That side wants a monologue. And I know a little something about Southern Baptist politics. And the fact of the matter is, when you bring the seminary president in, and you bring in Paige Patterson from Southwestern, one of the deans of Southwestern, David Allen, what you're basically saying to pastors and to seminary students is, don't go here.

We're warning you, and if you want to have our approbation, if you want to have our approval, don't go here. The fact that they did not have anyone in to provide another side, to do any type of interaction, to me speaks volumes.

It truly does. But since I have the DVDs, I thought I would utilize the medium of YouTube, because that is a good way of getting hold of folks, getting through to individuals that way. And I want to actually start off with something that really caught my attention.

Sometimes I'll skip the presentations, just go to the Q &A, and then go back. Because Q &A gives you some type of indication of the level of dialogue that you can expect from the fuller presentations.

And there was one interesting section that I will especially deal with in the Q &A, in regards to David Allen and the concept of John Owen and his view of particular redemption, my own view of particular redemption as well.

A Former Calvinist Testimony in the Q&A

But right after that interesting question, this gentleman got up and gave about a five-minute testimony. But it was a five-minute testimony of his being saved out of Calvinism. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that this gentleman is asserting.

And given the amens, I think a lot of people at the conference would agree that Calvinism isn't even Christianity. Now, that's not what Paige Patterson said. But nobody from the front rebuked this man.

No one tried to correct him. No one tried to say, well, now, brother, maybe you didn't understand what you were taught or something, but certainly you're not suggesting that Calvinism is not even Christianity.

But I think many of the people at that conference, it's exactly what they do believe, is that Calvinism is a false gospel and it does not save anyone. That certainly has been the assertions of many others.

But as you listen to this testimony, see if you can identify a coherent position in what this gentleman is saying. Specifically, he talks about how he basically got saved out of Calvinism by discovering that Jesus loves everybody.

Does he flesh this out? Does he give us any logical or rational way of understanding what it is he's saying? Is he saying that he wasn't a Christian because he didn't believe that Jesus loves everybody?

What does he mean by Jesus loves everybody? Does he mean that Jesus loves those who believe in him in the exact same way as those who do not? What exactly is he saying? And how did that change anything?

If he all of a sudden got saved, where is there anything about salvation in the sense of repentance, forgiveness of sins? It's troubling because when it all boils down to it, he bases his assertion on what God told him.

You don't get any meaningful biblical foundation for any of this. And the fact that the response is to not say anything about that on the part of the speakers was extremely troubling. But let's listen to what the gentleman had to say.

Thomas Dickerson's Testimony and Question About Calvinism

My name is Thomas Dickerson and I live here in Atlanta, Georgia. This is actually my first Baptist conference ever in my life. And my personal testimony, I do have a question, but my personal testimony is I grew up in the Presbyterian Church for 26 years.

I served at Perimeter Church as a worship leader at PCA Church here in Atlanta as a worship leader for five years. And at a Reformed Baptist Church for three. I was a full five-point Calvinist. I was trained from the time I was 14, the doctrines of Calvin for the five points of Calvinism.

Jonathan Edwards, Spurgeon, by pastors and associate pastors that had gone to Reformed Theological Seminary. And so for all those years, I took these men at their word and I studied the scriptures this way.

I believed that God before the creation of the world elected only some for salvation. That Jesus Christ only died for the few elect and that the rest of those people were damned for hell for the rest of eternity.

There was really no question about that in the denomination that I was in and I was raised up to be a good Presbyterian in that way. I also, when I was a kid, I believed that I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

The problem was when I got to the end of eight years of serving as a full-time minister in the Reformed faith, there was no power in my life. I couldn't overcome sin and I kept trying to reconcile the fact that, well, if I'm one of the elect, and I had nothing to do with coming to Jesus, then why can't I overcome the personal sin in my life?

What is wrong with me? I mean, I confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior. And so I get to the end of this and I finally resigned from the church because I felt like there was no power in what we were professing.

Though we claimed to be Christians, there was no power in it. And I had studied all of these doctrines. And so I left. I went off into the world to see if there were answers there. Didn't find it. And then I finally came back, never been in a Baptist church really at all, to Johnson's Ferry Baptist, and I met my wife.

And the first day, I was actually leading worship. I had no business being in a leadership role for a college group for about a six-week series. And when I met my wife that first day, I didn't know she was going to be my wife.

She talked to me about Jesus. But when she talked about Jesus, she said that He was the Savior of every single person in the world, that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

And so we get married. I continue a position at Reformed Baptist Church. And I told her, our kids will be Calvinists. We will always be Calvinists. She kept trying to tell me about the love of God. And what I didn't know is that her and her parents, who were Southern Baptists, began to pray for me to get saved.

Now, if you would have said that to my face, I would have said, you're crazy, and this is the real gospel. God does not love every single person. And only those whom He foreordained to believe are going to come to Jesus.

And so two and a half years later, one night, I'm in my car with my wife. And the Lord overwhelmed me with His presence. And when I was in the car, the Lord revealed something to me. And He said, Thomas, you're serving against me.

And then He brought a scripture to my mind out of John chapter 3, something that I'd read but never really understood about being born again in this interaction with Nicodemus. And I said, Lord, after 26 years of being in church buildings and 8 years of full-time ministry, have I never been born again?

And He said, no. And do you know, in that moment, I experienced the love of God for the first time. I realized that I'd never been saved.

Amen.

And right there in the car as I was driving, as my wife was watching this, I said, Lord, would You come into my heart as Lord and Savior? I want to be born again, and I need Your Holy Spirit. And instantly I was saved.

Now listen, I knew from the moment I met Jesus that He loved every single person. For the first time, I knew that God so loved every single person in the world that He gave His Son on the cross for the sins of everybody, that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord can be saved.

And so from that moment, 30 months ago, I've been talking about Jesus, and I can't stop talking about His love. Having been a former Calvinist, I pray for my Calvinist associates and pastors and people that I know.

Because a lot of them are good people, but my question is for you. And I don't know who would be best to answer this. I came to this conference to find out what the Southern Baptist Convention is going to do about Calvinism.

Because if I were to walk away from this conference this weekend, I'm not sure I would walk away with the understanding that there's a definitive line to say Jesus Christ truly does love every single person and gave His life.

And because I would walk away understanding, I understand that you were very strong in limited atonement, but that if I was a perhaps two or three-point Calvinism, that that would be okay, we just need to get along and agree to disagree.

But I'm telling you, as a former Calvinist, that the Lord made it very clear to me that He has no association with that type of thinking, because He is the God of love, and He gave His life for the sins of every single person.

So my question is, what will the Southern Baptist Convention do? And we've had less baptisms, from what I understand from my father-in-law, than ever before in the Southern Baptist Convention. And I believe it has to do with this doctrine.

How is the SPC going to deal with this issue? And is it wrong, or is there just a couple points that are right, and the three are wrong, or how do you deal with that question?

Thanks for letting me answer that.

Southern Baptist Limits and the Response to Calvinism

Well, here's the short answer. We'll do the short answer. I hope it's short. The Southern Baptist Convention, by virtue of our ecclesiology, cannot dictate from the top down what can be done and cannot be done in the local churches, nor should we.

That would violate our ecclesiology and violate the Scripture. Consequently, there is nobody within the Southern Baptist Convention, there's no Southern Baptist Pope or College of Cardinals or bishops or any Senate or anybody else, no seminary faculty, president's group, faculty, anybody else, who can dictate what to do about Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Now, what we can do is what we're doing here and what Building Bridges did, which was a good thing, which is bring us together and talk about these things, not attacking one another personally, but talking about the issues.

What are the theological issues? That's why the Building Bridges Conference and this conference, these are healthy things for us to do as Southern Baptists. And we need to do that, and we need to continue to do that.

We need to love one another, we need to seek to work together, and what we need to do is not, and I'll just say this and we'll move on, it would be a mistake in the Southern Baptist Convention if we decided here's what we're going to do, we're going to tell all Calvinists get out of Dodge.

That would be wrong, that would be a mistake, we should not do that. On the other hand, it is also wrong to make Calvinism a convention cause. And there are people in this convention that are doing that.

And that also is wrong. And so trying to get all Calvinists out of Dodge, that's wrong. Trying to have Calvinism as a convention cause, that's wrong. Both of those are wrong. What is it that unites us as Baptists?

And what unites us is not going to be Calvinism. The last thing we need is for our convention to become a Calvinistic convention, and the last thing we need is for all Calvinists to be run out of town.

What needs to happen is we need to come together as Baptists, not making Calvinism the issue. Come together around Baptist distinctives. Work together with people we can work together with, but not sacrifice our Baptist distinctives on the altar of anybody's theological system, whether it be Arminius or Calvin, Calvinism.

And that would be, that's what we need to do. That's the only way forward. No man on this stage, and no man or woman in this congregation can predict what's going to happen over the next few years in the Southern Baptist Convention.

One thing is for sure, this issue is not going away, and it is going to be the, in my opinion, the watershed issue for the next five, maybe even the next ten years.

All right, we're going to move on quickly here.

Evaluating the Testimony and the Language of Salvation

Now I'm at somewhat of a loss as to know exactly how to respond to that personal testimony. Obviously the gentleman was a little bit nervous, and so it's difficult to make heads or tails out of some of the things he was saying.

Some of the time frames, for example, he uses don't really make any sense. And I would love to know what presbytery he was in. I would love to know what Reformed Baptist church he served in. Maybe someone watching this video will know.

It would be interesting to know what the background here is. But in essence, there was nothing, the only thing that was said about sin was that he had no power over it as a Calvinist. But then when he, quote-unquote, gets saved, he gets saved without any reference to repentance.

He gets saved without any reference to sin. Instead, somehow, he gets saved about something about the Lord overwhelming him, the Lord speaking to him. It sounded like direct vocal revelation of some kind.

There were no biblical references made, anything like that. And I don't care what religion you are or what denomination you are. When you start talking in that fashion about personal revelation, I get a little bit nervous as to the soundness of what it is that you're presenting.

And so he says, he revealed something to me. I experienced the love of God for the very first time in my life, which obviously means that from his perspective, Calvinists have no concept of the love of God, even though they distinguish, I guess because they distinguish different kinds of love in God.

The fact that he does love the non-elect and that he does not wipe them out the first moment they come into existence. They could be rightly done and justly done, but he does not. He causes his rain and his sunshine to fall upon them, and he gives them many great gifts, shows them many tender mercies.

But that's not redemptive love. That's not the same love that he shows for his elect in maintaining their existence until that point in time where he brings regeneration and brings them to faith in Christ.

We recognize that kind of differentiation in God's love. We do not embrace the concept that basically makes God less personal than man and forces his love to be of only one type and one kind. Many people do that.

And when they recognize that we say that there is a special redemptive love, well, then that must mean that God doesn't love everybody equally. And that's what God has to be. He has to be the grandfather in the sky, subhuman at that point in not being able to have different kinds of love that we ourselves have, obviously.

But anyway, notice what he says at the end. He says, I came to understand whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Any self-respecting, meaningful Calvinist who has read almost anything says the same thing.

It is amazing to me that the tradition can be so strong, and this fellow, I think, said like 33 months, that you would not be aware of that, that you would not see that what you're saying is, well, I understand whoever calls upon the name of the Lord to be saved means that every single individual person on the planet has this capacity.

Well, where did you get that? The fact is, anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The question is, Jesus himself said, no one is able to do that. And that's what's amazing to me, is that you would think that there would be such a focus upon providing responses to these strong biblical texts that say things like that.

And yet, that's not what you get out of this conference and things like that. But more on that later. So back to this fellow. He says, I pray for my former Calvinist associates. As a former Calvinist, he says, I want you to know the Lord made it very clear to me, I think that's a direct quote, he has no association with that kind of thinking.

How do you understand that? What's this man saying? Sounds to me like he's saying the Lord has nothing to do with any of the Reformed churches. Any of those in the Southern Baptist Convention who are Reformed, the Lord has nothing to do with their worship.

It almost sounds like he's saying they're not Christians. He got saved out of it. And while I appreciate some of Dr. Allen's, as David Allen gave the response, while I appreciate some of his response in saying we can't kick everybody out, it certainly, let's put it this way, if a Calvinist had given a similar type of question and testimony, I would have corrected him in any place where I was speaking, if I was the one who had the opportunity to speak at the microphone.

Because, it's sort of funny, this guy sounds like a hyper-Arminian. He sounds like the mirror image of the hyper-Calvinist who doesn't believe that any of their Arminians are saved. That's certainly been one of the things that I've noted about hyper-Calvinists, which is one reason they don't like me.

But many of the hyper-Calvinists believe you need to have some sort of perfection of theology in order to be saved. You need to understand every single aspect of God's revelation. And you need to sign the dotted line all the way across.

Well, it almost sounds like the same thing, but in reverse here. That you have to be a hyper-Arminian and sign all the way across so you're not saved. It's hard to say from a brief, quote-unquote, testimony like this.

But it was an amazing set of assertions that this gentleman put forward. Now again, I can't say anything about the man's background because I don't know who he is. But he didn't use terminology that would indicate any kind of deep grounding in the Reformed faith at all.

And I'd like to know, what presbytery was he serving in? What Reformed Baptist church was he a part of? I'd like to know these things. It would be interesting to find out. But thankfully, that was not really representative.

There was another question later on. And it seemed very clear to me that that speaker, likewise, views Calvinism as a heresy. It's something that has to be stood up against. And it seemed to me that the questioners, a number of the questioners, felt that they hadn't been strong enough in their denunciation of Calvinism at this particular event.

So that, in and of itself, is rather fascinating. So I'll be looking at actually the question that was immediately preceding this, where David Allen finally, someone got up and said, you know, you sort of skipped this in your presentation, so would you please respond to John Owen's argumentation regarding the double payment, the pouring out of God's wrath upon Christ and upon sinners, the same sin.

And amazingly, amazingly, what we're going to see, it's sort of a teaser to watch the next video when I post it, is not only not a shred of biblical argumentation presented,.

Not any at all,.

But you're actually going to see leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention saying that the Supreme Court of the United States has answered the question about double jeopardy. And I was like, wow, I had to roll that one back a few times to make sure I really realized what I was seeing.

So we'll take a look at that one in the next in this series that we're going to be doing in response to the John 316 conference. Thanks for watching.