The Calvinism of Luther

You have your copy of God's Word. I want to invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter 2 and Hold your place at verse 1. Getting a little bit of feedback up here before we read I want to Offer a few words of thanks.

I want to thank the conference organizers particularly Jeffrey and hats for And Braden I'm sorry. Not only am I honored to speak alongside of them but I have Come to call them friends met them last year at the conference and I'm very blessed to get to have gotten to know them.

I want to thank the Lord for opening doors of ministry, especially in this last year much of which came through humor. I said, you know, the bowtie has done a lot of things opened a lot of doors through funny videos and things like that, but I'm not clowning around today.

There may be a little humor, but it won't be joke and I do want to explain the title of today's message before we read the title is the Calvinism of Luther. Well Last year when we did the shadows to substance conference.

I wasn't a speaker last year I was just doing my podcast. But I was talking to Jeffrey during one of the breaks and he mentioned that they were going to do a Calvinism Conference this year and he he just said what would you talk about if you wanted to come and speak and I said well I want to talk about the Calvinism of Luther and as I sort of lit up and oh, well, that sounds interesting.

But I want to say off the bat that the title itself is a click bait Title if you don't know what that is you're probably not into YouTube and all that stuff like me, but you put things out there just to get people's attention and right before we started I Poe I always post picture of my notes.

I have these very colorful kind of odd-looking sermon notes and I post pictures of them online and the title by itself has already got a lot of people interested because their first thing Cal Luther wasn't a Calvinist.

I know. But you clicked. Right, like like that was the purpose. The entire title is anachronistic. Because when we talk about Luther, we're talking about someone who was born in 1483 and Calvin was not born until 1509.

And I got to thinking about that in a sort of just comparative way. I was born in 1980. My daughter was born in 2011. Sorry 2012. My wife's gonna not be happy about that but but my daughter and I are about the same difference in age as Luther was to Calvin and So to talk about the Calvinism of Luther is is Anachronistic, but what I want to show today and what I hope to convince you all of is that they shared an anthropology.

Which in many ways? Was influenced by their spiritual ancestor Augustin now Andrew has already talked about that some earlier today. And I'm going to seek to simply expand on some of what he has already said.

But understand this my goal today is not necessarily to convince you of Calvinism. There will be other men who come and do a wonderful job. But my goal is simply to convince you that there was a unity of anthropology among our reformed ancestors that was actually shared by the church prior to the Reformation and that we have a.

Historic.

Anthropology of the nature of man in his fallen condition that we can look to and say this is what the church has taught about this subject and Therefore we can have confidence in what we believe as not just simply being some wild-eyed view from a 16th century French Expositor but rather we are holding to the anthropology of the church Which has been held now lo these many centuries.

So with that being said I invite you to open your Bibles again. Stand. Well I'm not in church. I my church stands to read the word. If you'd like to stand you're welcome, but I'm gonna read chapter 2 Verses 1 to 3 and this is reading from the English Standard Version, and you were dead in The trespasses and sins in which you once walked Following the course of this world.

Following the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind Our Father and our God.

We come to you in Jesus name and We ask now that even now you would give us Your Holy Spirit to understand what we are about to hear. For we know that apart from the Spirit we can do nothing apart from the Spirit.

We can know nothing and apart from the Spirit. We will not be able to understand or apply What we learn. Lord we are completely dependent.

Upon you I.

Thank you for my brothers who have already preached for brother Claude and for his passion for brother Andrew and his professorial presentation. And I pray now Lord that I would seek to simply dig a little deeper Into the history of this important subject.

I Pray that you would keep me from error as I preach your word. And I pray that your people would be edified and Lord if there be even one here who has not yet Named the name of Christ who has not yet bowed the knee to the Savior.

That you would do that work that only you can do and bring them the gift of regeneration which leads to life. And we pray this in Christ's name Amen. One person who I did forget to thanks or to give thanks to as I was thanking haps and Braden and Jeffrey, I want to thank dr. White who is here with us.

Dr. White has been very helpful over the years and being an instructor and Friend to me and I'm very grateful for the times that I have gotten to spend with him. Even the awkward times where I've sat and watched him eat.

So if you don't know that story I'll be happy to tell you later. So I want to share with you some dates that are important. I've already given you one and that was 1483 if you're familiar with the old tune about Columbus in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue well About a decade before that Martin Luther was born in 1483 and then in 1505 as he was returning home from University he was caught in a storm and That storm as many of you probably know who are somewhat familiar with Luther's life as he was caught in that storm he thought he was going to die and So in the moment where he thought his life was going to come to an end He found himself afraid and so he called out not to God or to Jesus but rather to st. Anne and He said st. Anne if you save me, I will become a monk.

Much to the chagrin of his father who had paid for him to go to university and get an education. Well, it was a few years later. He did become a monk and in 1517 he published what became known as the.

95 theses.

Every year at our church we celebrate October 31st 1517. We celebrate it as Reformation Day not because that's really when the Reformation began. But it's a moment in time that we can look to in and be thankful for.

It's a moment of time that we can say here's here's a watershed moment in the history of our faith and we can be thankful for what happened there. And Just remind you in 1517 when Luther published the 95 theses.

He was 34 years old Calvin was eight. A few years later in 1521 came the imperial diet of worms which my children love to call the diet of worms and that is where Luther gave his.

Speech in.

Different scholars have presented it in different ways. Sometimes it's the very bold speech here. I stand and And some say he was more reserved here I stand I can do no other God help me. Amen, and I would imagine that may be fairly accurate understanding that it was only as Andrew mentioned earlier only a century before that Jan hus at the Council of Constance was condemned for some of the very things that Luther had taught and Was not given the safe passage that he was promised but rather was taken out and was burned.

Luther knowing what could happen and potentially would happen still stood for truth and Luther said a lot of things that I disagree with in much of his theology. I would repudiate but on the core issues of the faith, I believe we stand together and I will say this Luther is my hero.

Not because he was perfect. But because he took a stand for the Word of God. Certainly many other dates could be mentioned in the life of Luther. But I want to share with you just one more and that is December of 1525.

It was in December of that year that Luther published his response to the writings of a man named Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus had written a work on the freedom of the will. De libero arbitrio. Which means of free will?

Luther responded with de servo arbitrio on the bondage of the will. This would become to Luther such an important work that later in his life. When he was talking or rather, excuse me writing a letter to Wolfgang Capito he said he saw no other of his writings other than the bondage of the will and The catechism that was worthy to continue to be published.

This is amazing considering the voluminous amount that Luther wrote. It's estimated that he published new writings every few weeks. I I had the opportunity to interview on my show a Group of Lutheran pastors just a few weeks ago and one of them from the UK said it's estimated that that at one point in Luther's life he was publishing every two weeks.

Which is just an amazing amount of writing. Especially when you consider the fact that he did not have a MacBook but he was rather writing with a quill pen and ink and I want to say this because of Luther's prolific writing.

It is sometimes hard to nail down exactly what his position is on certain issues. Because when speaking of an issue in one area, he may speak on it in another area and sound like he's contradicting himself.

I don't know if you've ever had that problem. Where you'll say something in one context and say something in another context and someone might think you're contradicting yourself. Well, imagine if you wrote all the time and you were constantly publishing things.

Therefore some of what I say today about Luther. I'm I'm I know for certain someone's going to say well you misrepresented Luther. Well, I want you to know. From the very bottom of my heart. I have no intention of misrepresenting Luther at all.

I would hope that if he were sitting in the audience Although he would be very confused. I Believe. So why was the bondage of the will this work that Luther wrote so important to him. Well, it was important because he understood what it meant in regard to theological accuracy.

A Right understanding of God is essential to theology. Earlier we had Brother Claude come and talk to us about that very thing. We need to have a right understanding of God. We all need to have our Isaiah moment where we recognize that God is holy holy holy and I am NOT NOT NOT.

And so a right theology begins with a right understanding of God, but it also includes a right understanding of men and Luther believed that to err in regard to the issue of human free will was dangerous to the soul.

He said this he said a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he knows that his salvation Lies altogether beyond and out of his own strength counsels desires wills and works till he depends Absolutely upon the counsel the will and the work of another and that other is God.

One cannot read the works of Luther without coming to the conclusion that he was convinced of a monergistic view of salvation. Monergism simply means that there is one who works in Salvation. We do not have a synergistic view where two or more work together to accomplish a Particular task, but we have a monergistic view where God alone is doing the work.

Even as it were the work of giving us a gift of faith. Now having said all that it is important to understand that Luther did not hold to all of Calvin's views and Modern Lutheranism will be very quick to tell you that as I said, I love Luther and I love Lutherans.

I know that sounds kind of a strange Thing to say but I sometimes think they don't like us. I Make jokes about that with Hans Feeney. Who's the the guy from Lutheran satire? He is a wonderful brother in the Lord.

But I tease I say I say we like you guys, but y 'all don't like us. So what I want to do on on their behalf if I could take just a moment in the message is I would like to simply address The issue that separates modern Lutherans from Calvinists and where the issue really lies.

Before we get to the heart of Luther's theology I want to on their behalf say well, this is what they would say is the dividing line between us and They would say That the reason why they reject Calvinism is because of double Predestination however when Describing it and I have listened to several of them describe it.

When describing it it seems as if they are defining double predestination as something called equal Ultimacy, which means that God does the same positive act in election that he does in reprobation that God expresses the same amount of Power in Damning someone that he does in saving someone that's equal ultimacy.

And by the way, that is not What Calvinists should believe and by the way? Having just said that I paused.

Because.

Some of you may believe that and I'm Simply going to say that there is a debate in Calvinistic circles as to the method by which God brings about Reprobation. But I am convinced that reprobation is an act of passing over or predation not an act of Creating evil in the heart because the evil is already there.

But it's important to recognize that while Luther and Calvin shared a monergistic view the resultant systems which arose from each man's theology Do have Distinctions especially in light of the fact that both of the men's systems were then carried on by their followers and their followers had different ideas.

Of course Calvin was succeeded by Theodore Beza and Luther by Melanchthon and both of them put their own thoughts into the systems. But if you were to ask a Lutheran and I and this is actually I'm going to quote now from the pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church.

He has his own YouTube page. He does an ask the pastor Series on his YouTube page and this is what he says in regard to the difference between Calvinism and Lutheranism in regard to election.

He says this and.

By the way, I I asked Hans if this was right and he said yes, so if it's wrong Y 'all get on to Hans and not me. I hope it's okay that I told y 'all that.

I.

Got with him beforehand. I said, hey, I'm gonna say this. Is this right? Does this does this rightly reflect what you believe and he said yes. God elects men to salvation in view of Christ's merits which are only received by faith.

God didn't elect anyone by an absolute decree. But he only elected people in view of Christ and his merits and Christ is only apprehended by faith. We don't add faith as a cause of election. We add it because it's simply part of the order God has established.

No one is considered in Christ in the scriptures unless by faith. This does not answer the question of why some and not others because faith is a work of God in man's heart. Not of man. All this does is simply acknowledge that the scripture teaches and defends against the Calvinism or the Calvinian absolute decree.

That was a long sentence. So let me see if I can help you make sense. They don't like the word decree. They don't they don't like the idea of double predestination, but they have to admit that Faith is a gift and they have to admit that the faith that is a gift comes from God.

And that it's not wrought in the hearts of men because they share the anthropology that Calvin share. They recognize man's deadness and sin his inability to do anything good toward God and yet at the same time.

They know that not all men have faith and so they have to leave it there and simply say we're not going to go any further. God has elected he has predestined but he is not predestined anyone to hell and therefore in my and This is gonna sound a little unfair.

I love them to death, but in my estimation they want to have their cake and eat it. Too and that's the meanest thing I'm gonna say all day because I think they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be able to say God elects but not To hell.

God doesn't choose who's going to hell. He just chooses going to heaven. Well, that's having your cake and eating it, too. And sometimes we're accused of the other side. We're accused of being overly logical.

And there oftentimes they will appeal to mystery. Well, these things are left to the mystery of God. That's their language not mine. That's a language that they use and therefore this is where the challenge comes in.

But again, my only point in all of this is to simply say that both of us are starting at the same point. And that's men has an absolute inability to do any of this on his own. Even modern Lutherans will say man cannot come to faith.

Apart from a work of the Spirit of God in his heart where the Spirit gives him that faith. You see that's the key. That's what brings this together. That's the unifying anthropological understanding. So again even in affirming against the Calvinistic view of predestination they still affirm that faith is a work of God not something that is brought about by man and This is where Luther and Calvin's anthropology Converge and the bondage of man in sin and the inability of man to believe apart from God's grace.

Now with that being said I want to now share What three things I believe are most consistent Between Calvin and Luther in regard to this teaching so if you're taking notes or you want to write something down this might be the point where you would pull out your pen because I'm going to give you three thoughts to consider.

These are the consistencies in anthropology that we find between Luther and Calvin. I'll give you the three if you want to write them down and then we'll go through each one of them. Number one. They both affirmed emphatically the doctrine of original sin.

Number two, they both rejected absolutely the concept of free will and Number three, they both affirmed Salvation sola gratia, which is the Latin for by grace alone. Now with those three ideas I want to now lead you through a few thoughts that they have written and then I'm going to read from Calvin's Institutes, I'm going to read from the bondage of the will and Also, I'm going to read a short portion of a book that because what's interesting is Luther and Erasmus had his Luther had his debate with Erasmus over the freedom of the will well Calvin also had a writing which was a debate against a man named Albert Piccius and Albert Piccius had written a On this subject and Calvin wrote against him and.

So it's interesting as we heard Andrew talk about earlier how often this subject comes up and every generation. Has their debaters you have Pelagius and Augustine you have? Luther and you have Erasmus you have Calvin and Pigius and then later Arminius and you have white and flowers every generation has their.

Has.

Their debaters. So let's look first at original sin. When you say the word original sin in a church today You might get looked at with some confusion because not everyone even understands what you mean.

Oftentimes when you say original sin people think you're talking simply about the sin of Adam in his original state. But that is not the doctrine of original sin. That is simply Adams sin. The doctrine of original sin is that Adam sin has brought a corruption to all of his posterity.

All of his posterity refers to all of his Descendants and by the way that includes all of you. You are all born of.

Adam.

In fact in a couple of weeks. I'm going to be doing another debate. I'm going to be debating a young man named redeemed zoomer. Y 'all know who that is on the subject of evolution. Because he's a Christian who believes in evolution and so we're going to have a debate on that subject and I believe one of the major Issues and I'm sure he's going to hear this so he'll be able to at least prepare himself.

I believe one of the major issues is that in evolution if you join hands with your ancestor and He joins hands with his ancestor and he joins hands with his ancestor eventually someone is going to be holding hands with someone who's not human.

If evolution is true at Some point there's going to be a step back in the chain where you go from human to non-human. Well beloved that is not biblical anthropology. Biblical anthropology is that man is a special creation of God created in his image and That man in his fall Represented all of humankind and what we call the federal headship of Adam where he was the representative head of all mankind.

And in the same way where we have a federal government where if our federal government decides to go to war Guess what? We all go to war if our federal government decides to have do something We all do it because they represent us and when Adam sinned Against God he sinned in a federal sense.

He's sinned as our representative and now his sin has affected us all that is the doctrine of Original sin and and even further is how much it has affected it has affected us to the point that we now are Morally unable to do good toward God apart from a work of grace.

By the way, this is something interesting among Lutherans. If you ask Lutherans about free will they will say we have free will beneath us but not above us. They will say we are free in those things that are Choices like I was free to go to lunch today or go to the food truck or whatever.

I have freedom in those things that are beneath us. But when it comes to the things that are above us I am.

Bound I.

Don't have freedom in that. Why. Because I have a moral inability which comes from what? It comes from the fall and I have inherited that inability. All right, so that's the doctrine of original sin. There's more to it.

But for time's sake I'm hoping most of you understand it. At least and if you have questions, I'd be happy to talk with you later. So is it right to say that Luther affirmed original sin? Absolutely in the bondage of the will he said this.

He said seeing that we are all under sin and damnation through the one offense of the one man Adam How can we attempt anything which is not sin and which is not damnable? So he addresses right there. We are in Adam and in Adam fallen and in Calvin's Institutes.

He says this he says we thus see that the impurity of parents is transmitted to their children So that all without exception are originally depraved. The commencement of this depravity will not be found until we ascend to the first parent of all as the fountainhead.

We must therefore hold it for certain that in regard to human nature Adam was not merely a progenitor. But as it were a root in that according by his corruption the whole human race was.

Deservedly.

Vitiated and that word vitiated means spoiled or impaired. Calvin writes a little longer. But you hear what he's saying. Through the one sin of Adam all of human kind was spoiled or impaired. So did both of them affirm original sin absolutely and Because of this they both rejected absolute free will.

Or what might be referred to as libertarian? Free will. And I'll seek in a moment to give an understanding of that. Because if you read the bondage of the will I mean the very title itself proves Luther did not believe in a free will.

That the the title of the book. But I do want to read a quote he said this he says original sin does not allow free will to do anything except sin and be damned. Hear that again. She's original sin Does not allow free will to do anything.

But sin and be damned. Now again, you may not agree with that. You may not be a Calvinist in a and I may not be convincing you of that truth. But I hope that I'm showing you that's what Luther believed.

Again, that's my purpose today is to say this is the anthropology of Luther and it was the same anthropology of Calvin. Because when Calvin wrote against piggies and I'm not sure I'm saying that correctly.

Alberts, it's it's PIG H I us and There's not a Google Translator alive that could give me a right answer as to how it's supposed to sound. So I'm just going with piggies. But piggies. I want you to hear what he said.

Because.

There's possibility some of you never even heard of him, but I want you to hear the arguments He made against free will and I want you to think about some of the arguments. Maybe you've heard against Calvin I'm sorry.

He was arguing against Calvinism. He was arguing against Sovereign election and the the he was arguing for free will. Listen way says. He says that if we do not have free will. It contradicts common sense.

It destroys all morality and discipline. It turns men into animals and monsters. It makes God the author of sin. It perverts his justice into cruelty and his wisdom into folly. Sounds like a soteriology 101 post and.

Hey.

Layton will be here in a little while. I ain't trying to be ugly, but that sounds exactly what they're saying. By the way, don't know he was coming. Yeah, Layton flyers will be here. He's coming to support the guy who's debating.

Dr. White be nice.

With that.

Why. Well, yeah Calvin responded to piggies his work. Much more eloquently than Luther responded to Erasmus again. I like Luther because Luther liked to really have colorful language and I like that. I like the fact that he didn't mince words.

He said it like it was but Calvin was the scholars scholar and on this subject he wrote this and. And I excuse the use of Latin. You will understand the words, but I just for a moment. I'm not gonna read it all in Latin but there'll be a Latin portions in.

Regard to this Calvin said man has arbitrarium spontaneum. So that he willingly and by choice does evil without compulsion from without and therefore he incurs guilt. But owing to native depravity his will is so graven to sin that it always chooses evil.

Hence spontaneity or spontaneity and Enslavement may exist together. The voluntous is spontaneity, but not libera. It is not co-opta yet serva translated. The will is self-directed, but it's not free.

It can do what it pleases but the problem is what it pleases to do is sin. So if someone asks you do you believe in free will. You can say no. Well, I mean you can say whatever you want. I will say no.

But I will say this. I believe man makes choices and they are legitimate choices. But that they are choices that are bound by a will which is in bondage to sin.

That was Calvin's point. Yes. Yes.

Certainly man is self-directed. The problem with that is the self part. Yes, you're self-directed, but yourself is bad.

The will does what it wants.

But until it is liberated by the Spirit of God It will not want the things of God. Isn't that very similar to what I just said about Lutherans today who say we can do. We are free to things below us. But we are not free in things that are above us.

See there is more commonality between Calvin and Luther maybe than we'd like to admit. Yes, they differed on the table. Yes, they differed in many other areas, but on the issue of anthropology on the issue of the nature of man and sin.

There was.

Much agreement, so both affirmed original sin both Rejected absolute or libertarian free will and Finally both affirmed salvation by grace alone. Luther and most modern Lutherans affirm sola gratia Calvin affirmed.

Interestingly enough Calvin affirmed what he would call prevenient grace. The problem is later the Remonstrants who were the followers of Arminius that Andrew told us about they would take a different use of the word prevenient grace for the.

Arminian, oh.

And by the way, here's something interesting classical Arminianism holds the same view of the will of man as Calvin and Luther. Because they all believe the will is bound until God sets it free. The only one who didn't believe the will was really bound is you have to go into Pelagianism and we're going to talk about that in a moment.

But for now, let me simply say this Arminians believe in the bondage of the will in the sense that they believe that God has to do something. The difference is they believe God has done that for Everyone and he has preveniently graced everyone or as I think dr White was the one who said peanut butter like he smears it on everything.

Yes, like like it just sort of goes on everybody and grace sort of goes everywhere and doesn't save anyone but rather makes men savable. That's not what Calvin meant by prevenient grace. Calvin's view of prevenient grace was much more in line with what we would talk about as effectual grace that the grace comes and affects the heart the grace comes and changes the soul.

Calvin said this Conversion is the work of God alone. Now could that be the sixth sola? No, it's not necessary because it's already in there because if you affirm salvation sola gratia. You are affirming that conversion is by God alone.

As you're conferring you're affirming that it has to be by grace. It cannot be a cooperative thing it is by grace alone. Therefore if you affirm the five solas in their intention not in some odd Reinterpretation, but if you affirm the five solas in their intention, you will affirm a monergistic regeneration.

Calvin said this he said the will is prepared By the Lord. The will is prepared by the Lord. So this is the issue. We have these two men these ancestors in the faith Luther and Calvin a generation apart.

They came to some different conclusions about various things, but on this issue they were in agreement. They were consistent. And why? Why were Luther and Calvin consistent. One is because they had a common scriptural commitment.

They were both committed to Scripture. Both were masters of the languages the heart that beat within them was the heart of sola scriptura. They both applied similar hermeneutics and therefore came to similar conclusions.

Even though they debated a little bit about what is means Lord's table. This is my body. Nobody a Little bit of debate there. Sorry, that was inside that was inside baseball. Sorry. They had a common scriptural commitment, but they also had a common theological heritage and I want to say this our opponents in this debate today will often Look to what I'm about to say as the problem.

But I look to it not as the problem but as a positive thing. Because I am willing to say that. Yes, Luther and Calvin had a tremendous theological influence from one who came a thousand years before them and his name was Augustus.

I'm sorry, Augusta.

Yes.

Augusta did influence Calvin and Luther if you read their writings you can come to no other conclusion and the problem with that for some is that they will argue that Augustan himself Introduced many Theological Novum's many new theologies into the church and they will say that no one before him believed in original sin no one before him believed in The fallen nature of man to the point where he was unable to do these things.

I Appreciated what Andrew said earlier about the fact that the first three or four hundred years of the church were more invested in the debate over Christology than anthropology. That does not mean that they didn't discuss it or talk about it.

But certainly the major councils within the early church and the writings of the early church did deal a lot with the person and work of Jesus Christ and it was those issues with Pelagius that brought about the systematization of Augustan's theology, but again If we look historically History has sided the church has sided with Augustan not out of fear.

Not out of having been coerced or not out of having been fooled. But because in the vast majority of instances when this subject has been a has arose. They have found his arguments to be most consistent with Scripture.

So, why do we look to Augustan. Because Augustan was looking to Paul and Making the very same arguments that he was making. In fact, it was after Augustan and Pelagius. By the way, Pelagius was condemned as a heretic.

But his teaching didn't go away as Andrew mentioned earlier. It moved into more of what was known as a semi Pelagianism and Then what BB Warfield would call a semi semi Pelagianism. And his book by the way, we want the reference.

So that's the book The Plan of Salvation by BB Warfield. But there was a council that took place. This council took place in France in AD 529.

So.

It was after the death of both Augustan and Pelagius. And the council was known as the Council of Orange was actually the second council of Orange and they established 25 canons of teaching now. This was not an ecumenical council.

This was not a council that we would look to like the Council of Nicaea or Chalcedon or any of those. This was a more local council. But yet at the same time they knew there was an important issue with which to deal and the issue was how do we understand? the nature of man, how do we understand our Anthropology and understand this is a thousand years Before Luther wrote the bondage of the will.

There are 25 canons, I don't have time to read them all to you and I'm sure you wouldn't want me to if I did. But I do want to read to you one of them. The first one and by the way, I don't agree with everything that the Council of Orange decided.

So if you come to me later and say oh, well, they said this about baptism or this about this. Yes, I'm not saying it was perfect. But what I am showing here is a consistent anthropology through history, right?