All You NEED to Know About CALVINISM | Theocast

Calvinism versus Arminianism, election versus free will. I think maybe the question needs to be more

Senator Ron, how do I know I'm saved? Am I saved because I know God saved me and he never fails his promises or I know

I'm saved because I chose God or maybe I didn't. I don't know. It's a good question.

Let's get into it. Hi, I'm John Moffitt.

I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church and host of Theocast. This is Ask Theocast where we answer your questions from a reformed and pastoral perspective.

Calvinism really is a fireball word. You throw that into a Bible study, I'm a

Calvinist, I'm not a Calvinist, and all of a sudden the temperature in the room rises. And I think a lot of that has to do with not understanding history, really not understand the teaching, and a lot of people thinking it's about one man's theology and I don't really care about what

John Calvin taught or Jacob Sarmenius, I just care about what the Bible teaches, which I agree with you and we are going to get into that.

But the whole reason you're watching this video is most likely you typed in what is Calvinism, so we're gonna get into that.

Calvinism is, it's been changed. The word, it doesn't mean what it used to mean and it's developed over time.

A good illustration, if you were to go to this website, almanac .com or you could

Google this article, believe it or not, during the 16th century, it was illegal in France to eat potatoes.

I know, it's crazy to think that, but it's true. They believed that it gave you leprosy.

So they said, don't eat it, don't grow it, and if you do, you're going to be breaking the law.

And it wasn't until the 17th century after the Seven Year War that a French pharmacist started to cook it and started to show people that one, it's not only not going to give you leprosy, but it's also good to eat.

The same thing has happened with Calvinism. It has morphed over the years into something that it's this big boogeyman and it's a false teaching.

It's a doctrine of demons. You should stay away from it and it's bad. Well, let's talk about, first of all, where it came from and then we're gonna talk about why it really does matter what you think about this teaching.

And it affects not only salvation, but it affects a lot of areas in your life and your church and how you think about God.

So the Roman Catholic Church, most of you probably have heard of the five solas, which birthed out of men wanting to move away from the

Roman Catholic Church because the Roman Catholic Church, which was teaching, you are saved by, yes,

Jesus, yes, grace, but it's grace plus your obedience to these set of sacraments, the seven sacraments.

And the reformers said, no, this is not accurate. And they started to reform away or to try to change the teachings.

And really what was the foundation of that were the five solas, and you can look that up. We'll do a whole nother video on that later.

But part of the five solas was sola fide. And it was by faith alone that we believed that we were justified.

Well, more and more as the church began to reform, the congregations that were being formulated wanted to know, like, what does the

Bible say about this and about men, about the nature of God, about the nature of church, about prayer.

So they created a confession to clarify what the church has believed throughout history.

Speaking of history, the debate between free will and sovereignty didn't happen between John Calvin and Jacob Arminius.

It happened way before. The church has been arguing about this and deeming it heretical, and we'll find out which one here in a minute, for many, many years.

We could go all the way back to Augustine, who in the sixth century was debating with Jacobus Arminius, I'm sorry,

Pelagius, who was teaching that we were born without a sin nature and we chose to sin and we could choose

God, which would then save us from our sin. That was deemed heretical. And so this debate's been going along for a long time.

Well, let's fast forward. You have the reformers who've been writing and who've been clarifying, looking at scripture, ad fontes is the word, but going back to the original sources to see this is where the

Roman Catholic Church went off course. This is now what we confess. And so we have the Belgic Confession.

This is what the churches, the Dutch Reformed churches, were all embracing saying, yes, this is what we believe the

Bible teaches. Well, Jacobus Arminius had a problem with this. He was a professor and he had a problem with some of the points.

He began to teach and teach his students that, yeah, I don't think election and predestination is really what the

Bible is teaching. And I think Jesus died for everyone, not just a select few people. And I think you can lose your salvation.

And so the church was very concerned with his teaching in the university.

Well, when he died, his students decided to make a case that the confession that these churches, that all of these hundreds of churches were embracing should change.

So at one point, Calvinism, believe it or not, as we will know it today, was the common belief and free will or Arminianism was not, which it seems reversed today in the

United States. So these men presented it to the churches and they formed the

Senate of Dort or this big council of the Senate of Dort. And they had these long meetings.

And just for the sake of time and the history, that's where the five points came from. These students presented five points to the church council.

This church council examined them in light of scripture and said, no, we are not changing the council.

We are, I'm sorry, we are not changing the confession because we find them to be biblical. Later on, because John Calvin is probably the most famous writer, they got deemed as the five points of Calvinism.

Even though he didn't write them, it was the council of the Senate of Dort that was rejecting

Arminianist students' writing. But what they were getting at was a very important debate.

And this is where I think we need to think about it. Before we jump in to the five points, which we are, and examine them according to scripture, what they were really dealing with is the nature of God and his promises against the nature of man and his ability.

And the last point, which is the perseverance of the saints that they're really dealing with, can someone lose their salvation?

Once someone is saved by God, eventually can they get to the point where they're not saved by God?

Because think about it, if you had the free will to choose God, does that mean you also have the free will then to not choose

God or to walk away from him, to no longer be a part of his family, to no longer be his child?

That's what the debate came down to is, how do I really know that I am saved and that one day when

I die, I'm going to see God? It's a debate on assurance is what this comes down to. Now, not everyone agrees with the

Arminian teaching, but this debate matters because it does affect two things, which we are going to examine in all of our videos.

You're gonna learn how to look at scripture and adjust the way that you read the Bible, realizing that maybe your position is off and it needs to be adjusted.

This is going to challenge your thinking on who God is and what are his promises, and number two, how to study your

Bible, because this comes down to a bait on what does the Bible say? Because we've all seen the list, right? Here's all the lists from the

Calvinist of all the verses that teach Calvinism, and here's all the list of the free will, or Arminians, who teach, and then how is it that they're opposing each other, actually not?

There's not an opposition. The Bible is very clear on this position.

So going forward in the future videos, I'm hoping to present to you a very important debate because where you land on this will affect either trusting in God for my assurance to know that he has saved me or trusting in yourself to know that, yes,

I know I made the right decision, therefore I am saved, and then reconciling that to what the

Bible actually teaches. At the end, you can decide as we look at Scripture whether it is biblical or not.

So in the next videos, you're gonna learn two things. You're gonna learn how to compare

Scripture with Scripture, when Scripture contradicts each other. Wait a minute, this one says elect, and this one says free will.

How do we reconcile those two? The second thing you're gonna learn is what's called presuppositionalism or presupposing.

Do I read the text from one position or am I reading it with,

I'm unbiased. I'm just gonna let the text read how it is. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.

No one reads the Bible without a position ahead of time. And we're gonna figure out which one position that you have and do we need to adjust it.

So I look forward to walking through Scripture, helping you think through the

God's sovereignty, man's free will, the historical debate, and what does the Bible really teach.

This video, we're talking about total depravity and no, it doesn't mean that everybody is totally as bad as they could be.

Total depravity, as famously said by R .C. Sproul, is probably the most important point and all other points really hang on this first one and understanding it from a biblical perspective really is going to help explain and all the other ones kind of fall into place underneath it.

So when someone says they're a 4 .5 -er, kind of doesn't make sense to me and we'll see why here in just a minute.

But when we first start looking at total depravity, the word can be, the two words together can kind of give a misinterpretation of what is being said.

Total, we can conclude that everybody is as bad as they possibly can be, depraved, right?

Depraved of things that are good. That's not what is meant by this.

Some would use the word total inability is one way. Totally dead is how

I would probably describe it. As it relates to your spirit, you are totally dead, not somewhat or partially.

So there's multiple ways you can change it and we'll get to the explanation to it here in a minute. But to begin with, a lot of times people say, well,

I reject total depravity because you can see that humans make good decisions to help the old lady across the road or give to the poor.

That is not what we're talking about. That is a reflection of our nature as it relates to the nature of God.

But when it comes towards our ability to believe in God for salvation, that's where we're gonna say there's a total inability or death in that relationship.

Now, when you study God's word, everybody has to look at it in its entirety.

You can't just look at one particular passage and interpret the entire Bible or even that verse by itself.

That's what we call biblicism. Biblicism is to look at one verse or a group of verses and make a decision or a conclusion, isolating them one from the book, the greater context of the

Old and New Testament or the Bible at large. So throughout history, theologians have created systems or we would say explanations or lenses to help us understand and interpret the

Bible. Here's some that you are probably familiar with. And if you're not, then maybe you're a heretic and you don't even know it.

But the nature of Jesus is a great example. If you're reading Colossians 1, verse 15, and where it says the firstborn of all creation, you could conclude, and some have, that Jesus is not an eternal being and that he is a created being by the

Father. I mean, this was a doctrine that was rejected many hundreds of years ago by Athanasius fighting against Arius.

So what we have, we have to look at all of this, what the Bible has to say about the nature of God and the nature of Jesus, and make sure that when we read individual passages, that could be confusing.

We read them in light of what everything has to say or all the Bible has to say about that subject, meaning the nature of Christ or the eternality of Christ.

Another one could be the omniscience of God or the all -knowing, God, God is all -knowing. There are sections of Genesis that you could read where it says, well,

God repented or God felt sorry because he made man. Well, did God not know that men would turn against him and become evil?

Did God not have this knowledge? Well, you can conclude that, but if you did, you would be a heretic.

We believe that God is all -knowing and we look at all of scripture and we look at those passages of scripture and we formulate a conclusion about that particular idea,

God, and what he knows, and we can conclude from all of scripture that he is all -knowing.

Therefore, we go back to Genesis and interpret those sections in light of what we know of all of scripture.

And we're not gonna explain those particular two instances in this podcast, but they are well -known doctrines that Christians have clarified for hundreds of years.

And so we're gonna use that same methodology of how do we know that Jesus is eternal and not created?

How do we know that God is all -knowing and he isn't learning? We're gonna use that same method and same system to learn about the nature of man.

So total depravity really is about the nature of man. And if you get this wrong, the nature of man, there are so many domino effects that just tumble over in how you understand your relationship to God, how you understand the eternality, like where you're going to spend eternity, how you evangelize, how you care for assurance.

I mean, there's so many doctrines that are connected to this one doctrine, the nature of God, or I'm sorry, the nature of man.

So let's really turn this away from the title total depravity, and let's have a conversation about the nature of man, and then we'll conclude and why this title kind of works and makes sense.

So first of all, we gotta start where the nature of man changed. In Genesis 3,

Adam and Eve eat of the fruit. And if you know the story well, all of a sudden they are cursed.

And because of this curse, they spiritually speaking, their spirit, this connection that they had with God, there's a separation or there is a death that takes place.

A couple of passages that reference not only Adam and Eve, but all who came after Adam and Eve, this is passed down to us.

First Corinthians 15 .22, all of these verses will be in the notes if you want to look at it. First Corinthians 15 .22

says, for as in Adam all died. So we can conclude that all of humanity, our natures follow that of Adam's and that our spirit within us, which when it says all died, it doesn't mean as soon as someone's born, they die.

Well, that wouldn't make any sense. But he's talking about our spiritual nature. Romans 5 .18,

therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men. So it is not that once you sin, then your spirit dies.

We aren't born neutral. This is what Pelagianism teaches, that everyone is born neutral and then they become a sinner.

No, we are taught that we become a sinner. So when Adam sinned, he passed this down to all of us and it killed the spiritual nature within us, that capacity to believe in God and to know that God is the one to whom has created all things and we must trust and follow him and worship him alone.

That part of us was now dead. The Old Testament picks up in this interpretation and understanding.

Let me read you a couple of passages here just out of the Psalm. Psalm 51 .5, David says, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Job 15 .14 says, what is man that he can be pure or is he born of a woman that he can be righteous?

He's saying, because we are handed to this by our parents, we don't have the capacity to be righteous or pure.

Psalm 58 .3, the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth, speaking lies.

So the Old Testament definitely had this interpretation that the human nature, it's dead. It does not have the capacity to believe in God and therefore obey

God in the way in which God has designed or commanded us to do so. This is a helpful quote

I wanna read to you before we go to the New Testament that I would say is a summary from Martin Luther in his book,

The Bondage of the Will. He kind of summarizes a lot of the verses we're about to read, but this is what he says. Man does not do evil against his will under pressure as though he were taken by the scuff of the neck and dragged into it like a thief, being dragged off against his will to punishment, but he does it spontaneously and voluntarily, and his willingness or volition is something which he cannot in his own strength eliminate, restrain, or alter.

So in The Bondage of the Will, he's making the argument that because of this nature that's dead, the spiritual nature, our sinful nature, which is influenced by Satan, we're going to learn, we are slaves to our sin.

It's part of our nature. It's part of who we are. These are some of the verses that Luther probably used to come to these conclusions.

Romans 3 .10, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God.

Now you would say, hold on, John, wait a minute, just a minute. I know people who vigorously want to seek after God and know who

God is. Well, we're going to go on and explain what that means. There is an awareness of who God is. The Jews, the

Pharisees believed in God, and yet they would not accept Jesus to be their savior. So there's a difference between knowing

God and accepting God to be your savior, your God, the one to whom you're going to serve.

Paul mentions this again in Ephesians chapter two. He says, and you were dead. There's that word in your trespasses and sins.

And once you once walked following the course of the world, following the Prince, the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

So he's describing someone who's enslaved and doing things that are contrary, and they aren't being forced to sin.

It's part of who they are. Then he says, 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.

First Corinthians 2 .14, the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So he's saying, because your spirit is dead within you, the capacity to believe in God, described to us in Ephesians, Romans, no one is righteous.

In first Corinthians, Paul says, the natural person, the person that is born without the spirit, this is the natural course of life, you are born of man and woman, they do not have the capacity, it says, towards spiritual things because they are unable to discern them because it requires a spiritual nature to do so.

Here's some examples from Jesus. When Jesus is trying to explain the nature of humanity to people in his own ministry, he's famously,

John 3 .16, which we're gonna get to here in a minute, but John 3, in this conversation early on,

Jesus is answering Nicodemus' question about what does it look like to go into the kingdom with him.

Jesus says, truly, truly, I say unto you, this is John 3 .3, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Now, to us, that language is so, we're used to it, we're used to hearing it, but Jesus is using a word picture here.

He's trying to use a metaphor, and what does he use? He uses birth. Now, you need to take note of that, and don't just shove that aside.

What were you involved in when it came to your birth? Did you bring life to yourself?

No, you did not bring yourself into existence. Jesus is saying, the very thing you didn't involve in, you need to do it again, and Nicodemus obviously says, wait a minute, how am

I to reenter into my mother's room? That's impossible. He got the impossibility. Of course, Jesus is speaking spiritually, and Nicodemus is speaking physically.

So, Jesus goes on to even explain in that moment, which we're going to look at in the next video, that the spirit has to do this.

Because you are spiritually dead, the spirit has to come in and make you alive, which we're gonna talk about in our next video in election.

John 6, 44, a little bit later on in Jesus' ministry, he's talking to a bunch of Pharisees who don't believe that he is

God, and they are very much opposed to the reality that he could be God. And this is what

Jesus says to them, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Now, what would be preventing them to come to him? Well, it's their nature.

And Jesus goes on to even indicate this later on in the conversation in verse 61.

So, Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, do you take offense at this?

Then what if I were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before, which is to the father's right -hand side?

It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh has no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

But there are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who was his disciples and who would not believe, and who it is that betray him.

And he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the father.

So, Jesus is openly saying, you do not have the capacity to come and believe in me because your nature is the one that's preventing you.

It has to be granted, or it has to be given to you. So, the nature of man is seen throughout all of the

Bible, and it's been indicating over and over again that we are born this way, and then because of our nature, our freedom is bound.

We don't have that freedom because our nature, that part of us that we can trust

God for our salvation, it's turned off, it's dead. It's described as deaf, dumb, or blind, or illustrations by which we use in the

New Testament as relates to the capacity we have to see and to believe in God. Again, I'm gonna read to this to you.

I think it's helpful from Luther as he's describing the way in which our nature is. He says this, does it follow from turn ye that therefore you can turn, or does it follow from love the

Lord thy God with all thy heart that therefore you can love your, you can love with all your heart?

So, what he's saying is just because the command's there doesn't mean the capacity's there. In other words, we are commanded to love

God with all our heart, but no one can do that. It's an interesting observation. What do arguments of this kind prove?

But the free will, he puts it in a quote, does not need the grace of God, but it can do all things by its own power.

But it does not follow from this that man is converted by his own power, nor does the word say, they simply say, if that will turn telling man that he should do.

He should do so. When he knows it and sees that he cannot do it, he will ask whence may he find ability to do so.

The disciples say this, well, then Jesus, who can be saved? And Jesus says what?

Well, with man is it impossible, but with God, all things are possible. The depravity of man totally means you are totally not capable of turning yourself from death to life, from not believing in God to believing in God.

Believing in such a way that you are trusting in Christ alone and nothing else other than to be saved.

This is why, again, going back to the passages in 1 Corinthians where he says, the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit, for they are fallen to him because they are spiritually discerned.

If you do not have the spirit alive within you, you cannot discern the gospel. Paul literally says that to those who are dead, the gospel is foolish to those people.

I found this quote also helpful from Sproul, I'm sorry, not

Sproul, but Spurgeon in his series on John 6. He says, we declare upon scriptural authority that human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved and so inclined to everything that is evil and so disclined to everything that is good that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the

Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ. So when it comes to your will to help the old lady across the street to not murder somebody or to give to the poor, those are relatively good things to do, but that can't save you and that doesn't prove that you have fully put your faith in God and love

God alone. That capacity within us can only be granted to us by the

Holy Spirit because you are dead. And so we use all of these sections of scriptures to help formulate all that the

Bible has to say about this subject. You can't just isolate it. It says, well, for whosoever will, that means our wills have the capacity.

Well, there's an explanation to why Jesus said that in John 3 .16, which we're going to look at in our next video on unconditional election.

But in this video, we can conclude from Adam all the way to the writers of the

New Testament, including Jesus, that when men were born under Adam after his fall, that they were born spiritually dead, they didn't have to be forced to sin.

They sinned by nature because the spirit was not within them. And we do not have the ability to make ourselves come alive and look to Jesus for our salvation.

As Jesus says, that has to be given to us. So total depravity means you are totally dead, spiritually speaking.

You do not have the capacity to flip that light switch on. You can't do that. So we're going to talk about the commands.

Does that mean the commands that are given to us are illegitimate? Can Jesus really demand something of us if we do not have the capacity to do that?

Those are all great questions. We're going to look at all of those passages of scripture in our next video. Unconditional election, predestination.

Does God really choose some over others? Man, this is a hard doctrine. A lot of people debate it and it seems like it makes

God this tyrant, this mean person who picks and choose whom he's going to love.

As you start walking down the different doctrines of Calvinism, we're covering, some would call it the doctrines of grace or the acronym

TULIP. We've already covered total depravity and now we're covering unconditional election.

If you've not heard the first two, I'd encourage you to go listen to those. We did an introduction and then we covered total depravity.

And in total depravity or total inability or the death of our spirit, however you want to describe that, we set up the nature of man.

And you cannot understand this doctrine if you don't start there. It really is the foundation that everything else is built upon.

And if you don't understand the nature of man, then what we're going to talk about next, theologically from the Bible, it's just not going to make sense to you.

So we start with the reality that men cannot choose God because they're dead in their sins.

They have a lot of capacities to make decisions. They have the will to choose certain things.

But when it comes to their faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible describes this as deaf, dumb, blind, dead in our trespasses and sins.

So the question is, how are we going to be saved then? If we don't have it within us to be able to look at Christ and trust in him by ourselves, how is it this is going to happen?

So this is where we find ourselves here. And we're not going to look at just some of these passages.

We're going to try and look at all of the Bible and how the Bible describes, really it is the nature of God in sovereignty.

So we looked at the nature of man. Now we're going to look at the nature of God and his sovereign choice.

So let's just take the two words that they use to kind of give us this title, unconditional election.

So unconditional means there is nothing that God looks upon that he would choose one or the other.

In other words, there is no condition that humans meet that God would then put favor upon that person.

That would literally be a reward that would be a response to. So the word is helpful because it's unconditional.

We're going to see multiple times in passages where we're told that God does not choose or God does not save based upon works or responses.

Otherwise you could boast. You could say, well, God chose me because I chose him. And then of course, unconditional, the next word is election.

This literally means to choose or select from within. So God is saving people and those to whom he is saving is not based upon a condition that humans have met or condition we even know about.

There is no condition. Now, this is a very heavy debated subject and I have heard statements and I have made statements in my past.

So I understand if you're sitting here and you're struggling with the idea that God chooses some for salvation and it bothers you.

Well, any real Calvinist will agree that the whole concept is contrary to the human nature because our minds don't function like God's minds.

We're even told that, that the mind of God is not like the mind of humans and that we have to be careful to try and compare the two.

And I've heard people say, I will never serve a God or believe in a God like that, that he would force people like robots or he would drag them kicking and screaming into his family.

That true love, real love is to allow sinners to choose whether God's going to save them or not.

And what you're trying to do is wrestle with what you think

God is or who you think God is or the nature of God in your experience or your thoughts about him.

And you're not allowing the scriptures to formulate that. Now, I'm not saying you have to agree with me or my perspective, but we should listen to scripture.

And if God's word is authoritative, then let's look into what God's word says about himself as it relates to salvation and how we are saved.

So we're going to look at a couple of passages. We're going to start in John and we're going to work our way through many passages here in the

New Testament. But in John chapter one, the author,

John, makes it very clear that God does not choose people because they have first chose him.

You can hear the whole free will debate. So free will versus election or predestination.

You can hear some people say, well, God looked down the corridors of time where he saw that we would first choose him and he responded to that choosing by then choosing us.

I think John one, the apostle John, writes very clearly that that is not the case.

For instance, he says this for John chapter one, verse 12, but to all who did receive him, meaning that they received

Jesus to be a legitimate Messiah, their salvation for their sins, who believed in his name.

So he is saying, how do we know that these people are truly followers of Jesus?

He says, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, then he says this, he gave the right to become the children of God.

And he clarifies the right that came to them to be his children, verse 13, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

In just a few chapters, he's going to be describing the narrative between Nicodemus and Jesus.

And he is setting it up here that it's not your birth to Israel, it's not your blood right, and it's not because of your own will or flesh that God gave you faith or gave you salvation.

He says, it's according to the will of God. So it seems pretty clear from the get -go,

John, and we'll come back here to John in a little bit. So when we look, like, when did

God choose to make these decisions? I mean, we're not left in the dark here. When was this will enacted?

Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter one, in verse four, he says, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined, that means before, there's a, you're determining the destination beforehand, right, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

So John, or Paul is telling us that before the world began, God's will determined who it is that he would redeem.

And I know, stick with me, that some of you are wrestling with this. You hear these words, is that really what it's saying?

Is he misinterpreting it? Is he not looking at all of the context? Just continue to walk with me as we look at all of these verses.

And I promise you, we're gonna get to the big election killers, right? The ones that knock it down all the time.

The one you're waiting for, it's probably somewhere in the title. 1 Corinthians 1 .27, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what was weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what was low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

You're hearing God making his decisions, and in the end, Paul says the reason why he does this is that you will never point to anything you have said or done or decisions that you've made and say, yes,

God has saved me because of what I have done. That gives you reasons to boast. 2

Timothy 1 .9, Timothy or Paul writes, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

So in this context, he's telling us, it's not a work that you've done. It's nothing that you can boast about.

You can't look at your own purposes, but it's according to his purpose and grace before the ages began.

So he's saying this transaction, this decision was made before you were born, not in response to your birth.

We can also see here from the words of Jesus. I've heard people tell me in the past, well, that's Paul, but I really wanna hear what

Jesus has to say about this because Jesus is the one who says for whosoever will. Well, let's go to John 6 here, and he's dealing with people who will not accept him to be the

Messiah. They were rejecting him. They can see his miracles, but they can't quite understand how he's performing that and yet claiming to be

God. John 6 .39, he says this, and this is the will of him who sent me, the father, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raised it up on the last day.

So Jesus is still using this language that the ones he's coming to save are the ones that the father has chosen and given to him, his sheep.

He even describes this later on in John 10. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

So you hear Jesus saying he's laying his life down for the ones that the father has given him.

So these are some of the simple verses that we can use, not only from Peter, I'm sorry, from the apostle

Paul and from Jesus, that is describing this language that he isn't choosing everyone for salvation, because if he did, he says, the ones to whom the father has given me,

I do not lose any of them. Okay, let me just read that to you again. He says,

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hands. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than I, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

So the father gives them to the son, the son saves them, he redeems them, he dies for them, and he doesn't lose any of them. Here, if Jesus is calling, or if the father is calling everybody, well, then everybody's gonna be saved, and that can't be the case, because we do know that there are those who do not believe and who are not saved.

All right, so let's get to the big ones, right? Well, we got a few minutes left here. John 3, 16, it seems like to be the one that proves all

Calvinists to be wrong, but let's read it in context. Remember, we don't wanna just take verses and not think about the greater talking context.

What are they trying to communicate? What's going on here? So John 3, 16 is a great example of that.

I mean, if we just read verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Why would he say that if people did not have the capacity or only God saves those whom he chooses?

Again, when we look at it, only those who can make that spiritual decision to believe can have eternal life.

But how does that come about? Jesus actually tells us. Let's just read through the text real quick. So verse one, it says this.

Now there was a man by the name of a Pharisee named Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him,

Rabbi, we know that you are the teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

I love that Jesus doesn't even acknowledge or wait for him to ask the question. Jesus answered him, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Jesus starts with an immediate word picture. Of course, he doesn't get it because Nicodemus says to him, how can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter in a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus is using impossible language.

He wants Nicodemus to hear salvation is not possible in your hands. As an illustration, you have to be reborn again.

In other words, your spirit is dead and we know he's talking about the spirit because let's keep reading.

And Jesus answers, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. He's saying, I'm not talking about a physical birth.

I'm talking about a spiritual birth. And if you want to go into the kingdom with me, you have to have a spiritual birth. And that spiritual birth comes from the spirit and no one knows where that comes from.

In other words, you can't manipulate it. It's not something that you can determine or that you can watch and try and figure out where it's coming from.

Of course, Nicodemus says to him, how can these things be? Jesus said to him, are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

He's telling him, you can't figure this out on your own because it's not an earthly concept that can be seen.

It's a spiritual one. No one who ascends unto heaven, except he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

And as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Jesus is not only giving you the mechanism, which is the power of the spirit, but he's giving you the evidence.

Like, how do we know that we are on our way to be with Christ in his kingdom?

He's like, this is how you know. It's those who believe. It's those who now have the power to believe.

So he's not saying all you have to do is muster up the will to do it.

It's the evidence of the spirit's work in you. And I'm not trying to force that in the text, but just go back and look at where he's giving you these examples that it's the spirit, new birth coming to you by the spirit.

And how do we know that we have that? Well, if we go back to John 1, it's what he said earlier in John 1, right?

But all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave eternal life to.

So the evidence of our faith is the evidence that the spirit has brought us from death to life.

And how do we know that? Because God chose to put his spirit upon us. Another passage that's often brought up that says, yeah,

I don't think this is what this means is 1 Timothy 2, verse one. It says, first of all, then

I urge that supplication, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings, and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

That is good, and that it's pleasing in the sight of our God and Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

So people read this and say, you can't say that God only wants to save some or the chosen because it says here that he desires everybody to be saved.

Well, in context, if you wanted to say that the word all there means all humans, you're gonna have a hard time with that because he's describing categories of people.

And he's writing to Timothy, letting him know that there isn't just one kind of people or a category of people.

He's describing kings and those in high positions. He's describing how it is that we're acting with them.

And so he says he desires that all people, not just the Israelites, but all kinds of people would come to the knowledge of our

Lord and Savior and the truth of it. And again, you can't just say, well, this is the one that crushes all the other verses.

How does this go against what Jesus has said? That only those to whom the Father draws are the ones who end up being saved.

So we have to take everything and lay it on the table and say, how do we make this all fit together?

Because God is not the author of confusion. You know, one other one would be Titus 2 .11,

where it says, for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people. And if you can keep reading, he describes who those all people are.

It's not in general. He says, he's talking about older men, older women.

He's making reference to the younger women or training older women, yet husbands and wives urging younger men, slaves.

So you keep hearing this language that it's all, but it has an all with a category. In other words, he's explaining what it is.

And then probably the last one, I'll just throw in there real quick, which is 2 Peter 3 .9, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Well, who is he writing this letter to? And who does he address it to at first? He says, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, the writers.

He's being patient towards you, the church, not wishing that any of you should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

So in this context, he is writing to a people. He's not writing generally about all people.

He's writing about these specific people. So I think we always have to look at the context and ask ourselves when it's talking about all, whoever, what else is it saying?

And what else does the Bible say? You would have to agree that if you watched the first video, if you're dead in your trespasses and sins, the only way you're gonna be brought to life is that the

Father chooses to do so. I know that we wrestle with this, and I know it's complicated and hard, but my encouragement to you is to look at these passages.

We'll put them in the notes below along with some other resources and allow the word of God to formulate these thoughts.

Allow the concept of why is it that God is so concerned about us boasting? Why is he so concerned about us seeing that unless he brings us to life, we have no life?

And I get that wrestle. Man, how is it that God can choose some and not choose other?

And so I wanna just say this last phrase because I know that it's used often. God doesn't choose some for life and choose some for hell, okay?

Because we are in sin and because of our rebellion against God and the nature that we are in,

God is rescuing sinners. He's not choosing some saying you're going to hell and you're going to heaven, but God in his providence and his wisdom has chose some for redemption.

Why he hasn't chose all and why he doesn't save all, the Arminian and the Calvinist cannot answer that one because he has the capacity to do so and doesn't.

And in his knowledge and in his wisdom and in his goodness, he always does what is right. And we know that. We know that it's good and we know that he does what's right.

So why does God choose one over the other? We aren't told that. We have no idea.

And one day when we get to heaven, we can ask these questions, but we can only go off what the word of God has told us.

Did Jesus die for everyone? That means if you simply believe, then you can be saved because Jesus died for the sins of the whole world.

Or did Jesus only die for some people or the elect? It's a pretty interesting debate.

Let's get into it. This is part four of our series on Calvinism. We've done an introduction and then we started to cover

TULIP. And so today is probably the most complicated and heavily debated subject of for whom did

Jesus die for? And to be clear, this is not a simple conversation.

I'm gonna do my best to give you an overview and the biblical arguments why historically the

Reformed have held to this perspective, but this will not be an exhaustive study.

There is much that has been said and written to which I will include in the notes below. But let's begin by answering really the debate.

Like what happened on the cross and who did Jesus die for? Traditionally, historically speaking, this debate was birthed out of what

I had mentioned in the first video that Arminians who are the remonstrants who came and said, nope, we don't believe

Jesus just died for the elect, just for some people, but we believe he died for all. And then the response came, which is when they used limited atonement, and it sounds weird, right?

Like why would you use that word? And there are different ways people have tried to explain this.

Particular atonement, meaning that he died for a particular set of people, a group of people, his sheep, or the church is one way of saying it, or that the atonement was efficacious, meaning it was actually effectual, it did something.

So we'll look at it that, but the one question I want you to think about is believe it or not, it doesn't matter where you fall,

Calvinist or Arminian, you limit the atonement. Everybody limits the atonement. So to say that one side limits it and the other one doesn't isn't actually true.

Let me explain to you what I mean. Unless you're a universalist, meaning that every single human being that's ever been born will go to heaven, unless you're universalist, you have to limit the atonement, right?

So if you're an Arminian, you have to limit to those who believe that God's blood shed is only going to apply in the end to those who believe.

Or if you're a Calvinist, you're saying that God's purpose in death and whom he actually died for and accomplished it is limited to those sheep that are his.

So either side is limiting it. So to say that one side isn't or the other, it's not actually accurate.

So let's jump into this. For whom did Christ die? We're gonna look at some passages. We're gonna talk about what does the

Bible say about its intentions for Christ's death and then talk about the nature of the atonement in the end.

So if you've got this far, I want you to hear this. This is really a conversation that's gonna help you wrestle with God's sovereignty and your salvation.

Where at the end of the day are you resting in the fact that I know I'm saved? Not only do I know

I'm saved, I'm safe, I'm secure, that my sins cannot be placed upon me,

I cannot be condemned. How do I know that? That's the question in the end we're going to answer, which really ultimately is being answered in this discussion of limited atonement.

So for whom did Christ die? Let me start with the end of the book, Revelation chapter five verse nine. This is a description.

It says, and they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

So to understand atonement, it means to ransom or to buy back.

The cost of buying people from death, enslaved to sin, was

Christ's blood. And it's why he was saying you ransomed people by your blood. In other words, you gave your blood to purchase people back.

Similarly, in Romans chapter eight verse 32, it says, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, he will not also, sorry, how will he not also with him graciously give all things?

So the argument is being made here that not only did he ransom us with his blood, but those to whom he ransomed, he bought back, he purchased back to whom now he owns, he is giving the blessings.

This becomes an important argument which we're going to make for the rest of our time here is that those who have received the forgiveness of sins, or I would say those whose sins have been paid for by Christ always have the blessings of Christ.

So you cannot have redemption if you don't receive the blessings. Revelation 1 .5

says to whom, sorry, to whom, to him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.

So in the beginning, we're gonna start with the language of blood being spilt. That is the payment.

And he's saying in all of these passages, so revelations, revelation, not revelations, revelation five,

Romans eight, and revelation one, you're hearing a for us language. Ransomed for us, benefits to us, and those who have been ransomed received those benefits.

The Bible has a lot to say about this. I'm just gonna read through some of these passages so you can hear the language.

This is a common language as it's relating to Christ's death on the cross for us.

So Matthew 20, 28, the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many.

John 10, 11, the good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. So we're talking about to whom did

Jesus die for, right? John 17, 19, for their sake, I consecrate myself or I sacrifice myself.

Galatians 2 .20, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Ephesians 5 .25, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. 1

Peter 2 .24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and to live to righteousness.

So you can hear the intentions of the writer, the gospel writers, Paul and the epistles and Peter, that the intentions of Christ's death have a focal point.

They have a purpose, not a general for all, but you hear this language that it's pointed towards a selected group.

You can, there's even language that I'm gonna read to you, it's what we call the for us language. These statements are in the

New Testament where it's describing Jesus' death has a focus and it's for us.

Romans 5 .8, God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

Galatians 3 .13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

Ephesians 5 .2, Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

1 Thessalonians 5 .10, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him.

Titus 2 .14, he gave himself for us to redeem us from our lawlessness.

So this is in an isolated passage. So as we have done in the other videos we're gonna do now, when you have to interpret a topic, a subject, when we would say systematic theology, when you have to systematize something, in other words, what does all of the

Bible have to say about this topic, you have to take all of the verses and lay them out and say, where are they most clearly spoken about and what do they all say, what do they all mean and then that's how we make our conclusions.

So this is what we're doing now. We're talking about the purpose of the atonement. What did

Jesus come to accomplish? And in these verses so far, he is speaking about not a general population that all sins are covered, but he's talking about a specific group of people.

And even in here relating to us when Paul's writing from the perspective of the believer, he's saying

Christ died for us. The debate that we're gonna get into now is between, yes, there are passages,

John, that say for us, but there are also passages that talk about the whole world. John Owen spelled out this conundrum very famously when he was writing on this particular subject and he gave us three options when we're dealing with passages in the

Bible that talk about a particular group or everyone. And so here are the options that you were left with when you take all the verses and you throw them on the table and say, what do they all mean?

He says this, either Christ died for all sins, I'm sorry, all the sins of all men, in which case all will be saved.

When we go back and read these verses that I just read, when it says Christ died for them, there was an actual effect that happens, they were saved.

It wasn't that he died and they were potentially saved, that's not how the words are described, they were saved.

So he's saying if you believe that Jesus died for the sins of everyone, then everyone is saved, option two, or he died for some of the sins of all men, in which case none can ever be saved.

So he's saying he died for some of the sins, but he didn't die for all of the sins. Or lastly, he died for all the sins of some men, in which case they will be saved, which is the particular option that he himself held and the reformers hold that we think is biblical.

And I think this is precisely Paul's reasoning, say in Romans 8 .32, when he says, he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

The point of it is that he pointedly gave his son for the sheep, which we're gonna read here in a moment, we've already read

John 10, I give my life for the sheep. And then he says, not only do

I give my life, but I give them the blessings that go along with it, the gracious blessings that go with it.

So to help us now look at, okay, there are the passages that say for all, and there are these passages that say for some, and for us, let's look at the nature of what actually happened on the cross.

And then we can put these all into balance and say, how do we understand these in light of everything? So now we're gonna look about on the cross, what is it that Jesus did?

Okay, we know he paid for sin, but let's get real theological here and specific. It says that Jesus actually accomplished, he actually did something.

So I'm gonna be as plain as I can right here. You have two options. You either believe that on the cross,

Jesus made salvation potential, right? He said, here's the options I'm making available to you.

Or you have an actual or effectual, it actually affected something.

Jesus, when he said it is finished, he meant it is paid for, I ransomed.

So here are the verses that we're gonna use to help us explain this. Matthew 20, 28, it says, and the son of man gave his life as a ransom for many.

So going back and quoting this verse, he isn't saying a potential, he's saying I gave as a payment for these people.

Not as a setup, not as a potential. Acts 20, 28, the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood, which he obtained, okay?

Jesus purchased it, he owns it. Not a potential, but an actual. Romans 5, 9, we have been justified by his blood.

It's not a potential. He isn't saying because of our faith in Christ, and we met Jesus halfway, then the blood was applied.

He says, no, we have been justified by his blood. So the connotations is that it's efficacious, it works.

Romans 8, 32, Christ's death actually secured all, and then saving benefits that go along with it, which you already mentioned.

And then one other verse here, it says this, and this is one that's often used and I think is confused, but let me explain it to you.

So it's 2 Corinthians 5, 14 through 15, and it says, for the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all died.

And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him, for their sake, died and was raised.

A lot of times people would say this, see, he died for all. Well, again, here's our problem. If Christ died for all, then that word all there means that all would receive the benefits of resurrection.

They would receive the benefits. So in the context of all, who is he talking to? If you believe he is talking about all sinners, you would also have to conclude from that same passage that all would mean universal.

We can't do that. Again, this is why we use all the scripture to help us conclude this. There's two more verses for you

I think that are helpful. Hebrews 7, 22, Jesus, the guarantor or surety of a better covenant.

A guarantor or surety is one who puts himself in the place of another, right? So you are substituted.

You were supposed to receive the payment. Jesus ransomed you with his blood by substituting or becoming in that place.

So it isn't he potentially will take your place, it's that he took your place. Hebrews 9, 12, he entered once for all into the holy place, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus, not potentially securing, it says, thus securing on eternal redemption.

So the statement here is that Jesus' work actually did something. When we take this and we start comparing this to the universal statements that we hear in scripture, now we can take all of these passages, for instance, like John 1, 29, when

John the Baptist says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We have to ask ourselves, are we universalist?

Does Jesus take away and pay the ransom and all the benefits of salvation, being raised into life into Christ, does that apply to everyone?

Is that what John the Baptist meant? We can say, well, if we look at all the scripture, he is saying in general, he isn't coming to save the

Jews because John is specifically writing to a Jewish culture. He is saying, no, not just Jews, but Jesus is going to save, and we've seen these passages even in Thessalonians and Peter, all mankind, all kinds of men, all kinds of, but going back to Revelation chapter five, tribe, tongue, and nation.

So we aren't universalists, and so we would have to understand world there to be an exclusive, meaning there is a general idea of world, but obviously, it's narrowed down.

John 3 .16 is also a famous one that is used here. I think falls into this. John 12, 32, 33, when he says, and I am lifted up,

I will draw all men unto myself. Well, is he saving every single human being, or is this in a general meaning all kinds of men?

Again, if you take John 12, 32 to 33, and when Jesus is lifted up on the cross, he draws all men to himself, and he says, those to whom

I draw, I lose none. This is John six. You're a universalist at that moment, or the last one is probably famously used, 1

John 2, one through two. My little children, I am writing these things so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the

Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So we have to look at that in light of what we know of the atonement, what is it that Jesus is accomplishing, what we know of all of scripture, put that all on the table, and then interpret that all together, and we can conclude what he means is, it's not just you to whom

I'm writing to, but it's those who are outside of this realm. Jesus literally says,

I have sheep that are not of this fold, meaning of those who are in front of him. In John chapter 10, when he talks about,

I lay my life down for the sheep. So coming down to the end and thinking about the conclusion of this, we can say without a doubt, when

Jesus Christ died on the cross, he said it was finished. He raised, he was raised from the dead, he ascended on high, he sat down, according to Hebrews, at the right hand of the father, and accomplished the redemption of sinners.

We can say that when he did that, it wasn't a potential, but it was an actual. And the way it sometimes is presented is that Jesus wipes the slate clean for those who come and grab it.

Or Jesus' blood will be applied once you believe. Once you believe, then the actual, effectual work of Christ is then applied to you.

And the problem with that is, when we even look at Romans 8, those to whom he foreknew, he also predestined, to what, transform them.

And you can't be transformed unless you have what? You have the ransom of Christ upon you, being the propitiation, the transfer, right?

The substitute that happens. So what this doctrine does, the limited atonement, or I would say the particular atonement, knowing that Christ really died for my sins, is that once I conclude, with faith, that I believe that I can be assured that if Christ is the one who purchased me,

I can't be unpurchased. He's not going to let me go. My sins cannot be put upon me once again. Paul says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Why? All judgment fell on Jesus. Well, John, if you really believe this, wouldn't this prevent you from witnessing?

I mean, if God has already decided who he's gonna die for, then why is it you go out and evangelize? Well, there's two reasons we go out and evangelize, and I do so myself.

I do not know to whom Christ died. All I know is that the power of the gospel is what transforms people from life, from death to life.

And it is not my responsibility to determine whom that Christ died for. He didn't tell me to do that. He told the disciples to go out into all the world and preach the gospel.

Even though Christ knew who his sheep were, the disciples do not know. How is it that we, as proclamers, know who the sheep of God are?

When those who come to life, their eyes are opened, they see the gospel, and they believe, it is at that moment we give them the sign of baptism, introducing them into the sheep of God.

The sign of baptism, which is the washing away, the symbol of washing away sin, the substitute. They are in sign recognizing what is in reality in their life.

So yes, we evangelize, because we are sent to find the lost sheep of God. We do not know who they are.

It does not squash it. It only gives me more confidence in knowing it is not my job to convince people to come to Christ.

That is the job of the spirit. My job is to proclaim the power of the gospel. Does God pull people into heaven, kicking and screaming against their will, not wanting to be saved?

And does God flick other people into the eternal abyss who want to be saved? Is that really what the doctrine of irresistible grace teaches?

This topic, it seems like of the TULIP, this is part five of our series on Calvinism or the doctrines of grace or TULIP.

We're gonna be covering the I part of TULIP, which is irresistible grace. Really this builds upon everything we've already said before.

So we're gonna kind of deal with some objections as it relates to how people are saved, the capacity of humanity,

God's will versus man's will. So let's go ahead and dive into it. If you have not heard episode two on this series, which is

Total Depravity, I would encourage you to go listen to that. You have to kind of have that lens and that platform to understand this next discussion.

What we have been doing throughout this entire discussion is not allowing just cherry picking verses and trying to use this, lobbing one side against the other, the free will versus sovereign will of God.

You can't do that. You always have to look at what all of the Bible has to say and allow that to shape the way in which the

Bible talks to us about the nature of God and the nature of man. So we are still dealing with the nature of God and the nature of man when it comes to this subject of grace and how we are saved.

Now, first of all, this is not a new debate. It's been around since the fifth century.

You may not have heard this word, but Pelagianism is when this first started coming about. There was a debate between Pelagius and Augustine, and I would say the first Calvinism really, which should be called

Augustinism, or Augustinianism. It's the debate between the will of man.

So Pelagius believed that every man was born neutral and had the decision to either choose to do good or choose to do bad.

And this has been rejected as heresy for many, many years by many councils. There's what's called semi -Pelagianism, where obviously no one is born sinless.

We know that we are born in Adam, but there is a capacity that's given to us by God.

In other words, he meets us kind of halfway. He allows us to see the gospel, then it's our job to meet him the rest of the way.

This is kind of the position that the Arminians were fighting for, or the Remonstrants, as they presented it in the council going back to the first video.

Well, we're going to see here with Augustine and Calvin that scripture really does not present this meeting of halfway, where God kind of draws us halfway.

He doesn't force us all the way in, and then he allows us to make that decision of whether we're going to accept this free gift of salvation or not.

The problem with that perspective is, again, it doesn't rightly give us the nature of man, and it doesn't fully explain to us

God's role in salvation. So let's begin. God does not force us to do anything against our own will.

If man were to be just allowed to do whatever he wants, he's going to naturally reject

God 100 % of the time. How do we know this? Well, let me just read you a couple of verses. 1 Corinthians 2 .14

says this, the natural person does not, so natural meaning someone without the spirit, someone who's born with the natural course of life.

The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are followed to him.

He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So to even hear of the good news of the gospel, he can't do so because it requires the spirit of God.

1 Corinthians 12 .3, therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says

Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord or salvation or Jesus is the

Messiah except in the Holy Spirit. So they have to have something, they're missing something.

This is the point of what Paul is writing. So how does God's grace interact with us?

Now, the whole word irresistible grace, I understand it's confusing, and they used it for the

TULIP anacronym, but maybe we should change or give it some other explanation. What we're talking about is that God's grace, when given to sinners, actually is effective.

It does something. Some would call it effectual grace, that it actually has power when used.

Irresistible means that, the idea of it is is that when someone sees the glory of Christ because their eyes have been opened, they want to go after it, they wanna see it.

Here's an illustration for you. Have you ever seen those YouTube videos when someone puts on color -correcting lenses and for the first time, they can actually see colors that they hadn't been able to see before?

And what is it that they're wanting to do with this eye state? They just wanna see, they wanna look at everything, right?

And they start crying. That is the idea that scripture gives us. When it talks about the spirit removing the blindness of our eyes or bringing us to sight or to life, is that when you see

Jesus, you pursue him, you want him. It's not this idea that you're being dragged into the relationship.

Now, how is this determined? Here's where the debate happens. Is it God opens your eyes and then you must make the decision?

Or another way of some people saying it is that God sees who's going to choose him and then he chooses to open their eyes or to give them that grace.

So ultimately, it's not God's will sovereignly choosing sinners, it's sinners' wills sovereignly choosing

God and then God responds. This is what the Bible has to say about that. John 1, verse 12 says, "'But to all who did receive him who believed in his name, "'he gave the right to become the children of God "'who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh "'nor of the will of man, but of God.'"

So it's God's will who determined who would receive this new birth. We all know the famous Dicodemus passage in John 3, 16, right, for whosoever.

But there's an interesting dialogue that goes on that Jesus explains how it is that someone could believe this truth.

We seem to ignore all of context. Remember, that's a favorite verse, John 3, 16, but there's more to that context.

Let's back up to verse six. He says, "'That which is born of the flesh is flesh "'and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'"

What he's saying is these are two separate verse. They're not connected. Just like you didn't control your physical birth, you don't control your spiritual birth.

Nicodemus got that, because he said, "'Well, how can I be born again? "'Do not marvel that I said to you you must be born again.

"'The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sounds, "'but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

"'So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'" So you can't determine or manipulate the birth or this coming to life and believing.

Another passage would be later on in John 5, verse 21, where he says, "'For as the Father raises the dead "'and gives life to them, so also the

Son gives life "'to whom He wills.'" So this is connected to God's will and purpose, not human's will and purpose.

Probably a famous one would be Ephesians 1, 5. "'He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons "'through

Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, "'not our will.'" So here's where we have to start.

First of all, men don't have the capacity. Then something has to happen.

They have to come to life. And who determines who comes to life?

Well, we've already seen multiple passages that it says that it's God's will who determines. And how does this happen?

Is it you believe, then God opens out your eyes? Or is it you have faith and then

God chooses to bring you to life? You can't, it can't be in that order. It has to be you are brought to life or you were given what's called regeneration.

Then you can believe and then you receive eternal life, but all of this happens at once. So the doctrine of regeneration literally means to be regenerated, to be brought back to life, right?

This is an old, old, old doctrine. It's been taught since the book of Deuteronomy.

So let me start in the book of the Old Testament, work our way forward. So you can hear God is telling humans, unless they are brought to life through the work of regeneration.

He uses things like cutting away or circumcision. So Deuteronomy 30 verse six, it says, and the

Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the

Lord your God with all your heart and with your soul that you may live. So he's using this illustration.

They can't obey. He gave them the law, they failed the law. And he's saying that something that God is going to do is he's going to cut away that part of you that can't obey

God, that can't see and believe. Later on in the prophet Ezekiel wrote in chapter 36 verse 26, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit

I will put within you. And I will remove that heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules.

Notice who's the acting agent here. The acting agent is God. I will give you a new heart.

I will put this in there. He's not responding, he's making a prophecy of what regeneration will look like.

And then Paul gives us that explanation. It happens. Christ came, he sends the Holy Spirit. And of course, this is what we learned,

Colossians 2 .13, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh.

So he's using that language from the Old Testament. God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses.

Or even Ephesians 2, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins even when you were dead in your trespasses.

Sorry, that's verse one, verse five. Even when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, God made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved. So the work of regeneration is God bringing us to life.

And then when we are brought to life, then we live. That's when you see faith and you see obedience.

I mean, Ezekiel literally says when he puts in that heart of flesh and he brings us to life, we will obey. And the first act of obedience is repenting to stop trusting in ourselves and faith in Jesus Christ.

So how does the spirit do this? So like, if God's just going to do this, why do we even evangelize?

Or why do we even care about preaching the word of God? Because that's exactly how

God does his work. The spirit uses the Bible, the preached word to bring people to life.

First Corinthians 118, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

So God is, Paul is saying, it is the proclaimed word of the cross that brings people to life.

It is God's power within those words. First Peter 1 23, since you have been born again, not of perishable seeds, but imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

How is it that he says you have been born again through God's word? All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.

Though the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

So the good news of the gospel, which we hear the Holy Spirit uses that, opens up our eyes, regenerates our heart and we can believe.

So yes, we have to proclaim the good news of the gospel. Otherwise the Holy Spirit can't do his work.

This is why Paul literally says, how will they hear and how will they believe unless they hear? So we have to go out and preach.

So here's where a lot of people will say, I agree with you, John. I agree with everything that you've said, but I believe that God does that to every single human being.

All human beings hear the word, are drawn, their spirits can feel this port of coming alive.

They call it prevenient grace where God allows everyone the capacity to believe.

Here's a problem with that belief because if God draws everyone or he puts the spirit's power upon everyone, then

Jesus says everyone will be saved. And that's what's called universalism. And we're not universalists.

We don't believe that every single human's ever been born. We'll turn to belief and faith in Christ. John six is probably the clearest place to see this.

Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees. He's dealing with an entire crowd of unbelieving people who do not see him as the Messiah. He has done miracles up to this point in John chapter six, water into wine, 5 ,000 people fed.

And they'd seen this, but they're trying to figure out. And they even say, Jesus, speak plainly to us. Like, tell us if you're the

Messiah. Jesus responds in John six 37, all that the father gives to me will come to me.

And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. This is so important. So if someone comes to Jesus, he says he will absolutely not lose them or not cast them out or not reject them.

And how is it that someone comes to Jesus? Let's look down at verse 44.

It says, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

That word draw, it's that same word that's used to draw water up out of a well. So it's not like a wooing, or it's not like calling towards you.

You don't yell at water, come up out of the bucket. You draw the water out of the bucket. And that's exactly the word that Jesus used here that John wrote down, that unless God draws you up to Jesus, then you can't come to him.

He goes on to say, it is written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me, this is verse 45, sorry, yeah, verse 45.

And then later on in verse 64, he says, but there are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who died and did not believe and who would betray him.

And Jesus said this, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the father.

So if God draws every single body to up to a point, like to, okay, all they need to do is believe if they believe they can have eternal life.

The problem is Jesus says every single person that God draws, all of them believe and Jesus never cast them out.

So if you hold this perspective, which is kind of the Pelagian, a semi Pelagian slash Arminian perspective, in essence are universalist.

God doesn't kind of bring people to a point, what some may call prevenient grace. He doesn't bring us to like a jumping point where all you need to do at that point is jump off and you can believe.

He makes it pretty clear that the only way that you're going to believe in Jesus is if the father does something, is if he draws you.

Going back to just the point here, they flat out ask him, how do we know that you are the

Messiah? And he's saying, look, I've done all of these works. You see these works and yet you still reject me. I mean, they put

Jesus on the cross. All of the Jews abandoned him because even after seeing that he had done all of these works, proving that he was the

Messiah, they could not believe unless it was the Holy Spirit who brought them to life.

This I know can sound scary, but there's a lot of these verses that are out there, even like John 3, 16, where it says, for whosoever believes, for God's love of the world that he gave his only begotten son, whoever believes.

So John, you're making it sound like that verse isn't true. Well, every time the

Bible says for you to do something or offer something to you, doesn't mean you have the capacity to do it.

Here's a great example. You were told to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Have you ever done that?

Just because you were told to do that doesn't mean you have the capacity to do that. So the question is, why did

John write John 3, 16? Why did Jesus say that? Well, it's the indicator of those who have been drawn.

It's the indicator of those who have been regenerated. It's the proof that you have been brought from death to life.

How do we know that we truly are God's child? Going back to 1

Corinthians, it says, no one can say Jesus is Lord unless it is by the Spirit. So if you have faith in the gospel, you truly believe

Jesus is sufficient to save you, that's because the Holy Spirit through the gospel has come and brought you to life.

He regenerated you. You went from death to life, from blind to sight. And now you have the ability to repent, turn away from your own righteousness, to have faith in Jesus Christ.

And as Paul says, work out your salvation with fearing trembling because he it is who's at work inside of you.

Well, John, what about that verse that says, he stands at the door in Revelation and he's knocking. If anyone hear his voice and he opens the door, he will come in.

Well, that could sound like it's salvation, but let's look at the entire context of that.

He's not talking about individuals, like the individual heart for salvation.

He's writing specifically about a church. And it's very ironic. A church that's supposed to be about Jesus who put

Jesus outside the church. Like they lost their first love. They lost their focus of what church is all about.

And ironically, the picture is that Jesus is standing at the door saying, hey, can you let me back in? If anyone there, as ironic as it is, you shoved me out, if you let me back in, as gracious and as merciful as that will be,

I will come back in. So we have to be careful not to use it, but let's say it is. Let's say

Jesus really is standing at the door and he's knocking at the heart of every single human being. Well, according to what we've already seen, unless something happens to that heart, because it's dead, it's spiritually not alive.

We have seen multiple times in scripture that we have not the capacity to see

Jesus and his call because that's spiritual discernment. And we don't have the spirit. Our spirit is dead.

It needs to be brought to life. We're blind, we cannot see it. So even in that case, just because the offer is there or you hear

Jesus calling, it doesn't mean someone has the capacity to accept it. As a pastor,

I just wanna encourage you with this. You may be sitting here saying, well, how do I know? Like, how do I know for sure that I have been saved?

How do I know that I've been drawn? If you believe in the gospel and you're not trusting in anything else, but other than Jesus Christ to be sufficient to save you from God's wrath and to take you home, to sanctify you, nothing else, but that, that's how we know.

This is why verses like John 3, 16 exist because Nicodemus wanted to know, how is it that I entered the kingdom?

And he says, for those who believe that I am their Messiah. That's how they know. And anyone can believe.

It's not encapsulated to the Jews or to some birthright or to a gender.

He's saying it's everyone. This is why it says in Revelation, every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Not just the Jews will be saved, but every nation can be saved by Jesus Christ. So it is a good thing.

We want to believe this doctrine because without the spirit coming and bringing us to life, we have no hope.

And here's the last thing I'll leave you with. If you believe that you simply made the decision, you saw the gospel, it was made sense to you, and you believed, you actually do have reasons to boast because what's the difference between you and the person who didn't believe?

You were simply smarter. You saw the logic, you saw the reasoning, and you believed.

This person did not. According to what we see here in scripture, everyone is dead.

And unless the spirit brings us to life, we cannot believe. And that's what the doctrine of irresistible grace or effectual grace or regeneration is what we would say it.

Can someone sin for so long that they end up losing their salvation or that they ultimately walk away from God?

It's a great question. We're gonna answer that in our part six on Calvinism and the perseverance of the saints.

Stay tuned. Well, this is part six in our final video on introduction to Calvinism or TULIP or the doctrines of grace, kind of whatever you wanna title it.

And we're gonna be covering the P in TULIP, which is the perseverance of the saints. And as our good friend

R .C. Sproul has made the observation and I tend to agree with him, but perseverance of the saints can be confusing because it sounds like you're saying that we, the

Christian, the saint, persevere to the end. And that's not necessarily what they were arguing for when they came up with the anacronym and they were responding to the

Romanstrance or responding to the Arminians. It was really the idea of God preserving them.

So if we're gonna change the P, we'd probably say the preservation of the saints. And the reason why we come to these conclusions is that we look at the doctrine of adoption and the indwelling of the spirit and the promises that God has made as it relates to his children.

And we learned that it is not the saint that keeps themselves in good standing with the father, but it's the father's promises that he will preserve or keep those to whom he has adopted or those to whom he had chosen to the end.

So let me read you just a couple of verses from Paul and even one from John as he quotes

Jesus as it relates to how we as children are preserved by the father.

So Ephesians 4, 1, 13 says this in 14, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised

Holy Spirit. So he's talking about there's a protection and where does that protection come from?

Not from us, but the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

So Paul makes it, he uses this illustration that we are protected or sealed by a source outside of us, which is the

Holy Spirit. And it says, who is the guarantee of our inheritance? So the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance, not us and not our works.

A famous verse from Philippians, from Paul, Philippians 1, 6, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ, not upon our own strength, right?

He's pointing to whose strength in that part, it's Christ. So the way in which we begun is the way we're going to end, which is the sovereign power, or some would say the monergistic, one working, mono, one working, so it's not us working, but Christ working to preserve us.

Listen to Jesus's prayer in John 17 and 11. He says this, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me, and I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction,

Judas, that the scriptures might be fulfilled. So these are just a few examples of where we can see that the

Holy Spirit is the one that preserves us and keeps us. John 6 is another great example of this, that Jesus says,

I lose none that the Father gives me. So the way in which that we go from regeneration, we're brought to life, to death and glorification with God is not a work of man, and it's not even

God starts it and we preserve it. He brings us to life, we keep ourselves alive. None of that is the way in which it's described to us.

It really is, Jesus is the one who brings us to life through the power of the Spirit, and through the Spirit, he preserves us to the very end, and then we are, after death, glorified and brought into the presence of the

King, and then one day we will be with him in the new heavens and the new earth. Here's the question, though,

I started with at the beginning of the video. Is it possible, though, for Christians who have been chosen by God, who have been indwelt by the

Spirit, then to go on and do sin, not just sin, but as some would say, radical sin, horrible sin, and for long periods of time?

And the answer to that, according to the Bible, is yes. Just two examples that we can use of many.

From the Old Testament, probably everybody remembers the story of David, and David, it wasn't a one -night issue, where he understood what he did that night and then repented of it the next day.

It was such a long period of sin that Nathan the prophet had to come to him and give him an illustration so that he could see his sin and need to repent, and so the man took another, so David took another man's wife, then, let's be frank, he connived such a way to have him killed, but ultimately, that's murder, and David lived in that sin for a very long time until he was called to repentance, in which he did, and we read his repentance in his psalm.

But there's also a man in the New Testament, Peter, and Peter didn't just flub up.

He didn't just kind of stub his toe. He was given three separate opportunities, which Jesus prophesied would happen, and it wasn't that he kind of stole something or was dishonest.

He absolutely denied that he knew Jesus three times. He says, I don't even know the man, and then to prove it, he used a curse against himself to prove the fact he didn't know

Jesus, so even in the sin of fear, this is really what

Peter was afraid of. It was the sin of fear, and he was more afraid of losing his life than he was for standing up for Jesus, and yet he is still considered to be a disciple, so could it be that even for a period of time, someone could reject

Jesus and yet still a believer? Well, that seems to be the story.

As radical as it may sound, that seems to be the story we have here in the

New Testament. Listen to what Jesus even says to Simon, Peter, in Luke 22, verse 31.

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and when you have turned again, knowing that he had turned away from Jesus, strengthen your brothers.

So obviously, Jesus knew. He foretold that Simon, Peter would do a horrendous act, which is reject

Jesus and fall into sin. And even later on in his apostolic journeys as a disciple, he got rebuked again by Paul for, again, giving into fear and starting to change the nature of the gospel and circumcision.

So can Christians sin? And horrendously, yes. I mean, you see some sexual sins with David.

You see denying of Christ with Peter. This is why Paul's warning in 1

Corinthians 10, verse 12, it should not be taken lightly. He says, therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls.

We have multiple warnings from James and from Peter as it relates to the power of Satan to trip up Christians and to entangle them.

We know Christians can be entangled because Paul says in Galatians, those who are trapped in sin go to such a one with a spirit of meekness and gentleness, unless you too find yourself falling into sin.

And what does he say? Restore them. So it is in the New Testament, you can at times find yourself or Christians find themselves very much so trapped in sin.

Another example of this is just to give you one of one that I would say is discipline and repentance as relates to Christians.

So you have the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 1, and he's saying that, listen, there's a man in your church who's in unrepentant sexual sin, and you need to kick him out because he is unwilling to repent and he needs to feel the consequences of a sin.

So they kick him out on the first letter. And then in the second letter, they won't let him back in.

And so he has to write back and say, now look, the whole purpose of you of showing church discipline and kicking them out is so that you can actually restore him.

So this is exactly what ends up happening is he tells them in the letter, you need to let him back in and restore him back into the fellowship.

So yes, Christians do at times struggle greatly, but God has given us a mechanism called church discipline to be used to restore them, not back to sin, obviously, but to back to obedience to Christ.

So it's a wonderful gift that God has given us. And we even hear from Hebrews that the Lord disciplines those whom he loves.

It's not a chastisement as far as out of his anger, but that of out of his love. But what about those who don't repent?

And maybe it's those who not only don't repent of their sin, they don't see that their sin is offensive to God, or they even just reject

God altogether, and they are unwilling to repent and they die in their sins. Well, John speaks of this in his epistle.

In 1 John 2, 19, he says, they went out from us because they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they were not of us.

So if someone who proclaims to be a believer, who even often maybe even possibly demonstrate it, but in the end walks away from their faith ultimately, and really never does repent,

John says that they were never really a believer. They can't be a believer because the Bible says, God loses none.

So either God's a liar, they misquoted somehow, misquoted or mistranslated the passage in multiple sections of scripture, or it's obvious that John is saying, they never really were empowered by the spirit.

They never really were brought to life. They didn't have a heart of stone turned into a heart of flesh. And this kind of leads us to our last section, which is

Hebrews 7, 25. It says this, consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

It is not only God who can save the greatest sinners, but he can also preserve them.

And at times we who are saint and sinner at the same time, those who struggle to want to obey

God, yet our flesh gets the better of us. And at times we give indentation over and over and over again to the moment that we find ourselves, as Galatians 6, 1 says, trapped in sin, that we need to be restored out of it, that Jesus, who is the great intercessor, who can and will intercede for us, he will save us and he will preserve us until the very end.

It can be scary and it can be confusing at time, but if your salvation is up to you to preserve it,

I will tell you with 100 % confidence, you will fail and you will not make it to paradise. If one half of 1 % of your final destination is in your hands, you are 100 % guaranteed to be damned forever.

You want God to be the one preserving you. Even in the midst of your sin, even in the midst of your disobedience, you want him to be preserving you.

This does not give you a license to go sin. Sin is damaging. If you haven't read enough of the New Testament, it is extremely damaging.

And I'll leave you with this. Our confession that we use, the Lenten Baptist Confession 5 .5, it describes the believer that at times that God allows us to go not only into sin for a little bit, but into dark and deep damaging sin.

And at the end of the quote, it says this, that we might learn to have a greater dependence upon him.

Often, according to James, we are allowed to find ourselves falling into various trials and even temptations so that in the end, we don't trust our flesh and we trust in the power of the gospel and into Christ.

Hopefully this series was encouraging to you. And in the end, you realize that it is God, not only who chooses to love us in our sin, who proves his love by sending his son, by bringing us to life, by preserving us to the end.

It's all his sovereign work. It's one doing the work. It is monergistic from beginning to the end.

And we can praise God, that is the fact, because our sinful hearts get in the way. Obviously, we have to repent.

We cannot save ourselves. We cannot maintain our salvation. And ultimately, we cannot sanctify ourselves in such a way that we can make it home.

And praise be to God that he does it for us. Again, hopefully this was helpful for us. Leave us any comments or questions below.