What are the Doctrines of Grace?

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Hello and welcome to the Reform Rookie Video Doctrine Series. Today we are going to be talking about the

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Doctrines of Grace, also known as TULIP. These are 5 doctrines that express and capture the essence of God's plan of salvation for His people and for His glory.

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These doctrines are intimately linked to each other and together form a cohesive explanation of the saving grace of God.

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They stand together as a unit or fall together as a unit. We use the acrostic

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TULIP to denote the first letter of each of these doctrines. T stands for Total Depravity, U stands for Unconditional Election, L stands for Limited Atonement, I stands for Irresistible Grace, and P stands for Perseverance of the

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Saints. These are the 5 doctrines that comprise what is commonly known as the

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Doctrines of Grace. So, let's go over how we got them and go over a little bit of history.

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Back on October 31, 1517, a 34 year old monk by the name of Martin Luther nailed a document to the castle church door in the

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German town of Wittenberg. The objective of Luther in posting his document was to invite scholars to debate whether these 95 specific teachings or theses within the

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Christendom were true. While Luther was predominantly concerned about the sale of indulgences with regards to papal forgiveness of sins, he was also alarmed by many other issues affecting the spiritual life of his parishioners.

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Of paramount concern was the way of salvation. For many years Luther had questioned whether a person was declared righteous before God because of good works.

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Illuminated by the Holy Spirit, Luther was led to understand that the just shall live by faith.

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This was found in Romans 1 .17. The only basis for being justified before God is by His grace through faith apart from human merit.

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This can also be found in Romans 3 .10 -20, Romans 6 .23, and Ephesians 2 .8

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-9. Once Luther understood the doctrine of justification by faith, he gave himself wholly to proclaiming the mercies of the free grace of God.

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Justification was by faith alone. And among those who came to understand the sovereignty of God and salvation was

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John Calvin. Calvin was born in Nyon, France on July 10, 1509.

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And though he was a boy when the Reformation began, Calvin would later become a leader in this world changing movement.

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Reaching maturity and being a gifted writer, Calvin gave the church many literary works including the

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Institutes of the Christian Religion which set forth in a systematic way the doctrines of the

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Christian faith from the perspective of the Reformers. Calvin's work stressed the sovereignty of God in all matters, with special attention being paid to the salvation of the

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Lord's elect. A leading opponent to the teaching of the sovereign grace of God as set forth by Calvin and other

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Reformation leaders was Jacob Arminius. Born in 1516, Arminius was an exceptional preacher and a capable scholar who struggled with the implication of the doctrines of predestination, election, the place of good works, and eternal salvation.

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As a seminary professor at the University of Leiden, Arminius was able to vocalize his concerns to his students.

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They in turn discussed their ideas with others and disagreement with Calvin's teachings began to grow. Strong opposition began to spread within the

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Reformed churches and by 1610 in the Netherlands, the followers of Arminius, also known as Remenstrant, had become confident of their theological position.

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In 1610, some leading figures gathered in the city of Gouda and drew up a document summarizing their fundamental beliefs in five main points.

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It was this document, also known as the Remenstrants, that was formally examined at an official church council that met in the city of Dort in 1618 -19.

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It was this Synod of Dort that officially rejected the five errors of Arminianism.

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While the views of Jacob Arminius and his followers were formally rejected by the Synod of Dort, the council was forced to crystallize what it believed the

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Bible taught on many of these issues. The result was the Doctrines of Grace, identified as TULIP, which has been used to help

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Christians ever since to understand the doctrines of the sovereign grace of God. So the acrostic

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TULIP, aka the Doctrines of Grace, were a response to the five errors or points of Arminius, whose followers were also known as Arminians.

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So what did these Doctrines of Grace attempt to do? They attempted to reveal the graciousness of God in the matter of salvation, in that he humbles individuals by revealing the exceedingly sinfulness of sin and the desperate condition in which sin has left mankind.

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Against the black backdrop of evil, the glorious gospel shines by proclaiming the good news that despite the plight of man, the power of God to redeem is always present.

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The gospel proclaims that whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. So now let's take a quick look at each of these doctrines, starting with the

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T. T stands for Total Depravity, which is the teaching that establishes the complete inability of man to save himself or have any part in saving himself because of the effect of sin in the soul.

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The sin of man is extensive as well as intensive. While individuals may not be as bad as they can be at any given moment, they are as bad off as they can be.

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The effect of the fall upon man is that sin has corrupted every part of his personality, his intelligence, his emotions, and the will.

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The unregenerate or unsaved person is declared to be dead in sin, and apart from the regenerating work of the

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Holy Spirit, the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel. This is remedied by the

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U, which is Unconditional Election. Which means that God has chosen, apart from any human merit at all, those whom he is pleased to bring to a knowledge of himself.

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It is God and God alone who elects the sinner unto salvation. L stands for Limited Atonement, and it means that the atonement of Christ was not designed to make men savable, but to actually purchase their salvation by his own precious blood.

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The atonement of Christ actually accomplishes what it was intended to do. Which leads us to the

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I, which stands for Irresistible Grace. This Irresistible Grace is the inevitable, brings about the inevitable and positive response produced by the power of God in the elect to the inward call of the

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Holy Spirit. Which brings us finally to the P, which stands for Perseverance of the

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Saints. The elect whom God has chosen for salvation will eternally reside in his sovereign care.

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He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. The doctrines of grace are so called because these five major headings of theology contain the purest expression of the saving grace of God.

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Each of these five doctrines, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the

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Saints, supremely display the sovereign grace of God. These five headings stand together as one comprehensive statement of the saving purposes of God.

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And for this reason, there is really only one point to the doctrines of grace, namely that God saves sinners by his grace and for his glory.

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These two realities, God's grace and God's glory, are inseparably bound together. Whatever most magnifies

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God's grace, most magnifies his glory. And that which most exalts God's grace is the truth expressed in the doctrines of grace.

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Well friends, thanks for joining us in learning some new reformed theology. Be sure to check back as we will be doing more thorough videos on each of these five doctrines.