The Five Points of Calvinism
There are two equal and opposite errors of “scope” when it comes to the ideas we have of “Calvinism” — leaving aside whether or not the label itself is helpful.
One extreme is to reduce Calvinism to five points of soteriology. The other is to take a broader view that minimizes the importance of the contours of the gospel it claims to describe.
That first way of thinking is typical of the so-called “cage stage,” where those who are new to Reformed theology want to share the joy of their epiphanies by punishing as many who deviate with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second way swings the pendulum all the way to the other side.
On this second extreme, there is an attempted correction. Either someone is pressing the implications of God’s sovereignty to all of life (Neo-Calvinism) or else one is trying to prove that they are not one of those who believe that Christianity “started in the sixteenth century.” So they are off on their journey through the early church fathers, medieval scholastics, or other Protestant traditions (retrieval theology). To the extent that any of these movements are heavy on correction and light on integration, TULIP is either made into everything, or else left behind as an infant stage.
I want to suggest that each of these extremes are shallow. Each of them involve an exercise in blaming wrong things or making an exaggerated defense of something that has been neglected.
Historical Background
In the fall of 1618 and lasting into the Spring of 1619 the largest gathering of Reformed pastors and theologians, representing several countries met at what became known as the Synod of Dort. The occasion was to respond to a new teaching that had emerged in the Reformed churches, not only among the Dutch but also spreading throughout England.
Two decades earlier, one Jacob Arminius would obtain a preaching position in Holland. He had studied under Beza in Geneva, and therefore was very conversant with and complimentary of the Calvinistic doctrine. One of his early tasks was to preach through Romans. In a harbinger of things to come, his sermons in Romans 5 taught that “death was inevitable even if Adam had obeyed the Lord’s command,” of Romans 7, that Paul was the unregenerate man, suggesting that free will is just as in tact after the fall, and of Romans 9 that Paul was speaking of people groups and not the elect of individuals.1 He would not lay out the system that his later followers, the Remonstrants, would do. Nevertheless, the die had been cast.
In the year after his death (1610), forty-three of his former students, now ministers, drew up a document called the Remonstrance, which contained five points of “remonstration.” That is crucial to dispelling a myth. Calvinism has no “five points” so much as it has five answers to the errors of the Remonstrants. The famous acronym for the so-called “five points of Calvinism” (TULIP) is actually a product of the early twentieth century, and the letters were rearranged.2 Indeed, the Dutch word is actually tulp, having only four letters. Now rather than give any long, drawn-out version of the five articles of Remonstrance, we will give the abbreviated summary once provided by Roger Nicole:
God elects or reprobates on the basis of foreseen faith or unbelief.
Christ died for all men and for every man, although only believers are saved.
Man is so depraved that divine grace is necessary unto faith or any good deed.
This grace may be resisted.
Whether all who are truly regenerate will certainly persevere in the faith is a point which needs further investigation.3
In reply (and given the later makeover), the letters of the acronym TULIP represent as follows:
T - Total Depravity
U - Unconditional Election
L - Limited Atonement
I - Irresistible Grace
P - Perseverance of the Saints.
What matters is not the exact labels that we use, but the substance behind them. It is assumed by many that the architects of the Canons of Dort—the “Calvinism” that won out—represent a cold-hearted, divisive, and rationalistic religion. It is fashionable among scholars to bring in as much of the historical scenery as possible, only to prove to themselves and others that they are not being biased. On the more popular level, from those whose preoccupation is to be ever loved and never divisive, labels like “humble Calvinism” or “generous Calvinism” or “winsome Calvinism” abound. The unspoken assumptions are that while these doctrines may be true, there is nothing that is pastoral or practical about them; nothing that would naturally elicit worship or be good for other people.
But when the dust clears, what we are left with are the things that matter most. And what did matter most to people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The same things that matter most to us. Life and death. When Erasmus argued against Luther that controversies about the freedom of the will are not important, Luther responded in this way:
“For when he promises, it is necessary that you should be certain that he knows, is able, and willing to perform what he promises; otherwise, you will neither hold him true nor faithful; which is unbelief, the greatest of wickedness, and a denying of the Most High God!”4
Whatever else one might think of the differences between Lutheran and Reformed traditions, the manner in which Luther maintained the bondage of the will in sin, and of predestination, ought to at least give the newcomer pause in reducing these emphases to one man in Geneva. In fact, it goes back to Augustine in his battles against Pelagius—the Catholic Church officially siding with the former for a thousand years, so said the Council of Ephesus (431) and Synod of Orange (529). Naturally those who hold to these truths of God’s sovereign grace will say it goes back to Jesus and the Apostles.
The Five Points have also come to be known as “the doctrines of grace.” Many think that George Whitefield was the first to use that latter expression, as it avoided the distraction of the label “Calvinism.” This reminds us that one of the great fixations of even those most committed to the doctrines is to communicate them in a way that avoids this or that stereotype or other misunderstanding. Often times we can even over-compensate, prizing relatability over logical coherence. At any rate, we must reacquaint ourselves with what these five truths are actually saying.
Total Depravity
The doctrine of total depravity teaches that prior to the new birth we are totally unable to respond spiritually to God. Remember, this is a doctrine about soteriology. It was never meant to explain everything that can be conceived about human nature or social thought. The issue is the capacity of man’s nature—prior to being born again—or that nature into which he is born with respect to responding to the gospel call. The unregenerate possess a moral and natural and spiritual inability to come to Christ in true repentance and faith. I include all three of those words—moral, natural, spiritual—because many attempt to drive a wedge in between them to begin making some room for a favorable response to grace of one kind or another.
At any rate, this truth is plainly taught in Scripture,
“The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Ps. 14:2-3).
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:1-3).
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day … And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (Jn. 6:44, 65).
“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8).
“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” (1 Cor. 2:14).
The doctrine of total depravity does not teach that no one “does good things” in any horizontal sense, but only in the vertical sense of doing the spiritual works of God (Rom. 3:10-12; 8:7-8). The reason an unregenerate man can do those “horizontal” works is no mystery. Being made in the image of God and thus retaining both mind and will, his moral nature is still aware of the form and the ends of virtue. So there is a sense in which all people desire good things to be done, and fancy that they are doing them to perfection. The trouble even on that horizontal plane is that his motives are shot through with sin and the social consequences will disintegrate in due time, being presided over by fresh waves of rebels against God. Are such good actions still real and morally and socially preferable to their bad counterparts? Of course. And the doctrine of total depravity has never denied that. However, this is very different from the question of whether the sinner can raise himself from the dead to do that which is fundamentally of spiritual life.
Unconditional Election
Election is God's gracious choosing of a specific number of men and women to be saved. The word used in Scripture, eklegó, simply means to choose or select. There is the typical case of the man who was asked in Sunday school what he knew about election. He said, “Oh, that’s easy. God casts one vote for me. Satan casts one vote against me. And I break the tie!” No. That is not what election means here.
This is an aspect of the decree of God, which is eternal and free (or sovereign). If God’s choice of who would be saved was based upon what we would do, well then, in addition to undermining divine omniscience (he would be learning), immutability (his decree would have changed), and eternality (his experience would be reduced to time), this would also mean that something we are or did merited grace. But then, as Paul said about any other work—then “grace would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:6).
Again, this is a biblical doctrine.
“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 us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:4-5).
“God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13).
“and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).
“and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mat. 11:27).
The specific referent of the U is the basis for God’s decision. That it is “unconditional” simply means that it is all of grace: that is, nothing that we are or have done in righteousness was the condition of his choice. One common misconception is to reason that if there is no reason to be found in me, then there is no reason (or cause) at all. Aside from being rather narcissistic, this is not what the many texts on this in Scripture are telling us.
We can list the biblical reasons given for God saving by his sovereign grace (and for revealing that to us) as being: 1. for his own glory (Isa. 48:11, Rom. 9:11-23), 2. by his grace alone (Rom. 11:6), 3. according to his counsel, or good pleasure (Eph. 1:11), 4. because he loved us (Deut. 7:7-8), 5. not because of anything in us (1 Cor. 4:7), 6. so that no one would boast (Eph. 2:9, 1 Cor. 1:30), 7. so that we would credit him for doing so (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), and 8. so that our hope and faith would be in his performance rather than our own (Heb. 13:9, 1 Pet. 1:21).
The reason being in God is reason enough.
It will still be lamented, “Why does he not save all?” We should consider that God does not have to save anyone. Given his infinite holiness and the depths of our sin, God would be perfectly just to condemn the entire human race after Adam. As R. C. Sproul said: “The saved get mercy and the unsaved get justice. Nobody gets injustice.”5 If we view it from the perspective of God’s justice, then the dilemma, though very grave, is resolved.
Limited Atonement
This third point is also sometimes called “definite atonement” or “particular redemption.” For many people, the word “limited” can seem to be setting that limit to either God’s power or His love. But there is no reason to think of divine power as being limited here. The cross saves everyone it was intended to save. Now as to God’s love, the trouble here comes in sinful human beings defining God’s love down to our own level. We assume up front that if God is infinitely loving, then He must love the infinite number of personal beings. However, this implies that a divine attribute (love) and obligation (justice rendered) is an effect of the creature. Whether we know it or not, such talk is no longer in the ballpark of monotheism, let alone the God of Scripture. Moreover, we must make distinctions so that our speech is not deceptive to the unbeliever. If we speak of God’s love as “unconditional” in an indiscriminate sense, we have (again, unwittingly or not) denied the sense in which holiness and justice are conditions of reconciliation to God and so have made the whole work of Christ unintelligible.
When the question concerns the design of God in the cross, and its invincible effect in saving sinners, the Bible is clear that this was for the elect alone. Our Lord was called Jesus for this very reason, “because he will save his people from their sins” (Mat. 1:21). He compares himself to the Good Shepherd who “lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn. 10:11) and the Bridegroom who “loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25).
By his blood he “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). In his High Priestly Prayer before going to the cross, he prays, “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours” (Jn. 17:9). Peter opens off his letter by addressing those who are “elect … for sprinkling with his blood” (1 Pet. 1:2). The author of Hebrews speaks of Christ’s death with specificity about those who were redeemed from one covenantal arrangement to the other,
“Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:15).
And in 10:14 of that same epistle it says, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
The unjust practice of “double jeopardy” is one of the good reasons to believe in this truth. Simply stated, Christ did not pay for all the sins of the whole world on the cross, but rather for all of the sins of his people whom God elected and gave to him. Because Christ took on the full punishment for the sins of the elect, that debt is paid in full (Jn. 19:30) and so there is no more hell left to pay (Rom. 8:1). Since the non-elect were not made born again, they never believed and thus were never united to Christ in either his death or resurrection. Not believing, the wrath of God remained on them (Jn. 3:36). So there is no divine double jeopardy. If there was, Christ would have died in vain, at least for those who would not be saved. And the Father would be unjust, as he would have caused his Son to undergo punishment for sins which would still be meted out to the full.
Irresistible Grace
The focus of the “I” is the Holy Spirit’s work in applying the redemption accomplished by Christ. As the promise of Ezekiel 36:26 spelled out, God gives us a new heart that is now capable of repentance and faith. The necessity of sovereign grace in this work follows from the truth about our depravity. Here again we see the logical connection between these truths. What about in Scripture? That the Spirit effectually causes new birth and faith is also taught in the following passages.
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become 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” (Jn. 1:13).
“unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3).
“Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18).
“The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14).
And about Paul’s opponents even it says, “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25).
It will be objected that saving grace is not irresistible since sinners always resist. After all, didn’t Steven even say to the leaders of the Jews, “You always resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51)? Indeed he did. The doctrine of irresistible grace does not teach that men do not resist. Rather, it teaches that God conquers that resistance when He is good and ready. The corpse of Lazarus was quite resistant to all of the principles of life, considered in the ordinary sense. But nothing that doesn’t exist can resist the creative word of God, so that “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
All of this implies that regeneration precedes faith—in other words, that faith is part of the gift of God’s grace:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
“For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Phi. 1:29).
So Paul said to the Corinthians, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:30), and asks, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (4:7)
The Perseverance of the Saints
Some will say that the “perseverance” of the saints should be called the “preservation” of the saints, since God’s keeping-power is really the main factor: “The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore” (Ps. 121:8). No matter what one calls it, it is important to directly answer the misgiving that this doctrine creates presumption in the saints.
What does the Scripture say? The words of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are most instructive.
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” ( Jn. 6:37-40).
“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 the Father’s hand” (Jn. 10:28-29).
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn. 11:25-26).
Paul ends the Golden Chain of Salvation with this link, “and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30); and says to the Philippians: “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” (Phi. 1:6). As a final verse to consider, the closing language of Jude’s letter: ““Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (v. 24).
What about the fact that we had faith at the beginning, but we can have the opposite of faith afterwards? We can disbelieve after coming to faith. Such responses represent the same inflation of the individual will at the end of the Christian life as we already saw about its beginning. However, Jesus says, "no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand" (Jn. 10:29). He does not say "no one ... except for yourself." Likewise Paul says, "nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 8:39). He does not say "nothing ... except for a slip in our faith."
To the objection that many do fall away, Matthew 7:23 and 1 John 2:19 explain what is happening when someone “falls away.” Note, for example, that Jesus says “I never knew you,” not that I once knew you but now I don’t. So this passage teaches perseverance, not falling away. Such never were saved, and fell from (1) the visible church and (2) a merely professed faith. The same is occurring with those in the Parable of the Sower who fall away.
What then are apostasy and backsliding? The word apostasy is used as a synonym for this falling away, so any falling away passage would make this point (Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-30 are the most frequently cited). 1 John 2:19 and 2 Peter 2:1 are two other ones that can be noted. And then there is a corporate apostasy depicted in Revelation 2-3 in the letters to the seven churches, and at least potential for the Galatians if they didn't heed Paul's warning. See a few verses in Ch. 1 and 5 to that effect of turning or falling away. The concept of “backsliding” can be an accurate description of the Christian's experience during a dark season. So long as we keep a clear biblical truth in view. None lose their salvation, even momentarily.
______________
1. Daniel R. Hyde, A Grace Worth Fighting For (Davenant Institute, 2019), 12.
2. Hyde, A Grace Worth Fighting For, 31.
3. Roger Nicole, “Arminianism,” in Everett F. Harrison, ed., Baker’s Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960), 64.
4. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), 44.
5. R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1986), 37-38.
