IF

This post is going to be about Calvinism’s least favorite word.

For those who don’t know, Calvinism is the belief that God is like Fate ... a big, inexorable, controlling force that decides everything in the universe long before you get a chance to, and allows no place for free will. Calvinists talk about “the sovereign decrees of the Almighty”, or just “sovereignty” for short, by which they mean you have no choice. Even your willingness to be saved, they say, has to be irresistibly pressed upon you from above. “Faith”, they say (misreading Ephesians 2:8), is a “gift” — but one like no gift you’ve ever had; it’s crammed down your unwilling throat by an arbitrary God. They even say that regeneration, the new birth, has to be done to you without your agreement, and before salvation — before you can hear and respond to the gospel. God is the puppet master and you’re on the strings.

If I sound lunatic in saying all this, don’t worry; Calvinists stand squarely behind it. Just ask them.

I’m Okay, You’re Okay

Now, churches today outside the Reformed tradition mostly don’t raise the subject of Calvinism, except in a vaguely “It’s okay if that’s what you believe” kind of way. I think this is mostly because it’s so controversial and, if I may say, contrary to scripture as well. But they don’t want to offend those members of the congregation who may have been influenced by teachers like Calvin and Luther, or the rather militant Reformed tradition of today, or famous preachers like MacArthur, Piper or Keller. It’s too fractious, they think; and they are under the impression that Calvinism is a kind of benign alternative theology ... you can take it or leave it depending on your evangelical preference, they seem to think.

I used to think like that. I don’t anymore. At one time, I thought I was what they call a “three-point Calvinist” — a person who wasn’t one, but who could go along with Calvinism in three of its five crucial teachings. But then I actually researched what they teach in those five points. Nowadays, I call myself a “no-point Calvinist”, as in “Today’s Calvinists have no point I can go along with.”

Calvinism’s a heresy, make no mistake. And it’s one that produces distortion and false doctrine all the way down to the level of salvation itself. If you see it, get away from it.

The IF Issue

Many passages of scripture refute the determinist view of God. I’ve already shared one with you all, and it’s found in 1 Samuel 23. But the more I’ve looked, the more such passages I have found. Here’s a good one. It comes from Matthew 11:

“Then he [Jesus] began to reprimand the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. 'Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that occurred in you had occurred in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades! For if the miracles that occurred in you had occurred in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment, than for you.’ ”

Notice the “ifs” in there? The word “if” is toxic to the Calvinist error.

Think About It

What is the Lord saying? He’s saying, “There’s another way things could have been. Had I done these miracles in these cities, they would have avoided the terrible judgments that fell on them, at least temporarily.” In other words, he’s saying that there was another way, and he knows exactly what it would have been! More than that, he’s resting his entire argument on this knowledge — knowledge of things that did not actually happen, but, Jesus asserts, certainly could have happened — and he definitely knows what the outcome would have been — something very different from the outcome we see.

There is no place in the Calvinist worldview for a claim such as this. For them, there is only ever one “will of God”, and it always happens, period. There are no alternate possibilities, no other ways the world could have been than the way it actually turned out. There is, then, no way Jesus Christ could claim that Sodom or Tyre and Sidon could have repented, for God did not give them power to repent. Moreover, there’s no way Capernaum or Chorazin could take his rebuke, since they also were fated by the “eternal counsels of God” not to be able to take it. They could not choose NOT to be whatever they were: the will of God had already decided it.

A Pause for Thought

But then, what do we make of this word “if”? It’s not the only place it occurs, by any means. For instance, we find it in a passage often quoted from 2 Chronicles 7:

“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among my people, and my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

See all those conditional words? If I do this (but I may not), and if my people respond thus (and they may not), then (if they do all I say), I will heal them ... and by implication, but not if they don’t, so they have to do what’s right, and my blessing is contingent on their obedience. That’s how we usually read it, and that’s what it says.

“If” is everywhere in scripture. Again, we find Christ crying out over Jerusalem, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”

I would have ... but you would not. If you had ... I would have ... but you did not. Do we think the Lord was insincere? But he’s clearly saying that that which was the will of God was not what the people ended up doing. What happened was not predetermined, not locked in by the irresistible will of God. It was not fate. It should have been different.

There’s Much More

This carries on throughout the New Testament. Paul exhorts, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” and again, “If we deny him, he will also deny us.” Peter writes, “Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.” James says, “If anyone thinks himself to be religious ...”, and “If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer”. John writes, “If we say we have fellowship with him ... but if we walk in the light ... if we say we have no sin ... but if we confess our sins ...” There is just no escaping the abundance of statements in scripture in which two roads are presented, with an “if” that offers people a conditional option to choose.

Why the Concern?

Here’s the problem: if we don’t think we have choices, we won’t make any. If we don’t see opportunities, we won’t take any. Calvinism cuts people off from the choices that God wants them to make, the responsibility he gives us to use our wills for his honor and glory, and dulls our awareness of the consequences when we do not. It’s just bad doctrine — plain and simple.

Now, I do not believe that most people who gravitate to Calvinism today want us to lose our sense of responsibility before God. I don’t think they want us to become indifferent to the commands of God. I don’t think they want us to become lax, sinful or irresponsible for our choices. I definitely don’t think they want to rob us of the clarion call to respond to the gospel with faith. I have friends who are ardent Calvinists, whose motives I would never impugn in the slightest. They love the Lord as much as I do, I think.

But it’s not our good intentions that will prevent bad doctrine from being bad. Meaning well won’t keep us from doing badly. We know what the road to hell is paved with, don’t we?

Every passage of scripture that offers an “if”, or a choice of some kind, is a rebuke to the Calvinist error. We may be tempted not to point that out, just so everybody in our congregation continues to get along, regardless of what view they’ve come to cherish. Or we could decide again that doctrine really matters. The nature of God matters. The gospel matters. We could be willing to take a stand on truth instead of continuing to build on the soft sands of spiritual compromise.

If we take a stand, we’ll pay a price for it, there’s no doubt. But what will happen IF we do not?