Why I Am a Calvinist (Part 6)
March 27th, 2007
. . . and why every Christian is a Calvinist of sorts.
(By Phil Johnson)
Part VI: We love Him because He first loved us
Notice: this profound text is a clear statement about the sovereign power of God’s love. It is a lesson about the sovereignty of God’s saving purpose. It is a celebration of the glory of sovereign love.
The verse, despite its brevity, also turns out to be incredibly rich with meaning. Look at it closely and you’ll see at least five great doctrinal lessons this verse teaches us. Today, we’ll consider two of them; then we’ll look at the other three in tomorrow’s post.
First, the text teaches us about:
1. THE PERVERSENESS OF OUR FALLEN STATE
In other words, it underscores for us how bad our sin is, and how deeply infected we are with sinful tendencies.
Think with me for a moment about the implications of that phrase at the end: “He first loved us.” In other words, there was a time when we didn’t love Him. That is the very essence of depravity, isn’t it?—a failure to love God as we ought. Nothing is more utterly and totally depraved than a heart devoid of love for God. Romans 8:7 says, “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”
That describes a hopeless state of utter inability to love God, to obey His commands, or to please Him. That is the state of all whose hearts have not been renewed by Christ.
This is a particularly poignant expression coming from the apostle John—who in his gospel refers to himself repeatedly as “that disciple whom Jesus loved.” Notice: in John’s own mind, Jesus’ love for him completely defined who he was.
Why was this such a prominent feature in John’s thinking? I think he gives us a clue right here in our verse. The reason he was so preoccupied with the love of Christ for him is that he knew that love was utterly undeserved. He was keenly aware of his own sinfulness. As amazed as John was with the love of Christ for him, he must have been equally amazed at the thought that his own heart had once been devoid of any love for One who was so lovely. How can the human heart be so cold to One who is so worthy of our love? Anyone who truly appreciates the glory of Christ’s love, as John did, will be appalled and horrified at the realization that our own hearts do not love Him as we ought to. The knowledge of how perfectly He loves us produces such a sense of utter unworthiness, doesn’t it?
You can see this vividly, even at the end of John’s life, when he sees a vision of the risen Christ in Revelation 1, and he writes in Revelation 1:17, “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.” He was literally frightened into a coma, because this vision of the glorified Christ smote him with such an overpowering sense of his own sinfulness. And in an almost involuntary response, he collapsed on his face in a dead swoon out of fear. And there he lay until Jesus “laid His right hand upon [him,] saying . . . Fear not.”
That same overpowering consciousness of sin and shame is implied in the words of our verse, “We love Him, because He first loved us.” We are so utterly and totally depraved that if God Himself did not love us with a redeeming love, we would never have loved Him at all. If that does not fill you with a consciousness of your own sin—if it doesn’t shock you with a stark realization of the impenetrable hardness of the fallen human heart—then you need to meditate on it a little longer.
I hope you can see how this verse clearly and forcefully underscores the very essence of human depravity. There is nothing more desperately wicked than a heart that fails to love God. There is nothing more blind and irrational and sinful than not loving Someone so worthy of our love. We should need no motive to love Him other than the sheer glory His perfect being. And yet, we would not love Him at all if He had not first loved us!
Remember, this is the first and great commandment (Matthew 22:37): “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” The whole of God’s law is summarized and epitomized in that one simple rule. To break that commandment is to fail in every single point of the law. There is nothing more completely and totally wicked.
And yet, our verse reminds us that we are so hopelessly and thoroughly wicked that not one of us could ever truly love God unless God Himself enabled us to do so. That is the doctrine of total depravity in a nutshell. It means that we are totally unable to save ourselves. We have a debilitating moral inability that makes our love for Him an utter impossibility until He intervenes to give us the ability to love Him.
We cannot by sheer force of will set our hearts to love Him, because as fallen creatures we are so in love with our own sin and rebellion that our desires are twisted. Our affections are warped and hopelessly corrupted. And we are powerless to change ourselves. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 13:23). “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint” (Isaiah 1:5). “The [unregenerate] heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”—who can possibly understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
Our hearts are poisoned by sin, and that is why we do not and cannot love God on our own. That is precisely what we mean when we talk about total depravity. It’s not that we are as evil as we could possibly be, but that evil has infected us totally—in every part of our soul—so that we are incapable of righteous desires and holy motives and loving affections toward God. Some theologians prefer the expression total inability, rather than total depravity. But the truth is the same—and I hope you can see how it is implied in this text. Arminians, if they are true Arminians, and not full-blown Pelagians, actually affirm that truth.
So that is the first doctrine taught by this verse: The perverseness of our fallen state. Here’s a second one:
2. THE PRIORITY OF GOD’S ELECTING CHOICE
He loved us first. That is exactly what this verse says. It is also the whole gist of what the doctrine of election teaches. God’s love for us precedes any movement toward God on our part. Even Arminians affirm that much of the doctrine of Election. God loved us first.
The apostle John is actually echoing something Jesus once said to him. That last night prior to the crucifixion, when the disciples were alone together with Jesus, after they ate the Passover meal together in the Upper Room, Jesus said to them (John 15:16), “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.”
Now, John and the other apostles might have protested, “But that’s not true, Lord; we did choose You.” After all, they had left all to follow Him. Peter said so explicitly in Mark 10:28: “Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee.” They had made a conscious, deliberate choice to abandon their former lives, their loved ones, their livelihoods, and all they had—in order to follow Christ. They had indeed chosen to devote their lives to following Him. And in the case of John and his brother James, giving up their livelihood meant giving up the family fishing business, which by all appearances was a lucrative business for them.
John himself had met Jesus while John was under the discipleship of John the Baptist. As soon as he and Andrew understood that John the Baptist was pointing to Jesus as the promised Messiah, they left John the Baptist in order to follow Jesus. In a very real sense, they did choose Jesus. So what did Jesus mean when He said, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you”?
He meant simply that whether they realized it or not, He had chosen them first. His choice was the decisive one. They would never have chosen Him at all had He not first chosen them. They loved Him because He first loved them.
Even if you are a devoted Arminian, you implicitly affirm this truth. You acknowledge it every time you thank Him for saving you. You know in your heart that you cannot take personal credit for your love toward God. You did not love Him first; We love him, because He first loved us. You and I are no better than the unbelieving people who still hate and reject Him. The only reason we love Him while they remain at enmity with God is that God’s loving grace has worked a miracle in our hearts to enable us to return His love.
First Corinthians 4:7 asks, “Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” Do not think for a moment that you can take credit for your love toward Christ. If you love Him at all, it is only because He first loved you. That is the very essence of the doctrine of election.
“We love Him, because He first loved us.” In other words, God took the initiative in salvation. One of the points Roger Olson makes in that book I referred to is that historic, knowledgeable Arminians do affirm that truth. God is both the Author and the Finisher of our faith. He started the process. His love for us not only came before any love we have for Him; but His love is what secured our love for Him. That’s exactly what this text says.
These are great thoughts, Phil. Well expressed. While I would continue to hold that this view is not the sole province of Calvinism (it’s sound biblical doctrine for Arminians, too!) I do have to say this issue is not well expressed in so many pulpits. One thing I appreciate from you is your championing of solid biblical thought over sloppy sentimentality and human-driven appeals.
Is both “free will” and election biblical? I understand that we will not make a decision for Christ on our own and that we need to be drawn. I also understand that God is sovereign and in complete control. This being understood, I am under the impression that after being drawn it is our responsibility to respond to the message. I also understand that God will have mercy on whom He will’s and will harden whom He will’s. I take this to mean that even though I may chose to reject, He has already chosen to show mercy or to harden.
Another passage that speaks to my heart, Phil, on this is John 3:16(verses 3, 5, and 8 and others in the chapter must not be neglected as to what comes first and Who orders the steps).
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Jhn/Jhn003.html#top
Phil’s words instantly reminded me of an old hymn redone on the latest Red Mountain Church CD, “Help My Unbelief.”
Lord, dissolve my frozen heart,
By the beams of love divine;
This alone can warmth impart,
To dissolve a heart like mine.
O that love, how vast it is!
Vast it seems though known in part;
Strange indeed, if love like this,
Should not melt the frozen heart.
Chorus:
The love of Christ passes knowledge.
The love of Christ eases fear.
The love of Christ hits a man’s heart,
It pierces him like a spear.
Savior, let Thy love be felt,
Let its power be felt by me,
Then my frozen heart shall melt,
Melt in love, O Lord to Thee.
— from Gadsby Hymnal #1117 words by Thomas Kelly, 1769-1855, Chorus by Brian T. Murphy
“This being understood, I am under the impression that after being drawn it is our responsibility to respond to the message.”
Maturing,
Yes we certainly need to respond, and we will, if the Father draws us to the Son, and to the Cross. He will regenerate our dead spirits, and we will trust Christ, and repent of our sins. And it is 100% pure grace.
God makes us alive. Those He doesn’t make alive, shall be given what they desire, the same thing we used to desire, to live in sin and darkness, and to continue to hate the light. To be rebels against the truth.
Thank the Lord for drawing us by His sovereign mercy and grace!
A small comment
Phil said:
“Remember, this is the first and great commandment (Matthew 22:37): ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ The whole of God’s law is summarized and epitomized in that one simple rule. To break that commandment is to fail in every single point of the law. There is nothing more completely and totally wicked.”
I would not leave out v. 39 “The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
In v 40 it states “All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Jesus puts them together - not seperate.
Anyhoo, sorry for the side track. Not the main thrust of your series, I just really do not think 37 can be pulled out of Mathew without discussing through at least v. 40.
I agree completly with the main thrust of your series.
“Remember, this is the first and great commandment (Matthew 22:37): ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’
I think Luther said in like manner, “the greatest sin therefore is to not love God with all your heart, soul, and strength.”
The Lord said to Peter on the beach, “Do you love Me?”; not do you love people.
I to believe we need to have the love of God spread abroad in our hearts by the Spirit, and that first love of ours will become, over time the Lord Jesus Christ, so much so, that we would die for Him. And because of this, we now without any doubt love people. And in fact we show the Lord we love Him the most, when we love the least of these.
Election does not cancel or override free will as far as I see it. Our will certainly is free, we can will what ever we like. When I was a kid I willed to fly, just like superman. I could not fly. I sprained my ankle. While our wills are totally free they are not totally powerful.
Mankind wills for many things which do not come to pass. Jesus created the Havens and the Earth by His Will and His Word.
One may will to be saved, but unless Jesus wills it to be so, one will remain unsaved.
Being saved is likened to being Born Again. The fetus does not will to be born, and in fact it is a traumatic experience. Without being born though the fetus is doomed to die, never even having tasted life outside the womb. The same is true of the spiritual birth.
There will be many who will say “Lord, Lord” but to whom Jesus will reply, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
Praise Jesus that I love because He first loved me!
MDM
Maturing in Faith:
I think (if I remember correctly) the next point in this series will help answer your questions, by explaining how God’s grace is “irresistable.” If not, feel free to bring up the question again, and I’ll take a stab at it.
[...] Phil Johnson (http://www.sfpulpit.com) continues his series on why he is a calvinist and why all Christians are one of sorts with part six and over at Pyromaniacs (http://teampyro.blogspot.com) he posts a bit more on the gifts, entitled Ecstasy. [...]
I believe that you have erred in your interpretation of 1 John 4:19. John described this process in an earlier verse: “By this we know love, because He [Christ] laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16). So the person knows love because they become aware of Christ’s love first… that he laid down his life for us. So He has displayed his love for us in a deep and passionate way, He died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. Now Calvinists usually argue here that Faith is a gift. My response is this: Where? Now the well versed Calvinist says “Ephesians 2:8” which says “For it is by grace we are saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Now ‘grace’, and ‘faith’ are feminine Greek words… but ‘this’, is neuter! So what is the ‘this’ in this passage? It is salvation itself. No one can earn salvation, however, we can meet a sovereign condition for salvation, one which is offered by grace, on the condition of faith. Nowhere in the Bible is Faith expressed as a gift, it is defined as “…the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen”. How do we build faith, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God”. As it says in another verse “Study to show yourself approved unto God, an unashamed worker who rightly divides the word of truth”. But what of God, does that mean that because we meet his condition that we earn our salvation by works? CERTAINLY NOT! We were saved by God’s acting grace which he acts on people on a singular sovereign basis: our faith. Salvation is all of God. Faith is something we do that God promises to save us because of. This isn’t about monergism or synergism. This is exactly what Jesus taught. “My burden is easy and my yoke is light.” As a Biblicist, I must say that you have your work cut out for you dismissing Biblicism. Most Calvinists call it Arminianism and dismiss it as pre-refuted by the simple fact that the system of Arminianism is grossly self inconsistent… to which I agree that Arminianism is. However, for the sake of why I am not a Calvinist in any real sense, I must make mention that Calvinism also has some inconsistencies in itself; major gross ones. For a thorough, consistent, refutation of Calvinism, I encourage you to read “The Dark Side of Calvinism: The Calvinist Caste System” by George Bryson. That book helped me a lot in my struggle against Calvinism and really helped me to understand that the Bible teaches neither Calvinism nor Arminianism but rather an unnamed system where election is not unconditional to salvation but conditional on faith, where humans really do have a free will of sorts sovereignly given by God. A God who just controls the hearts and minds of the individuals he has created is nowhere near as impressive as a God who uses billions of free agents to accomplish his purposes. Humans are not sovereign over their emotions, but we are sovereign in our decision making, the Bible in that it holds us responsible for sin and also makes us responsible for believing for our salvation does indeed show the existence of this free agency. I have a strong understanding of Calvinism as I have studied it for months now (and I mean studied, not just every once in a while, but almost nightly) and I have come to the conclusion that only two paths exists, Calvinism is wrong and a Christian I shall remain, or Calvinism is correct and my faith I shall abandon. I hesitate not to criticize the reformed position of Sovereign unconditional reprobation which is the unavoidable and inconvenient truth of Calvinistic theology.
This article seems to be an attempt at defending the doctrine of total depravity, in reality the doctrine you mean to defend is “Total Inability” two completely separate doctrines, total depravity says that we screw up in every area, Total inability by its Calvinistic definition is the idea that our sinfulness is so extreme that we can’t even believe on Christ. What Calvinists don’t realize is that this isn’t taught anywhere in scripture. It is true that the father must draw us before we are enabled to come to Christ, however it does not say that this is some inward, effectual call, instead the general teaching of John 6 is that we are drawn to the father by the word of God, that the Word of God is the agent of drawing which the Father uses to draw sinners… and indeed it is true, no one can come to the father unless the spirit convicts and the father draws… both of these things are prayed for earnestly by Biblicists, so that our lost friends and family may decide to believe on Jesus Christ for their salvation. I realize that the Heart is desperately wicked and deceitful, but I also realize that faith is something that comes out of the heart as a result of the Word of God going into the heart. The human heart is not so depraved that when the Word of God enters, nothing happens. Indeed as Christ explained, what you sow, you shall also reap. Admittedly it seems to follow that if we love God because he first loved us that we are unable to love God unless God loved us first… but we see that God’s love in the rest of scripture extends to all mankind. A Calvinist argues that God’s love indeed doesn’t extend to mankind, their favorite verse to support this is “The older shall serve the younger, indeed as it’s written in scripture, Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated” but when we look at the language and in fact when we just look at the original contexts of these two quotes, we find a 1500 year difference!!! In the second quote, it’s no longer “Jacob” and “Esau” that are being referred to, but Israel, and Edom. The more the entire chapter of Romans 9 is examined, it becomes clear that election in this chapter is not to some individual salvation, but rather a national election to favor with God. God first loved all… now we are all able to Love him! It is true that our hearts are poisoned by sin, this is the doctrine of total depravity. These verses expose the corruption of sin in our lives and how it permeates every fiber of our being but it is a tendency to sin. To be sure we are indeed slaves to sin, but we are not prevented from doing good in our unregenerate state. In fact the bible never makes a distinction between regeneration as a separated pre-atonement condition (being born again so that we may believe for our own salvation), this is never expressed by scripture. Instead salvation and regeneration are equated, if we believe in our hearts that Jesus died for our sins then we are saved and regenerated into new life. As Paul put it “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come.”
I conclude that the Calvinist doctrines and worldviews of redemption, election, and reprobation are mythical at best, and heretical at worst. The ideas contained therein are dangerous in terms of theology and make a person grossly inconsistent. These interpretations presented by Calvinists are eisegetical in nature and are severely found wanting. As a brother in the faith, I encourage Calvinists to really re-examine their beliefs in light of God’s word. Eventually you will find the inconsistencies in this theological system. Months of study have shown me this truth and bared it out for all to see.
Gino,
Just because faith isn’t singled out as a gift in Eph. 2:8 doesn’t mean it is something we bring to the table. It’s part of the package. Salvation by grace through faith is a gift from God. Period. Scripture couldn’t be more clear that God is the one responsible for our salvation. He is the one who receives all the glory for it.
Perhaps you should back up a few verses. Unless you can demonstrate through scripture that one who is “dead in trespasses and sin” (Eph. 2:1) is able to produce faith in anything, then you have no argument.
I think you should re-examine your own beliefs in light of God’s word.
How did we get from Faith is definitely a gift to if it’s not a gift, then God is not responsible for our salvation.. of course he’s responsible, our faith isn’t what allows him or facilitates him to save us, our faith is the condition upon which he saves us. and that salvation is a gift born out of his promise to save all who would believe in him. to believe though that he arbitrates that process unconditionally is unscriptural. On the other hand, Faith is something given by God… but so is the ability to walk. you use the part where it says “spiritually dead in trespasses and sin” but where ever does the Bible define that as being “unable to produce faith in anything.” as a matter of fact we can’t “produce” faith… we apply faith. the bible never says “have faith”, it says “have faith in _______” it uses this interchangably with “believe” I’m certain that a “spiritually dead” person is capable of belief or faith which God gives to all. you have to prove that God’s election is indeed unconditional and not conditional as so many verses suggest.
Gino