In the year 1610, Jan Uytenbogaert and forty-one other followers of Jacob Arminius crafted a remonstrance (a formal protest) consisting of five articles of opposition to the Belgic Confession and the Reformed faith. These five articles of the of the followers of Arminius, who became known as the Remonstrants, were officially reviewed and condemned by a Dutch National Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618-1619. The Synod produced a confession of its own, the Canons of Dort, where each of Remonstrants’s five articles were countered. And subsequently, the five Canons of Dort have become known as the 5-points of Calvinism.
I for one am deeply thankful for this 400-year-old document. As with Charles Spurgeon, I am an unashamed Calvinist. The five points of Calvinism are important to me, and so many other Reformed Christians, because they prescribe all praise and glory to God by affirming the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.
Though the 5-points of Calvinism stress the sovereignty of God in salvation, they do not deny human responsibility. Yes, God is sovereign in salvation, but man is also responsible to repent and believe. And, in regards to human responsibility, there are another 5-points to Calvinism. These additional 5-points, dealing with human responsibility, are outlined by Paul in Romans 10:14-17. After explaining the doctrine of unconditional election in Romans 9, Paul, with equal clarity and force, explains man’s responsibility in salvation:
Romans 10:14-17 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Point 1: It is Our Responsibility to Call on Christ, 14a
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
I once heard of church that had a lot of unconverted people who openly thought that they were among God’s elect. Though they continued to attend church, they were told by the pastor of this church that they could not repent, that they could not believe, and that they could not come to Christ. They were told that the gospel was not a promise given to them as sinners. Thus, they could do nothing but wait and see what God would do. So, there they were—waiting and waiting, with some concluding that they must not have been chosen by God.
This, however, is not Calvinism—at least not the Calvinism represented by the Canons of Dort. The Canons of Dort confirms the Scriptural teaching that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Rom. 10:13). The Canons of Dort also confirms that all who hear the gospel are equally responsibility to call out to Christ for salvation. Moreover, the Canons of Dort confirms that sinners will be held accountable for their unbelief:
The fact that many who are called through the ministry of the gospel do not come and are not brought to conversion must not be blamed on the gospel, nor on Christ, who is offered through the gospel, nor on God, who calls them through the gospel and even bestows various gifts on them, but on the people themselves who are called (Act. 3.9).
If you refuse to believe the gospel, you are refusing God’s promise to you.
Point 2: It Is Our Responsibility to Believe on Christ, 14b
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
The Puritan, Joseph Hussey (1660-1726), is considered one of the first Hyper-Calvinists. Hussey denied that it was the responsibility of all sinners to repent and believe the gospel. Moreover, Hussey believed it was even wrong for preachers to command sinners to repent and believe the gospel. According to Hussey, it was wrong to offer hope to all not only because it is impossible for the non-elect to believe, but because God did not extend the promise of the gospel to the non-elect. This type of thinking, in 1835, was sadly codified in the Gospel Standard Confession: “We deny duty faith and duty repentance—these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty to spiritually and savingly repent and believe.”
Yet, this is not the Calvinism of the Canons of Dort. As with the Bible, the Canons of Dort stresses that it is the duty and responsibility of everyone to believe the gospel (John 3:36, John 6:40). As John Owen stated:
We are expressly commanded to believe, and that upon the highest promises and under the greatest penalties. This command is that which makes believing formally a duty. Faith is a grace as it is freely wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, the root of all obedience and duties, as it is radically fixed in the heart. But as it is commanded it is a duty; and these commands, you know, are several ways expressed, by invitations, exhortations, propositions.
In fact, the Canons of Dort places the blame for unbelief not on the gospel, but on the unbeliever: “The cause or blame for this unbelief, as well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but in humanity” (Art. 1.5). “That many who have been called through the gospel do not repent or believe in Christ but perish in unbelief is not because the sacrifice of Christ offered on the cross is deficient or insufficient, but because they themselves are at fault” (Art. 2.6).
Point 3: It Is Our Responsibility to Listen to Christ, 14c
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
If a sinner is going to be saved, they must call on Christ. But, to call on Christ, a sinner must believe on Christ. And if a sinner is going to believe on Christ, a sinner must know about Christ. If you are not a believer, then you should run to God’s word (seeing that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God).
Point 4: It Is Our Responsibility to Preach Christ, 14d
And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Though Hyper-Calvinists do not deny that the gospel should be preached to all as a historical and factual reality, they deny the gospel is to preached as a promise to all. Joseph Hussey, for instance, stated: “There are no free offers … anyone who claimed to believe in God’s election and yet offered Christ to all was only a ‘half-hearted Calvinist.’” The Gospel Standard Confession states: “While we believe that the Gospel is to be preached in or proclaimed to all the world, we deny offers of grace; that is to say, that the gospel is to be offered indiscriminately to all (Art. 29).” Even John Gill stated: “That there are universal offers of grace and salvation made to all men, I utterly deny.” And in another place Gill claimed:
How irrational it is, for ministers to stand offering Christ, and salvation by him to man, when, on the one hand, they have neither power nor right to give; and on the other hand, the person they offer to, have neither power nor will to receive. . . . It is not consistent with our ideas of God, that he should send ministers to offer salvation to man, to whom he never intended to give it.
This, thankfully, is not the Calvinism of the Bible or the Calvinism of John Calvin or the Calvinism of the Canons of Dort. The Bible says that the gospel is not only to be preached to all the world, but that God in the gospel promises that everyone who comes to Him in faith shall be saved. Likewise, the Canons of Dort confesses:
It is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people (Art. 2.5).
John Calvin himself claimed: “The gospel invites all to partake of salvation without any difference.” And in another place, he said: “It is certain that all those to whom the Gospel is preached are invited to a hope of enteral life.” Loraine Boettner summarized this well when he stated:
The Gospel is, nevertheless, to be offered to all men, with the assurance that it is exactly adapted to the needs of all men, and that God has decreed that all who place their faith in Christ shall be saved by Him. No man is lost because of any deficiency in the objective atonement, or because God has placed any barrier in His way, but only because of subjective difficulties, specifically, because his own evil disposition and his freely exercised wicked will prevent his believing and accepting that atonement. God’s attitude is perhaps best summed up in the parable of the marriage feast and the slighted invitations, where the king sends this message to the invited guests, “I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage feast.”
Not only does the Canons of Dort claim that the gospel is a universal offer of salvation for all, it claims that God is sincere in His desire that sinners come to Christ in faith:
It is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel (Art. 2.5).
All who are called through the gospel are called earnestly. For urgently and most genuinely God makes known in the Word what is pleasing to him: that those who are called should come to God. God also earnestly promises rest for their souls and eternal life to all who do come and believe (Art. 3.8).
Charles Spurgeon not only felt that it was his duty to preach the gospel to all, he felt that it was his duty to earnestly preach the gospel to all as a sincere offer: “I entreat you to stop and consider. Do you know what it is you are rejecting this morning? You are rejecting Christ, your only Saviour. . . . I should be worse than a friend if I did not now, with all love and kindness, and earnestness, beseech you to lay hold on eternal life.” Spurgeon knowing that some would object to such an appeal, went on to state: “Some Hyper-Calvinist would tell me I am wrong in so doing. I cannot help it. I must do It. As I must stand before my Judge at last, I feel that I should not make full proof of my ministry unless I entreat with many tears that ye would be saved, that ye would look to Jesus Christ and receive his glorious salvation.”
But Spurgeon, though criticized by some, was only being consistent with the example of Paul who said, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).
Preaches are not just commissioned by God to preach the truth faithfully with their speech, they are commissioned by God to preach the truth faithfully with their emotions as well. They are to implore sinners with love and compassion to come to Christ. Not like Jonah who simply relayed God’s message, we are called to relay the message correctly with our words and with our hearts. We represent Christ. We are to remember that it is Christ who makes His appeal through us. Thus, we are called to be faithful in representing the sincere desire of God for all to come unto Him. Thus, we are to exhort, compel, and even plead with sinners, as George Whitefield did so earnestly:
I offer you salvation this day; the door of mercy is not yet shut, there does yet remain a sacrifice for sin, for all that will accept of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will embrace you in the arms of his love. O turn to him, turn in a sense of your own unworthiness; tell him how polluted you are, how vile, and be not faithless, but believing. Why fear ye that the Lord Jesus Christ will not accept of you? Your sins will be no hindrance, your unworthiness no hindrance; if your own corrupt hearts do not keep you back nothing will hinder Christ from receiving of you. He loves to see poor sinners coming to him, he is pleased to see them lie at his feet pleading his promises; and if you thus come to Christ, he will not send you away without his Spirit; no, but will receive and bless you. O do not put a slight on infinite love–he only wants you to believe on him, that you might be saved.
This is the Calvinism of the Canons of Dort:
In order that people may be brought to faith, God mercifully sends messengers of this very joyful message to the people and at the time he wills. By this ministry people are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified. For “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without someone preaching? And how shall they preach unless they have been sent? (Art. 1.3).
Point 5: It Is Our Responsibility to Send Out Ambassadors of Christ, 15
And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Notice in verse 15 that the chronological chain of events begins with sending out preachers. Sinners will not call if they don’t believe, and they will not believe if they don’t know, and they will not know if there are not preachers preaching the gospel, and preachers will not preach unless they are sent.
This is true for every Christian. God has sent and commissioned us to be fishers of men. And, according to Paul, we are to verbally preach the gospel. Francis of Assisi could not have been more wrong when he famously stated: “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” Without preaching the gospel with words, sinners cannot hear, and without hearing, sinners cannot believe, for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word” (Rom. 10:17). Being a good example alone has never saved anyone. We must use words. It is our duty to be intentional in sharing the gospel.
Is this not amazing? God could have chosen to save sinners by proclaiming the gospel through angels, or by directly speaking to them as He did Saul on the road to Damascus. God could have written the gospel in the clouds, but He has chosen to use broken instruments, like ourselves, as His messengers. He has chosen to use clay vessels with all our weaknesses to spread the gospel to the world. He has chosen to use us as His ambassadors.
Yes, God is absolutely sovereign in salvation, but in His sovereignty, He has chosen to use human instruments as His means. He has chosen to use dirty feet to go throughout the world to spread the gospel, “As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.’”
And this is why the church is to send out missionaries (Matt. 28:19-20). John Ryland Sr. will forever be remembered for his rebuke to the famous missionary to India, William Carey: “Young man,” Ryland said, “sit down: when God pleases to covert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.” I would like to have seen Ryland make that comment to the Apostle Paul, or even to John Calvin.
Calvin, the great proponent of election and predestination, is one of the greatest supporters of missions in church history. Fleeing religious persecution, thousands of refugees from around Europe, especially from France, fled to the safe-haven of Geneva. What did Calvin do? He trained them to be pastors and missionaries. He said: “A good missionary is a good theologian.” Not only did Calvin send out missionaries, he prayed for them, he kept in touch with them, and he financially supported them. In 1555, Calvin helped plant 5 churches in France. By 1559, Calvin planted 100 churches in France. By 1562, with the help of sister churches, over 2,000 churches were planted in France. Calvin was instrumental in sending missionaries not only to France but also to Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and the free Imperial city-states in the Rhineland. Calvin even sent two missionaries, in 1557, to Brazil.
It is Not Our Responsibility to Save Sinners, 16
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”
Though it is our responsibility to evangelize our children, preach to our lost family members, witness to our co-workers, and to send out missionaries, we must keep in mind, as good Calvinists, it is not our responsibility to save sinners. We are called to plant seeds and water the ground, but remember that God is the only One who can give the increase (1 Cor. 3:5-7). Yes, we should earnestly implore sinners to come, but we have no right to manipulate people’s emotions and force the disingenuous to make superficial and useless confessions of faith. Our job is not to save, but to be faithful messengers. The reason many of the Jews were not coming to Christ in Paul’s day was not because they had not heard the gospel, for as it is written: “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”(Isa. 53:1). That is, the reason so many Jews were rejecting the gospel was not the fault of the gospel or the fault of the messengers of the gospel.
God has not given us the power to save sinners; He has only given us the responsibly to preach the gospel. Yet, this is no small task of little importance, but a vital role in God’s economy of redemption. Salvation is of the Lord, but it (1.) comes by us calling on Christ, and this (2.) comes by faith in Christ, and this (3.) comes by hearing the gospel of Christ, and this (4.) comes by Christians preaching the gospel of Christ, and this (5.) begins with the beautiful feet being sent out to all the world with a life saving message for all who believe, for “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17).
And these, my friend, are the other 5 Points of Calvinism.
Excellent!
Amen, brother!
Well thought!
Excellent post. Certainly all of the New Testament preachers, although Calvinists, never told people they could not believe, and especially that they should not. Sadly too many people read systematic theology into every passage. When Jesus says “Come unto Me” He means just that, despite whatever God’s sovereign hand is working in the background. George Whitefiled was a Calvinist but he preached! And further, he used the word “Come” very frequently, and “You must be born again!” frequently as well.
I understand that it makes sense that Christians are to preach to everyone as they, not being all-knowing, do not know who is or is not the elect and that YHWH is making use of them to reach his elect. But this claim that there is a listening duty which fulfilling results in salvation seems merely to be work righteousness. Did you fulfil your duty of listening to the gospel? You did!?! – Great! You now merit salvation, nice work!
Although I would not presume to speak for Jeff, I would observe that, from my own point of view, you seem to have misunderstood his point. Observing that we have a duty to listen to the Gospel and to believe it does not necessarily imply that we are relying on our own efforts to listen to it and to believe it in order to save us. After all, as Calvinists, we believe that God graciously enables us to do both. Remember that Jeff calls these the five “other” points of Calvinism, which presupposes the traditional five points. This means that he understands that our duty both to listen to the Gospel and to believe it is not performed in our own strength but is brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit working by and with the Word in our hearts.
I do not understand how dead things can have any duties.
If I demand a work be provided by a corpse, doesn’t this show that I am ignorant on the nature of things, how would God be ignorant on the state of sinners?
In the Bible corpses only come alive by the grace of God, and this grace coming from an omnipotent God can not be stopped or resisted.
The Bible shows that sinners are spiritual corpses, incapable of doing anything on their own until the cleansing living grace of Jesus gives them the life of the Spirit.
Ephesians 2
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ecclesiastes 9:5
…the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten.
Psalm 115
17It is not the dead who praise the LORD, nor any who descend into silence. 18But it is we who will bless the LORD, both now and forevermore. Hallelujah!
Isaiah 38:17-19
…Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back. 18For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You. Those who descend to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. 19The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today; fathers will tell their children about Your faithfulness.
They are not “spiritually wounded” but spiritually dead.
They are not working to overcome some disability and do good, they are not working towards good at all because they are spiritually dead – like worthless corpses.
Romans 3
10As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. 11There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Spiritual corpses’ can not submit to a duty that will please God, they are incapable of any such actions.
Romans 8
6The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, 7because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.
Spiritual corpses can not receive prompts to perform their duty, they need Christ’s grace to give them life and make them spiritual.
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Thus the Gospels proclaim that the saved aren’t “spiritually wounded” who get “spiritually bandaged” by Christ but are those who were spiritually dead and now are born again through grace.
John 3
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
1 Peter 1:3,23
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. …For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
Dort raises this at Article 14
In this way, therefore, faith is a gift of God, not in the sense that it is offered by God for people to choose, but that it is in actual fact bestowed on them, breathed and infused into them. Nor is it a gift in the sense that God bestows only the potential to believe, but then awaits assent—the act of believing—by human choice; rather, it is a gift in the sense that God who works both willing and acting and, indeed, works all things in all people and produces in them both the will to believe and the belief itself.
Also mentioned in the segment listing errors to be rejected:
IV
[We reject those] Who teach that in election to faith a prerequisite condition is that humans should rightly use the light of nature, be upright, unassuming, humble, and disposed to eternal life, as though election depended to some extent on these factors.
We can not read this verse:
Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Apart from these:
Romans 10:14
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
Ephesians 2:8
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God
According to the Bible it is the duty of the Christian to preach the gospel as this is the means God has determined to reach his elect, those he has already chosen from before sin existed.
Ephesians 1
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will
The Bible says the elect have already been chosen. God is not waiting to see who will fulfil some “duty of the dead” to resurrect their souls and serve him so he may see who earns the title of elect. He knows whom he has chosen and whom he has passed by to leave to damnation.
As Dort says at Article 6:
The fact that some receive from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from his eternal decree. For “all his works are known to God from eternity” (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:11). In accordance with this decree God graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of the elect and inclines them to believe, but by a just judgment God leaves in their wickedness and hardness of heart those who have not been chosen. And in this especially is disclosed to us God’s act—unfathomable, and as merciful as it is just—of distinguishing between people equally lost.