I was over at a church members house yesterday and we started talking about a co-worker of theirs who was a Calvinist. Without getting in to the whole theological discussion here, I do not believe in the predestination that a Calvinist believes in.
Over the course of the conversation, Reformed Theology was mentioned. I've had quite a few conversations and read a lot of material from people who have made Reformed Theology a major part of their beliefs. If my perception of RT is correct, the main tenet is the Glory of God. I say Amen to that!
The Glory of God is the whole purpose of His entire Creation. He has and will be glorified in and through everything that has and will happen throughout all of time. He is glorified in the justification and sanctification of His people. He will be glorified in the final damnation of those who refuse His gift of eternal life. God is glorified in all whether we perceive it as good or bad.
As I said a moment ago, I do not believe in Calvinism...which is also a tenet of RT. A common thread I get while reading RT writers is that God receives more glory based on the Calvinist view of salvation rather than the Biblical doctrine of salvation. Let me stop here and explain that I believe the work of salvation has been entirely completed by God through His Son, Jesus. However, I don't believe that faith is a work. Faith is a gift from God that is imparted to us through exposure to His Word. It is a gift He desires to give to all.
Now, to the point of this post: I believe that many have used the tenet of glorifying God, rather than the Bible, as the filter for their doctrine. Since a Calvinist believes that God gets "more" glory under their theological system, that is what they believe. I do not filter my theology through my belief that the chief end of man is to bring glory to God. My theology comes from the Bible.
Biblical doctrine does not contradict the purpose of God's Creation. I believe strongly that God gets more glory when His Holy Spirit convicts a person of their sin and they choose out of their free will to receive His gift of eternal life. God doesn't get glory from robots who have no choice. He gets glory when people choose to worship Him. Like I said earlier, He even gets glory when people don't.
PS This post is not an invitation for debate on this subject...I've done enough of that with enough people. If you believe differently than I do, you won't convince me and I won't convince you. This is simply an observation of a thinking preacher.
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2 comments:
Of course all theology must come from the Bible as the ultimate source and filter. All Christians claim to get their beliefs from the Bible, even Benny Hinn (who I don't believe is saved. So, out of all those who say they use the Bible as their authority, those who are most preoccupied with the glory of God seem to be the most faithful to Scripture. The purpose of all that exists is the glory of God, which is an idea that comes directly from Scripture (Eph 1:12,14; 1Cor. 10:31; Phil 2:11; Psa. 19:1, 150:6)
One of the reasons I came to be more convinced of a 'Calivinstic' understanding of election, foreknowledge,etc. is because the reformed theologians actually exegete scripture objectively and come to that conclusion. It is not a doctrine that is naturally acceptable to the human mind or will until one bows the knee of his mind to exactly what God has said about it.
Those who reject it make a lot of noise about being faithful to scripture, but they proof-text everything (much like the JW's against the Deity of Christ) and cannot exegetically deal with passages like Romans 8:39-30, John 6:65; John 8:42-47; Romans 9; Eph. 1,etc...
I do not slavishly follow whatever the reformed theologians are teaching, because a lot of it is logically deduced without scriptural support. When they do that, I don't take it as authoritative.
Personally, I think you have way too much invested for you to ever change your mind about it: your friendships, Bible college, family, current ministry, etc. If you were to ever be convinced of it, you'd have a lot more to lose.
Ask yourself honestly, -IF- (that's a Big IF) the reformed idea of election were really true, would you be willing to take the heat from all those people in order to hold to something that you came to understand as true?
I would go with the Bible over "popular opinion" any time. If something was brought to my attention that was proveable and justified by Scripture, I would have no problem with the heat I would take from all the groups you mentioned.
The truth is, I do have some different views than the president of my alma mater. All the ones I know of aren't major enough to "leave the camp." I love being an Independent Baptist. It means you can talk bad about almost anybody or get along with almost anybody, depending on how you look at it.
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