Necessity and Volition Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Necessity and volition are not as opposed to each other as Arminians like to think. In fact, if Scripture is any authority on the matter, these two things are not opposed or exclusive of each other at all.

Here is a case in point; in fact this is the best possible case ever: Jesus was necessarily holy. It was absolutely and intrinsically inevitable that He be holy in every aspect of His life and perfectly righteous in all His actions. Secondly, it was absolutely necessary that He should die for the sins of the elect. Christ was so necessarily good that is was impossible for Him to be otherwise, notwithstanding, He was voluntarily good. That is why He could say, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (John 4:34). Secondly, He could not avoid being put to death as an offering for the sins of the elect. Nevertheless, He died voluntarily. He said, “how am I straitened till it be accomplished! (Luke 12:50). And also, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:17-18).

If this is not enough proof that necessity and volition are not mutually exclusive, nothing is. You may ask how this can be. Our only answer can be that it holds by the wise ordaining of God, who is great in counsel (Jer. 32:19). A true Christian will be satisfied with this answer.

It is safe to assume that very few Arminians, if any, would ever assert that is was possible for Christ to have fallen from grace by sin and to have perished eternally. But, as shocking as that notion is, it is an absolutely necessary consequence of the Arminian doctrine of contingency, whether any Arminian admits, acknowledges or avows it or not.

The Red Herring of Antinomian Calvinism

The favorite weapon in the Arminian arsenal against Calvinism is the accusation that the perseverance of the saints leads to antinomianism. Their logic, or rather illogic, runs thus: If a man knows that nothing he can possibly do can imperil his salvation, he will live without restraint. Why should a man bother about living a holy life if he can be saved no matter how he lives? This is, of course a libel and a red herring. 

Continuing to live in sin once one has died to it is no more logical than to try to live in a house after you’ve sold it. A death row inmate set free, but who refused to leave his cell, would still be legally free even if he didn’t walk in it experientially. His not leaving the cell would not argue against his freedom, but against his understanding of Freedom. This is the situation of one who is saved but continues in sin. His freedom is not lost or retracted, but it might as well have not been granted. This would, in fact, never happen in the real world. Its opposite, however, is the actual state of every unregenerate man. Adam alone would have retained memory of his former state of Original Righteousness; the rest of us have been born in prison. Our natural enmity toward God causes us to deceive ourselves into imagining we are free when, in fact, we are in bondage. It is a billion times easier psychologically to convince yourself that you are free when you are not (sort of a moral “Stockholm Syndrome”), than to convince yourself that you are bound when you are actually free. There is nothing to motivate that delusion.

So to get caught up on the question of whether salvation can be lost or not (although the Reformed side is definitely correct), is to miss the whole point. The hypothetical “Christian” who accepts the Lord as Savior and then proceeds to live a life of sin based on the assurance that once he is saved, he can never sin away his salvation, is no Christian at all. We would deny the very existence of such a person. Scripture categorically denies that those who willfully persist in sin were ever elected in the first place because we are elected through sanctification unto obedience. This is “putting God to the test,” and no Christian would ever do this! What kind of “Christian” makes this hypothetical experiment to see whether or not he really can remove himself from Christ’s hand? The notion is simply asinine. This is like a pardoned death-row inmate trying to see whether he can still get executed!

This false conclusion overlooks the following:

1. A Christian has a renewed nature.

The Christian life itself begins with death to the old life. It is when we are made partakers of the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). Moreover, the Christian life works from the inside out.

2. Justification is more than mere forgiveness of sins. This is the mistake Whitefield pointed out in Wesley’s theology. Justification is a change of status before God: from “in sin” to “in Christ.” We are translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Christ. Hence it is a change wrought in us by God whereby we are changed from in sin to in Him. It may even be considered a change of citizenship (Colossians 1:13).

3. There is a difference between a lapse in Christian character and living in sin.

It would be false to assert that a Christian will never lapse (David, Peter, etc.). However, equating a lapse in Christian character and an ongoing living in sin will always result in an absolute lack of assurance of salvation. We all know people who fear that God will strike them dead with a lightning bolt every time they mess up. I have seen men who have been elders and deacons for decades respond to every altar the pastor gives just in case the previous one didn't take! How can a man be of any service to Christ’s kingdom when he isn’t even sure if he’s in it? It dishonors God when we cower in fear when we sin rather than coming boldly before the throne of grace. Christ commanded us to forgive 70x7 a day! Can we expect less of Him than He commands of us?

4. Justification by nature leads to Sanctification.

The whole point of the New Covenant is to ensure holiness (Jer. 31:31-33). God justifies only those He intends to sanctify (Rom. 8:29, 30). The order is “justified by faith,” not “justified by sanctification.” The latter error gives birth to the objection Paul refutes in this passage! Thomas Manton aptly remarks, “Therefore it is a desperate adventure to try conclusions, to drink rank poison to experiment the goodness of an antidote, or to wound ourselves mortally to try the virtue of a plaster.”

When Wesley flung this accusation of antinomianism at the Calvinists of his day, Augustus Toplady replied:

“Consciousness of guilt, and dread of detection, frequently put bad men upon entering those accusations against their opponents, which, without such a timely precaution, they are justly apprehensive, will be charged upon themselves, like the apostate spirits in Milton, who were turning their own torments into weapons against heaven. Such is the prudent conduct of very many Arminians. Fully aware, that their own lives are none of the best, they affect to cry out against Calvinism, as though she was the very mother and nurse of licentiousness. Were she really so, what myriads would desert the standard of Arminius, and flock to the banner of Calvin! But all those who are capable of discernment, know, that the pretended licentious tendency of Calvinism (so called) is no more than idle flourish and empty declamation. Were the doctrines of grace unfavorable to strict morality, we should quickly see them the reigning system of the age. On the contrary, they are therefore, at present, unfashionable, because they make no allowance for the wickedness of the wicked. It is a fundamental axiom, with us, who abide by the principles of the Reformation, that holiness of heart and life is (not the cause, price, or condition, but which adds infinitely stronger security to the interests of moral virtue) and essential and inseparable part of that very salvation, to which the elect were chosen from everlasting. A Calvinist must consequently, renounce both the letter and the spirit of his own constitutive principles (i.e., he must cease to be a Calvinist), ere he can, consistently, degenerate into a sensualist.”

Universal Grace is Cruelty

It’s time to turn a myth on its head. Arminians of the last 450 years and the Pelagians before them have always appealed to their doctrine of Universal Grace as a sign of God’s goodwill toward men. The Augustinian or Calvinistic scheme of a limited grace for the elect alone, they claim is unjust and unkind. How, they ask, can a loving God predestinate men to live in unrepentant sin, and then punish them with eternal hellfire for doing what was predestined? There’s nary a Pelagian or Arminian in the world who hasn’t pulled this stunt at some time in a debate with a Calvinist.

Let’s dispatch with the niceties. First of all, the objection is a gross mischaracterization of the facts to begin with. It is built on the assumption that the divine decree and human responsibility are incompatible. This is patently false and we know so because Scripture plainly teaches so. Anyone who doesn’t see this is reading with their eyes closed. Judas Iscariot, we are told, did what was foretold of him, yet Christ says it would have been better for him to have never been born, thus expressing Judas’ culpability. Herod and Pilate had a hand in executing Christ, but both did what God’s decree had ordained. Scripture is replete with examples which demonstrate this, both from positive and negative perspectives.

But that isn’t what we’re interested in right now. I wish to show you that the chimerical Arminian objection is more accurately a depiction of its own principles. To show this, let’s go back to the Arminian doctrine of Universal Grace and ask a question. Does God know, or does He not know beforehand how everyone will respond to His grace? In other words: Does God know who will accept and who will reject it? The only possible answers are “Yes,” or “No.” If you say “No,” you are an atheist, regardless of what you call yourself. A God who is not omniscient is no God at all. Open Theism is thinly veiled atheism, as is its mother Arminianism.

Right about now I anticipate someone objecting that Open Theism is not necessarily an Arminian issue. After all, Thomas Oden decries Open Theism as heresy. I have looked at the subject from every possible angle and there is no way you can convince me that Open Theism is not the legitimate offspring of Arminianism. The whole reason for dreaming up Open Theism in the first place was to make a way for God’s knowledge to square with the Arminian conception of free-will. Toss Arminian free-will back in the pit that it came from, and the need for an Open view of God dissipates.

Back to my question. If you answer, “Yes, God knows unmistakably who will accept His grace and who will reject it,” then we have a bigger problem. Your system entails this uncomfortable consequence: God, fully aware that such and such a person will unfailingly and willfully persist in sin, rejecting God’s grace till his dying day, thrusts this grace upon him anyway, thus amplifying his guilt a million times. Where is the love of God now? This is nothing but unmitigated cruelty and hatred. Offering grace and atonement to one whom God know will only spurn it, is an intentional exacerbating of their sin. If the Arminian deity had any love at all, He would withhold the grace He knows will be rejected. In other words, if the Arminian deity had any love at all, He’d be the God of the Bible who is best expressed in Calvinistic terms. Can we suppose that God is even earnest when He offers grace to those He knows will refuse it?

The Arminian replies, “But this makes takes away man’s excuse for sinfulness.” Let’s assume for a moment that this is true. Ok, it takes away man’s excuse. But this means that God knowingly makes a man more inexcusable because He loves that man so much.

Predestinated to Obedience

“Predestination leads to antinomianism,” goes the tired old Arminian objection. They have never gotten tired of this worn out motto, despite the fact that Dort anathematized it as false and every Reformed theologian worth his weight in feathers has torn it to ribbons. Some people never learn. What saith the Scripture? - - -

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. 1 Peter 1:2

Peter says, “foreknowledge of God the Father,” referring to His foreknowledge of the Fall, which foreknowledge made it necessary that election should be decreed to take effect not independently from the Son and Spirit (sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ). This shows us five important truths.

1. All three divine Persons are equally concerned in the salvation of sinners. The Father elected them; the Son shed His blood for them; the Spirit sanctifies them.

2. The objects of election were considered, in that eternal decree, as fallen. How else could they be chosen unto the sprinkling of Christ’s blood and sanctification of the Spirit?

3. Election, though productive of good works, is not founded upon them. On the contrary, they are one of the ends for which the elect are chosen. – “Elect unto obedience.”

4. Those who have been elected by God the Father, shall be sprinkled by the Son, that is, legally purified by His atonement as their pardon. Further they shall experience the Spirit’s sanctification in beginning, advancing and perfecting the work of grace in their souls.

5. The elect, this sprinkled and sanctified, are made to obey the commands of God. They imitate Christ as a pattern as they trust in Him as their propitiation.

An Arminian may seize upon my words “made to obey,” and ask, “Are the elect robots?” No. Of course not. God’s people are made willing (Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Ps. 110:3). There is no such thing as a willing robot.

A Christocentric Hermeneutic

In a previous post, we have discussed the importance of a Christocentric hermeneutic when dealing with the Old Testament. Christ tells us that He is the focus of everything in the Scriptures (by which He meant the Old Testament). For instance, when rebuking the unbelieving Jews said, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” John 5:39. Some might think that Christ didn’t refer to everything in the Old Testament. But, Christ dispels this misunderstanding in Luke 24:27 by expounding from Moses and the prophets the things concerning Himself. And lest that weren’t enough, a few verses later (v. 44-46), He opens their understanding to see Him in all the Scriptures of the Old Testament – dividing it into the three parts: Law, Prophets, and Psalms. I have noted it before, but it seems rather odd to many people today to think they can find Christ in the Psalms.

I said all that to say this: We greatly err when we do not see Christ as the focus of the Old Testament. If the story of Daniel serves only to teach our children in Sunday School to “dare to be a Daniel,” then we are in trouble. This is simply moralism or pietism: Law, not grace. If bravery is the moral of the story of David and Goliath, we are not better off than those without the Bible. The Old Testament becomes little more than a collection of fables, like Aesop’s, with a nice moral lesson attached. The great battles of the Old Testament, the marvelous adventures of the Patriarchs, the miraculous rescues of underdogs – these are not object lessons for us to teach our kids about kindness, bravery, cooperation, loyalty and friendship. They are shining examples of God’s faithfulness to His covenant promises. He preserved His elect people in the Old Testament in order to bring about the circumstances surrounding the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ and the salvation and preservation of His elect people in the New Testament.

Take the famine during the days of Jacob as exhibit A. Jacob and his family suffers from a famine. Meanwhile, Pharaoh in Egypt is prospering with the most abundant harvests he’s ever seen. Little does Jacob know that his son Joseph is in Egypt. Joseph has been passed off a dead by his jealous brothers. After having been sold as a slave and chastely resisting the seduction of his master’s wife, he is thrown in prison. God uses this to make Joseph a special favorite of Pharaoh. Was this merely a lesson on long-suffering for Jacob and/or Joseph? Not at all. These circumstances conspire to bring Jacob down to Egypt. Jacob dies, leaving his whole family there. All this make way for the future miracles of the glorious exodus which is a type of our spiritual deliverance wrought by Christ.

I hope everyone can see how much more profound this view of the Old Testament is than the view that turns all the stories into cute little object lessons.