I’ve been peeping around the web from time to time at doctrinal statements from different churches. Calvary Chapel Philly caught my attention a while back while I was looking at the links page for Redeemed Thought (it’s their home church).

Those who know me, know I believe in ‘truth in advertising’. If you’re not part of historic Christianity and your beliefs fall outside the pale of orthodoxy, be honest enough to say so. If you don’t believe something, don’t try to keep the terminology and modify the meaning to make yourself look inclusive. That’s dishonest.

Well…all that said…. I found this interesting statement on their doctrinal page about what they DON’T believe.

In addition, we reject “5-point Calvinism”. For a deeper understanding of what Calvinism is, see my book Calvinism versus Arminianism, but for our purposes here, suffice it to say that Calvary Chapel rejects two of the five points of five point Calvinism. First, Calvinism teaches that Jesus’ atonement on the Cross was limited, that is, that He died only for a chosen group, His “elect”, not for the sins of the entire world. At Calvary Chapel, we believe that Jesus died on the Cross for all the sins of all people, and that anyone who wants to can accept Him as Lord and savior and be born again. Strict five point Calvinists believe that only the elect can be saved and that God has elected others to spend eternity in hell.

Secondly, we reject the Calvinistic teaching called “irresistible grace”, which is the belief that man cannot, even if he wants to, resist the wooing and calling of God to salvation. Instead, at Calvary Chapel we believe that man has a free will and he can resist the call of God if he chooses to do so. Therefore, those who hold to five point Calvinism are outside of the borders of what defines Calvary Chapel.

Now all of my Calvinist friends reading this are up in arms now. Usually for one of three reasons.

All of my non-Calvinist friends are probably wondering why and probably thinking it’s “because they reject Calvinism”, right ?

Right and Wrong Reason #1 would be that under Biblical examination, Calvinism will stand up (unless you just wanna ignore scripture and read stuff into the text like Dave Hunt or the late Adrian Rogers when speaking against Calvinism).

But primarily for the other two reasons.

Reason #2 is because the above statements and representations about Calvinistic teaching aren’t true. The statement above is a misrepresentation of Calvinism. Further, some of the statements made even in these summaries, show the usual rank-and-file ignorance of someone critical of reformed soteriology about the very subject they are criticizing.

The #3 reason is that in reality, the above statement rejects THREE (maybe FOUR) of the five points of Calvinism, not just two. There’s the truth in advertising part I was talking about.

For those who don’t see it, let’s break this thing apart….

Let’s begin here:

suffice it to say that Calvary Chapel rejects two of the five points of five point Calvinism. First, Calvinism teaches that Jesus’ atonement on the Cross was limited, that is, that He died only for a chosen group, His “elect”, not for the sins of the entire world.

No problem with that statement for the most part. Christ’s death was for His sheep (John 10), not the goats. Christ’s death was propitiatory (wrath-satisfying), so to have God be unjust and punish the sins of the believer ONCE in Christ and AGAIN in the unbeliever who dies rejecting Christ makes God unjust. Most non-Calvinist groups that are consistent in their theology (which CC is not) reject penal substitution/substitutionary atonement (that Christ died in place of a particular person or persons) in favor of the governmental theory of the atonement:

The Governmental view of the atonement (also known as the moral government theory) is a doctrine in Christian theology related to the meaning and effect of the death of Jesus Christ and has been traditionally taught in Arminian circles. Drawing primarily from the works of Jacobus Arminius and Hugo Grotius, the Governmental theory teaches that Christ suffered for humankind so that God could forgive humans apart from punishment while still maintaining divine justice.

Grotius utilized “governmental” semantics due to his training in law and his general view of God as moral governor (ruler) of the universe. Grotius sought to demonstrate that the atonement appeased God in the divine role as cosmic king and judge.

This view is contrasted with that of the satisfaction/punishment theory formulated initially by St. Anselm, which is held by the Roman Catholic Church and by most Lutherans and Calvinists and which argues that Jesus received the actual punishment due to men and women.

Christ’s suffering, according to governmental theory, was a real and meaningful substitute for the punishment humans deserve, but Christ was not punished on behalf of the human race. Instead, God publicly demonstrated his displeasure with sin by punishing his own sinless and obedient Son as a propitiation. Because Christ’s suffering and death served as a subsititute for the punishment humans might have received, God is able to extend forgiveness while maintaining divine order, having demonstrated the seriousness of sin and thus appeasing his wrath.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_(Governmental_view)

In the governmental view, Christ’s atonement is only potential for human beings, not actual. It is made effective when one places faith in Christ. A LOT OF BELIEVERS HOLD THE GOVERNMENTAL VIEW TODAY and don’t realize it’s unbiblical. In other words, at the Cross, God demonstrated His wrath on sin and made man “savable”, but didn’t save ANYONE at the cross. It also states that God “doesn’t like” sin, but requires no real payment for it….(and the Bible disagrees with this)

As Phil Johnson has rightly noted in regard to the governmental and other theories and why people have so many issues with Limited atonement:

If the atoning work of Christ is substitutionary it must be limited to those whom Christ actually redeems. The substitutionary aspects of it dictate that. In other words when you understand that the atonement is substitutionary you must see that in a certain way it applies to particular people. That is the inevitable ramification of vicarious atonement. I’m not sure why this doctrine of the extent of the atonement is such a controversial doctrine. It’s a point that certainly doesn’t warrant all the debate and bickering that it generates. In fact I’m sure that if people truly appreciated the substitutionary nature of the atonement they would not stumble so badly over the particularity of the atonement. It’s a simple matter really.

The Nature of the Atonement by Phil Johnson (2003)

handout notes for the above talk

But that’s for another post. Back to CC.

At Calvary Chapel, we believe that Jesus died on the Cross for all the sins of all people, and that anyone who wants to can accept Him as Lord and savior and be born again.

The first part I’ve dealt with above. The second part, I have no problems with either. Anyone who wants to accept Christ as Savior can and will be able to do so. At first I wondered why such a statement would have been included….then I read further…..

Strict five point Calvinists believe that only the elect can be saved and that God has elected others to spend eternity in hell.

Well, if you guys affirm unconditional election (and I see no denial of it), you too believe that only the elect can be saved – the non-elect CAN’T be saved – they’re not elect!

Secondly, we reject the Calvinistic teaching called “irresistible grace”, which is the belief that man cannot, even if he wants to, resist the wooing and calling of God to salvation.

Here’s that misrepresentation of Calvinism I was talking about earlier. Irresitible Grace is sometimes better called “Effectual Calling”. That is, The Grace of God which brings salvation is effective to those whom it is directed toward. Man, in his natural state (Romans 8:6-9) does not want to seek God, believe God, submit to the law of God, etc…. what God does in irresistible grace/effectual calling is make the sinner willing to come to Him. No one is ever brought to God against their will. Consider the words of Ezekiel:

26And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:26-27, emphasis mine)

Notice the order of salvation here. God FIRST removes the ‘heart of stone’ and gives men a ‘heart of flesh’. New heart given, God then puts His Spirit in men and causes them to walk in His statutes. It isn’t “I will force you to walk as I want to, even though you resist”. No, it’s God working in the heart and changing it first, so that the will follows. This is how a Calvinist understands being ‘born again’ – God gives new life, gives His Spirit to enable to person to understand the Spiritual Truth of the gospel (see 1 Cor. 2:14 and Romans 8:6-8 again- the unregenerate man CANNOT obey or understand spiritual truth!).

Instead, at Calvary Chapel we believe that man has a free will and he can resist the call of God if he chooses to do so.

Ahhh. And the angel said “Look, Lord! The humans have come up with the theory of libertarian free will – just like you said they would!”

CC has explicitly denined 2 of the 5 points (LA and IG), but one of the other statements implicitly denies unconditonal election. The above statement, depending on what they mean by ‘free will’, also denies total depravity. Seeing as though several other statements in the above quote from their doctrinal statement keep affirming that man has a free will to do this and do that and anyone can do this and that….. I’m inclined to believe that they’d implicitly deny this point too.

And that would simply make them 4-point Arminians. Not really a ‘mediating position’ of any sort…. but just another attempt to redefine terms to make themselves seem less exclusive or more inclusive.

But it’s typical. We can all pick a few scriptures out here and there, but I believe that when the entire body of the scriptures is examined for its’ teachings on salvation, the Calvinist has the ‘least’ amount of explaining to do when it comes to ‘what about this verse ?’ – type questions. The non-Calvinist has to explain away the Ezekiel passage above, insert things at Acts 13:48 (like Dave Hunt), ignore Acts 2:22-24, redefine terms outside of Biblical use at Romans 8:29, skip past the fact that ‘world’ and ‘all’ don’t always mean ‘every single person in existence’ nor ‘every person in the entire world’ (i.e. – John 12:19, 1 John 5:19). Of course, most of the ‘world/all’ problems come from a faulty view and presentation of evangelism that has been normative in our churches for the past 150 years thanks to folks like Charles Finney. Were folks willing to take the time and study Christian history and read more than ‘Christian fad books’ (i.e.- Purpose Driven Life, Your Best Life Now), they’d be a bit more informed.

As Redeemed Thought has rightly said…. “there’s a lot of dumb Christians we need to teach.”