Arminian Today

>Recently I posted on some concerns I have toward some Arminians who wanted to come to the defense of those who hold to some forms of Arminianism out of defiance toward Calvinism.  However, I wanted to delve into that topic briefly today and offers some practical concerns I see facing classical Arminianism (that being the Arminianism that embraces the teachings of Arminius as opposed to later Arminians and their drift toward semi-Pelagian views regarding sin, salvation, free will, etc.).  I believe that the following five dangers are true not just of classical Arminianism but also any movement that is born of the Spirit.

1.  The Failure to Embrace and Defend Inerrancy and Infallibility of the Bible.

If you want to watch a movement die, watch that movement fail to embrace, preach, and disciple its people the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible.  This is true of every movement from the Lutherans to the Presbyterians (PCUSA), the United Methodist, some parts of the Holiness movement such as the Church of the Nazarene, and some Pentecostals are now questioning this teaching.  When a movement begins to deny inerrancy or just will not defend the doctrine (as the case with say the Church of the Nazarene), that movement’s days are numbered.

Why?  Because what shall we preach?  By what authority do we declare the living God?  By what authority do we instruct people that Jesus can bring the forgiveness of sins by faith in His atoning work?  How can we defend the resurrection of Jesus, His miracles, the importance of missions, the judgement to come of the living and the dead, or the Church itself if we fail to uphold the Bible as the sole authority and truthful in all that it says?  When we fail to preach inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, we begin to elevate the opinions of people as equal to Scripture (Mark 7:1-13).  Experience becomes what determines truth instead of the Bible (2 Peter 1:16-21).  Culture will dictate what directions the movement will take and pragmatism becomes the norm when the Bible is not preached as the inerrant and infallible Word.

Take a look at the PCUSA church for example.  Here is a church that is lifeless, lacks conversions of the Spirit, lacks passion for God and His kingdom, lacks emphasis on coming judgment, embraces culture and what it values, and fails to make disciples of Jesus.  All because the Bible has been cast aside.  Today the PCA continues to grow as the PCUSA continues to struggle.  God will not bless the PCUSA unless they repent while He continues to use the PCA to glorify His name.

If the classical Arminian movement wants to die, don’t embrace or defend inerrancy and infallibility.  Make the teachings of Arminius and the authority by which we judge all things.  Make culture as a tool to define what is truth.  But reject inerrancy and infallibility and the classical Arminian movement is doomed to failure.

2.  Desire To Be Popular Above Pleasing God.

Some Arminians want to run from being labeled a “fundamentalist” and they want the entire Church to like us.  They want the educated at secular colleges to like us and deem as intellectuals ourselves.  They want the Arminian movement to become purely an academic movement that is attractive to the masses.  But I say that this will only destroy us.  Our first and foremost ambition should be to honor God as King and to make Him great.  Our passion should be to please the Lord and not the flesh or the world.  Who cares if they label us (Matthew 5:11-13)?  Who cares if they say that we are not educated (1 Corinthians 1:18; cf. Acts 4:13)?  Who cares if the world hates us (John 15:18)?  What good is right standing before men if we have no standing before God?

The world doesn’t need a new definition of biblical Christianity but a new demonstration of it.  If we won’t to impress people with our studies and yet fail to preach Christ and Him crucified then woe be unto us (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)!  The gospel of Jesus Christ must be our aim and living to glorify Him should be our devotion (Philippians 3:9-11).  You can call me whatever you want to call me whether I am a fundamentalist, a “neo-fundamentalist”, or whatever but so long as I hear Jesus say that I am His slave and was faithful to Him (Matthew 25:23).

3.  Make All Doctrines Ambiguous.

In our society today it seems that all things are now grey.  What use to be black and white is now grey.  Even the cults that come to our door no longer teach that all churches are apostate but now they smile and say things such as, “I am so happy you attend that church.”  In this age of tolerance, everyone is seeking to just get along without any hint of division lest we offend someone.  I remember I wanted to place some tracts once in a Baptist church and they told me that they would not allow me to do this as it would be offensive to their visitors.

So the new trend today is to make all doctrines as ambiguous.  It doesn’t matter if its heaven or hell or salvation or justification or righteousness or even Jesus Himself.  All doctrines are no longer taught as absolutes but as grey.  You reject the virgin birth?  You reject the Trinity?  You reject justification by faith?  You reject the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ?  You hold that God still speaks outside of the Bible and that we still can receive ongoing revelation?  You believe that hell is not real or that heaven is not real?  All these doctrines are being seen as not very important.

But not so according to the Bible.  The Bible often speaks of truth (John 17:17) or about doctrine as being clear (Titus 2:1).  God is a God of truth (John 14:6) and His law is truth (Psalm 119:142 NKJV).  David said that God desires truth in the inward man (Psalm 51:6 NKJV).  The Spirit is truth (1 John 5:6 NKJV).  2 John 1 says that we are to love those in the truth.  If we don’t love the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10), we cannot be saved.

As Bible teachers we must teach that what God has said in His Word is final.  This points back to my first point.  We must preach the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible.  If we fail to do this, we are opening the door to all areas of life and doctrine to be grey.  What the Bible says must be preached and defended (Matthew 28:20; 1 Peter 3:15).  If we read the Bible and abide in the Word of God, we will be able to know the voice of Jesus (John 10:27) and will be set free (John 8:31-32).  Classical Arminianism will die if it doesn’t preach the truths of Scripture as clear and to be obeyed.

4.  Ignore the Lessons from Church History.

We can learn from the lessons of Church History where movements failed to stay close to Jesus and preach His Word.  From the time of John Wesley until the early 20th century, the Methodist Church was dominant.  In terms of growth, the Methodist church swept the nations.  After the death of John Wesley, the Methodist church grew from England and the United States to a world-wide movement with missionaries going to nearly every nation under heaven.  After 150 years following the death of Wesley, the Methodist church was the largest evangelical church in the world.

Then came the 20th century.  By the middle of the 19th century, evolution and textual criticism was sweeping the liberal churches and in act for approval from men (see point 2), the Methodist colleges and Bible colleges begin to embrace various aspects of liberalism.  They rejected inerrancy.  They rejected some core doctrines such as the virgin birth of Jesus.  They rejected His bodily resurrection from the dead.  They rejected Jesus’ miracles.  They embraced evolution instead of the creation account of Genesis 1-2 and soon they had to reject Genesis 1-11 as not accurate.  They had to reject the Gospels because Jesus approved of the Old Testament stories, people, and accounts as true (John 10:35).

This led to pastors and people graduating from schools such as Emory University and most were not even saved.  They looked nothing like nor held to any of the beliefs of John Wesley.  Today schools such as Duke University, Emory University, or Southern Methodist are shells of what they use to be.  Princeton Seminary was the bastion of conservative theology in the 19th century but by the early 20th century, Princeton embraced liberalism and forced professors such as J. Gresham Machen to start Westminster Seminary.

This, again, is what happens when we fail to preach the Bible as the inerrant and infallible Word.  The Methodist went from a powerful church of God to being dead with no lasting and eternal impact.  The Bible has been cast away and Satan and his lies have swept in.  Praise God that there is still a remnant among Methodists and the Methodist movement and how we should pray for the Holy Spirit to use them to restore the passion for Jesus that once burned in the Methodist church.

Even following the death of Arminius and the Synod of Dort, sadly some Arminians turned away from classical Arminianism and embraced liberalism.  The Arminian church in Holland is liberal and nothing like the church that Arminius envisioned.  Arminius, like Wesley and Luther before him, never wanted a movement with his name on it or a church with his name in it.  Arminius, like Luther, wanted to reform the current church and he wanted to change the catechisms.  Arminius’ followers failed to follow him when they rejected the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible to be popular among the sinful people.

5.  We Fail To Preach Holiness.

Any theological system that allows for continued, unrepentive sin will fail.  It doesn’t honor God.  God has told us in His Word that we must be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16 NKJV).  Jesus called us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48).  The Bible says that we are to pursue holiness (Hebrews 12:14 NKJV).  The Bible says we are to forsake sin (John 8:11 NKJV).  Romans 6:11-23 teaches us that we are free by God’s grace to overcome sin.  The grace of God empowers us to holiness (Titus 2:11-12).  God’s grace is not given so that we can dwell in sin but so that we overcome sin (Jude 4).  We are not to trample under foot the Son of God through living in sin (Hebrews 10:19-39).

We must preach holiness.  We must preach people to hate sin.  We must preach people to be like Jesus in all that they so or do (Colossians 3:17).  We are to show people that God has promised in His Word that we can overcome sin through Him (1 Corinthians 10:13).  We must preach the truth that the Holy Spirit lives in us and that we are temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) and that He works in us to please the Lord (Galatians 5:16-17; Philippians 2:13).  We must preach that the disciple of Jesus should not sin but that if we do sin, we must confess our sins to the Father (1 John 1:9-2:2).

When the classical Arminian movement begins to allow for indwelling sin in the life of saints, we are failing to preach the Bible.  God calls His people to forsake their sins and follow Him.  He calls us to be a people who are sanctified unto Himself (2 Timothy 2:19; 1 Peter 2:12).  We have been set free from sin through the Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:13-14).  But we must preach Galatians 6:7-9, that God will allow us to reap what we sow.  We must then sow to the Spirit.  We must seek to please God and exalt Him through our lives (Philippians 1:20-21).  There is no sin that we can not overcome through the Spirit of God (Romans 8:12-14 NKJV).  When holiness is not the standard for God’s children, sin will come in like a flood and give way to doctrines that allow for living in sin and bringing shame to the name of Jesus.  May this not be said of us.