Arminian Today

In Exodus 3:18-22 we read what Yahweh tells Moses concerning Pharaoh and the plunder of the Egyptians.  God tells that Moses that He is going to set His people free from the bondage under the Egyptians (vv. 7-8).  He then tells Moses in verse 18 to go and tell Pharaoh that the Jews were to go into the wilderness to sacrifice to the LORD yet Yahweh tells Moses in verse 19 that He knows that Pharaoh will not let them go unless compelled by a mighty hand and so in verse 20 Yahweh tells Moses that He will strike Egypt with wonders and then Pharaoh will let them go.  God even promises in verses 21-22 that He will give the Jews favor with the Egyptians so that the Jews will plunder them.

Anyone who knows the book of Exodus and the history of the Israelites knows that all this comes to pass.  Moses goes before Pharaoh and sure to God’s word, Pharaoh denies that the Israelites can go free.  God does wonders that amazes both the Egyptians and the Israelites and finally, after the striking down of the first-born in all of Egypt, Pharaoh calls Moses to him and tells him to leave (Exodus 12:31-32).  The Israelites even plunder the Egyptians as God promised (Exodus 12:36).

What amazes me about Exodus 3:18-22 is that Yahweh clearly foresees all the free will decisions that will come to pass.  In His complete omniscience He knows what Pharaoh will do and say and even what the Egyptians will do for the Israelites after God’s judgment upon them.  Romans 9:14-18 gives us insight into God’s choosing of Pharaoh for His own purpose.  Romans 9:14-18 is not salvation in nature.  The point of Romans 9:14-18 is that God is sovereign to choose whomever He desires for His own purpose without saving them in the process.  Pharaoh could have been saved if he had repented of his sins but he continued in his unbelief and hardened his heart toward Yahweh.  The parallel between John 15:16 and Romans 9:17 are similar.  Jesus’ choice of His Apostles in John 15:16 was to service and not entirely to salvation (as the case of Judas shows).  This is true of Pharaoh as well.  He was chosen by God for God’s own purpose: to show His glory and wonders to the Israelites.

What is amazing though is that God knows the free will choices that Pharaoh and the Egyptians would make.  God does not force these decisions but He knows them just as He knows your thoughts before you even utter them (Psalm 139:4).  Jesus knew the thoughts of many in the Gospels.  In Mark 2:8 we read that Jesus perceived the thoughts of the people questioning His words in their hearts.  In John 2:25 we read that Jesus knew what was in man.  In John 6:64 Jesus even knew who did not believe about the disciples spoken of in verse 66 and about Judas (verse 71).  On a side note, Adam Clarke makes the point that could it be that Jesus was reaching out to Judas trying to call him to repent of his wickedness beforehand?  I know this is speculation on Clarke’s part but I do see the love of Jesus even for a Judas.

I write all this because some accuse us Arminians of rejecting the omniscience of God.  They believe that we hold to open theism, that God does not know all future actions of free will creatures.  I certainly reject this notion.  I believe from passages such as Exodus 3:18-22 that God does indeed know all things.  He knows even the free will decision of people.  He foreknows even those who will believe the gospel of Christ (Romans 8:29).  While this knowledge is not unconditional in that salvation is based on conditions that God has set including belief, He does know those who will believe.  This mystery is beyond me.  I cannot fathom knowing all things including decisions others are going to make.  God does.  God knows all things.  He foreknows all events.  He has chosen in His sovereignty to allow for free will from His creatures so that none can accuse Him of evil and say on the day of judgment that they were only doing what God had caused them to do.  Calvinists believe that God renders certain whatsoever comes to pass including sin.  How does this not make God the author of sin?  If God is going to render certain all things that come to pass then this means that He causes them to come to pass.  In essence, this makes God the one who caused the event (even sinful) to be rendered certain.

The Arminian view is that God simply knows.  That is it.  God knew the free will actions of Pharaoh and the Egyptians before it happened because He knows.  God knew when you would believe.  God knew that I would write this post.  That God knows is not the same as God caused.  God foreknows all things including the free will decisions of people.  He controls all things but He does not cause all things.  He knew the free will actions that would be taken toward His Son (Isaiah 53:4-6) but He allowed those free will choices to be made and for Jesus’ death to come to pass (Acts 2:23 notice that Peter says that those Jews were guilty of Jesus’ death through the hands of lawless men).  God allowed people to make free will choices to crucify His Son but He knew those choices would be made even if He didn’t make that choice for them.

There are some who take comfort in a fatalistic view of God’s omniscience.  I have even known some who would abide in sin believing that God knew and rendered certain their sin so why fight it?  I have seen some find comfort in their struggles of life by believing that God caused their troubles to come upon them by His own sovereign choice.  I have seen women mourn over their dead baby only to bless God for killing the child.  They find comfort that God causes all things to come to pass even if they don’t understand God’s ways.  They read the book of Job and see the hand of God crushing Job as proof that we should expect the same in this life.

I don’t know.  I don’t find much comfort in that thought.  I do believe that God is sovereign.  I do believe that God foreknows all things.  I do believe that God controls all things.  I reject that God causes all things.  Did God cause Adam to sin?  Did God cause Judas to betray Jesus?  Did God cause Hitler to murder over 6 million Jews?  Did God cause the rapist to rape a little girl?  What kind of God is this?  Despite the picture that Scripture presents of Him being loving and good, I would find this fatalistic view of God as appalling.

I am not sure if either Arminianism or Calvinism has the answer to the problem of evil.  The Calvinist views the sovereignty of God as meaning that He must cause all things to come to pass for His glory even the hardening of sinner’s hearts.  The Arminian views the sovereignty of God as God allowing free will decisions to be made that He does know but does not cause.  The open theist view is that God allows the future to partly open so that free will decisions are completely unknown to Him before they take place in time and then God reacts to those free will decisions.  I believe that all three may have problems but I accept the Arminian view as I believe from cases such as Exodus 3:18-22 that God does know all things including the future free will choices that others will make and He is able to make prophetic statements in that regard.

One of the troubling aspects of eternal security, in my estimation, is that it causes people to lose the fear of the Lord among many other things that the teaching does to rob people of God’s presence in their lives.  Since a person is “once saved, always saved” then antinomianism is bound to set in since God doesn’t see them but He sees only Jesus and His perfect righteousness and obedience credited to the believer.  How can this not lead to an abuse of grace?  One Calvinist writer wrote that he would hope that people do accuse him of abusing grace.  Chuck Swindoll says equally the same, that if we are preaching true grace as Paul preached grace then they will accuse us of abusing grace (Romans 6:1).  When a person believes that they have eternal life apart from continued faith in Jesus and when they are taught that they can live as they want to live and are still guaranteed heaven, this can only lead to a loss of fearing the Lord.

Yet the Scriptures exhort us to fear God.  Proverbs 1:7 says that the beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord.  Jesus taught in Luke  12:4-5 that we are to fear God.  Paul said in Romans 11:20 that we are not to be haughty (which is where eternal security often  leads) but fearful.  In 2 Corinthians 5:11 Paul even said, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (NKJV).

In my estimation we need a godly dose of fear.  Where is the fear of God among believers today?  Most see God as their therapeutic counselor above Almighty God.  Most don’t concern much with the commands of the Lord since they need not fear Him anymore.  I had a guy even tell me one time, “I despise hearing people talking about fearing God.  That was the Old Testament.  I am now a friend of God.”  Few seem to want to sit and gleam wisdom from God since they don’t fear Him.  Why fear Him if in fact He no longer convicts of sin (John 16:8-11) or if He no longer is the source for eternal life since we have received eternal life as a gift from Him even if we deny Jesus Christ?

I pray I always fear God.  I often pray 1 Corinthians 10:12-13.  I don’t want to boast in my salvation while watching others around me give in to sin and think that I am so secure in my salvation that I would never turn to a life of sin.  I need Jesus to help me overcome sin.  I fear that I would turn from Him who alone gives eternal life so I cling to Him (2 Corinthians 1:24).  I fear His holiness.  I fear His wrath.  I stand in awe of His salvation and grace.  I don’t want to grow cold toward Him or lose my fear of Him.  I want to always seek to exalt Him in all that I say or do (1 Peter 1:15-16).

How many countless souls have turned away from following the Lord because they were incorrectly taught that they need not fear God.  Even if they were told to fear God, in practice they need not fear Him since His wrath is satisfied with Jesus and they are forever imputed with Jesus’ righteousness even apart from obedience to Him as Lord (1 John 3:6-9).  They have been taught that nothing can separate them from God’s love (which is true; Romans 8:38-39) but then told incorrectly that that includes their sins and unbelief (Hebrews 3:6-19).  Eternal life is found in an eternal Jesus (John 5:24).  If we are in Jesus by faith, we are secure in our faith (1 Peter 1:5).  We need not fear sin or Satan or the world if we are in Jesus (Colossians 3:1-3).  If we are in Jesus, we have the confidence that He is praying for us (Hebrews 7:25).  But where is the fear of the Lord?  Where are those who would preach Hebrews 10:19-39?  Where are those who would preach hard against sin and call disciples of Jesus to kill sin in their lives through God’s grace (Titus 2:11-12)?

I urge you to pray for the fear of the Lord.  Psalm 36:1 says that there is no fear of the Lord among the ungodly.  May that not be true of us.  1 Peter 2:17 commands us to fear God.  Even Jesus had fear of God according to Hebrews 5:7 (NKJV).  Should not we?  Are we somehow above Psalm 36:1 or 1 Peter 2:17?  Oh fear God you His saints!  There is a godly fear that is much needed even by those who have been washed in the blood of Jesus (Romans 5:8-9).

Jesus is the glorious theme of the Bible.  He is the reason for all things.  He is the wonder of all.  He is the most lovely, the standard of perfection, the greatest human being who has ever lived or ever will live.  He is the Lord of the Church, the One that we worship and exalt.  Jesus is the One that I long to be like.  He is the One that I want to see when I die.  He is the One that I long to see coming again (Acts 1:11).

As I was meditating on the person of Jesus and how glorious He is, I turned in the Scriptures to meditate on the following New Testament passages about His preeminence above all others and all things.  I encourage you to do the same.  Make Jesus your life (Colossians 3:1-3).  Make Jesus your passion and your everything!

• Matthew 3:11
• John 3:31; 3:13; Acts 2:36
• Romans 14:9
• Colossians 1:18
• Hebrews 1:4; 3:3; 8:6
• Revelation 5:11-12; 17:14; 19:11

Jesus alone is the One that we need to exalt and He is the One that we should preach.  May we be Christ-centered in all that we say or do.

I have been reading Winkie Pratney’s book, The Nature and Character of God, and in the book Pratney opens up by writing a short chapter on human fallacies.  His main point is that there is no such thing as a “perfect theological system.”  Because we are sinners beholding a holy and perfect and infinite God, we make errors about Him and His Word and His nature.  Pratney points out that we all work from various backgrounds and when we study God, we bring our flaws into our studies whether we see them or not.  Both Arminians and Calvinists do this when we debate one another.  We tend to only see our point of view and none other.

Some can take Pratney to a point I don’t believe he intends and make all theology ambiguous.  There is certain biblical truths that are clear and worth defending such as the existence of God, the Trinity,  the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ including His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, His vicarious death, His resurrection, and His bodily ascension to the right hand of the Father where He now lives to intercede for the saints until His second coming in the future, heaven and hell, sin, etc.  I don’t believe that all theology is intended to be illusive and unknown.  This is the emergent, post-modern view that theology should not be fixed or as Brian McLaren likes to say, “Stuffed and mounted on a wall for all to see.”

However, I do think that we all could use a little humility when it comes to theology.  None of us are perfect (Proverbs 20:9).  We all need God’s grace for our salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9).  None of us know God perfectly.  None of us have figured God out unless you are in a cult which it seems most cults have God figured out.  None of us have a lock on truth.  I fear the person who has perfect theology as I believe that it’s just a matter of time before their perfect theology comes crashing down.  I have learned over the years to not box God in.  He is God and He will not be controlled by human beings.

There are certain people in the Church who would cast someone out for not holding to, for example, literal creationism.  I hold to this but I don’t doubt that others who disagree with me can still love the Lord.  I don’t cast aside people who hold that God gives them personal revelations though I do seek to make sure they are basing all that they “hear” on the Word and not subjective experience.  I don’t throw away people who believe in conditionalism when it comes to hell such as Edward Fudge whom I consider a true brother in the Lord.  I don’t cast aside Calvinists who disagree with me over much of my own theology.  I don’t cast aside even my own Arminians who disagree with me over eternal security.  I believe that we need to have much grace for one another as none of us have a perfect knowledge of God.

If we can learn anything from the early Church Fathers it’s that they debated theology.  I have next to me a book by David Bercot called, A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs.  The book is an A to Z book with quotes from the early Church Fathers on mostly theological themes.  Bercot is selective in his usage of the fathers so one must be careful when reading the book.  However, the book shows that the fathers did not all agree perfectly.  They correctly saw that they had their various views based on their backgrounds from paganism and culture to the tools they had before them.  They were not always charitable toward one another and even killed some whom they branded “heretics.”

On the next post, I will give the rules that Winkie Pratney gives in his book about studying God that I believe are very useful to us as well.  Our passion should be to know God (John 17:3) and we should not shy away from seeking to know Him in truth simply because we are flawed.  If anything, this should drive us to always be studying God and His Word since we make mistakes, we change our views, and we tend to be influenced by what is around us and what we listen to and read.  Pratney’s points about studying God are well put and I believe you’ll find them very helpful.

Often the god that we serve is the one that we create with our minds.  Our gods are much like us.  They tend to tolerate our sins.  They tend to be there to meet our needs.  They tend to bow down to us rather than us to them.  Our gods are limited in their power and are boxed in by our doctrines.  Our gods are just like us in almost every way including in how they look complete, at times, with flesh and bones like us.  Our god is not eternal in the true sense of the word.  Our gods are not pure and lovely.  Our gods exist for one purpose: to fulfill our every wish and desire.

How different those gods above are to the God of the Bible.  The God that we encounter in the Bible is not like us at all.  He is the uncreated one.  He is the eternal one.  He is timeless.  The God of the Bible has no beginning or end (Genesis 21:33; Psalm 41:13; Romans 16:25-26).  We are so limited in how we view time and eternity because we have nothing to compare it with.  We say that we believe God is eternal but we really don’t understand what that really means nor what that looks like.  We say that God is the uncreated one since He is eternal and since He created all things by His own power (Genesis 1:1; Hebrews 11:3) but we have no clue what they looks like since everything we see (including ourselves) was created.

Yet the one attribute of the God of the Bible that separates Him from all other false gods is His holiness.  C.S. Lewis said that it was God’s grace that makes Christianity unique among world religions and while I do agree with Lewis, I believe that the one attribute that is mostly displayed in the Scriptures is not the grace of God nor the mercy of God nor the wrath of God nor even the power of God but it is God’s holiness.  God’s holiness makes God altogether different from us.  The holiness of God separates Him from His creation.  And yet when we encounter the true understanding of God’s holiness, the cross of Jesus Christ becomes the much more precious to us.  When we see the holiness of God, we see our sinfulness in light of His perfection and we see that we have no defense but only can plead the blood of Jesus to wash away all our sins.

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah the prophet of Yahweh encountered the Lord.  Ironically, two different Hebrew words are used in Isaiah 6 about God.  In verse 1 the Hebrew name Adonai is used but in verse 3 the divine name of God, Yahweh, is used.  Adonai pictures the lordship of God and His eternal reign.  In Psalm 110:1 we read that Yahweh speaks to Adonai.  Psalm 110:1 is the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament because it directly points to Jesus Christ who was God manifested in the flesh (John 1:1).  Jesus was the one being spoken to in Psalm 110:1 according to Hebrews 1:13.

What we learn from Isaiah 6 is that when we encounter the utter otherness of God, His absolute holiness, His uniqueness.  This causes us to see ourselves in light of who He truly is.  Notice that Isaiah’s reaction is to cry from deep within himself, “Woe is me!”  Isaiah didn’t begin to sing to God.  He didn’t begin to laugh in God’s presence.  He didn’t begin to lift his hands in worship of God.  He didn’t break out in declaring the glory of God.  He falls on his face and cries out, “Woe is me!”  This dread comes over him.

What will it be like on that day when I leave this earth and enter into God’s presence?  I believe that we really don’t grasp the holiness of God.  Notice in Isaiah 6 something about the angels that Isaiah mentions here.  He says that these angels have six wings on them.  Two of them were to cover their faces and two to cover their feet and two to fly with.  The glory of God is so great and His holiness is so supreme that even these created angels (who have never sinned) must cover their eyes lest they look on the glory of God.  What kind of God is this?  How holy must He be that even His own angels who are there for His bidding cannot even look upon His glory?  How much more can we?  Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:16 that God dwells in “unapproachable light”.  Isaiah saw this glory and he fell on his face in utter ruin.

In Revelation 1:12-16 John saw Jesus in His glory.  In Revelation 1:17 we read that John did just what Isaiah did, he fell on his face in ruin.  Even John the beloved saw how holy Jesus was at that moment and he too fell on his face in ruin.

This should be us as well.  So much about God is beyond me.  While I try to understand God, I never will.  I know that He loves me in His Son and that I can know Him through His Son (John 17:3) but God is so holy, pure, powerful, wise, etc. that I really can’t grasp Him.  And rightly I shouldn’t.  The gods of paganism are easy to figure out.  The false gods look like us and act like us.  But the God of the Bible is beyond our imagination.  He is too pure and holy to approach but through the grace given to us in Christ Jesus (Hebrews 4:14-16).  Isaiah 6:3 was the Hebrew expression for emphasis.  Isaiah is not just saying, “God is holy” but Isaiah is showing us, “Look, God is holy, God is holy, God is holy!”  God has never nor will He ever sin.  He thinks nothing evil and nothing evil can enter into His presence.  No doubt He sees all evil but He Himself has never been and can never be touched by evil.  He is absolutely holy.  He is absolutely, altogether different from us.

This holiness should make us tremble.  How can we serve such a God?  How can we even pray to such a God?  And it’s here that the cross of Christ is magnified through us seeing the holiness of God even but for a glimpse.  The cross shows us not just the great love of God for us (John 3:16) but also the holiness of God in dealing with our sins (1 John 2:1-2).  Jesus fully satisfies the wrath of a just and holy God against sin (Romans 3:21-27).  Through Christ, we can have peace with God (Romans 5:1).  Through Christ, we are imputed with righteousness (Romans 10:4).  Through Christ, we can now pray and worship in the presence of God.  While we still don’t see God in all His glory, we can at least come to Him through His Son and someday see Him face to face (Revelation 22:3-4).

How I long for that day when I can see the Lord face to face and I know that I too will cry with Isaiah, “Woe is me!” yet I will be able to also rejoice that my sins were washed away through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God’s perfect Lamb (John 1:29; 1 Peter 2:21-22).

Check out Amazon.com today to receive a great deal for the Kindle.  You can get the book, The Holiness of God, by R.C. Sproul for free.  This book is one of my favorite books of all time and if you have never read this book, I would encourage you to purchase this book and see why I rank it so high.  Sproul exalts the holiness of God and shows biblically just how holy this God that we worship truly is.