However, despite these admirable and godly traits, this brother is a full-fledged Arminian and believes the very doctrines that the Synod of Dordt denounced. And while I am convinced that the Spirit of God dwells in this man, I have felt it my duty to share with him at least some differing views on his beliefs since this man aspires to one day be a full-time minister to God’s flock. Here are a few of my thoughts that I have shared with him.

The Problem with a Free Will
In our conversations, the topic that came up the most is that of the “free will of man.” This notion comes chiefly from the exhortations in Scripture to believe upon Christ and to repent by obeying his commandments. It is presumed from these exhortations that if something is commanded by God that it is by necessity possible for men to obey those commands by their own volition apart from any supernatural work of God. This is a natural presumption, and I am sure that most of us who have come to Christ have believed this very thing at one point in our walk with Christ.

The reason that it is such a natural presumption is because we by our nature are radically self-centered. We by nature presume that what is true can be surmised by our five senses, and if we do not detect these things by our senses, we naturally believe that they do not exist. And this is precisely how the doctrines of free will come about, because men in their self-centered state feel as though they are free to make their own decisions, and thus when one follows Christ, he believes that he came to Christ on his own accord not that Christ had by the Spirit drawn that person to himself.

We, therefore, should not be shocked or dismayed when those who come to Christ think that they did so by their own free volition, but we should understand how natural this is and understand that it is an opportunity for instruction and correction not for division and labeling heretics. Much too often we presume that men have received right doctrine and have railed against it, when in fact they may have never been posed with the right doctrine before and may have never been given opportunity to change their minds and hearts accordingly. We must assume this in love with those who are merely new acquaintances and therefore not be so quick to label them as heterodox when they might have never been confronted with the truth. Those who are leaders and teachers in the church are another matter entirely, for they profess to know the Scriptures and also lead and teach others, and therefore they must be dealt with as false, for they have either, one, understood the teachings of the Scriptures and railed against them, or, two, they have not understood the teachings of the Scriptures and therefore should not be in a position of leadership or instruction in the church.

When dealing with those who are not teachers in the church, I believe that it is fitting to deal with the false notion of free will in the same manner which the apostle Paul deals with it in his epistle to the Roman church. In the epistle, the apostle Paul begins by demonstrating the foul, natural state of men apart from God. He demonstrates this both with the Gentiles (Rm. 1:18-2:16) and the Jews (Rm. 2:17-3:8), so that the conclusion to which his reader comes is that neither group is better off than the other, for both are under the slavery of sin apart from God (v. 3:9), and that, “None is righteous, no not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God” (vv. 3:10, 11). Therefore, all men apart from God are foul and self-seeking, and thus no one is self-justified by the law, for all men are transgressors of the law and are condemned by it.

Since, therefore, men are in such a state under sin and the law that they cannot be righteous, they cannot understand the ways of God, and they cannot seek God, God must do a supernatural work in them before they can be righteous before him, understand him, and seek after him. This is the reason why the apostle begins the next section of his discourse, writing, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law … the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe” (vv. 3:21, 22; translation mine). This is the same concept with which the apostle begins his discourse in v. 1:17, namely that, “The righteousness of God has been revealed from faith for faith,” or, in other words, from the initiatory and perfect faith of Jesus Christ imputed to those who would have faith. This notion is seen elsewhere in the apostle’s writings that faith is gift (Eph. 2:8), and therefore it is concluded in both instances where this doctrine is shown that its purpose is so that all boasting is excluded (cf. Rm. 3:27; Eph. 2:8).

The problem with the doctrine of free will is that it does not view faith as gift from God, but it views faith as a personal decision about the Good News of Christ without any prompting or revelation from the Spirit of God. It believes that any man can hear the Gospel and believe it in his natural state, though the Scriptures declare that men are blind, dead, and enslaved to sin apart from the work of God (cf. 2Cor. 2:1-6). Therefore, since those who believe in the free will of man believe that any man can believe the Gospel on his own accord, personal boasting is not excluded, for a faith that is based solely upon the freedom of man is a faith that can be boasted in. Contrarily, a faith that comes from the work of the Spirit of God alone cannot be boasted in, for we who believe did not come to Christ, but Christ came to us and removed the veils from our eyes so that we could see Christ as he truly is and believe on him (cf. 2Cor. 3:12-18).

It is for this reason that Christ tells Nicodemus that he must be born again by the Spirit and that the Spirit blows and regenerates whomever he wishes, and why the New Birth by the Spirit of God precedes the declaration, “Whosoever believes on Christ will not perish” (Jn. 3:16). For new birth must precede faith so that, as the apostle declares later in his letter, “[Salvation] depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy” (Rm. 9:16).

The reality is that men do have a will, but it is not a free will. For because of our creaturely state and the ordinance of God, no man can be free. We, however, perceive that we are free, because we make decisions every day, however, in reality, every decision that we make is dependent upon our slavemaster. For the apostle declares that all men are slaves, and the matter is not whom you choose as your slavemaster, but which slavemaster has chosen you. For, as no earthly slave has subjected himself willingly to his master, so no man has subjected himself willingly to sin or to God. For all of us have been born into subjection to our slavemaster sin by the deed of our father Adam (Rm. 5:12-21), and the only way that we are released from our slavery to sin is to be redeemed (i.e. purchased from slavery) by Christ and brought under the slavery of God (cf. Rm. 6:22). And it matters not our religious background or our desire to keep the law of God for life (cf. Rm. 7:7-25), but it matters that what we could not do in our slavery to sin and fleshliness, God has done through the emancipating work of Christ and his Spirit (cf. Rm. 8:1-4).

However, we who understand these things must realize that this understanding of the work of God is not a part of justification, but it is a part of sanctification. For no man understands perfectly his state before he comes to Christ, but he merely knows the command, “Believe and repent.” However, this understanding of the will of man is a necessity in our sanctification, for through it the fruits of humility and gratefulness are produced, and our God is a jealous God, and he will not give his glory to another (cf. Is. 48:11). Therefore, I exhort you, brothers who understand these things, to realize that all are Arminians until they have been rightly sanctified, and to be patient and loving to your brothers who believe that their wills are free, and to instruct them in love as to the true nature of the Gospel.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call–one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift (Eph. 4:1-7).

When we think upon the writings of Paul compared to our own context, it is interesting to think about those whom he is addressing. He is not writing to the First Baptist Church of Ephesus or to the Ephesus Presbyterian Church or to the Reformed Church of Ephesus, but he is writing to the church at Ephesus. And what exactly does the apostle mean when he says that he is writing to the church at Ephesus? He explains this at the beginning of his letter: “To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus” (v. 1:1). Therefore, his letter (shockingly) is intended for all who are in Christ in Ephesus–who have been bought with his blood and who share in the Blessing of his Spirit.

Though we are not told how many souls comprised the church at Ephesus, it is safe to assume, granting the size of the city of Ephesus, that there were many and that they were scattered throughout the great city in multiple congregations. Yet despite this, Paul addresses them as a single body comprised of those who are set apart for God and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

In our present context, the apostle’s address of the Ephesian church in this way is strange to us. Because of centuries of religious distortion, the church has been transformed from those who are the Lord’s (church from the northern dialect’s kirk from the Greek’s kuriakos- “Of the Lord”) to a sacred building intended to house worship services on Sundays. The distortion is profound, for it rails against Christ’s declaration that his people would not worship geographically but in Spirit and in truth (cf. Jn. 4:23), and it reinstitutes the shadow which Christ himself fulfilled. God’s people alone are the Church, and to label any building, place, or group that is not the faithful saints of God in Christ “the church” is a misnomer and a false declaration.

Taking Paul’s declaration of the church and applying to the text from Ephesians 4, it is an extraordinary exhortation. For he is exhorting a church comprised of multiple congregations and, no doubt, differing opinions on doctrine, to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (v. 4:3). This point cannot be missed. The apostle is not exhorting particular congregations to be at peace within their own congregations merely, but that all of the saints in Ephesus would be at peace with one another. Such a declaration would be no less extraordinary than exhorting the saints who comprise the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran congregations all within a quarter mile of one another on Six Forks Road in Raleigh to eagerly seek peace and unity with one another.

And this unity within the Church of God is not something that is merely icing on the cake of Christianity, but the apostle calls it the fruit of “[Walking] in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (v. 4:1). In other words, unity within the Body of Christ, i.e. unity among all the saints of God, is accomplished by Christians walking as they ought to walk.

How then are we to walk so that we, the saints of God, are unified as one body? The apostle writes, “[Walk] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love” (v. 4:2). All these things when practiced by the people of God bring about unity in the Body. For when God’s people are humble, they understand who they are and the darkness from which they were brought and therefore understand that all who are saints of God are being brought from that same former darkness. This humility makes the people of God gentle people, for God was gentle with them in their own lack of understanding and sin. Recognizing God’s gentleness with them, the people of God are patient toward one another, suffering long with one another’s flaws knowing that God has long suffered their flaws. All these things culminate in love for one another, understanding the great love with which God has loved them, they are therefore eager to return it to those whom God loves.

When all these things are practiced by the saints of God, unity occurs. And it is not a man-created unity, but these things, being fruits borne by the Spirit of God, are a Spirit-created unity. For where the Spirit is present, unity is present, because, as the apostle writes:

There is one body (i.e. one church) and one Spirit–just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call–one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (v. 4:4,5).

The issue, therefore, is not an issue of unity of all those who label themselves “Christians,” but it is an issue of everyone whom God has called to himself. It would be foolish to strive for unity with those like Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc., who do not worship the same God as we worship or with those who profess Christ but live unholy lives, but when our God is singular, our Savior is singular, and his Word is singular, why then are we divided into many? I have heard it said by some that denominations are a necessary evil, but I believe the apostle Paul by his exhortation begs to differ. The greatest problem that we as the church face is not our doctrinal differences, but it is our unwillingness to be humble, gentle, patient, and loving to those whom God has been humble, gentle, patient, and loving. Oftentimes, we are more like Pharisees than we are Christians, measuring out a tenth of our mint, dill, and cumin, while neglecting love and mercy. If we were able by the Spirit to become humble, gentle, patient, and loving people, I sincerely believe that right doctrine would naturally follow.

For, unfortunately, is commonplace that those who are most vocally Calvinists are those who would esteem themselves to be scholars of some grade and great exegetes of the Word of God. These, at times, act as though they bear some special knowledge that others in church have missed and therefore have about them a certain air of arrogance with regard to their particular understanding of the Scriptures.

This common occurrence within the ranks of Calvinists is a strange one, for it contradicts the very doctrines that they seek to propagate. For the Doctrines of Grace exist so that all boasting is eliminated (cf. Rm. 3:27; Eph. 2:8), and these who hold to such teachings are often very arrogant people. They demonstrate by their lives and their haughty attitudes that they do not believe the very doctrines that they boast in, for if they did, they would be very humble people.

Now, I write this both as an exhortation and a confession, for I am by no means devoid of all human boasting. For I have found myself many times delighting in whether or not my interpretation of Scripture was right compared to others, rather than boasting in cross of Christ alone and counting my arrogance dead in him. My exhortation both to you, the Calvinist, and to myself is to believe the very doctrines that we claim to believe and by it become a very humble people. For if we are not, we demonstrate that our greatest joy is not in seeing Christ glorified, but it is in seeing ourselves and our understanding of Scripture glorified.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned (Rm. 12:3).

The foundation of humility is a right understanding of who we are in light of what God has given to us. As regards our salvation, we must recognize that we, like the rest of mankind, were once dead in our own transgressions and were by our choice enemies of God, but God, being rich in mercy toward us, has borne our transgressions in the person of Jesus Christ and has revealed himself to us by the Holy Spirit. We have no basis upon which to boast in our salvation, for our salvation was completely accomplished without us, and love and mercy were directed toward us even before the creation of the world (cf. Eph. 1:6). We did not choose God, but God chose us, so that in all things, especially in our salvation, he might receive glory and honor and that we might glorify him with humility.

This humility that we are to have extends beyond our salvation into our place in the body of Christ. For even among those who are God’s children through Jesus Christ, he assigns to each a measure of faith so that each of them might perform a different function within the body. The apostle Paul continues in Rm. 12:4 with the analogy that the church is like a human body, and each member in the church performs a particular function. And, as in the human body, some members perform seemingly more crucial roles than others. However, a member’s role within the body is not determined by his ambition or his hard work, but it is determined by God who assigns to each a different measure of faith in order that there might be diversity of function within the body.

Therefore, the apostle exhorts each one in the church at Rome, “Not to think of himself more highly that he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.” This sober judgment, as said before, is founded in the knowledge that God is the giver of all things and we are the mere recipients of his good gifts by his good pleasure. To think otherwise, to think that we are somehow to be credited for our gifts by our hard work or by our good breeding, is, one, not to think reasonably about ourselves, and, two, to think of ourselves more highly that we ought. We must rather think of ourselves rightly and reasonably, in the shadow of the cross of Jesus Christ.

No more, my God, I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done;
I quit the hopes I held before,
To trust the merits of Thy Son.

Now, for the loss I bear His name,
What was my gain I count my loss;
My former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to His cross.

The best obedience of my hands
Dares not appear before Thy throne;
But faith can answer Thy demands,
By pleading what my Lord has done (Isaac Watts, “I Boast No More”)

To such a charge, I am sure someone is thinking, “What an arrogant person, to think that he is right and that those who disagree with him are wrong!” I have one question of such a thought: Does believing and proclaiming that which is declared to be truth by God and, by necessity, that which is false warrant a verdict of “arrogant”? If so, one would have to label Jesus Christ an arrogant man, as well as the apostle Paul who rebuked the apostle Peter (the nerve!), and any other prophet who was ever sent by God to proclaim to men their wickedness and lack of understanding. The idea that the proclamation of truth is arrogance is a product of postmodernity and not some right understanding of “speaking the truth in love.” What we find today is that evangelicals reject postmodernity when it comes to those outside the Faith who declare that Jesus is not the only way to the Father, but when those evangelicals are within the Church they say ridiculous and arrogant things like, “What does this text of Scripture mean to you?” as if they were lords over the meaning of Holy Scripture! This seems to me the grossest of arrogance.

To too many, the Scriptures are not a declaration of reality to which they are to conform, but they are a proof text that they use to propagate their own natural ideologies. Therefore, when the Scriptures do not conform to those ideologies they explain Scripture’s declarations away or ignore them altogether. There are innumerable instances of this practice in Christianity. A recent example is the heresy of Open Theism. The proponents of Open Theism are so set upon their belief in the human free-will that they argue that God cannot know the future despite Scriptures numerous declarations to the contrary. In that very same vein are the Arminians who believe that a man who has been saved by God can lose that salvation, because the Arminian believes that he willed himself to God and therefore can will himself away from God. There are countless others, including some naive, orthodox Christians who believe that the heathen who has died apart from hearing the Gospel will get a chance to hear the Gospel and believe despite the declaration of Romans 1. They declare, “My God would not condemn someone to hell without giving him a chance to believe.” To all of them, I suggest that they humble themselves, cast aside their idols, and submit to the One True God who has revealed himself and whose ways and thoughts are not after ours.

Thus the question must be asked, “Who is truly arrogant, the one who submits without question to the declarations of God’s Word and proclaims those declarations or the one who knows the declarations of God’s Word but proof-texts them away so that he might not have to have his thoughts taken captive by the Word of Christ?” The answer is quite clear, for no man will be as arrogant as he who knows the Word of the Lord and rejects it for the wisdom of men.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

When Haley and I were on our honeymoon in St. Lucia, we decided to try out a free snorkeling trip. Whilst we were snorkeling, I decided (for some reason) to touch a rock that was underwater in the reef, and I found myself reflexively withdrawing my hand just as quickly as I had placed it upon the rock. I swam to the surface, looked at my left hand, and saw that one of my fingers was bleeding and had on it what appeared to be three black specks. Those specks were in fact imbedded splinters from whatever was on the rock that I touched. Being away from home and away from my “home surgery kit,” I had to deal with the splinters for the rest of our honeymoon, and they were quite painful.

After getting back to the States, one of the first things that I did when I got home was attempt to remove the splinters from my aching finger. I successfully removed the first two, pulling out the entire splinter with a pin, a knife, and a set a tweezers. The last splinter proved to be more difficult, and it broke while I was trying to remove it. The small piece that remained in my finger imbedded itself further and finally proved itself impossible to remove. Two years later and after several bloody attempts to remove it, my honeymoon splinter is still with me. Since then the constant pain has subsided, and most times I forget that it is there. But every so often, I will grip something in particular way or push against something at the just the right angle, and I will feel an unbearably sharp pain travel from the tip of that finger and up my left arm, reminding me that my splinter friend is still with me after all this time.

For this reason, when I read Paul’s account of his thorn in his flesh in 2 Corinthians 12, I, either rightly or wrongly, think it comparable with the splinter in my own finger. In light of the context and my experience, I do not think Paul’s thorn was something that struck him with pain constantly, but that it was something that struck him with pain when he needed it. According to the text, the thorn was given to him solely to prevent him from becoming proud and conceited, and I can imagine Paul finding himself in torment, seemingly out of the blue, as with my splinter, at precisely the time that he thought more highly of himself than he ought to have had.

This symbolic thorn in Paul’s flesh is not reserved to Paul’s experience alone, for I believe that many Christians are given thorns like Paul’s to humble them. From the context, I believe Paul’s thorn was a particular, nagging sin that Paul could not completely overcome, and this I believe because of God’s response to Paul’s petition to remove it: “My grace is sufficient for you.” God’s grace was sufficient for Paul’s thorn. Then I asked myself this question, “What is the best way to humble a man who thinks himself righteous and holy on his own accord?” The answer: Let him fall into the sin that he believes that he has conquered.

Have you not found this to be the case in your own life? You find that you are living righteously before God and are loving him and obeying his commandments, and then, all of sudden and out of nowhere, your focus shifts off of God and his glory to you and your glory. You think to yourself that you have somehow arrived spiritually, that you get what others do not, and then a small, pride-filled grin smirks across the side of your face. And just as quickly as you found yourself boasting in yourself, you find yourself sinning in a way that did not even occur to you prior to your boasting. You immediately realize the folly of your thinking and remember quite clearly that without God you are nothing.

For this reason, the thorns of sin that torment us throughout our lives are sweet Providences in disguise. Yes, they cause us to groan for the redemption of our bodies and to yearn for that day when the jewels of sin will appear to be dung in the sight of God, but they are at present working together for God’s glory and our good. We, like Paul, will pray in our ignorance and weakness that these things would be removed from us, and the Spirit will be there interceding for us with inexpressible groanings according to perfect will of our Father (cf. Romans 8:26, 27). Rest well, child of God, knowing that God will discipline you and that his grace is more than sufficient to cover your failings.