Take a moment and consider the following Biblical truths. If you find that you concur, you may actually be a “Calvinist” (as scary as that may sound) and not even realize it—not that the label really matters all that much. The Doctrines of Grace (another name for Calvinism) are much more important than a nickname. With that being noted, let all of God’s people affirm the following.
First, no person has the ability to save themselves.
This total inability of man to save himself from the power, pollution, and penalty of sin is what makes freedom from spiritual bondage so priceless. The heart rejoices to know that God has sent Someone to set the captives free. That Someone is Jesus who said of Himself:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed.~Luke 4:18
The song of salvation is a humble song of thanksgiving.
Thank You Lord, for saving my soul
Thank You Lord, for making me whole;
Thank You Lord, for giving to me
Thy great salvation so rich and free.
Thank You Jesus.~Seth and Bessie Sykes
The prayer of salvation is rooted in divine grace being given. Faith itself is a gift of God, lest any one should boast (Eph. 2:8,9).
…Anyone who believes that man’s will is entirely free, and that he can be saved by it, does not believe the Fall…
But I tell you what will be the best proof of that; it is the great fact that you never did meet a Christian in your life who ever said he came to Christ without Christ coming to him.
You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer—for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind.
An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist.
He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it.
Fancy him praying, “Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists Lord; I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not-that is the difference between me and them.”
That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that.
Ah! when they are preaching and talking very slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out; they cannot help it. If a man talks very slowly, he may speak in a fine manner; but when he comes to talk fast, the old brogue of his country, where he was born, slips out.
I ask you again, did you ever meet a Christian man who said, “I came to Christ without the power of the Spirit?”
If you ever did meet such a man, you need have no hesitation in saying, “My dear sir, I quite believe it-and I believe you went away again without the power of the Spirit, and that you know nothing about the matter, and are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.”
Do I hear one Christian man saying, “I sought Jesus before he sought me; I went to the Spirit, and the Spirit did not come to me”?
No, beloved; we are obliged, each one of us, to put our hands to our hearts and say—
“Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes to o’erflow;
’Twas grace that kept me to this day,
And will not let me go.”~Charles Spurgeon, “Free Will: A Slave.”
I concur. No person has the ability to save themselves. _____
Second, when God saves a person, He does so because of His own choosing, and not on the basis of foreseen faith, a decision made, baptism, Church membership, or observing the Sacraments.
The apostle Paul argued for the loving kindness of God sovereignly choosing those who are the heirs of salvation in Romans 9:13: “As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’”
The reference is not to two representative nations, but to children, not yet born but, assigned by God their place in His heart.
Is God unrighteousness in making this sovereign choice? Paul anticipates that objection and replies, “Certainly not!”
The Sovereign is not unrighteous in the way He makes, organizes, and governs His universe. God is free to have mercy on whomever He will have mercy, and He is righteous and just to have compassion on whomever He wills.
“Therefore, God will have mercy on whom He wills, and He will render a severe judgment on whom He wills to harden” (Romans 9:14-17).
While this understanding of the text might be emotionally challenging, it is the God of revelation, not the god of human imagination that is in view.
What then is to be said about free will?
In his classic work, Freedom of the Will, Jonathan Edwards argues that the will always moves toward whatever appears to it as the greatest apparent good.
Biblical revelation and human observation unite to testify that it appears to the Natural Man that his greatest apparent good is not to seek God. “There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God” (Romans 3:11).
It appears to the Natural Man that his greatest good is to suppress the truth about God’s wrath and hatred of every form of ungodliness. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).
“When Eve saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:1). Eve believed it was her greatest good to eat of the forbidden fruit.
In like manner, Adam believed it was his greatest good to disobey God, “and he ate,” of the forbidden fruit. (Genesis 3:6)
Because the Fall leaves the Natural Man in spiritual bondage, with blind eyes, deaf ears, a dumb tongue, a heart of stone, and a state of death, God must sovereignly choose to save a person based on the Lord’s own free will and purpose, to the praise of His glory.
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:11-12)
I believe that God’s choice is the basis of faith, not a divine response to it. I concur _____
Third, because God is pleased to save individuals from the swollen mass of fallen humanity, He gave His uniquely begotten Son, to secure the salvation of those whom He loves with an eternal love. When Jesus died at Calvary to shed His blood for the forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22), He did not die in a general manner. Jesus died to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). This gospel truth is captured in a beautiful song by Bill and Gloria Gaither, “When He was on the Cross (I was on His Mind).”
“He Knew Me, Yet He Loved Me.
He Whose Glory Makes The Heavens Shine.
So Unworthy Of Such Mercy,
Yet When He Was On The Cross, I Was On His Mind.”
I believe Jesus died to save sinners, not simply to make sinners savable. Jesus died to secure the salvation of those whom the Father had given Him so that none are lost (John 6:37; 18:9).
I concur _____
Fourth, because the redemption Christ accomplished at Calvary for those whom the Father gave Him, because none of those whom the Father gave Him shall be lost, every blood bought soul will come to faith. It is a divine certainty. God has promised that He will put in the heart of His people a new heart. He will remove the heart of stone found in the Natural Man and give a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26) What God decrees to do will come to pass. Study
I believe Jesus effectively calls His sheep to Himself. They will come to Him according to John 10:27-28. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”
I believe there is an effectual call to salvation, sanctification, and service. I concur. _____
Fifth, because salvation is of the Lord, then the One who saves is the One who will sustain that good work. The apostle Paul put it this way. “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
This is a truth that a believer can put their confidence in. While the believer perseveres in the sphere of saving faith through good works, the soul which has been regenerated by the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5), washed in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14), and sanctified by the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:13) will be preserved by God for time and eternity. “Neither height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
I believe that my salvation is rooted in God’s faithfulness to His promise never to leave nor forsake me. I believe in the preservation of the saint by God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen
I concur. ______
The Collected Works of Stanford E. Murrell 