Why I’m Not a Calvinist
I’m not a Calvinist. I’m not Reformed. And I’m not Armenian.
I’m not Presbyterian, Catholic, Baptist, or Assemblies of God. I’m not Pentecostal and I’m not dispensational.
Or maybe, it would be more accurate to say I’m all of these things?
Years ago, I read an amazing book, Follow The River. It tells the dramatized true story of Mary Ingles, a colonist in 1755 Virginia who was kidnapped by Indians, escaped their capture, and trekked 1000 miles, following the Ohio River, to find her way home. Though the book is worth a read, I’ll skip a review for now, because there was one point of the story that occurs toward the end of that 1000 mile journey which ties into this current discussion.
Months into her harrowing flight, Mary faces a cliff that she must climb to keep going. She makes it to the top, praying the whole way for God to get her there, telling Him that if He does she will always follow Him. But when she finally pulls herself up to the crest, she realizes she faces a second cliff. She must descend from where she is and climb again. And at that moment she stops believing in God.
That story struck me because I can understand her dismay. Doesn’t He love her? She decides He must not, or He wouldn’t have allowed this impossible obstacle in her way. I’ve been there. Not running from my captors for 1000 miles, eating roots, and scaling impossible cliffs just to be faced by another one. But I’ve gotten to the place where I’ve faced another challenge after just clawing my way through the last one. And I’ve doubted the goodness of the Lord and asked Him:
Don’t You love me?
Aren’t You in control?
Didn’t You promise to never leave me?
If You loved me, wouldn’t You have saved me from this?
Did God Really Say?
All these questions echo Satan’s question in the Garden in Genesis 3:1. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’”
Planting doubt in Adam and Eve, the Enemy dangled dazzling fruit in front of these two first people, beckoning them into more than the everything they already had. He failed, however, to explain all they would lose in the bargain.
The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil gave Adam and Eve just enough insight to come up with their own evaluation of the world and its ways. From that point to now, we judge God from our limited viewpoint and question Him based upon our understanding of how things should work in our minds.
“Did God really say” has resounded through the ages. We battle with exactly what it is that the Lord said as we add in our judgments—our knowledge of good and evil—and work to bring what we see in Scripture into line with what we observe in life and how we feel about it.
Then, like the three-year-old who balks at instructions such as going to bed or eating more vegetables or not running into the street, we reject the Lord who doesn’t make sense to us.
As we grow and continue to mature, we then, like the twenty-two-year-old who confidently tries to explain how life actually works to her lame, bourgeois parents, tell the Lord what He should do and how He should behave.
Finally, as we age even more, we settle, like the forty-year-old, into the frame we are comfortable with to make sense of the world, choosing Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, Catholic or Protestant, charismatic or dispensational, etc., and move forward paying bills and trying to hold our families together, while giving the Lord the leftovers of our time and mind.
Choosing a denomination or church format we feel comfortable with, we continue to decide what God really said. If we have a poor grasp of the Bible, our life will be blown to and fro as our circumstances, the church we choose, the books we read, and what occurs with our family shapes how we interpret the Lord and His Word.
Some of us, desiring to know what God did actually say, will dive into Scripture and theology, both very good things. The danger comes when we find an answer we like and plant our feet in that box. We then find verses, people, and churches that agree with our understanding while we pity the poor fools who don’t really understand Scripture.
So Why Am I NOT A Calvinist?
Many faithful saints, desiring to understand the incomprehensible, infinite Creator and to explain Him to others, have labored over Scripture to give form and labels to concepts our minds struggle to capture. I appreciate them. I don’t want my weak attempt to explain the tension I observe to seem like a critique. That’s not my intent.
We need help understanding since the reality is, like Adam and Eve, we struggle with what God really said. And like Mary Ingles, we are in danger of reaching a point and deciding God doesn’t fit or behave like we think He should.
Here’s an example:
The Lord is sovereign and in control, so He has already chosen His people and predestined them to be His, a concept we see in Scripture.
Romans 8:29-30 - For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Ephesians 1:5 - he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.
Also, Jesus came to save all and everyone who turns to Him, He accepts as His own.
2 Peter 3:9 - The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
1 Timothy 2:3-6 - This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
How do I bring these two contradictory concepts (just one example among many others) together in my mind? What if I have just enough knowledge of good and evil (thanks a lot, Adam and Eve) to see the contradiction while the resolution lies over the horizon, past my knowledge, in the infinite mind of the Lord in whom no contradiction exists?
I appreciate John Calvin and his study of the Bible and explanation to the masses. I’m not denigrating him.
BUT—and for me, as a sixty-year-old, who has begun to comprehend how much I DON’T understand—I refuse to be tied to one man’s explanation of God.
I’m grateful for the Reformation and all that was returned to God’s people during that move of the Spirit, but I don’t consider myself Reformed theologically. To be labeled Reformed is to say I find one box true and another box not.
I am not Charismatic in a denominational label. But, on the other hand, I believe in the active indwelling of the Holy Spirit who abides in me and directly speaks to my life, gifting me to walk with Jesus every day. Shouldn’t every Believer be charismatic because all Christians are filled with the Spirit? After all, there are more gifts than speaking in tongues!
What Did God Really Say?
So Believer, where do we go? How do we land our feet so that we stand on the Rock while not looking for a denominational club or label we feel comfortable with?
Honestly, I’m still figuring that out.
But I do know that the place I need to be is IN the Word. That is the only place to read what God really said.
I do know that I don’t know many things, but that I can find answers in the Word.
I do know that my decisions on Biblical truth must be found in Him and His Word, and not on myself or the latest Christian book I have read.
I think the greatest need in the American church today is to run from the catchy snippets we can grab on a post and return to a robust discussion with other Biblically based Believers that compare Scripture to Scripture. How can we detect error in what sounds good if we don’t have a grasp of what God did actually say?
Denominational or Biblical?
We must become personally immersed in the Bible, like the Jews Paul met when he traveled to Berea preaching the gospel. Like the Bereans, we must line up every single teaching we hear against the plumb line of the Bible.
Acts 17:11 - Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
This allowed these Jews to see the truth of the gospel and come to Jesus. We can only do the same if we read and know the Bible.
There are still parts of the world where Believers in Jesus don’t have access to the Bible. Where owning a Bible is against the law. Where one Bible is torn apart to be distributed amongst many people.
But in the United States, we don’t have that problem. We have dusty Bibles in different translations and colors. We have Bibles that contain more study notes than Scripture. We can listen to the Word on whichever Bible app strikes our fancy that day.
In other words, we have no excuse.
So let’s quit arguing about the specks in each other’s eyes and spend enough time in the shining light of Scripture for the logs in our own eyes to become evident to us.
Let’s compare Scripture to Scripture. Let’s take our pet ideas back to Jesus and His Word and make sure they line up with what He says.
Let’s be Biblical, humble, teachable people who examine Scripture daily to see if these things are true.
In these days of too much information, too many influencers, too many opinions, and too little open Biblical reading and teaching that invites discourse and discussion, may our deepest desire not that we be denominational, but that we be Biblical.
2 Timothy 3:16 - All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,