Are you a Calvinist?
It depends on what you mean by “Calvinist.”
I have been asked this question (or one like it) so many times, and most often the person or group asking it does not know or understand Calvinism. My first response to this question is “What do you mean by ‘Calvinist’ or ‘Calvinism’?”. This follow-up question has actually led to many fruitful conversations, while the question “Are you a Calvinist?” is tends more to be the start of an unfruitful argument.
If you want to learn more about what Calvinism is, then I recommend this brief introduction - What is Calvinism?
Good Christians can disagree on many points of doctrine, and my interaction with those who disagree with me on this particular question would depend on what the disagreement is and what is causing it. Often, disagreement is the offspring of misunderstanding and assumption – we misunderstand a person’s view, but we assume that we grasp it well enough to condemn it, therefore we disagree.
What do you mean?
In an effort to bring clarity and understanding to this question, I’d like to affirm the following statements, which have been articulated in much the same way at least since the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century (and in other forms by many Christians before then).
1. I affirm the radical fallenness of man.
According to Scripture, apart from the regenerating work of God’s Spirit, sinners are “dead in the trespasses and sins,” they are “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,” they are living “in the passions of [the] flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind,” and they are “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
There is no part of man (body, mind, will, etc.) that is not affected by sin and shot through with rebellious corruption. We are not as wicked as we might be, but there is no aspect of humanity that is untouched by sin. In this sense, we are radically fallen or totally depraved.
2. I affirm the unconditional election of those sinners God loves.
The Bible teaches that God elected sinners based upon His sheer grace and not based upon anything in the sinner. The Bible is clear that God “elected” or “predestined” those who believe before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4; Titus 1:1-3; Revelation 13:18). It is no surprise, then, that one of the New Testament monikers for believers or Christians is “the elect” of God (Matthew 24:22-24; Mark 13:20-22; 2 Timothy 2:10).
The Bible is also clear that this election was due only to God’s goodness and loving kindness, not due to anything good in those God elected. The Apostle Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6).
Therefore, we ought to understand and believe that God’s election of sinners is unconditional in the sense that there is no condition that has been met on the part of the sinner so as to provoke God’s gracious love or favor. The very definition of grace fundamentally requires it to be completely undeserved.
3. I affirm the intentional atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ for those sinners He came to save.
This is the logical conclusion of several truths – because God elected those He intended to save before the foundation of the world, and because God the Father sent His Son to live and die in order to actually justify sinners (not merely make justification possible), and because God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are united in will and activity, it is, therefore, necessary to affirm that Jesus Christ intentionally atoned for particular sinners.
We naturally understand and believe this when we begin to believe the gospel. We sing this affirmation when we praise and thank the Lord Jesus Christ for suffering in my place, for engraving my name upon His hands, and for having me specifically upon His mind when He was crushed for my transgressions. We who believe or trust in the Lord Jesus Christ are comforted by the fact that He died explicitly for us, and not for an unknown conglomerate of humans.
And the Bible makes it clear that Jesus is the actual mediator of a specific people. In Jesus’s “high priestly prayer” recorded in John’s Gospel, we see Jesus praying “not… for the world, but for those” God the Father has “given” to Him (John 17:9). And we (amazingly!) see Jesus affirming that He “consecrated” Himself or set Himself apart for holy sacrifice for the “sake” of His disciples and “for those who will believe in [Him] through their word” (John 17:19-20). This is a glorious prayer from the lips of the Savior for believers of all time, and Jesus Himself says that He went to the cross specifically for them.
Thus, Christians do not reluctantly believe that Christ died only for those who are saved. Christians may relish and savor this reality! It is the deepest and most intimate comfort to know that Christ purposefully and intentionally came to live and die for us.
4. I affirm the perfect efficacy of God’s call to spiritual life.
The Bible uses three analogies for what happens when a sinner is converted from unbelief to belief – re-birth (Jn. 3:3), re-creation (2 Cor. 5:17), and resurrection (Eph. 2:4-9). All three of these analogies are completely out of the control of the one to whom these are happening – no baby chooses or refuses to be born, no created thing chooses or refuses to be created, and no dead person can choose or refuse anything (he is dead!).
The use of these analogies is compelling already, but the biblical teaching is clear that those whom God graciously calls to Himself will most assuredly repent and believe.
On the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter assured his hearers that forgiveness in Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit is for “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39).
The Apostle Paul spoke so certainly of each aspect of God’s salvation (i.e., election, calling, justification, and glorification) that he used the past tense to say that “those whom [God] predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30).
Indeed, the Apostle Paul condemns all unbelievers (both Jews and Greeks) to lifelong unbelief precisely because they all view the cross of Christ as scandalous and/or foolish (1 Corinthians 1:23). And yet, the difference-maker for those who do believe is God’s “calling.” Paul says, “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).
Some confusion on this subject arises from the broad use of the word “call” in the New Testament. Sometimes we read a passage that speaks of God’s “call” of the gospel or the preacher’s “call” for sinners to repent and believe, and this refers to what Christians usually label the “universal call” of the gospel. However, other passages (like the ones I’ve cited above) speak of God’s “call” in the sense of His effectual “call,” the divine imperative and action that brings about new eyes, new ears, and new life.
Sinners have the ability to reject the universal call of God and the preacher, but every sinner who experiences the effectual call of God is born again, re-created, and brought to spiritual life. Thus, we may glory in and praise God for His effective call. Were it not for God’s irresistible call to spiritual life, we would never have turned to Christ with repentance and faith. But because of God’s irresistible call, we who have received it now possess these glorious and gracious gifts.
5. I affirm the absolute assurance that all who are saved will persevere to the end.
If one accepts that all I’ve said thus far is true, then this last one is a given. If sinners are completely shot through with sin and naturally opposed to God (i.e., radically fallen/sinful), if God elected those He loves and saves before the foundation of the world (unconditional election), if Christ willfully died for those particular sinners He came to save (intentional atonement), and if God effectually calls those sinners who believe to spiritual life (perfect efficacy), then how can any elected and justified and regenerate saint ever fail to persevere?!
As with the other affirmations above, though, there is ample biblical evidence to support this statement as well. The Apostle Paul reasoned much the same way as I have here.
He wrote, “If God is for us, who can stand against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors though him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death more life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height more depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:31-39).
Note the reference here to the ongoing mediatorial or intercessory work of Christ. Jesus not only died as the mediator between God and man, He remains in this office forevermore. Right now and for all time, Jesus Christ is the mediator for those who believe, interceding on their behalf before the Father. So too, the Holy Spirit is a gift of God, and He remains as a gift to believers, working in believers the persevering faith that lasts (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
Conclusion
If you believe as I do, affirming the summary statements I’ve articulated above, then you may or may not ever want to call yourself a “Calvinist.” I, for one, don’t really like to use this label because (as I said before) many people don’t understand what it means. So too, good Christians can disagree with some feature (or many of them) of what I have articulated here and still be wonderful brothers or sisters in Christ.
It seems to me that the best way for Christians to enjoy good fellowship and genuine unity with one another is to be cheerfully willing to enter into longer and more detailed conversations about what they believe and why.
Come, let us reason together. Let us go to the Bible together. And let us benefit from learning from one another as we all strive to trust and follow Christ.