RE: Train, The Gospel Coalition and The Canons of Dort

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Let me finish something I started at my blogspot ‘EC’ blog, it was that post that was discussing The Gospel Coalition’s and Resurgence’s grounding in 5 point Calvinist or classical Calvinist theology. I claimed in that post that TGC and Resurgence were intentionally avoiding the language that Calvinists normally use when they communicate what they believe about salvation. It is true TGC and Resurgence (a ministry of Mark Driscoll’s ‘Mars Hill church’ in Seattle) may simply be trying to paraphrase or use today’s lingo to communicate some old truth, but either way, the way they are communicating is not explicitly identifying themselves with the interpretive tradition that they are a part of, and consciously so; classical or what I often reference as 5 point Calvinism (and I do this as short hand, there is no doubt that the theology behind what has become known as 5 point Calvinism in America today runs much deeper—beyond that, I also use 5 point Calvinism as a label because it is able to identify all parties associated with a particular strand of Calvinism—whether that be straight up Federal/Covenant theology, or Baptist Dispensational Calvinists [there are real and definite distinctions even amongst these 5 point Calvinists, but they would all agree on what is articulated by the 5 points, insofar as that goes]). So let me just try to highlight how one of the confessional points from TGC’s confessional statement is indeed communicating, materially, what historic classical Calvinists have always believed about predestination, election, and salvation in general. Here is the point in question:

The Plan of God We believe that from all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and to this end foreknew them and chose them. We believe that God justifies and sanctifies those who by grace have faith in Jesus, and that he will one day glorify them—all to the praise of his glorious grace. In love God commands and implores all people to repent and believe, having set his saving love on those he has chosen and having ordained Christ to be their Redeemer. [taken from The Gospel Coalition’s‘Confessional Statement’, point 5]

And then let’s compare this, at some length, with the Canons of Dort (the theological statements that serve as the foundation for what came to be known as the TULIP or 5 points of Calvinism. The Canons of Dort were in response to the Remonstrants or Arminian assertions about free will and God’s election of people). Here are articles 6-9:

Article 6: God’s Eternal Decision

The fact that some receive from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from his eternal decision. For all his works are known to God from eternity (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:11). In accordance with this decision he graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of his chosen ones and inclines them to believe, but by his just judgment he leaves in their wickedness and hardness of heart those who have not been chosen. And in this especially is disclosed to us his act—unfathomable, and as merciful as it is just—of distinguishing between people equally lost. This is the well-known decision of election and reprobation revealed in God’s Word. This decision the wicked, impure, and unstable distort to their own ruin, but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words.

Article 7: Election

Election [or choosing] is God’s unchangeable purpose by which he did the following:

Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, he chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. He did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation. And so he decided to give the chosen ones to Christ to be saved, and to call and draw them effectively into Christ’s fellowship through his Word and Spirit. In other words, he decided to grant them true faith in Christ, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally, after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of his Son, to glorify them.

God did all this in order to demonstrate his mercy, to the praise of the riches of his glorious grace.

As Scripture says, God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, so that we should be holy and blameless before him with love; he predestined us whom he adopted as his children through Jesus Christ, in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, by which he freely made us pleasing to himself in his beloved (Eph. 1:4-6). And elsewhere, Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified (Rom. 8:30).

Article 8: A Single Decision of Election

This election is not of many kinds; it is one and the same election for all who were to be saved in the Old and the New Testament. For Scripture declares that there is a single good pleasure, purpose, and plan of God’s will, by which he chose us from eternity both to grace and to glory, both to salvation and to the way of salvation, which he prepared in advance for us to walk in.

Article 9: Election Not Based on Foreseen Faith

This same election took place, not on the basis of foreseen faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, or of any other good quality and disposition, as though it were based on a prerequisite cause or condition in the person to be chosen, but rather for the purpose of faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, and so on. Accordingly, election is the source of each of the benefits of salvation. Faith, holiness, and the other saving gifts, and at last eternal life itself, flow forth from election as its fruits and effects. As the apostle says, He chose us (not because we were, but) so that we should be holy and blameless before him in love (Eph. 1:4). [taken from here ).

I won’t do much commentary on this, it is pretty self evident how TGC’s confessional statement, and their point number 5 is a compressed and summarizing statement of something like we read in these articles provided in The Canons of Dort.

Maybe everyone who attends RE: Train, and all of those who frequent The Gospel Coalition’s website and partakes of all of their pastoral and churchly resources is already well aware of both of these groups doctrinal commitments. If that is the case, then this post really is lost on you. But if you aren’t as clear on the theological heritage that Resurgence (RE: Train) and TGC draw from, then this post is for you.

It is no secret that I am not a fan of this kind of Calvinism, and my reasons are highly personal and thus theological. I find it highly naive to presume that doctrine can be disassociated from the personal. I also find it disingenuous when people might claim that because I have had personal (negative) experiences with classic Calvinism that I can no longer “objectively” critique this movement theologically. If we are going to be consistent with this line of thinking then we might as well chuck most of the orthodox Christian dogma that developed in the patristic period of the church; which stemmed from highly personal and polemic situations.

I have some more “positive” stuff I will be covering, maybe tomorrow, on Athanasius’s Trinitarian theology, and his views on the vicarious humanity of Christ … some good stuff!