“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men …” (Tit 2:11, NKJV)
We are currently examining Protestantism’s dogma of unconditional election. In the Dordtse Leerreëls, one of the documents outlining the dogma of the Reformed churches, Point 15 clearly spells out that God has elected certain people (regardless of whether they want to or not), and not others (even if they would want to) – “It thus stands that not all people were elected, that some were not elected, or were bypassed in God’s eternal election … God had after all decided to not grant them the faith which brings salvation, and the grace of repentance. To demonstrate his righteousness God decided to leave these people to their own devices, to have them live under his righteous judgment, and to judge them not only for their unbelief, but also for all of their sins, and to punish them eternally. This is the choice of rejection …”
So it is written, and so millions of people proclaim this as the complete truth, every year. Even if they don’t believe it, and they preach something different in the Reformed churches themselves, this is the system of slavery which is presented as the origin of salvation. No wonder so many of our ancestors had such a frightful idea of this harsh God.
Although there are a few obvious conflicting ideas in this dogmatic position the logical conclusion, according to this dogma, is that all who are baptised, who God has thus made a covenant with, have been elected to have eternal life. Yet we all know this is not the truth – I know many people who were baptised, went through catechesis and are even faithful church-goers, but who clearly have no relationship with God. What about them? In his authoritative book, Dogmatiek, Prof Johann Heyns attempts to argue the church away from this reality – “Pondering the concept of election, loose from or outside of the power field of the covenant, resorts to theoretical speculation, while pondering the covenant without the concept of election, degrades the covenant … What God has decided in election, is concretely worked out in his covenant with man.” (p 223).
This statement does not at all correlate with a later statement (p.340) – “The elected are part of the covenant, but all who are part of the covenant are not elected. In the covenant we also find hypocrites.” This statement also does not make sense in the light of that which is presented in the documents which record the church’s dogma – according to them the baptised individual is not part of an eternal covenant, and is inwardly born-again on account of an external act of baptism – how could he not be saved? The fifth element of TULIP makes this point very clear – Once saved, always saved. Heyns himself declares on p. 340 – “Thus the baptism becomes the mark of those who have been chosen by God to be part of his covenant, who have become his property and will always remain his.”
Heyns makes it clear that there is “indeed no clear and direct Scriptural basis for the baptism of children” (p. 341). He also concedes that “the children concerned here cannot come to a conscious, personal choice of faith. But now they are children of believers to whom have been given and sealed within the covenant, in other words they are elected and born-again, they are cleansed from their sins through the blood of Christ, taken up as members of his church, inheritors of the eternal life …” (p. 343)
But a few sentences later, he says again that “this does not mean that children, through baptism, become part of the covenant or the church, or become believers, but through baptism they are stamped as such … As children grow older, the baptism grows with them, so that the infant baptism later becomes the adult baptism!” (p. 344).
This is a laughable explanation of someone who is trying to defend an argument which has been flawed from the get-go. Calvinism is clearly very confused about the concepts of covenant, baptism and election.
The story is often told of how Martin Luther, when he was wondering about whether he is saved or not, would loudly say (after he had thrown Satan with a bottle of ink) – “I thank God that I’ve been baptised!” But what exactly does this say? That he knows that the baptism has rendered him born-again? That the baptism insures his salvation? That he has an eternal covenant with God through his baptism, and is thus a covenant child of God? All these possibilities grants the ritual salvation value, and that is not the case.
But then Martin Luther also said – “There is not enough proof in the Scriptures which would validate saying that the first Christians practiced the baptism of children. But it is clear that no one is allowed to with a good conscience reject the baptism of children as it has been the practice for so long.” (Quoted in Coetzee’s Die Hervormers en hul stiefbroers, p. 64.)
In a front page article of the daily newspaper Beeld the well-known Reformed theologian Prof Bouke Spoelstra made this statement – “The authority of the church has replaced the authority of the Scriptures. The church has become a sacrament, a form (akin to the brotherly kiss).” In contrast to the central Reformed principles, A Reformed church must constantly reform itself, and Scripture alone can interpret Scripture, the Protestant dogma has gotten stuck in rigidity and immobility. THIS IS THE DOOR WHICH IS BEING OPENED FOR THE SPIRIT OF RELIGIOSITY. Revelation is always unfolding, and a fellowship of believers must, in integrity, continually adapt their dogma. The rigidity of the dogmatic and liturgical Reformed documents has brought about a dead, formal tradition, and has placed all kinds of binding yokes on people to involve themselves in religious activities and to go through the religious motions, without ever experiencing the life-giving power of Christ.
For a church community Prof Spoelstra’s words are the final nail in the coffin as it implies that the basis of authority for the believer has shifted. The Scripture is now no longer the fully revealed norm and will of God; the authority of Scripture must often bow the knee before either tradition or established dogma or democratic opinions or contemporary cultural thought paradigms.
And if on top of this the use of the sacraments (like the baptism, for instance) has been degraded to a mere religion (despite how serious and heartfelt people feel about it), thus becoming little more than an (un)comfortable eventuality, it is true that the church fellowship is in crisis. If one considers all these elements it is as if you are reminded of the original reason the Reformers had to break away from the Roman Catholic church. Is the traditional church not again today in the same position as before the Reformation? Is it not true that the yoke of human teaching, the “commandments of men” (Tit 1:14) has displaced the authority of Christ? In his book Waarheen met die nuwe wyn? the ex-reverend Christo Nel gives his opinion on the matter – “Like the most church traditions worldwide, the Reformed tradition, with its 400 years of historical roots and struggles, has become a colossal, often immobile structure.” (p. 54).
In a comprehensive study, Die onchristelike ‘Christelike ban’, in which a report is made of Jan Vlok, a member of the Reformed Church, and his struggle to gain answers from the synod about conflicting statements in the three formulations about unity, the 1990-actuary of the General Synod, Dr. T.H.N. Sadler, in an official letter to the writer, makes the following statement – “The Dutch Reformed Church is in the end a confessional church, and when you chose to make a lasting promise before God you committed yourself to the confessional of the church, to retain your belief in it till the end of your life … you should also realise that an attempt to have the church move away from its core tenets as it has been developed over the years, is quite a ridiculous task.” (ps. 273).
With this the educated gentleman formulates the exact crisis of religion. Even good revelation, healthy spiritual concepts and true fellowship become, within a false religious system, shackles on your feet. In The Shack the character Jesus says to Mack: “(R)eligious machinery can chew up people! An awful lot of what is done in my name has nothing to do with me and is often, even unintentional, very contrary to my purposes … I don’t create institutions – never have, never will.”
Why then do some churches thrive, despite the fact that their foundational dogma is the direct opposite of the Word’s explicit teaching? I can’t articulate it more eloquently than the character Sarayu (as representative of the Holy Spirit), when she states in The Shack – “We carefully respect your choices, so we work within your systems even while we seek to free you from them.”
According to Bruxey Cavey in The End of Religion, the word religion has a Latin root, the word relegere, which has two possible meanings. Firstly – to read something over and over again, and secondly a combining of the words re (to return, or to repeat) and the word ligare (to fasten something). One would be able to read them together as a return to something important, but it could also means a return to bondage. The core of our argument up until now has been that if people are taught that they can be saved through their external acts (like the baptism of infants), and that they then become part of a church system (through catechesis and the confession of faith, for instance), and they equate the doctrines with being born again, there will be many believers who are bound by this. Through an inaccurate doctrine of election they are enslaved. They wouldn’t know, as The Message translates the passage in Joh 3:5 about being born-again, that there is something such as “the invisible moving the visible”. They will not be born from above – the literal translation in Greek of the concept being born again.
The Reformed understanding of the word election has NO link to salvation. What has been recorded in John 3:16 is undeniable – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Tit 2:11 makes it clear – “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” The Message translates it beautifully – “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone!” And John 1:12 – “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name “.
The verse always presented as evidence in the case of the Reformed perspective on election is John 15:16 – “You did not choose Me, but I chose you …” But these words are specifically addressed to his disciples (whom He had chosen). In John 6:70 it becomes clear – “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?’”.
Yahshua’s offer in John 6:37 is valid for all people – “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” In Acts 2:21 Peter proclaims – “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. With this statement the Protestants’ unconditional election is turned on its head.
Yes, there is an election, and in the next teaching we will get to the mystery of that, but it has nothing to do with salvation. Any church system which presents election as a precondition for salvation, does the same as the disciples who were trying to keep the children away from Jesus. And today He is still saying, “Let the children come to me … “
- Sela: Ponder the role that choice plays in the gospel of salvation.
- Read: 1 Chr 8-16
- Examine how this has been fulfilled: 1 Chr 16:33 (tip: Isa 61:3)
