The question has come in, what does it mean to be Reformed? . . . OK, so it means to be Calvinist, but then, what’s that? So, to kick things off and provide a logical place for discussion, here’s a brief summary, cribbed straight from our membership class at church.
Total depravity (Romans 3:9-11, 8:7-8)
- not “total corruption”—not that we’re as bad as we could possibly be, incapable of any good at all
- but that there is nothing we do which is untainted by sin—our motives and desires are never pure, always mixed
- also called “total inability”—in and of ourselves, we are not able to turn away from sin and toward God, because we are born in slavery to sin; left to our own devices, we would be without hope
Irresistible grace (John 6:43-44, Romans 9:14-18, Ephesians 2:1-10)
- therefore it is only by God’s grace that we are saved, through his gift of faith to us
- his grace breaks the shackles of sin on our lives
- the Spirit can make himself irresistible—if he so chooses, we cannot resist his work any more than the prisoner can resist the key that unlocks his chains
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therefore our salvation cannot depend on our own effort and initiative, because those are not and cannot be sufficient
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God chooses whom he will save
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we do not know and will never know on what basis; all we know is that it is his free gift
––his choice and his love have no conditions and no strings attached
Limited atonement (Mark 10:45, John 10:14-15, Romans 8:31-32, Ephesians 5:25-27)
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the death of Christ on the cross was immediately effective to save all those whom God chose (the elect)
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it was sufficient to save all, but only efficient to save the elect
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not made available for people to choose or not, but powerful in and of itself
Perseverance of the saints (Romans 8, Philippians 1:6, 1 John 2:1-6, Jude 24-25)
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therefore, since our salvation is God’s work in our lives, and since it is a work of transformation, it is not something we can undo
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we have been justified (our relationship with God has been restored—the penalty for our sin has been paid and his wrath at our sin has been satisfied), and we are being sanctified (made holy—we are being changed into the people God wants us to be, so that we live lives that are in accordance with his will)
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this means we are in process; we are saints, because we are in right relationship with God, but we are also sinners, because we’re still being changed
––Lutheran language: simul iustus et peccator, “at once justified and a sinner” -
the fact that we still sin doesn’t mean that we have fallen away from God, nor does it mean that we risk losing our salvation–it just means we aren’t perfected yet; our sin cannot be so big or awful that it undoes what God did
Note: the standard acronym for these five points (in slightly different order) is TULIP. It’s an effective mnemonic, especially since this particular summary of Calvinist doctrine was first developed in the Netherlands.Overarching theme: the sovereignty (lordship) of God
- it’s all about what God does
- this doesn’t mean it’s not about what we do; but it does mean that what we do is a response to what he has done, is doing and will do
- we don’t carry the responsibility on our shoulders, whether for our own salvation or anything else—he does
The Solas ended up meaning more to me than TULIP…
😉
No question. Those are principles which are broader than Calvinism, however, underlying the whole of the Reformation.
Rob – I’m going to go one question at a time.
The first thing that jumped out at me was this:
the fact that we still sin doesn’t mean that we have fallen away from God, nor does it mean that we risk losing our salvation–it just means we aren’t perfected yet; our sin cannot be so big or awful that it undoes what God did
But we are the ones turning away from God! When we sin we are putting up a wall between ourselves and God. What if someone commits a mortal sin? For instance murder or sexual abuse of a child? He has rejected God’s grace in his life. I’m not saying that God isn’t infinitely good or that he doesn’t forgive. In fact, He already forgave this person even at the time of the sin. However, unless this person asks for foregiveness with a truly repentent heart, the forgiveness is not complete. He is no longer in a state of grace. He cannot go to heaven with this sin on his soul.
Actually, it’s necessary to go a couple levels further down here. First, the category of “mortal sin” is a Catholic theological category which is not accepted by Protestants, since it makes sense in the context of the traditional Catholic hamartiology (theology of what sin is and how we understand its effects) and soteriology (theology of how salvation happens and what it means), but not outside that context.
The reason the comment you quote doesn’t make sense to you is that it’s based on a different set of assumptions about salvation, the nature of the atonement, and so on than those which underlie Catholic theology.
Now, that’s obviously just a beginning, but after church and a Session meeting (board of elders and governing body of the church), my brain is fried and I can’t think straight. More later.
Now, that’s obviously just a beginning, but after church and a Session meeting (board of elders and governing body of the church), my brain is fried and I can’t think straight. More later.
Is that the equivalent of “I have to wash my hair?” (wink, wink)
OK, so don’t call it mortal sin. Call it simply murder. Certainly this isn’t in the same class as taking the Lord’s name in vain or even cheating on your wife.
OK, so don’t call it mortal sin. Call it simply murder. Certainly this isn’t in the same class as taking the Lord’s name in vain or even cheating on your wife.
Although the Reformed position doesn’t believe in classifying any sins by degree, I find it curious that the distinction is being drawn here between Murder and two other sins that are explicitly laid out in the 10 Commandments.
Taking the Lord’s name in vain just oen time in your entire life is enough to earn a one-way ticket to hell. Same with cheating on one’s spouse. The eternal punishment for murder? Exactly the same.
The distinction between degrees of sin, whether we use the terms “Mortal” and “Venial” or not is simply not consistent with Scripture. Sure, some things seem worse to us as humans than other things do, but the Bible says that God hates all sin without distinction.
To your basic point about our putting up a wall between ourselves and God, all I can say is that yes, we do that all the time, but God doesn’t remain rapped behind that wall. In fact, as soon as we erect it, He knocks it down if we are his children.
Under the Old Covenant, sinners had to constantly offer up sacrifices for their sins. In the New Covenant, Christ offered himself up once and for all time to cover the sins of God’s children. If we believe that we have to do something every time we sin in order to remain in or regain God’s grace, then we are saying that Christ’s sacrifice was not sufficient to cover our sins. That makes salvation mostly about us, and very little about Christ.
The bottom line is that if we are required to constantly offer up “sacrifices” for our sins, then the New Covenant really is no better than the Old, and that would mean that Christ’s death was in vain.
BTW, in that last comment:
“rapped”=”trapped”
Is that the equivalent of “I have to wash my hair?” (wink, wink)
No, it was straight up; I’ve had a rotten day, and I just couldn’t cudgel one more coherent thought out of my brain at that point. My thanks to the Calvinator for carrying on the discussion. 🙂
Anyway, a few points to add. First, on the issue of categorizing sins, yes, it does seem clear that some are worse than others (though since cheating on my wife would cause a murder–namely, mine–I wouldn’t put it in one of those lesser categories); but James 2:10 says, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (Ironically, he then goes on to juxtapose adultery and murder.) The law of God is a whole: if you break one part of it, no matter what, you stand in violation, utterly guilty.
Now, to take this a step further, you write, However, unless this person asks for forgiveness with a truly repentant heart, the forgiveness is not complete. If that were the case, none of us would ever be completely forgiven, because none of us is ever truly repentant enough. One of the keys to the Reformed understanding here is that our salvation cannot be about us measuring up to a standard, because we’re incapable of meeting any standard God would set. Rather, it must be about God and his grace and what Christ accomplished by his death and resurrection.
Which leads me to my next point, that in the Reformed understanding, our being in a state of grace does not rest on anything we have done or avoided doing, but on the action of God. We have been declared righteous by the Father because our sins–all of them–were nailed to the cross with Christ; our old selves were crucified with him, and we have been given his life. That’s what justification means.
Now, that’s obviously just a beginning. 🙂 Specifically, it’s the beginning of being changed into what we have been declared to be: people holy to and righteous before God. That process–sanctification–comes with many false starts and setbacks, and times that we rebel against God to one degree or another. But what God has done, he completes.
Sorry, had to get a screaming baby back to sleep. Having broken my train of thought, though, I think I’ll leave it there for the moment and give you a chance to react, Maripat.