Imperishable Inheritance

Gwen Robin­son pointed me toward a web­site called “Out­side the Camp.” The site is main­tained by a Hyper Calvin­ist, and read­ing this web­site reminds me of two things:

1. I see more clearly why Calvin­ism has such a neg­a­tive connotation.
2. That is not how I am to act or treat other mem­bers of the Body.

As I am try­ing to open Chris­tians to the dis­cus­sion of Sote­ri­ol­ogy I have learned that other Chris­tians do not want to be indoc­tri­nated, belit­tled, and the like. My expe­ri­ence in this thus far helps to resolve the posi­tion that shar­ing Mon­er­gism (Calvin­ism) should be an edi­fy­ing expe­ri­ence. Let’s look at some of the few excerpts from this website.

We are not aim­ing for wide dis­tri­b­u­tion; this newslet­ter is not for all who pro­fess to be Chris­tians. This newslet­ter is specif­i­cally for peo­ple who pro­fess to believe and pro­claim the Doc­trines of Grace. We hope to edify, stim­u­late, and chal­lenge those who are in these cir­cles to true, bib­li­cal Christianity.

We are find­ing more and more peo­ple who are in areas where there is no solid orga­nized church […] They may live in areas where there are one or more churches that pro­fess to believe the doc­trines of grace, but they have the integrity not to be a part of a church that pro­fesses to believe the doc­trines of grace but is com­pro­mis­ing with the world or with Armini­an­ism.¹

Under the arti­cle head­ing: “Are We To Fel­low­ship With Armini­ans?” He sar­cas­ti­cally includes Psalm 1:1, 25:4–5; Proverbs 13:20, 14:7.

He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the com­pan­ion of fools will suf­fer harm.
Proverbs 13:20

Now, I believe that Mon­er­gism is what the Bible pro­claims of God’s decree of elec­tion. I live and breath on God’s redemp­tive work in sal­va­tion, and I’m pre­pared to lay down my life for it; but I would never claims such as these. I would never abstain from fel­low­ship with an Armin­ian. It’s fun­da­men­tal­ism like this and KJV Only­ism that is destroy­ing Chris­tian­ity on another end. We have some destroy­ing Chris­tian­ity with the impar­ta­tion of a “worldly” view of life, and we have oth­ers that are attempt­ing to destroy oth­ers from the inside.

It should be noted that I am not an advo­cate for ecu­meni­cism, but I am also not an advo­cate for tear­ing down some­one to build myself up. If I really believed in Mon­er­gism that strongly, would I stay in my base­ment writ­ing slan­der­ing arti­cles against Armini­ans; or would I go out and try and share what God has revealed to me as truth is His word?

[A reader] states that believ­ers remain Armini­ans after con­ver­sion but are given the right­eous­ness of Christ as a shield and cloth­ing. This is a denial of the work of God in chang­ing a sinner’s heart (includ­ing the mind). One thing that is most def­i­nitely changed upon con­ver­sion is the person’s belief in the ground of sal­va­tion. He might be in error about many other things, but his new heart believes that Christ met all the con­di­tions for his sal­va­tion and that his sal­va­tion is in no way con­di­tioned on him. Using [this reader’s] rea­son­ing, it could be said that peo­ple could remain in the false gospels of Roman Catholi­cism, Mor­monism, Bud­dhism, or Islam (and even athe­ism) after con­ver­sion, as long as they are “given the right­eous­ness of Christ as their pro­tect­ing shield and cloth­ing,” even if they know noth­ing of the right­eous­ness of Christ being the only ground of sal­va­tion. Romans 10:1–3 opposes such think­ing.²

You know what read­ing this garbage makes me see? Myself. Is this how I’ve treated oth­ers? In his “Het­ero­doxy Hall of Shame” he slan­ders such great Calvin­is­tic schol­ars as Charles Spur­geon, A.A. Hodge, Loraine Boet­tner, and of course John Calvin. Let’s take a look at a quote by Spur­geon he labels as “het­ero­doxy” defined as: “a set of beliefs or opin­ions that are not in agree­ment with accepted doc­tri­nal beliefs of a church³.” (Note the title of the book that Spur­geon is quoted from.)

“A man may be evi­dently of God’s cho­sen fam­ily, and yet though elected, may not believe in the doc­trine of elec­tion. I hold that there are many sav­ingly called, who do not believe in effec­tual call­ing, and that there are a great many who per­se­vere to the end, who do not believe in the doc­trine of per­se­v­er­ence. We hope that the hearts of many are a great deal bet­ter than their heads. We do not set their fal­lac­ies down to any will­ful oppo­si­tion to the truth as it is in Jesus, but sim­ply to an error in their judg­ments, which we pray God to cor­rect. We hope that if they think us mis­taken too, they will rec­i­p­ro­cate the same Chris­t­ian cour­tesy; and when we meet around the cross, we hope that we shall ever feel that we are one in Christ Jesus.“
Charles Spur­geon, “Spur­geon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Bat­tle For Gospel Preaching”

If I have ever treated any­one in this man­ner, I am sorry. What a travesty.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.
1 John 3:14

Sug­gested read­ing: “The Dan­ger­ous Pur­suit of Reformed Theology”