For Calvinism

by Michael Scott Horton

Here we encounter the famous doctrine of Christian perfection, which holds that believers can be so completely filled with God’s love that they live above all known sin.

Included in this range of perspectives are the following conclusions (drawn by many, if not all, of the representatives cited): Salvation is by grace, but we must believe before we are regenerated. Faith is obedience and sanctification is included in justification. Although some Christians may remain “carnal”—that is, beset by spiritual and moral defeat—those who draw on the energy of the Spirit within them can enter into a higher level of sanctification and live above all known sin. From beginning to end, the Christian life is supported by grace but dependent ultimately at every stage on our activity. Human activity is not a response to God’s work as much as it is a cooperation with God’s work that actually determines the outcome of one’s salvation—at least the level of heaven that one occupies.

So there is no contradiction between God’s sovereign grace in salvation and the imperative of the Great commission.

So the doctrine of grace motivates mission by giving us confidence that our witness will have an impact that it otherwise could never have.

With the New Testament, advocates of particular redemption can cheerfully proclaim, “Christ died for sinners,” “Christ died for the world,” and “Christ’s death is sufficient for you,” acknowledging also with the Scriptures that the assurance, “Christ died for you,” is to be given only to professing believers. When we assure people that “Christ died for you,” we are telling them that they are redeemed, that their sins have been blotted out, and that they are no longer subject to God’s condemnation.

We do not believe so that we can be born again; we are born again so that we can believe.

Why, in that case, would we pray for the conversion of others?

nowhere are believers called to find the elect.

our mandate is to proclaim the gospel to every creature and call them to place their faith in Christ for the assurance of salvation.

No heart is so hard, no mind so closed, no rejection so stubborn that God’s sovereign love cannot melt, open, and embrace.

Christ’s death is “sufficient for all, efficient for the elect only.”

No one can say on the last day that he or she wanted to be saved by Christ but was not among the elect.

Even critics point out the intellectual rigor and curiosity of Reformed Christians.

while we are eager to remind our fellow Christians of the call to love God with our mind as well as our heart, sometimes we forget the heart.

“Getting it right” can become the end rather than a means to the greater end of trusting, praising, and obeying the God to whom these doctrines refer.

As we are knit more closely in covenantal bonds with Christ, a deeper communion of saints emerges, so that their fellowship transcends anything that could be duplicated in a natural society, family, or community.

I'm not sure I've ever experienced this.

What is lost is a sense that the regular gathering of the Lord’s people is chiefly his covenant service to us: a radical in-breaking of the powers of the age to come that shower us, individually and corporately, with the treasures of heaven in Jesus Christ and by his Spirit.

Zeal without knowledge is blind; knowledge without zeal is dead.

Why am I so eager to convince this brother or sister of a Reformed position?

At a time when shrill voices command the radio and TV airwaves, Christians should be especially concerned to listen and respond to people with respect.

the stakes are raised in any debate when one is convinced that a particular interpretation of Scripture is God-centered rather than human-centered;

Genuine humility allows people to doubt themselves even while they are confident in the truth.

If much of evangelicalism today surrenders important aspects of the message in the name of relevant mission, the opposite danger is to glory in the fullness of the message as a satisfactory compensation for neglecting the imperative of the Great commission.

Anything that is important will inevitably lead to debate. Only inconsequential matters can be ignored, pushed aside, and left on the shelf.

Sound doctrine is never an end in itself.