God Does Not Woo Sinners—“If We Don’t Love Him Back, then Christ’s Love Amounts to Nothing?”

Since nobody much talks about elect and non-elect, the truth that Christ died for His sheep cannot be understood as denying that Christ died also for goats. So the Arminians tell us.  But what about the Neo-Calvinists who will not talk about election when they are talking about Christ’s death and love?

When they will only say, “if you put your trust in Him,” and will not spell out the antithesis between sheep for whom Christ died and goats for whom Christ did not die, they doubletalk about God’s love. On the one hand, everyone listening to them is regarded as one of the “us” who Christ loves. On the other hand, listeners are being warned that Christ’s love depends on them “putting their trust in”.

At issue here is not only the extent of Christ’s love but the nature of Christ’s love. If Christ’s love is often unrequited, then even His love for those who love Him back is of a very different nature than the biblical love which never lets go of  those God gave His Son.

It does no good to say that God took the initiative, or even that God loved the unlovely. In our own relationships, one of us often takes the first step. But if the other person does not respond , it amounts to nothing.

Think about that. I say it quite seriously. If Christ’s love is an initiative which depends on our response, then Christ’s love amounts to nothing. Galatians 2:20 does not say that the Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you. Nor does the text give clergy the authority to extrapolate that God loves you and gave Himself for you. Rather, the next verse says “if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” If Christ’s love depends on you keeping the law to put your trust in Him, then Christ’s love amounts to nothing and His death was for no purpose.

God loves the unlovely. In our relationships, we love (and try to woo) the lovely. We become lovely to those who are lovely to us. In the same way, the false gospel depends on our becoming more lovely. If we don’t become lovely enough to at least put our trust in the love of the false Christ of the false gospel, then that love fails. What good is a love for the unlovely which depends on them becoming lovely at some point? A love which CAN amount to nothing always DOES amount to nothing.

I say this first because we are unlovely sinners who cannot respond to initiatives. If we think we can do one lovely thing to respond, then we presume that God is wooing us. We think God is appealing to the part of us which God finds lovely. So then, no matter what we say, we don’t really believe that God loves the unlovely. We can’t believe it.

Second, I say that a love which CAN fail amounts to a meaningless nothing, because such a love disregards the cross and the death by which Christ paid for the sins of the elect alone.  Neo-Calvinists think of election and definite redemption as two different things, because they think of love and propitiation for the elect as two different things.

Not so the Scripture! John 10 does not say that the good Shepherd loves the goats so that they can become sheep if they respond. John 10:12 says that “he who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” Notice the antithesis. The good shepherd does not act like the hired man. The hired man’s love amounts to nothing.

How do we know the Shepherd loves the sheep? “I lay down my life for the sheep.” Does this mean that the Shepherd dies as a representative of the sheep along with the sheep? No. The Shepherd is not only the leader, not only the first to die. The Shepherd dies as a substitute for the sheep. Because the Shepherd dies, the sheep do not die. So John 10 does not separate Christ’s love and Christ’s death. Christ loves those for whom He dies. Christ dies for those He loves.

So what’s my point? Did Christ love and die for everybody? No, He did not. John 10 makes this clear and simple. It does not say, “If you put your trust in and believe.” John 10:26, “But you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice.” It’s not, if you put your trust in me, then you will become my sheep. Ok, Ok, the Neo-Calvinists reason, we also believe in election. We too know that John 10:29 tells how “My Father has given them to me”. We just don’t happen to talk about that when we are talking about Christ’s loving and dying.

 

Profaning the Blood of Christ

Those who teach that Christ died for everyone are profaning the blood of Christ. But these false teachers cannot change either the justice or the sovereign effectiveness of the cross, for even their false teaching has been ordained by the same God who designed the glorious death of Christ.

It does not follow that we who believe the true gospel have no purpose or need to refute the false teaching. Our prayer is that we ourselves have been predestined to expose any and all attempts to make Christ’s death common.

Christ’s death is not common for every sinner, because Christ’s death does not have the common ordinary effect of making a salvation conditioned on what sinners do with grace.

Christ’s death is not only about sovereignty but also about justice, because Christ’s death is about not only punishment but also about imputed guilt.

Christ’s death has the uncommon result of entitling every elect person to all the benefits of salvation. Elect sinners might be somewhat wary of any talk of being entitled to anything, since we know that we are still always sinning, but it is simply boasting in Christ.

if we think that our sinning somehow makes us any less entitled to all salvation blessings, then we will also falsely come to think that our not sinning will bring us extra rewards. If our sinning or not sinning comes into the equation, then what Christ did is not enough.

Did You have to Hear it From a Five Pointer?

I do not need to know who is and is not non-elect to tell the truth that Christ did not die for those who reject the gospel.. I do not need to know who is elect to shout the glad tidings that all the elect will hear the voice of the Shepherd instead of the voices of Arminians.

I know what it’s like to look to myself and to be too proud to come. What will people say after all these years of me being a Calvinist if I confess that I was lost? I am such a sinner, and have so many regrets, and have been on so many “fads”, what will it look like if I say that I was lost all those years?

I know the temptation of all that. And also I know the great great joy of one day saying: I don’t care. I will flush all the crap. I will rejoice in what God says about saved and lost. I will go by what God says. I repented of all other gospels. I plead with you to do the same.

You say that “these people” say that all who don’t believe the five points are lost.

But what I really say is that “I was a five pointer and I was lost.”

You say, “these people” say that all who didn’t hear the gospel from a preacher who believe the five points are lost.

I am not saying the five points are the gospel. You can believe every one of the five points and still die the second death. Many say that Christ only died for some who still say that the reason the some are saved is not the cross but what God does in them.

So the next time you want to have an open discussion, by saying what the other side would have said if you had invited them to say it, make sure that you say the discussion is about the “righteousness” of the cross.

It’s not only about tolerating Arminians; it’s about the sin of conditioning salvation on the sinner. There are many folks who believe every one of the five points who still do not know the gospel, and that is why they do not feel the least bit of ashamed of having conditioned salvation on the sinner. They CONTINUE to condition salvation on what God does in the sinner.

Are you ashamed of ever conditioning salvation on the sinner. Or are you, like the elder brother, one who still claims never to have sinned in that way?

You accuse: “they say” that the preacher you heard when you got saved had to be a five pointer. No, the preacher had to preach that righteousness of effective atonement. He had to preach that. You can deny every one of the five Arminian points and still be trying to establish your own righteousness, still ignorant of the righteousness of God.

I am glad that you are at least talking about the preacher and about what you heard when you profess to have been “effectually called”. I agree that both regeneration and the gospel are needed when a man is converted. Understanding the gospel is necessary. But we do not agree about the gospel, and about who God is, if you say that God saves a man whichever gospel he believes.

Now you could count numbers (they are on your side) and say: if they believe your gospel, then they are lost, because your gospel adds to grace the condition of understanding the gospel. But understanding is necessary result, not a condition.

Maybe you are saying that what you believe and what the Arminian believes is really still the same gospel anyway. And that may be more true than you think! If you really do think that God saves people while still leaving them think that salvation is conditioned on them, then your God is very much like the God of the Arminian.

Simply Leaning on Your Leaning

Our children are confused today because many people use the name “Jesus” to describe their hope, but they do not describe the same person. Jesus Christ in the Bible is described as a Savior of an elect people who He calls out. But our children can easily be confused by those who say that Jesus also died ineffectively for other sinners who are not the sheep.

Is it sufficient for our children to have implicit faith? Can they say: I don’t know who this Jesus is or what He did, but I trust Him, whoever He is and whatever He did. Can they be saved through trusting Jesus even they don’t know which Jesus? Is it converting faith for them to say that they agree with whatever their parents say about Jesus? Is it converting faith for them to say that they accept as true what Jesus says, even though they do not yet know what Jesus says?

I will do whatever you say to do to be saved. If you say work, I will work. If you say, make a decision, I will make a decision. The reason that people encourage this kind of implicit faith is that their faith is still in faith: Instead of leaning on a wall or something solid, they are leaning on their leaning.

Instead of saying that Jesus died only for some and that this makes all the difference, they try to say INSTEAD that Jesus died for all “who believe in Him” and thus make the believing much more important than whatever it is that Jesus did. After all, Jesus may or may not have done all that He did for everybody, we can’t say, we won’t say, so therefore we think we can trust Jesus and be agnostic about what He did or didn’t do. This is because we think our faith is ultimately more important than the object of our faith. So our faith can have different objects, or no defined doctrinal object at all, and still we think our faith makes all the difference.

Faith in faith not only avoids the offense of agreeing with Jesus about election. Faith in faith is a denial of election. It says that not election but faith is what matters. And to try to prove this, we are reminded that nobody knows if they are elect before they have faith. But faith in the gospel is not faith in one’s own election. Faith in the gospel agrees first that Christ died as a substitute for the elect, and then faith in Christ agrees to trust for oneself this specific Christ and this specific way of salvation. Faith in the gospel agrees to exclude faith itself as the cause of salvation. Faith in the gospel agrees that faith itself is caused by what Christ did.

I Cor 15: If Christ is not raised, your faith is vain. It doesn’t matter how much faith you may have, if it is not objectively true that Jesus rose again. Your faith does not make Jesus rise from the dead. Nor does your lack of faith prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead. What Jesus did is done, regardless of your faith.

Romans 4:25 explains that Jesus was raised because of our justification. The justification of the elect is objective, even before the elect have faith. The non-justification of the reprobate is objective, no matter which counterfeit Jesus the reprobate have faith in. Reprobation is not conditioned on unbelief, because reprobation is God’s decision not to give faith.

But what if our children tell us: we just believe on Jesus, and we are neutral on this question if Jesus died for everybody or only for the elect? We must say there is only one Jesus, and we have no permission to believe in counterfeits. A Jesus who did not die only for the elect and who did not die for everybody, is a lot like Santa Claus: such a Jesus does not exist.

There are many complicated things about Jesus that we do not understand, but one thing we can understand is that it is his death which saves. We understand that this means that everybody for whom Jesus died  will be saved. We understand that this means that everybody Jesus didn’t die for won’t be saved. We can’t be neutral about Jesus dying only for some, because we can’t be neutral about Jesus being the one who really saves. Our faith does not save. We must put our faith in the real Jesus or be still lost in our sins.