Continuation of Atonement (Chapter 39 Central Theme of Atonement, Erickson)

1.                   The penal-substitutionary theory of atonement is the central theme of atonement that runs through the Bible.    According to our author “we may understand the atonement to involve sacrifice, propitiation, substitution, and reconciliation in the relationship of God to humanity,” which is best describe by that particular theory.
 

2.                   According to McKim, the penal-substitutionary theory is “a view of atonement that stresses Christ’s death as a perfect payment for the penalty of human sin that is accepted by God, whose wrath and judgment are satisfied by this work of Christ, the sinner’s substitute” (page 205, McKim).  Let’s look at some scriptures that deal with atonement and see what we can glean. 

3.                   Old Testament— We must start with the Old Testament in order to get the background behind the New Testament understanding of atonement.   According to Erickson, the Hebrew word used for atonement in various situations is “kaphar.”  It literally means “to cover” (page 822).

4.                    In most instances “to cover” meant to hide or cover up that which is offensive.  So the covering of the transgression meant that the penalty no longer had to be exacted from the transgressor (sinner). 

5.                   According to Erickson, the primary reason behind the sacrifice was objective, in other words effecting or appeasing God in some way.

6.                   In Job 42:7-9, the Lord instructed Job’s friends to bring a sacrifice to Job so that God “would not deal with them according to their foolishness.”  The sacrifices and the prayers of Job were enough to substitute for the sin and the sinners.  It (the sacrifices) bore the sinner’s guilt. 

7.                   According to Erickson (page 832, see quote for discussion), “for the sacrifice to be effective, there had to be some connection, some point of commonality, between the victim and the sinner for whom it was offered.”  In Job’s case, who is the victim, Job or God? Is God the victim?  What is the commonality (animal life? Human life? Or just life in general?  In Jesus’ case is the commonality the perfect humanity that our Savior represents?)?

8.                   Another factor is the perfect nature or the unblemished and spotless nature of the intended sacrifice.  Also the one whom atonement was intended for must be present in order to transfer the guilt from the sinner to the sacrifice.  Leviticus 1:3-4 “…he is to offer a male without defect.  He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the Lord.  He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. “

9.                   Old Testament prophecy is seen connecting Christ with this sacrificial system.  The most prominent being Isaiah 53 which states: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (vs. 6).   Our sins are transferred to the suffering servant, just as sins were transferred from sinners to animals. 

10.               New Testament- Look at Erickson page 823 for his scripture references on the Gospels. 

11.               Paul’s writings, see Erickson page 826.  In addition, page 827-828 has discussion on propitiation and expiation.

Lecture 22 - March 23, 2010          (downloadable/printable notes)

Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

1.                  The Holy Spirit is not systematically described in the Scripture.  Where things are not plainly stated or stated in such a way that there can be little doubt as to their meaning, disagreements and controversy will bound.

2.                  This has been the case in Christianity and is still the case in modern Christendom.  Disagreement and controversies abound about the person and work of the Holy Spirit.  In fact it (Is the Holy Spirit an “it” or a He or she?) has been so controversial in many denominations and churches that many have simply chosen to ignore the Third Hypostases.  Why is this doctrine so difficult?  Perhaps one reason is that of the three hypostases, the Holy Spirit seems to be hidden and less explicit than the Father and the Son (until Pentecost at least).  In fact according to Erickson (page 863), a large part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit seems to be to declare and glorify the Son (John 16:14) and the Father. 

3.                  Another reason is the lack of imagery that comes with trying to conceptualize the Third Hypostases.   As Erickson says, God the Father is understood by His Fatherly image (page 863).  (Maybe even to the extent that it is completely misunderstood by describing God as “the man upstairs.”) The Son is not difficult to conceptualize, for He actually appeared in human form.  In fact, I like to look at art that depicts a visualization of what Jesus might have looked like.  It really reveals more about us than it does about Jesus.

4.                  The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is referred to by the old King James Version of the Bible as being “the Holy Ghost.”  The imagery of a ghost or even that of a spirit presents its own problems in conceptualization.

5.                  This lack of attention has almost put the Holy Spirit in the same position the Son was during the Arian controversy which taught that Christ was subordinate to the Father.  Hence the Holy Spirit was and still is seen by some folks as being inferior to the Father and Son, and not as worthy of being worshiped.  Consequently according to Erickson (page 864), the doctrine of the Holy Spirit may be the most controversial doctrines of the Bible during last part of the 20^th century.  I personally think that the doctrine of Holy Scripture has been the most controversial in the Southern Baptist Convention.

6.                  However it is very important that Christians correctly understand this doctrine because He does provide contact between the believer and God.  So as we study it would be good for us to be aware of why we need to understand the person and the work of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, as we study systematic theology in general we need to be aware of the nature and purpose of our Trinitarian faith.  Why do we need to speak of God as being the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?

7.                  Turn to Erickson page 862 for our authors understanding of the importance of this doctrine.  He points out three reasons.  Look at all three.

8.                  As you no doubt have realized, I do believe that the study of theology starts not only in the Bible, but also in history (Erickson page 864).  So let’s look at its history as given in Erickson and then move on to understanding of the doctrine in Scripture. 

9.                  (See pages 864-868 till second paragraph then proceed with notes)

10.              One of the more important ideas about the Holy Spirit did come out of the medieval times.  In the original Nicene Creed there is an article about the Holy Spirit.  The original confession in 381 says: “The Spirit proceeds from the Father” later on in the early Middle Ages the creed was revised to say “The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.”  According to Phillip Cary, the little phrase “and the Son” got added almost by happenstance (vol. 2, page 39).  Some churches like it but sooner or later it was accepted by the majority of churches in the West, but the Eastern churches refused to accept it.  Cary says that in many ways this was the straw that broke the camel’s back in the continuing rift between the Western and Eastern Churches.  The East maintained that the West had no right to change anything about the creed without an ecumenical council.  

11.              This is known as “double procession” meaning that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.  The modes of origination are the only way that we tell the difference between one hypostases and another in the Trinity.  “The Son is begotten from the Father, the Father is not begotten from the Son,” and that what matter the Father different from the Son.  The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.  That’s what makes the Spirit and the Father different because the Father does not proceed from the Spirit.  The Son is begotten but the Spirit proceeds, that is the only difference between the two.

12.              The Eastern Orthodox churches say that proceeding from the Father is a little like there being three torches, one torch lighting the second and the second torch lighting a third. 

13.              However, the way most Westerns talk about it, it sounds like there is more than one source of being in the Trinity.  Both East and West want to say that “the Father is the source and origin of the whole divinity.”  However, the Eastern churches say we are making two sources of being in the Trinity—the Father and the Son.

Lecture 23 - March 30, 2010     (downloadable/printable notes)

Holy Spirit (continued)

1.                  What difference does it make? (whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son) Well, for one thing Augustine argued that the Scripture maintained that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.  (Can we support that claim?  See NIV Thematic Reference Bible page 1453) If so, if the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and Son, it makes sense that He proceeds from both the Father and the Son.

2.                  Another factor in the medieval churches defending Augustine and “double procession” is that the Father gives all things to the Son, including his divine essence, and his attributes.  In fact, this goes all the way to Athanasius in the 3^rd and 4^th century who says that the only thing the Father does not give the Son is being the Father. 

3.                  So one of the things that the Father gives the Son is the capacity to be a source of the Holy Spirit.  

The Father and the Son act as one source or principle in bringing forth the Holy Spirit. 

4.                  Augustine also liked the doctrine of double procession because he thought of the Holy Spirit as something like the person of love of the Trinity.  God is love and the Son is love, but the Holy Spirit is the hypostasized love of the Trinity.  Augustine will picture the Holy Spirit as the love that binds the Father and Son together because for him at least love is a binding force.  The Holy Spirit is the bond of Love in and out of the Trinity. 

5.                  Paul says this in Romans 5:5 “The love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us, is a love that comes from the Holy Spirit who is in person the Love of God.”  The Love, which is God, sheds love in our hearts. 

6.                  Another thing that Augustine talked about is the human soul as an image of the Trinity, or trace of the Trinity.  The human soul, according to Augustine (Cary vol. 2, page 43), is tripartite.  The soul has memory, understanding, and love.  The Father is like memory, the Son is like intellect (the Logos), so the Son is like the understanding or intelligence of God and the Spirit is the love of God.   The human soul involves intellect and love, and the understanding of love, and it is grounded in memory.

7.                  Begin in Erickson, bottom of page 868 and finish out the history of the Doctrine of Holy Spirit

8.                  The Deity of the Holy Spirit (see Erickson page 873-875)

9.                  The Personality of the Holy Spirit (Erickson page 875-879)

In Erickson on page 878, he says “The Holy Spirit engages in moral actions and ministries that can be performed only by a person.”   He believes that Romans 8: 26 expresses this conviction by saying: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” –as Erickson says: “Surely, Paul has a person in view.” 

10.              Gordon Fee, in his book “Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God,” echoes what Erickson says by concluding that the Spirit is most frequently spoken in terms of agency—that is, the Spirit is the agent of God’s activity.  And while this doesn’t necessarily always presume personhood, it does often seem to find personal expression in Paul’s writings.   For example, conversion is by the work of the Holy Spirit in 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Romans 15:16.  The joy of the people of God is an expression of the presence of the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:6, Romans 15:13).   Revelation comes through the Spirit and Paul’s preaching is accompanied by the power of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10; 1 Thessalonians 1:5).  Believers are to love by the Spirit (Colossians 1:8), be sealed by the Spirit (Ephesians 1:13), and walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5: 16, 25).  According to Fee, the point is that Paul talks of the Spirit in ways that parallels what he says of Christ whose agency can only be seen as personal (page 26).

11.              Another is that Paul’s writings in particular are filled with a large number of verbs that demand a personal agent to carry out the action of the verbs.  Such as the Spirit searches all things (1 Corinthians 2: 10), knows the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:11), teaches the content of the gospel to believers (1 Corinthians 2:13), cries out from within our hearts (Galatians 4:6), leads us in the ways of God (Galatians 5:18), helps us in our weaknesses (Romans 8:26), intercedes on our behalf (Romans 8:26-27). Note: we have both the Spirit and the Son [Hebrews 4:14-16; Romans 8:43] interceding for us. We are blessed.), and last but certainly least, all inclusive the Spirit is grieved by our sinfulness (Ephesians 4:30).

 The Work of the Holy Spirit

12.              During the last time we met, I said that “the Spirit is where the rubber meets the road in a Christian’s life.”  He is where the divinity and humanity come in contact with one another.   He is the point of continuing spiritual warfare and continuing spiritual transformation in our lives. 

13.              Gordon Fee says “the Spirit is the essential player in the believers experiencing and living out the salvation that God has brought about in Christ; the Spirit both forms the church into God’s new (eschatological) people and conforms them into Christ’s image through his fruit in their lives; and the Spirit gifts them in worship to edify and encourage one another in their ongoing life in the world.”

14.              To unpack this description of the work of the Holy Spirit, let’s to Erickson page 880.

15.              The work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (page 881).

16.              The work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life (page 885).

17.              The work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life (page 888).

1.                  The Holy Spirit and the future! (See Gordon Fee page 50).   The first Christians believed that the fulfillment of God’s Old Testament covenant promises began with the work of Christ and their experience of the Holy Spirit (page 50).    In their view, they were already living in the beginning of the end times. In fact according to their hopes and expectations, the end was very near (turn to 1 Corinthians 15: 51-53).  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10: 11 “we are those upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”  On another occasion, he tells them Christ’s death and resurrection have already passed sentence on the present age or worldly point of view (2 Corinthians 5:14-16), which according to him is “passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:31) and all things are becoming new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Refer to the Fee’s diagram of the end of ages, page 50.

2.                  According to Fee, in Paul’s pre-Christian understanding, the resurrection of the dead and the gift of the Holy Spirit were the two primary events that marked the end of the ages.   In other words in Paul’s Jewish roots held that the final event on God’s calendar of events was the resurrection of the dead which, because of Jesus’ resurrection (the First fruit), we are now in the end of times waiting the final and full resurrection.   For Paul the resurrection has already started with Christ being raised from the dead, thus initiating the doom of death (1 Corinthians 15: 54-55) and thereby guaranteeing our resurrection.

3.                  According to Romans 6:4-5; 8:10-11, we have already been “raised with Christ” which guarantees our future bodily resurrection.  According to Fee, Paul points out that we can be certain that our bodies, though destined for death, will be given life, precisely because of the Spirit who dwells in us (Romans 8:11).  Paul also says in Romans 8:9 that “…anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”  You might say that there is no such thing as Christian conversion that does not have the coming of the Spirit into the believer’s life as the critical ingredient (Fee, page 95). The Spirit guarantees our future in Christ and also our bodily resurrection.

4.                  In addition, the Spirit is the crowning evidence that God’s end-time promises are being fulfilled. Consequently we are not under the law, but under the Spirit.  In addition, our ethical life does not consist of rules to live by, but a Holy Spirit to guide us.  The new covenant is now lived in and by the Spirit, including our means and outcome of worship, one relationship to God, and everyday life itself.  The outcome of our lives should be immensely better because the Holy Spirit is our helper and our guide toward righteousness.  Fee says that holiness “means the Holy Spirit living in believers, reproducing the life of Christ within and among them, particularly in the communal relationships” (page, 109).

5.                  For Paul, the Spirit also means the empowering presence of God in the midst of bodily weakness—in a body obviously in the process of decay.  Thus in 2 Corinthians 5:5, Paul affirms that the presence of the Spirit means that those “decaying bodies” have been stamped with eternity; they are destined for resurrection and hence transformation into the likeness of Christ’s now glorified body (page 58, Fee).

6.                  Fruit of the Spirit—Galatians 5:22-23.  According Fee (page 113), Paul’s view of life in Christ is so thoroughly dominated by the Spirit that the Spirit is the one absolutely essential ingredient for that life.  A good case in point is Paul’s fruit of the Spirit. 

7.                  If you’ll notice, the first fruit that Paul gives is love.  You could say that there is just one fruit of the Spirit—love, and that everything that follows is one of the attributes of love.  Since love covers a multitude of sins, love covers a multitude of the fruits that a believer is supposed to have in their life.   See Fee page 114 for additional observations about the list of fruit.

8.                    (1) Spiritual fruit is a byproduct of the believers walk in the Spirit.  We walk by the Spirit (Gal 5:16) as we are let by the Spirit (Galatians 5:18).

9.                  (2) The essential nature of the fruit is the reproduction of the life of Christ in the believer.  The Spirit is in fact the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of the Father which is the personification of love in the believer’s life.  This love is the love of the Father and the life of Christ lived out in us through the Spirit.  Such a love does generate certain attributes which are in keeping with what we believe are characteristics of love.

10.              (3) The characteristics of love are not just nine-fold.  The list is not meant to be exhaustive but simply representative of the Galatians spiritual needs in reflecting the life of Christ.

11.              (4) Therefore every aspect of the Christian life, across the broadest possible spectrum, is the work of the Spirit.

12.              (5) This fruit is not intended to become a new set of laws to regulate Christian behavior.  Christian ethics are the product of walking and living in the Spirit, therefore there can be no law (Galatians 5:23).  Rather, they are pointers to show us what someone conformed to the image of Christ and the love of God might look like.  Rules and regulations would destroy our individuality as persons turning us all into clones, but the Spirit seeks to mold us into the image of Christ while seeking to maintain our individuality.

13.              (6) According to Fee (page 115 #6) most of these items have to do, not with the internal life of the individual believer but, with the corporate life of the community.  The Spirit bears fruit in our individual lives for the purpose of being toward one another the way God is toward us.  According to Fee, the opening command, “walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), is directed not so much toward the individual in terms of his or her own personal life in Christ, but toward the Christian community, in which some are “biting and devouring” one another, hence using their freedom in Christ as an “occasion for the flesh” (page 115). Yet I don’t understand how you can separate ones individual life from one cooperate life unless you are talking about the law instead of the Spirit.   In civil law, I can hate you all I want just so I don’t harm you or your property.  But under the Spirit, I must not only treat you in a loving manner but I must try to be genuine and sincere in my love toward you.

14.              The trying and succeeding and the trying and failing are representative of the ongoing warfare between the Spirit and the Flesh (Fee page 126). Perhaps this struggle is best described by Paul in Romans when he writes “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (7:15).  In Galatians 5: 17 Paul also speaks of the sinful nature being in conflict with the Spirit, and visa versa: “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” Read from Fee, page 126-128 (yellow underline), entertain the question that Fee seems to be raising, is this Galatians and Romans verses a copout to leading a victorious spiritual life?

15.              What Paul means by flesh is different than what most casual readers might think.  “Flesh” for him denotes humanity not simply in its creatureliness vis-à-vis God, but in its fallen creatureliness as utterly hostile to God in every imaginable way (Fee page 129).  He describes the present age in terms of human fallenness, where each has turned to his or her own way; the other (the way of the Spirit) describes the eschatological age that has dawned with the coming of Christ and the Spirit. 

16.              Flesh describes the existence of persons from the perspective of those who do not know Christ, who thus live as God’s enemies, not Christians struggling with inner conflicts between what is right and wrong.  According to Fee, this describes beliefs only before they came to be in Christ and live by the Spirit. 

17.              Hence in contrasting “flesh” and “Spirit,” Fee believes that it always bears this eschatological sense, in which we who are Christians are under the Spirit living according to the Spirit, rather than under the law and living according to the flesh (page 130).

18.              The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Spirit have changed everything. (see Easter’s sermon, 2010 “A Guarantee of What’s to Come”).

19.              Gifts of the Spirit- 1 Corinthian 12 read and discuss.

Doctrine of Salvation

1.                  The term salvation is all too familiar for those associated with the church.  Evangelicals are especially fond of the concept of salvation and frequently ask people if they are “saved?”  To which many people either answer too quickly “yes” as if they think that being religious and going to church qualifies them as being saved, or they look at us with a blank expression as if they don’t know anything about the concept of salvation.

2.                  Yet even in Christian circles, there are widely differing concepts of what salvation means.  Ericson says, on page 902, that “salvation is the application of the work of Christ to the lives of humans.”  If so, let’s look at how different groups have seen salvation (Turn to page 902).

3.                  The Time Dimension- I like to think of salvation being a past, present, and future action.  To which, I believe that salvation and sanctification are an ongoing processes.  However, some Protestants (reform tradition, evangelicals in general) see salvation as something more punctilios in nature.  Others, like Lutherans, might see salvation in terms of a life-long process, and yet others might see salvation as merely the state you are in when you die.  If you die while you are in your mortal sins then you can go to hell.  Roman Catholics believe (if I am not incorrect) that there are Christians in hell, because they’ve died without confessing their mortal sins.

4.                  Another question according to Erickson deals with the nature and focus of need that must be dealt with in salvation.  In other words, traditionally the human need that salvation rectifies is vertical—meaning separation from God.  More recently, salvation is seen in terms of being horizontal or correcting the human problem.  I personally believe that true salvation is supposed to make a difference in both ways. (Draw a wagon wheel on the board to illustrate that concept)

5.                  Salvation can also be seen as contrasting internal character or external behavior.  In other words, is salvation a matter of right beliefs (internal attitudes) or right practices (how you live your life)?  I believe it is both.  Faith without works is dead. Yet is some amount of works necessary for salvation to be complete?

For the following see Erickson 904 and following.                                                                            

6.                  Direction of Movement in Salvation

7.                  Extent of Salvation

8.                  Objects of Salvation

9.                  Current Conceptions of Salvation

              Antecedent to Salvation: Predestination

              (Chapter 44, page 920 in Erickson)

10.              It seems I am making statements like this often in our study of systematic theology but I am echoing Erickson when he says: “Of all the doctrines of the Christian faith, certainly one of the most puzzling and least understood is the doctrine of predestination” (page 921).  Before we go any further, let’s look at Romans 8:28-35.  What is the context of this scripture?  I don’t believe Paul is meaning to develop our doctrine of predestination out of this scripture.  He is interested in the security of the believer in Christ?  After God has elected us and if God is for us then who can be against us (vs. 31).   But after 2000 years of thinking about and debating Paul’s words, we’ve opened a Pandora’s Box called “doctrine of predestination.” What is predestination?

11.              According to Erickson, “predestination is God’s choice of persons for eternal life or eternal death” (page 920).  He also differentiates between “foreordination” and “election,” in which foreordination is God’s will with respect to all matters that occur while predestination just refers to God’s choice concerning salvation.  “Election” is the positive side of predestination, while “reprobation” according to Calvin is the damned or the negative side of predestination.

12.              The person that usually gets credit or the blame for the doctrine of predestination is John Calvin.  However, the doctrine goes back to our friend Augustine and the battle he had with Pelagius (see Erickson, page 924; McKim, page 205).

13.              There are two major elements to the doctrine of predestination.  One is the extent of the sovereignty of God and how much freedom of will is allowed by God.  Two, for many people in the Augustinian and especially the Calvinist camp, the real issue was the security of the believer.  

14.              Augustine would send young mothers rushing to the baptismal pool for their new born infants to be baptized.  Reason being, they did not want their babies dying and going to hell so they hurried to be baptized.  After all, they believed in Augustine’s doctrine of original sin—meaning that each child was born with Adam’s sin. Is the age of accountability in the Bible? Maybe that is the reason and the beginnings of infant baptism in the Roman Catholic Church.  

15.              During Calvin’s day and time, Christian people struggled with security of the believer; how do you know that you are saved?  Election of the believer and damnation of the reprobate all done under the sovereign rule of God.  God is in total control, nothing is outside of His divine will and wisdom.  He has decided who is going to be saved and who is going to hell before you and I were born.

16.              But to which some might be thinking, this is terribly unfair because some are doomed to hell before they ever sin.  Augustine would answer that question by saying no it is not unfair because all people are sinners because of original sin—Adam’s sin.  Every one of us in this mass of humanity is guilty, all God is doing is choosing to rescue some but not others.  He is merciful to whom he wants to be merciful to. Turn to Romans 9:15-16. So He chooses some for salvation and he lets others be damned.  It is God always choosing to give grace to some and not to other. Salvation is ultimately up to God’s choice for whatever reason or reasons He chooses.

17.               So if you are one of the elect, destined before the beginning of the world, then you don’t have to be worried about being lost because God is not going to un-elect you.

18.              However, there is no predestination to damnation in Augustine.  God does not determine that some people shall be damned.  They’re damned, not because of God’s choice, bit because of their choice; because of their sin.  However, where is the choice if you believe as Augustine did in original sin?

19.              Calvin, on the other hand, does believe in double predestination.  He believes that God doesn’t just allow these sinners to go their merry way to hell; but he ordains that they will go their way to hell. 

20.              So, some would say God doesn’t ordain it, He just permits it.  But Calvin would counter that by saying that giving permission is just another way of saying that He ordains it.  God ordains certain bad things to happen by permitting them because if He didn’t permit them, they wouldn’t happen.   So to Calvin there is no real difference between permitting and ordaining.  There is no difference between allowing someone to be damned and ordaining them to be damned. If you had the power to stop me from killing someone, and you didn’t do it then wouldn’t you share some responsibility in that death?  The difference then between Catholics and Calvinists is Catholics don’t do the double predestination.

21.              Let’s talk a moment about eternal decrees.  Calvinists believe that God decrees or ordains that everything will happen as it happens, both good and evil. 

22.              So does God ordain evil? Yes, He decrees that there is going to be evil.   We might think that ordaining evil or decreeing evil means that God is the source of evil, but not so.  Calvinists would never say that God is a source of evil.  To a Calvinist as to us, human beings, our free will (to however much that might be) is the source of evil.  So if God permits something bad, he ordains it but that doesn’t necessarily clear me of what I’ve done wrong.  The whole issue is about the sovereignty of God.  How much is God in control?  As Christians we want to say that God is completely and utterly in control, especially in the area of God’s providential care, but we also want to believe in human freedom.  How is it all reconciled?  In the area of freedom and salvation, is there such thing as irresistible grace?  I believe that grace goes out to all—but if we believe in soul freedom, that grace must be resistible at some point.

23.              Another interesting puzzle concerns the issue of how God is going about achieving His goals in history?  God’s overarching goal is His own glory according to Calvinists and really most Christians. True? 

24.              So you might say that the first thing God ordains is His glory.   Second thing that God decrees is the creation.  He decrees that He will create the world in order to glorify Himself, and then He will govern it providentially to His own glory (Cary, volume 2, page 137 of The History of Christian Theology).

25.              In Calvinist thinking, “God glorifies himself by creating the world, governing it providentially, allowing the fall, and then ordaining that some will be saved and not others.   If so then you are according to Cary and Erickson an infralapsarian—meaning that the decree of the predestination comes after the fall in the logical order of things (infra means lower than—lapse means fall).

26.              The alternative is supralapsarianism (see handout).  The bottom line is – the reason why God decrees that Adam would sin and fall is so that He may glorify Himself by rescuing some and not others.  The Fall happens because God wants to glorify Himself by saving some and damning others.  Why does God allow Adam to sin? So He may glorify Him by allowing some to go to Hell, and saving others to go to Heaven.

27.              To really be a Calvinist, or indeed an Augustinian, is to be content to accept the claim that it’s ultimately up to God who gets saved and who gets damned.

28.              Look at five points of Calvinism—the TULIP (see handout #60 and Cary page 139-140).