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The doctrine of Calvinism is at the heart of the doctrine espoused by
adherents of a direct operation of the Spirit today. There are five
fundamental premises that make up Calvinism, each logically following
from the others. Usually the premises are arranged in the form of an
acrostic as a memory tool for those studying the discipline.
U - Unconditional Election L - Limited Atonement I - Irresistible Grace P - Perseverance of Salvation Total Hereditary Depravity (THD) refers to the belief that children are born with the stain of sin inherited from their fathers going all the way back to Adam. Without committing a single sin, this doctrine holds, a newborn baby is guilty of sin and deserves to be eternally punished by God unless somehow the grace of God is extended toward that child before it dies. (Calvinists believe that an infant might die and be saved, but only if God has chosen that child for salvation. Thus it is possible in the Calvinistic scheme of things for a sinner to be converted from its evil without faith in God.) Ezekiel clearly contradicts this doctrine in Ezekiel 18:20, which reads, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." Clearly sin is something one does (1 Jn. 3:4), not something one can inherit. THD also refers to the belief that man has a nature so corrupted by sin that it cannot be influenced sufficiently by God's revelation, so that if salvation is to be possible, a direct operation of the Spirit is necessary to enable or empower a man to overcome his sinful nature. According to the Calvinist this nature is so ingrained that the direct operation, while overcoming it, never removes it, and thus requiring a continual application of the direct operation throughout the life of a Christian. Adherents of the direct operation doctrine in the church generally reject that depravity is inherited, but they accept most of the rest of it. They don't believe that men are born with a sinful nature, but they do believe that man acquires a depraved nature that cannot sufficiently obey God's commands without supernatural help from the Spirit. They agree with the Calvinists that the Word of God is too weak to provide sufficient influence in their lives, and that the Spirit must directly enable or empower them to obey. They also agree with Calvinists, at least implicitly, that this direct operation of the Spirit is insufficient to remove the sinful nature in man, because they believe that such an operation must be continually applied in order to overcome the sinful nature's affect throughout the life of a Christian. A strange twist of the doctrine, however, among brethren is that while a direct operation of the Spirit is required for a Christian to obey God, it is not required of an alien sinner. The alien sinner (though supposedly tainted with the same sinful nature) must somehow find it in himself, without the Spirit's direct help, to understand the Bible sufficiently to know what to do, and to follow the instructions in the Bible through several difficult steps until he has completed all of God's conditions for his salvation. Only after that point is the Spirit's direct assistance necessary in his life. The other tenets of Calvinism, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of salvation, all logically follow from THD, but are generally rejected by adherents of a direct operation in the church. If a man is totally depraved, and unable to obey God, even with God's divine revelation helping him, then it logically follows that no man would be saved, without supernatural assistance from God. But, how to determine who receives that supernatural assistance? If man is not capable of obeying God, then he cannot choose for himself to obey God. This implies that if men are to be saved, God must choose for them. God must make an election or choice as to who will be saved, and who will be lost, because man's nature prevents men from making that choice for themselves. And since men cannot obey God without supernatural help, the election cannot be based on the man's obedience. Thus God makes the election, unconditionally according to Calvinism. That's the second letter in the acrostic: Unconditional Election (UE). Proponents of direct operation of the Spirit in the church do not accept this tenet of Calvinism, but they should. It is a logical premise given the doctrine of depravity. Neither do they accept the doctrine of Limited Atonement, which logically grows out of the previous tenet. The election by God of who should be saved and who should be lost was made, according to Calvinism, before the world began. According to the principle of economy God does not do things which are not necessary, so the atonement purchased at the cross, according to Calvinism, was limited. In other words Christ died only for those whom God chose for salvation. He did not die for those not chosen. Of course this implies something about the election as well, that is, the election to salvation was also limited. Given the need for unconditional election (as implied by THD) God could have made one of three choices:
The doctrine of Irresistible Grace (IG) follows from what has gone before, and has already been mentioned. It refers to the direct operation that is supposed to overcome the depravity in men and allow or enable them to obey God's will. That the grace is irresistible follows from the fact that the doctrine refers to the direct operation of an omnipotent being. No one and no thing can resist the direct application of God's power. To suggest otherwise is to impugn the omnipotence of God. Even the laws of nature, which are irresistible to man's attempts to change them, bend at the direct application of God's will. Thus the doctrine of IG follows from the doctrine of direct operation. Calvinists are not consistent, however, with the application of this doctrine. While they claim that the Spirit's assistance is irresistible, they do not believe that the Spirit's help is always successful. Men who are supposed to have IG still continue to sin against God, because they still have a sinful nature, and it sometimes wins out. This implies that, on occasion, the sinful nature of man is at least as powerful as the direct operation of God. Since the Spirit's power is infinite, the power of man's sinful nature must be more than infinite! Who can believe it? This must be the least consistent tenet of Calvin's theology, at least in its application. Logically Calvinism should teach that one so possessed by the Spirit should never sin (some Calvinists do teach this). But the obvious presence of sin in the lives of Calvin's adherents preclude most from taking this logical step. Calvinists certainly have a strange view of the meaning of "irresistible." While proponents of direct operation in the church do not necessarily ascribe to the doctrine of IG, the same logical inconsistency adheres to their views. They too affirm that the Spirit's power is applied directly in the lives of Christians, but believe that the Christian is able to resist the application of that power willingly, and sin. The implication of this is staggering. Mere human beings are capable of fighting the direct power of God and overcoming it! The truth is, however, that the Spirit can be resisted, not because man or his nature can overpower the Spirit, but because the Spirit's influence is exercised through a medium, the word of God. Stephen said, for example, again among his last words, that the Jewish leaders "always resist the Holy Ghost" (Acts 7:51). How did they do this? Did they overcome the direct application of the Spirit's power? No, of course not. Stephen explained that they resisted the Spirit by persecuting and killing the prophets which were sent to them (v. 52). The prophets were media of the Spirit. By attacking the media of the Spirit then, they were resisting the Spirit. The same thing can occur today when we attack the modern day medium of the Spirit, the word of God. Although it is powerful, living, and active (Heb. 4:12), it is not all powerful. It has the ability to influence men, but it cannot overpower men. Men must choose to obey it for it to have a positive affect in their lives. It is said that the word of God can prevent sin in the lives of men (Psa. 119:12), but only if it is first allowed into the heart (Lk. 8:15). A direct operation of the Spirit could not be resisted, and it is illogical even to contemplate otherwise (Isa. 43:13). The last tenet of Calvinism is the doctrine of Perseverance. This doctrine follows from the doctrine of IG and states that because man cannot resist God's grace, those who have received it cannot fall from grace. Of course there are many passages of scripture that refute this doctrine, but if the direct operation of the Spirit was truly the mode of operation for the Spirit's influence, it should not be possible for one to fall from grace, so the tenet is logical within the theology, but it is contradictory of plain passages of scripture. Proponents of direct operation in the church are inconsistent in this respect too. If the Spirit operates directly to empower men to obey God, then it should be impossible for men to be lost once they have that operation in their lives. Most "direct operation" brethren, however, reject that extreme and hold to the inconsistent view that the Spirit's direct operation can be resisted and thus result in a Christian falling from grace. Adherents in the church to the direct operation of the Spirit as a necessary condition for obeying God do not fully embrace the tenets of Calvinism, but they embrace enough of it to call their doctrine "Calvinistic." Brother E. R. Harper many years ago exposed the error in his book, "Harper on the Holy Spirit Issues in the Twentieth Century." He called the doctrine "Calvinism in Reverse," because where Calvinism logically puts the direct operation of the Spirit before salvation, these brethren put salvation before the direct operation of the Spirit. At least Calvin was consistent in saying that if one is unable to obey the Word, he would need help being saved; these brethren argue that the alien must be saved on his own, and then they receive the direct operation in order to obey. These misguided brethren say that denying the direct operation of the Spirit amounts to putting "hope in ourselves," but they say that is exactly what the alien sinner must do! Thus they imply that the alien sinner has to save himself from his sins, while the saved can put their hope in God! Logical these brethren ain't. MARK 16:16 |