T.U.L.I.P for dummies
Dec 21, 2013 10:56:00 GMT
Post by Colossians on Dec 21, 2013 10:56:00 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
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T.U.L.I.P FOR DUMMIES
The acronym and mnemonic “TULIP” is associated with the famous synod of Dordtrecht in Holland, which was a pivotal meeting for the churches which are generally referred to as “Reformed”, which (latter) term (in turn) relates to the protestant reformers such as Luther and Calvin.
It is a convenient tool for summing up the beliefs of Calvinism, which are essentially five-fold.
Total Depravity
As a relative term
For the modern person a totally depraved person is one who haunts dark alleys and smells to high heaven while he waits to assault his next victim, saliva dripping constantly from his mouth. A real ‘Jack the Ripper’.
So it is not natural for the modern person to consider that this term might be applicable to the most respectable philanthropists in society.
Let’s suppose that goodness can be measured in units, and given that God is infinitely good, let’s therefore agree that God has an infinite number of goodness units to His credit.
Now, let’s suppose that there exists an incredibly ‘good’ man in our society, so good in fact that he has 957,060,664,334,888,003,343,112 goodness units to his credit. Does that make a dent on God’s level? No rather, any amount of goodness, no matter how large, is still relatively zero compared to God’s level of goodness.
So the term "Total Depravity" is primarily a relative term.
As an absolute term
One who is born again is one who is under the authority of God. This means, ideally, that if God directs him to go to deepest darkest Africa to preach or just to hang upside down on a tree in the Congo for the rest of his life, he will do so just because of what Jesus has done for him.
So ideally, the believer’s desires are the desires of God: God is his Head.
When the believer is in sync with the desires of his Head, this is because his Head is at those times working effectually in him. This is called “the New Man”.
When the believer is not in sync with the desires of his Head, this is because God has decided to not be active at that time in the believer. This is called “the old man”.
The reason God is sometimes active in the believer and sometimes not, is because there are in fact 2 aspects of grace, and both are required - though not concurrently - in the life of the believer.
The two aspects of grace are:
1. That which consists in forgiveness. This aspect is current when God is not working actively in the believer. We might refer to this aspect as “imputed righteousness”.
2. That which consists in gratefulness for having been forgiven and therefore that which manifests as Godly activity (the activity of the New Man). We might refer to this aspect as “imparted righteousness”.
So imputed righteousness (aspect 1) gives birth to imparted righteousness (aspect 2): imputed righteousness is the foundation, and imparted righteousness the building on top.
And so the old man is not only present in the non-believer, but in the believer as well: in the believer he exists from time to time, but in the non-believer always.
The point here is that unless God is actively working in a person’s life, what is left has no desire to please God. In the case of the believer this is intermittent, with the activities of the old man being ignored by God at judgement as per 1 Cor 3:11-16. In the case of the non-believer it is perpetual and so cannot be ignored, for there is never any New Man within him who might represent him on that great day of judgement.
So the old man is totally depraved in that he never wants to do what God wants. And this is irrespective of whether he is the old man in the believer, or the necessarily-only man in the non-believer.
However by convention when the Calvinist refers to one who is totally depraved, he is referring to the non-believer only.
So as well as being a relative term (we have explained this earlier), it is also an absolute term.
With regard to evangelism then, the implication of Total Depravity is that no man will ever come to Christ unless Christ is first of all joined to him. Which seems to present a chicken-and-egg conundrum: how do you get to be joined to Christ, if you will never want to be joined to Christ?
For the answer to this, see our work: “The causal sequence of our salvation”.
It is fortuitous that the word “Tulip” actually exists independently, so that the relative mnemonic should be able to begin with “T”. For Total Depravity is in fact the very foundation of Calvinism, echoing the following from Jesus Christ:
“there is none good but one, that is, God” Mk 10:18.
Unconditional Election
This doctrine teaches that God elects certain people to come to Him, and that He does so based on no merit on their own (no goodness on their part) whatsoever.
This doctrine is derived as follows:
1. Man is totally depraved and therefore will never want God.
2. Some men actually come to God.
3. Therefore God is solely responsible for (2).
This is the general Calvinist position, and so far as it concerns what is observed, and so far as it concerns the time realm, and so far as it concerns only what it states, it is correct: some people are elected to salvation and some are therefore not.
There is however a necessary qualification for those who might be tempted to think that such selectivity on God’s part, particularly given that He doesn’t choose people based on any merit of their own (the election is unconditional), is therefore necessarily arbitrary. For those interested in that expanded issue, they might like to refer to our thread: “The one error in the expression of Calvinism”.
Limited Atonement
This doctrine is also known as “Particular Atonement”. It can also be referred to as “Targeted Atonement”.
The doctrine is essentially a derived doctrine, according to the following logic:
1. Not everyone will be saved.
2. Given that man doesn’t naturally want to come to God (He is totally depraved), everyone who will eventually be saved will of necessity be saved by God’s supernatural intervention in their life.
3. God saves only via the atonement provided by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
4. Therefore, it is derived that the atonement is in hindsight understood to have been directed only toward those who end up coming to Christ. (However see our work: "Christ our sacrifice, not our substitute", for the more comprehensive picture.)
Irresistible Grace
We have alluded to this aspect in our closing paragraphs under Total Depravity above. This doctrine is also a derived doctrine, according to the following logic:
1. Man is totally depraved.
2. Some men end up being saved.
3. Therefore the only possible explanation for the change from (1) to (2) can be that the mercy of God toward them was irresistible; for if it were not irresistible, there were no good reason why one’s being totally depraved would not maintain its initial hold.
The doctrine is also derived from experience: we who know the Lord know that the grace which now so overwhelms us by way of His indwelling presence, is one and the same as the grace which saved us in the first place. That is, in our own personal experience there is no demarcation line between our being overwhelmed by His love at the first, and our being overwhelmed by His love now.
This leads us naturally to the 5th tenet of Calvinism.
Perseverance of the saints
This doctrine, along with the New Testament, uses the term “saints” to refer to born again Christians.
The doctrine teaches that all those who are born again, will without exception continue to hold to the faith to the end of their life on earth.
The doctrine is also (and necessarily) derived, for despite our outward observances, there can be no indisputable proof that anyone has ever held the faith right up to the very last moment of his life: it is theoretically possible that even one fed to the lions for his faith might have, in the last micro-second of his consciousness, turned against God.
The derivation is two-fold, the first part being in line with conventionally-expressed Calvinism, the second in line with what we shall call “Statal Calvinism” which subsumes general Calvinism and which concerns itself primarily with the timeless realm.
1. One who is born cannot be unborn. Therefore the New Testament would not contain terms such as “born again” and “born of the Spirit” if such were reversible.
2. Because being born again is that which joins one to the Spirit of Christ, and because Christ’s structure is eternal and unchanging, it is necessarily the case that those who come to Christ in the realm of time will be those who are necessarily in Christ outside of time
The doctrine is also experientially derived: if in one’s own personal experience it is simply not possible to turn against the Lord, then given that there is no good reason to suppose that one’s own personal experience is fundamentally superior to the experience of any other brother in Christ, it is necessarily derived that all who are truly born again will persevere in Christ to the end of their life.
Amen.
_____________________
T.U.L.I.P FOR DUMMIES
The acronym and mnemonic “TULIP” is associated with the famous synod of Dordtrecht in Holland, which was a pivotal meeting for the churches which are generally referred to as “Reformed”, which (latter) term (in turn) relates to the protestant reformers such as Luther and Calvin.
It is a convenient tool for summing up the beliefs of Calvinism, which are essentially five-fold.
Total Depravity
As a relative term
For the modern person a totally depraved person is one who haunts dark alleys and smells to high heaven while he waits to assault his next victim, saliva dripping constantly from his mouth. A real ‘Jack the Ripper’.
So it is not natural for the modern person to consider that this term might be applicable to the most respectable philanthropists in society.
Let’s suppose that goodness can be measured in units, and given that God is infinitely good, let’s therefore agree that God has an infinite number of goodness units to His credit.
Now, let’s suppose that there exists an incredibly ‘good’ man in our society, so good in fact that he has 957,060,664,334,888,003,343,112 goodness units to his credit. Does that make a dent on God’s level? No rather, any amount of goodness, no matter how large, is still relatively zero compared to God’s level of goodness.
So the term "Total Depravity" is primarily a relative term.
As an absolute term
One who is born again is one who is under the authority of God. This means, ideally, that if God directs him to go to deepest darkest Africa to preach or just to hang upside down on a tree in the Congo for the rest of his life, he will do so just because of what Jesus has done for him.
So ideally, the believer’s desires are the desires of God: God is his Head.
When the believer is in sync with the desires of his Head, this is because his Head is at those times working effectually in him. This is called “the New Man”.
When the believer is not in sync with the desires of his Head, this is because God has decided to not be active at that time in the believer. This is called “the old man”.
The reason God is sometimes active in the believer and sometimes not, is because there are in fact 2 aspects of grace, and both are required - though not concurrently - in the life of the believer.
The two aspects of grace are:
1. That which consists in forgiveness. This aspect is current when God is not working actively in the believer. We might refer to this aspect as “imputed righteousness”.
2. That which consists in gratefulness for having been forgiven and therefore that which manifests as Godly activity (the activity of the New Man). We might refer to this aspect as “imparted righteousness”.
So imputed righteousness (aspect 1) gives birth to imparted righteousness (aspect 2): imputed righteousness is the foundation, and imparted righteousness the building on top.
And so the old man is not only present in the non-believer, but in the believer as well: in the believer he exists from time to time, but in the non-believer always.
The point here is that unless God is actively working in a person’s life, what is left has no desire to please God. In the case of the believer this is intermittent, with the activities of the old man being ignored by God at judgement as per 1 Cor 3:11-16. In the case of the non-believer it is perpetual and so cannot be ignored, for there is never any New Man within him who might represent him on that great day of judgement.
So the old man is totally depraved in that he never wants to do what God wants. And this is irrespective of whether he is the old man in the believer, or the necessarily-only man in the non-believer.
However by convention when the Calvinist refers to one who is totally depraved, he is referring to the non-believer only.
So as well as being a relative term (we have explained this earlier), it is also an absolute term.
With regard to evangelism then, the implication of Total Depravity is that no man will ever come to Christ unless Christ is first of all joined to him. Which seems to present a chicken-and-egg conundrum: how do you get to be joined to Christ, if you will never want to be joined to Christ?
For the answer to this, see our work: “The causal sequence of our salvation”.
It is fortuitous that the word “Tulip” actually exists independently, so that the relative mnemonic should be able to begin with “T”. For Total Depravity is in fact the very foundation of Calvinism, echoing the following from Jesus Christ:
“there is none good but one, that is, God” Mk 10:18.
Unconditional Election
This doctrine teaches that God elects certain people to come to Him, and that He does so based on no merit on their own (no goodness on their part) whatsoever.
This doctrine is derived as follows:
1. Man is totally depraved and therefore will never want God.
2. Some men actually come to God.
3. Therefore God is solely responsible for (2).
This is the general Calvinist position, and so far as it concerns what is observed, and so far as it concerns the time realm, and so far as it concerns only what it states, it is correct: some people are elected to salvation and some are therefore not.
There is however a necessary qualification for those who might be tempted to think that such selectivity on God’s part, particularly given that He doesn’t choose people based on any merit of their own (the election is unconditional), is therefore necessarily arbitrary. For those interested in that expanded issue, they might like to refer to our thread: “The one error in the expression of Calvinism”.
Limited Atonement
This doctrine is also known as “Particular Atonement”. It can also be referred to as “Targeted Atonement”.
The doctrine is essentially a derived doctrine, according to the following logic:
1. Not everyone will be saved.
2. Given that man doesn’t naturally want to come to God (He is totally depraved), everyone who will eventually be saved will of necessity be saved by God’s supernatural intervention in their life.
3. God saves only via the atonement provided by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
4. Therefore, it is derived that the atonement is in hindsight understood to have been directed only toward those who end up coming to Christ. (However see our work: "Christ our sacrifice, not our substitute", for the more comprehensive picture.)
Irresistible Grace
We have alluded to this aspect in our closing paragraphs under Total Depravity above. This doctrine is also a derived doctrine, according to the following logic:
1. Man is totally depraved.
2. Some men end up being saved.
3. Therefore the only possible explanation for the change from (1) to (2) can be that the mercy of God toward them was irresistible; for if it were not irresistible, there were no good reason why one’s being totally depraved would not maintain its initial hold.
The doctrine is also derived from experience: we who know the Lord know that the grace which now so overwhelms us by way of His indwelling presence, is one and the same as the grace which saved us in the first place. That is, in our own personal experience there is no demarcation line between our being overwhelmed by His love at the first, and our being overwhelmed by His love now.
This leads us naturally to the 5th tenet of Calvinism.
Perseverance of the saints
This doctrine, along with the New Testament, uses the term “saints” to refer to born again Christians.
The doctrine teaches that all those who are born again, will without exception continue to hold to the faith to the end of their life on earth.
The doctrine is also (and necessarily) derived, for despite our outward observances, there can be no indisputable proof that anyone has ever held the faith right up to the very last moment of his life: it is theoretically possible that even one fed to the lions for his faith might have, in the last micro-second of his consciousness, turned against God.
The derivation is two-fold, the first part being in line with conventionally-expressed Calvinism, the second in line with what we shall call “Statal Calvinism” which subsumes general Calvinism and which concerns itself primarily with the timeless realm.
1. One who is born cannot be unborn. Therefore the New Testament would not contain terms such as “born again” and “born of the Spirit” if such were reversible.
2. Because being born again is that which joins one to the Spirit of Christ, and because Christ’s structure is eternal and unchanging, it is necessarily the case that those who come to Christ in the realm of time will be those who are necessarily in Christ outside of time
The doctrine is also experientially derived: if in one’s own personal experience it is simply not possible to turn against the Lord, then given that there is no good reason to suppose that one’s own personal experience is fundamentally superior to the experience of any other brother in Christ, it is necessarily derived that all who are truly born again will persevere in Christ to the end of their life.
Amen.