• Four-Point Calvinism
• The New Testament Canon
• Free Will vs. Bondage of the Will
• Monergism vs. Synergism

Dear Brother _____,

If I am understanding your definitions correctly, you sound somewhat like a four-point Calvinist or an Amyraldian to me.  It appears that you are struggling with two questions---1)Does God love all men?  2) Did the Lord Jesus Christ die for all men?

In his book, _The Sovereignty of God_, A. W. Pink shows very clearly from the Bible that God cannot be said to actually love all men.  I do not believe that his arguments can be successfully refuted on this point. Please order and read his book for a complete presentation of this.

Is it logical to hold the position that the Lord Jesus Christ died for all men, but that repentance and faith are given only to some men?  If Christ died for all men, but God is only trying to save some men, this seems very irrational.  If Christ died for all men, then it must be that God loves all men, that He is trying to save all men, and that all men have a genuine opportunity to be saved.  If Christ died for all men when it was known that not all men would have a genuine opportunity to be saved, then Christ shed
some of His blood in vain.

The idea that Christ died for all men cannot really be harmonized with unconditional election (the idea that only certain people can be saved) or effectual calling (the idea that only certain people can repent and
believe).  Salvation is either particular all the way through or general all the way through.  It cannot be particular at some points and general at other points.  The work of God the Father in election is particular.  The work of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling is particular.  The work of the Son in making a truly substitutionary atonement must also be particular. The idea that Christ died for all men contradicts the Biblical doctrine of an exactly just, truly substitutionary atonement unless it teaches that all men will be saved (universalism).  In the end, we must believe in either universalism or particularism.  There is no middle ground.

God's love is particular, not universal.  Election is particular, not universal.  Christ's atonement is particular, not universal.  Effectual calling is particular, not universal.  Universalism seems almost always to be out of place in the study of Biblical theology.

May the Lord bless you!

John Kohler

The New Testament Canon

Dear Brother _____,

Baptists have no connection to the "Church Fathers," most of whom were apostate.  Our tie is to the "church grandfathers," i.e., the apostles that we read about in the New Testament.  Although Athanasius made a formal pronouncement about the Canon of Sacred Scripture in 350 A.D., the Canon had already been determined by that time among God's people in true New Testament assemblies.  The dimensions of the Old Testament Canon were spelled out by the Lord Jesus Christ and did not include the Apocrypha (Mat. 23:35; Lk. 24:27,44).  The dimensions of the New Testament Canon were settled by popular consensus among God's people in true New Testament congregations.  All of this was done in an informal way through the providence of God, not in a formal manner by an Ecclesiastical Council.  In the same way, New Testament assemblies believed in the doctrine of the Trinity long before the Council of Nicaea made a formal pronouncement about it in 325 A.D.

The churches of the Apostolic Era were Baptist churches in their beliefs and practices.  We need only to read the New Testament to see the truth of this. The Roman Catholic Church slowly evolved as apostate Baptists and other unbelievers joined forces in opposition to the Apostolic truth that had been deposited in New Testament churches.  Eventually, there were schisms in the Roman Catholic Church, which produced such apostate bodies as the Greek Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church, the English Catholic or Anglican Church, and the Protestant organizations.  If you have never read it, I would urge you to obtain a copy of John T. Christian's two-volume set on Baptist Church History and make good use of it.  It will give you a good understanding of how the confusion within Christendom got started and developed over the centuries.  Also, the little booklet _The Trail of Blood_ by J. M. Carroll is must reading and is available on the Internet.

I am glad to hear that you are standing on the King James Version of the Bible as God's Word for the English-speaking world.  It is the only translation based upon the manuscripts and texts preserved through the Dark Ages by God's people in true New Testament churches.  The center of action as far as God is concerned has always been in true New Testament (Baptist) churches, not in the Roman Catholic Whore or her harlot Protestant daughters.  These false religious organizations will eventually be destroyed by God during the reign of the Antichrist.

I hope this will be of some help to you.  If you would like to get your hands on more technical, detailed materials related to these issues, I will be more than happy to recommend some excellent resources.

Your friend in Christ,

John Kohler

P.S.  I would recommend that you not make any effort to fellowship with Roman Catholics or Protestants.  Most of them are lost and have nothing to offer you but false doctrine and confusion.  You would be far better off to fellowship only with those who hold to sound Apostolic doctrine.

Free Will vs. Bondage of the Will

Dear Brother _____,

There is at least one other key issue that we need to carefully consider. We need to ask ourselves, "Does unregenerate man have free will in the sense that he (even with God's help) can choose to do that which is good and right in God's sight, or is he such a slave to Satan and to his Adamic sin nature that he cannot choose the good until he is liberated by God through the spiritual resurrection of regeneration?"  In other words, is the unregenerate man's will free to cooperate with God, or is his will so bound in the state of unregeneracy that he is unable to cooperate with God?  I believe that the unregenerate man, even though he is commanded to choose the good, can only and will only choose the evil because of his depraved  state. When he is regenerated, God makes him willing and able to choose the good for the first time ever (Phil. 2:12).

The doctrine of man's free will has historically been championed by such heretics as Pelagius, Erasmus, Arminius, Wesley, Finney, Graham, Hyles, and the Roman Catholic Church. The doctrine of the bondage of the human will has been promoted by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Whitefield, Nettleton, Gill, Spurgeon, and historic Baptist preachers and churches.  Martin Luther said, "If any man doth ascribe any of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learned Jesus Christ aright."  After studying the Scriptures on this point, it has become obvious to me that the unregenerate man's will is in such bondage to Satan and to his own Adamic nature that he cannot cooperate with God to bring about his salvation.  He must first be quickened or regenerated if he is ever to choose to do that which is good and right in God's sight---it is good and right to repent and believe.

To believe and teach the doctrines promoted by your church, you must believe in the free will of the unregenerate man and in his ability to cooperate with God in bringing about good.  To be consistent, then, your church should hold to all five points of Arminianism.  If an unregenerate man has the free will to accept Christ, then surely a regenerate man has enough free will to turn away from Christ and be finally lost.  At least the Free Will Baptists are consistent in their Arminianism.

I have shared these thoughts just so we might think together about the many different facets involved in this large subject.  Please study what the Scriptures teach about how hopelessly bound the lost sinner's will really is (e.g., Eph. 2; II Tim. 2:26), and read also what Tom Ross brings out on this point in his chapter on Total Depravity.  Gaining a proper understanding of this subject is essential to understanding the doctrine of the total inability of man.  Remember, just because God commands man to do something
does not mean that man has the moral ability (free will) to do so.  We are commanded to love the Lord our God with every fiber of our being, but we are obviously not capable of doing so in this life.  Such commands seem to be designed to drive us to despair so that we might cast ourselves completely upon the mercy of Christ.  Luther said, "I ought, but I cannot."  We can identify with him in this sentiment.

Your friend in Christ,

John Kohler

 Monergism vs. Synergism

Dear Brother _____,

Thank you for your message.  I did not think you were ignoring my questions, as I know you are a busy man and that you are still studying these matters. You are not obligated to answer any of my questions, and I am not attempting to put any pressure on you.  I am only trying to help you as the Lord has helped me.  It is not my intention to speak against _____ Baptist Chuurch or its pastor either, but to look at the issues involved.

In your message, you said the following:  "I HATE the idea that man thinks he can do anything to 'earn' or 'merit' salvation."  I know this represents your true feelings because you have voiced this sentiment to me many, many times.  However, if a totally-depraved, spiritually-dead man, even with God's help, can understand and obey the gospel (i.e., repent and believe), then salvation is not all of grace and is not entirely of the Lord, but partly of man.  In other words, salvation is not a monergistic work, but a synergistic work.   True Arminian/Wesleyans teach that a depraved man can only repent and believe as God gives him the ability to do so; in other words, they are synergists also.  The Biblical teaching is that man is so depraved that he can and will do none of these things until he is quickened, regenerated, or given spiritual life.  The Biblical teaching that repentance and faith are gifts from God means much more than the idea that God gives us the ability to repent and believe---our faith is His faith given to us (Gal. 2:16,20)!

If a totally-depraved, spiritually-dead man must be converted (i.e., repent and believe) in order to be regenerated, then there is absolutely no hope for him; he will end up in the Lake of Fire without fail.  When you repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you did not do so in order to be regenerated or born again, but because God had in that instant already regenerated you as one of His elect people.  Repentance and faith are the effects of regeneration, not the cause of it (Jn. 1:12-13; 3:3; I
Jn. 5:1).  It is helpful to me to think of regeneration as a bullet and conversion (i.e., repentance and faith) as the hole produced by the bullet. They occur almost simultaneously, but regeneration must happen first.  There are many false professors who have "repented and believed" without regeneration first occurring, and they are lost and deceived.

You said your church teaches (and you believe, I take it) that only those who were elected in eternity past, given to Christ at that time, ordained to eternal life, and had their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life CAN be saved.  Does your church teach this, or that only such individuals WILL be saved in the end?  There is a big difference between the two statements.  If your church teaches that only such individuals CAN be saved, then how can it teach that repentance and faith are truly available to all men?

From studying your replies to my questions, I can see that what you are really struggling with is exactly what I struggled with for a long time---the Biblical teaching about the absolute sovereignty of God and the
total depravity and inability of man.  Your view of God is still not high enough, and your view of man is not low enough.  You believe that God is sovereign, but not absolutely sovereign, and you believe in the total depravity of man, but not in man's total inability.  You might protest at this point, as I always strongly protested this claim for many years, but it is true.  I do not say this to insult you or put you down in any way, because I have stood in your shoes and walked many miles in them.  God's script is carried out with fail in all things, and unregenerate man has no ability whatsoever (not even a God-aided ability) to intentionally cooperate with God, to please God, to seek after God, or to do anything good in God's
sight.  Our problem in understanding and accepting these things is that we are all Arminians by nature, and that we do not like what the Bible teaches about the absolute sovereignty of God and the total inability of man.

Please think about this also.  Faith is pleasing to God (Heb. 11:6).  Those who are in the flesh (i.e., the natural, unregenerate man) cannot please God (Rom. 8:7-8).  Hence, those who are in the flesh cannot exercise faith.  In order to understand and obey the gospel you must be able to receive spiritual truth.  The natural, unregenerate man cannot receive spiritual truth (I Cor. 2:14).  Hence, the natural, unregenerate man cannot understand or obey the gospel.  If repentance and faith are truly available to all men but only some men repent and believe, then those men (at least in part) make themselves to differ from other men.  The Bible says it is God, not man, who makes men to differ from other men (I Cor. 4:7).  There is no room at all for boasting when this is properly understood, but there would be at least a
little "wiggle room" for boasting under the other way of thinking.  Faith is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22).  Unregenerate man does not have the Holy Spirit.  Hence, unregenerate man cannot have faith.

It seems to me that your church must believe that God loves all men, that Christ died for all men, and that the Holy Spirit is trying (in some sense) to save all men.  To be consistent with its other teachings, it really must believe these things.  I no longer believe that God loves all men, though He is good and benevolent to all men in certain ways.  I no longer believe that Christ died as a substitute for all men; if He did so, then men would not be punished again for their sins and all would be saved.  Also, the distinction between provision and application is an unbiblical distinction; Christ died to certainly save the elect.  I no longer believe that the Holy Spirit is trying to save all men; if He is, then He fails far more often than He succeeds and appears to be weaker than man's stubborn will.

Please do not take what I have said here in a harmful way.  I love you as a brother in Christ and would like to see you come to a clearer understanding of these things so that you might make a clean break with the humanism of Arminianism.  I do not believe that your real struggle is with the atonement, but with what the Bible teaches about the true character God and man.  I realize now that the main thing that kept me from becoming a "Calvinist" was not difficult passages in the Bible, but my sinful, Adamic pride.  It was not an intellectual problem, but a heart problem.  Could it be the same with you, Brother _____?  At he very least, I would like for you to see the issues as clearly as possible before you would finally reject the Doctrines of Grace.  If you see them clearly, however, you will embrace them without delay.

Your friend in Christ,

John Kohler
 

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