other final thoughts

i've been working on this version of the book for about a year, but i've been working/thinking/pondering/writing/assembling the ideas for about twenty-five years, and honestly i'm getting super nervous about finishing this. when it remained just a bunch of drafts, a bunch of thoughts, i couldn't fail. now that it's going to see the light of day, it will most likely fail, and by fail, i mean, no one will read it. or no one will like it or no one will appreciate it or no one will be blessed by God because of it. i've failed at so many things in my life. i just don't know how much more failure i can endure.

but i will finish this draft soon, and then i will edit it, and then i will put it on amazon and maybe spend a few dollars to advertise it. i am terrified.

final thoughts

the first part of the last chapter. still working on the next-to-last chapter.

Finally, we’ve reached the end of My First Theology Book (mine, unlikely yours). I despise bad theology and Arminianism holds the honor as the worst theology to ever gain a stranglehold within the Church for the longest time.

Free will sounds like solid theology. It leads to responsibility, and responsibility leads to morality, and that is the goal, right? God wants moral people. False. That is not God’s goal. Free will may logically lead to moral responsibility, but it does so at the expense of the sovereignty of God. Free will necessarily denies God’s sovereignty, and when I say “necessarily,” I mean to say that we can arrive at no other conclusion, biblically, logically, or truthfully. This is why the consistent Arminians explicitly tell us that God is not sovereign, because “he chooses not to be.”

If men have free will, then God is not sovereign, as sovereignty requires sovereignty over the will of men.

The two are incompatible. Arminian theology, with free will at the core, denies the deity of God. God reigns sovereignly and this is a necessary attribute of his deity. He is not God without it. If you say, “He chooses to not be sovereign,” then you are saying, “He chooses to cease being God.” You speak nonsense.

The only way God can possibly choose to allow men their free will, to step back and not control, guide, intend every thought, deed, or word of men, is if he believed that they are wiser, more loving, and more powerful than him. If God allows men their free will, he must believe that they can order the universe better, with more blessed outcomes, with more souls saved, with more glory to him, than if he ordered the universe himself. The other option is that God allows men their free will because he knows they cannot order an improved universe, guarantee more salvations, or greater honor to himself, and he allows this because he hates men and despises his own glory. This is the arrogance of Arminianism.

God does not seek moral people, or even primarily holy people. God desires, above and before all else, to glorify his name. Only this paradigm fits everything in scripture. How else can we explain the death of Christ? How else can we explain that God ordained, allowed, and desired the most immoral act in all of history?

perfect people

Sanctification

In sanctification, the believer “puts off the old self and puts on the new self” (Ephesians 4.22-24). God also works within our hearts to make us like Christ. To sanctify is to set apart or to make holy, and God sets us apart for his work when we believe in him, but over the course of our lives, we become more and more like Jesus. Paul tells the Philippians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you” (Philippians 2.12-13). Calvinist theologians believe that sanctification unfolds over the course of the believer’s entire life and that we finally reach complete sanctification at death.

John Wesley founded his Methodist denomination as a superior church within the Church of Christ. He believed God had revealed to him a doctrine that would lead his followers to “full salvation.”[1] In 1738, he says that “God then thrust [my brother and I] to raise up a holy people,”[2] as if the existing Church failed to live up to God’s expectations and he wanted to start anew with Wesleyan theology at the center. The distinguishing doctrine of this new “holy people” came to be known as entire sanctification. Entire sanctification teaches that the believer can achieve the sinless perfection of Christ in this life. As with the other doctrines of Arminianism, the bible does not teach this.

I do not contend with the desire for absolute holiness. God wants us to be holy, but to believe that any man can achieve the holiness of Christ while still residing in this Adam-inherited flesh blasphemes the character of Christ. This doctrine brings Christ down to our level and elevates men to his level. It creates delusion in the hearts of its adherents, keeping them from reaching any level of genuine maturity as it requires them to ignore their actual shortcomings in deference to a belief that condemns them if they admit to any measure of sin.

Entire Sanctification

We have already seen that Wesley confused the issue of sin to the point that he nearly declared it absent even in the heart of the unbeliever. Every man can trust in God and “no man living is entirely destitute of natural conscience,”[3] but while scripture teaches that natural conscience creates awareness of God and his requirements (Psalm 19; John 1.9; Romans 1.18-20), it does not create a desire to please or submit to God. Both John and Paul explicitly tell us that men continue to defy God despite the witness of conscience and Creation (John 1.10-11; Romans 1.21-23). This view of sin betrays Wesley’s minimal view of our inherited corruption. If a natural man who receives mere external influence can believe in Christ, then he was never truly dead in his sin. Sin never had power over him. Now we see that Wesley believes that God completely removes sin in the believer except for unintentional sins, while at the same time he believes that Christians commit what he calls “inward” but not “outward” sins.

Wesleyans believe that God removes the “sin principle” immediately after regeneration, which Arminians maintain occurs upon initial belief.[4] Wiley tells us that “the principle of sin which cleaves to the souls of the regenerate is removed by Christ’s purifying baptism.”[5] He describes this instantaneous event as holiness “perfected by the cleansing at a single stroke from inbred sin, [which] brings the soul to a constantly existing state of perfected holiness.”[6] God completely removes sin from our lives. He continues

The carnal mind as the underlying principle of sin with its inordinate affections and outreachings, which though existing are not allowed to express themselves in works, or actual sinning...Bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering (Colossians 3.12), all these excellencies of character are assumed at once.[7]

Wesley says that salvation delivers the believer from habitual sins, willful sins, sinful desires, and “sins by infirmities,” by which I assume he means sins that occur by insanity or some other kind of mental or physical illness.[8] “He that is, by faith, born of God sinneth not” in these ways, “and though he cannot say he hath not sinned, yet now he ‘sinneth not.’” If you sin in any of these ways, you are not saved. The Christian is only imperfect in knowledge. He may be complete in righteousness and holiness, but he does not know all, though he still must deal with temptation.[9] He may make mistakes from lack of knowledge but he does not sin. Lest anyone say that I have misinterpreted Wesley’s intentions, he continues, “All real Christians are made free from outward sin,” “He that commiteth sin is of the devil. Whosoever is born of God sinneth not,” and “If you would hence infer, that all Christians do and must commit sin as long as they live, this consequence we utterly deny.”[10]

The Catholic Church holds to a disturbingly similar doctrine. I have shown that Arminians believe that while our initial justification depends on faith, continuing in justification depends on works. The Catholic Church teaches that God infuses the believer with righteousness upon conversion, and that his justification depends on him working this infused righteousness out in his life. Grudem says that, “The result of this Roman Catholic view of justification is that people cannot be sure if they are in a ‘state of grace.’”[11] If salvation depends on the character of the believer, there can be no assurance, for none of us measure up to the grace that has been given us.

Elsewhere Wesley takes great pains to show that Christians do indeed sin. He quotes the articles of the denomination he founded, “Original sin is the corruption of the nature of every man...And this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated.”[12] He then clarifies his position to include only “outward” sin. The believer does not commit external sin. He says that internal sin includes “any sinful temper, passion, or affection; such as pride, self-will, love of the world, in any kind of degree; such as lust, anger, peevishness.”[13] These the true believer will commit.

The question [of whether or not a believer commits sin] is not concerning outward sin. We all agree and earnestly maintain, “He that committeth sin is of the devil.” We agree, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.”[14]

Wesley uses 1 Peter 4.1-2 to prove that we do not sin externally. Peter said

Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

We know Peter spoke of persecution (3.17), and he told believers that “if [they] should suffer for the sake of righteousness, [they] are blessed” (3.14). Wesley said “This ceasing from sin must denote the ceasing from the outward act, from any outward transgression of the law,”[15] but Wesley does not explain the conditional statement, “If you suffer persecution, you do not sin externally.” According to Wesley, Peter says we do not sin externally, but Peter adds a condition. Only Christians who suffer persecution have stopped sinning externally, but Wesley says that all Christians do not sin externally, ignoring the condition that Peter adds.

We also know that Peter did suffer persecution and afterwards fell into external sin. In Acts 4, Peter was arrested, and then in Acts 5, he was arrested and flogged (5.40), but in Galatians, Paul confronted Peter as he stops eating with the Gentiles, “fearing the party of the circumcision” (Galatians 2.12). Peter had fallen into legalism, afraid of his fellow Jews, and he refused to eat with the Gentiles who had become believers. If Peter was speaking of “outward” sin in 1 Peter 4, Paul would have immediately confronted him about his hypocrisy.

Besides all of this, scripture does not distinguish between internal and external sin, as if one receives greater punishment or condemnation than another, or we tend to one more than another. In Romans 7, Paul speaks of both his internal and external struggle against sin, but he does not say that one receives more condemnation than another or that he has victory over one more than the other. He says that the Law produced coveting in him (7.8), and he says, “I do the very thing I do not want to do,” but context describes primarily an internal struggle that leads to an external struggle.

For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.[16]

We struggle both internally and externally against sin, and Paul explicitly says that we “practice the very evil” that we do not wish to, suggesting external failure. We carry around every day “the body of this death” (7.24) and we cannot completely eradicate the presence of sin while confined in this body with our sinful nature. Wesley says that Christians do not commit sin and that everyone who does is of the devil, while simultaneously teaching that Christians commit only “outward” sins.

If John spoke so strongly, saying “He that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3.8), fully handing over all who commit only external sin over to Satan, how could he believe that those who commit only internal sin could ever belong to Christ? We see in scripture that sin fully infects the human heart, first internally, and then expressing itself outwardly.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick.
There are six things which the Lord hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that run rapidly to evil,
A false witness who utters lies,
And one who spreads strife among brothers.[17]

Sin in the heart deserves no less condemnation than sin that we commit with our words or actions, yet Wesley wants us to believe that only those who commit external sin belong to Satan. This is preposterous. John makes no distinction between internal and external sin, but he condemns those who live in continual sin, as the present-tense of the verbs indicate.[18] He condemns those who make no attempt to lay aside the old self and put on the new self.

Wiley attempts to establish this doctrine of sinless perfection on Wesley’s contradictory, nonsensical foundation. He says that holiness is the “New Testament standard of Christian experience.”[19] Holiness is the standard of all of scripture, from the beginning to the end. God commanded Adam to abstain from sin, then he commanded all of Israel to be holy (Leviticus 11.44). Did God completely remove sin from the Old Testament saints? Obviously not. Scripture does not teach that God has completely removed sin from us just because it teaches that God wants us to be holy. Wiley also says that scripture teaches a “second work of grace” which is a “cleansing at a single stroke from inbred sin, [bringing] the soul to a constantly existing state of perfected holiness.”[20] He uses a number of passages to support his position.

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity.[21]

These verses do not describe a “second work of grace,” however. Neither do they describe the “cleansing at a single stroke of inbred sin.” These verses command and exhort believers to pursue sanctification. They do not describe a unilateral work of God. We do not cleanse ourselves at a single stroke from internal sin. Only God can do this, and these passages do not describe this kind of act by God.

Wesleyan theologians contradict Wesley as well as themselves. While Wesley maintained that Christians sin internally but not externally, Wiley says that

Entire sanctification is that act of God, subsequent to regeneration, by which believers are made free from original sin, or depravity, and brought into a state of entire devotement [sic] to God, and the holy obedience of love made perfect. It is wrought by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and comprehends in one experience the cleansing of the heart from sin and the abiding, indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, empowering the believer for life and service. Entire sanctification is provided by the blood of Jesus, is wrought instantaneously faith, preceded by entire consecration; and to this work and state of grace the Holy Spirit bears witness.[22]

Wesley says that Christians do not commit external sin while Wiley says that Christians do not sin at all. Wiley quotes D. Shelby Corlett, who says, sanctification is “nothing more or less than the complete removal from the heart of that which is enmity to God.”[23] God does and does not completely remove sin from our heart, according to Wesleyan theology.

Notice how Wiley says that entire sanctification is preceded by “entire consecration.” He quotes Dr. John W. Goodwin who clarifies this and says that entire sanctification “is conditioned on full consecration.”[24] God requires that the believer consecrates himself entirely before he will sanctify him entirely. Elsewhere Wiley says that sanctify and consecrate are synonymous,[25] so now we see that in order to be sanctified, we must be sanctified. God sanctifies us entirely when we sanctify ourselves entirely. How can we sanctify ourselves completely before we are sanctified? How can we be completely holy before we are made holy? What is the point of God entirely sanctifying us if we have already completely sanctified ourselves? Besides being completely circular, this reeks again of a doctrine of works and man-glory.

Wesleyan theology cannot help the believer in the area of sanctification. It contradicts itself, reasons with inept circular logic, and completely misrepresents scripture. The Wesleyans try to take Wesley’s nonsense and create a theological system on it but inevitably fail because they have no biblical foundation. The Bible does not teach “entire sanctification.” God writes his Law on our hearts and gives us new life but he does not completely eradicate the “old man” within us. He leaves that for us to do by his grace.

Affliction

Every one of us struggle against sin every day. If we do not, we delude ourselves, for our sins—our pride, our selfishness, lust, anger, and laziness among many others—constantly reveal themselves in us, especially as we look to Christ. If we compare ourselves to others, we may at times compare poorly, at other times favorably, but when we look to Christ, we cannot but see the magnitude of sin which lies within us. To deny this is to deny reality. To say that we walk in “Christian perfection” by any measure or any imagination is to not only severely downplay the greatness of corruption in our hearts but also the holiness and righteousness of Christ our example. Sanctification requires time and struggle. The struggle itself is part of the process. Through awareness of our sin, we learn humility, discipline, and the magnificence of Christ’s excellence.

Of course God can easily and instantly remove all sin from our lives, but this God resembles the overprotective “helicopter parent,” constantly hovering overhead, removing every obstacle from before his children, never allowing them to learn from their mistakes, to pick themselves up, to struggle against their natural, selfish, lazy, proud tendencies. This kind of parent shields his children from the reality of their arrogance, always praising and never correcting, pretending that the child never offends, never does wrong, never needs any kind of difficult lesson. Consequently, this child never learns the reality of his inner weaknesses or the cruelty of the world around him, and never develops the strength or discipline to manage himself.

God has indeed given us a new nature but he allows the struggle against the old because it humbles us and teaches us. We could not appreciate holiness and righteousness if we instantly received it. We could not fully use it to his glory for we would not know what it cost us, what strength he has given us, what power and love he will continue to give us for any coming struggle we may face. In sanctification, we fight against the flesh and we gain so much more than if God had instantly made us holy and righteous. The child who receives everything he wants without effort does not become an honest, humble, loving, diligent adult, but remains a selfish, lazy, ungrateful, arrogant child.

There is so much scripture that connects difficulty to character. Job learns humility from the pain that he suffers. Initially Job asserts his righteousness in the face of his suffering (Job 6.22-24), but at the end God confronts him and sarcastically commands Job to instruct him, the Almighty on how to create and order the universe (Job 38-42). At the end Job submits and abandons his pleas to his self-righteousness and says to God, “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (42.2-3). Peter also learns the limits of his ability through failure. He promises that he will never deny Christ (Matthew 26.35), but within hours, he fails (Matthew 26.70). When Christ speaks to him again (John 21.15-17), he now knows the weakness of his flesh, unable to confirm unconditional, sacrificial love for Christ (agape), but only brotherly love (phileo).

Scripture teaches that God afflicts us in order to teach us his word and enable us to walk in it. The psalmist writes, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word,” and “In your faithfulness you have afflicted me” (Psalm 119.67, 75). Jeremiah writes of the Lord, “He has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away. He has broken my bones” (Lamentations 3.2,4). God did not afflict Jeremiah merely to cause him pain and watch him suffer. He desired Jeremiah’s humility, and he wanted Jeremiah to remind himself of his mercy in the presence of suffering.

This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth.[26]

God wants us to suffer because he wants us to grow in grace, in knowledge, and in dependence on him. We are sinful, self-centered, and arrogant creatures, and we need suffering to force us to seek God because otherwise we will not. This affliction, scripture calls “discipline,” and it is a privilege that we bear because we are God’s children.

You have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?[27]

True Perfection

God does command us to seek Christ’s perfection, but only fools believe that they have attained or can attain the infinite excellence of Jesus Christ. No other delusion deviates further from reality. In scripture, perfection carries the idea of completeness, rather than the absolute sinless glory of Christ. The Greek word conveys the idea of a goal to seek for, “the culminating point at which one stage ends and another begins...[It] is used equally of human adulthood and of fully grown plants.”[28] The word family that translates perfect and perfection can also be translated fulfillment, goal, end, mature, adult, or that which is “wholly in accord with God’s will.”[29] God wants us to be like Christ, but we will never measure up “to the stature which belongs to the fullness of Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 4.13) even after God glorifies us in heaven. God commands us to seek it, but the command does not guarantee the outcome, only his presence and glory as we trust him in the pursuit.

Wesley did not believe that sanctification is a gradual, lifelong process because he did not trust the Holy Spirit to guide, strengthen, and convict the believer through the process. If God does not remove our sin from us at our conversion, then we have an excuse to continue in sin. We still have sin within us, so how can God blame us for sinning? How can we fight sin if sin remains in us? All we can do is give in to it. He did not trust God in election, that God remains just even though he determines our eternal destiny. He did not trust God in justification, and instead insisted that the believer who receives the Holy Spirit and whose heart has been made alive still needs the fear of condemnation to compel him to holiness. He did not trust God in sanctification, that God’s Spirit lives within us, to convict us, to change us, to daily give us strength to pursue holiness even though our flesh battles against us and we carry this body of sin with us.

Wesley may have led many souls to Christ, but he failed to teach them to trust in Christ rather than in their own works and strength. In his system, God becomes either a constant source of condemnation or a blind cheerleader who ignores all sin. God convicts us of our sin and simultaneously strengthen us and encourages us to overcome it. If we believe we have been completely perfected yet we continue to sin while honestly appraising ourselves, we believe ourselves constantly condemned, believing that God has left us or that we never received him at all. If we believe that we have been completely perfected yet we sin and somehow pretend that we do not sin, we lie to ourselves, and as John said, “The truth is not in us” (1 John 1.8).

R.C. Sproul had no reservation against calling this doctrine heresy. He says, “The error of perfectionism is devastating to real Christian living.”[30] If a person has convinced himself that he does not sin, he has made a “radical adjustment downward of the requirements of God.”[31] This person also exaggerates his own ability to measure up to Christ. They bring God down and they raise themselves up, and this typifies the nature of Arminian theology. Sproul calls this “serious delusion.”[32] Charles Hodge emphasizes the “spirituality of the divine law and the immutability of its demands.”[33] The Law demands absolute perfection and it condemns any lack of conformity to Christ’s perfect example in any single thought, word or deed. Speaking about “the vain, foolish, and ignorant disputes of men about perfect keeping the commands of God, of perfection in this life,” Puritan John Owen said

The men of those abominations never knew what belonged to the keeping of any of God’s commands. Many who have talked of perfection have affirmed it to consist in knowing no difference between good and evil. All is alike to them, and the height of wickedness is their perfection. Others have found a new way to it, by denying original, indwelling sin, and attempering the spirituality of the law of God unto men’s carnal hearts, as they have sufficiently discovered themselves to be ignorant of the life of Christ and the power of it in believers, so they have invented a new righteousness that the gospel knows not of, being vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds.[34]

In order to claim absolute perfection or to claim that you will ever approach it in this life, you must deny the complete corruption of your nature, the absolute standard of righteousness of the Law, and the absolute righteousness and holiness of Christ.

We cannot expect to be entirely sanctified while we bear this “body of death” (Romans 7.24). Of course, we work and trust to daily give our lives in the service of Christ and grow in the knowledge of him, but we will always acknowledge that his holiness far outshines our own. In fact, the more we understand his righteousness, the more we understand the depths of our unrighteousness. As we know more of him every day, at times we may believe that we grow in sin rather than holiness, only because we see our sin more clearly in contrast to the obedience of our Savior. If Paul exhorted believers to “lay aside the old self” and “put on the new self,” how can anyone claim to be completely free from sin? Paul believed that sanctification is an ongoing process, requiring us to daily trust and obey.

Scripture uses sanctify in two different ways. God sanctifies us when he saves us and sets us apart from the world for his service. Watson says, “Sanctification signifies to consecrate and set apart to a holy use; thus they are sanctified persons who are separated from the world, and set apart for God’s service.”[35]

God set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace.
[God] raised us up with [Christ], and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.[36]

God also sanctifies us as we “work out our salvation” and he works Christ’s nature in our hearts through the work of the Holy Spirit. In both senses, we are holy. God sanctifies us in the first sense immediately upon salvation, and gradually in the second sense as we know him more and more every day. He separates us from the world by adopting us as his children, and he separates us from sin as he changes our hearts and we work together with him to trust in his word and obey him.

[Sanctification] is a principle of grace savingly wrought, whereby the heart becomes holy, and is made after God’s own heart. A sanctified person bears not only God’s name, but his image.[37][Sanctification] is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.[38]

Christ said, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16.24). In his statement, we find the positive and negative parts of sanctification. We must deny ourselves—put to death the old self—and take up our cross and follow Christ—put on the new self. We must crucify our fleshly desires and trust in Christ as we obey his word.

The Puritans referred to the first part of sanctification as “mortification,” as in putting the old self to death. In mortification, we deny ourselves and refuse to give in to our selfish and sinful desires, appetites, impulses, thoughts, etc. John Gill says that mortification is the dispossession of the power of sin, “displacing it from its throne, so as not to yield obedience to the lusts of it, nor walk according to the dictates of it.”[39]

To kill any living thing is to take away the principle of all its strength, vigour, and power, so that it cannot act or exert, or put forth any proper actings of his own.[40]

John Owen says that Paul compares sin in us “to a living person, with his faculties, and properties, his wisdom, craft, subtlety, and strength,” and this person “must be killed, that is, have its power, life, vigour, and strength taken away by the Spirit.”[41]

Though sanctification is primarily a work of the Holy Spirit, God commands us to actively “work out” our sanctification. From election, to regeneration, to justification, we play no active part except for believing. We can add nothing to these by our deeds, but we can work out our salvation. Of course, we begin by faith.

Paul says many times that our old self was crucified with Christ and is now dead (Romans 6.2,6-8; Galatians 2.20; Colossians 2.20). He says, “He who has died is freed from sin” (Romans 6.7). He also says that we have died to the Law (Romans 6.15; 7.1-13) and its requirements. The Law magnified and exposed the power of sin, creating an opportunity for sin to reign in our lives, but since we have died to the Law, sin has no power over us, though we still carry this body of sin with us. The Law exposes what sin is, how it dwells in us, and how powerless we are without Jesus. Now that we have believed in Christ, we are dead to sin but we must be ever believing that we are.

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.[42]

Paul emphasizes again and again that we have died to sin, yet at the same time he says we must “consider” it. In order to overcome the power of sin, we must believe that we are dead to its power, and upon believing, we can walk by the Spirit.

If by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.[43]

We put off the old self by denying its place in our lives and refusing to live according to our sinful desires, and we put on the new self by living by the Spirit. We read about this in Galatians, where Paul compares the deeds of the flesh and the Spirit.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.[44]

Here Paul brings these themes together —the Law and flesh, life and death. Sanctification is not a once-for-all-time event where God makes us completely holy, but an ongoing walk where we strive to measure up to Christ’s holiness, even though we never will in this life. By the power of the Spirit, we deny ourselves and take up Christ’s cross of obedience every day.

Sanctification would be exceptionally easier had God completely erased my sin and given me perfect holiness, but I do not believe I would know him as well if I had been immediately given this kind of holiness. We learn about our weakness and God’s strength as we struggle against the flesh.

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher—
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified.)
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod—
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God![45]

---

[1] Wiley, 456.

[2] Ibid, 455.

[3] Wesley, “Working Out,” III.4.

[4] Wiley, Theology: Volume II, page 444.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Wesley, “Salvation,” II.6. Wesley does not even consider these of the last class to be sins.

[9] Wesley, “Christian Perfection,” I.1-8.

[10] Ibid, II.4-5, 7.

[11] Grudem, 727-728.

[12] Wesley, “On Sin in Believers,” I.3.

[13] Ibid, II.2.

[14] Ibid, II.3.

[15] Wesley, “Christian Perfection,” II.4.

[16] Romans 7.15-20

[17] Genesis 6.5; Psalm 53.1; Jeremiah 17.9; Proverbs 6.16-19.

[18] Grudem, 751.

[19] Wiley, 442-444.

[20] Ibid, 445-446.

[21] Romans 12.1-2; 2 Corinthians 7.1; Hebrews 6.1.

[22] Wiley, 467.

[23] Ibid, 469, in footnote.

[24] Ibid, 469.

[25] Ibid, 447.

[26] Lamentations 3.21-27.

[27] Hebrews 12.5-7.

[28] Verbrugge, 559.

[29] Ibid, 559.

[30] Sproul, 293.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume III: Soteriology, (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2016), page 246.

[34] John Owen, The Works of John Owen: Volume 6: Temptation and Sin, (Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 1850), page 10.

[35] Watson, 240.

[36] Galatians 1.15; Ephesians 2.6; Colossians 1.13.

[37] Watson, 241.

[38] Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume II: Soteriology, 213, quoting the Westminster Catechism.

[39] Gill, Divinity, 553.

[40] Owen, 8.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Romans 6.4-11.

[43] Romans 8.13-14.

[44] Galatians 5.16-24.

[45] Amy Carmichael, “Flame of God.”

conclusions

both arminian and calvinist theology lead to difficult conclusions.  calvinism leads to the troublesome notion of determinism, and we must accept that God desires all the painful, heinous, horrifying tragedies that befall our world. how can we accept that God reigns absolutely in the hearts of men and also in the calamities of the natural world, and believe that he is somehow good, kind, and righteous when he allows and sovereignly desires these terrible things to happen? on the other hand, arminian theology leads to the horrible conclusion that God does not control his world, and that everything that happens is outside his control, and that we live in a universe where men affect our destiny and maybe possibly God will bring good out of it, and even if he does, it is not the perfect good that he originally intends. if God does not absolutely rule in the hearts of men and the events of the universe, how can we trust him to bring his will to pass or to keep his promises to us? if he works his will around the will of men, if he yields his desires to the desires of men, if the holy God of the universe submits to the selfish whims of corrupt men, how can he be God?

besides the anti-biblical notions of arminianism, we must face these questions if we want to believe that men have free will. while calvinism leads to difficult problems with the nature of God--his kindness and goodness--arminianism creates problems of a different nature. arminianism questions God's sovereignty, his power, his ability to guide his people and secure their eternal blessing. we may view the question as a choice between God's sovereignty and man's. who do we trust? who do we believe in? do we believe that men can be trusted with our eternal destiny or do we believe that God causes all things to work together for the good of those he loves because he causes all things? do we trust him despite evidence to the contrary: the exclusion of the reprobate from salvation, the calamity that comes upon both believer and unbeliever alike?

the core of the Gospel

Justification

When I began writing this, I only intended to cover the main points of Calvinism—sovereignty, sin, election, and perseverance. As I investigated Arminian theology, however, I found so many discrepancies between basic scriptural truths and Arminianism that I had to expand my original outline. When God justifies us, he forgives us and declares us righteous. Wesleyans believe that God only forgives us in justification but he does not declare anyone righteous. Wesleyans believe that God requires us to achieve righteousness to gain our redemption. Finney believed that no one is justified and only a life of perfect holiness will redeem us. Most Arminians believe that, once justified, a believer may forfeit this forgiveness and perish eternally. This is basically the same as not being justified at all. Arminians believe in salvation by works.

If we are not completely justified by Christ’s work and God requires some kind of righteousness on our part, whether we do this by his Spirit or not, he saves us by our works. If we can lose our salvation, then our salvation depends on our works. Whether some sin committed or some righteousness omitted, salvation depends on us, and therefore on our works. If we lose our salvation through some lack of faith, this still amounts to a salvation that depends on something we do, or something we have, or some righteousness in us, and therefore we lose our salvation by our sin, and therefore our salvation depends on our righteousness and not Christ’s death. If anyone believes they save themselves by their righteousness, if any church teaches that believers lose their salvation, then they have abandoned the entire message of the Gospel. Thomas Watson said—

Justification is the very hinge and pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in a foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine into this spring is damnable.[1]

We can easily see why Arminians err this way. If a man has free will, whether given by God or not, then he is not a sinner, and he can save himself by his works. If we trust in free will, we trust in our ability, and we do not trust in God to redeem us. Arminians also fear justification because they believe it leads to unrestrained sin. They do not trust the Holy Spirit to work in the heart of a believer to remove his sin and lead him every day to Christ.

Partial Justification

John Wesley believed that God forgives our sin yet he does not declare us righteous. “The plain scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the forgiveness of sins,” he says.[2] God forgives us through the sacrifice made by Christ. Wesley leaves some ambiguity in the discussion, however, as he repeatedly says “past sins” when referring to forgiveness, as if God requires righteousness from us as a condition of our continued justification.

[Justification] is that act of God the Father, hereby, for the sake of the propitiation made by the blood of his Son, he ‘showeth forth his righteousness (or mercy) by the remission of the sins that are past.’”
To him that is justified or forgiven, God ‘will not impute sin’ to his condemnation…His sins, all his past sins, in thought, word, and deed, are covered, are blotted out.
‘Thou shalt be saved’ from condemnation, from the guilt and punishment of thy former sins, and shall have the power to serve God in true holiness all the remaining days of thy life.[3]

Wesley did not believe that God completely justifies us. He adds a second condition to justification in “The Righteousness of Faith” when he says, “By the ‘righteousness which is of faith’ is meant, that condition of justification (and in consequence, of present and final salvation, if we endure therein unto the end.” We only remain justified and are “finally” saved if we endure to the end. In Wesley’s mind, we remain justified if we persevere as Christians until death. God saves us if we do not fall away. In another sermon, Wesley describes God’s salvation. “Ye are saved from sin,” he says, “from the guilt of all past sin,” and “from the fear, though not from the possibility, of falling away from the grace of God, and coming short of the great and precious promises.”[4]

I had to read this more than once. Wesley says that God saves us from the fear but not the possibility of falling away. Why do we not fear falling away when we face the possibility of it? This is complete nonsense. If we can fall away, we will fear falling away. Elsewhere Wesley says that God condemns us if we do not live righteously. In “The First Fruits of the Spirit,” Wesley says, “There is no condemnation on account of [the believer’s] past sins,” and “They are not condemned for any present sins, for now transgressing the commandments of God. For they do not transgress them.”[5] He continues, “So long as ‘he keepeth himself’ herein, ‘that wicked one toucheth him not.’” God does not condemn the believer because the believer does not sin. Read his words in “Salvation by Faith”:

He that is born of God by faith sinneth not by any habitual sin, nor by any willful sin, nor by any sinful desire. ‘He that is born of God doth not commit sin,’ and though he cannot say he hath not sinned, yet now ‘he sinneth not.’[6]

So long as we live in holiness and righteousness, God does not condemn us. Wesley says that the Law condemns only those who break it, therefore God condemns us when we transgress his law.

Now it is evident, he is not condemned for the sins which he doth not commit at all. They, therefore, who are thus “led by the Spirit, are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18): not under the curse or condemnation of it; for it condemns none but those who break it. Thus, that law of God, “Thou shalt not steal,” condemns none but those who do steal. Thus, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” condemns those only who do not keep it holy.[7]

Wesley uses verses from two separate contexts to show that God does not justify us unless we fulfill two conditions: faith and righteousness. In other words, God only accepts us if we are righteous. Faith is the easy part; now, just go and be righteous! God justifies us by faith, and then we maintain our justification by living righteously. At no time does God either declare us consider us righteous, just forgiven. Keep in mind, forgiveness wipes the slate clean, while righteousness writes obedience on this proverbial slate. We need both for complete redemption. Wesley believes that God does not declare us righteous because we are not righteous. Justification does not make us actually righteous nor does God declare us righteous. He says, “[Justification] is not the being made actually just and righteous. This is ‘sanctification.’”[8] He continues

Least of all does justification imply that God is deceived in those whom he justified; that he thinks them to be what, in fact, they are not; that he accounts them to be otherwise than they are. [He does not] believe us righteous when we are unrighteous.[9]

God never declares us righteous. We are justified if we believe and if we persevere in a righteous life till death. We earn our salvation. Wesley even quotes Paul’s words and denies that Paul means what he literally says. In Romans 4, Paul tells us that God “credited” Abraham’s faith as righteousness. He repeats this five times while using different forms of the verb “credit” eleven times, yet Wesley insists that God does not declare us righteous, only forgiven.

The very moment God giveth faith to the “ungodly” that “worketh not,” that “faith is counted to him for righteousness.” … But “faith is imputed to him for righteousness,” the very moment that he believeth. Not that God (as was observed before) thinketh him to be what he is not.[10]

Wesley says that God “imputes” Christ’s righteousness to us, but while some take this to mean that God declares us as righteous as Christ, Wesley understands this to mean we are merely forgiven. Wesley frequently speaks of God imputing Christ’s righteousness to us and he finally explains his meaning. He says, “All believers are forgiven and accepted, not for the sake of anything in them, or of anything that ever was, that is, or ever can be done by them, but wholly and solely for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered for them.”[11] Wesley does not believe that God has imputed Christ’s righteousness to our account as if to declare us righteous because he believes God only forgives our past sins.

Ye are saved from the guilt of all past sin.
There is no condemnation on account of [the believer’s] past sins.
All the sins thou has committed from thy youth up, until the hour when thou wast “accepted in the Beloved,” are driven away as chaff, are gone, are lost.[12]

He will not declare us righteous if we are not actually, presently living righteously. “Imputation” in Wesley’s mind does not actually credit us with the righteousness of Christ, but only with forgiveness. He does say God accepts us, but only to the extent that we live obediently. How can God accept us if we are not righteous? We must continually earn our justification with righteousness. Though Wesley repeatedly declares God initially justifies us by faith and because of nothing in ourselves and nothing we do, he also says that we do not remain justified without good works. Wesley says that God condemns us when we doubt his mercy and we must believe and repent again.

If it be said, “But sometimes a believer in Christ may lose his sight of the mercy of God;” I answer, supposing it so to be, supposing him not to see the mercy of God, then he is not a believer: For faith implies light, the light of God shining upon the soul. So far, therefore, as any one loses this light, he, for the time, loses his faith. And, no doubt, a true believer in Christ may lose the light of faith; and so far as this is lost, he may, for a time, fall again into condemnation. But this is not the case of them who now “are in Christ Jesus,” who now believe in his name. For so long as they believe, and walk after the Spirit, neither God condemns them, nor their own heart.[13]

If you doubt, you burn. Any sin condemns you. If you stray in the least, you perish eternally unless you repent again, and until you re-repent, you will burn in hell forever. James Arminius himself confirms this.

The regenerate are capable of grieving the Holy Spirit by their sins, so that, for a season, until they suffer themselves to be brought back to repentance, he does not exert his power and efficacy in them … If David had died in the very moment in which he had sinned against Uriah by adultery and murder, he would have been condemned to death eternal.[14]

Finney confirms this as well: “Present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and his service is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God.”[15] Wesley’s justification is nearly identical to the Mosaic covenant and certainly identical to the Catholic doctrine of grace and works. In the Old Testament, the priests made daily sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people (Hebrews 7.27; 10.11). In Wesley’s covenant, we must repent and believe and then when we sin again, we are condemned again until we repent and believe again. Wesley substitutes the literal daily sacrifice with the daily sacrifice of repentance and good works. God does not save us through faith alone but through faith and works. Only the continuing obedience of the believer will guarantee his salvation. Otherwise, we perish as if we had never believed.

Antinomianism and Universalism

Finney, like Wesley, despised the reformers’ idea of imputed righteousness. He refused to believe that one act of faith could attain “perpetual justification” of Christ’s obedience added to our account. He also believed that God forgave only our past sins, and that he requires “perseverance in obedience to the end of life” as a second condition of our justification.[16] He fervently equated the Gospel doctrine of justification to the heresy of antinomianism.[17]

If nomos (Greek) denotes law, then antinomianism is lawlessness. Charles Hodge describes antinomianism as “the neglect of moral duties.”[18] If God declares us righteous once and for all, we will clearly descend into unrestrained lawlessness, for what motivation do we have to live in righteousness? If all our sins from birth to death are atoned for, why will we live for Christ? What possible reason do we have to love Christ, to honor him, to give our lives in sacrificial obedience, if Christ has given his life for us, if we are absolutely forgiven and have the righteousness of Christ imputed to our account? Finney and Wesley saw no possible reason for the believer, after his first act of faith, humble and repentant, to continue in obedience without the fear of condemnation looming ominously and constantly overhead.

Yet these men did not believe that the Holy Spirit brings men to Christ. They believed that men chose God of their own will—Wesley believing in the light of conscience somewhat regenerated, and Finney the unregenerate natural will—and that men needed nothing further to lead them to Christ than either knowledge, or desperation, or the faint “wooing of God’s tender love” of Walls and Dongell that gives up at the slightest resistance. The Holy Spirit did not change the heart of a man to grant him faith and repentance, so why would he change the heart of a man to grant him obedience post-justification? Why would he need to? Arminians believe they have all they need to live for Christ because they make the crucial initial decision. They are ultimately righteous in themselves because they ultimately decided for themselves. Yes, God provides some measure of impetus in the conviction, but men ultimately decide on their own, of their own will, by whatever spark of faith they muster themselves. When God “enlightens” two men equally, yet only one chooses to believe, to whose credit do we assign this belief? Surely not to God, for that denotes the undesirable notion of unconditional election. God will not unjustly give one man more faith than another. We must conclude that the believing man only believed because he in his natural constitution, distinct from the other man, possessed faith while the other did not. He was more righteous, more repentant, or more humble—whatever. If this man can choose to believe in God, and had no true, distinct, radically heart-changing, resurrecting help from the Holy Spirit, then he can continue to believe and live in obedience with no true help from the Holy Spirit. If this man knows himself to be permanently justified, receiving the righteous obedience of Christ to his account, yet having no true help, no real change of heart by the power of God, then he will obviously fall into sin. He needs the constant threat of eternal wrath in order to motivate him to righteousness.

Wiley echoes a similar sentiment, while unwittingly adding subtle tendencies to universalism in his doctrine of justification. This “penal satisfaction theory,” as it is known, “leads logically into antinomianism…If Christ’s active obedience is to be substituted for that of believers, it shuts out the necessity of personal obedience to the law of God.”[19] We do not obey because we need to secure salvation, however. John said we obey because God loves us (1 John 4.19). We obey in order to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10.31; 1 Peter 4.11). Paul served God because the love of Christ compelled him, not by any need to secure righteousness in order to appease God (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15). Our works do not justify us therefore God does not require them of us to secure our salvation (Romans 3.24; Ephesians 2.8). Our obedience proves our salvation but it does not provide it (James 2.14-26; Galatians 5.22-23; Matthew 7.20).

While Wiley does not believe that any believer receives Christ’s righteousness, he believes that everyone receives forgiveness. As I mentioned earlier, Wiley believes that Christ’s death secured justification for all mankind. He quotes Thomas Summers, who says, “The atonement is the satisfaction made to God for the sins of all mankind, original and actual.”[20] He then quotes William Pope who says that the atonement is the satisfaction “of the divine displeasure against the world, and therefore the sin of the world is no longer a bar to acceptance.”[21] Though Wesleyans believe that sinners only benefit from the atonement if they believe, Wiley later tells us that

The atonement is universal. This does not mean that all mankind will be unconditionally saved, but that the sacrificial offering of Christ so far satisfied the claims of the divine law as to make salvation a possibility for all.[22]

Of course, Wiley clarifies that this salvation remains conditional in its application, but elsewhere he describes “an unconditional diffusion of grace to all men” as reconciliation for the entire world.[23] To clarify, God needed to give us this gift of reconciliation—not Christ’s righteousness, because he will not, or forgiveness, because this requires faith—in order to allow us to live and propagate after Adam’s sin.

Had not the intervention of the Second Adam been foreseen, universally making and constituting righteous all who were made and constituted sinners, Adam would never have been permitted to propagate his species, and the race would have been cut off in its sinning head.[24]

God forgave everyone immediately after Adam’s sin so that he would not immediately destroy Adam. Where does scripture teach this? Wesleyan theology teaches that believers do not receive the righteousness of Christ, but every human in creation is righteous, while all do not believe. Men must still believe in order to be forgiven. I am as confused as you are. While Wiley denies universalism, that God saves all regardless of individual faith or repentance, he believes that all are righteous and none are condemned, or something like that.[25]

Righteousness and Forgiveness

To God we owe everything. There is nothing that we have that did not originate from him. He created the universe; he gives us strength and breath and “every good thing.” Every minute of our lives, we owe him every ounce of strength, wealth, time, thought and resource that belongs to us. Only to him do we owe this kind of devotion and when we do not devote every bit of ourselves to him, we sin. If we sin, we owe God a debt of life, while still we owe this devotion of righteousness. If God only forgives us, at best we enjoy a neutral state before him. He does not condemn us, but neither does he accept us. Because of Adam, we could never have paid both parts of this debt. This is the debt we owe to God and Christ paid it for us. He was the only one who could. Christ paid the debt of death and obedience. If Christ paid it, then it is completely paid and we owe nothing to God regarding this debt. If God chose us and loves only us, then Christ paid for only those whom he loves, but if he paid it for all, then all are saved. Watson tells us

[Justification] is an act of God’s free grace, whereby he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith alone.[26]

Calvin believed that the Mosaic Law had two purposes: to reveal the devotion and honor we owe God but also to help us “rid ourselves of any illusions about our own strength and abandon all trust in our own righteousness.”[27] Pride and ambition puffs us up, while self-love blinds us that we cannot learn humility or admit our misery apart from God. God is entitled to glory, reverence, love and fear. “The truest honor we can do him is to practice righteousness, holiness, and purity,” he says. He continues, “Our crude powers of understanding and our gross arrogance made it necessary for the Lord to hand down to us his written law.”[28] If the Law explains how we obey God, then our failure to obey becomes a legal debt, and consequently, justification must involve a legal payment.

Wesleyans commonly object to this “penal satisfaction,” as it logically leads to either heretical or Calvinist ideas. “The Penal substitutionary theory leads of necessity, either to universalism on the one hand, or unconditional election on the other,” says Wiley.[29] He continues

Such an atonement cancels all punitive claims against the elect, and by immediate result frees them from all guilt as a liability to the penalty of sin… If the claims of justice are satisfied, they cannot again be enforced.[30]

The Wesleyan tells us that God indeed does perpetually justify us. As Paul says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8.1). Wiley describes another Calvinist conclusion from this justification.

If Christ died for all men, then all are unconditionally saved as universalism maintains. If all are not saved, as the Scriptures clearly teach, then the only alternative is a belief in the atonement as limited to the elect.[31]

Christ paid the debt, not for an unnamed, nonspecific group of anonymous people who may or may not ever believe in him, but for a specific group of elect individuals that God himself chose and whom he guarantees will believe because he will bring them to salvation. Wiley objects to this kind of justification because it leads to either blatant heresy (universalism) or Calvinism. He says, “The Scriptures declare that Christ died for all,”[32] but close investigation reveals in every instance where the epistles say “Christ died for all,” that Paul and Peter speak of Christ dying for his church. After all, the epistles were written to the church and not to the world at large.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
One died for all, therefore all died.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God.[33]

Arminians like to insert “may” into these verses, turning them into hypothetical possibilities.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all may be made alive.

They also change “us” to “every person in Creation,” turning them into universal statements, while simultaneously trying to avoid universalism.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring everyone to God.

As the self-proclaimed apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 13.46; Ephesians 3.1), Paul frequently mentions “Jews and Gentiles” in his writings (Romans 3.29; 9.24) or “Jews and Greeks” (Romans 3.9; 1 Corinthians 1.24), and when he says “all,” he means both groups, not necessarily every person ever born. God saves Jews and Gentiles alike. We see this in Acts as well (Acts 10; 11.18; 13.44-49). Otherwise, how do we interpret, “One died for all,” or “All will be made alive”? Arminians must interpret these to teach universalism if they want to be consistent.

Solid scriptural exegesis reveals that to justify is to declare someone righteous. Since Christ paid our penalty, God declares us righteous—justified under the Law. Erickson says, “A righteous man is one who has been declared by a judge to be free from guilt. The task of the judge is to condemn the guilty and acquit the innocent (Deuteronomy 25.1).”[34] God is our Judge (Psalm 9.4; Jeremiah 11.20). The New Testament speaks of men justifying God,[35] so obviously justify must mean something other than forgiveness. Paul uses justify in the same sense multiple times in his epistles (Romans 3.20, 26, 28; 5.1; 8.30; 10.4, 10; Galatians 2.16; 3.24).[36] Erickson lays out the evidence for declarative justification:

1.       Righteousness is a matter of formal standing before the Law and a judge.

2.       Paul’s juxtaposition of justify and condemn (Romans 8.33-34) along with Christ’s similar usage in Matthew 12.37: “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” No one argues against scripture using condemn as a declarative term.

3.       Multiple passages where justify means “to defend, vindicate, or acknowledge to be right,” as in Luke 7.29 and Romans 3.4.

4.       Evidence from the language itself.[37]

Compare the evidence for the Calvinist view to that for the Arminian view. The biblical evidence clearly proves that God forever justifies a specific people, chosen by him, who only believe because he has chosen them. Arminians reject this on weak scriptural grounds because they want God to save a random group of nonspecific people, undetermined by him but by them. God cannot be just if he elects some and excludes others so they prefer to elect themselves. They refuse to believe that this is impossible. Once God potentially justifies them, they also prefer to complete their justification themselves.

God declares us righteous because he imputes Christ’s righteousness to us. Grudem says that “God thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us. He ‘reckons’ it to our account.”[38] The New American Standard Bible translates this as “credits” in Romans 4. The Greek word means “to count, collect, reckon, calculate” and “implies an activity of the reason that, starting with ascertainable facts, draws a conclusion, especially a mathematical one or one pertaining to business.”[39] In a sense, we have an account before God and he credits our account with the righteousness of Christ. Though we did nothing to earn this righteousness, it genuinely and permanently belongs to us on the basis of our faith in Christ. As Thomas Watson says, “Justification is inamissibilis; it is a fixed permanent thing. It can never be lost.”[40]

Abraham believed God, and it was credited as righteousness.
To the one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.
David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.
Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.
It is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace.
With respect to the promise of God, he did not waiver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, he was also able to perform. Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness.[41]

Paul tells the church of Ephesus that they “are saved by grace through faith, and that not of [themselves], it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2.8-9). God saves us through faith in order that he be glorified and not us. We do not work to earn our salvation and we do not work to keep it. God forever saves us by grace through faith because of Christ’s death and obedience.

---

[1] Watson, Divinity, 226.

[2] Wesley, “Justification by Faith,” II.5.

[3] Wesley, “Justification by Faith,” II.5; “The Righteousness of Faith,” I.10.

[4] Wesley, “Salvation by Faith,” II.2-4, emphasis added.

[5] Wesley, “The First Fruits of the Spirit,” II.1, 4.

[6] Wesley, “Salvation,” II.6.

[7] Wesley, “Fruits,” II.4.

[8] Wesley, “Justification,” II.1.

[9] Ibid, II.4.

[10] Wesley, “Justification,” IV.5.

[11] Ibid, II.5.

[12] Wesley, “Salvation by Faith,” II.3; “Fruits,” II.1, III.3.

[13] Wesley, “Fruits,” III.3.

[14] James Arminius, The Writings of James Arminius: Volume Two, translated by James Nichols, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1956), page 502. How does anyone bring themselves back to repentance without the efficacy of the Holy Spirit? Our own inherent faith. Then why did we fall away in the first place? Are we sinners or not?

[15] Finney, 369.

[16] Ibid, 367.

[17] Ibid, 371-372.

[18] Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume III, page 241.

[19] Wiley, Christian Theology: Volume II, page 248-249.

[20] Ibid, 271.

[21] Ibid, 272.

[22] Ibid, 298.

[23] Ibid, 130, with footnote.

[24] Ibid, 132, quoting Summers.

[25] Ibid, 132. Incidentally, Roger Olson, not a universalist, wishes universalism were true. “I do not embrace it myself except as a hope,” he says. Other Arminians, most notably Clark Pinnock, also express veiled nods to universalism. Quoted from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2019/09/what-if-universalism-were-true-a-question-for-evangelical-christians-especially/

[26] Watson, 226.

[27] Calvin, 109.

[28] Ibid, 110.

[29] Wiley, Theology: Volume II, 246.

[30] Ibid, 247.

[31] Ibid. Finney agrees with this conclusion: “If Christ suffered for them the full amount deserved by them, then justice has no claim upon them. And since it is undeniable that the atonement was made for the whole posterity of Adam, it must follow that the salvation of all men is secured” (Finney, 374). If Christ paid our debt, then either all are saved or only the elect.

[32] Ibid.

[33] 1 Corinthians 15.22; 2 Corinthians 5.14; 1 Peter 3.18.

[34] Erickson, 955.

[35] Luke 7.29, a literal translation from the New King James Version. Most modern translations read as some form of “declared God just” or “agreed that God’s way was right.”

[36] Grudem, 723.

[37] Erickson, 957.

[38] Grudem, 726.

[39] Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Editor, New International Dictionary of Theology: Abridged Edition, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), page 338.

[40] Watson, 229.

[41] Romans 4.3, 5, 6, 9, 16, 20-22.