As a ‘Calvinist’, How did you come to believe?

[atpollard]

Peace brothers. 5 point Classical Arminian Baptist here.

I've been thinking on the root of belief for a few days and would like to hear your opinions.

How would a free will believer (aka non-Calvinist) explain why they have believed? They chose to believe and submit to God, but why? Why they said yes to the Spirit while others say no?

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander … so based on the OP above:

Peace brothers. 5 point Particular Baptist here.

I have a question to offer on the means of salvation and would like to offer a chance for the TULIP crowd to share their opinions.

Feel free to explain how (experientially) you or anyone else comes to believe. God draws and God changes hearts and Jesus saves without needing our help or permission … but how? What is the experience like? A process or an instant? Supernatural or via means?

Is it something that can even be described or talked about?

 

[Van]

I am a non-Calvinist, I believe in once saved, always saved, and that Christ died for all humanity, providing the means of salvation for all humanity.

Yes, I believe how we are raised influences how open we are to God's word. An obvious example, if you parents believed in Christ and raised you to believe in Christ, chances are you would start out inclined to believe in Christ.

On the other hand, say you were raised to believe in Islam, you would not be inclined to say Islam is a lot of hooey, and Christ is the way.

The NT tells us of people who were looking for the Messiah, and chose to believe Jesus was the Messiah. Thus they were open to God's word, and had not been taught to reject Christ.

All of us are pre-disposed to go our own way and not submit to the dictates of others, until we realize our way leads to pain, suffering and death. But we are still vulnerable to being taught Christ's way wrongly such that believe we are saved when we are not. See Matthew Chapter 7 for example.

The lost seem to be in a little more vulnerable state than the angels, as because of the Fall, the lost were made sinners, and are corrupted such that they are pre-disposed to sin.

I do not think the bible teaches our choice to trust in Christ is fully independent of our experience.

I do not think the bible teaches God predestined our every experience in life, as the bible says things happen by chance.

But the bible does teach that people who are not "of My sheep" will not put their trust in Christ. Others, however, who are open to God's word, might to some degree trust in Christ. These comprise the fields white with harvest for which we are to pray for more laborers.

In Matthew 13 we have examples of four responses to the gospel. The first soil was so hardened he could not even understand the gospel. So prior experience certainly plays a part. The second soil liked good news, but did not fully commit to Christ as Savior and Lord, such that he had not root in himself. The third soil committed, making Christ a priority, but not his overriding priority.

Another verse impacting the OP question is the one where it says some plant, others water, but God causes the increase. Clearly human activity is said to provide exposure to the gospel, i.e. planting the seed, and the same or other humans water, which is to provide follow-up witnessing, both by words and by the way they live, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit.

So the bible presents several "deciding factors" when it comes to responding to the gospel. Whether or not we are open to God's word, with some so hardened they cannot even comprehend the gospel. But someone very open to God's word who never has the gospel presented does not respond, God through direct or indirect revelation must reveal His gospel. Not to introduce controversy, but if a person is not drawn to Christ by His lovingkindness in dying for them, they are not among us, as John 6:44 says. Scripture says Jesus demonstrated His love for us by dying for us when we were still sinners, and we love God because He first loved us.

 

[kyredneck]

Feel free to explain how (experientially) you or anyone else comes to believe. God draws and God changes hearts and Jesus saves without needing our help or permission

As a fellow Monergist that grew up in a 'hyper-evangelical/Dispensational' Southern Baptist church, I'm unable to pinpoint a time when I became a 'believer', because Jesus Christ has always been my 'hero' for as long as I can remember. I do, however, remember the day the truth hit me, and set me free from the horrendous burden imposed by the 'redemptive Church' whose mission it is to 'populate heaven'.

… but how? What is the experience like? A process or an instant? Supernatural or via means?

'The supernatural' heart change:

8 the Spirit where he willeth doth blow,....thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit.` Jn 3

'The means' for deliverance (salvation) from consequences of sin in this realm:

16 Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching. Continue in these things; for in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee. 1 Tim 4

 

[Martin Marprelate]

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander … so based on the OP above:

Peace brothers. 5 point Particular Baptist here.

I have a question to offer on the means of salvation and would like to offer a chance for the TULIP crowd to share their opinions.

Feel free to explain how (experientially) you or anyone else comes to believe. God draws and God changes hearts and Jesus saves without needing our help or permission … but how? What is the experience like? A process or an instant? Supernatural or via means?

Is it something that can even be described or talked about?

My story is a very long and rambling one,so I'll condense it a bit.
I wasn't raiseed in what I would call today a Christian home, though my mother was diligent to have me 'christened into the Church of England. Growing up, I was taught evolution as a fact at school, but I could never understand how the Universe could come about from nothing, so there had to be a God.. However, nor could i understand what Jesus was for: there was God, there was I; I would live an OK sort of life and He would let me into heaven. Why did I need Jesus?
When I went to University, people from the Christian Union were diligent to tell me how much Jesus loved me, and I was always happy to hear it, but I still didn't really know what difference that made.
So I got married and had children, and Mrs Marprelate thought they should go to Sunday School. So we sent them to the local Free Church (sort of Plymouth Brethren) and once a month or so there would be a 'family service' when all the little kids would come along and sing a nice song, and we would go along to smile at our little ones. At the church I was impressed by 2 or 3 older guys who seemed to have a real relationship with Jesus which I envied but didn't understand.
Then we were invited to join a Bible Study and I came to understand a little more, and I really liked the idea of being a Christian, so I prayed a 'sinner's prayer and everyone rejoiced and that seemed to be that.
Then, after a few months, because I hadn't killed anyone or committed adultery, Mrs M and I were asked if we wanted to undergo elievers' Baptism. After a little hesitation (hadn't I beeen baptized already?) we agreed and a date was set. At the baptism, we were supposed to say how wonderful it was to be a Christian and how our lives had changed. As I thought about what I would say, I realised that actually I hadn't changed at all; all the sins that I'd had before were still wwith me, and I had just added a veneer of Christianity to my old life. I was desperately convicted of my sin. It was at that point that I went down on my knees before God and confesssed that I was a sinner, and understood what Jesus had come to do. Irepented of my sins and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His finished work upon the cross to save me.
It is from that point that I measure my Christian life. I was 38 years old. That's how I became a Christian; if you want to know how I became a Calvinist, you'll have to wait for the next installment..

 

[Piper]

I was invited to church by a girl in college where I heard the gospel Through hearing it, God opened my eyes to understand and believe the gospel.

 

[kyredneck]

I was invited to church by a girl in college where I heard the gospel Through hearing it, God opened my eyes to understand and believe the gospel.

I appreciate the brevity. So, you believe the 'means' of getting to heaven is 'hearing' the gospel.

 

[Piper]

I appreciate the brevity. So, you believe the 'means' of getting to heaven is 'hearing' the gospel.

The means of justification is faith.

The means of getting to heaven is another story altogether. It is a life that evidences true faith. ...The holiness without out which no one will see God. Heb 12:14

I know that is nitpicky. Hearing is the means to faith.
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

 

[kyredneck]

The means of justification is faith.

Well, at least you've stated that biblically, without adding the word 'alone'.

 

[Piper]

Well, at least you've stated that biblically, without adding the word 'alone'.

I'm a particular man, but I also realize that this is an internet forum and if I spell everything out, it would take a long time.

 

[tyndale1946]

Well first of all when I was very young I have a recollection of having my picture taking with my three siblings standing in front of Kingdom Hall in San Diego, CA... There were nine in my Dads family and he being the youngest, when his brother from Texas got wind of it, he called a friend of his a Primitive Baptist in San Diego... All Dads three brothers, plus his five sisters, were raised in the Primitive Baptist Church in Texas and said, pay a visit to my brother and get him out of that mess... And at the age of seven, I remember my folks joining the Little Bethany Primitive Baptist Church in San Diego, CA... We rented a building until we put up our own church... I also remember putting tiles on the roof of the new church building we put with my Dad at the age of twelve in 1958... So I was basically brought up in church, along with my siblings, me being the oldest... I heard the PB's definition of T.U.L.I.P it's ALL of God... Man is Totally Depraved and his Salvation is ALL of Grace... That is the message I heard from every preacher, that graced our pulpit, from the age of seven... At the age of 18, I joined The Marine Corp and in May of 1965 did my 13 month tour in Vietnam and returned home, in 1966 and in 1968, I joined the church, making me 3rd generation PB... All of my fellow PB's will agree, just because we believe in T.U.L.I.P, doesn't make us Calvinist!... I believe totally in the Sovereign Grace of almighty God, ALONE!... Brother Glen

John 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

 

[kyredneck]

@Piper, mind telling me what you found funny about post #3?

 

[Piper]

@Piper, mind telling me what you found funny about post #3?

THe "horrendous burden imposed by the 'redemptive Church' whose mission it is to 'populate heaven'."

 

[kyredneck]

THe "horrendous burden imposed by the 'redemptive Church' whose mission it is to 'populate heaven'."

Do you know what I'm referring to?

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Well, at least you've stated that biblically, without adding the word 'alone'.

To be clear: justification is by grace alone through faith alone without works.
However, if you want to take this further, don't disrupt this thread; start one on this specific subject.

 

[Dave G]

Is it something that can even be described or talked about?

Sure...
In May of 1978 I was "invited" ( read, " My parents took me.." ) to a "revival meeting" at a Baptist church about 7 miles from my house. The longer I heard His words read aloud, the more I believed, and I believed on Christ as both Lord and Saviour the first night.

Please keep in mind that my attention was not captured by the plaintive words of the preacher ( he was preaching the usual " make a decision-for-Christ" way that I have come to see in so many places, especially nowadays )...
I was captivated by God's words, read out of the Bible itself.


That is the best way that I can describe it.

 

[atpollard]

I guess I should share, but how to keep it PG.

So experientially, how did God save me. I started out bad … like thief on the cross (the other one), “give us Barabas”, almost emperor Nero “bad”. Bad enough to be actively preparing a ‘Columbine’ scale murder-suicide bad.

Then one day God appeared (not too unlike the “road to Damascus”) and told me that He claimed me and had a simple offer. An exchange of everything that I had for everything that He had. From that moment forward, the death that I had planned belonged to Him and the life that He had planned belonged to me. The poverty that surrounded me belonged to Him and everything that I needed would be supplied from His wealth. The despair of my past was replaced by the hope of His future.

The reality of encountering God is quite a profound shock to the worldview of a devout atheist. God had made me an offer that I could not refuse … so I accepted. Everything was changed in an instant and I had no words … no vocabulary of empirical frame of reference with which to explain it to anyone (even myself).

Then because God has an incredible sense of humor, He sent me to be tutored in the Bible, hermeneutics and basic theology at a Wesleyan Holiness Church (where I was loved) and to be instructed by a missionary FROM Africa that was sent to reach the unsaved in the United States.

I could never reconcile Wesleyan theology with the empirical reality of my personal salvation. I never sought God. I never wanted to be saved from my sins. I never responded to any alter call. I was not baptized for almost two decades after God claimed and transformed me (the subject never really came up).

So it was reading the Bible and studying Wesleyan Holiness theology that I stumbled across 4 truths that agreed with Scripture and experience:

1. People are no darn good. (T)
2. God does as He pleases, just because He wants to. (U)
3. God does not try, God does. (I)
4. God finishes what He starts (P)

Years later, at another church, I learned that these truths had a name … I was a 4 point Calvinist (who had never heard of Calvinism or Arminianism). I had no opinion on Limited Atonement because it had never occurred to me to even ask who else Jesus had died for … I was always just content that He had died for me.

 

[atpollard]

An observation on TIME. For years, I had always considered the moment that God “showed up” as the moment that God claimed me and I became his. Over time, I have gained some perspective and thought that I would share an interesting story.

My maternal grandparents were good Catholics (meaning that they attended Mass on Sunday before going back to sinning as usual on Monday). If anyone is Italian-American, you should understand.

My paternal grandparents were submarine Christian Methodists (surfacing at church twice a year for Easter and Christmas).

My Father was an atheist caught between in-laws that DEMANDED that their grandson be baptized into THE CHURCH (RCC) and his parents who were adamant that their grandchild would be raised Protestant. [this was the early 1960’s]. So my father found a compromise to get what he wanted … peace and quiet … so I was infant baptized Lutheran, a submarine christian for 10 years (where I came to believe that Churches only had one sermon) and raised atheist.

I am a firm believer in Credobaptism, but as a point of fact, God exercised His sovereignty to claim me even as an infant using “what they meant for evil, God meant for good”. To mark a child that He would personally return to claim for Himself.

(Sorry, I know that will rub some Baptists the wrong way … but God did it, I was not in charge of any of it.)

 

[Marooncat79]

Similar experience in some ways

 

[kyredneck]

To be clear: justification is by grace alone through faith alone without works.

To be clear, that's a nifty-sounding manmade mantra. But this is what the Bible says, without tacking on all those 'alones':

24 Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith. Ja 2

13 for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified: Ro 2
24 being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Ro 3
1 Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God through him. Ro 5
33 Who shall lay anything to the charge of God`s elect? It is God that justifieth; Ro 8

However, if you want to take this further, don't disrupt this thread; start one on this specific subject.

Nah, I'm done. Feel free to start your own thread on it.

 

[AustinC]

redneck is busy plucking verses out of context again to deny justification by faith alone. Ever unwilling to accept that God justifies us by Jesus shed blood, via the faith given to us by God, so that this very faith will do the works that God has ordained us to do.
It's all in Christ alone. But, redneck will have none of it, despite claiming to be a monergist.