I wanted to write this for all the people who might be in the same situation as my wife and I had been in.
When our marriage was young, we were married in 1996, we would read and study the Bible and for the most part we were content with the preaching we heard. This along with our childhood teachings guided us to believing in the Bible a certain way, even though we couldn’t completely explain the way we were believing by the Bible. I know that sounds weird, but our learned beliefs when really laid out had a lot of vague pieces that were hard to connect biblical truths to. I kept thinking that the pieces were there in the Bible and I just hadn’t discovered them yet.
My wife, through the years, became more and more frustrated and she didn’t know why. Other people in the church seemed perfectly content with the preaching and were comfortable in their knowledge, progress and current biblical standings. Why were they “getting it” and what were they “getting” that she wasn’t. Switching churches only intensified the frustration for my wife because we met more people that were the same way, just in a different denomination. I was no help to her because I was still trying to get the Bible to line up to what I believed.
There was no doubt in my mind that the Bible was without error and sufficient. So, in trying to resolve her frustration, and completely justifying my beliefs, I searched more intently from the Bible. This way I could bring all the puzzle pieces together and we could see the big picture and finally “get it” too. Something wasn’t working out and I started understanding my wife’s frustration. It’s impossible to move forward or study and ask questions about something when you don’t know what that something is. My wife was starting to believe it was hopeless and felt like giving up, but she didn’t know exactly what that meant. To give up church? To give up on salvation?
She found someone online preaching named Pastor John MacArthur. That eventually led to Paul Washer, Dr. Sproul, Pastor Voddie Baucham and then to Justin Peters and others. I listened to some of them but didn’t like what they were saying.
Time went on and we eventually quit church. My wife stopped listening to them for a while, because of me; then in time began listening to their messages again and I am so glad she did. She would tell me, from time to time, what they were saying, but I really didn’t want to hear what they had to say. So, while I was at work she would text me questions. These questions were about the sermons she heard from these pastors. She knew I would search for the answers in the Bible. Somewhere along the way the Holy Spirit began opening my eyes to the scriptures.
I began listening to them, mainly because up until then I couldn’t prove them wrong. I would constantly disagree and then turn to the Bible, only to see it was the truth. We listened more and more and when we looked into these preachers we found a common belief. Though they considered themselves biblical teachers, the words Reformed Theology kept coming up. So we checked out what this was:
Before the 16th century the Roman Catholic church taught a warped view of biblical scripture. In addition to false teachings some of their services were spoken in Latin. A language the local people could not understand. The church was in charge, powerful and very wealthy, raking in money for numerous unbiblical actions.
During the 16th century many men started going against the church. One being Martin Luther. They questioned theological principles and the church did not like this. What these men started was called the reformation (reformed theology). These men started trying to translate the Bible to the language of the local people with strong opposition from the Roman Catholic church. Many men gave their lives to hand out small portions of the translated Bible and to teach against the church.
Eventually people broke away from the church and became Protestants. The two main groups were Calvinists from John Calvin and Lutherans from Martin Luther. A few decades later a new Protestant group arose, Arminians from Jacobus Arminius. They formed to oppose some Calvinism beliefs.
Each of these groups taught a set of beliefs from the Bible called doctrines. To address the Arminians in the points they were having issue with in Calvinism, Calvinists wrote what is known as the Doctrines of Grace also better known as the Five Points of Calvinism. And these doctrines still divide churches to this day.
My wife and I studied the Bible to see if these doctrines were biblical or not. It’s hard to put aside your own human understanding, misguided beliefs and traditions for the truth of the Bible, real hard. But when you let scripture purely interpret scripture, they were true.
Below are these 5 doctrines.
1: Total Depravity – We are dead in our sins and in this state we will never seek after God (Ephesians 2:1) (Romans 3:11). We are enemies of God and under His wrath (Romans 5:10) (John 3:36). Every part of man is corrupted by sin and incapable of doing any good work (Romans 3:12).
2: Unconditional Election – With us being unable and unwilling to seek God for our salvation, God is the one who calls us (2nd Timothy 1:9) (John 6:44). We were predestined before the foundation of the world to be called and saved by God’s own sovereign will (Ephesians 1:4-5) (Romans 8:29).
3: Limited Atonement – Jesus lived a perfect life so that His life will be accredited to us before God (2nd Corinthians 5:21) (Romans 3:22). Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that the debt for our sins are paid (Galatians 1:4). Now Jesus did not live and die for everyone, He lived and died for those the Father called before the foundation of the world, His elect (Acts 13:48) (John 6:44).
4: Irresistible Grace – No person that God had chosen to be saved will go unsaved. His will is sovereign with His decisions final. Our will is not above His (Isaiah 40:13). The change, rebirth that every Christian experiences through the gifts of the Holy Spirit can’t be ignored or refused. Jesus will lose none of these who the Father has called (John 6:37) (John 6:39) (John 10:16).
5: Perseverance of the Saints – Once you are saved your salvation is eternal and that is because you did not and would not have chosen to be saved to begin with. It is God’s will, not yours (John 10:28-29). Once you are called out of sin to salvation nothing at all can separate you from His love (Romans 8:35-39).
There is so much more to add to the history of the reformation and these doctrines, but I just wanted to give you an overview.
Through our study we could see a clear line connecting the Old Testament, the New Testament, Jesus Christ, our salvation and God’s sovereignty. Everything made sense and put God back in control of everything, which is truly how reality is no matter what we think.
I accept the Bible’s truths and let the Bible lead the way instead of foolishly trying to get the Bible to line up to what I think. The Holy Spirit will continually reveal and teach to you the realities in the Word of God as He helps you grow in your Christianity and to seek Christ out (John 14:26).
The confusion that we had, that was driving my wife and then me crazy was simply this; a wrong understanding of the Gospel and the Bible as a whole and having this conflict with certain truths of the Bible the Holy Spirit had let us understand.