The Doctrines of Grace: TULIP Revisited
by Carol Berubee
http://www.tonyabetz.org/MSM/Product/doctrinesofgrace7.htm
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Unconditional Election, Part V
Faith is a Gift Those whom God foreknew
(foreloved), He predestined. He elected this group of people unconditionally. There was nothing
within a person that caused God to elect that person. God elected based on His own will and His own
purpose. By God's grace, the elect is born again; while dead in sin, the elect is transformed.
Now, the elect is able to understand the things of God; he is able see who he is spiritually. He
is now born again and able to take that step toward God. This step is enabled by faith, the faith
that God has just given him. Faith is a gift; there is nothing within the elect that deserves
this gift. Faith is freely given by God. We all know that we cannot earn grace; likewise, we
cannot earn faith. There was nothing we could do to garner God's grace; He gave it freely. Faith
is given the same way, so that no one may boast.
Philippians 1:6 It is God who began the good work. Before salvation, we all worked,
but none of it was good. It was not until God intervened and regenerated His people that anything
good was done in or by those people. And then notice that God will complete the good work. God does
not draw and regenerate people just to leave them to go their own way. Those whom He regenerates,
He completes. He does not dole out the ability to choose (which is part of the good work) to all
people and hope that some will ask Him to complete it. No, every single person in whom He has
begun the good work (regeneration, ability to choose Him) will come to completion in Him. If
free will is the good work that He has done, and it is given to everyone, then this verse would
mean that all people would be saved in the end. If regeneration is the good work, but you believe
that your free will decision comes before regeneration, is your decision the good work, or
is regeneration the good work? If your decision is the good work that comes before regeneration,
how could it have happened while you were dead in your sins and unable to understand the things of
God? If your decision is the good work that comes before regeneration, then you are in
control, you are sovereign, you had some goodness in you while you were dead in sins, and you
began your own resurrection. God is very particular in whom He has called and chosen and
predestined. He knows His sheep by name. It is to these sheep that He has given faith to believe.
He does not go out to the field and call to all wandering sheep, hoping in vain that they want to
follow Him. God calls His sheep by name and His sheep hear His voice. These are the ones who have
the faith to believe, but they did not earn it. He saves those whom He foreloved. He gives faith
to those whom He determined would be His. It is regeneration that gives us the desire and
willingness to come to Him. This is where faith is now given by God and acted upon by the
regenerated soul. Faith and works do not cause salvation; rather, faith and works are the
evidences of the new birth.
John 5:21
Ephesians 2:5 Here, Jesus says that He is sovereign in giving
life. Does He give life to those who jump up and down with their hands raised? Yes, but who would
be able to jump up and down if they were still dead in sins? Paul says the giving of life comes
while death still reigns. It is to the one born again of the Spirit that faith is then given.
Common Questions If God already knows the outcome, meaning the future
cannot be changed, then the future is fixed and there is no real freedom. Their choice is
determined. So why did God, then, go ahead and create them? Whether you take the Arminian or
Calvinist position, the same question has to be answered. The Arminian "foreseen faith" position
offers no help here. In that position, God saw that men would reject Him and be condemned to
Hell, but He went ahead and created them anyway. The Calvinist position would say that God is
sovereign; we do not understand all of His plans, but we do know that He has a reason for
allowing billions of people to be born whom He has not chosen for salvation. When Adam sinned,
God could have just ended it there. Not one person would have been born and no one would be in
Heaven. Or how about Noah? God spared Noah in the face of world-wide evil. God could have just
ended the whole thing there and not called Noah. But He spared Noah's family and now here we are.
Millions more people are in Heaven now who would never have been born. God's ways and thoughts
are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9).
Ephesians 2:8-9
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
"...being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in
you will complete it..."
"'For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives
life to whom He will.'"
"...even when we were dead in trespasses, [He] made us alive together with
Christ (by grace you have been saved)..."
You may be asking if this "determinism" by God means that God has
created people just to send them to Hell. But I would ask you: If God created men and chose them
based on their foreseen acts of faith, and God knew some of these would reject Him, then why did
God go ahead and create them to begin with? In other words, their eternal destiny is fixed by some
kind of impersonal fate since the future cannot be changed if God already knows it. If whether or
not someone chooses God is already known by God then the future is certain. The Biblical view is
that it is certain because of the eternal plan of a merciful and loving personal God. The
foreseen faith view is based on an impersonal determinism. Something is determining their future
choice, in that scheme, but not God.