I previously mentioned that Calvinists and non-Calvinists employ the same vocabulary but use a different dictionary. An example of this is found in the use of the word “free” in relation to grace. Calvinists use the phrase “free grace” to mean “without external influence.” Nothing has influenced God’s decision to choose to save some and not others except that he himself willed it. Nothing outside of God himself contributes to what he decided with respect to any individual’s eternal destiny. His decision is “free.” So, “free grace” means that one is saved by the completely uninfluenced choice of God to save them. If it is otherwise, even with respect to the necessity of faith, God and his decision would not be “free.” One cannot believe in Christ unless God works faith in them, and this work of God only occurs in the elect. According to the Calvinist, if believing was sourced in and an ability of a person’s will, one would be contributing something to their salvation. Their salvation would ultimately depend upon their ability and act of faith. They would be meriting their salvation. Man, as fallen and sinful, has no such ability within himself to believe, so the Calvinist claims.
In contrast, “free” in a biblical context means “without cost.” That is, the salvation provided by God’s grace, that is, in Christ, comes to one freely, without any earthly or human qualifications attached. It is “free” in that it need not, indeed it cannot, be earned in any way. In this sense, “free” also means it comes to all men everywhere for them to receive, and that simply and only by faith, which is not considered a “work,” “meritorious” or a “contribution” to one’s salvation.
Therefore, ironically, it is Calvinism that binds God’s sovereign freedom by insisting God could not decree a salvation that depends upon the genuinely free response of faith from fallen sinners to his work in Christ on their behalf and the enabling of the Spirit in the proclamation of this “good news?”
These differences exemplify the fact that interpreters come to the text with certain preunderstandings that shape their conclusions. What I have attempted to demonstrate is that, along with sound exegesis, interpretive incoherence is indicative of invalid interpretations.
The Scriptures teach that grace is free, but not as the Calvinist speaks of “free grace.” For when the Calvinist says God’s grace is “free,” what they mean is that the application, granting, or giving of grace is arbitrary, that is, we cannot know or discern any reasons as to who he will grant it. That is, God is “free” to choose whom he will save out of the mass of sinful humanity. “Free” means “up to him.” He is “free” to determine whom he will save and “free” to determine whom he will not save. He is “free” to grant grace to certain individual sinners, which equates to “effectively saving certain individuals,” and he is “free” to withhold grace from other individual sinners, which equates to “having decided not to save certain individuals.” This is what the Calvinist means by “free grace.” “Free” means that God is arbitrarily selective as to who will receive his grace. And because this grace is irresistible as necessitated by unconditional election, those to whom it is granted will be saved, and those to whom it is not granted will not and cannot be saved. This is to say that God unconditionally elects some people to salvation while passing by all others, and therefore, it is only to those unconditionally elected that this grace is given, which, according to unconditional election, must be an irresistible grace – although the concept “irresistible” has no meaning within the Calvinists’ worldview of universal divine causal determinism.
But it is incumbent upon us to evaluate this Calvinist definition of grace as “free” to see if it is taught in Scripture. I submit to you that it is antithetical to the biblical witness and meaning of grace. Grace is not God’s selective favor upon some individuals for the purpose of limiting salvation to those individuals and excluding all others; rather, it is undeserved favor shown to all sinners for the purpose of a response of faith and love from sinners. As such, the demonstration of divine grace in Scripture, even if it is selective (e.g., Abraham, Isaac (not Ishmael), Jacob (not Esau), Israel, etc.), is for the purpose of the inclusion of others, not their exclusion. That is what divine grace aims to do. The idea that undeserved favor necessitates the inclusion of some to the exclusion of all others on the basis that God has predetermined, based on his own will, the eternal destiny of both groups is not found in Scripture. To point to God’s gracious selection and establishment of Israel as support for an unconditional election and irresistible grace to salvation runs counter to the very purpose of God in establishing the nation of Israel as his chosen people. One main reason for God’s selection of Israel was for the very purpose that they would be witnesses of the only true God to all the nations (Isa. 42:6; 43:10-12; 45:22; 49:6; 52:10, 15; 53:6; 55:6-7; 56:7; Rom. 10:6-13; 11:32; 15:8-13; Gal. 3:8, 22; Eph. 3:4-12 et al.). Although in the wisdom of God, there was an initial limitation in the selection of Israel to be his people, God intended them to be a light to the Gentiles so that all people would be able to be called his people and he would also be their God (1 Pet. 2:9-10). The historical nature of God’s saving work was progressive. It required exclusion for the purpose of inclusion. Israel was chosen to testify to God’s universal grace and love for all nations and every individual. This they failed to do. And the ramifications of this failure, along with God’s present activity and purposes for both Jew and Gentile, are what Paul wants both the Jew and the Gentile to understand in Romans 9-11.
In contrast, therefore, when the non-Calvinist says God’s grace is free, we mean that this divine disposition does not depend upon the sinner earning it. No one can make a claim to it on any grounds other than that God is being gracious to every sinner by offering them the salvation he worked out on their behalf, which is also an expression of his grace to them. God gives of his grace freely. Thereby, it is grace that is for all. It is not linked to our personal good works or righteous behavior, but rather rooted in God’s nature. And as such, it is not “free” as if he could will and act arbitrarily by predetermining or assigning to whom grace will be given and to whom it will not be given, but is genuinely free in the sense that this quality in the character of God extends to all in need of it, that is, to every sinner and that without “cost” or dependent upon the sinner’s merits or national privilege (i.e., being a descendant of Abraham). God is gracious.
When I say this, I do not mean that we can presume upon God’s grace in the negative sense, but only to highlight the point that God himself wants us to know the abundance and sufficiency of his grace and to receive it. If we can “presume” upon anything, it is that God is loving and gracious to each of us as demonstrated in the death of his Son on the cross. It is God who decides what we can genuinely “presume” about him or not. We “presume” upon God’s grace because he would have us do so in that he invites us to come to him with the sure knowledge that he is gracious and loving towards us all. We know this because he revealed himself in Jesus Christ as grace and truth (Jn. 1:14-18). God’s grace is free; that is, it can be obtained by every sinner because it is expressed and broadcast to us all in Jesus Christ. God is emphatic about this. It is in Jesus that the grace of God has appeared. A person may reject God’s grace expressed to them in Christ, but those who desire to be reconciled to God can count on his grace towards them because of Christ. To reject this grace may trigger God’s prerogative to temporarily withhold grace for his larger purposes (e.g., the hardening of Israel in Rom. 9-11), but we should beware of a doctrine that places in jeopardy the knowledge, assurance, and hope we need as sinners that God’s grace is sufficient for us all, encompasses us all, and serves to assure us that salvation is for us all. Paul writes,
“So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is justification leading to life for everyone. For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 5:18-21, CSB)
John writes,
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 Jn. 1:8,9 ESV)
And moreover,
“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world.” (1 Jn. 2:2 ESV)
We can therefore, in a very true sense, “assume [grace] as a given” because we know grace to be integral to the nature of God himself. The gospel, as “good news,” rests and depends upon this understanding of divine grace. That is, he is gracious, and his grace is not locked up and dispensed only to special people unknown to us and for reasons unknown to us, which is the sense that Calvinists like Peterson and Williams need to promote to preserve their traditional doctrines of “irresistible grace” and “unconditional election.” Again, we agree that we cannot take God’s grace for granted. But when God himself says I have grace in abundance and have revealed my grace in Jesus Christ, our confidence then lies in God alone, and we can rest in the fact that God’s disposition to each one of us is one of favor – yes, underserved favor – but favor nonetheless. Actually, it is the Calvinist who presumes upon God’s grace. He not only presumes that saving grace applies to him, but he also presumes that God cannot be gracious to all, which seems to be the meaning of the parable of The Laborers in the Vineyard in Luke 20:1-16. We need not base our confidence in our own presumption that we are among those whom God has unconditionally elected to salvation, as the Calvinist must presume. Nor do we have to live with the doubt and despair over whether God is gracious towards us, given the doctrine of unconditional election. It is impossible to access the unalterable, unilateral decision God made in eternity past as to your eternal destiny, that is, whether God predestined you to eternal salvation or whether he predestined you to eternal damnation. Given the texts cited above and the arguments to follow, we know and are assured that God is gracious towards each of us. My point is that once God decides to be gracious to sinners, then we certainly can be assured that this undeserved favor extends to all members of the class to which it applies, that is, to every individual person, because we are all sinners. God’s grace is free.
Also, adding to the complexity of the matter is the fact that Calvinists feel free to lay claim to both senses of a biblical word or concept even though their uses of them may be logically and morally mutually exclusive with their underlying deterministic theology (e.g., “voluntary,” “freely,” “human responsibility,” “persuasion,” etc.) So, I ask the Calvinist whether this inconsistency reflects upon the validity of the interpretive conclusions that require such vacillation between dichotomous perspectives. How is it that the Calvinist theologian feels comfortable embracing both sides of the issue when they are logically and morally incompatible and contradictory? Is it legitimate to provide us with the reasoning that “the Bible teaches both?”
If this reasoning satisfies the Calvinist, which amounts to dismissing the spectrum of problems I have raised with respect to this position, then any discussion on these topics simply ends in frustration and confusion, as both parties use terms differently and quote their respective verses and go their separate ways. So, this is not a matter of simply using the same words and quoting verses, but broadening the discussion to evaluate whether controlling paradigms of thought can be determined to be valid and legitimate. The nuanced meaning of the words mentioned above, and the substantial differences between the Calvinist and non-Calvinist soteriologies, raise the question of whether the reasonings that account for those differences are valid biblical, rational patterns of thought. It is ultimately an issue in hermeneutics.
Therefore, what I have attempted to do is elucidate the biblical, logical, and moral aspects of the Calvinist and non-Calvinist positions to clarify the driving forces at work and arrive at certain “givens” for thinking through and coming to biblical conclusions on what is acknowledged to be a quite troublesome theological subject. I believe I have demonstrated that the non-Calvinist position better reflects the meaning of Scripture because non-contradiction, coherence, consistency, and harmony are essential elements in a sound, biblical hermeneutic.
Let’s continue with a biblical examination of the nature of grace and show why it does not support the Calvinist idea of “sovereign grace,” where grace is irresistibly given only to a limited number of people predestined to salvation.
Go to the next section: The Biblical Concept of Saving Grace: Christological and Universal
Chapter 14 – The Nature of Grace in Scripture
The Truth of the Gospel 