Category Archives: The Doctrines of Grace

The Doctrines of Grace

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Dr. Arturo G. Azurdia III is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Director of Pastoral Mentoring at Western Seminary in Portland , Oregon. He recently established a new church plant in Portland, Oregon which is called Trinity Church, where he is Senior Minister of Word and Worship.

So Great A Salvation

The following is a series of lectures/sermons on the doctrines of grace (AKA The five points of Calvinism) which Dr. Azurdia recently completed in his Wednesday evening chapel meetings.

To download MP3, click link and save to your hard drive.

The Human Dilemma
What a piece of work is a man, created in God’s image but marred with sin through and through. Sin has spread to every member of the human race, infected every facet of your humanity, and rendered you unable to respond to God in a positive fashion. The salvation of any human being is the consequence of the grace of God. Since you can’t and won’t seek God, He must come seeking you.

God’s Sovereign Choosing
On what basis does God choose people for salvation? Ultimately, salvation is of the Lord. The Scriptures teach that God chooses us on the basis of His sovereign will, which is a cause for praise according to Jesus. The Father chose us in Jesus before the foundation of the world according to the purpose of His will to the praise of His grace.

The Intentional Atonement Of Jesus Christ
What did Jesus mean when He said, “It is finished?” How do you limit the atonement? You either have an atonement of ultimate value or one of universal extension. Any honest reading of the Bible will not let you limit the significance of what was actually accomplished at the cross. For efficacy is tied to particularity, not to potentiality.

The Grace That Overcomes
Why do some people respond positively to the gospel while others persistently refuse it? Maybe a better question is why does anybody ever respond to the gospel. The answer is overcoming grace.

Perseverance And Preservation
Is it possible for a genuine Christian to forfeit God’s gift of salvation? This is certainly a question frequently asked because most Christians have known someone who once seemed zealous for Jesus, but later abandoned the faith. The Bible teaches that true believers must and will persevere because God preserves them in the faith.

So Great A Salvation Series Q & A
Questions and Answers on this series with Pastor Art Azurdia.

So Great A Salvation Series Q & A (Part 2)
Part two of Questions and Answers on this series with Pastor Art Azurdia.

Roger Olson’s book “Against Calvinism” – A Review by Dr. James White

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Parts 1 and 2
Roger Olson doesn’t like to debate, and he doesn’t like to defend his assertions, either, but that did not stop Dr. James White from reviewing his book “Against Calvinism.” A very troubling aspect of Olson’s book is that he admits that even if God revealed Himself to be and to act, as Calvinists say He does, Olson would refuse to worship Him. That’s an amazing thing for a professed Christian to say.

Here is the first half of Dr. White’s review:

Here is the second half:

Tweaking the Tulip

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This short article by Justin Taylor made me laugh. It contains some helpful and useful material, but I just saw the funny side of the historic TULIP acrostic suffering a massive regressive evolution of sorts and becoming WUPSI:

Despite the number in common, the “five points of Calvinism” (TULIP) don’t come from the Decision of the Synod of Dordt on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands (more popularly known as simply the Synod of Dort, 1618-1619).

The first documented use of the TULIP acronym for the doctrines of grace can be found here. Writing in 1913, the author recalls a popular lecture from Dr. Cleland B. McAfee in 1905. Dr. McAfee was the pastor of Lafayette Avenue Church in Brooklyn at the time. (In 1913 he joined the faculty at Mc­Cor­mick The­o­log­ic­al Sem­in­ary in Chi­ca­go.)

Dr. McAfee essentially gave the acronym as we know it today, except that “U” stood for “universal sovereignty” in his talk, whereas it’s known today as “unconditional election.”

Total depravity
Universal sovereignty
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints

It has become popular of later to retain the content of the “five points” but to tweak the terminology and even rearrange them for better communication. One of the more creative ones is found in Timothy George’s Amazing Grace: God’s Pursuit, Our Response:

Radical depravity
Overcoming grace
Sovereign election
Eternal life
Singular redemption

And it’s also hard not to admire the gospel- and grace-based approach of Roger Nicole:

Grace
Obligatory grace
Sovereign grace
Provision-making grace
Effectual grace
Lasting grace

I believe that the five points—rightly understood—are gloriously true and can be clearly demonstrated exegetically—but I still had to smile at this comment in Greg Forster’s forthcoming book The Joy of Calvinism: Knowing God’s Personal, Unconditional, Irresistible, Unbreakable Love (Crossway, coming in February 2012):

It sometimes feels like Calvinists first invoke the five points, then apologize for invoking the five points, then explain how the five points don’t really mean what they seem to mean and aren’t really saying what they seem to be saying. This can’t possibly be the best way to introduce people to what we believe.

Forster’s own alternative brings out the trinitarian nature and redemptive progression of this teaching:

State of man before salvation: wholly defiled
Work of the Father in salvation: unconditional choice
Work of the Son in salvation: personal salvation
Work of the Spirit in salvation: supernatural transformation
State of man after salvation: in faith, perseverance

Tongue in cheek, Forster writes:

This gives us the handy mnemonic WUPSI, pronounced “whoopsie”—as in, “whoopsie, we just realized that TULIP is giving everyone heinously false ideas of what Calvinism is all about.” Perhaps it’s not as memorable as TULIP, but it has other virtues to make up for that.

For more on these issues, see Kenneth Stewart’s third chapter in Ten Myths about Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition.