Lecture 8 - Total Depravity Flashcards
TULIP
1) Total Depravity
2) Unconditional election
3) Limited atonement
4) Irresistible grace
5) Perseverance of the saints
The center of our faith (reformed)
1) God saves sinners in Jesus Christ
2) Salvation is found in Jesus - this is what animates Calvinism
3) Reformed theology a nickname for biblical theology
History of TULIP
1) Senate of Dort 1618-1619
2) never intended as a comprehensive guide to reformed theology
3) Lorene Baetner (1942) popularized our understanding of TULIP
Article 1 (of the Five Articles of Remonstrance - Armenians 1610)…“That God…hath determined…to save in Christ…those who, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, shall believe on this his Son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith, through his grace, even to the end;”
1) God chose people who would chose Him.
2) Contingency of works here undermine God’s grace.
3) Armenians are trying to 1) maintain the sovereignty of God, 2) focus on the the work of Christ and 3) anchor teaching in Scripture.
Article 2 (of the Five Articles of Remonstrance - Armenians 1610)…“Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, died for all men and for every man, so that he has obtained for them all, by his death on the cross, redemption, and the forgiveness of sins; yet that no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins, except the believer.”
1) Atonement is there for everyone, but only efficacious for those who believe.
2) Jesus died then for people who are burning in hell (because of their lack of faith)
3) This leads to Jesus’ death being inadequate.
Article 3 (of the Five Articles of Remonstrance - Armenians 1610)…“That man has not saving grace of himself, nor of the energy of his free-will, inasmuch as he, in the state of apostasy and sin, can of and by himself neither think, will, nor do anything that is truly good (such as having faith eminently is); but that it is needful that he be born again of God in Christ, through his Holy Spirit, and renewed…in order that he may rightly…effect what is truly good.”
1) Prevenient grace props up sinful people so they can chose Christ.
2) Grace is given to all people (not effectual)
3) First articulation of Armenians
Article 4 (of the Five Articles of Remonstrance - Armenians 1610)…“that all good deeds or movements that can be conceived must be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ. But, as respects the mode of the operation of this grace, it is not irresistible..”
1) Grace can be rejected
2) Proposes a resistent grace
3) Humans have a role in accepting or rejecting salvation
Article 5 (of the Five Articles of Remonstrance - Armenians 1610)…“But whether they are capable, through negligence, of forsaking again the first beginnings of their life in Christ, of again returning to this present evil world…must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scriptures before we ourselves can teach it with the full persuasion of our minds.”
1) Opens the door for denying perseverance
2) Our salvation depends on ourselves
3) The rejection of perseverance is a rejection of God’s sovereign grace.
WCF 6 (p. 1) Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.
1) We have a vested interest in this story because it is our parents who fell.
2) God freely ordains whatever comes to pass.
3) God’s Will:
1) permissive will=what God allows
2) decretive will=what God orders
3) preceptive will=what God commands
4) dispositional will=what brings Him pleasure
WCF 6 (p. 2) By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.
1) Twin consequences: sin & death.
2) The problem with sin is that is evicts us from God’s presence.
3) 6. Original righteousness means they were good in the sight of God’s law
WCF 6 (p. 3) They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from the by ordinary generation.
1) We are affected by Adam and Eve’s sin.
2) If they are our parents than the whole race is tainted.
3) We have received our nature from them.
WCF 6 (p. 4) From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.
1) Actual sin refers to the sins we commit.
2) Original corruption leaves us utterly indisposed to God.
3) From this corrupt nature comes corrupt actions.
WCF 6 (p. 5) This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.
1) There is hope for regenerate who are daily confronted with the grim realities.
2) We still sin this side of glory, but through Jesus are sin can be mortified.
3) Christ has freed us from the power of sin, but not from the presence of sin until our glorification.
WCF 6 (p. 6) Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.
1) Sin affects us in this life spiritually and physically
2) We need a Savior who can rescue us from the twin consequences of the fall.
3)
Total Depravity - definition
1) Teaches that every person is in rebellion with God and can’t make amends
2) Affects every aspect and faculty of our being
3) sin completely and totally isolates us from God and from enjoying Him
