An Examination of TULIP

Is This Teaching Totally Scriptural? Is It Totally Unscriptural? Is It Part True and Part False? How Does It Effect Evangelism?

“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” – I Timothy 2:3-6.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” – II Peter 3:9.

Can these Scriptures be taken at face value? Do they mean what they say or is their true meaning hidden and twisted in such a way that it takes an expert theologian to unravel their mystery? Does God really want ALL men to be saved? Does He want ALL men to come to the knowledge of the truth? Did Christ on the cross really give Himself a ransom for ALL? Does He want ALL to come to repentance? Is it a fact that He wants NO ONE to perish?

Those who hold to five-point Calvinism teach that God, in a sense, really doesn’t want all men to be saved or to come unto the knowledge of His truth. They insist that Christ actually did not give Himself a ransom for all on the cross and that He is not at all interested in everyone coming to repentance. Quite the contrary, what they teach amounts to His actually wanting the majority of souls to perish in Hell eternally.

This is shocking, startling teaching! The late Dr. Arno C. Gaebelein, noted Bible teacher, author and consulting editor of the original Scofield Reference Bible, in describing this system as outlined in Arthur W. Pink s book, The Sovereignty of God, used such phrases as “totally unscriptural?” “a monstrous thing,” “akin to blasphemy,” “perversion.” He spoke of these “frightful doctrines which make the God of Love a monster” and said they “present God as a Being of injustice and malign His holy character.” He called it the “kind of teaching which makes atheists.”

Was Gaebelein right or wrong?

WHAT ARE THE “FIVE POINTS” OF CALVINISM?

Proponents of this system of theology commonly refer to it as “Tulip,” each of the five letters in the word indicating one of the points. Opponents usually describe it as hyper-Calvinism, a term which greatly agitates the advocates of five-pointism because “hyper” means “to go beyond the ordinary or norm.” While we feel “hyper Calvinism” is an honest and fair appraisal, since it goes beyond the position of John Calvin himself, we will refrain from using the term here. We want to be objective, not objectionable.

A. TOTAL DEPRAVITY!

The “T” stands for total depravity, which the more extreme Calvinists call “total inability.” By this is meant that man cannot do anything at all to bring about his salvation – not even believe! To the fact of man’s total and complete depravity, as stated in Sacred Scripture, we heartily concur. Man is completely corrupt from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He does have a heart that is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). His total pollution is such that even Paul was compelled to confess, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). Man is born in sin (Psalm 51:5); he goes astray as soon as he is born (Psalm 58:3); and the completeness of his impurity is such that it takes a passage like Romans 3:9-20, with its fourteen-fold indictment, to sum up his true condition.

Furthermore, we readily acknowledge also that man’s depravity is such that he cannot and does not initiate any move toward God and redemption on his own. As David and Paul agreed, “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one …. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Psalm 14:2,3; Romans 3:10,11). Our Lord Himself said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him …” (John 6:44). We most certainly do not deny these truths; we emphasize and preach them.

However, it is the false conclusions which five-point Calvinism draws from these basic, biblical facts to which we strongly object. The Word of God teaches that, while man is totally depraved and totally unable to help himself, our Lord draws every man sufficiently and enlightens every man as much as necessary for that individual to make a decision of his own free will. Five-point Calvinism erroneously insists that man’s spiritual deadness makes such a voluntary decision impossible short of the actual reception of spiritual life.

Proponents of this position fondly illustrate by pointing to the total inability of man physically dead. They argue that such a man cannot speak, cannot hear, cannot move a hand or a foot, cannot do anything at all. Since man is dead in trespasses and sins, they reason, he is hopeless to even hear the Gospel with spiritual perception or move a finger to act upon it.

However, the kind of “deadness” they describe is unlike any other; certainly it is unlike any of the three forms of deadness found in the Bible. The deadness envisioned by the Word of God is a “separation” deadness. For example, physical deadness is simply the separation of the spirit and the soul from the body. It is true that the dead corpse cannot hear, speak, or move — but the corpse is not the man! The man, even though physically dead, is still able to hear, see, move, act and be cognizant of things. Our dear Lord certainly gave us ample evidence of this in His story of the rich man and Lazarus, found in Luke 16:19-31. While not so much is said about Lazarus, our Saviour clearly stated that the rich man, after departing this life, was able to lift up his eyes, he saw, he cried, he prayed, and was apparently in full possession of all his faculties.

The same is true with spiritual deadness. Spiritual death is not an annihilation, but simply separation from God. Paul was describing this spiritual deadness when he wrote to Timothy, saying, “But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth” (I Timothy 5:6). Those outside of Christ are spiritually dead, yes; but they eat, talk, think, move, act, work, play, sleep and react in every way just as do the saved people who have spiritual life. Spiritual deadness is not annihilation.

It is no different with the third type of biblical death, namely, the “second death” — so called because it is the second and final form of spiritual death. This, just as with the other two types of death, is certainly not annihilation! The second death is simply a complete, final and eternal separation from God in Hell because of sin and rejection of Christ. But sinners in. Hell will think, move, act and otherwise manifest full sense of their faculties. So it is a strange sort of deadness — one completely foreign to any type described in the Word of God — that the five-point Calvinist describes in his doctrine of total inability.

It is certainly true that no sinner can come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit of God; but the blessed Holy Spirit draws every man (John 12:32), giving man enough light so that he is, as Romans 1:20 says, “without excuse.” And John 1:9 says about Jesus, “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” No man has ever been born who was not given light by our Lord Jesus Christ. And any man, once given that light, is capable of responding; yea, he is held accountable if he does not!

B. UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION

The “U” in Tulip stands for “unconditional election.” By this is meant that the decision which determines the individual’s eternal destiny is wholly and entirely God’s decision, not in the slightest degree that of the sinner! If you will forgive us for saying so, unconditional election is the kind they have in Communist Cuba, Red China and Fascist Spain — it is a stuffed ballot box! The election is already settled before one goes to the polls!

This kind of theology simply; makes a taunting of the Savior’s charge to the people of His day: “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40). According to the philosophy of five-point Calvinism, it is not that these sinners would not, but rather that they could not. All of the “whosoever wills” in the Word of God thereby become as meaningless as the mumbo jumbo of an African witch doctor. Yet this is the kind of election which the five-point. adherent boasts will bring the greatest “glory” to God!

Actually, unconditional election makes God a respecter of persons — choosing some and rejecting others — and arbitrarily at that, since they say His selection is not based upon any action of the chosen. “Blind selection” might be a more proper term since there is no discernable or explainable reason for His partiality to the few. The five-point Calvinist charges — falsely, we might add — that “whosoever will” reflects on God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. But unconditional election reflects much more on His divine attributes of love and justice.

To be consistent, although he often uses all kinds of double-talk to escape the reality of what he is actually teaching, a five-point Calvinist must insist that God hates sinners. His understanding of “God so loved the world’ (John 3:16) is that “God so loved the elect.” The God of the five-point Calvinist is a God Who hates a non-elect baby even before he is born. He hates him when he is born. He hates him in his infancy. He hates him in his adulthood. And When he dies, this God of the five-point Calvinist tosses the poor non-elect sinner, whom He has always hated, into the lake of fire!

What a contrast this is to the God of the Bible, Who wept over the non-elect in Jerusalem — the very ones who, in a matter of hours, would be crucifying Him — saying: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not” (Matthew 23:37). This loving heartache, incidentally, was manifested at the very time He was compelled to leave them “desolate” (vs. 38). What a contrast to the God of the five-point Calvinist is the Saviour revealed in the New Testament, about Whom it is said with reference to the non-elect rich young ruler, “Jesus beholding him loved him” (Mark 10:21). Yes, it may safely be said, beyond honest denial, God loves sinners!

How deadening five-point Calvinism is to evangelism! You cannot blame people for not getting excited about winning people to Christ if their excitement and zealous activity has nothing to do with it. Some time ago I was out on the West Coast in a meeting. On the Wednesday previous to my arrival, the pastor assured his prayer meeting crowd, while talking about soul winning, that there would not be one less person in Heaven if he sat in his study instead of going out on visitation. It would only mean, he said, a loss of reward on his part for unfaithfulness in service.

The way I discovered he had made the statement was through his reminder to his Sunday school class, emphasizing again in my presence what he had said. This time, however, he partially “corrected” himself, saying there was a sense in which he wouldn’t even lose any reward! (That, I suppose, being “foreordained” as well.)

Frankly, I was not overly surprised when the choir leader — a two-year Bible school veteran — went home every night after the choir number. His wife, a pastor’s daughter and also an ex-Bible school student, did not attend a single weeknight service of the crusade. As a matter of fact, the couple left town the closing weekend and missed all of those services.

Nor was I especially surprised when two of the best — if not the best — men in his church left the State on the closing weekend of the crusade to go pheasant hunting. I repeat: why get excited about evangelism and soul winning if nothing you do or don’t do effects the final outcome?

Summed up, the unconditional election theory says in effect: “God brings a baby into this world. He has done neither good nor evil. Yet that baby is going to grow up and go to Hell and be damned forever. There is absolutely nothing he can do to keep from going to Hell. God will not permit it. God arbitrarily decided it in eternity past that the baby would grow up, never be saved, and go to Hell and be tormented forever. This decision was not made upon anything the baby would or would not do; God simply did not select him to be saved.” This is truly a doctrine “which makes atheists.” It is, as the late Dr. Gaebelein charged, “totally unscriptural” and “akin to blasphemy.”

C. LIMITED ATONEMENT

The “L” stands for “Limited Atonement.” By this the five-point Calvinist means that Jesus Christ only died at Calvary for the elect — none of the billions of non-elect were included in the provision through the shedding of His blood. The “limited” brethren are fond of pointing out that if the atonement had been “unlimited,” universalism would have resulted and all men would have been saved. They argue that if Christ died for all, then, unless His work was a failure, all must be forgiven and taken to Heaven.

But this is strange reasoning in the light o the host of Scriptures which make the atonement applicable to the sinner only upon his acceptance!

Let me illustrate. Suppose I were a man of immense wealth. Suppose, further, in a sincere desire to join our governmental leaders in their anti-poverty crusade, I deposited, in the banks of the United States, $1,000 in the name of every man, woman, boy and girl in this nation. However, in order to receive that money, I stipulated that each recipient must join a fundamental, Bible-teaching church in his own community. The money would be available to all of the 205 million or so Americans. But not one single one of them could receive his thousand dollars unless he fulfilled the terms of the agreement, namely, joining a local church where the Word of God was preached and the Lord Jesus Christ exalted.

It is the same with the biblical atonement. Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world and His blood provided the ransom price for each individual’s redemption. Deposit for that very thing has been made in the bank of Heaven. However, that ransom is applicable to no individual unless he adheres to the terms stipulated by the Heavenly Father, namely, receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Saviour and Lord! This does not have even the slightest semblance of universalism about it and it is a rather dishonest argument when used by the limited atonement theorist. Perhaps it points out how hard-pressed he is to defend his untenable position.

It is in this matter of atonement that the five-point Calvinist out-Calvins Calvin! As Augustus H. Strong, in his Systematic Theology, points out: “Richards, Theology, 302-307, shows that Calvin, while in his early work, the Institutes, he avoided definite statements of his position with regard to the extent of the atonement, yet in his latter works, the Commentaries, acceded to the theory of universal atonement. Supralapsarianism is therefore hyper-Calvinistic, rather than Calvinistic” (Revised and Enlarged Seventh Edition, p. 426).

Actually, in order to believe and preach a limited atonement, it is necessary to rewrite both the Bible and the dictionary. The five-point Calvinist tells us that when John 1:29 says, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” John really didn’t mean the world. And when the apostle declared about Jesus Christ, “And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our’s only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 2:2), he didn’t really mean that Christ was the propitiation for everybody’s sins. In the dictionary of the “tulip” man, “world” does not mean world; “all” does not mean all; “whosoever” does not mean whosoever; and a brand new language must be understood which, in turn, makes the Bible a hopeless mass of confusion for the average reader — even though he be a child of God!

The writer in Lange’s widely-used commentary, discussing the phrase in I John 2:2, “not for our’s only. but also for the whole world, “ said: “The Apostle’s design was manifestly to show the universality of the propitiation, in the most emphatic manner, and without any exception. This renders any and every limitation inadmissible …. As in ch.i.7, the work of Christ extends to all the sins of His people, so it extends here to the sin of the whole world, without distinguishing between contemporaneous and successive generations, or finding here any reference to the difference between sufficientia and officacia. This renders it also perfectly clear that while Christ is the Paraclete of believing penitent Christians only, His propitiation has respect to, and is sufficient for all men in general” (Vol. 23, First Epistle of John, p. 45).

The Apostle Paul based the passion of his entire ministry upon an unlimited atonement. When charged with being beside himself, he wrote in his defense: “For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (II Corinthians 5:13-15).

Paul reasoned that if “one died for all,” then every one must be dead in trespasses and sins and on the road to Hell. He augmented that conviction with the flat statement that Christ had “died for all,” and this persuasion drove him day and night, with tears, out into the highways, hedges and throughout the parts of the known world of his day, suffering, being abused, persecuted, tormented, imprisoned and finally slain. And he based it all upon the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ died for everyone!

D. IRRESISTIBLE GRACE!

The “I” in Tulip represents “Irresistible Grace.” Proponents mean by this expression that God’s grace, when presented by the Holy Spirit, is of such a nature that it is impossible for the sinner to resist or refuse. However, this simply does not stack up against the facts. We have already seen in John 1:9 how every individual is given some light by The Light, Yet in many cases that light is refused and rejected by sinners who would rather have sin than a Saviour. Stephen, in the sermon that brought about his martyrdom by stoning, told the religious leaders of Jerusalem: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). Obviously, the Holy Spirit may be resisted.

In order to get around this dilemma of sinners resisting the grace of God when presented by the Holy Spirit, the five-point Calvinist has invented two calls. One is described as a “general” call, which every sinner is able to hear, and the other is supposed to be an “effectual” call, which only the elect can hear. While the five-point Calvinist would vigorously deny such a conclusion, in truth and in fact this theology makes God out to be a hypocrite Who has an “insincere” call and a “sincere” call. In the general call, He insincerely invites everybody to come — but He does not really mean it! This call is merely the “window dressing” of a false pretence. It is only in the effectual call that He is sincere with His invitation.

My, what a perverted theology is this! No wonder Dr. Gaebelein called it the “kind of teaching which makes atheists.”

In defense of his position, the “tulip” man is fond of declaring, “The Bible insists, ‘for many are called, but few are chosen’.”

But does it?

As a matter of fact, this statement is made twice by our Saviour in the Gospel of Matthew. The first time is in Matthew 20:16, where it forms the conclusion for His parable about the householder who hired laborers to work in his vineyard. By no stretch of the imagination could this application be construed as having anything to do with anyone’s election to salvation! The entire theme relates to service and rewards; to apply this to a “general” and “effectual” call to sinners in salvation is the grossest form of perverting Scripture.

The second time our Lord used the phrase was in Matthew 22:14, in application of His parable about the king who made a marriage for his son and invited many guests. When the king’s servants’ went to call the bidden ones to the wedding banquet, they all made light of it. One went to his farm, another to his merchandise, and others took the servants who issued the invitation and slew them. The angry king sent forth his armies, destroyed the murderers, and burned up their city. Then he sent other servants out into the highways and gathered “both bad and good” to furnish the wedding with guests.

However, when the king came into greet the guests, he found “a man which had not on a wedding garment.” In anger, the king rebuked him and ordered him bound hand and foot, taken away, and cast into outer darkness. Then he said, “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

It is true that this parable, unlike the previous one, has an application to salvation. It is equally true that whatever our Lord meant by many being called and few being chosen, He placed the responsibility for the man’s presence without the wedding garment squarely upon the man himself. The shocked king demanded, “Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment”

As we know from the history of Oriental custom in our Lord’s day, wedding garments were provided by the host for wedding guests. This man’s lack was inexcusable and his speechlessness indicated his realization of that fact. A garment had been provided for him by the king and he had refused to wear it! This in no way pictures irresistible grace or proves that theology of a general and an effectual call. [On the other hand, we might point out that the parable favors unlimited atonement since a wedding garment would have been provided — even though unused!]

E. THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS!

The “P” in Tulip represents the “Perseverance of the Saints.” By this the five-point Calvinist means that the saints are eternally secure in Christ and that once in grace, they are always in grace. This is truly in accord with scriptural teaching, although the terminology here is most unfortunate. As ones who magnify God’s grace, surely five-point Calvinists should know that it is not the saints who persevere, but the blessed Holy Spirit. It is His “holding out, not that of the saints! Philippians 1:6 expresses it: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Such is the Tulip position of five-point Calvinism. Do you remember Richard Speck, the murderer of the eight student nurses in Chicago, and his tattoo, “Born to Raise Hell”? The five-pointer’s position with reference to well over fifty per cent of the world’s approximate three billion, three hundred million population is that they have been invisibly tattooed by the Spirit of God, “Born to go to Hell!” And he thinks absolutely nothing can be done about reaching and winning to Jesus Christ a single one of them! There is no point in even trying to do so, in his estimation, since it was all settled by God in eternity past.

HOW DOES THIS POSITION EFFECT EVANGELISM?

Why waste time, spend money and expend labour for something you cannot change? Would a banker be wise to pour millions of dollars into a hopelessly defunct organization? Would a doctor be wise to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to one who had been dead for two weeks? Would an insurance agent be wise to grant retroactive coverage on a house that had already been destroyed? Would a Christian be wise to knock himself out trying to get sinners saved when the whole thing had been settled before the foundation of the world?

Five-point Calvinism curtails missions, wrecks revivalism and destroys personal soul winning! And, if those who hold the “tulip” position are right, why should we get excited about evangelism? When I go into a church to hold a campaign, I expect the people to go all-out in an effort to reach sinners, considering no sacrifice too great to make in reaching this goal. I expect them to curtail all outside activities for the duration of the campaign, giving the meeting top priority. I expect them to lose sleep, miss meals, pay a very real price in money, and inconvenience themselves in a hundred ways so that we can see the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” of which Paul wrote to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 2:4). But why should they, if it matters not anyway — if everything has all been predetermined by God in eternity past? Who wants to run a race when the outcome has already been decided, the winners have already been posted, and the victors’ names already engraved upon the trophies?

A pastor in Michigan, who believes in unconditional election and irresistible grace, wrote me recently admitting the deadening effect of these doctrines upon the churches where they are taught. He acknowledged: “When teaching and preaching through the Scripture these concepts are communicated to the people in the congregation. When the time for evangelistic meetings comes we give the practical lie to our teaching as the evangelist invariably rejects [these doctrines] and stresses the primacy of human choice …. This to me is a perplexing problem as I find it difficult to get involved with special evangelistic meetings for this reason.” As I replied to this pastor: “I would certainly think it strange for God to inaugurate a program that would cripple and deaden the main beat of His heart: getting sinners saved!”

The whole idea of individual responsibility in soul winning is annihilated in the “tulip” view. What is the meaning, for example, of such passages as Ezekiel 3 and 33, where Jehovah says: “When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; IF THOU DOST NOT SPEAK TO WARN THE WICKED FROM HIS WAY, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; BUT HIS BLOOD WILL I REQUIRE AT THINE HAND” (Ezekiel 33:8)? Why should God hold us responsible if our warning, our witnessing, our pleading has nothing whatsoever to do with it? How would their blood be on our hand if their eternal destiny had already been determined in eternity past — completely apart from the will of man through the deciding predetermination of God? If this view of election were true, it would not mean that the church had failed during the past 1900 years, but that God had failed. He must be blamed for not electing more.

Actually, five-point Calvinism carried to its logical conclusion can only lead to fatalism. As a matter of fact, one writer in a leading five-point Calvinist publication recently admitted, “It follows that if God foreordains the elect, then God also foreordains the degree of responsibility that each individual Christian will carry out while alive on this earth.” In his comments that followed, he described every action of the Christian’s life as predetermined by God’s elective sovereignty. If a lazy Christian sits idly by and does little or nothing in the church, it is because God has not elected him to do more. If he does not witness or win souls, it is because God decreed for him not to do so. In fact, the matter is immutable! He wrote: “… these different degrees cannot be changed because God, from the beginning, has foreordained our length of Christian life, and our degree of Christian activity. Because of this, some of the elect will ‘win more stars for their heavenly crown than others.’ “If one can believe that God has it all fixed up ahead of time regarding who can be saved and who cannot, it should not be difficult to believe that the rewards are all predetermined ahead of time as well.

How contrary this is to the Word of God! Paul believed that by doing certain things, making certain sacrifices, following certain methods, he would win “more” than he could if he did not do them, make them, follow them, or pursue them. He wrote: “… I have made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more” (I Corinthians 9:19). This was stated in a context of service and soul winning.