Whosoever Will
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series II, Cycle A
Object:
Pentecost is considered the birth date of the church universal. There was also planted that day, in the preaching of the apostle Peter, an important seed -- the fruit of which was almost lost at one point in the church's history. That seed was in this statement by Peter: "Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2:21).
Actually, Peter wasn't being original with that statement. He was quoting Joel 2:32, but that ancient prophet was talking about the salvation of the people of Israel on the great day of the Lord, whereas Peter was applying the text to the current circumstances of his audience. He was talking about their immediate salvation through their acceptance of Jesus Christ.
That was, and is, part of the good news of Christianity, but in the medieval church, that message became obscured. Its revival was part of the great Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
As you probably recall, that reformation began in 1517, with work of a monk named Martin Luther, and his views unleashed a wave of change across the church. As earthshaking as Luther's reformation turned out to be, however, it was still fairly conservative compared to some of what came afterward. So for a few moments, I want to take you through a little history, but there is a point to it.
Luther's protest came to be called Lutheran Protestantism, and it was centered in Germany. Shortly thereafter a new, more radical protest arose, dubbed "Reformed" Protestantism, which grew up in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, and Scotland. Two men who were prominent leaders of that division were Huldreich Zwingli and John Calvin. They were contemporaries of Luther, but whereas Luther and his followers rejected only those aspects of the Catholic church they felt contradicted the Bible, the Reformed protestors retained from the Catholic church only what they believed was expressly allowed in scripture.
One of the doctrines formulated by these Reformed protestors, and especially by Calvin, was the emphasis on the sovereignty of God. Simply put, this means that no one controls God in any way; he is completely independent of what he has created. The problem was, however, that when that doctrine was pushed far enough, logic suggested that since God had all the control, human beings therefore had none, not even over their own destinies. In other words, God makes all the decisions about our fate.
Since some people are saved and heaven bound and others are not, said Calvin, God therefore must want it that way. God must have chosen or "elected" some people to be saved and others not to be. This idea was called "predestination," but it was not a totally new idea. Saint Augustine spoke of it as early as the fourth century, and there are a few verses in the New Testament that seem to support the idea. But it waited for John Calvin to develop it fully. Here's how Calvin actually stated predestination:
That, God, by an absolute decree, hath selected to salvation a very little number of men without regard to their faith or obedience whatsoever; and hath secluded from saving grace all the rest of mankind, and appointed them by the same decree, to eternal damnation without any regard to infidelity.1
You can imagine that a lot of religious believers found that statement pretty chilling. It literally says that without regard to our own faith and practice, God chooses a few of us for heaven but most of us for hell, and that nothing we can do will make the slightest difference. As it happens, however, even the churches that have descended from the Reformed movement -- including the Presbyterians and Congregationalists -- don't preach that today.
Back to our brief history lesson: The man who challenged this idea was named James Arminius. Among the things we know about him are that he was born in Oudewater, Holland, on October 10, 1560, just four years before Calvin's death. Arminius became a theologian and minister in the Dutch Reformed church, being ordained in 1588. He pastored a church in Amsterdam for fifteen years, where he was known as a kind and devoted pastor, especially noted for ministering to his people during the devastating plague of 1602. A year later, he became a professor of theology at the University of Leiden, where he remained until his death. He was married and had nine children.
Arminius was not the first to disagree with Calvin. Others who disagreed were called "Remonstrants," and, in fact, Arminius set out to refute the Remonstrants, but ended up being convinced by them and becoming their best spokesman. So well did he defend their position that it soon became known as "Arminianism."
In contrast to Calvin, the Arminians believed that Christ died for all people, not just for the so-called elect. They said that salvation comes by faith alone, that those who believe are saved, and that only those who reject God's grace are lost.
When you think about it, that's what Peter said at Pentecost. And it sounds a lot more like the theology you and I have grown up with. Yet, back then, Arminius and his fellow Remonstrants did not win the day. Arminius himself died in 1609. Ten years later, a church synod was held in the city of Dort in the Netherlands that was widely representative of the Reformed churches. This synod formally rejected Arminianism, and a few days later, one of the leading Remonstrants was beheaded. (It was dangerous in those days to disagree!) Nonetheless, Arminianism was by no means crushed.
If we jump ahead another century, we find a man who was thoroughly convinced by James Arminius' position. He was John Wesley, who is the founding father of Methodism. In 1739, Wesley preached a sermon titled "On Free Grace" that set forth the Arminian position so clearly that at least one of his later biographers said that with it, Wesley declared war on the doctrine of predestination.2 At the time, not all Methodists agreed with Wesley, and for a while, there existed an opposing group called Calvinistic Methodists. But through Wesley and others of his persuasion, the doctrine, then known as Arminianism and today known simply as free will, became one of the most established of Protestant beliefs.
Okay, so much for the history lecture, but what's the importance of all this today?
For one thing, it means that God really wants everybody to be saved. You see, despite this long battle, free will was not a new idea dreamed up by the reformers; actually, it was a reaffirmation of what was already in the Bible, uttered by the Old Testament prophet Joel and reapplied by Peter at Pentecost. Paul repeated the idea, if not the exact words, when writing to the Romans: "... if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). Those are not isolated statements. Jesus himself spoke about this, saying, "... anyone who comes to me I will never drive away" (John 6:37). And, of course, there is that most well-known of Bible verses, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." In other words, God excludes no one from his invitation to come to him. Some may exclude themselves, but God does not do that.
John 3:16, by the way, inspired a hymn, one that I remember from my childhood, called "Whosoever Will." The whole hymn was based on this one theme, that God is for everybody. Each verse and the chorus end with the line, "Whosoever will, may come."
Another thing that this matter of free will means today is that it is not up to us to decide who is -- and who is not -- worthy of God's grace, for it is freely offered to all. This matter was really put to the test in the Church of Scotland a few years ago when a man named James Nelson applied for admission into the ministry of that denomination. Nelson had completed seminary all right and had fulfilled all of the normal prerequisites, but there was one problem: He had murdered his mother.
Fifteen years earlier, in a fit of anger over a disagreement with his mother, Nelson had beaten her to death. He was subsequently convicted and sent to prison. In prison, he heard a sermon by a chaplain that started him rethinking his life. He eventually accepted Christ, and later, after being paroled, he began studying for the ministry.
As you can imagine, not everyone in the church was in favor of admitting him into the clergy ranks, but Nelson appealed to the church's belief in salvation for all who turn to God. In the end, he was admitted by a special vote of the church's general assembly.3
When we are affirming the doctrine of free will, we are acknowledging that regardless of what we have done wrong, the only way we can cut ourselves off from God's invitation is to not respond to it.
Yet one more thing this doctrine means is that since we have a real choice in the matter of our destiny, not to choose is to choose. This is a fact we would probably eliminate from our religion if we could. We don't like being pushed into a corner where we have to say, "Yes" or "No." Faith would be so much easier if it just spoke words of comfort or encouragement. Instead, it confronts us with having to choose -- either to accept Christ or not.
You see, because the gospel has to do with real life, it asks us to eventually commit ourselves. God simply will not be satisfied with less. There is no middle ground; so the choice is ours.
If there is anyone living today who symbolizes this matter of choosing Christ, it is Billy Graham. Here's something that Graham's son, Franklin, said:
Some people believe [I] ... was born a Christian. I was not born a Christian. I was born into a Christian home, I have Christian parents who set a Christian example, but I was not born a Christian. For a while I thought I was, but as I got older, I realized that I had to choose ... Jesus Christ for myself and that no one could do it for me.4 Some people believe [I] ... was born a Christian. I was not born a Christian. I was born into a Christian home, I have Christian parents who set a Christian example, but I was not born a Christian. For a while I thought I was, but as I got older, I realized that I had to choose ... Jesus Christ for myself and that no one could do it for me.4
Billy Graham was the subject of a CBS television feature some years ago. The program's producers had followed Graham through several of his crusades, and one of the things they noticed and pointed out in the program was how time and again, Graham used this same sentence: "I'm going to ask you to get up out of your seats ..." In other words, Graham preached for a decision. He wanted people not to leave with just some new ideas or merely having had an interesting evening. He wanted them to "get up out of their seats" and make a decision.
Of course, not every decision for Christ is made in a moment or on an impulse. Some occur slowly over time without a conscious milestone that is equivalent to getting out of one's seat. Nonetheless, there needs to be a time when we look at where we are standing and say, I am going to stand with Christ Jesus.
Many of you have made that decision. Christ invites us all, and it is critically important that we choose. Amen.
____________
1. "Doctrinal Differences Defined at Synod of Dort 1619," Quoted by Milton S. Agnew in his supplement sheet to The Security of the Believer (Chicago: The Salvation Army, nd).
2. Maximim Piette, John Wesley in the Evolution of Protestantism (New York, 1938), p. 362, cited by Robert E. Cushman in Methodism, William K. Anderson, ed. (The Methodist Publishing House, 1947), p. 103.
3. Time magazine, August 6, 1984, p. 59.
4. Decision magazine, September 1985, p. 14.
Actually, Peter wasn't being original with that statement. He was quoting Joel 2:32, but that ancient prophet was talking about the salvation of the people of Israel on the great day of the Lord, whereas Peter was applying the text to the current circumstances of his audience. He was talking about their immediate salvation through their acceptance of Jesus Christ.
That was, and is, part of the good news of Christianity, but in the medieval church, that message became obscured. Its revival was part of the great Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
As you probably recall, that reformation began in 1517, with work of a monk named Martin Luther, and his views unleashed a wave of change across the church. As earthshaking as Luther's reformation turned out to be, however, it was still fairly conservative compared to some of what came afterward. So for a few moments, I want to take you through a little history, but there is a point to it.
Luther's protest came to be called Lutheran Protestantism, and it was centered in Germany. Shortly thereafter a new, more radical protest arose, dubbed "Reformed" Protestantism, which grew up in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, and Scotland. Two men who were prominent leaders of that division were Huldreich Zwingli and John Calvin. They were contemporaries of Luther, but whereas Luther and his followers rejected only those aspects of the Catholic church they felt contradicted the Bible, the Reformed protestors retained from the Catholic church only what they believed was expressly allowed in scripture.
One of the doctrines formulated by these Reformed protestors, and especially by Calvin, was the emphasis on the sovereignty of God. Simply put, this means that no one controls God in any way; he is completely independent of what he has created. The problem was, however, that when that doctrine was pushed far enough, logic suggested that since God had all the control, human beings therefore had none, not even over their own destinies. In other words, God makes all the decisions about our fate.
Since some people are saved and heaven bound and others are not, said Calvin, God therefore must want it that way. God must have chosen or "elected" some people to be saved and others not to be. This idea was called "predestination," but it was not a totally new idea. Saint Augustine spoke of it as early as the fourth century, and there are a few verses in the New Testament that seem to support the idea. But it waited for John Calvin to develop it fully. Here's how Calvin actually stated predestination:
That, God, by an absolute decree, hath selected to salvation a very little number of men without regard to their faith or obedience whatsoever; and hath secluded from saving grace all the rest of mankind, and appointed them by the same decree, to eternal damnation without any regard to infidelity.1
You can imagine that a lot of religious believers found that statement pretty chilling. It literally says that without regard to our own faith and practice, God chooses a few of us for heaven but most of us for hell, and that nothing we can do will make the slightest difference. As it happens, however, even the churches that have descended from the Reformed movement -- including the Presbyterians and Congregationalists -- don't preach that today.
Back to our brief history lesson: The man who challenged this idea was named James Arminius. Among the things we know about him are that he was born in Oudewater, Holland, on October 10, 1560, just four years before Calvin's death. Arminius became a theologian and minister in the Dutch Reformed church, being ordained in 1588. He pastored a church in Amsterdam for fifteen years, where he was known as a kind and devoted pastor, especially noted for ministering to his people during the devastating plague of 1602. A year later, he became a professor of theology at the University of Leiden, where he remained until his death. He was married and had nine children.
Arminius was not the first to disagree with Calvin. Others who disagreed were called "Remonstrants," and, in fact, Arminius set out to refute the Remonstrants, but ended up being convinced by them and becoming their best spokesman. So well did he defend their position that it soon became known as "Arminianism."
In contrast to Calvin, the Arminians believed that Christ died for all people, not just for the so-called elect. They said that salvation comes by faith alone, that those who believe are saved, and that only those who reject God's grace are lost.
When you think about it, that's what Peter said at Pentecost. And it sounds a lot more like the theology you and I have grown up with. Yet, back then, Arminius and his fellow Remonstrants did not win the day. Arminius himself died in 1609. Ten years later, a church synod was held in the city of Dort in the Netherlands that was widely representative of the Reformed churches. This synod formally rejected Arminianism, and a few days later, one of the leading Remonstrants was beheaded. (It was dangerous in those days to disagree!) Nonetheless, Arminianism was by no means crushed.
If we jump ahead another century, we find a man who was thoroughly convinced by James Arminius' position. He was John Wesley, who is the founding father of Methodism. In 1739, Wesley preached a sermon titled "On Free Grace" that set forth the Arminian position so clearly that at least one of his later biographers said that with it, Wesley declared war on the doctrine of predestination.2 At the time, not all Methodists agreed with Wesley, and for a while, there existed an opposing group called Calvinistic Methodists. But through Wesley and others of his persuasion, the doctrine, then known as Arminianism and today known simply as free will, became one of the most established of Protestant beliefs.
Okay, so much for the history lecture, but what's the importance of all this today?
For one thing, it means that God really wants everybody to be saved. You see, despite this long battle, free will was not a new idea dreamed up by the reformers; actually, it was a reaffirmation of what was already in the Bible, uttered by the Old Testament prophet Joel and reapplied by Peter at Pentecost. Paul repeated the idea, if not the exact words, when writing to the Romans: "... if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). Those are not isolated statements. Jesus himself spoke about this, saying, "... anyone who comes to me I will never drive away" (John 6:37). And, of course, there is that most well-known of Bible verses, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." In other words, God excludes no one from his invitation to come to him. Some may exclude themselves, but God does not do that.
John 3:16, by the way, inspired a hymn, one that I remember from my childhood, called "Whosoever Will." The whole hymn was based on this one theme, that God is for everybody. Each verse and the chorus end with the line, "Whosoever will, may come."
Another thing that this matter of free will means today is that it is not up to us to decide who is -- and who is not -- worthy of God's grace, for it is freely offered to all. This matter was really put to the test in the Church of Scotland a few years ago when a man named James Nelson applied for admission into the ministry of that denomination. Nelson had completed seminary all right and had fulfilled all of the normal prerequisites, but there was one problem: He had murdered his mother.
Fifteen years earlier, in a fit of anger over a disagreement with his mother, Nelson had beaten her to death. He was subsequently convicted and sent to prison. In prison, he heard a sermon by a chaplain that started him rethinking his life. He eventually accepted Christ, and later, after being paroled, he began studying for the ministry.
As you can imagine, not everyone in the church was in favor of admitting him into the clergy ranks, but Nelson appealed to the church's belief in salvation for all who turn to God. In the end, he was admitted by a special vote of the church's general assembly.3
When we are affirming the doctrine of free will, we are acknowledging that regardless of what we have done wrong, the only way we can cut ourselves off from God's invitation is to not respond to it.
Yet one more thing this doctrine means is that since we have a real choice in the matter of our destiny, not to choose is to choose. This is a fact we would probably eliminate from our religion if we could. We don't like being pushed into a corner where we have to say, "Yes" or "No." Faith would be so much easier if it just spoke words of comfort or encouragement. Instead, it confronts us with having to choose -- either to accept Christ or not.
You see, because the gospel has to do with real life, it asks us to eventually commit ourselves. God simply will not be satisfied with less. There is no middle ground; so the choice is ours.
If there is anyone living today who symbolizes this matter of choosing Christ, it is Billy Graham. Here's something that Graham's son, Franklin, said:
Some people believe [I] ... was born a Christian. I was not born a Christian. I was born into a Christian home, I have Christian parents who set a Christian example, but I was not born a Christian. For a while I thought I was, but as I got older, I realized that I had to choose ... Jesus Christ for myself and that no one could do it for me.4 Some people believe [I] ... was born a Christian. I was not born a Christian. I was born into a Christian home, I have Christian parents who set a Christian example, but I was not born a Christian. For a while I thought I was, but as I got older, I realized that I had to choose ... Jesus Christ for myself and that no one could do it for me.4
Billy Graham was the subject of a CBS television feature some years ago. The program's producers had followed Graham through several of his crusades, and one of the things they noticed and pointed out in the program was how time and again, Graham used this same sentence: "I'm going to ask you to get up out of your seats ..." In other words, Graham preached for a decision. He wanted people not to leave with just some new ideas or merely having had an interesting evening. He wanted them to "get up out of their seats" and make a decision.
Of course, not every decision for Christ is made in a moment or on an impulse. Some occur slowly over time without a conscious milestone that is equivalent to getting out of one's seat. Nonetheless, there needs to be a time when we look at where we are standing and say, I am going to stand with Christ Jesus.
Many of you have made that decision. Christ invites us all, and it is critically important that we choose. Amen.
____________
1. "Doctrinal Differences Defined at Synod of Dort 1619," Quoted by Milton S. Agnew in his supplement sheet to The Security of the Believer (Chicago: The Salvation Army, nd).
2. Maximim Piette, John Wesley in the Evolution of Protestantism (New York, 1938), p. 362, cited by Robert E. Cushman in Methodism, William K. Anderson, ed. (The Methodist Publishing House, 1947), p. 103.
3. Time magazine, August 6, 1984, p. 59.
4. Decision magazine, September 1985, p. 14.
