pondering calvin…
To all three of you that might actually read this post:
Been busy doing a myriad of home improvement projects to get the house ready to sell and we had family in town the last couple of weeks. So, I missed making a post last week. I’ll assume it was predestined to be so, because this is what I have to make up for it…
Here is one to ponder from John Calvin’s Institutes…
Legal vs. Evangelical Repentance
Immediately after developing his robust definition of faith in Institutes III.2.ii, Calvin discusses repentance and grace in III.2.iii. He makes a distinction between “legal repentance” and “evangelical repentance.” Legal repentance is the view that says, “Repent, and IF you repent you will be forgiven!” as though God must be persuaded into being gracious. It makes the imperatives of obedience prior to the indicatives of grace, and regards God’s love and acceptance and forgiveness as conditional upon what we do—upon our meritorious acts of repentance.
Evangelical Grace
Calvin argued that this inverted the evangelical order of grace, and made repentance prior to forgiveness, whereas in the New Testament forgiveness is logically prior to repentance. Evangelical repentance, on the other hand takes the form that, “Christ has born your sins on the cross, therefore repent!”
What this means is that repentance is our response to grace, not a condition of grace. The good news of the gospel is that there is forgiveness with God and God has spoken the word of forgiveness in Christ and that word summons from us a response of faith.
Credit for this content goes to Jul 21, 2009 post <http://theresurgence.com/calvin-on-faith_grace-and-repentance>.
For the Armenians in South Carolina, a good follow up to this is Driscoll’s Predestination message in the Religion Saves and 9 Other Misconceptions series. I don’t care where you are at on the doctrine, his presentation is the best on the issue of predestination I’ve heard. You must make sure that you make it all the way to the end and hear the analogy he uses from an experience with his young daughter. If it doesn’t move you, nothing will.
I’ve heard Driscoll’s message and thought it was excellent, especially the illustration with his daughter. You don’t mention the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation or the fact of predestination but it is certainly implied in “the order of grace” . Interesting, I didn’t know the South Carolinians were Armenians. I guess I love them anyway.
Ever have those moments where people are talking about you in the third person when you are in the room? Just wondering.
I’ll have to listen to this message before I can comment on the theology of it all…
Travis
What? We’d never do that to you…it is definitely a message worth listening to. Probably the best summary overview of the issue I’ve heard. We use the “one handed/two handed” nominclature quite often around our house now.