John Piper & My Testimony: Where'd All These Calvinists Come From
If you have embraced the biblical teaching of the doctrines of grace (TULIP etc) that trumpet God's sovereignty over all of life especially in salvation, then I recommend the "Where'd All These Calvinists Come From?" series at 9Marks.
I just finished reading part 9 "John Piper" of the 10-part series, and praise God because I see the swell of recent history moving modern Christiandom to the point where God was pleased to save me and then draw me to embrace the truth of His sovereignty over all.
My Sin
I grew up in a Christian home, aware at a young age of the concept of my separation from God caused by sin. I remember wanting to escape hell and trying with all the religious fervor that a 7-year-old could muster to pray the prayer of faith. And then just in case I didn't pray it right or didn't pray it with faith I prayed again, "God I don't want to go to hell so forgive me." Then as soon as I'd sin, I'd pray again. I remember asking when I was in first or second grade, "I know that salvation is not through works? Then why do I need faith?" To this I received the response, "Faith is the only work. You don't have to do anything else but have faith." This set me to mustering up even more faith, hoping that my work of faith was sufficient to bring me to God.
You see I was a legalist whose heart was unchanged. I was unchanged from the heart. I knew that everlasting torment awaited sinners who weren't forgiven. I wanted to escape that, but who wouldn't? I knew I needed to be right with God and I was willing to work to make it so, but isn't that the basic tenet of most religions? I even recognized that salvation was impossible without Jesus forgiving and that the His death on the cross was what made Him able to forgive me...and I was willing to do whatever was necessary to apply Jesus' forgiveness to myself, but wasn't that the basic sin of the Galatians of whom Paul spoke "You've fallen from grace" (Gal 5:4)?
This soteriology that was devoid of love for God and based on the legalistic work of "faith" led me to have many mountain-top rededications to God and be largely unconcerned about my pattern of increasing sinfulness. As long as I was sincere in my belief that Jesus existed and died and sincere in my request for forgiveness (note the fine distinction here, my faith was in the sincerity of my own request and not in the sufficiency of Christ's forgiveness), then a lifestyle of sin was ok because that sin was paid for. Jesus was my ticket to heaven, not my treasure. God loved me, I thought, because I first "loved" Him as evidenced by my willingness to go to FCA camp and read my Bible semi-regularly.
My Salvation
Finally in my first year of college, my legalistic moralism gave way. My life was so full of sin that when my friend Hardeep simply asked me as I spoke, hungover, with him on the phone, "Jacob your life doesn't look like a Christian's...how did you get here?" God was able to move in my heart and rattled me to the core. He revealed my total depravity What I recognized as generally true - that I sin - I now saw evidence that I desire nothing but sin, that even my attempts to please God were nothing but sin. I despaired of my ability to even muster faith. I was helpless and hopeless because up until that point I had understood faith as a work and not as a gift, a changing of a heart that only God could cause (Romans 6:17-18). I was stripped of my hope in my own faith and made dependent on Christ not only to supply the forgiveness and salvation but the faith.
I vividly remember the hopelessness in my heart during those cold days in December of 1999. I cried. I read the Bible. I prayed. I begged God for faith, I begged Him to forgive me. And then, not suddenly, but distinctly, within a week of this initial recognition of my total depravity, the weight was lifted off my chest. I had faith- not like I believed in days past as a mere agreement with facts - I loved God, I was grieved by my sins not primarily because they brought me hell but because there were an offense against God. I desired holiness, not as evidence of my work of faith, but for some other reason. My heart was different that week than it had been the week before. There was no question in my mind, this was a gift of God: Both my faith and the grace I was now sure of. I finally knew that I had brought nothing to the table, that I was the biggest sinner I knew, and yet "God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved [me], even when I was dead [and His enemy (Rom 5:1)], made [me] alive together with Christ - by grace!!!! [I was] saved! (Eph 2:4-5). I knew my salvation was by grace and there was nothing I did to earn it (Unconditional election) and there was therefore, nothing I could do to lose it (Perseverance of the Saints). For the first time I saw grace as truly gracious and it was irresistible (Irresistible Grace). When I saw the cross I didn't just see potential grace (atonement) anymore. I saw Christ's love expressed for me and those who He would save (Limited/Definite Atonement)
So although I still thought "Calvinism" was a bad word - Somewhere I had picked up, likely from sermons I had heard that "Calvinism" was synonymous with "heresy" - I experientially could not deny any of its tenets. I can say with C.J. Mahaney as if his words are my words: "I was a calvinist experientially long before I was informed doctrinally. I had no question that God's activity preceeded my response. I had no question that I was acted upon by God before I acted in response to God. Now I have come to learn that I was incapable of acting in response to God until I was first acted upon by God due to pervasive depravity in my life. But at that moment I knew that God had acted upon my heart, and that something internal had changed."
Now, let me get back to where this post started: John Piper and the rise of Calvinism or reformed doctrine in modern evangelicalism. The second book I read after my December-1999 conversion was Piper's Desiring God. It was reading this book, especially chapters 1 (Christian Hedonism) and 2 (Conversion) where my experience turned into doctrine. Piper thrust Scripture in front of me and with God-glorifying, Christ-exalting passion taught my heart what Jesus had already done there.
My conversion is no different than anybody's at the heart of it, for all who are saved are saved because God with all of the power behind His words that He had when He spoke creation into existence changed them from the heart: "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4:6).
So the answer to Mark Dever's question, "Where'd All These Calvinists Come From?" is, "God". But how did they know to be Calvinists. Faithful expositors of God's Word like John Piper who shine the light of Scripture onto God's gracious and glorious act of salvation, freeing it from the legalism of the "work of faith" and revealing it to be the unconditional gift of faith (Eph 2:8). Praise God!
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