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The strength of the Arminian position on the security of the believer is that we stress that life is found only in Jesus.  There is no life apart from Jesus.  Jesus said in John 15:5-6 that we can do nothing apart from Him.  What did He mean?  Does Jesus mean that we can't live without Him or work without Him or eat without Him, etc.?  The context suggests that Jesus has bearing fruit for the glory of God in mind (John 15...

Romans 9 has always been a place that Calvinists often turn to in debating unconditional divine election.  They see in Romans 9 unconditional election dripping nearly from every verse.  John Piper so strongly sees Romans 9 as a place that teaches the Calvinistic view of unconditional election that he wrote a book based on his exegesis of Romans 9:1-18 called The Justification of God.  Likewise Calvinist apologist James White from a...

I had a brother e-mail me the other day and he made the following comments:"I use to be an Arminian.  Was raised in an Arminian church (Nazarene).  I grew up in an Arminian home, attended Arminian camps as a child and then as a teenager, and was even saved in an Arminian church.  Yet the reason that I am not an Arminian today is that they put too much emphasis on works for salvation (or keeping yourself saved through works) and I m...

In continuing my look at Moral Government Theology and how it differs from Arminianism, I want us to look at the issue of free will.  Free will is a major point of MGT.  In fact, MGT holds that all sin is done so by the power of contrary choice whether the person is saved or not.  MGT points to passages such as Ezekiel 18:4 where God says that the soul that sins shall die.  MGT in turn says that such passages as the commands t...

I heard a Calvinist radio program today and the very first call they took on the program was a woman asking the two gentlemen what Calvinism was and who are Calvinists.  The two men proudly said that they both were Calvinists.  Then the program went something like this:Calvinist Pastor: We follow the teachings of John Calvin that are completely biblical.  We don't worship John Calvin but we do believe that he, being a reformer, hel...

I found this quote from a Calvinist blog:So here is what I am saying: Arminianism involves such serious departure from biblical teaching that it badly warps the gospel so that God's glory is hindered and our Christian experience is hindered.  As Dr. James Boice so helpfully put it in his book, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?, the Arminian teaching does not uphold any of the five solas.  It denies sola Scriptura (scripture alon...

The previous post featured Dr. William Klein's notes from The Apologetics Study Bible.  In this post, I will be posting Klein's notes on Romans 9:22-23.  I find that with the number of Calvinist or at least Calvinist leaning study Bibles, it is refreshing to read notes that lean toward an Arminian view point as these do.Dr. Klein writes,Three interpretations diverge here: (1) Paul taught "double predestination": before creation, God det...

The following notes come from The Apologetics Study Bible with Dr. William Klein writing the notes for the book of Romans.  The following notes are based on his excuses on Romans 9:13-14, 21.These verses may give the impression that God acts arbitrarily and apart from human cooperation, suggesting God disregards human freedom, and consequently could not hold people responsible for their actions.  None of this fairly represents Paul...

A Calvinist friend of mine wrote recently that the Arminian position regarding the possibility of apostasy leads one to believe that eternal life is not really eternal.  He makes his case for the security of the believer by taking the words "eternal life" such as in John 3:16 or John 5:24 or Romans 6:23 and he builds his case that if the words of Scripture are true then we receive eternal life the moment we are justified by grace through fai...

I recently read in a book about inerrancy that was written by a Calvinist theologian that he believed it was impossible for true Arminians to hold to inerrancy of Scripture.  He states, "Since the Arminian holds to libertarian free will, the idea that God could sovereignly preserve His Word and even watch over His Word while working through free will creatures is against Arminian theology."  Is it really?  Is it impossible for Armi...