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A Case Against Arminianism: (Part II) - It Leads To Legality

November 30, 2004

A second reason why Spurgeon opposed Arminianism so strongly was that he saw that the spirit of that system leads directly to legality, for while evangelical Arminians deny salvation by works, the tendency of the errors they hold is to elevate the importance of the sinner's activity and to direct emphasis primarily to the human will and endeavor. This is a logical outcome of a system, which regards the human decision as the crucial factor in determining who is saved, and which represents faith as something which every man may call into exercise if he so chooses. - Iain Murray The Forgotten Spurgeon

At this point we have to consider two things, mans belief and mans freedom. Did God give every human being the ability to believe? Does every human have within himself the ability to choose the savior and is the end game of salvation in the hands of humans who can either accept it or choose to reject it? God has the power to do all things, create all things, sustain all things, and yet does he render Himself helpless at the will of humanities free choice? If in fact God gives all human beings the faith needed to believe in Christ and be saved, then the obvious consequence to this view is the will and choice of man, which can thwart God's plan and desire. After all, God desires that none should perish and that all would be saved, unfortunately, not all are saved and therefore we can conclude that something gets in the way of what God desires. Free will is the culprit. Salvation, then, is dependant upon not only the grace of God, but the human will. This is the Arminian view, one that is willing to accept the free will of man over the sovereign choice of God.

I believe this is the one premise of Arminianism that becomes the general belief among most Christians. When someone says that they are a Cal-minian, they are saying they agree with some points of Calvinism, but they simply can't accept election and so they must hold to a couple points of Arminianism as well, mainly free will and resistible grace. I found this to be good enough for me at one point in life, but I have come to the conclusion that a Cal-minian is a living contradiction caught between the full force of God’s sovereignty and the power of mans own free will, finding himself unable to have too much sovereignty or to little free will, and therefore finding himself stuck in the middle not knowing which way to go. My problem with Arminianism is that it wants to make the love and Grace of God a condition based on the will of the sinner instead of letting it be entirely on the grace of God. Spurgeon considered this legalism, it is "hanging our salvation on a work." This makes eternal life dependant upon something that we do as humans. To exercise this faith, this believe that is required for salvation is an action, a work, something we could take pride in. You see, a sinner who chooses grace has reason to boast. He made a choice. A good choice at that, and while it was God who saves, God who offers the gift of Grace, and God who seals the deal, it never would have happened had the sinner not made the choice, and therefore he deserves a little pat on the back as well. Mans ability to choose salvation seems to me to be built on a faulty foundation. One of which Spurgeon would say comes from ignorance of the Bible. Ephesians 2:8-9 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works so that no one can boast." We are saved through faith, not because of anything we did, not because of any ability we have, not because of some ability to choose within us, but simply because of God's mercy and grace, and we have no reason, no ability, and no need to boast. Divine love does not depend on human conditions. It was not the deeds of the law nor the work of man, but it was the deed and work of God who says, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." - Romans 9:15. It is not mans desire or efforts, but it is God's mercy. I would go so far to say that when Ephesians says “this not from yourselves” it is talking about both faith and grace. The faith and grace comes from the father who gives freely as a gift and therefore our ability to believe or have faith comes from God, given to those whom he has chosen.

”I could not preach like an Arminian. What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man’s activity; what we want to do is to kill it once and for all, to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up; we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, “Lord, save, or we perish.” We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, “I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,” marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow.” – Charles Spurgeon

So to Spurgeon, Arminianism leads to legalism. Just like the Pharisees who held to knowing the law as being his means to salvation, so is an Arminian who holds to man’s free will as being a condition of salvation.

It is at this point that I need to say that I don’t wish to be hard-nosed about this issue. I still love my brothers who believe differently, and I do not speak ill against them nor do I wish any to be angry at what I write in this series of posts. These are very difficult issues to deal with, but I want to be able to talk about and discuss such things in love and gentleness instead of simply hiding from them. Just a reminder, this series of posts comes from Charles Spurgeon's views on Arminianism, because I believe we talk so much about Calvinism that we overlook the faults of Arminianism itself.

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