Avoiding the disaster of hyper-Calvinism
God is in complete control of the world. Yes, complete control. There are no surprises to God. Everything He wants to happen does happen, just the way He wants it to. We see this in all kinds of places in the Bible, including:
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Ps. 139:16 ESV)
That’s pretty comprehensive, right? God knows all of our days before they have happened. Or perhaps we could look at what Paul says to the Athenians:
26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. (Acts 17:26-27 ESV)
God determined where nations would form, how long they would last for, and where their boundaries were to lie. Even the big issues of world affairs are under God’s control. The census that led Mary to give birth in Bethlehem was God’s doing, as was the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus. God is in control of the flowers (Matt 6) and the animals (Job 40-41).
If you believe this to be true (and the Bible clearly says it is!), it is possible to take this to an extreme position. This is called ‘hyper Calvinism’ and is a disaster for your faith. This means to believe in God’s control so strongly that you fail to see any reason to do anything or to pray or to evangelise. After all, God will do what God will do, so why bother?
I grew up in a church that had this tendency. Being strongly Reformed, we were often taught about the sovereignty of God. Everyone at church knew that God chose some and not others for salvation. Yet there were some critical elements missing in church culture. There were never any prayer meetings, and even small Bible study groups were rare. There was no culture of evangelism. I cannot recall seeing one person come to faith from outside the church in the 21 years I was part of that church. And when opportunities arose to do some major evangelistic work, only a handful signed up to be part of it. The majority of the church population didn’t seem to value evangelism and prayer as a major part of life. God will do what God will do.
Yet that cannot be right, can it? Think about the apostle Paul, for example. He was the one who said those words quoted above from Acts 17. He clearly believed that God controlled all things, including who was saved (Eph 1, Rom 9-11). Yet when we look at the example of his life, we see a man devoted to evangelism and prayer. He risked so much and did whatever he could so that he might save some (1 Cor 9:22). He underwent all kinds of shame and harsh treatment in his efforts to tell the gospel to all who would hear. So Paul didn’t take his understanding of God’s sovereignty to mean he didn’t need to do anything. It motivated him to do something, for he knew that the results were due to God and not to him.
How might we avoid falling into hyper Calvinism? Let me give you two suggestions in addition to Paul’s example we have already considered.
Firstly, the Bible teaches both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. They are both true. We are told that God is the King of everything, and there are many commands that we are expected to follow as God’s children. I do understand that we would like to understand how both of these things can be true, but we can never fully do that. What we don’t want to do is only read the bits of the Bible on one side and ignore the other side. We don’t want to fail to do what God clearly calls us to – like prayer and evangelism – because we hold to something else the Bible also teaches.
Secondly, consider that God’s purposes in the world, one of the ways He expresses his control, is through the actions of His people. God doesn’t usually zap people to make them Christian, for example. He uses the gospel which is shared from a Christian to someone who is not yet Christian. So if we think that we should sit back and wait for God to save people, we are not doing what we are called to do.
God, the great King, is kind to use even people like us in His work. Let’s do it with enthusiasm and joy, trusting in His control and work even as we do this.