The Ends and the Means

Article 3: The Preaching of the Gospel
In order that people may be brought to faith, God mercifully sends messengers of this very joyful message to the people and at the time he wills. By this ministry people are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified. For “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without someone preaching? And how shall they preach unless they have been sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15).

“Translation © 2011, Faith Alive Christian Resources, Christian Reformed Church in North America.”

Oxymorons can be funny. Who doesn’t laugh a little at the idea of “jumbo shrimp”, an “exact estimate”, an “unbiased opinion” or “Microsoft WORKS”. We often use oxymorons to get across a point that we are trying to make, and sometimes the point is that two ideas are so contradictory to each other that they just can’t work.

Wikipedia defines an oxymoron as such:

An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a rhetorical device that uses an ostensible self-contradiction to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron

For many, the ideas of a “Calvinist Evangelist” or of “Calvinism Evangelism” seem like oxymorons, two things that just don’t go together. The general perception has been that the Calvinist’s belief in the absolute sovereignty of God, where God chooses who is saved and the belief that we can contribute nothing to that salvation diminishes or perhaps even eliminates a need or call to evangelize.

The authors of the cannons wanted to make sure that at the outset of the confession that the end (God’s desire through His divine grace to save sinners; who in no way deserve His grace) is directly attached to the means by which God calls those sinners to faith in Christ.

God does this through what is considered “The ordinary means” (which is defined by the preaching of the Word, and the giving of the sacraments). It is understood that this is the method and means Jesus commanded to His disciples in the great commission before His ascension.

"And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” ~ Matthew 28: 18-20 NRSV

We call these “means” ordinary, because they are the prescribed, everyday, human way in which God intends for his effectual call to reach the ears of sinners. It is true to some these means may seem unspectacular; they hardly seem miraculous.

What about signs and wonders? Speaking in tongues, healings and angel feathers falling from the sky? Those would be special means, and the Reformed tradition doesn’t see God working His plan in that fashion in our time, instead it believes that:

The goal of the church’s mission is to make disciples. The means of the church’s mission is the ordinary ministry of Word and sacrament in the local church. This becomes clear when we consider how the Apostles sought to fulfill the Great Commission. After receiving the power of the Spirit (Acts 2:1–4), they preached the gospel (vv. 14–36), baptized people (vv. 37–41), and began meeting weekly with those who “devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (v. 42). Not long after receiving their commission, they planted a church.

Ordinary Means by Michael G. Brown, TableTalk Magazine, November 1st, 2013

Calvinists then shouldn’t be apathetic to evangelism, but instead should be passionate about evangelism. (Passion and Calvinism also being two things that many view as an oxymoron). But look at the language of Paul quoted by the authors of the canons:

"But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” ~ Romans 10: 14-15 NRSV

Read it out loud and you can just hear the passion of this proclamation.

But if God calls those He chooses and we can not freely choose God for ourselves, what good then is evangelism? How do we reconcile these ideas of God’s sovereignty and Jesus’ command of human responsibility to evangelize?

In his book “Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God” J.I. Packer says,

“C. H. Spurgeon was once asked if he could reconcile these two truths to each other. “I wouldn’t try,” he replied; “I never reconcile friends.” Friends?—yes, friends. This is the point that we have to grasp. In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. They are not uneasy neighbors; they are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends, and they work together.”

J.I. Packer, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God

What this article of the canons is saying, and what Paul is telling us in Romans 10, is that the sovereign way in which God calls the elect, is through evangelism, through the preaching of the Word.

One of the greatest pictures of the way in which this works can be found in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch found at the end of Acts 8. The Spirit of the Lord tells Philip to go south to the road between Jerusalem and Gaza.

"So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah." ~ Acts 8: 27-28 NRSV

The scriptures do not tell us the name of the man in the chariot, but we do know he was a person of high authority. It says here that he was an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Queen of Candace. The queen was likely the successor to the Queen of Sheba. The title being much like the title Pharaoh was in Egypt. Think of how Joseph was treasurer to Pharaoh and the impact he had had on Egypt. This was a man of no small importance. He was a follower of the Jewish Religion and had just come from Jerusalem where he had been worshiping. Most likely at the temple in the Gentiles court. There he had been surrounded by religious people, where not long before Jesus had been crucified and risen, and the disciples had begun their ministry of spreading the gospel. Yet the man seems to have not been aware of this, or had not understood it.

As Philip walks alongside the chariot he overhears the Ethiopian man reading from the book of Isaiah:

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
    Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people." ~ Isaiah 53: 7-8 NRSV

A Christian hearing this passage would know that this is a prophesy about Jesus, seeing how the prophecies and the themes of the Old Testament point to Jesus Christ as the Messiah, as the Savior of the world, who takes the punishment of our sins upon himself, we want to cry out, “He’s talking about Jesus!”

I imagine Phillip felt much this way, as he listened to the man reading from Isaiah. Led by the Spirit, instead of yelling out and perhaps causing a problem, Phillip asks a question instead “Do you understand what you are reading?” And the Ethiopian’s responds, “How can I, ” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

"Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him." ~ Acts 8: 35-38 NRSV

Do you see how evangelism, the speaking of God’s Word is the effectual means by which God calls the elect? God’s Word working through the proclamation of that Word by God’s people. Isn’t that truly a beautiful thing?

In 1 Corinthians 1: 18-20 Paul says,

"For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
 “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
 and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" ~  1 Corinthians 1: 18-20 NRSV

Paul is saying that evangelism, specifically the message of “Christ crucified ” is the power of God for salvation. It is the ordinary and the specific means that God uses to grant us faith.

Likewise,

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." ~ Romans 1: 16 NRSV

Although the preaching of Christ crucified is foolishness to the Greek, a stumbling block to the Jew, and probably both are to many in our world today, the preaching of Christ crucified is the only divinely ordained means through which God offers forgiveness of sins to sinners. As Calvin said,

“But just as the gospel teaches us to believe, so also St. Paul shows us that we ought to prize it as an incomparable treasure, since it is the power of God unto salvation to all that believe, as he says in the first chapter to the Romans. [Rom. 1:16] Seeing then that we are lost and undone of ourselves, and there is no other means to call us back again to God but by the gospel, let us greatly value that treasure and see to it that we profit by it. And in so doing, let us fearlessly despise both the devil himself and all his temptations which he practices against us, seeing that God has called us and given us sufficient evidence of his fatherly love and good will towards us.”

The Fifth Sermon on the First Chapter – Ephesians 1:13-14 by John Calvin

What about those who we share the gospel with who do not believe? Isn’t it a waste of our time to share the good news if those who hear it are not called to salvation anyway? Packer says,

“We should not be held back by the thought that if they are not elect, they will not believe us and our efforts to convert them will fail. That is true; but it is none of our business and should make no difference to our action. In the first place, it is always wrong to abstain from doing good for fear that it might not be appreciated. In the second place, the nonelect in this world are faceless men as far as we are concerned. We know that they exist, but we do not and cannot know who they are, and it is as futile as it is impious for us to try and guess. The identity of the reprobate is one of God’s ‘secret things’ into which his people may not pry. In the third place, our calling as Christians is not to love God’s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbor, irrespective of whether he is elect or not.”

J.I. Packer, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God

The canon article 3 then indicates that we should not view “Calvinism Evangelism” as an oxymoron. We shouldn’t view the absolute sovereignty of God as antithetical to evangelism but instead should see that God in His grace makes evangelism, the proclamation of Christ crucified (the foolishness of preaching) to call us from darkness to light, and to grant us entrance into the kingdom of His dear Son.

God’s sovereignty is the foundation that upholds evangelism, it strengthens the one who does evangelism. If the sovereign God deems evangelism as His means for calling sinners to Himself, then it grants us hope in it’s successful accomplishment. Knowing that God uses us in His Sovereign plan to call and save sinners, should give us great confidence in our proclamation of the gospel to people, and humble us deeply in our attitudes towards God.

Passionately Calvinists can agree that in this one instance, quite literally, the end really does justify the means.

In Christ,

Jory