Why evangelize if God is sovereign in salvation? Is preaching to the lost then even necessary? Can you tell lost people Christ died for them? 

This season on the Straight Truth Podcast we are conducting interviews with special guests from recent conferences held at Founders Baptist Church.  In this week’s episode, Dr. Richard Caldwell is joined by Phil Johnson, Director of Grace to You.  Phil was with us for the Truth in Love Conference on Evangelism and The Sovereignty of God. 

Dr. Caldwell sits down with Phil and asks him to share about his personal journey with the doctrines of grace, when he was first exposed to them, and how and when he came to understand and embrace them. Phil begins by telling us that he grew up in a Methodist church, where the notion that God chooses who will be saved,  was something “we don’t believe.” So when he began hearing about the doctrines of grace, especially of God’s sovereignty in election, there was resistance. He had become passionate about evangelism and saw these doctrines as somewhat detrimental to that. Phil then began to question what was the point of telling anyone if God chooses who gets saved. He says he could have understood human depravity if someone had explained it, but the idea of election struck him as arbitrary and unfair.

Are you carrying baggage of bad theology?

Phil proceeds to tell us that about two years after he was saved, he enrolled at Moody Bible Institute. He came to Moody with very little biblical and theological knowledge, carrying baggage that he didn’t know was bad theology. Yet he had a heart for evangelism wanting to get the gospel to other people, while still very hostile to the idea of election seeing it incompatible with evangelism. It was at Moody where he met a group of young men that he calls “rabid Calvinists”, who happened to be in the same dorm. 

In his interactions with them, he tells us they patiently and graciously explained the sovereignty of God in salvation. They further explained how the doctrines of grace actually gave them the confidence to go out and proclaim the gospel, knowing that it wasn’t their persuading by sheer logic or talking people into the kingdom that people became saved. They told him, we just have to proclaim the message God has given us and He will draw people to Himself.

The doctrine of total depravity

Phil also explains that it wasn’t until he heard John MacArthur teaching from Ephesians 2 on the doctrine of total depravity, that he saw his need to study it intently; John’s teaching through Ephesians 2 helped him do this. It brought him to a clear understanding of sins effect on the human soul helping it all to make sense and bring coherency to the doctrines of grace. However, the hardest of the five points (of Calvinism) for him grasp was limited atonement.

It must begin with a clear understanding of Christ’s work on the cross. He explains that he prefers to call it particular redemption or definite atonement, but also tells us that the extent of the atonement is not nearly as important to get right, as the nature of the atonement. He then, along with Dr. Caldwell, discuss the role of the Trinity in salvation, they give us some deeper understanding of substitutionary atonement, and help us to see biblically how we can faithfully present the gospel, calling the lost to Christ without saying “Christ died for you”. 

TULIP

Dr. Caldwell asks Phil to share with us some important things we should consider when we encounter the doctrines of grace, and we struggle and wrestle with them. Phil leaves us with these thoughts, come with an open heart and mind, study the scriptures and don’t just react, and don’t be misled and confused about these doctrines as they are summed up with the acronym TULIP.  Each letter just happens to be an easy way for us to remember the doctrines behind them. He then reminds us that when we come to study them, they aren’t easily absorbed, especially when you come with presuppositions as he did; we need to be patient. Phil tells us it took about 15 years from the time he was saved until he came to the place of clear understanding and embracing these doctrines.