I have been following a YouTube channel for a while now that focuses on refuting the Calvinist perspective in each episode. The host of these videos, Leighton Flowers, seems to be a very kind man and produces these videos with very little acrimony towards those with whom he disagrees. He repeatedly refers to Calvinists as his brothers. Unfortunately, this is more than I can say for the commenters beneath these videos. Some of the nastiness directed toward Calvinists in the comments section is frightening and certainly not in keeping with a Christian profession. But to be fair, some of the rejoinders from those on my side are equally appalling. I’m usually left wondering if these people would say such things to one another if they were face to face. Hopefully not. But that’s not the topic of this post. What I’m going to write about now is something that occurred to me from watching one of these episodes and a casual remark by a friend of mine around the same time. The point is to encourage you to be on the lookout for the collision between doctrine and what the world around us is teaching. Allow me to explain….
The title of the video I watched was called “The Crux of Calvinism .” The point Leighton was making was one I completely agree with – that the “T” in TULIP is central to the rest of Calvinistic theology. If we are not totally depraved through Adam’s sin then the rest of reformed soteriology falls apart. I agree with this wholeheartedly. In fact, I would say that all of the points of Calvinism contained in the TULIP acronym stand and fall together. If you thought you could remove any one of the letters from the word and get along, you didn’t really understand what the others were saying in the first place. But in this video, he goes right back to the beginning of Adam’s fall in the garden and says that God mentions nothing there about Adam’s sin being transferred to his descendants. He says, “He (God) lists what happened to them (because of Adam’s fall) – they will have labor pains and the toiling of the soil. It seems like He would have mentioned the worst of all the results of the fall…oh, by the way, all of your children won’t be able to respond positively to Me when I call them…” Leaving off for the moment that he doesn’t accurately depict the true character of Adam’s fallen nature, is it true that God doesn’t mention anything about its transfer here? Let’s look a little closer.
Here’s where my friend’s comment comes in. In a completely unrelated conversation, he said, “there’s a family tree of trees.” It’s a concept I had never really thought about, but his point is that trees have a lineage too. When you look out at that swaying oak in your backyard, it probably had parents like you. I say probably because trees and other plants do have the ability to reproduce by someone simply taking a shoot off of them and planting it in the ground. But when this is done you don’t actually have another unique tree or plant, but rather a clone of the original with the exact DNA. The normal way a tree reproduces is just like we do, with male and female properties. Trees don’t just pop out of the soil, they come about through the fertilization of specific pollen being received by the female parts of the same kind of plant, a seed being produced through the combination of the two, and a unique new one being formed. In this way, you could trace back a particular tree to its original ancestor. Kind of a neat thought, huh? But what does all this have to do with the Crux of Calvinism video? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Most Bible scholars will point to Genesis 3:15 as the very first glimmer of Gospel hope. Right there, at ground zero of humanity’s devastation, a promise is given of a coming Savior. But notice what it says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Everyone acknowledges that this is a reference to the coming Messiah, the dragon slayer who will triumph over Satan and rescue the world. But why was Adam left out of this promise? Why not the “seed of a man?” Because Adam was fallen and his seed and the serpent’s are now inextricably linked. This is why Jesus could say to those who rejected Him, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44) What God is teaching us in this promise to the woman is the necessity of a virgin birth. Why? Because the Savior of humanity couldn’t come from the same line as Adam. He must be spotless in his very nature, and this He couldn’t have if his father were of the line of Adam.
It’s quite amazing when you stop to notice how much familial and agricultural language is used in connection with the salvation of God in Scripture. “Seed,” “Branch,” “Father,” “Children,” and of course “birth,” are all the common parlance of divine procreation. Jesus assures us that God could raise up children to Abraham from the stones (Matt. 3:9), but here’s the thing, He doesn’t. Abraham is not the “example of many nations,” but the “father of many nations.” Each true believer can trace his lineage back to our father Abraham because the same “divine pollen” that birthed in him a “like precious faith” (2 Pet. 1:1) is found in all of his descendants. When you see all the countless trees of the earth, it should remind you, that just like them, you have a literal connection with all the saints of God as well. Likewise, every person who has ever lived has his being not through a spontaneous new creation of God, ex nihilo, but through the natural generation of two parents whose line stretches all the way back to Adam.
What I’m trying to say is, there’s a patriarchy in pollen, both in plants and in people, that can only be overcome through a Savior who came by virgin birth. Salvation is about getting a new Father because the old father was tarnished. And just as we didn’t choose our first parents, so we don’t choose our new One either. But it is not like the random landing of pollen on a passive flower. No, though the Wind appears to have no pattern to where it blows, it moves according to the loving counsels of God and His divine will. So it is never of “he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” (1 Cor. 3:7) And recognizing in myself that it was only the desires of my first father that I wanted to do before, I am eternally thankful to have it so!
