{"id":7451,"date":"2023-02-04T04:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-04T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7451"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:12","slug":"the-state-of-ligoniers-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7451","title":{"rendered":"THE STATE OF LIGONIER’S THEOLOGY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Statement\u00a019 of the Ligonier survey of Americans’ theological beliefs was more obviously Calvinistic than Statement 10 (see yesterday’s post).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

And this blatant Calvinism, I believe, is the reason they found fewer who agreed with them on this point.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Here’s the statement:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

The “Filtered Respondents” in the graph above are Evangelicals.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

And how did the Evangelicals respond to the statement that God chose the people He would save before He created the world? 15% said they Somewhat Agree and 23% that they Strongly Agree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

On the other side, 11% said they Somewhat Disagreed. (This is how you answer when you know the statement sounds wrong, but you don’t know your orthodox Christian beliefs well enough to say why).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

And 34% Strongly Disagreed. (These are my people! \ud83d\ude09)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Of course, Ligonier takes issue with these non-Calvinists. According to Ligonier, the correct answer would be “Agree”. Here’s their brief justification:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

“Before the foundation of the world, God predestined every Christian unto salvation according to His good pleasure (Eph. 1:5). Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9; Rom. 8:29\u201330).”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

When you cherry-pick a single verse, plucking it out of its context, you are opening yourself up for misinterpretation. Take a look at Ephesians 1:5, but in the context of 3-10 and pay attention to the prepositional phrases:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ<\/b>. 4For he chose us in him<\/b> before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ<\/b>, in accordance with his pleasure and will\u2014 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves<\/b>. 7 In him<\/b> we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God\u2019s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ<\/b>, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment\u2014to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ<\/b>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

So what exactly was predestined?\u00a0That a random handful of individuals would be saved while all the rest of humanity was predestined to hell?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

No.\u00a0What was <\/i><\/b>predestined was the work of Christ and all <\/b><\/i>that it accomplished: everything that was now being revealed as available to sinful humans IN CHRIST.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

The emphasis here is on Jesus Christ and what He accomplished, not on the Father’s supposed election of certain individuals to salvation.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

In fact, it seems to me that the Calvinist belief that God simply picked some individuals for salvation before the foundation of the world devalues <\/b><\/i>the life and work of Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Statement\u00a019 of the Ligonier survey of Americans’ theological beliefs was more obviously Calvinistic than Statement 10 (see yesterday’s post).\u00a0 And this blatant Calvinism, I believe, is the reason they found fewer who agreed with them on this point.\u00a0 Here’s the statement: The “Filtered Respondents” in the graph above are Evangelicals. And how did the Evangelicals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7453,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451\/revisions\/7453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}