Matthew's Story Part 2

You're entering Outer Brightness. Well, you made a really big transition because, you know, you're talking about listening to James White and the Mormon perspective and just wanting to kind of argue against everything that he was saying. And from what I understand, the five points of Calvinism are so against Mormonism that if any of them are true, Mormonism has to be false. And, you know, we were kind of raised to be taught that, you know, Calvinism was essentially Satan's plan in the pre-existence to control mankind.

And I really want to know how you kind of got to that point. I mean, that is a really big theological journey to take. Yeah, I've said it to others, but it's worth mentioning here. I think there are, in my mind, there are very few systems, if not any systems, that are as man-centered and free will-centered and very much us-centered than Mormonism. And there's no other system that I know of that's more God-centered in terms of salvation being completely God's, completely in God's control than Calvinism.

So, yeah, it's like as far opposite as you can get. And I would try to disprove what James White was teaching from the Bible, like with John 6, or Ephesians 1, or Romans 8 and 9. I'd listen to his podcast and follow along in my King James Bible, try to disprove him, and I'm like, well, I don't know Greek, so maybe he's wrong with the Greek translation or something. So I would go to his chat room a few times, I would talk to people in the room there, and they would say that this is the word where it says to be drawn, you know, it says it's an effectual drawing, it's a drawing that you can't avoid, so how do you deal with that? And I was like, I don't know.

I'm not a Greek scholar, you know, I can't know everything, you know, I can't do partial differential equations and learn Greek at the same time, like it's just too much. So yeah, but just the way that James White just described it, it just kind of made sense. When you read Ephesians 2, and it says that it's by grace you have been saved, and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

It made sense when he would describe Reformed theology as basically saying like, it's either all of God, or it's some combination of man and God. And when I read that passage in Ephesians 2 where it says it's the gift of God, I wasn't willing to accept it yet, but in my mind I was like, okay, I bring absolutely nothing to the table. If it's a gift, it's a gift. It has to be completely the work of God. And so if I add anything to that, like whether it's my works, or even my choice to accept it, like to me, you know, a gift is a gift and it doesn't require me to accept it or not.

You know, I either take it or it's not given at all. So it just seemed, it just made sense, like logical sense to me the more I heard about it and read the scriptures. It just made sense to me that it has to, if it's not Mormonism, then like, if I want to take that passage seriously, Ephesians 2, it's like, it has to be all of God. And so Calvinism is also called monergism, mono, like from the word mono meaning one.

So monergism is just the idea that salvation is completely of God, of his choice, and of his work. And so I really just gravitated toward that idea. I wasn't willing to accept it yet, but I was like, in my mind I was like, well if I become Christian, you know, I would probably want to become Calvinist because it just, it kind of like, it made internal sense. You know, I could make, like if you make the Venn diagram in your brain, it's like, if it's this on the left on circle A, then that makes sense.

But if you take the presuppositions for circle B, then it makes completely sense internally. So I was kind of just attracted to the logical consistency of Calvinism. So yeah, it was kind of like being, like from out, how's that phrase go?

Out of the fire and into the frying pan, something like that? Yeah. That's kind of how it felt like. It felt like going from one extreme to the other. But yeah, so I really enjoyed the way that James White teaches, because I think he thinks a lot like I do. You know, of course he's on a whole different level, but I think he thinks logically through things like I do, and so that really resonated with me, the way he taught. And then I started watching other Reformed teachers like R.C.

Sproul. John MacArthur's not technically Reformed. I don't want to get into that whole debate, but he is Calvinist, and I think he's a very solid preacher of the word. And so I just gravitated towards these preachers, and I just felt that they were really consistent, and I was always testing what they said by the Bible. And you get to Romans 8 and 9, and it just made a lot of sense, what they were teaching. So that's kind of my introduction to Reformed theology.

I don't really feel like I went through a synergist phase. I hesitate to use the word Arminian, because I know some people don't like that term. However you want to say it. Non-Calvinist, I guess. Non-Calvinist Christian.

I don't really feel like I went through that phase. I kind of felt like I was mostly Mormonism with a few caveats here and there. I kind of was still Mormon, going to church, doing my calling as a primary teacher. But I was like, you know, I'm kind of into this Trinity thing, so maybe I'll just be a Trinitarian Mormon. I don't know how that would have worked, but you know, in my mind I'm like, you know, I'll just take it by ear, you know, go by ear, follow God's will, see where it happens. So I would be reading James White's books on the way to church, to my LDS chapel, you know, like the forgotten Trinity and stuff like that.

That was my first book that I read of his. So yes, that's how I was introduced, but I wasn't totally all-in, you know. I could, it was like a logical consistency in my brain that I could see, but I don't feel like I personally grasped on to it quite yet, you know, for several months when I was still, you know, trying to make myself feel Mormon again, you know, go back to Elias Church. But I remember listening to him talk about Sola Fide, you know, faith alone, one of the pillars of the Reformation.

And that was one of the threads that I wasn't willing to accept, you know, because when you read the Bible, Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. James 2 talks about, you know, faith without works is dead. So I still had this idea, like, I just don't get it, you know, I don't know if we can become righteous just by faith. Like, I understand the Calvinist story, or even just the Christian understanding that it's a gift, I get that, but it can't just be by faith, you know, you have to contribute something to what you believe, in some way.

So that's kind of why I still stayed LDS, because it just made sense to me, and I like the whole idea of priesthood keys and things like that. So I just continued listening to podcasts and going to church and reading, and I was reading through his book of The God Who Justifies, which is a really excellent text, and he goes through the chapters in Romans with Abraham and how he was justified before God. So the first three chapters in Romans, it talks about how everyone is held accountable before God. There will be no person who can stand before God completely innocent at the Judgment Day.

We're given the light of creation, we're given the knowledge that God exists in our hearts, according to Romans 1. Romans 2 talks about how we have the work of the law in our hearts, so even our consciences condemn us because they witness to us that there is a God, there is a Creator to whom we are accountable. And then Romans 3 continues on with that, and like it says that basically everybody stands condemned. There is none that seeks after God, there's no one that seeks righteousness, and all fall short of the glory of God. And so reading that, you know, being a perfectionist, you know, feeling the guilt of sin throughout my whole life, I agreed with that, I said yes, this makes sense. And so if you really understand that, then you really understand that it doesn't matter what works you do, there's no works you can do that will make you righteous. If you really understand Romans 1 through 3, there's all our best works could possibly do is just add on to the condemnation that we already have as fallen sons of Adam.

And so then you get to Romans 4 and, you know, I just think the way that Paul wrote this is so beautiful, like he's just so logical. He sets up the problem. The problem is we're sinners, we're dead on our sin.

What's the solution? Well, let's look at a case study, you know, like a lawyer, let's look at a case study, let's see how someone else was justified or found righteous before God. So he goes to Abraham and says, he quotes Genesis 15, I believe, where it says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And I'd heard this phrase, I'd heard justification by faith, I'd heard the doctrine of justification by faith alone, you know, from James White's programs and debates and other Christian leaders and other books I'd bought online.

I heard it, but it wasn't until I read that part in his book, and I was going along in Romans 1 through 4 by myself in the Bible, where I felt like it clicked, like it just made sense. And I was standing waiting for my bus to go to my LDS chapel, it was probably like January, February of 2017, where it finally like, it made sense like, okay, nothing I do is gonna do anything for me, like trying to work hard, to please God. None of my works, none of my ordinances, nothing, none of that does anything to bring me closer to God. I have to trust completely in God to save me, like it's faith alone that saved me. And so then I thought back to my conversion and I think I had already done that. So if you asked me when I was saved, I believed it was 2016 in the summer, because I went to God with an empty hand of faith, I knew I didn't have anything to offer God, I was just trusting in him and in Christ alone in his finished work to save me, even if I was still kind of struggling to comprehend all of that theologically in my head. I feel like that's, that was the gift that God gave me, it was the gift of faith and repentance.

And so at that moment when I was sitting on that street corner, I just knew, I was like, you know, I have to make a choice. The Bible says in Romans 1 through 4, it says that I'm justified, I'm declared righteous, I'm declared forgiven of my sins, I'm declared righteous before God through faith alone. And the LDS Church says the opposite, I have to receive baptism, I have to receive confirmation, I have to go to the temple, you know, I'd already been to the temple and done all these ordinances already, but I've also got to do my good works, I got to go every week and receive the sacrament and be, and take it quote-unquote worthily to be forgiven of my sins every week. I've got to do all this stuff to be righteous in the LDS Church, and the Bible says that I'm righteous right now through my faith in Christ, and in Christ alone. So I'm gonna have to make a choice, you know, I remember like in my mind imagining two roads, one path is the path of the Bible, and the other path is the path of the LDS Church and Joseph Smith's teachings. And I was, I was still scared to leave the LDS Church because that was my whole life. I dedicated so much time and energy and effort and, you know, just prayer in the LDS Church. And I knew that I was gonna have to make a choice, and so I thought to myself, well, if I'm gonna stand before God at the judgment, and he says that I was wrong, that I made the wrong choice because I went with the Bible and not because of Joseph Smith, you know, and I didn't choose the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

If he condemns me because I chose the wrong path, then I'm gonna feel confident in saying, okay, well if I'm wrong, then the Bible is wrong with me. So that's where I stood. I was like, I gotta have this standard of truth. This is what's gotten me through the past few months, it's the Bible.

And so that's what I'm gonna put my trust in, like these words right here. And it was so clear to me that teaching of sola fide from just Romans 1 through 5. And Romans 5, 1, it says like, having been justified by God, we now have peace with God. And I, it just made sense because when I thought back to my conversion experience, I had this peace that I'd never had before. I had, for my entire life, I had this hunger for righteousness, this thirsting for this calm, this peace, and I never attained it.

It's like having an incredible thirst, but only having a drop or two of water, and it never quite quenched my thirst. And then when I had that experience, I felt like that was what I wanted, like it was just a deluge of this life-bringing water that I always wanted. And so it just made sense to me. And what's funny is, you know, afterward, you know, I started to learn a little bit more about church history. I felt like Martin Luther and I kind of had that same experience. You know, we were on this rat race, our whole lives, trying to do good works, trying to prove to God our worthiness. And Martin Luther said, sometimes he hated God because he felt like he just, this God was just this just, wrathful God that was ready to condemn him at any minute.

And I felt like that a lot too. I felt like sometimes God was my father, and sometimes he was my judge, and he was casting me out. And so, coming to this realization that we come to God through faith alone, like Martin Luther, you just realize that it's not what we do that makes us righteous before him, that makes us acceptable to him.

It's what Christ did, it's what he accomplished. And that righteousness that he accomplished was credited to me, not by what I do, but through faith. And so now, after that experience, I knew that I sinned still, you know, I knew that I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't constantly under the fear of being cast out of God's presence because of it. I knew that what I did was wrong, and I would have to, you know, continue to try to repent and turn to God in faith, but I was no longer under this constant fear of being lost or being kicked out of the house, as it were, out of God's family.

So, it just made, it just all clicked, it just all made sense. And then after, on that bus ride to church, I was like, okay, like, I just got to go through with this, I just got to, I can't, I can't be LDS anymore. So, I stopped going, I really started to continue to study theology, and I wasn't, I wasn't, I was trying to give a fair shot to Reformed and non-Reformed theology, you know, read various sources and things, but I just kept coming back to Reformed theology, it just made so much sense. Not to keep talking about Calvinism, but you are the, the knucklier Calvinist, so you kind of have to. What would you say is the biggest thing that Mormons get wrong about Calvinism or misunderstand? I think the, the problem is they don't like the idea that some are chosen for salvation and some are not. Even, even though they, they claim to trust that God knows everything, whatever God does is right.

Of course, you know, the LDS concept of God is far different from the Christian triune God, but they just have a real problem with the idea that God would choose some and not others, and I struggled with that when I was still at the essence, trying to, to work this out and try to debunk James Wyatt, but it really has to come down to our understanding of who God is, and I'm not saying I understand God completely, of course, I've got a long way to go, but we have to understand that God is just. Whatever he does is just and righteous, and not only that, but he is sovereign, so he created the universe, he created everything in it, he has a purpose for everything, we see that all throughout Scripture. With Joseph being sold by his brothers into Egypt, he said, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.

We see instances like that, so where, where the evil intentions of men were used for their evil intentions, but God had planned it for his greater purposes, because Joseph being brought into Egypt, you know, he was, he was able to do a lot of good and save a lot of people, so God used that for a good purpose. So I think that's, that's probably what it comes down to, is they just really, they really have a distaste for the idea of God's sovereignty and choosing and elect people for salvation, because it seems, and it's understandable, I'm not, I'm not trying to discredit them and saying that that's intellectually dishonest, or that they, that they are, you know, that they're just, you know, not, not intelligent, because I understand, I understand, like I went, I went through that same process, it just seemed unfair that God would choose some for salvation and some not, but the problem with that is, is that it's on a faulty assumption. It's, it's on the assumption that God owes us something, that God has to treat everybody the same or else he's unfair, but the problem with that is, is, well, first of all, life is just not fair.

I mean, God makes some people rich, he makes some people poor, he makes some people healthy, some people unhealthy, and that's up to God to decide. He's the potter, we're the clay, and so for us to talk back to God and say, you have to do things my way, God, you, you have to do what I think you should do, is not the correct way to see it. So none of us deserve salvation.

If there were up to justice, we would all be sent to hell, and I believe the Bible clearly teaches that. In Romans 5, it says, we're all fallen in Adam, you know, because of the sin of one came the condemnation upon many. And so, if we truly understand that, if we truly understand that I am not a good person on my own, I don't deserve anything from God, if we truly accept that, then the doctrine of elect, of unconditional election, it, it makes more sense. It, it demonstrates that God has a choice to choose who is saved. Like I said, I don't, you probably don't want to turn this into an episode on Calvinism, but I mean, that's, that just, it just makes sense to me when I read the Bible. It may not be something that I, I totally wish were true, you know, like, dude, my sinful flesh, I honestly wish I could save everybody, but the same thing, but then I realized, that's not, that's not God's will, that's, that's the human flesh, that's a human flesh trying to say, what I want is, is better than what God wants. And so when I had that idea, I had to remember, I had to remind myself that I need to repent of that, so I need to believe what God wants me to believe. And so when it came to understanding that God is in control and not me, then I have to just trust him.

I have to trust that what he does is right. So, I think Michael asked a really good question, and I think your answer hit the nail on the head, Matthew, in terms of, you know, what, what is the thing most often misunderstood by LDS about Calvinism. And so I, since leaving the LDS Church, I attended a seminary, a Christian seminary, and got a Master of Divinity degree in biblical studies, and the school that I attended is, is, I would say, classically Armenian in their views. And the church that I attend is, is also classically Armenian in their views, although because of the tradition that, the Christian tradition that it belongs to, there's, there's an openness to varying theological views within, within the fellowship that I belong to. So, you know, some might say that it's a little wishy-washy that theology is not important, but kind of what the, what the focus is, is to not, not break fellowship over, over theological differences. And we'll do a podcast later on, an episode on agreeing or disagreeing agreeably, kind of the concept that, that the three of us, though we're not completely aligned on, on theological issues, we are aligned on the core of the Christian faith, and, and we can, we can discuss and we can talk.

But I just wanted to note, as I was listening to you talk about your journey and your story, I thought it was interesting that kind of one of the first things that, that caused you to start questioning the LDS views was learning about the second anointing, and the idea that there's a group of people who are selected for this, this higher ordinance, which guarantees heaven to them, guarantees the celestial kingdom to them, so the highest degree of heaven in the Mormon conception of that. And you've transitioned into, into Calvinism, which in some ways has a similar view of unelected people that are guaranteed salvation, while others are not. And so I guess I would want to ask you a question about your view on, like, double predestination. Where do you, where do you fall on that?

That's a good question. So that's, yeah, that's kind of a topic of debate even amongst Reformed folks. And when I, when, for those who don't know or listening, when I say, a lot of times we use Reformed and Calvinist, you know, Reformed theology, Calvinist theology, we kind of use that interchangeably, but it's not entirely the case. You can be a Calvinist, and if you're Reformed, then you're of necessity Calvinist, but you can be Calvinist and not Reformed. So kind of like how all mountains are hills, but not all hills are mountains, that kind of thing. So in terms of that debate, so I, as a Calvinist, I believe that that God has a sovereign decree, that all things that happen in time were decreed by God for the foundation of the world.

And this kind of gets into the debate of Infralapsarianism versus Superlapsarianism. So, but my view is that whatever God does is just, and God ordained for the fall to happen for his purposes, but at the same time, Adam and Eve were not compelled in their fall, they were free to, they were, they were free to choose in a way that we are not free, because we are born with this predilection to sin. We have this, we have this inherent desire to want to sin, but Adam and Eve were created without this kind of pressure, so they were free from these, these internal influences, you know, this, this, this kind of like lust of the flesh. In pre-fallen, they were, they didn't have these desires, so they have their own freedom and choice, decided to rebel against God, and because they rebelled against God, all of humanity rebelled against God, as Adam is our federal head.

That's an important part of Reformed theology, and it's based on several Bible passages, including Romans 5, this idea that because Adam fell, we also fell. So, going back to the idea of double predestination, I do have to admit that God did decree that some would be saved and some would not be saved, but it's not, but we willingly choose sin by our nature. We willingly decide to want to sin. So we, our nature from birth is to run headfirst towards hell, if you can think of it that way, and so, and because God, he is not forced to do anything to save any of us. He does not have to save us. He does so only by his choice, you know, like to, according to his mercy and his grace, and in Ephesians 1, Paul, speaking to the Ephesians, saying that he has chosen us in Christ Jesus to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his grace, of his glory and grace. So, God chooses to save us and elect people for his glory, not for us, and it's not based on our works. So that's the big difference between election in Reformed theology and the second anointing.

So like you said, it is similar in the sense that there is like a select people, but the problem was is that in Mormonism, it's a works-based system, and so you have to earn your way to salvation, and, but there was like a way out if you were friends with the Prophet, or if you were, you know what I mean, like if you could kind of squeeze your way in there. So there's like a way you could squeeze your way into heaven is how I saw it, but with Calvinism, with Reformed theology, I don't see it that way because none of us deserves any blessing from God, and it's not up to me to decide who receives blessings from God and who doesn't, and that's up to God, and so I don't deserve any blessing from God. I didn't deserve to be saved.

I did nothing to earn it. I'm as much of a sinner as anybody else, but I thank and praise God that he did show me mercy, and I constantly pray that God will show the same mercy to my family, but I have to recognize that it's very possible that my family, who are almost all Latter-day Saints, or agnostic, or atheists, that God may not save them, and I have to praise and glorify God regardless because he is worthy of praise. I know that's a really long answer to your question. I don't know if I really tackled it as much as you, you know, if I really got to the point of what you're hoping, but yeah, I believe that everything that happens, including the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the wicked, that's part of God's plan. Yeah, I appreciate your answer, and just so you know, I hope you can appreciate it.

I'm not trying to challenge you and get you with any kind of gotcha moment or anything like that. You know, as I mentioned, I attended a seminary that is classically Armenian, and so I received that type of education, although I think I mentioned to Michael on a phone call we had one time that my professors there, the two who were long tenured theology professors there that I took most of my theology courses from, had both gone to Princeton's Theological Seminary, and so had received Calvinists education for their PhDs. And so studying under them, it was very interesting because I got to see them present the Armenian view of salvation while also presenting in a charitable way, in a respectful way, the Calvinist view, which was not at all what I expected, you know, coming out of Mormonism. And you know, Michael noted the kind of the stringent opposition to Calvinism among Latter-day Saints, and I myself tend to read the Book of Mormon now as kind of an anti-Calvinist theological treatise in many ways. But you know, me personally, I've been, one of the things that, you know, by the grace of God I was taught in Seminary was that, you know, we're beholden to the Word of God for our theology, and our theology should be conformed to the Word of God and we should allow it to be. And so as I've studied the Bible and tried to understand the various theological positions that exist within broader Christianity, I've definitely been challenged to take a harder look at Reformed theology, and there are definitely areas of it that I still struggle with, with understanding. But as I look through, you know, as I look at the Bible and as I've discussed passages that, you know, like John chapter 6, that for LDS are kind of hard passages. It's been interesting to me in discussing online with LDS passages like John 6, and you know, there's an opposition to what the text clearly seems to say. But when I ask, okay, so you don't like what the passage seems to say, how does it fit within LDS theology then?

I don't get answers. And you know, that is one of the things that drives me to continue to look and continue to study. So I'm thankful that you're a part of the podcast.

I think that it'll be a good opportunity for me to probe and ask questions. So just know that my question comes in that spirit and not in the sense of trying to challenge you, because I'm not married to Arminianism. The seminary I went to is Cincinnati Bible Seminary. So the idea, like I said, is that our theology should be conformed to the Word of God. It should be biblically based, and so that's what I'm interested in, is understanding what the Word of God says about salvation and about other theological topics. Yeah, I think of that Paul.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think the more I've thought about it, the more I've interacted with other Christians, you know, I think every Calvinist goes through that cage stage. Everybody knows a cage stage Calvinist.

For those who are listening who don't know what a cage stage is, it's basically when you first get into Calvinism, you have that rough transition of getting into it, but once you get into it, you just become like really hardcore, just like you just want like, yeah, I want to make the world Calvinist, you know. So I mean, I went through it, of course, but I hope I've come up the other side a little bit wiser, understanding that, okay, this is how I understand soteriology, or the doctrine of salvation, that's what soteriology is. This is how I understand how God saves his people. Now, but we have to remember that we're not saved. We're not, we're not soul of Calvinism. Okay, well, Calvinism isn't Latin, but you know what I mean. We're not saved by believing in Calvinism.

We're saved by faith in Christ. And so I'm pretty sure that the thief on the cross was not a five point Calvinist. So I'm not going to expect that everyone else hop on board to reform theology. And what's interesting too is, I'm technically not reformed, which is because I'm a Baptist, most reformed, defined reformed as having to have pedobaptists or infant Baptist theology, and I reject infant baptism based on my understanding of the word. So technically, I'm technically not reformed, but I'm a confessional Baptist. They were called in history the particular Baptists.

Anyways, I'm going off into some crazy tangent. But anyways, yeah, like I respect my friends who are not Calvinists. And there's also kind of a third, like Lutheran theology is actually not quite Armenian, and it's not quite Calvinist. It's kind of somewhere in the middle.

Kind of, yeah, kind of, yeah. It's a little bit different because Lutherans believe you can lose your salvation, but they also believe in the doctrine of election. So anyways, so there's a lot of different views on salvation. But what unites us is the essentials, like you said. We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The Bibles are soul and fallible and final authority. We believe that there's no other way to be saved but through Christ. So all these essentials, we all hold in common.

And like I said, we'll go into that in another podcast. But yeah, I have love for my non-Calvinist brothers and sisters, and I really just want everyone to know that I do not believe you have to be a Calvinist to be saved. I think that's a, that's probably one of the other top contentions that Latter-day Saints have with Calvinism is they think that, oh, I've actually heard in the past few days, they said that you believe that everybody who's not a Calvinist is damned or is wrong and you condemn them.

And that's not true at all. I do not condemn non-Calvinists. So just thought I'd add that.

Yeah. Well, hey, I was just thinking you do have something going for you. And that is that they have some of the best pickup lines in Calvinism. Like, I don't know why this just jumped into my head, but I guess back when I was like single, I don't remember if it was the first time or the second time, but I just remember seeing like this list of like pickup lines. One of them was really cheesy. It was like, God rearranged the alphabet and put you and I together.

And then my personal favorite, your name must be Grace because you're irresistible. That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.

Or, yeah, there's the, you've seen the, there's the meme with John MacArthur, like back in the seventies when he's got the really big lapels on his suit and, you know, he's got the kind of the seventies hair and the big sunglasses. And he says, yeah, I take tulips. So the five points of Calvinism, you know, it's referenced as tulip.

He says, let's move the L so that you and I are together. Yeah. Same thing like you said. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of cheesy, corny Calvinist pickup lines.

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Stay bright flyer flies. Oh, to whom shall we go? You have the words and we have come to know that you are the holy earth will pass away, but the word of God. Oh, you promised that we, as your church would remain upon this rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against us. Cause you have power to keep your word unspoiled in purity. Oh, but the word of God. Oh, Lord, we hear your word and believe in you. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of God. Oh,