James Sibley, a student on the Graduate Diploma in Union’s Porthcawl Learning Community, tells us what was at stake
On 29 May 1619, the Synod of Dort met for the last time. Four hundred years on, have you heard of it? Do you know what was discussed?
Following in the wake of the Reformation, the Synod was surrounded with historical and doctrinal complexity. The fledgling Protestant church was in the process of being established and Europe was rife with political turmoil. Despite the complexity, let’s cut to the central issues at the heart of the Synod and learn from it.
The purpose
It was November 1618 when the Synod first met in Dordrecht, Netherlands. Delegates attended from the major Reformed national churches and from around the Dutch Low Countries. The Synod convened to address controversy that had clung to Jacobus Arminius and his followers for the previous 20 years. The aim of the Synod was to articulate a response to the Remonstrance, a document written in 1610 and signed by 42 Dutch ministers who were followers of Arminius.
The Remonstrance and those who adhered to it were creating confusion and controversy in the Dutch church. The other ministers in the Dutch church viewed the Remonstrance and the Arminians as having deviated from what the Bible teaches about salvation. So, in response, the Calvinist ministers requested that a Synod be called to draft an official response. The request was eventually granted, the Synod was called, and the Canons of Dort produced. The Canons rejected the Arminian errors and laid out their own doctrinal statements on these subjects. Within these Canons the ‘five points of Calvinism’ were first laid out. Despite this, the Synod never aimed to systematise Calvinistic doctrines, and the five points of Calvinism are not a total summary of all Calvinism. Rather, the Synod sought to protect what they believed the Bible taught about salvation, to preserve the centrality of God’s sovereignty and His glory.
The points of disagreement
The Remonstrance and the teaching of the Arminians emphasised the necessity of an individual taking the initiative in attaining their own salvation. The Arminians spoke of how the grace of God could be believed or resisted by human will, while the Calvinists taught divine election and irresistible grace. They thought that the Calvinist’s teaching meant that some who may not want to be saved would be saved, while others who desired to be saved may not be because they were not elect.
However, this is not what the Calvinists believed; they simply wished to stay true to the biblical teaching on salvation as they understood it.
In Ephesians 2:1-10, Paul explains how before conversion we are dead in trespasses and sins, but in conversion God himself raises us up with Christ to seat us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, and that all of this is accomplished by grace through faith, as a gift of God so that no one can boast. The Calvinists saw the Arminian position as subjecting ‘the action of the omnipotent God to the will of man’.
The sovereignty of God
Instead, the Calvinists understood salvation as accomplished by God in Christ on the cross as He died for His people, before He Himself effectively applies it by grace through faith as a gift to those He has chosen, whom He will preserve in Christ for eternity. Those at Dort believed in the sovereignty of God in salvation, just as ‘it pleased God to begin His work of grace in us… so He preserves, continues and completes this work.’ The Calvinists were aware of their own sinfulness, their need for God in his grace to intervene and save them, and God’s preserving hand holding them secure in Christ Jesus. Furthermore, the Calvinists knew that emphasising God’s sovereignty in salvation was crucial to protecting the Reformation mantra of soli Deo gloria – glory to God alone.
Four hundred years on, we can still learn from Dort. May we also have a dedication to protecting truth as it is revealed to us in the Bible, a high view of God and his sovereignty in saving and preserving us in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and a firm desire to give God all the glory in all things.
