John 15:3
John 15:3 (see also John 6:63)
“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”
John Calvin comments: “He is undoubtedly speaking about external preaching, because he specifically mentions ‘the word I have spoken to you.’ Not that words spoken by humans have such a great effect, but when Christ works in the heart by the Spirit, ‘the word’ itself is the instrument of cleaning.” (John: Calvin, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.354, emphasis mine)
But the Gospel is not merely “words spoken by humans.” Calvinists merely play lip-service to the supernatural power of the Gospel. According to Calvinism, man is so totally depraved that the Gospel has no effect upon him, and therefore, only a preemptive New Birth, rather than the Gospel, is what supplies faith and empowers man to receive God. In summary, Calvinism represents a significant demotion of the dynamite power of the Gospel.
Romans 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”
God’s word is the supernatural solution to man’s spiritual problem. Classical Arminianism does not deny man’s depravity. The true nature of the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism is not the fact that man is spiritually dead, but the solution to man’s state of spiritual death. Is it a preemptive new birth in Christ, as per Calvinism, or is it is the living and active, supernatural power of God’s word, which Jesus says has made us “clean”?
