The Testimony of Brent Chappell

Make sure to read The Testimony of Daniella if you haven’t, to get a general idea of why I’m making testimony posts.

Sometimes I feel like God led me to these testimonies because these people aren’t professionals. They’re just ordinary people like us. Six years ago DesiringGod posted a video on Facebook, titled, “What Is Your Capacity for Mystery?” and in the comment section I found this testimony.

As someone who was very much raised an Armenian and majored in philosophy this is true. After reading Immanuel Kant I saw Kant's idea of free will and I continued to read the Bible, and I saw that Kant's idea of free will does not match the Bible's idea of free will. I had a fork in the road. Follow philosophy or follow God. By the grace of God I had to follow God even though the Bible's idea of free will seemed contradictory to me. God had saved me earlier in life from a deep depression. Wherever this God led, even if I couldn't wrap my mind around it, that's where I was going. As Piper cried about his broken theology so I also cried. For 2 years I cried out to God to help me follow Him with all of me, because as it was my mind conflicted with my heart.

Finally, after 2 years of prayers and sleepless nights I happened to read "Let the Nations Be Glad" in one of my classes. Although it's not the book's focus, there's a little part at the beginning going over this very tension. And it all clicked, the thorn in my mind was gone. If you're reading this, thank you John Piper for allowing God to use you in removing this thorn. Thank you. Through the simple statement, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him, all the walls broke down. I had always seen that God's purpose in creating the world was to glorify Himself (Col 1:16). However, with this simple statement, God was no longer this tyrant who moves us like His play things. If it is true that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him, then it is a mutually beneficial relationship. The idea of tyrant no longer fit. I began to see free will differently.

I realized Kant's idea of free will didn't exist. If free will is the ability to make decisions without outside influence then no one has free will but God. Our culture, family, friends, etc. All of these things influence and impact our decisions. None of our decisions are "free" in that sense. And I began to read in the Bible where Jesus says for people to come to Him for His yoke is easy and His burden light. And I asked the question, "What is a yoke?" Well it's slavery. Jesus does not set us free from sin and then we become autonomous beings. No, He sets us free from sin to become slaves of Christ. Humans were never created to be autonomous beings. We are dependent beings. We will ALWAYS serve something. Well then I asked, how then does Christ offer freedom? What does He mean by freedom? Well He means freedom to do what we were created to do; that is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Sin had separated us from God and thus we were separated from our purpose for being. In Christ God has offered to us a gift of grace, that we might be free to fulfill our purpose again. And as I realized earlier, serving God was not a heavy burden, for it is a mutually beneficial relationship. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. In Him I can joyfully fulfill my purpose for being and He will be glorified in it all the more because of my joy in Him. The fact that He doesn't have mercy on all people never bothered me. He has the right to have mercy on whom He will have mercy. The mindblowing thing is that He chooses to have mercy on anyone. No, what had bothered me was if He actually forced some people to sin and then punished them for it. But that doesn't seem to be what the Bible says. Whenever someone sins it says God "gives them over to their desires." That is they desire to sin. They choose to sin. But their choice flows out of their desires. When God saves us He gives us new desires, or as Ezekiel 36 would say, He gives us a new heart. So God influences us to not sin, as the old man influences us to sin. Thank God my salvation is not ultimately dependent on me, but on God. The good work that He has begun in me He will see through to completion, that no man might boast in his "choice."

As far as the first sin from Satan or Adam goes, they are finite beings who allowed their minds to be filled with lies. If there is nothing but lies in your head, apart from the work of God (which again would be a mercy, not a requirement of God) you will follow lies (hence vessels of wrath). This is why Jesus immediately rebukes Satan's lies with the Truth of God's Word in the wilderness. To show, in His condescended incarnation Man with a finite mind, what we should do in the face of lies. Rebuke them immediately with truth, before they are given time to fester and give birth to sin; that is acting on the desires of a lie.

So no, I did not become a Calvanist because I needed everything to fit into a box. I became a Calvanist because it's the theology that agrees with what the Bible says. Calvanism most definitely did not fit into my "box" until God blew up my box.