Reformed
Calvinistic Soteriology
Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints
Presbyterian Polity
Covenantal theology
World & Life view

Q. What does it mean to be reformed?

A. The Reformation brought about a separation between Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestants divided into three main streams: Lutheran, Anabaptist, and the Reformed. Historically the Reformed had four basic distinctives. This is important since some groups today call themselves reformed without holding to the four original tenets. Faith OPC, however, holds to the four which are a Calvinistic soteriology, a Presbyterian polity, Covenantal theology, and a particular world and life view.

Q. What is Calvinist soteriology?

A. This means that salvation is by grace alone. Man does not earn salvation in any way; it is all of God. It is also called the doctrines of grace. Sometimes people remember these by the acronym TULIP. The acronym stands for Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.

Q. What is total depravity?

A. Simply stated it means that man, through his representative Adam, fell in all aspects of his character from his original state. Men and women give evidence of that fall today in varying degrees in the different aspects of their characters. No man or woman is perfect in any part, but some may be much worse or better than others. One man may be an actual murderer while another is very loving toward his fellow man; the difference is in degree. The old McGuffey Reader says it well: In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. Man on his own does not seek God. He is deaf, blind, and dead to the things of God. He is in bondage to his sin nature and will not, in fact can not, choose the way of God by himself. He must first be regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.
Ecclesiates 7:20 For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.
Romans 3:10-12 As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.
I Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Q. What is unconditional election?

A. Unconditional election means that God simply picked those He would save for His own reasons, not because of anything man does or would do. It is all of God’s grace and not because He looked down the corridor of time and saw who would be obedient, who would repent and have faith.

Ephesians 1:4-5 Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.
Romans 8:28-30 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Romans 9:15-16 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

Q. What is limited atonement?

A. Limited atonement, also called particular redemption, means that Christ came to die for His people, not for each and every person in the world. These for whom Christ came are called the elect in Scripture; they are the believers, the ones who are redeemed.

Matthew 2:21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.
John 6:35-37 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out."
John 10:25-27 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

Q. What is irresistible grace?

A. Irresistible grace is the efficacious call. When God puts the inner call on a person’s heart, it does the work it was meant to do. God calls His elect; they respond in the only possible way, with repentance and faith. God’s call is invincible. It never fails to result in salvation for those to whom it is extended. He is God after all.

Isaiah 55:11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Q. What does perseverance of the saints mean?

A. Perseverance of the saints is also known as eternal security by some. Those who are chosen by God, redeemed by Christ, and given faith by the Holy Spirit will remain believers for eternity. They are kept by God and will persevere until the end.

John 5:24 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
John 10:27-29 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.
Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Q. What is Presbyterian polity?

A. Polity has to do with government, so we are talking about Presbyterian government. Three basic types of church governments exist: hierarchical, congregational, and representational with a system of courts. Hierarchical church governments are typified by the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Episcopalian church, and others. Congregational church governments are found in Baptist churches and those individual churches who are independent from other churches. Presbyterian government is found in the reformed churches. Elders are elected by the local churches and serve on the session. They rule the local church but are accountable to their brother elders in the presbytery who are in turn accountable to the general assemblies. It is a system of courts with rights of appeal. Different reformed denominations identify the groups with other names, but the system is the same.

Q. What is covenantal theology?

A. Covenantal theology is a way of looking at the Bible. It stands in opposition to dispensationalism. A covenant theologian will see the Bible as a series of unfolding covenants; the dispensationalist sees the Bible as recording a series of different dispensations or time frames in which God handled things on a different basis. The reformed believe that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, that He has had one plan from the very beginning of time, and that Scripture should be viewed as a whole, with the Old Testament forming a basis for and giving meaning to the New Testament. Things changed with the coming of Christ, but continuity exists. For instance, Holy Communion replaced the Passover just as baptism replaced circumcision.

Q. What is meant by a world and life view?

A. A world and life view is the screen through which a person sees the world, the grid upon which all of life is viewed. The reformed see the entire universe as God’s creation, made for man, to be gradually subdued by man for God’s glory, and to be enjoyed by man in the process. In contrast to that, many Christians see this as Satan’s world with the church being a sort of haven and fortress against the world. Unbelievers do not factor God into the equation and see the world as some random event with no purpose in life except to eat, drink, and be merry. Obviously the above is a gross oversimplification, but the ramifications of each view are many. For instance, the reformed generally do not have laws in their churches against smoking or drinking as many other churches might. Certainly the reformed count drunkenness as a sin, but they do not view a brother who enjoys a glass of wine with his meal as a sinner or as a backsliding believer.