"Once saved always saved" and Theodore Beza

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

10 February 2011

One of the most uncomfortable aspects of Calvinism is the doctrine of "Once saved always saved". It is not sure if John Calvin himself believed in any way in this doctrine, but the successor of Calvin, Theodore Beza definitely outlined this doctrine. Theodore Beza was to John Calvin what Melancton was to Martin Luther and Bullinger to Zwingli. Many Calvinists did not agree with all aspects of Theodore Beza's thinking. Some have provide evidence that Beza actually transformed original Calvinism and paved the way for the reaction against Calvinism of that Theodoric kind, that came from Jacob Arminius since Arminius was a student of Beza in the Genevan Academy.

What one is going to conclude about Theodore Beza should be done with the justice to the wrongs of biblical interpretation as is required by the Word of God, but also with the drops of mercy for the tumultous times they were living in, full of tension, dialogue, animosity from the Catholic church and persecution.

When one reads his biography it almost brings one to tears. The men of those days were very dedicated to their courses of action. They wanted to work for God and they were determined to stand although the heavens fall. They were determined to stand for the truth.

One needs to understand that whereas Calvin was the theologian, Beza was not a theologian but a public debater. He was chosen by Calvin to enter debates with kings, catholic counsils and wherever necessary to protect Protestants from discrimination, murder, persecution and the like.

One example is the case of the massacre of hundreds of defenceless Protestants in a barn in Vassy on 1st of March 1562 by the duke of Guise in which Beza rushed to appear on their behalf before the king of Navarre to demand the punishment. The king was halfhearted and came up for the duke saying that some of them had thrown the duke with stones when he came there. Beza answered that they should have punished the ones who threw the stones only. Then Beza said to the king that he (king and all political authorities) must remember that it is true that God's church is to endure their suffering but it is also true that it is an anvil that worn out many hammers.

There is also the case near the end of his life when the Catholic church sent a young priest to come and persuade him to give up his faith and accept the papacy and Catholicism. The pope would give him 4000 pieces of gold regularly and also lots of capital, more than he ever accumulated during his life. Beza answered the young priest, that he is too old and too deaf to hear what he is saying. The Catholic church spread the rumor at that time that he became a Catholic in his last days.

Beza is also known to us in Textual Critism or Textual Analysis (SDA's) in a manuscript named after him, Codex D or Codex Bezae or Codex Cantabrigiensis.The transcriber was a Gaul and ignorant of Greek. Beza got it from a monastry of St. Irenaeus at Lyons when the city was sacked by Des Adrets in 1562. He did not use it in his edition of the Greek New Testament since it departed so widely from the other manuscripts. These departures are often supported by the ancient Latin and Syriac versions. In 1581 he presented it to the University of Cambridge and it is still there. Two Seventh Day Adventists have studied this manuscript well and that is the work and research of Sakae Kubo and George Rice. They have focussed on the book of Acts and what Beza felt about the manuscripts were basically supported by them. Many articles appeared by these two men on this topic in Andrews University Seminary Studies.

The backbone of the problem with Theodore Beza and this type of Calvinism, is the scholastic mathematical chart he made to explain supralapsarianism and Predestination. He published this chart in his Tractationes along with a commentary Summa totius Christianismi sive descriptio et distributio causarum salutis electorum et exitii reproborum ex sacris literis collecta et explicata. Heppe reprinted his chart on 170ff. We are using a photocopy of it by Izak van Zyl in his article (1985): 11.

The main ideas of the chart is that God is very removed from humans but in absolute control of everything. Therefore He decreed certain men to His glory. It means three things namely that in Christ certain men are chosen to be saved. Man is created in an erect but mutable state. The decree also included that He rejected those to be damned by their own fault.

At this point a Seventh Day Adventist could still modify or elaborate Beza's ideas in such a way that they can be biblical or acceptable if misunderstanding is explicitly cleared out of the way. Up to this point Beza can be interpreted in two ways. God just saw beforehand what man anyhow is going to choose for themselves (SDA view) or God actually prompt and pushed to choose people regardless of whether they are good in themselves or corrupt in themselves. Unfortunately the second option is that of Beza as we can see in the chart. He continued by saying that man's corruption is spontaneous and contingent and it means that God has a free love for those corrupt in themselves but freely destined in Christ to election and salvation. It is here that Seventh Day Adventists are saying the book of Jonah does not teach this doctrine at all. Destined to die they converted and God accepted that and changed their destiny. Beza is not correct here. The opposite is God's just hatred to those who are sinners due to the propagation of sin through Adam. Only for the group that God freely love there is effectual calling for the group that God hates, there is no calling or ineffectual calling.

This doctrine of Beza is completely out of touch with the wrappings of the Bible. John 3:16 says that whosoever believes on Him shall be saved. God loved the world, not just selected ones in the world. The partitioning and limiting of Beza's theology of salvation is not straight here. This is why one of his students, Jacob Arminius rejected his views.

In Beza's view the only people with a softening or conversion is the ones who God freely loves and who has an effectual calling. Those who God hates does not have an effectual calling and in fact the opposite happens, a spontaneous hardening. Therefore not all can have faith, only those who have an effectual calling or whom God freely loves, can have faith. Those whom God hates will have spontaneous hardening and thus ignorance of the gospel or contempt of the gospel when offered.

Beza thus teaches fatalism in his soteriology for certain people. No matter what certain people do, if God hates you you will not be saved. However, those whom God freely loves no matter what they do, God will save them. Once saved always saved. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Beza felt that whereas justification is by imputation for those whom God freely loves, those whom God justly hates remains unrighteous and in pollution. John 3:16 tells us God loves all people and wish not a single one to be lost. This is contrary to Beza's reading of the verse.

Beza felt that God's judgment will be on both those whom He freely loved and those whom He justly hates. This is against John 5 which says that the righteous do not come into the judgment, meaning the executive judgment. Although the righteous are now appearing in Christ before the father in the heavenly judgment where the books are opened (Daniel 7) yet they will not appear for their advocate fights their case for them in their physical absence in a federal relationship with those who seeks conversion.

Beza felt that after the judgment there will be a glorification of the justified but in contrary a just damnation of the sinners. Adventism says to Calvanism here, yes, the investigative judgment is since 1844 in heaven and by the time Christ comes with the second Advent, this type of judgment is over and the millennium judgment is one where the saints are judges confirming the cases why their loved ones did not make it. But the executive judgment will be the hell episode at the end of the millennium when those who freely did not choose Christ will be exterminated.

It is thus clear that Adventism and Calvinism cannot reach a consideration on this matter and that Theodore Beza was to Calvin what John Harvey Kellogg was to Ellen White. Deviant thinkers.

If fatalism like this of Beza is at work then hedonism is served by it as well since God has freely saved some people without their choice it does not matter how the person lives, once saved always saved. It further means that evangelism or missionwork is useless since God has already determined the saved. It is for this reason that we stress here the observation that Beza was not actually a theologian but rather a civil rights fighter through disputations.

1. "Theodore Beza" in History of the Christian Church Chapter XIX online.

2. Izak J. van Zyl, "Die Uitverkiesing (7) Die leer van Arminius" Ostraka 4/3 (October 1985): 3-11.

3. Heinrich Heppe: Theodor Beza. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften (Elberfeld, 1861): 147ff.