Back in May of 2014, I wrote about “Tulips, Roses, Poinsettias and Lilies: a veritable theological garden.” Now ten years later, I have discovered a new flower growing in the acrostical soteriological garden – the Lotus.
Apparently “LOTUS” is the brainchild of Daniel Weierbach, pastor of Open Door Baptist Church in Prattville, Alabama. According to his book LOTUS: A Free Grace Response to TULIP (Daniel Weirbach, 2024), Weierbach wanted to create a five-letter acronym, based on flower name, that would “counter” the Calvinistic acronym TULIP, point-by-point, in sequential order. Here grows the Lotus:
- Liable Depravity - Each person is liable for their own sin, but not so depraved that they can’t choose to believe in the Gospel.
- Occupational Election - Election is never unto salvation, but is to an office, position, service, or blessing.
- Total Atonement - The death of Jesus Christ was sufficient to pay for the sins of the entire world, not only the “elect.”
- Unlimited Grace – God’s grace is unlimited in the sense that it extends to all people who have to decide to receive or reject it.
- Security of the Saints -A Christian has eternal security because of the power and promise of God.
The Lotus’s weak version of depravity encapsulates the spirit of the age, and sets the flower in array against the Bible itself. I quickly lost interest in any beauty it might have.
While looking into the LOTUS, I ran across another acrostic – PROVIDE. Not a flower this time, but evidently created by Southern Baptist theologian Leighton Flowers.
- People sin: Which separated all from fellowship with God.
- Responsible: Able-to-respond to God’s appeals for reconciliation.
- Open door: For anyone to enter by faith. Whosoever will may come to His open arms.
- Vicarious atonement: Provides a way for anyone to be saved by Christ’s blood.
- Illuminating grace: Provides clearly revealed truth so that all can know and respond in faith.
- Destroyed: For unbelief and resisting the Holy Spirit.
- Eternal security: For all true believers.
Provisionist Southern Baptists and Independent Baptists seem to be going of the cliff in rejecting total depravity. Regardless of any abuses of the terminology, we are totally depraved sinners whose only hope is Jesus Christ and not ourselves. Separated from God. No way back on our own. All of us. Totally. Hereditarily.
Theologically, LOTUS and PROVIDE seem to be two peas in a pod.
5 comments:
Hello Brother,
Always enjoy your material.
You said "....sinners whose only hope is Jesus Christ and not ourselves. Separated from God. No way back on our own. All of us. Totally. Hereditarily.".
I agree with the statement, but not the total depravity part. TD is actually total inability. If a man is so depraved that he cannot believe upon Jesus Christ, then a man cannot be saved except they are forced by irresistible grace.
Just my $.02
Jim
Hi, Jim,
Thanks for your comment. It gives me an opportunity and reason to tease out what I wrote. I stand by it, but it does need clarification.
First, I believe that there is a inability element regarding man & his salvation -- No man CAN come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him...
Second, I believe that there is a problem with man's will -- Ye WILL not come to me, that ye might have life.
Third, by the hereditary part I mean the problem goes back to Adam -- ...by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin...
Now the difference seems to come in how Bible students put this together, how they interpret it. For some, this combination necessitates irresistible grace. For me, it necessitates the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. If God did not come after us, we would never come to him (Genesis 3:8-9; 1 John 4:10,19). John 6:44 makes it clear there is an exception that overcomes man's inability, EXCEPT the Father draw him.
I do not believe that salvation is just a matter of choosing or deciding, but of a sinner coming to repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. A sinner can resist (Acts 7:51), but he can't just decide on his own apart from the work of the Spirit, "I think I'll just get saved today."
Hope that makes sense (and that it is worth 2¢).
Hello Again, Bro. Vaughn
Not trying to start a debate.
I agree completely that without the convicting work of the Spirit, there is no salvation. A man cannot simply chose "today I get saved", although, for a man to be saved, he must chose, "today I get saved". Matt. 23: 37 -" ....how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" They chose to not come.
I agree a man must be drawn of the Father, but the Lord Jesus said that "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." John 12:32. This is the same word. Jesus Christ is drawing all men, they will chose if they respond.
I read the entire Hanks article you posted up. Really enjoyed it. His assessment of Calvinism is about where I am at on it. It is used to prevent the preaching of the gospel.
Thanks, again!
No problem, brother. I enjoy the discussion. I agree that there is an element of choosing in repentance and faith, but done when affected by the conviction of the Holy Spirit rather than emanating out of man's nature.
What I am afraid of is Calvinism pushing those with the truth in the middle too far to the left to avoid being called or considered Calvinists. There were no Calvinists around anywhere (that I know of) when I grew up in a Missionary Baptist Church here, and all of our preachers, teachers, and writers regularly used and defended the terminology total hereditary depravity. They did not mean it the way some Calvinists do, but neither were they afraid that it was a false terminology or bad doctrine. I am trying to stay where I was raised, so to speak, because I believe I was raised on Bible doctrine. My pastors would not have spoke like Leighton Flowers does -- nor like Al Mohler does! (And, of course, they weren't Southern Baptists either.)
Our churches have roots that connect back to Elijah Hanks, except that I think he may have eventually accepted more of the board type mission methods. Isaac Reed, the first old Baptist preacher in our area of Texas, was from those Duck River Separate Baptists in Tennessee. He rejected the Calvinism in the Elk River Association, and also rejected the Southern Baptist board type missions. Reed organized probably a dozen or more churches in our area in the time he lived here, all through simple local church work without any help from any board. They formed their churches (usually, or often) on the New Hampshire Confession as a statement of faith.
The Woolvertons, Hollemans, and Guinns were interconnected families who came here from Tennessee before 1850, and at least the Woolvertons were also intermarried with the Hanks family. They were kin to Elijah Hanks, though I don't remember exactly how at the moment.
Very interesting discussion, Brethren!
E. T. Chapman
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