Written by J. V. Fesko |
Friday, January 13, 2023
Through the work of the Spirit and Word of God, the theological spine holding the body of truth upright is the doctrine of the church. Apart from church and confession, people have nowhere to turn but to the biggest and brightest theological celebrities. If we make the theological genius’s unique distinctives the hallmark of what it means to be Reformed, we are swimming in the stream of Enlightenment Romanticism and individualism. Individually, we are free to hold distinct theological positions, but when it comes to defining the church’s corporate faith, our confessions define what it means to be truly Reformed. We must never allow, therefore, the genius theologian to displace the church and the role of its scripturally subordinated confession.  

Forces of culture influence and shape our thoughts. In turn, what forces shape evangelicalism and the Reformed faith? Two different forces have shaped each theological movement: the Romantic idea of the genius on one end of the spectrum and the doctrine of the church on the other.
The two forces produce very different outcomes—in evangelical churches, the genius theologian looms large as the one who molds a theological movement. Reformed churches, on the other hand, have a commitment to a scripturally subordinated confessional authority, or confessionalism, that shapes the church. Herein lies a significant difference between evangelicalism and the Reformed faith. When we understand these different shaping forces, we can seek to pursue the path of confessionalism rather than that of a genius theologian. In confessionalism, a person commits to a corporate confession of faith written by the church throughout the ages, whereas in the genius theologian approach, a lone individual creates a school of thought that people try to emulate and replicate. In what follows, I explain the origins and nature of the genius theologian and contrast it with the confessional approach of the Reformed churches. Realizing Reformed churches are liable to fall into genius theologian mode, I conclude by spelling out the dangers of this pitfall.
The Romantic Idea of the Genius
Noted historian of philosophy Isaiah Berlin observed that Romantic philosophers of the eighteenth century shaped modern culture in ways that many people forget or are unaware of. Were we able to transport ourselves back to the sixteenth century and ask a Roman Catholic, “Factoring your disagreement with your Protestant foes, don’t you admire Protestants for their zeal, skill, and intellectual rigor with which they have carried out their program of reformation?” The Roman Catholic would respond, “No! They’re schismatics!” Berlin makes the point that admiring the way someone does something while ignoring what they’re doing is from the influence of Romanticism. In other words, how you do something is more important than what you do, according to Romanticism. This illustrates its nature, a philosophical movement that encouraged people to prioritize feelings over intellect. One of the thrusts of Romantic philosophy was the creation of the idea of the genius. Under the sway of emotion, French philosophe Denis Diderot claimed that the genius was an artist, a rule breaker, one who transcends the bounds of civilized man to blaze his own path. In his nineteenth-century Essay on Original Genius, Scottish Presbyterian William Duff argued that the indispensable characteristic of genius is an unrestrained imagination because this is what makes the genius unique and creative. This sets the stage for the Romantic influence on evangelicalism and the genius theologian.
The multi-branched tree of evangelicalism has no root in a single theological confession but in a coterie of theologians. Evangelicals typically look to big names as the lodestars for their understanding of the Christian faith. People are drawn to the genius and creativity of a theologian or pastor based upon their own interests. Are you interested in Christian Hedonism? Then you turn to John Piper. Are you trying to live your best life now? Then Joel Osteen is your genius. Do you believe that all theology is eschatology?
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Theoretical inerrancy is killing the church in America. It is spreading like stage 4 cancer. Only God can stop it. If He does, it will be through the Spirit-empowered preaching and teaching of His Word. If He does, there will be deep repentance among pastors, leaders, and churches where sin is confessed, new resolve is given, and new patterns of living and ministering are embraced.

One of my growing concerns about American Christianity (and I include myself and the congregation that I serve in this analysis) is that we have been blessed with ready access to the Bible for so long and have seen reaffirmation of its full authority so boldly declared by many of our pastors, churches, and institutions that we have made the affirmation of its inerrancy almost meaningless. I am not saying that a full-throated affirmation of biblical inerrancy is unimportant. On the contrary, I contended for that very thing in the so-called “Conservative Resurgence” in the Southern Baptist Convention during the last two decades of the twentieth century.
I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in May 1979, having been convinced by a prominent member of that faculty that inerrancy was at best unimportant and that the “Fundamentalists” were storming the walls with the intent of firing all of Southwestern’s faculty and turning it into backwater Bible College intent only to indoctrinate and not educate.
So I showed up to my first class loaded for bear with reassurances for my professors that I would lead my church and our ten messengers to Houston in a few weeks and would vote against that “young man from Memphis” (Adrian Rogers) who wanted to fire them. By God’s grace, my first class was a survey of church history with Tom Nettles. Early in the term I offered him my reassurance in his office. He cocked his head, got a consternated look on his face and asked me, “Who have you been talking to?” When I told him and explained how I understood the situation in the SBC he got up from his desk, walked to his door, and closed it. The moment he sat back down marked the beginning of my real theological education.
As I grappled with the nature of Scripture, its authority, power, and sufficiency, and the implications for my life and ministry, my world was rocked. I had been raised by a godly mother who taught her children to believe the Bible but I had never thought deeply about the nature and implications of divine revelation. As I did, I found myself coming to see the simple, clear testimonies of Scripture concerning itself such as Paul makes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Once convinced, I did my best to contend for this doctrine and to lend my small voice to those calling the SBC back to an unashamed affirmation of biblical inerrancy. I did so because I believe it to be true and vitally important for healthy Christianity. Consequently, I rejoiced to see the SBC turned around such that now all of the Seminary presidents, entity heads, seminary professors, and denominational leaders unashamedly affirm inerrancy. In fact, no self-respecting Southern Baptist pastor or leader would dare deny it.
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We were deaf to his words of warning and affection; now we hear his voice and we want to follow him (John 10:16). God’s work of regeneration transforms elect sinners. It isn’t a complete renewal—that happens at glorification. But it is a real start. And what God starts he always finished (Phil. 1:6).

Salvation is like a treasure that becomes more precious to us the better we understand it. One way of better understanding our salvation is to study what theologians call the ordo salutis, or the order of salvation, the “process by which the work of salvation … is subjectively realized in the hearts and lives of sinners.”[i] Romans 8:30 is the classic text on how God saves: “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Embedded in those terms are additional concepts that fill out our understanding of salvation, but this verse provides biblical warrant for itemizing the motions of divine grace. Ultimately, salvation is like a single golden chain, one unified work of God. Still, to get to know our great salvation we can study each of the links in turn.
The first link is election, God’s eternal and gracious choice to save some sinners. But to understand how the elect actually become Christians we turn to effectual calling. The word “calling” rightly suggests that God offers grace to sinners; through “the ministry of the Word” he calls wayward children to come home. But the calling of God is more than an invitation. It is effectual, it actually produces the desired effect. The effectual call is also known as regeneration, God’s one-sided action whereby he brings dead sinners to life in Christ.
Who Are the Called?
Put simply, those who are called are spiritually dead but elect sinners.
God Effectually Calls the Elect
The effectual call is different from the general call of the gospel. The call to repent and believe goes out to everyone who hears it. God is constantly calling sinners to turn from their sins and find life in him. God’s kind providence should stimulate us to repent (Rom. 2:4). The loveliness of nature is an invitation to find the author of this beauty. Our troubled consciences warn us to flee sin and seek righteousness. And, mostly clearly of all Scripture tells the story of God’s redemption so that we might ourselves be redeemed. But all this knowledge of God people naturally twist, exchanging his truth for a lie (Rom. 1:18–25). Only to the elect does God make this call effective for salvation. It is in this sense that Jesus interprets his parable of the wedding feast: “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14).
Those who are chosen are not elected for any personal qualifications. As God’s eternal predestination is “without any foresight of faith … or any other thing in the creature, as conditions” affecting his choice (ch. 3), so is the effectual calling “of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man.”
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