A question about the history of "God's Plan of Salvation".

[WayneinMaine]

When did the term and concept of “God’s plan of Salvation” (as it is generally used among Evangelical Protestants today) come into use? Was that during one of the revival movements or does it go back to the Reformation or earlier?

[DaSeminarian]

When did the term and concept of “God’s plan of Salvation” (as it is generally used among Evangelical Protestants today) come into use? Was that during one of the revival movements or does it go back to the Reformation or earlier?

Quite frankly I have never heard this particular term used in Lutheran circles before. My guess is that it is primarily a Evangelical "revival" term used to get the message of salvation to the "sinners" of the world.

[Zecryphon]

Quite frankly I have never heard this particular term used in Lutheran circles before. My guess is that it is primarily a Evangelical "revival" term used to get the message of salvation to the "sinners" of the world.
You won't hear it used in Lutheran circles most likely. Maybe in the ELCA, I don't know. It's a term that's seen in Evangelical, Non-denom, emergent, etc. circles. My guess is it surfaced about the same time as that other saying they're so fond of: "Just ask Jesus into your heart." I place it at about 30-40 years ago. The 70's really saw a boom for evangelizing with the "Jesus Freak" movement.

[synger]

From a little research on the term through google, I think you're right. It almost always focuses on "making a decision for Christ", in fact Jack Chick was one of the first hits on the search results.

Sounds like a phrase you wouldn't hear in a LUtheran church.

(Unless they're doing Ablaze!... ))

[Melethiel]

You won't hear it used in Lutheran circles most likely. Maybe in the ELCA, I don't know. It's a term that's seen in Evangelical, Non-denom, emergent, etc. circles. My guess is it surfaced about the same time as that other saying they're so fond of: "Just ask Jesus into your heart." I place it at about 30-40 years ago. The 70's really saw a boom for evangelizing with the "Jesus Freak" movement.
Never heard it in the ELCA. It's a baptigelical thing.

[LilLamb219]

Hi WayneinMaine! Thanks for visiting us :)

The only time I've heard that phrasing is when people from other denoms have used it, mostly Baptist or Southern Baptist. I'll search around though to see if it was used during the Reformation, but it doesn't seem likely.

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

It depends on what you mean by it.

Do you mean 'five steps you need to do to get saved' (like hear the word, accept Jesus say the sinner's prayer, etc.), or do you mean God's plan for salvation in a historical-redemptive sense, as in, the ordering of the covenants with Abraham, Moses, and Christ.

If the former, revival movements. If the latter, St. Augustine, Luther, and Calvin.

[BigNorsk]

I think it's a Jack Chick creation.

http://www.chick.com/information/general/salvation.asp

But I know other tract based ministries use it a lot. Like Campus Crusade for one example.

Marv

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I think it's a Jack Chick creation.

http://www.chick.com/information/general/salvation.asp

But I know other tract based ministries use it a lot. Like Campus Crusade for one example.

Marv
Shudder.

[Jim47]

Believe it or not, it may have Morman roots. My Pastor was visited some years back at his previous church and he said was what they used when he answered the door to sprak interest and get inside.

He has since used it in gthe correct sence of God's true plan of salvation. It is an amazing story when you read from Genesis through Revelation :preach:

[WayneinMaine]

Wow, you folks are great. I appreciate all the answers and discussion. I certainly suspect it comes from revivalist roots, but how far back and how it developed is what I’m after.

The idea of an historical-redemptive ordering of covenants might come close to the popular Evangelical idea, at least as a prototype. I certainly have in mind the Jack Chick / Bill Bright "accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior" as the clearest expression of it, but it is accompanied by the idea that God's working in history has had the sole or primary purpose of bringing salvation to individuals through faith, or an acceptance of Christ according to some formula (four spiritual laws, five steps, whatever). I have seen the term used by 19th century revivalist, so it's not as modern as Jack Chick.

From what I see it is one of those things that's taken for granted in Baptist/Revivalistic circles with no thought given to the fact that such a "plan" is not so clearly spelled out in early church documents, let alone the New Testament itself. It is a synthesis, theologically or historically valid or not. Perhaps conceptually it originates with Augustine, Luther and Calvin -That's why i thought to ask you folks, and really your answers have been informative (The Baptists just spit out the plan when asked).

What I'm curious about is the etymology of the phrase and the evolution of the synthesis of "the plan".

In my own spiritual community (Anabaptist) "the plan" (or it's prototype) was introduced to Mennonites and Amish through revivalism in the late 19th century, leading to divisions in the churches. If may even have made inroads (if it existed in some form) through Pietism in the 18th century.

Revivalism repeatedly strikes at the Old Order and Conservative Anabaptist churches, and the groups that were earlier "revived" (many of whom now consider themselves conservatives, having fallen into the Fundamentalist camp) now take "the plan" for granted and turn it back onto the Old Orders (and neo-Anabaptists who reject Revivalism's influences).

I just don't have the library sources to do the research on it, so I appreciate your input.

[C.F.W. Walther]

It opens up the whole idea of "what can God do for me me me".

Self centered, not God centered.

[Kalevalatar]

Wow, you folks are great. I appreciate all the answers and discussion. I certainly suspect it comes from revivalist roots, but how far back and how it developed is what I’m after.

The idea of an historical-redemptive ordering of covenants might come close to the popular Evangelical idea, at least as a prototype. I certainly have in mind the Jack Chick / Bill Bright "accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior" as the clearest expression of it, but it is accompanied by the idea that God's working in history has had the sole or primary purpose of bringing salvation to individuals through faith, or an acceptance of Christ according to some formula (four spiritual laws, five steps, whatever). I have seen the term used by 19th century revivalist, so it's not as modern as Jack Chick.

From what I see it is one of those things that's taken for granted in Baptist/Revivalistic circles with no thought given to the fact that such a "plan" is not so clearly spelled out in early church documents, let alone the New Testament itself. It is a synthesis, theologically or historically valid or not. Perhaps conceptually it originates with Augustine, Luther and Calvin -That's why i thought to ask you folks, and really your answers have been informative (The Baptists just spit out the plan when asked).

What I'm curious about is the etymology of the phrase and the evolution of the synthesis of "the plan".

In my own spiritual community (Anabaptist) "the plan" (or it's prototype) was introduced to Mennonites and Amish through revivalism in the late 19th century, leading to divisions in the churches. If may even have made inroads (if it existed in some form) through Pietism in the 18th century.

Revivalism repeatedly strikes at the Old Order and Conservative Anabaptist churches, and the groups that were earlier "revived" (many of whom now consider themselves conservatives, having fallen into the Fundamentalist camp) now take "the plan" for granted and turn it back onto the Old Orders (and neo-Anabaptists who reject Revivalism's influences).

I just don't have the library sources to do the research on it, so I appreciate your input.


The term God's salvation plan or God's plan of salvation is used in my neck of woods on occasion and it is understood to be synonymous with predestination (election), which is definitely a Lutheran concept and rely on, I believe, this passage particularly:



And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.



From The Book of Concordia:



First, the distinction between the eternal foreknowledge of God and the eternal election of His children to eternal salvation, is carefully to be observed.


[...]


The eternal election of God, however, vel praedestinatio (or predestination), that is, God's ordination to salvation, does not extend at once over the godly and the wicked, but only over the children of God, who were elected and ordained to eternal life before the foundation of the world was laid, as Paul says, Eph. 1, 4. 5: He hath chosen us in Him, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.


[...]


The eternal election of God, however, not only foresees and foreknows the salvation of the elect, but is also, from the gracious will and pleasure of God in Christ Jesus, a cause which procures, works, helps, and promotes our salvation and what pertains thereto; and upon this [divine predestination] our salvation is so founded that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it, Matt. 16, 18, as is written John 10, 28: Neither shall any man pluck My sheep out of My hand. And again, Acts 13, 48: And as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed.


Nor is this eternal election or ordination of God to eternal life to be considered in God's secret, inscrutable counsel in such a bare manner as though it comprised nothing further, or as though nothing more belonged to it, and nothing more were to be considered in it, than that God foresaw who and how many were to be saved, who and how many were to be damned, or that He only held a [sort of military] muster, thus: "This one shall be saved, that one shall be damned; this one shall remain steadfast [in faith to the end], that one shall not remain steadfast."



Now Luther ponders this predestined plan and free will at some length in the Bondage of the Will. Unlike Calvin(ists), who believe in double predestination, Luther(ans) believe in single predestination, i.e. predestination to salvation by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, but not to predestination to damnation.

I did my best to dig English language sources for you to get started and from a (highly) cursorary look, these would seem to do an adequate job explaining the Lutheran position.

This starts by explaining the terms predestination, foreordination, election, and foreknowledge.

http://www.wlsessays.net/authors/N/NoltingPredestination/NoltingPredestination.PDF

More links here (http://www.wlsessays.net/subjects/E/esubind.html) under "Election." (With the caveat that this is a WELS site and I'm totally clueless when it comes to the American Lutheran sects and where they stand.)

:wave:

[DaRev]

"God's Plan of Salvation"

The original GPS!

^_^

[porterross]

My guess is it surfaced about the same time as that other saying they're so fond of: "Just ask Jesus into your heart." I place it at about 30-40 years ago.


Ha! You just brought back a memory for me from the 70's.

As a young teen I went to an Up With People type gig (I forget what they were called)with some Baptist and Pentecostal friends of mine who immediately agreed to do just that, "ask" Jesus into their hearts. :scratch: I thought they were already Christian so I was a bit confused.

They were a might taken aback that I didn't jump right in and join the group declaration as if I had chosen to reject what was being offered. I asked them why they thought a bunch of singers on a stage were qualified to offer what Christ Himself gives us. Hadn't they learned that in church?

Darn those effects of Lutheran Catechism. ^_^

[LilLamb219]

"God's Plan of Salvation"

The original GPS!

^_^

Mighty Clever :)

[DaRev]

Ha! You just brought back a memory for me from the 70's.

As a young teen I went to an Up With People type gig (I forget what they were called)with some Baptist and Pentecostal friends of mine who immediately agreed to do just that, "ask" Jesus into their hearts. :scratch: I thought they were already Christian so I was a bit confused.

They were a might taken aback that I didn't jump right in and join the group declaration as if I had chosen to reject what was being offered. I asked them why they thought a bunch of singers on a stage were qualified to offer what Christ Himself gives us. Hadn't they learned that in church?

Darn those effects of Lutheran Catechism. ^_^

Well, you seemed to have recovered well from that. ^_^ ^_^

[QuiltAngel]

Ha! You just brought back a memory for me from the 70's.

As a young teen I went to an Up With People type gig (I forget what they were called)with some Baptist and Pentecostal friends of mine who immediately agreed to do just that, "ask" Jesus into their hearts. :scratch: I thought they were already Christian so I was a bit confused.

They were a might taken aback that I didn't jump right in and join the group declaration as if I had chosen to reject what was being offered. I asked them why they thought a bunch of singers on a stage were qualified to offer what Christ Himself gives us. Hadn't they learned that in church?

Darn those effects of Lutheran Catechism. ^_^
Not darn the effects of Lutheran Catechism, but thank God for Lutheran Catechism!

[DaRev]

Not darn the effects of Lutheran Catechism, but thank God for Lutheran Catechism!

Methinks she was being a bit sarcastic. ^_^
(She's good at that. ;))

[QuiltAngel]

Darn, I have such a hard time picking up on sarcasim here sometimes. I know I should be getting better at it, but don't seem to be.