Calvinism: Manifesto
on God's Supremacy
and Almost a Manifesto on Christian Elitism
~
Still Under Construction ~
The editing of this is still
in progress and some scan errors remain
Courtesy of www.PreciousHeart.net
When I pursued information on the best work on
Calvinism, Boettner was at the top of the list as the classic. The
following is not the total book, only about a third of its most salient topics,
most all of the scripture references and several full chapters. The table of contents in tagged to make
navigation easy.
Boettner, Loraine. The Reformed Doctrine of
Predestination. Grand
Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1951, 7th
ed. (1st ed. 1932). In this
volume the author as copyright owner says:
“Any one is at liberty to use material from this book with or without
credit…. He believes the material set forth to be a true statement of Scripture
teaching, and his desire is to further, not restrict, its use.”
The Christian the
theology of Predestination is all about God's supremacy. In a way, and in the light of the Would You Lie to Save a Life,
Calvinism could almost be called a manifesto for Christian Elitism (but
we stop short). Even Augustine a 1,000
years before Calvin articulated the doctrine of God’s supremacy. There is hardly a biblical Christian who
doubts the supremacy of God or doubts that the Christian has some degree
of “free will” responsibility in the doing of God’s will—at least to the extent
that the Christian is “responsible” in “free choice” to make simple decisions
(like to help others and avoid criminal behavior). The questions arise in how that supremacy impacts salvation and
the individual’s eternal destiny.
Practically, the doctrine of God's supremacy informs us about the
“nature” of our responsibility, and the most imponderable questions of all
arise with respect to the degree of our free will in the light of God’s
supremacy.
~ Some Credits ~
Christianity Today—"Not only a clear and cogent presentation of
the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, but of all the great distinctive
doctrines of the Reformed Faith."
The Sunday School Times—"A book that will live for years as one of
the most scholarly, helpful and interesting discussions of a difficult
subject."
The Expositor—"The mantle of Dr. Warfield, Calvin's most distinguished expositor
and defender of the last generation, seems to have fallen on Dr. Boettner's
shoulders."
United Presbyterian—"Whoever really wants to know what Calvinism
teaches cannot do better than to read this book from cover to cover."
SECTION I
VIII. The
Scriptures Are the Final Authority By Which Systems Are to be Judged
IX. A
Warning Against Undue Speculation
SECTION II: The Five Points of Calvinism
XIII. Efficacious
or Irresistible Grace
XIV. The
Perseverance of the Saints
SECTION III:
Objections Commonly Urged Against the Reformed Doctrine of
Predestination
XVI. 2. That It Is Inconsistent with the Free Agency
and Moral Responsibility of Man
XVII. 3. That It Makes God the Author of Sin
XVIII. 4. That It Discourages All Motives To Exertion
XIX. 5. That It Represents God as a Respecter of
Persons, or as Unjustly Partial
XX. 6. That It Is Unfavorable to Good Morality
XXI. 7. That It Precludes a
Sincere Offer of the Gospel to the Non-Elect
XXII. 8. That It Contradicts the
Universalistic Scripture Passages
SECTION IV:
XXIV. Personal
Assurance That One Is Among the Elect
XXV. Predestination
in the Physical World
XXVI. A
Comparison with the Mohammedan Doctrine of Predestination
SECTION V:
XXVII. The Practical Importance of the Doctrine
SECTION VI:
XXVIII. Calvinism in History
I. Introduction [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 1: "The
purpose of this book is not to set forth a new system of theological thought,
but to give a re-statement of that great system which is known as the Reformed
Faith or Calvinism….
"The doctrine of Predestination receives … is very
imperfectly understood even by those who are supposed to hold it most
loyally. It is a doctrine, however,
which is contained in the creeds of most evangelical churches and which has had
a remarkable influence both in Church and state. The official standards of the various branches of the
Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Europe and America are thoroughly
Calvinistic. The Baptist and
Congregational churches, although they have no formulated creeds, have in the
main been Calvinistic if we may judge from the writings and teachings of the
representative theologians. The great
free church of Holland and almost all the churches of Scotland are
Calvinistic. The Established Church of
England and her daughter, the Episcopal Church of America, have a Calvinistic
creed in the Thirty-nine Articles. The
Whitefield Methodists of Wales to this day bear the name 'Calvinistic
Methodists.
"Among the past
and present advocates of this doctrine [Predestination] are to be found some of
the world's greatest and wisest men. It
was taught not only by Calvin, but by Luther, Zwingli, Melancthon (although
Melancthon later retreated toward the Semi-Pelagian position), by Bullinger,
Bucer, and all of the outstanding leaders in the Reformation. … Luther's chief
work, 'The Bondage of the Will,' shows that he went into the doctrine as heartily
as did Calvin himself. He [Luther] even
asserted it with more warmth and proceeded to much harsher lengths in defending
it than Calvin ever did. And the
Lutheran Church today as judged by the Formula of Concord holds the doctrine of
Predestination in a modified form. […
in degrees the Puritans and early settlers, the Covenanters in Scotland,
Huguenots in France.] This faith was
for a time held by the Roman Catholic Church, and at no time has that church
every openly repudiated it….
……….
"We call this
system of doctrine 'Calvinism,' and accept the term 'Calvinist' as our badge of
honor; yet names are mere
conveniences. 'We might,' says
Warburton, 'quite as appropriately, and with equally as much reason, call
gravitation "Newtonism," because the principles of gravitation were
first clearly demonstrated by the great philosopher Newton. Men had been fully conversant with the facts
of gravitation for long ages before Newton was born. These facts had indeed been visible from the first days of creation,
inasmuch as gravitation was one of the laws which God ordained for governing of
the universe. But the principles of
gravitation were not fully known, and the far-reaching effects of its power and
influence were not understood until they were discovered by Sir Isaac
Newton. So, too, was it with what men
call Calvinism. The inherent principles
of it had been in existence for long ages before Calvin was born. They had indeed been visible as patent
factors in the world's history from the time of man's creation. But inasmuch as it was Calvin who first
formulated these principles into a more or less complete system, that system,
or creed, if you will, and likewise those principles where are embodied in it,
came to bear his name.'[1]
…
"This doctrine of
Predestination has perhaps raised a greater storm of opposition, and has
doubtless been more misrepresented and caricatured, than any other doctrine in
the Scriptures. 'To mention it before
some,' says Warburton, 'is like shaking the proverbial red flag before an
enraged bull. It arouses the fiercest
passions of their nature, and brings forth a torrent of abuse and calumny. But, because men have fought against it, or
because they hate it, or perhaps misunderstand it, is no reasonable or logical
cause why we should turn the doctrine adrift, or cast it behind or backs. The real question, the all-important
question, is not: How do me receive it?
but, Is it true?'[2] …
"'The
consideration of this great doctrine,' says Cunningham, 'runs up into the most
profound and inaccessible subjects that can occupy the minds of men—the nature
and attributes, the purposes and the actings of the infinite and
incomprehensible Jehovah—viewed especially in their bearings upon the
everlasting destinies of His intelligent creatures. The peculiar nature of the subject certainly demands, in right
reason, that it should ever be approached and considered with the profoundest
humility, caution, and reverence, as it brings us into contact, on the one
side, with the subject so awful and overwhelming as the everlasting misery of
an innumerable multitude of our fellow men….
There is probably no subject that has occupied more of the attention of
intelligent men in every age…. Some, at least, of the topics comprehended under
this general head have been discussed by almost every philosopher of eminence
in ancient as well as in modern times….
All that the highest ability, ingenuity, and acuteness can effect, has
been brought to bear upon the discussion of this subject; and the difficulties attaching to it have
never been fully solved, and we are well warranted in saying that they never
will … perhaps, it would be more correct to say that, from the very nature of
the case, a finite being can never fully comprehend it since this would imply
that the could fully comprehend the infinite world.'[3]…
"The question
which faces us then, Has God from all eternity foreordained all things which
come to pass? If so, what evidence do
we have to that effect, and how is the fact consistent with the free agency of
rational creatures and with His own perfections?"
SECTION I. II. Statement of the Doctrine [ Contents ~ Top ]
On the Doctrine of
Predestination p. 13-18
"In the
Westminster Confession … which is the most perfect expression of the Reformed
Faith, we read: 'God from all eternity
did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeable
ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so
as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the
will of creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken
away, but rather established.' And
further, 'Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all
supposed conditions; yet hath He not
decreed any thing because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come
to pass upon such conditions.'
"This doctrine of
Predestination represents the purpose of God as absolute and unconditional,
independent of the whole finite creation, and as originating solely in the
eternal counsel of His will. God is
seen as the great and mighty King who as appointed the course of nature and who
directs the course of history even down to its minutest details. His degree is eternal, unchangeable, holy,
wise, and sovereign. It extends not
merely to the course of the physical world but to every event in human history
from the creation to the judgment, and includes all the activities of saints
and angels in heaven and of reprobates and demons in hell. It embraces the whole scope of creaturely
existence, through time and eternity, comprehending at once all things that
ever were or will be in their causes, conditions, successions, and
relations. Everything outside of God
Himself is included in this all-embracing decree, and that very naturally since
all other beings owe their existence and continuance in existence to His
creative and sustaining power. It
provides a providential control under which all things are hastening to the end
of God's determining ….
"Since the finite
creation through its whole range exists as a medium through which God manifests
His glory, and since it is absolutely dependent on Him, it of itself could
originate no conditions which would limit or defeat the manifestation of that
glory. From all eternity God has
purposed to do just exactly what He is doing.
He is the sovereign Ruler of the universe and 'does according to His
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him,
What doest thou?' Dan. 4:35. Since the
universe had its origin in God and depends on Him for its continued existence
it must be, in all its parts and at all times, subject to His control so that
nothing can come to pass contrary to what He expressly decrees or permits. Thus the eternal purpose is represented as
an act of sovereign predestination or foreordination, and unconditioned by any
subsequent fact or change in time.
Hence it is represented as being the basis of the divine foreknowledge
of all future events, and not conditioned by that foreknowledge or by anything
originated by the events themselves.
"The Reformed
theologians … saw the hand of God in every event in all the history of mankind
and in all the workings of physical nature so that the world was the complete
realization in time of the eternal ideal.
The world as a whole and in all its parts and movements and changes was
brought into a unity by the governing, all-pervading, all-harmonizing activity
of the divine will, and its purpose was to manifest the divine glory. … Calvin
… [said] 'Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has
determined in Himself, what He would have to become of every individual of
mankind. For they are not all created
with a similar destiny; but eternal
life is foreordained for some and eternal death for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one
or the other of these ends, we say he is predestined either to life or to
death.'[4]
…"
"That Luther was
as zealous for absolute predestination as was Calvin is shown in his commentary
on Romans, where he wrote: 'All things
whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should
receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and
who should be hardened in them; and who
should be justified and who should be condemned.' …
"'Order is
heaven's first law.' From the divine
viewpoint there is unbroken order and
progress from the first beginnings of the creation to the end of the world and
the ushering in of the kingdom of heaven in all its glory. The divine purpose and plan is nowhere
defeated nor interrupted; that which in
many cases appears to us to be defeat is not really such but only appears to
be, because our finite and imperfect nature does not permit us to see all the
parts in the whole nor the whole in all its parts. If at one glance would could take in 'the might spectacle of the
natural world and the complex drama of human history,' we should see the world
as one harmonious unit manifesting the glorious perfections of God.
"'Though the
world seems to run at random,' says Bishop, 'and affairs to be huddled together
in blind confusion and rude disorder, yet, God sees and knows the concatenation
of all causes and effects, and so governs them that he makes a perfect harmony
out of all those seeming jarrings and discords. It is most necessary that we should have our hearts well
established in the firm and unwavering belief of this truth, that whatever
comes to pass, be it good or evil, we may look up to the hand and disposal of
all, to God. In respect to God, there
is nothing casual nor contingent in the world.
If a master should send a servant to a certain place and command him to
stay there till such a time, and, presently after, should send another servant
to the same place, the meeting of these two is wholly casual in respect to
themselves, but ordained and foreseen by the master who sent them. They fall out unexpectedly as to us, but no
so as to God. He foresees and He
appoints all the vicissitudes of things.'[5]
"The Psalmist
exclaimed, 'O Jehovah our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the
earth!' And the writer of Ecclesiastes
says, 'He hath made everything beautiful in its time." In the vision which the prophet Isaiah saw,
the seraphim sang, 'Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: The whole earth is full of His glory.' When seen from this divine view-point every
event in the course of human affairs is all ages and in all nations has, no
matter how insignificant it may appear to us, its exact place in the
development of the eternal plan…. And strictly speaking, no event is really
small; each one has its exact place in
the divine plan, and some are only relatively greater than others. The course of history, then is infinitely
complex, yet a unit in the sight of God.
This truth, together with the reason for it, is very beautifully summed
up in the Shorter Catechism which states that, 'The degrees of God are, His
eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby for His own
glory, He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.'
"Dr. Abraham
Kyper, of Holland, who is recognized as one of the outstanding Calvinistic
theologians in recent years, has given us some valuable thought in the
following paragraph: 'The determination
of the existence of all things to be created, or what is to be camellia or
buttercup, nightingale or crow, hart or swine, and equally among men, the
determination of our persons, whether one is to be born a boy or girl, rich or
poor, dull or clever, white or colored or even Abel or Cain, is the most
tremendous predestination conceivable in heaven and on earth; and still we see it taking place before our
eyes every day, and we ourselves are subject to it in our entire personality; our entire existence, our very nature, our
position in life being entirely dependent on it. This all-embracing predestination, the Calvinist places, not in
the hands of man, and still less in the hand of blind nature force, but in the
hand of Almighty God, sovereign Creator and Possessor of heaven and earth; and it is in the figure of the potter and
the clay that that Scripture has from the time of the prophets expounded to us
this all-dominating election. Election
in creation, election in providence, and so election also to eternal life; election in the realm of grace as well as in
the realm of nature.'[6]
"We can have no
adequate appreciation of this world-order until we see it as one mighty system
through which God is working out his plans.
Calvin's clear and consistent theism gave him a keen sense of the infinite
majesty of the Almighty Person in whose hands all things lay, and made him a
very pronounced predestinarian. In this
doctrine of the unconditional and eternal purpose of the omniscient and
omnipotent God, he found the program of the history of the fall and redemption
of the human race. He ventured boldly
but reverently upon the brink of that abyss of speculation where all human
knowledge is lost in mystery and adoration.
"The Reformed
Faith, then, offers us a great God who is really the sovereign Ruler of the
Universe. 'Its grand principle,' says
Bayne, 'is the contemplation of the universe of God revealed in Christ. In all places, in all times, from eternity
to eternity, Calvinism sees God.'…
"Foreordination
is explicitly state in Scripture."
Acts 4:27, 28:
For of a truth in this city against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou
didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples
of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and they counsel
foreordained to come to pass.
Eph. 1:5:
Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto
Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.
Eph. 1:11:
In whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according
to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.
Rom. 8:29, 30:
For whom He foreknow, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image
of His son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom He foreordained, them He also
called: and whom he called, them he
also justified: and whom He justified,
them He also glorified.
1 Cor. 2:7:
But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been
hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory.
Acts 2:23:
Him [Jesus] being delivered up by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye by the hands of lawless men did crucify and slay.
Eph. 2:10:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.
Rom. 9:23:
That He might make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of
mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory.
Psalm 139:16:
Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; and in thy book they are all written, even the days that were
ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.
III. God Has a Plan [ Contents ~ Top ]
p.20: "It is unthinkable that a God of
infinite wisdom and power would create a world without a definite plan for that
world. And because God is thus infinite
His plan must extend to every detail of the world's existence. If we could see the world in all its
relations, past, present, and future, we would see that it is following a
predetermined course with exact precision.
Among created things we may search where we will, as far as the microscope
and the telescope will enable the eye to see, we find organization
everywhere. Large forms resolve
themselves into parts, and these parts in their turn are but organized of other
parts down as far as we can see into infinity.
……….
"…We cannot conceive
of God bringing into existence a universe without a plan which would extend to
all that would be done in that universe.
As the Scriptures teach that God's providential control extends to all
events, even the most minute, they thereby teach that His plan is equally
comprehensive. It is one of His
perfections that He has the best possible plan, and that He conducts the course
of history to its appointed end. And to
admit that He has a plan which He carries out is to admit Predestination….
"The Pelagian
denies that God has a plan; the
Arminian says that God has a general but not a specific plan; but the Calvinist says that God has a
specific plan which embraces all events in all ages. In recognizing that the eternal God has an eternal plan in which is
predetermined every event that comes to pass, the Calvinist simply recognizes
that God is God, and frees Him from all human limitations. The Scriptures represent God as a person,
like other persons in that His acts are purposeful, but unlike other persons in
that He is all-wise in His planning and all-powerful in His performing. They see the universe as the product of His
creative power, and as the theater in which are displayed His glorious
perfections, and which must in all its form and all its history, down to the
least detail, correspond with His purpose in making it.
"In a very
illuminating article … Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield … tells us that the writers of
Scripture saw the divine plan as 'broad enough to embrace the whole universe of
things, and minute enough to concern itself with the smallest details, and
actualizing itself with inevitable certainty in every event that comes to
pass.' 'In the infinite wisdom of the
Lord of all the earth, each event falls with exact precision into its proper
place in this unfolding of He eternal plan;
nothing, however small, however strange, occurs without His ordering, or
without its peculiar fitness for its place in the working out of His purposes; and the end of all shall be the
manifestation of His glory, and accumulation of His praise. This is the Old Testament (as well as the
New Testament) philosophy of the universe—a world-view which attains concrete
unity in an absolute decree, or purpose, or plan of which all that comes to
pass is the development in time.'[7]
"The very essence
of consistent theism is that God would have an exact plan for the world, would
foreknow the actions of all the creatures He proposed to create, and through
His all-inclusive providence would control the whole system. If He foreordained only certain isolated
events, confusion both in the natural world and in human affairs would be
introduced into the system and He would need to be constantly developing new
plans to accomplish what he desired…. But no one with proper ideas of God believes
that He has to change His mind every few days to make room for unexpected
happenings which were not included in His original plan….
"…And since He
knew perfectly every event of every kind which would be involved in this
particular world-order, He very obviously predetermined every event which would
happen when He chose this plan. His
choice of the plan, or His making certain that the creation should be on this
order, we call His foreordination or His predestination.
"Even the sinful
acts of men are included in this plan.
They are foreseen, permitted, and have their exact place. They are controlled and overruled for the
divine glory. The crucifixion of
Christ, which is admittedly the worst crime in all human history, had, we are
expressly told, its exact and necessary place in the plan (Acts 2:23, 4:28).
This particular manner of redemption is not an expedient to which God
was driven after being defeated and disappointed by the fall of man. Rather it is "according to the eternal
purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord," Eph. 3:11. Peter tells us that Christ as a sacrifice
for sin was 'foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world,' I Peter
1:20. Believers were 'chosen in Him
before the foundation of the world' (or from eternity), Eph. 1:4….
"History in all
its details, even the most minute, is but the unfolding of the eternal purposes
of God. His decrees are not
successively formed as the emergency arises, but are all parts of one
all-comprehending plan, and we should never think of Him suddenly evolving a
plan or doing something which He had not thought of before…."
Scripture Proof. God plan is eternal: II Tim. 1:9, Ps. 33:11, Is. 37:26, Is.
46:9-10, II Thess. 2:13, Matt. 25:34, I Pet. 1:20, Jer. 31:3, Acts 15:18, Ps.
139:16. God's plan is
unchangeable: James 1:17, Is. 14:24,
Is. 46:10-11, Num. 23:19, Mal. 3:6. The
divine plan includes the future acts of men:
Dan. 2:28, John 6:64, Matt. 20:18-19 (All the Scripture prophecies which
are predictions of future events come under this heading, especially: Micah 5:2 cp. with Matt. 2:5-6, Luke
2:1-7; Ps. 22:18 cp. with John
19:24; Ps. 69:21 cp. with John 19:29; Zech. 12:10 cp. John 19:37; Mark 14:30;
Zech. 11:12-13 cp. with Matt. 27:9-10;
Ps. 34:19-20 cp. with John 19:33-36).
The divine plan includes the fortuitous events or chance
happenings: Prov. 16:33, Jonah 1:7,
Acts 1:24-26, Job. 36:32 & 5:6, I Kings 22:28 & 34, Mark 14:30 (cp.
Gen. 37:28 and 45:5; I Sam. 9:15-16 and
9:5-10). Some events are recorded as
fixed or inevitably certain: Luke
22:22, John 8:20, Matt. 24:36, Gen. 41:32, Hab. 2.3, Luke 21:24, Jer. 15:2, Job
14:5, Jer. 27:7. Even the sinful acts
of men are included in the plan and are overruled for good: Gen. 50:20, Is. 45:7, Amos 3:6, Acts 3:18,
Matt. 21:42, Rom. 8:28.
IV. The Sovereignty of God [ Contents ~ Top ]
"…It has
been recognized by Christians in all ages that God is the Creator and Ruler of
the universe, and that as the Creator and Ruler of the universe He is the
ultimate source of all the power that is found in the creatures. Hence nothing can come to pass apart from
His sovereign will; and when we dwell
upon this truth we find that it involves considerations which establish the
Calvinistic and disprove the Arminian position.
"…He is the
absolute Owner and final Disposer of all that He has made. He exerts not merely a general influence,
but actually rules in the world which He has created.… And since he permits not unwillingly but
willingly, all that comes to pass—including the actions and ultimate destiny of
men—must be, in some sense, in accordance with what He has desired and
proposed…. Naturally some problems arise here which we in our present state of
knowledge are not fully capable of solving;
but that is no sufficient ground for rejecting what the Scriptures and
the plain dictates of reason affirm to be true.
"…In the
Scriptures He is represented to us as God ALMIGHTY, who sits upon the throne of
universal dominion. He knows the end
from the beginning and the means to be used in attaining that end. He is able to do for us exceedingly
abundantly above all that we ask or even think. The category of the impossible has no existence for Him 'with
whom all things are possible,' Matt. 19:26;
Mark 10:27….
"Although the
sovereignty of God is universal and absolute, it is not the sovereignty of
blind power. It is coupled with
infinite wisdom, holiness and love….
Scripture Proof. The Sovereignty of God. Dan. 4:35, Jer. 32:17, Matt. 28:18, Eph.
1:22, Eph. 1:11, Is. 14:24-27 & 46:9-11, Gen. 18:14, Job. 43:2, Ps. 115:3
& 135:6, Is. 55:11, Rom 9:20-21.
V. The Providence of God [ Contents ~ Top ]
"'God's works of
providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all
his creatures and all their actions.'[8] The Scripture very clearly teach that all
things outside of God owe not merely their original creation, but their
continued existence, with all their properties and powers, to the will of
God. He upholds all things by the word
of His power, Heb. 1:13. He is before
all things, and in Him all things consist, Col. 1:17….
"Yet as regards
God's providence we are to understand that He is intimately concerned with
every detail in the affairs of men and in the course of nature. 'To suppose that anything is too great to be
comprehended in His control,' says Dr. Charles Hodge, 'or anything so minute as
to escape His notice; or that the
infinite of particulars can distract His attention, is to forget that God is
infinite…. The sun diffuses its light through all space as easily as upon any
point. God is as much present everywhere,
and with everything, as though He were only in one place, and had but one
object of attention.' And again, 'He is
present in every blade of grass, yet guiding Aucturus in his course,
marshalling the stars as a host, calling them by their names; present also in every human soul, giving it
understanding, endowing it with gifts, working I nit both to will and to
do. The human heart is in His
hands; and he turneth it even as the
rivers of water are turned.'[9]
…
p. 38: "Man's sense of moral responsibility
and dependence, and his instinctive appeal to God in times of danger, show how
universal and innate is the conviction that God does govern the world and all
human events. But while the Bible
repeatedly teaches that this providential control is universal, powerful, wise,
and holy, it nowhere attempts to inform us how it is to be reconciled with
man's free agency. All that we need to
know is that God does govern His creatures and that His control over them is
such that no violence is done to their natures. Perhaps the relationship between divine sovereignty and human
freedom can best be summed up in these words:
God so presents the outside inducements that man acts in accordance with
his known nature, yet does exactly what God has planned for him to do.
"This subject, as
it relates to human responsibility, will be more fully treated in the chapter
on Free Agency."
Scripture Proof. The Providence of God Extends over: a.
Nature and physical world: Nahum
1:3, Ex. 9:26, Matt. 5:45, Gen. 41:32, Amos 4:7, Acts 14:17, Is. 4012. b.
The animal creation: Matt.
10:29, Matt. 6:26, Dan. 6:22, Ps. 104:21, Gen. 31:9. c. Nations: Dan. 4:17, Is. 40:15, I Chr. 16:31, Ps.
47:7, Daniel 2:21, Ps. 33:10, Joshua 21:44, Judges 6:1, Amos 3:6, Hab.
1:6. d. Individual men: Prov.
21:1, Ps. 37:23, Prov. 16:9, James 4:15, Rom. 11:36, I Cor. 4:7,Ps. 34:7,
Daniel 3:17, Ps. 118:6, Is. 64:8, Ezra 8:31, Nehemiah 4:15, Ex. 11:7, Acts
18:9. e. The free acts of men: Phil.
2:13, Ex. 12:36, Ezra 6:22 & 7:6, Ezek. 36:27. f. The sinful acts of
men: Acts 4:27-28, John 19:11, II Sam.
16:10-11, Ps. 76:10, Ex. 14:17. g. To the fortuitous events or "chance
happenings" (see previous on The Divine Plan Includes the Fortuitous
Events).
VI. The Foreknowledge of God [ Contents ~ Top ]
pp42-46: "The Arminian objection against
foreordination bears with equal force against the foreknowledge of God. What
God foreknows must, in the very nature of the case, be as fixed and certain as
what is foreordained; and if one is
inconsistent with the free agency of man, the other is also. Foreordination renders the events certain,
while foreknowledge presupposes that they are certain.
"Now if future
events are foreknown to God, they cannot be any possibility take a turn
contrary to His knowledge. If the
course of future events is foreknown, history will follow that course as
definitely as a locomotive follows the rails from New York to Chicago. The Arminian doctrine, in rejecting
foreordination, rejects the theistic basis for foreknowledge. Common sense tells us that no event can be
foreknown unless by some means, either physical or mental, it has been
predetermined. Our choice as to what
determines the certainty of future events narrows down to two alternatives—the
foreordination of the wise and merciful heavenly Father, or the working of
blind physical fate.
"The Socinians
and Unitarians, while not so evangelical as the Arminians, are at this point
more consistent; for after rejecting
the foreordination of God, they also deny that He can foreknow the acts of free
agents. They hold that in the very
nature of the case it cannot be known how the person will act until the time
comes an the choice is made….
"… Others have
suggested that God may voluntarily neglect to know some of the acts of men in
order to leave them free; but this of
course destroys the omniscience of God.
Still others have suggested that God's omniscience may imply only that
He can know all things, if He chooses—just as His omnipotence implies that He can
do all things, if He chooses. But the comparison
will not hold, for these certain acts are not merely possibilities but
realities, although yet future; and to
ascribe ignorance to God concerning these is to deny Him the attribute of
omniscience. This explanation would
give us the absurdity of an omniscience that is not omniscient.
"When the
Arminian is confronted with the argument from the foreknowledge of God, he has
to admit the certainty or fixity of future events. Yet when dealing with the problem of free agency he wishes to
maintain that the acts of free agents are uncertain and ultimately dependent on
the choice of the person—which is plainly an inconsistent position. A view which holds that the free acts of men
are uncertain, sacrifices the sovereignty of God in order to preserve the freedom
of men.
"Furthermore, if
the acts of free agents are in themselves uncertain, God must then wait until
the event has had its issue before making His plans. In trying to convert a soul, then He would be conceived of as
working in the same manner that Napoleon is said to gone into battle—with three
or four plans in mind, so that if the first failed, he could fall back upon the
second, and if that failed, then the third, and so on—a view which is
altogether inconsistent with a true view of His nature. He would then be ignorant of much of the
future and would daily be gaining vast stores of knowledge. His government of the world also, in that
case, would be very uncertain and changeable, dependent as it would be on the
unforeseen conduct of men.
"To deny God the
perfections of foreknowledge and immutability is to represent Him as a
disappointed and unhappy being who is often checkmated and defeated by His
creatures….
"Speaking through
the prophet Isaiah the Lord said: 'I am
God, and there is none like me; declaring
the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet
done; saying, My counsel shall stand,
and I will do all my pleasure,' Is. 46:10.
'Thou understandest my thoughts afar off,' said the psalmist,
139:2. He 'knoweth the heart,"
Acts 15:8. 'There is no creature that
is not manifest in His sight; but all
things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do,'
Heb. 4:13.
"Much of the
difficulty in regard to the doctrine of Predestination is due to the finite
character of our mind, which can grasp only a few details at a time, and which
understands only a part of the relations between these. We are creatures of time, and often fail to
take into consideration the fact that God is not limited as we are. That which appears to us as 'past,'
'present,' and 'future,' is all 'present' in His mind. It is an eternal 'now.' He is 'the high and lofty One that inhabits
eternity,' Is. 57:15. 'A thousand years
in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the
night.' Ps. 90:4. Hence the events
which we see coming to pass in time are only the events which He appointed and
set before Him from eternity. Time is a
property of the finite creation and is objective to God. He is above it and see it, but is not
conditioned by it. He is also
independent of space, which is another property of the finite creation. Just as He sees at one glance an road
leading from New York to San Francisco, while w see only a small portion of it
as we pass over it, so He sees all events in history, past, present, and future
at one glance. When we realize that the
complete process of history is before Him as an eternal 'now,' and that He is
the Creator of all finite existence, the doctrine of Predestination at least
becomes an easier doctrine.
"In the eternal
ages back of the creation there could not have been any certainty as to future
events unless God had formed a decree in regard to them. Events pass from the category of things that
may or may not be, to that of things that shall certainly be, or from possibility
to fruition, only when God passes a decree to that effect. This fixity or certainty could have had it
ground in nothing outside of the divine Mind, for in eternity nothing else
existed. Says Dr. R. L. Dabney: 'The only way in which any object can by any
possibility have passed from God's vision of the possible into His
foreknowledge of the actual, is by His purposing to effectuate it Himself, or
intentionally and purposely to permit its effectuation by some other agent whom
He expressly purposed to bring into existence.
This is clear from this fact. An
effect conceived in posse only raises into actuality by virtue of an efficient
cause or causes. When God was looking
forward from the point of view of His original infinite prescience, there was
but one cause, Himself. If any other
cause or agent is ever to arise, it must be by God's agency. If effects are embraced in God's infinite
prescience, which these other agents are to produce, still, in willing these
other agents into existence, with infinite prescience, God did virtually will
into existence, or purpose, all the effects of which they were to be
efficients.'[10]
"And to the same
effect the Baptist theologian, Dr. A. H. Strong, who for a number of years was
President and Professor in the Rochester Theological Seminary, writes: 'In eternity there could have been no cause
of the future existence of the universe, outside of God Himself, since no being
existed but God Himself. In eternity
God foresaw that the creation of the world and the institution of its laws
would make certain its actual history event to the most insignificant
details. But God degreed to create and
to institute these laws. In so
degreeing He necessarily decreed all that was to come. In fine, God foresaw the future events of
the universe as certain, because He had decreed to create; but this determination to create involved
also a determination of all the actual results of that creation; or, in other words, God decreed those
results.'[11]
"Foreknowledge
must not be confused with foreordination.
Foreknowledge presupposes foreordination, but is not itself
foreordination. The actions of free
agents do not take place because they are foreseen, but they are foreseen
because they are certain to take place.
Hense Strong says, 'Logically, though not chronologically, decree comes
before foreknowledge. When I say,
"I know what I will do," it is evident that I have determined
already, and that my knowledge does not precede determination, but follows it
and is based upon it.'[12]
"Since God's
foreknowledge is complete, He knows this destiny of every person, not merely
before the person has made his choice in this life, but from eternity. And since He knows their destiny before they are created, and then proceeds to
create, it is plain that the saved and the lost alike fulfill His plan for
them; for if He did not plan that any
particular ones should be lost, He could at least refrain from creating them.
"We conclude,
then, that the Christian doctrine of the Foreknowledge of God proves also His
Predestination. Since these events are
foreknown, they are fixed and settled things;
and nothing can have fixed and settled them except the good pleasure of
God—the great first cause—freely and unchangeably foreordaining whatever comes
to pass. The whole difficulty lies in
the acts of free agents being certain;
yet certainly is required for foreknowledge as well as for foreordination."
VII. Outline of the Systems [ Contents ~ Top ]
Universalism holds
that Christ died for all men and that all shall be saved.
Arminianism holds that
Christ died equally for every person (saved and non-saved), that election is
not eternal, that grace is offered to every man which may be received or
rejected, and that a man may lose all and perish eternally.
p. 47-50
"Arminianism—which holds that Christ died equally and indiscriminately for
every individual of mankind, for those who perish no less than for those who
are saved; that election is not an
eternal and unconditional act of God; that
saving grace is offered to every man, which grace he may receive or reject just
as he pleases; that man may
successfully resist the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit if he chooses to
do so; that saving grace is not
necessarily permanent, but that those who are loved of God, ransomed by Christ,
and born again of the Holy Spirit, may (let God wish and strive ever so much to
the contrary) throw away all and perish eternally.
"Arminianism in
its radical and more fully developed forms is essentially a recrudescence of
Pelagianism, a type of self-salvation.
In fact, the ancestry of Arminianism can be traced back to Pelagianism
as definitely as can that of Calvinism be trace back to Augustinianism….
"…Its leading
idea is that divine grace and human will jointly accomplish the work of
conversion and sanctification, and that man has the sovereign right of
accepting or rejecting. It affirms that
man is weak as a result of the fall, but denies that all ability has been
lost. Man therefore merely needs divine
grace to assist his personal efforts.
Or, to put it another way, he is sick, but not dead; he indeed cannot help himself, but he can
engage the help of a physician, and can either accept or reject the help when
it is offered. He thus has power to co-operate
with the grace of God in the matter of salvation. This view exalts man's freedom at the expense of God's
sovereignty. It has some apparent, but
no real, Scripture authority, and is plainly contradicted by other parts of
Scripture….
"… Calvinism
holds that as a result of the fall into sin all men in themselves are guilty,
corrupted, hopelessly lost; that from
this fallen mass God sovereignly elects some to salvation through Christ, while
passing by others; that Christ is sent
to redeem His people by a purely substitutionary atonement; that the Holy Spirit efficaciously applies
this redemption to the elect; and that
all of the elect are infallibly brought to salvation….
"Calvinism holds
that the fall left man totally unable to do anything meriting salvation, that
he is wholly dependent on divine grace for the inception and development of
spiritual life. The chief fault of
Arminianism is its insufficient recognition of the part that God takes in
redemption. It loves to admire the
dignity and strength of man; Calvinism
loses itself in adoration of the grace and omnipotence of God. Calvinism casts man first into the depths of
humiliation and despair in order to lift him on the wings of grace to
supernatural strength. The one flatters
natural pride; the other is a gospel
for penitent sinners….
"Men constantly
deceive themselves by postulating their own peculiar feelings and opinions as
moral axioms. To some it is
self-evidently true that a holy God cannot permit sin; hence they infer that there is no God. To others it is self-evident that a merciful
God cannot permit a portion of His rational creatures to be forever the victims
of sin and misery, and consequently they deny the doctrine of eternal punishment. Some assume that the innocent cannot justly
be punished for the guilty, and are led to deny the vicarious and
sustitutionary suffering and death of Christ.
And to others it is an axiom that the free acts of a free agent cannot
be certain and under the control of God, so they deny the foreordination, or
even the foreknowledge, of such acts."
Calvinism holds that
God sovereignly elects some to salvation through Christ and passes over others,
that Christ was sent to redeem His people, that the Holy Spirit efficaciously
applies this redemption to the elect who are infallibly brought to salvation.
VIII. The Scriptures Are the Final Authority By Which Systems Are to be Judged
The Scriptures are the
guide.
IX. A Warning Against Undue Speculation [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 54-55: "Just at this point we shall give a few
words of warning against undue speculation and curiosity in dealing with this
lofty doctrine of Predestination.
Perhaps we can do no better than to quote the words of Calvin himself
which are found in the first section of his treatment of this subject: 'The discussion of Predestination—a subject
of itself rather intricate—is made very perplexed, and therefore dangerous, by
human curiosity, which no barriers can restrain from wandering into forbidden
labyrinths, and from soaring beyond its sphere, as if determined to leave none
of the Divine secrets unscrutinized or unexplored … First, then, let them
remember that when they inquire into Predestination, they penetrate into the
inmost recesses of divine wisdom, where the careless and confident intruder will
obtain no satisfaction to his curiosity … For we know that when we have
exceeded the limits of the word, we shall get into a devious and irksome
course, in which errors, slips, and falls will be inevitable. Let us then, in the first place bear in
mind, that to desire any more knowledge of Predestination than that which is
unfolded in the word of God, indicates as great folly as to wish to walk
through impassible roads, or to see in the dark. Nor let us be ashamed to be ignorant of some things relative to a
subject in which there is a kind of learned ignorance.'[13]
"We are not under
obligation to 'explain' these truths;
we are only under obligation to state what God has revealed in His word,
and to vindicate these statements as far as possible from misconception and
objections. In the nature of the case
all that we can know concerning such profound truths is what the Spirit has
seen fit to reveal concerning them, being confident that whatever God has
revealed is undoubtedly true and is to be believed although we may not be able
to sound its depths with the line of our reason. In our ignorance of His inter-related purposes, we are not fitted
to be His counselors. 'Thy judgments are
a great deep,' said the psalmist [Ps. 36:6].
As well might man attempt to swim the ocean as to fathom the judgments
of god. Man knows far too little to
justify him in attempting to explain the mysteries of God's rule.
"The importance
of the subject discussed should lead us to proceed only with profoundest
reverence and caution…. No matter how plainly it is taught in Scripture, the
unenlightened mind considers it as absurd, for instance, that one God should
exist in three persons, or that God should foreknow the entire course of world
events, as that His plan should include the destiny of every person. And while we can know only as much about
Predestination as God has seen fit to reveal, it is important that we shall
know that much; otherwise it would not
have been revealed. Where Scripture
leads we may safely follow."
SECTION II: The Five Points of Calvinism [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 59, On the five
points of Calvinism: "…Prove any
one of them true and all the others will follow as logical and necessary parts
of the system. Prove any one of them false
and the whole system must be abandoned.
They are so many links in the great chain of causes, and not one of them
can be taken away without marring and subverting the whole Gospel plan of
salvation through Christ."
T-U-L-I-P
T = Total Inability or
Depravity
U = Unconditional
Election
L = Limited Atonement
I = Irresistible or
Efficacious Grace
P = Perseverance of
the Saints
X. Total Inability [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 61-64: "In the Westminster Confession the
doctrine of Total Inability is stated as follows: 'Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability
of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from good, and dead
in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare
himself thereunto.'[14]
"Paul, Augustine,
and Calvin have as their starting point the fact that all mankind sinned in
Adam and that all men are 'without excuse,' Rom. 2:1. Time and again Paul tells us that we are dead in trespasses and
sins, estranged from God, and helpless.
In writing to the Ephesian Christians he reminded them that before they
received the Gospel they were 'separate from Christ, alienated from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having
no hope and without God in the world,' Eph. 2:12. There we notice the five-fold emphasis as he piles phrase on top
of phrase to stress this truth.
"2. The Extent and Effects of Original Sin. This doctrine of Total Inability, which
declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad,
not that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that anyone is entirely
destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is evil in itself, nor that man's
spirit is inactive, and much less does it mean that the body is dead. What it does mean is that since the fall man
rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that
he is wholly unable to love God or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive but not
necessarily intensive.
"It is in this
sense that man since the fall 'is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made
opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.' He possesses a fixed bias of the will
against God, and instinctively and willingly turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by
choice. The inability under which he
labors is not an inability to exercise volitions, but an inability to be
willing to exercise holy volitions. And
it is this phase of it which led Luther to declare that 'Free-will is an empty
term, whose reality is lost. And a lost
liberty, according to my grammar, is no liberty at all.'[15] In matters pertaining to his salvation, the
unregenerate man is not at liberty to choose between good and evil, but only to
choose between greater or lesser evil, which is not properly free will. The fact that fallen man still has ability
to do certain acts morally good in themselves does not prove that he can do
acts meriting salvation, for his motives may be wholly wrong.
"Man is a free
agent but he cannot originate the love of God in his heart. His will is gree in the sense that it is not
controlled by any force outside of himself.
As the bird with a broken wing is 'free' to fly but not able, so the
natural man is free to come to God but not able. How can he repent of his sin when he loves it? How can he come to God when he hates
Him? This is the inability of the will
under which man labors. Jesus said,
'And this is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and men loved the
darkness rather than the light; for
their works were evil,' John 3:19; and
again, 'Ye will not com to me, that ye may have life,' John 5:40. Man's ruin lies mainly in his own perverse
will. He cannot come because he will
not. Help enough is provided if he were
willing to accept it. Paul tells us,
'The carnal mind is enmity against God;
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. So they that are in the flesh cannot please
God,' Rom. 8:7.
…………….
"In other words,
fallen man is so morally blind that he uniformly prefers and chooses evil
instead of good, as do the fallen angels or demons. When the Christian is completely sanctified he reaches a state in
which he uniformly prefers and chooses good, as do the holy angels. Both of these states are consistent with
freedom and responsibility of moral agents.
"Yet while fallen
man acts thus uniformly he is never compelled to sin, but does it freely and
delights in it. His dispositions and
desires are so inclined, and he acts knowingly and willingly from a spontaneous
motion of the heart. This natural bias
or appetite for that which is evil is characteristic of man's fallen and
corrupt nature, so that, as Job says, he 'drinketh iniquity like water,' 15:16.
"We read that
'The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for they are
foolishness to him; neither can he know
them, for they are spiritually discerned,' I cor. 2:14. We are at a loss to understand how any one
can take a plain common sense view of this passage of Scripture and yet contend
for the doctrine of human ability. Man
in his natural state cannot even see the kingdom of God, much less can he get
into it. An uncultured person may see a
beautiful work of art as an object of vision, but he has no appreciation of its
excellence. He may see the figures of a
complex mathematical equation, but they have no meaning for him. Horses and cattle may see the same beautiful
sunset or other phenomenon in nature that men see, but they are blind to all of
the artistic beauty. So it is when the
Gospel of the cross is presented to the unregenerate man. He may have an intellectual knowledge of the
facts and doctrines of the Bible, but he lacks all spiritual discernment of
their excellence, and finds no delight in them….
……….
"Fallen man then
lacks the power of spiritual discernment….
And since this state of mind is innate, as a condition of man's nature,
it is beyond the power of the will to change it. Rather it controls both the affections and volitions…."
"And such being
the depth of man's corruption, it is wholly beyond his own power to cleanse himself. His only hope of an amendment of life lies
accordingly in a change of heart, which change is brought about by the
sovereign re-creative power of the Holy Spirit who works when and where and how
He pleases…. This transfer from
spiritual death to spiritual life we call 'regeneration.' It is referred to in Scripture by various
terms: 'regeneration,' a 'making
alive,' a 'calling out of darkness into light,' a 'quickening,' a 'renewing,' a
taking away of the heart of stone and giving the heart of flesh, etc., which
work is exclusively that of the Holy Spirit…."
p. 68: "3.
The Defects in Man's Common Virtues.
The unregenerate man can, through common grace, love his family and he
may be a good citizen… but he cannot give even a cup of cold water to a
disciple in the name of Jesus…. All of
his common virtues or good works have a fatal defect in that his motives which
prompt them are not to glorify God—a defect so vital that it throws any element
of goodness as to a man wholly into the shade.
It matters not how good the works be in themselves, for so long as the
doer of them is out of harmony with God, none of his works are spiritually
acceptable….
p. 71: "It follows also from what has been
said that salvation is ABSOLUTELY AND SOLELY OF GRACE—that God is free, in
consistency with the infinite perfections of His nature, to save none, few,
many, or all, according to the sovereign good pleasure of His will. It also follows that salvation is not based
on any merits in the creature, and that it depends on God, and not on men, who
are, and who are no, to be partakers of eternal life. God acts as a sovereign in saving some and passing by others who
are left to the just recompense of their sins.
Sinners are compared to dead men, or even dry bones in their entire
helplessness. In this they are all
alike. The choice of some to eternal
life is as sovereign as if Christ were to pass through a graveyard and bid one
here and another there to come forth, the reason for restoring one to life and
leaving another in his grave could be found only in His good pleasure, and not
in the dead themselves. Hence the
statement that we are foreordained according to the good pleasure of His will,
and not after the good inclinations of our own; and in order that we might be holy, not because we were holy
(Eph. 1:4-5). 'Since all men alike
deserved only God's wrath and curse, the gift of His only begotten Son to die
in the stead of malefactors, as the only possible method of expiating their
guilt, is the most stupendous exhibition of undeserved favor and personal love
that the universe has ever witnessed.'[16]
p. 72-73: "4.
The Fall of Man. The fall of the
human race into a state of sin and misery is the basis and foundation of the
system of redemption which is set forth in the Scriptures … "The
consequences of Adam's sin are all comprehended under the term death, in its
widest sense. Paul gives us the summary
statement that 'the wages of sin is death.'…
p. 75: "5.
The Representative Principle.
Dr. Charles Hodge has very ably treated this subject in the following
section: "This representative
principle pervades the whole Scriptures.
The imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is not an isolated
fact. It is only an illustration of a
general principle which characterizes the dispensations of God from the
beginning of the world. God declared
Himself to Moses as one who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children, and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth
generation, Ex. 34:6-6 …. The curse pronounced on Canaan fell on his
posterity. Esau's selling his
birthright, shut out his descendents from the covenant of promise. The children of Moab and Ammon were excluded
from the congregation of the Lord forever, because their ancestors opposed the
Israelites when they came out of Egypt.
In the case of Dathan and Abiram, as in the that of Achan, "their
wives, and their sons, and their little children" perished for the sins
their parents…. The imprecation of the
Jews, when they demanded the crucifixion of Christ, 'His blood be on us and on
our children,' still weighs down the scattered people of Israel…. This
principle runs through the whole Scriptures.
When God entered into covenant with Abraham, it was not for himself only
but also for his posterity. They were
bound by all the stipulations of the covenant…. Children suffered equally with
adults in the judgments, whether famine, pestilence, or war, which came upon
the people for their sins…. All this is
what the Scriptures teach concerning the Atonement of Christ. He bore our sins; He was made a curse for us;
He suffered the penalty of the law in our stead. All this proceeds on that ground that the
sins of one man can be justly, on some adequate ground, imputed to another.'[17]"
p. 79: "6.
The Goodness and Severity of God.
A survey of the fall and its extent is humiliate work…. it shows him
that his only hope is in the sovereign grace of Almighty God….
"…It is true that
'God is love,' but along with this must be placed the other statement that 'our
God is a consuming fire,' Heb. 12:29…."
"7. Scripture Proof [Total Inability]. I Cor. 2:14, Gen. 2:17, Rom. 5:12, II Cor.
1:9, Eph. 2:1-3 & 2:12, Jer. 13:23, Ps. 51:5, John 3:3, Rom. 3:10-12, Job
14:14, I Cor. 1:18, Acts 13:41, Prov. 30:12, John 5:21, 6:53 & 8:19, Matt.
11:25, II Cor. 5:17, John 14:16 & 3:19.
XI. Unconditional Election [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 83: "1.
Statement of the Doctrine. The
doctrine of Election is to be looked upon as only a particular application of
the general doctrine of Predestination or Foreordination as it relates to the
salvation of sinners; and since the
Scriptures are concerned mainly with the redemption of sinners, this part of
the doctrine is naturally thrown up into a place of special prominence…. And no
aspect of this elective choice is more constantly emphasized than that of its
absolute sovereignty.
"The Reformed
Faith has held to the existence of an eternal, divine decree which,
antecedently to any difference or desert in men themselves, separates the human
race into two portions and ordains one to everlasting life and the other to
everlasting death. So far as this
decree relates to men it designates the counsel of God concerning those who had
a supremely favorable chance in Adam to earn salvation, but who lost that
chance. As a result of the fall they
are guilty and corrupted; their motives
are wrong and they cannot work out their own salvation. They have forfeited all claim upon God's
mercy, and might justly have been left to suffer the penalty of their
disobedience as all of the fallen angels were left. But instead the elect members of this race are rescued from this
state of guilt and sin and are brought into a state of blessedness and
holiness. The non-elect are simply left
in their previous state of ruin, and are condemned for their sins. They suffer no unmerited punishment, for God
is dealing with them not merely as men but as sinners….
"… As Calvin
rightly says, 'We shall never be clearly convinced as we ought to be that our
salvation flows from the fountain of God's free mercy, till we are acquainted
with this eternal election, which illustrates the grace of God by this
comparison, that He adopts not all promiscuously to the hope of salvation but
gives to some what he refuses to others.
Ignorance of this principle evidently detracts from the divine glory,
and diminishes real humility.'[18] Calvin admits that this doctrine arouses
very perplexing questions in the minds of some, for, says, he, 'they consider
nothing more unreasonable than that of the common mass of mankind, some should
be predestined to salvation; and others
to destruction.'
"The Reformed
theologians consistently applied this principle to the actual experience of
spiritual phenomena which they themselves felt and saw in others about
them. The divine purpose, or
Predestination, alone could explain the distinction between good and evil,
between the saint and the sinner…."
p. 85: "2.
Proof from Scripture. …Let us
turn to Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
There we read: "He chose us
I Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blemish before Him in love; having
foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will,' 1:4-5. In Romans 8:29-30 we read of that golden chain of redemption
which stretches from the eternity that is past to the eternity that is to
com—'For whom he foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of
His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He foreordained, them He also
called: and whom He called, them He
also justified: and whom He justified,
them He also glorified.' Foreknown,
foreordained, called, justified, glorified, with always the same people
included in each group; and where one
of these factors is present, all the others are in principle present with
it. Paul has cast the verse in the past
tense because with God the purpose is in principle executed when formed, so
certain is it of fulfillment. 'These
five golden links,' says Dr. Warfield, 'are welded together in one unbreakable
chain, so that all who are set upon in God's gracious distinguishing view are
carried on by His grace, step by step, up to the great consummation of the
glorification with realizes the promised conformity to the image of God's own
Son. It is "election," you
see, that does all this; for "whom
He fore knew … them He also glorified.’[19]
“The Scriptures
represent election as occurring in past time, irrespective of personal merit,
and altogether sovereign—‘The children being not yet born, neither having done
anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might
stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said to her, The elder
shall serve the young. Even as it is
written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,’ Rom. 9:11-12…. ‘We are pointed
illustratively to the sovereign acceptance of Isaac and rejection of Ishmael,
and to the choice of Jacob and not of Esau before their berth and therefore
before either had done good or bad; we
are explicitly told that in the matter of salvation it is not of him that
wills, or of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy, and that He has mercy
on whom He will, and whom He will He hardens;
we are pointedly directed to behold in God the potter who makes the
vessels which proceed from His hand each for an end of His appointment, that He
may work out His will upon them. It is
safe to say that language cannot be chose better adapted to teach
Predestination at its height.’[20]…”
p. 89: "When Paul was forbidden by the Holy
Spirit to preach the Gospel in the province of Asia, and was given the vision
of a man in Europe calling across the waters, 'Come over into Macedonia, and
help us,' one section of the world was sovereignly excluded from, and another
section was sovereignly given, the privileges of the Gospel. Had the divinely directed call been rather
from the shores of India, Europe and America might today have been less
civilized than the natives of Tibet. It
was the sovereign choice of God which brought the Gospel to the people of
Europe and later to America, while the people of the east, and north, and south
were left in darkness. We can assign no
reason, for instance, why it should have been Abraham's seed, and not the Egyptian
or the Assyrians, who were chosen; or
why Great Britain and America, which at the time of Christ's appearance on
earth were in the state of such complete ignorance, should today possess so
largely for themselves, and be disseminating so widely to others, these most
important spiritual privileges. The
diversities in regard to religious privileges in the different nations is to be
ascribed to nothing else than the good pleasure of God….”
p. 90: “We may perhaps mention a fourth kind of
election [1st to eternal life, 2nd to national election
of nations or communities, 3rd to an external means of grace in
history or place or community] of individuals to certain vocations—gifts of
special talents which fit one to be a statesman, another to be a doctor, or
lawyer, or farmer, or musician, or artisan, gifts of personal beauty,
intelligence, disposition, etc…. In each instance God gives to some what He
withholds from others…. blessings bestowed are sovereign and unconditional,
irrespective of any previous merit or action on the part of those chosen. If we are highly favored, we can only be
thankful for His blessings; if not
highly favored, we have no grounds for complaint. Why precisely this or that one is placed in circumstances
which lead to saving faith, while others are not so placed, is indeed, a
mystery. We cannot explain the workings
of Providence; but we do know that the
Judge of all the earth shall do right, and that when we attain to perfect
knowledge we shall see that He has sufficient reasons for all His acts.
[Emphasis mine.]…"
p. 93: "Further Scripture Proof [Unconditional Election]: II Thess. 2:13, Matt. 24:24 & 24:31,
Mark 13:20, I Thess. 1:4, Rom. 11:7, I Tim. 5:21, Rom. 8:33 & 11:5, II Tim.
2:10, Titus 1:1, I Peter 1:1, 5:13 & 2:9, I Thess. 5:9, Acts 13:48, John
17:9, 6:37, 6:65, 13:18 & 15:16, Ps. 105:6, Rom. 9:23.
"3. Proof from Reason….
"4. Faith and Good Works Are the Fruits and
Proof, Not the Basis, of Election….
"5. Reprobation. p. 106: “Luther also as
certainly as Calvin attribute the eternal perdition of the wicked, as well as
the eternal salvation of the righteous, to the plan of God. ‘This mightily offends our rational nature,
that God should, of His own mere unbiased will, leave some men to themselves,
harden them and condemn them; but He
gives abundant demonstration, and does continually, that this is really the
case; namely, that the sole cause why
some are saved, and others perish, proceeds from His willing the salvation of
the former, and the perdition of the latter, according to that of St. Paul, “He
hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.”’ And again, ‘It may seem absurd to human
wisdom that God should harden, blind, and deliver them over to evil, and
condemn them for that evil; but the
believing, spiritual man sees no absurdity at all in this; knowing that God would be never a whit less
good, even though He should destroy all men.’
He goes on to say that this must not be understood to mean that God
finds men good, wise, obedient, and makes them evil, foolish, and obdurate, but
that they are already depraved and fallen and that those who are not
regenerated, instead of becoming better under the divine commands and
influences, only react to become worse.
In reference to Romans IX, X, XI, Luther says that ‘all things whatever
arise from and depend upon the Divine appointment, whereby it was preordained
who should receive the word of life and who should disbelieve it, who should be
delivered from their sins and who should be hardened in them, who should be
justified and who condemned.’[21]…
……….
p. 124: "Let it be remembered that we are under
no obligation to explain all the mysteries connected with these doctrines….
"Man cannot
measure the justice of God by his own comprehension, and our modesty should not
be such that when the reason for some of God's works lies hidden we
nevertheless believe Him to be just….
p. 126: "6.
Infralapsarianism and Supralabsarianism … The question here is, When the
degrees of election and reprobation came into existence were men considered
fallen or as unfallen?…"
p. 130: "7.
Many Are Chosen….
p. 132: "8.
A Redeemed World or Race….
p. 137: "9.
The Vastness of the Redeemed Multitude….
p. 140: "10.
The World Is Growing Better….
p. 143: "11.
Infant Salvation….
p. 148: "12.
Summary of the Reformed Doctrine of Election….
XII. Limited Atonement [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 150: “1.
State of the Doctrine. …Did
Christ offer up Himself a sacrifice for the whole human race, for every
individual without distinction or exception;
or did His death have special reference to the elect? In other words, was the sacrifice of Christ
merely intended to make the salvation of all men possible, or was it intended
to render certain the salvation of those who had been given to Him by the
Father? Arminians hold that Christ died
for all men alike while Calvinists hold that in the intention and secret plan
of God Christ died for the elect only, and that His death had only an
incidental reference to others in so far as they are partakers of common
grace. The meaning might be brought out
more clearly if we used the phrase ‘Limited Redemption’ rather than ‘Limited
Atonement.’ The Atonement is, of
course, strictly an infinite transaction;
the limitation comes in, theologically, in the application of the
benefits of the atonement, that is in redemption….
“It will be seen at
once that this doctrine necessarily follows from the doctrine of election. If from eternity God has planned to save one
portion of the human race and not another, it seems to be a contradiction to
say that His work has equal reference to both portions, or that He sent His Son
to die for those whom He had predetermined not to save, as truly as, and in the
same sense that He was sent to die for those whom He had chosen for
salvation. These two doctrines must
stand or fall together. We cannon
logically accept one and reject the other.
If God has elected some and not others to eternal life, then plainly the
primary purpose of Chris’s work was to redeem the elect.
p. 151: "2.
The Infinite Value of Christ’s Atonement. This doctrine does not mean that any limit can be set to the
value or power of the atonement which Christ made. The value of the atonement depends upon, and is measured by, the
dignity of the person making it; and
since Christ suffered as a Divine-human person the value of His suffering was
infinite…. The atonement, therefore,
was infinitely meritorious and might have saved every member of the human race
had that been God’s plan. It was
limited only in the sense that was intended for, and is applied to, particular
persons; namely for those who are
actually saved….
p. 152: “3.
The Atonement Is Limited in Purpose and Application. While the value of the atonement was sufficient
to save all mankind, it was efficient to save only the elect. It is indifferently as well adapted to the
salvation of one man as to that of another, thus making the salvation of every
man objectively possible; yet because
of subjective difficulties, arising on account of the sinner’s own inability
either to see or appreciate the things of God, only those are saved who are
regenerated and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
The reason why God does not apply this grace to all men has not been
fully revealed.
“When atonement is
made universal its inherent value is destroyed. If it is applied to all men, and if some are lost, the conclusion
is that it makes salvation objectively possible for all but that it does not
actually save anybody. According to the
Arminian theory the atonement has simply made it possible for all men to
co-operate with divine grace and thus save themselves—if they will. But tell us of one cured of disease and yet
dying of cancer, and the story will be equally luminous with that of one eased
of sin and yet perishing through unbelief.
The nature of the atonement settles its extent. If it [atonement] merely made salvation
possible, it applied to all men. If it
effectively secured salvation, it had reference only to the elect. As Dr. Warfield says, ‘The things we have to
choose between are at atonement of high value, or an atonement of wide
extension. The cannot go
together.’ The work of Christ can be
universalized only by evaporating its substance.
“Let there be no
misunderstanding at this point. The
Arminian limits the atonement as certainly as does the Calvinist. The Calvinist limits the extent of it in
that he says it does not apply to all persons (although as has already been
shown, he believes that it is efficacious for the salvation of the large
proportion of the human race); while
the Arminian limits the power of it, for he says that in itself it does not
actually save anybody. The Calvinist
limits it quantitatively, but not qualitatively; the Arminian limits it qualitatively, but not
quantitatively. For the Calvinist it is
like a narrow bridge which goes all the way across the stream; for the Arminian it is like a great wide
bridge which goes only half-way across…."
p. 153. “4.
Christ’s Work as a Perfect Fulfillment of the Law. If the benefits of the atonement are
universal and unlimited … It would mean that God no longer demands perfect
obedience as He did of Adam, but that He now offers salvation on lower
terms. God, then, would remove legal
obstacles and would accept such faith and evangelical obedience as the person
with a graciously restored ability could render if he chose, the Holy Spirit of
course aiding in a general way. Thus
grace would be extended in that God offers an easier way of salvation—He
accepts fifty cents on the dollar, so to speak, since the crippled sinner can
pay no more.
“On the other hand
Calvinists hold that the law of perfect obedience which was originally given to
Adam was permanent, that God has never done anything which would convey the
impression that the was too rigid in its requirements, or too severe in its
penalty, or that it stood in need either of abrogation or of derogation. Divine justice demands that the sinner shall
be punished, either in himself or in his substitute. We hold that Christ acted in a strictly substitutionary way for
His people, that He made a full satisfaction for their sins, thus blotting out
the curse from Adam and all their temporal sins; and that by His sinless life He perfectly kept for them the law
which Adam had broken, thus earning for His people the reward of eternal
life. We believe that the requirement
for salvation now as originally is perfect obedience, that the merits of Christ
are imputed to His people as the only basis of their salvation, and that they
enter heaven clothed only with the cloak of His perfect righteousness and utterly
destitute of any merit properly their own.
Thus grace, pure grace, is … in the substitution of Christ for His
people. He took their place before the
law and did for them what they could not do for themselves. This Calvinistic principle is fitted in every
way to impress upon us the absolute perfection of unchangeable obligation of
the law which was originally given to Adam….
In behalf of those who are saved, for whom Christ acted, and in behalf
of those who are subjected to everlasting punishment, the law in its majesty is
enforced and executed.
“If the Arminian
theory were true it would follow that millions of those for whom Christ died
are finally lost, and that salvation is thus never applied to many of those for
whom it was earned. What benefits, for
instance, can we point to in the lives of the heathens and say that they have
received them from the atonement?…
“‘The sin of Adam,’
says Charles Hodge, ‘did not make the condemnation of all men merely
possible; it was the ground of their
actual condemnation. So the
righteousness of Christ did not make the salvation of men merely possible, it
secured the actual salvation of those for whom He wrought.’
“The Arminian view of
the nature of the Atonement makes it possible … that all of Christ’s sufferings
to save sinners might not have saved a single one had all men chosen to
exercise their right of refusing His grace, that all for whom Christ died might
nevertheless have perished forever, that the inheritance in heaven might never
have been enjoyed by any of those for whom it was prepared, and that God
Himself might thus have been entirely defeated in His work of redemption.
p. 155: “5.
A Ransom. Christ is said to have
been a ransom for his people—‘The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but
to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many,’ matt. 20:28. Notice, this verse does not say that He gave
His life a ransom for all, but for many.
The nature of a ransom is such that when paid and accepted it
automatically frees the persons for whom it was intended. Otherwise it would not be a true
ransom. Justice demands that those for
whom it is paid shall be freed from any further obligation. It the suffering and death of Christ was a
ransom for all men rather than for the elect only, then the merits of His work
must be communicated to all alike and the penalty of eternal punishment cannot
be justly inflicted on any. God would
be unjust if He demanded this extreme penalty twice over, first from the
substitute and them from the persons themselves. The conclusion then is that the atonement of Christ does not
extend to all men but that it is limited to those for whom He stood
surety; that is, to those who compose
His true Church.
p. 155: "6.
The Divine Purpose in Christ’s Sacrifice. If Christ’s death was intended to save all men, then we must say
that God was either unable or unwilling to carry out His plan. But since the work of God is always
efficient, those for whom atonement was made and those who are actually saved
must be the same people. Arminians
suppose that the purposes of God are mutable [changeable], and that His
purposes may fail. In saying that He
sent His Son to redeem all men, but that after seeing that such a plan could
not be carried out He ‘elected’ those whom He foresaw would have faith and
repent, they represented Him as willing what never takes place—as suspending
His purposes and plans upon the volitions and actions of creatures who are
totally dependent upon Him…. We may
rest assured that if some men are lost God never purposed their salvation, and
never devised and put into operation means designed to accomplish that end.
“Jesus Himself limited
the purpose of His death when He said, “I lay down my life for the sheep.’ If, therefore, He laid down His life for the
sheep, the atoning character of His work was not universal….
“Since the work of God
is never in vain, those who are chosen by the Father, those who are redeemed by
the Son, and those who are sanctified by the Holy Spirit—or in other words,
election, redemption and sanctification—must include the same persons. The Arminian doctrine of a universal
atonement makes these unequal and thereby destroys the perfect harmony within
the Trinity. Universal redemption means
universal salvation.
“… Furthermore, when
it is said that Christ gave His life for His Church, or for His people, we find
it impossible to believe that He gave Himself as much for reprobates as for
those whom He intended to save. Mankind
is divided into two classes and what is distinctly affirmed of one is impliedly
denied of the others…. when it is said that Christ died for His people it is
denied that He died equally for all men…."
p. 157: "7.
The Exclusion of the Non-Elect.
It was not, then, a general and indiscriminate love of which all men
were equally the objects, but a peculiar, mysterious, infinite love for His
elect, which caused God to send His Son into the world to suffer and die….
Christ died not for an unorderly mass, but for His people, His bride, His
Church….
p. 159: "8.
The Argument From the Foreknowledge of God. …Is not God's mind infinite?
Are not His perceptions perfect? … Since He knew beforehand who they
were that would be saved—and the more evangelical Arminians admit that God does
have exact foreknowledge of all events—He would not have sent Christ intending
to save those who he positively foreknew would be lost. For, as Calvin remarks, 'Where would have
been the consistency of God's calling to Himself such as He knows will never
come?' … They do but deceive themselves who, admitting God's foreknowledge, say
that Christ died for all men; for what
is that but to attribute folly to Him whose ways are perfect? To represent God as earnestly striving to do
what He knows He will not do is to represent Him as acting foolishly."
p. 160: "9.
Certain Benefits which Extend to Mankind in General. In conclusion let it be said that Calvinists
do not deny that mankind in general receive some important benefits from
Christ’s atonement. Calvinists admit
that it arrests the penalty which would have been inflicted upon the whole race
because of Adam’s sin; that it forms a
basis for the preaching of the Gospel and thus introduces many uplifting moral
influences into the world and restrains many evil influences….
"There is, then a
certain sense in which Christ died for all men, and we do not reply to the
Arminian tenet with an unqualified negative.
But what we do maintain is that the death of Christ had special
reference to the elect in that it was effectual for their salvation, and that
the effects which are produced in others are only incidental to this one great
purpose.”
XIII. Efficacious or Irresistible Grace [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 162: "1.
Teaching of the Westminster Confession.
The Westminster Confession states the doctrine of Efficacious Grace
thus—‘All those whom God has predestinated unto life, and those only, He is
pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His Word
and His Spirit, out of that state of death, in which they are by nature, to
grace and salvation by Jesus Christ;
enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly, to understand the
things of god; taking away their heart
of stone, and giving them a heart of flesh;
renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that
which is good; and effectually drawing
them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by
His grace.
“‘This effectual call
is God’s free and special grace alone, not from any thing at all foreseen in
man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by
the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the
grace offered and conveyed by it.’[22]
…"
p. 163: "2.
Necessity for the Change. The
merits of Christ's obedience and suffering are sufficient for, adapted to, and
freely offered to all men. The question
then arises, Why is one saved, and another lost? What causes some men to repent and believe, while others, with
the same external privileges, reject the Gospel and continue in impenitence and
unbelief? The Calvinist says that it is
God who makes this difference, that he efficaciously persuades some to come to
Him; but the Arminian ascribes it to
the men themselves.
"As Calvinists we
hold that the condition of men since the fall is such that if left to themselves
they would continue in their state of rebellion and refuse all offers of
salvation…. the effects of that sacrifice have not been left suspended upon the
whim of man's changeable and sinful will.
Rather, the work of God in redemption has been rendered effective
through the mission of the Holy Spirit who so operates on the chosen people
that they are brought to repentance and faith, and thus made heirs of eternal
life….
"… As Dr.
Warfield says, 'Sinful man stands in need, not of inducements or assistance to
save himself, but precisely of saving;
and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, or urge, or woo, or help him
save himself, but to save him."
p. 164: "3.
An Inward Change Wrought by Supernatural Power. In the Scriptures this change is called a regeneration
(Titus 3:%), a spiritual resurrection which is wrought by the same mighty power
with which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead (Eph. 1:19,
29), a calling out of darkness into God's marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9), a
passing out of death into life (John 5:24), a new birth (John 3:3), a making
alive (Col. 2:13), a taking away of the heart of stone and giving of a heart of
flesh (Ezek. 11:19), and the subject of the change is said to be a new creature
(II Cor. 5:17). Such descriptions
completely refute the Arminian notion that regeneration is primarily man's act,
induced by moral persuasion or the mere influence of the truth as presented in
a general way by the Holy Spirit.
“Necessity
for the Change. The merits of Christ’s
obedience and suffering are sufficient for, adapted to, and freely offered to
all men. The question then arises, Why
is one saved, and another lost? What
causes some men to repent and believe, and while others, with the same external
privileges, reject the Gospel and continue in impenitence and unbelief? The Calvinist says that it is God who makes
this difference, that he efficaciously persuades some to come to Him; but the Arminian ascribes it to the men
themselves…."
……….
p. 168: "As the physical eye once blinded
cannot be restored to sight by any amount of intensity of light falling upon
it, so the soul dead in sin cannot acquire spiritual vision by any amount of
Gospel truth presented to it. Unless
the surgeon's knife or a miracle restore the eye to its normal condition, sight
is impossible; and unless the soul be
set right through regeneration it will never comprehend and accept the Gospel
truth. In regeneration God bids the
sinner live; immediately he is alive,
filled with a new spiritual life…."
p. 171: "4.
The Effect Produced in the Soul.
The immediate and important effect of this inward, purifying change of
nature is that the person loves righteousness and trusts in Christ for
salvation…. This effective and irresistible grace converts the will itself and
forms a holy character in the person by a creative act…. Obedience has become
not only the obligatory but the preferable good….
"At this point
many people confuse regeneration and sanctification. Regeneration is exclusively God's work, and it is an act of His
free grace in which He implants a new principle of spiritual life in the
soul. It is performed by supernatural
power and is complete in an instant. On
the other hand sanctification is a process through which the remains of sin in
the outward life are gradually removed … we are enabled more and more to die
unto sin and to live unto righteousness.
It [sanctification] is a joint work of God and man…."
p. 172: "5.
The Sufficiency of Christ's Work—Evangelicalism. … We believe that by His vicarious suffering
and death He fully paid the debt which His people owed to divine justice, thus
releasing them from the consequences of sin, and that by keeping the law of
perfect obedience and living a sinless life He vicariously earned for them the
reward of eternal life. His work fully
provided for their rescue from sin and for their establishment in heaven….
"Only those views
which ascribe to God all the power in the salvation of sinners are consistently
evangelical, for the word 'evangelical' means that it is God alone who
saves. If faith and obedience must be
added, depending upon the independent choice of man, we no longer have
evangelicalism….
p. 174: "6.
The Arminian View of Universal Grace.
…A typical example of this is seen in the assertion of Prof. Henry C.
Sheldon, who for a number of years was connected with Boston University. Says he:
‘Our contention is for the universality of the opportunity of salvation,
as against an exclusive and unconditional choice of individuals to eternal
life.’[23] Here we notice not only (1) the
characteristic Arminian stress on universalism, but also (2) the recognition
that, in the final analysis, all that God does for salvation of men does not
actually save anybody, but that it only opens up a way of salvation so that men
can save themselves—and then for all practical purposes we are back on the
plane of pure naturalism!
……….
“Certainly, if God
loves all men alike, and if Christ died for all men alike, and the Holy Spirit
applies the benefits of that redemption to all men alike, one of two
conclusions follows. (1) All men alike
are saved (which is contradicted by Scripture), or, (2) all that God does for
man does not save him, but leaves him to save himself! What then becomes of our evangelicalism,
which means that it is God alone who saves sinners? If we assert that after God has done all His work it is still
left for man to ‘accept’ or ‘not resist,’ we give man veto power over the work
of Almighty God and salvation rests ultimately in the hand of man. In this system no matter how great a
proportion of the work of salvation God may do, man is ultimately the deciding
factor. And the man who does come to
salvation has some personal merit of his own;
he has some grounds to boast over those who are lost. He can point the finger of scorn and say,
‘You had as good chance as I had. I
accepted and you rejected the offer.
Therefore you deserve to suffer.’
How different is this from Paul’s declaration that it is ‘not of works,
that no man should glory,’ and ‘He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord,’
Eph. 2:9; I Cor. 1:31….”
……….
p. 176: "7.
No Violation of Man's Free Agency.
Calvinist hold no such opinion [that men are forced or reduced to
machines], and in fact the full statement of the doctrine excludes and
contradicts it…. The power by which the work of regeneration is effected is not
of an outward and compelling nature.
Regeneration does no more violence to the soul than demonstration does
to the intellect, or persuasion the heart.
Man is not dealt with as if he were a stone or a log. Neither is he treated as a slave, and driven
against his own will to seek salvation.
Rather the mind is illuminated, and the entire range of conceptions with
regard to God, self, and sin, is changed.
God sends His Spirit and, in a way which shall forever redound to the
praise of His mercy and grace, sweetly constrains the person to yield. The regenerated man finds himself governed
by new motives and desires, and things which were once hated are now loved and
sought after. This change is not
accomplished through any external compulsion but through a new principle of
life which has been created within the soul and which seeks after the food
which alone can satisfy it.
……….
"But some may
ask, Do not the many passages in the Bible such as, 'If thou shalt obey,' 'If
thou turn unto Jehovah,' 'If thou do that which is evil,' and so forth, at
least imply that man has free will and ability? It does not follow, however, that merely because God commands man
is able to obey. Oftentimes parents
play with their children in telling them to do this or that when their very
purpose is to show them their inability and to induce them to ask for the
parent's help…. In these passages man
is taught not what he can do, but what he ought to do; and woe to the one who is so blind that he
cannot see this truth, for until he does see it he can never adequately
appreciate the work of Christ….
"The special
grace which we refer to as efficacious is sometimes called irresistible grace….
somewhat misleading since it does suggest that a … power is exerted … contrary
to his desires, whereas the meaning intended … is that the elect are so
influenced by divine power that their coming is an act of voluntary
choice."
p. 178: "8.
Common Grace. … general influences
of the Holy Spirit which to a greater or lesser degree are shared by all
men. God causes His sun to rise on the
evil and the good, and sends the rain upon the just and the unjust….
"Common grace,
however, does not kill the core of sin, and therefore it is not capable of
producing a genuine conversion. Through
the light of nature, the workings of conscience, and especially through the
external presentation of the Gospel it makes known to man what he should do,
but does not give that power which man stands in need of…."
XIV. The Perseverance of the Saints [ Contents ~ Top ]
p. 182: "1.
Statement of the Doctrine. The
doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints is stated in the Westminster
Confession in the following words:
‘They whom God hath accepted in His Beloved, effectually called and
sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the
state of grace; but shall certainly
persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.’[24] Or in other words we believe that those who
become true Christians cannot totally fall away and be lost—that while they may
fall into sin temporarily, they will eventually return and be saved.
“This doctrine does
not stand alone …. The doctrines of Election and Efficacious Grace logically
imply the certain salvation of those who receive these blessings. If God has chosen men [and women] absolutely
and unconditionally to eternal life, and if His Spirit effectively applies to
them the benefits of redemption, the inescapable conclusion is that these
persons shall be saved. And
historically, this doctrine has been held by all Calvinists, and denied by
practically all Arminians.
“Those who have fled
to Jesus for refuge have a firm foundation upon which to build…. No one can
pluck them out of His hands. Those who
once become true Christians have within themselves the principle of eternal
life, which principle is the Holy Spirit;
and since the Holy Spirit dwells within them they are already
potentially holy…."
p. 184: "2.
Our Perseverance Not Dependent on Our Own Good Works But on God's Grace….
"The
infinite, mysterious, eternal love of God for His people is a guarantee that
they can never be lost. This love is
not subject to fluctuations but is as unchangeable as His being. It is also gratuitous, and keeps a faster hold
on us than we of it. It is not founded
on the attractiveness of its objects.
'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,' I John 4:10…."
"The
more we think on these matters, the more thankful we are that our perseverance
in holiness and assurance of salvation is not dependent on our own weak nature,
but upon God's constant sustaining power…."
p. 187: "3.
Though Truly Saved the Christian May Temporarily Backslide and Commit
Sin."
p. 189: "4.
An Outward Profession of Righteousness Not Always a Proof that the
Person Is a True Christian."
p. 193: "5.
Arminian Sense of Insecurity. A
consistent Arminian, with his doctrine of free will and of falling from grace,
can never in this life be certain of his eternal salvation…."
p. 195: "6.
Purpose of the Scripture Warnings Against Apostasy. … The primary purpose of these passages … is
to induce men to co-operate willingly with God for the accomplishment of His
purposes. They are inducements which
produce constant humility, watchfulness, and diligence.
p. 196: "7.
Scripture Proof. The Scripture proof for this doctrine is
abundant and clear.
"Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril, or
sword? Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," Rom. 8:35-39.
"Sin shall not have
dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace," Rom.
6:14. "He that believeth hath
eternal life," John 6:47. "He
that heareth my word, and believeth Him that sent me, hath eternal life, and
cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life," John 5:24. The moment one believes, eternal life
becomes a reality, a present possession, and not merely a conditional gift of
the future. "I am the living bread
which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live
forever," John 6:51. He does not
say that we have to eat many times, but that if we eat at all, we shall live
for ever. "Whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal
life," John 4:14.
"Being confident of
this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the
day of Jesus Christ," Phil. 1:6.
"Jehovah will perfect that which concerneth me," Ps. 138:8. "The gifts and calling of God are not
repented of," Rom. 11:29.
"The witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life," I
John 5:11. "These things have I
written unto you that ye may know that ye have eternal life," I John
5:13. "For by one offering He hath
perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Heb. 10:14. "The Lord will deliver me from every
evil work, and will save me unto His heavenly kingdom," II Tim. 4:18. "For whom He foreknew, He also
foreordained.... and whom He foreordained, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified;
and whom He justified, them He also glorified," Rom. 8:29. "Having foreordained us unto adoption
as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of
His will," Eph. 1:4.
Jesus declared, "I
give unto them (the true followers, or 'sheep') eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one
shall snatch them out of my hand. My
Father, who hath given them unto me, is greater than all; and no one is able to
snatch them out of the Father's hand," John 10:28. Here we find that our security and God's
omnipotence are equal; for the former
is founded on the latter. God is
mightier than the whole world, and neither men nor Devil can rob Him of one of
His precious jewels. It would be as
easy to pluck a star out of the heavens as to pluck a saint out of the Father's
hand. Their salvation stands in His
invincible might and they are placed beyond the peril of destruction. We have Christ's promise that the gates of
hell shall not prevail against His Church; yet if the Devil could snatch one
here and another there and large numbers in some congregations, the gates of
hell would a great extent prevail
against it. In principle, if one could
be lost, all might be lost, and thus Christ's assurance would be reduced to
idle words.
When we are told that
"There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, who shall show great
signs and wonder; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect,"
Matt. 24:24, the unprejudiced believing mind readily understands that it is impossible
to lead astray the elect.
The mystic
union which exists between Christ and believers is a guarantee that they shall
continue steadfast. "Because I
live, ye shall live also," John 14:19.
The effect of this union is that believers participate in His life. Christ is in us, Romans 8 :10. It is not we that live, but Christ that
liveth in us, Gal. 2 :20. Christ and
the believers have a common life such as that which exists in the vine and the
branches. The Holy Spirit so dwells in
the redeemed that every Christian is supplied with an inexhaustible reservoir
of strength.
Paul warned the
Ephesians, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto
the day of redemption," Eph. 4:30.
He had no fear of apostasy for he could confidently say, "Thanks be
to God who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ," II Cor. 2:14. The Lord, speaking through the prophet
Jeremiah said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love," 31:3—one of the best proofs that God's love shall have
no end is that it has no beginning, but is eternal. In the parable of the two houses, the very point stressed was
that the house which was founded on the rock (Christ) did not fall when the
storms of life came. Arminianism sets
up another system in which some of those who are founded on the rock do
fall. In the twenty-third Psalm we
read, "And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." The true Christian is no temporary visitor,
but a permanent dweller in the house of the Lord. How those rob this psalm of its deeper and richer meaning who
teach that the grace of God is a temporary thing!
Christ makes
intercession for His people (Rom. 8:34 ; Heb. 7:25), and we are told that the
Father hears Him always (John 11:42).
Hence the Arminian, holding that Christians may fall away, must deny
either the passages which declare that Christ does make intercession for His
people, or he must deny those which declare that His prayers are always
heard. Let us consider here how well
protected we are: Christ is at the right hand of God pleading for us, and in
addition to that, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered, Rom. 8:26.
In the wonderful promise
of Jer.32:40, God has promised to preserve believers from their own
backslidings: "And I will make an
everlasting covenant with them, and I will not turn away from following them,
to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not
depart from me." And in Ezek. 11
:19, 20, He promises to take from them the "stony heart," and to give
them a "heart of flesh," so that they shall walk in his statutes and
keep his ordinances, and so that they shall be His people and He their
God. Peter tells us that Christians
cannot fall away, for they "by the power of God are guarded through faith
unto a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time," I Peter 1:5. Paul says, "God is able to make all
grace to abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything,
may abound unto every good work," II Cor. 9:8. He declares that the Lord's servant "shall be made to
stand; for the Lord hath power to make
him stand," Rom. 14:4.
And Christians have the
further promise, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can
bear: but God is faithful, and win not suffer you to be tempted above that ye
are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may
be able to endure it," I Cor. 10:13.
Their removal from certain temptations which would be too strong for
them is an absolute and free gift from God, since it is entirely an arrangement
of His providence as to what temptations they encounter in the course of their
lives, and what ones they escape.
"The Lord is faithful and will establish you and guard you from the
evil one," II Thess. 3:3. And
again, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and
delivereth them," Ps. 34:7. Amid
an his trials and hardships Paul could say, "We are pressed on every side,
yet not straightened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet not
forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed; . . . . knowing that He that
raised up the Lord Jesus Christ shall raise us also with Jesus," II Cor.
4:8, 9, 14.
The saints, even in this
world, are compared to a tree that does not wither, Ps. 1:3; to the cedars which flourish on Mount
Lebanon, Ps. 92:5; to Mount Zion which
cannot be moved, but which abideth forever, Ps. 125:1; and to a house built on a rock, Matt.
7:24. The Lord is with them in their
old age, Is. 46:4, and is their guide even unto death, Ps 48:14, so that they
cannot be totally and finally lost.
Another strong argument
is to be noticed concerning the Lamb's book of life. The disciples were told to rejoice not so much over the fact that
the demons were subject to them, but that their names were written in the Lamb's
book of life. This book is a catalogue
of the elect, determined by the unalterable counsel of God, and can neither be
increased nor diminished. The names of
the righteous are found there; but the names of those who perish have never
been written there from the foundation of the world. God does not make the mistake of writing in the book of life a
name which He will later have to blot out.
Hence none of the Lord's own ever perish. Jesus told His disciples to find their chief joy in the fact that
their names were written in heaven, Luke 10:20; yet there would have been small grounds for joy in this respect
if their names written in heaven one day could have been blotted out the
next. Paul wrote to the Philippians,
"Our citizenship is in heaven," 3:20; and to Timothy he wrote, "The Lord knoweth them that are
His," II Tim. 2: 19. For the
Scripture teaching concerning the book of life, see Luke 10:20; Phil 4:3; Rev.
3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12-15; 21:27.
Here, then, are very
simple and plain statements that the Christian shall continue in grace, the
reason being that the Lord takes it upon Himself to preserve him in that
state. In these promises the elect are
secured on both sides. Not only will
God not depart from them, but He will so put His fear into their hearts that
they shall not depart from him. Surely
no Spirit-taught Christian can doubt that this doctrine is taught in the
Bible. It seems that man, poor,
wretched ,and impotent as he is, would welcome a doctrine which secures for him
the possessions of eternal happiness despite all attacks from without and all
evil tendencies from within. But it is
not so. He refuses it, and argues
against it. And the causes are not far
to seek. In the first place he has more
confidence in himself than he has any right to have. Secondly, the scheme is so contrary to what he is used to in the
natural world that he persuades himself that it cannot be true. Thirdly, he perceives that if this doctrine
be admitted, the other doctrines of free grace will logically follow. Hence he twists and explains away the
Scripture passages which teach it, and clings to some which appear on the
surface to favor his preconceived views.
In fact, a system of salvation by grace is so utterly at variance with
his every-day experience, in which he sees every thing and person treated
according to works and merits, that he has great difficulty in bringing himself
to believe that it can be true. He
wishes to earn his own salvation, though certainly he expects very high wages
for very sorry work.
SECTION III: Objections Commonly Urged Against the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination
XV. 1. That It Is a Fatalism [ Contents ~ Top ]
p.205:
"1. That It Is Fatalism. Much misunderstanding arises
through confusing the Christian Doctrine of Predestination with the heathen
doctrine of Fatalism. There is, in
reality, only one point of agreement between the two, which is, that both
assume the absolute certainty of all future events. The essential difference between them is that Fatalism has no
place for a personal God.
Predestination holds that events come to pass because an infinitely
wise, powerful, and holy God has so appointed them. Fatalism holds that all events come to pass through the working
of a blind, unintelligent, impersonal, non-moral force which cannot be
distinguished from physical necessity, and which carries us helplessly within
its grasp as a mighty river carries a piece of wood.
"Predestination
teaches that from eternity God has had one unified plan or purpose which He is
bringing to perfection through this world order of events. It holds that all of His decrees are
rational determinations founded on sufficient reason, and that He has fixed one
great goal 'toward which the whole creation moves.' Predestination holds that
the ends designed in this plan are, first, the glory of God; and second, the
good of His people. On the other hand
Fatalism excludes the idea of final causes.
It snatches the reins of universal empire from the hands of infinite
wisdom and love, and gives them into the hands of a blind necessity. It attributes the course of nature and the
experiences of mankind to an unknown, irresistible force, against which it is
vain to struggle and childish to repine.
"According to the
doctrine of Predestination the freedom and responsibility of man are fully
preserved. In the midst of certainty
God has ordained human liberty. But
Fatalism allows no power of choice, no self-determination. It makes the acts of man to be as utterly
beyond his control as are the laws of nature.
Fatalism, with its idea of irresistible, impersonal, abstract power, has
no room for moral ideas, while Predestination makes these the rule of action
for God and man. Fatalism has no place
for and offers no incentives to religion, love, mercy, holiness, justice, or
wisdom, while Predestination gives these the strongest conceivable basis. And lastly, Fatalism leads to skepticism and
despair, while Predestination sets forth the glories of God and of His kingdom
in all their splendor and gives an assurance which nothing can shake.
"Predestination
therefore differs from Fatalism as much as the acts of a man differ from those
of a machine, or as much as the unfailing love of the heavenly Father differs
from the force of gravitation. 'It
reveals to us,' says Smith, 'the glorious truth that our lives and our sensitive
hearts are held, not in the iron cog-wheels of a vast and pitiless Fate, nor in
the whirling loom of a crazy Chance, but in the almighty hands of an infinitely
good and wise God.'[25]!
"Calvin
emphatically repudiated the charge that his doctrine was Fatalism. 'Fate,' says he, 'is a term given by the
Stoics to their doctrine of necessity, which they had formed out of a labyrinth
of contradictory reasonings; a doctrine calculated to call God Himself to
order, and to set Him laws whereby to work.
Predestination I define to be, according to the Holy Scriptures, that
free and unfettered counsel of God by which He rules all mankind, and all men
and things, and also all parts and particles of the world by His infinite
wisdom and incomprehensible justice.' And again, ' … had you but been willing
to look into my books, you would have been convinced at once how offensive to
me is the profane term fate; nay, you would have learned that this same
abhorrent term was cast in the teeth of Augustine by his opponents.'[26]
"Luther says that
the doctrine of Fatalism among the heathen is a proof that 'the knowledge of
Predestination and of the prescience of God, was no less left in the world than
the notion of divinity itself.'[27]! In the history of philosophy Materialism has
proven itself essentially fatalistic.
Pantheism also has been strongly tinged with it.
"No man can be a
consistent fatalist. For to be
consistent he would have to reason something like this: 'If I am to die today, it will do me no good
to eat, for I shall die anyway. Nor do
I need to eat if I am to live many years yet, for I shall live anyway. Therefore I will not eat.' Needless to say, if God has foreordained
that a man shall live, He has also foreordained that he shall be kept from the
suicidal folly of refusing to eat.
"'This doctrine,'
says Hamilton, 'is only superficially like the pagan "fate." The Christian is in the hands not of a cold,
immutable determinism, but of a warm, loving heavenly Father, who loved us and
gave His Son to die for us on Calvary!
The Christian knows that "all things work together for good to them
that love God, even to them that are called according to His purpose." The
Christian can trust God because he knows He is all-wise, loving, just and
holy. He sees the end from the
beginning, so that there is no reason to become panicky when things seem to be
going against us.'
"Hence, only a
person who has not examined this doctrine of Predestination, or one who is
maliciously inclined, will rashly charge that it is Fatalism. There is no excuse for anyone making this
mistake who knows what Predestination is and what Fatalism is.
"Since the universe
is one systematized unit we must choose between Fatalism, which ultimately does
away with mind and purpose, and this biblical doctrine of Predestination, which
holds that God created all things, that His providence extends to all His works, and that while free Himself He has also provided that we shall be free within
the limits of our natures. Instead of
our doctrine of Predestination being the same with the heathen doctrine of
Fatalism, it is its absolute opposite and only alternative."
XVI. 2. That It Is Inconsistent with the Free Agency and Moral Responsibility of Man
p. 208: "1. The
Problem of Man's Free Agency. The problem which we face
here is, How can a person be a free and responsible agent if his actions have
been foreordained from eternity? By a free and responsible agent we mean an
intelligent person who acts with rational self-determination; and by
Foreordination we mean that from eternity God has made certain the actual
course of events which takes place in the life of every person and in the realm
of nature. It is, of course, admitted
by all that a person's acts must be without compulsion and in accordance with
his own desires and inclinations, or he cannot be held responsible for
them. If the acts of a free agent are
in their very nature contingent and uncertain, then it is plain that
Foreordination and free agency are inconsistent.
"The philosopher
who is convinced of the existence of a vast Power by whom all things exist and
are controlled, is forced to inquire where the finite will can find expression
under the reign of the Infinite. The
true solution of this difficult question respecting the sovereignty of God and
the freedom of man, is not to be found in the denial of either, but rather in
such a reconciliation as gives full weight to each, yet which assigns a
preeminence to the divine sovereignty corresponding to the infinite exaltation
of the Creator above the sinful creature.
The same God who has ordained all events has ordained human liberty in
the midst of these events, and this liberty is as surely fixed as is anything
else. Man is no mere automaton or machine. In the Divine plan, which is infinite in variety
and complexity, which reaches from everlasting to everlasting, and which
includes millions of free agents who act and inter-act and re-act upon each
other, God has ordained that human beings shall keep their liberty under His
sovereignty. He has made no attempt to
give us a formal explanation of these things, and our limited human knowledge
is not able fully to solve the problem.
Since the Scripture writers did not hesitate to affirm the absolute sway
of God over the thoughts and intents of the heart, they felt no embarrassment
in including the acts of free agents within His all-embracing plan. That the makers of the Westminster
Confession recognized the freedom of man is plain; for immediately after declaring that 'God has freely and
unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass,' they added, 'Yet so as thereby
neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the
creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but
rather established.'
"While the act
remains that of the individual, it is nevertheless due more or less to the
predisposing agency and efficacy of divine power exerted in lawful ways. This may be illustrated to a certain extent
in the case of a man who wishes to construct a building. He decides on his plan. Then he hires the carpenters, masons,
plumbers, etc., to do the work. These
men are not forced to do the work. No
compulsion of any kind is used. The
owner simply offers the necessary inducements by way of wages, working
conditions, and so on, so that the men work freely and gladly. They do in detail just what he plans for
them to do. His is the primary and
theirs is the secondary will or cause for the construction of the
building. We often direct the actions
of our fellow men without infringing on their freedom or responsibility. In a similar way and to an infinitely
greater degree God can direct our actions.
His will for the course of events is the primary cause and man's will is
the secondary cause; and the two work together in perfect harmony.
"In one sense we
can say that the kingdom of heaven is a democratic kingdom, paradoxical as that
may sound. The essential principle of a
democracy is that it rests on 'the consent of the governed.' Heaven will be truly a kingdom, with God as
the supreme Ruler; yet it will rest on
the consent of the governed. It is not
forced on believers against their consent.
They are so influenced that they become willing, and accept the Gospel,
and find it the delight of their lives to do their Sovereign's will."
p. 210: "2. This Objection Bears Equally
Against Foreknowledge. Let it be
noticed that the objection that Foreordination is inconsistent with free agency
bears equally against the doctrine of the foreknowledge of God. If God foreknows an event as future, it must
be as inevitably certain as if fore-ordained; and if one is inconsistent with
free agency, the other is also. This is
often frankly admitted; and the Unitarians, while not evangelical, are at this
point more consistent than the Arminians.
They say that God knows all that is knowable, but that free acts are
uncertain and that it is doing no dishonor to God to say that He does not know
them.
We find, however, that
the Scriptures contain predictions of many events, great and small, which were
perfectly fulfilled through the actions of free agents. Usually these agents were not even conscious
that they were fulfilling divine prophecy.
They acted freely, yet exactly as foretold. A few examples are: the rejection of Jesus by the Jews, the
parting of Jesus' garments and the casting lots by the Roman soldiers, Peter's
denials of Jesus, the crowing of the cock, the spear thrust, the capture of
Jerusalem and the carrying away of the Jews into captivity, the destruction of
Babylon, etc. It is plain that the
writers of Scripture believed these free acts to be fully foreknown by the
divine mind and therefore absolutely certain to be accomplished. The foreknowledge of God did not destroy the
freedom of Judas and Peter—at least they themselves did not think so, for Judas
later came back and said, 'I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent
blood;' and when Peter heard the cock
crow and remembered the words of Jesus, he went out and wept bitterly.
"In regard to the
events which were connected with Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem it is
written: 'These things understood not
His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they
that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto
Him,' John 12 :16. Because we know
beforehand that an upright judge will refuse a bribe, and a miser will clutch a
nugget of gold, does this alter the nature or prejudice the freedom of their
acts? And if we, with our very limited
knowledge of other men's natures and of the influences which will play upon
them, are able to predict their actions with reasonable accuracy, shall not
God, who understands perfectly their natures and these influences, know exactly
what their actions will be?
"Hence the
certainty of an action is consistent with the liberty of the agent in executing
it; otherwise God could not foreknow
such actions as certain. Foreknowledge
does not make future acts certain but only assumes them to be so; and it is a
contradiction of terms to say that God foreknows as certain an event which in
its very nature is uncertain. We must
either say that future events are certain and that God knows the future, or
that they are uncertain and that He does not know the future. The doctrines of God's foreknowledge and
foreordination stand or fall together."
p. 211: "3.
Certainty Is Consistent with Free Agency. Nor does it follow from the absolute certainty of a person's acts
that he could not have acted otherwise.
He could have acted otherwise if he had chosen to have done so. Oftentimes a man has power and opportunity
to do that which it is absolutely certain he will not do, and to refrain from
doing that which it is absolutely certain he will do. That is, no external influence determines his actions. Our acts are in accordance with the decrees,
but not necessarily so—we can do otherwise and
often should. Judas and his accomplices
were left to fulfill their purpose, and they did as their wicked inclinations
prompted them. Hence Peter charged them
with the crime, but he at the same time declared that they had acted according
to the purpose of God—'Him being delivered up by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye by the hands of lawless men did crucify and slay,'
Acts 2 :23.
"On other grounds
also it may be shown that certainty is consistent with free agency. We are often absolutely certain how we will
act under given conditions so far as we are free to act at all. A parent may be certain that he will rescue
a child in distress, and that- in doing so he will act freely. God is a free agent, yet it is certain that
He will always do right. The holy
angels and redeemed saints are free agents, yet it is certain that they will
never sin; otherwise there would be no assurance of their remaining in
heaven. On the other hand, it is
certain that the Devil, the demons and fallen men will commit sin, although
they are free agents. A father often
knows how his son will act under given circumstances and by controlling these
he determines beforehand the course of action which the son follows, yet the
son acts freely. If he plans that the
son shall be a doctor, he gives him encouragement along that line, persuades
him to read certain books, to attend certain schools, and so presents the
outside inducements that his plan works out.
In the same manner and to an infinitely greater extent God controls our
actions so that they are certain although we act freely. His decree does not produce the event, but
only renders its occurrence certain; and the same decree which determines the
certainty of the action at the same time determines the freedom of the agent in
the act."
p. 212: "4. Man's Natural Will Is Enslaved to
Evil. Strictly speaking we may say that
man has free will only in the sense that he is not under any outside compulsion
which interferes with his freedom of choice or his just accountability. In his fallen state he only has what we may
call "the freedom of slavery."
He is in bondage to sin and spontaneously follows Satan. He does not have the ability or incentive to
follow God. Now, we ask, is this a
thing worthy the name "free"? and the answer is, No. Not free will but self-will would more
appropriately describe man's condition since the fall. It is to be remembered that man was not
created a captive to sin but that he has come into that condition by his own
fault; and a loss which he has brought upon himself does not free him from
responsibility. After man's redemption
is complete he will spontaneously follow God, as do the holy angels; but never
will he become entirely his own master.
"That this was
Luther's doctrine cannot be denied. In
his book, 'The Bondage of the Will,' the main purpose of which was to prove
that the will of man is by nature enslaved to evil only, and that because it is
fond of that slavery it is said to be free, he declared: 'Whatever man does, he does necessarily,
though not with any sensible compulsion, and he can only do what God from
eternity willed and foreknew he should, which will of God must be effectual and
His foresight must be certain. . . Neither the Divine nor human will does
anything by constraint, and whatever man does, be it good or bad, he does with
as much appetite and willingness as if his will was really free. But, after all, the will of God is certain
and unalterable, and it is the governess of ours.'[28] In another place he says, 'When it is
granted and established, that Free-will, having once lost its liberty, is
compulsively bound to the service of sin, and cannot will anything good; I from
these words, can understand nothing else than that Free-will is an empty term,
whose reality is lost. And a lost
liberty, according to my grammar, is no liberty at all.'[29] He refers to Free-will as 'a mere lie,'[30]
and later adds, 'This, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome
for Christians to know: that God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He
foresees, purposes and does all things according to his immutable, eternal, and
infallible will. By this thunderbolt,
Free-will is thrown prostrate, utterly dashed to pieces. . . . It follows
unalterably, that all things which we do, although they may appear to us to be
done mutably and contingently, and even may be done thus contingently by us,
are yet, in reality, done necessarily and immutably, with respect to the will
of God. For the will of God is
effective and cannot be hindered; because the very power of God is natural to
Him, and His wisdom is such that He cannot be deceived.'[31]
"It is sometimes
objected that unless man's will is completely free, God commands him to do what
he cannot do. In numerous places in
Scripture, however, men are commanded to do things which in their own strength
they are utterly unable to do. The man
with the withered hand was commanded to stretch it forth. The paralytic was commanded to arise and
walk; the sick man to arise, take up his bed and walk. The dead Lazarus was commanded to come
forth. Men are commanded to believe;
yet faith is said to be the 'gift of God.'
'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall
shine upon thee,' Eph. 5:14. 'Ye
therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,' Matt. 5
:48. Man's self-imposed inability in
the moral sphere does not free him from obligation.
p. 214: "5. God Controls the Minds of Men and Gives
His People the Will to Come. God so
governs the inward feelings, external environment, habits, desires, motives,
etc., of men that they freely do what He purposes. This operation is inscrutable, but none the less real; and the
mere fact that in our present state of knowledge we are not able fully to
explain how this influence is exerted without destroying the free agency of
man, certainly does not prove that it cannot be so exerted. We do have enough knowledge, however, to
know that God's sovereignty and man's freedom are realities, and that they work
together in perfect harmony. Paul
plants, and Apollos waters, but God gives the increase. Paul commanded the Philippians, 'Work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling;'
and in the immediately following verse the reason which he assigns for
this is, 'For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His
good pleasure' (2 :12, 18). And the
psalmist declared, 'Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy
power' (110 :3).
The actions of a
creature are to a great extent predetermined when God stamps upon it a
particular "nature" at its creation.
If it is given human nature, its actions will be those common to men; if
horse nature, those common to horses; or if vegetable nature, those common to
the vegetable world. Plain it is that
those given human nature were foreordained not to walk on four feet, nor to
neigh like a horse. An act is not free
if determined from without; but it is
free if rationally determined from within, and this is precisely what God's
foreordination effects. The
comprehensive decree provides that each man shall be a free agent, possessing a
certain character, surrounded by a certain environment, subject to certain
external influences, internally moved by certain affections, desires, habits,
etc., and that in view of all these he shall freely and rationally make a
choice. That the choice will be one
thing and not another, is certain; and God, who knows and controls the exact
causes of each influence, knows what that choice will be, and in a real sense
determines it. Zanchius expressed this
idea very clearly when he declared that man was a free agent, and then added,
'Yet he acts, from the first to the last moment of his life, "in absolute
subserviency (though, perhaps he does not know it, nor design it) to the
purposes and decrees of God concerning him; notwithstanding which, he is
sensible of no compulsion, but acts freely and voluntarily," as if he were
sui juris subject to no control, and absolutely lord of himself." And
Luther says, 'Both good and evil men, though by their actions they fulfill the
decrees and appointments of God, yet are not forcibly constrained to do
anything, but act willingly.'
"In
accordance with this we believe that, without destroying or impairing the free
agency of men, God can exercise over them a particular providence and work in
them through His Holy Spirit so that they will come to Christ and persevere in
His service. We believe further that
none have this will and desire except those whom God has previously made
willing and desirous; and that He gives this will and desire to none but His
own elect. But while thus induced, the
elect remain as free as the man that you persuade to take a walk or to invest in
government securities.
An illustration which
well shows God's relation with both the saved and the lost is given by H.
Johnson—'Here are two hundred men in prison for violation of law. I make provision for their pardon, so that
justice is satisfied and the law vindicated, while yet the prisoners may go
free. The prison doors are unbarred,
the bolts thrown back, and promise of absolute pardon is made and assurance is
given every prisoner that he can now step out a free man. But not a man moves. Suppose now I determine that my provision
for their pardon shall not be in vain.
So I personally go to one hundred and fifty of these condemned and
guilty men, and by a kind of loving violence persuade them to come out. That's election. But have I kept the other fifty in? The provision for pardon is
still sufficient, the prison doors are still unbarred, the gates of their cells
are still unlocked and open, and freedom is promised to everyone who will step
out and take it; and every man in that prison knows he can be a free man if he
will. Have I kept the other fifty in ?'[32]
"The old Pelagian
tenet, which has sometimes been adopted by Arminians, that virtue and vice
derive their praiseworthiness or blameworthiness from the power of the
individual beforehand to choose the one or the other, logically leads one to
deny goodness to the angels in heaven, or to the saints in glory, or even to
God Himself, since it is impossible for the angels, saints, or for God to
sin. Virtue, then, in the heavenly
state would cease to be meritorious, because it required no effort of
choice. The idea that the power of
choice between good and evil is that which ennobles and dignifies the will is a
misconception. It does, indeed, raise
man above the brute creation; but it is not the perfection of his will. Says Mozley: 'The highest and the perfect state of the will is a state of
necessity; and the power of choice, so far from being essential to a true and
genuine will, is its weakness and defect.
What can be a greater sign of an imperfect and immature state of the
will than that, with good and evil before it, it should be in suspense which to
do ?'[33] In this life that grace from which good
actions necessarily follow is not given with uniformity, and consequently even
the regenerate occasionally commit sin; but in the next life it will be either
constantly given or taken away entirely, and then the determination of the will
will be constant either for good or for evil.
"Perhaps some idea
of the manner in which the Divine and human agencies harmonize to produce one
work may be gained from a consideration of the way in which the Scriptures were
written. These are, in the highest
sense, and at the same time, the words of God and also the words of men. It is not merely certain parts or elements
which are to be assigned to God or to men; but rather the whole of Scripture in
all of its parts, in form of expression as well as in substance of teaching, is
from God, and also from men. 'By
inspiration,' says Hamilton, 'we do not mean that God used the individual
writers as automata, or that He dictated to them what they should say, but we
mean that his Holy Spirit so guided and controlled the writers that what they
wrote was true, and was the particular truth God wanted to be given in writing
to His people. God allowed the writers
to' use their own intellects, their awn language and their own style, but when
they wrote, His Holy Spirit supernaturally kept their writing free from error,
and rendered it the exact truth which God wanted conveyed to His people dawn
through the ages. The Bible thus
becomes a unit, parts of which cannot be cut off without irreparable injury to
the whole.'[34]
"Undoubtedly there
is a contradiction in supposing that 'chance happenings,' or those events
produced by free will agents,' can be the objects of definite foreknowledge or
the subjects of previous arrangement.
In the very nature of the case they must be both radically and
eventually uncertain, 'so that,' as Toplady says, 'any assertor of
self-determination is in fact, whether he means it or no, a worshipper of the
heathen lady named Fortune, and an ideal deposer of Providence from its
throne.'
"Unless God could
thus govern the minds of men He would be constantly engaged in devising new
expedients to offset the effects of the influences introduced by the millions
of His creatures. If men actually had
free will, then in attempting to govern or convert a person, God would have to
approach him as a man approaches his fellowmen, with several plans in mind so
that if the first proves unsuccessful he can try the second, and if that does
not work, then the third, and so on. If
the acts of free agents are uncertain, God is ignorant of the future except in
a most general way. He is then
surprised times without number and daily receives great accretions of
knowledge. But such a view is
dishonoring to God, and is both unreasonable and unscriptural. Unless God's omniscience is denied we must
hold that He knows all truth, past, present, and future; and that while events
may appear uncertain from our human viewpoint, from His view-point they are
fixed and certain. This argument is so
conclusive that its force is generally admitted. The weaker objection which is sometimes urged that God
voluntarily wills not to know some of the future acts of men in order to leave
them free has no support either in Scripture or in reason. Furthermore, it represents God as acting
like the father of a lot of bad boys who goes and hides because he is afraid he
will see them do something of which he would not approve. If God is limited either by an outside force
or by His own acts, we have only a finite God.
The Arminian theory that
God is anxiously trying to convert sinners but not able to exert more than
persuasive power without doing violence to their natures, is really much the
same in this respect as the old Persian view that there were two eternal
principles of good and evil at war with each other, neither of which was able
to overcome the other. Free-will tears
the reins of government out of the hands of God, and robs Him of His
power. It places the creatures beyond
His absolute control and in some respects gives them veto power over His
eternal will and purpose. It even makes
it possible that angels and saints in heaven might sin, that there might again
be a general rebellion in heaven such as is supposed to have occurred when
Satan and the fallen angels were cast out, and that evil might become dominant
or universal.
p. 218: "6. The Way in Which the Will Is
Determined. Since man is a rational
agent there must always be a sufficient cause for his acting in a particular
way. For the will to decide in favor of
the weaker motive and against the stronger, or without motives at all, is to
have an effect without a sufficient cause.
Conscience teaches us that we always have reasons for the things we do, and that after acting we are conscious that we
might have acted differently had other views or feelings been present. The reason for a particular act may not be
strong and it may even be based on a false judgment, but in each particular
instance it is strong enough to control.
Scales will swing in the opposite direction only when there is a cause
adequate to the effect. A person may
choose that which in some respects is disagreeable; but in each case some other
motive is present which influences the person to a choice which otherwise would
not have been made. For instance, a
person may willingly have a tooth pulled out; but he will not do so unless some
inducement is present which for the time being at least makes this the stronger
inclination. As it has been expressed,
'a man cannot prefer against his preference or choose against his choice.' A person who prefers to live in California
cannot, by a mere act of will, prefer to live in New York.
"Man's volitions
are, in fact, governed by his own nature, and are in accordance with the
desires, dispositions, inclinations, knowledge, and character of the
person. Man is not independent of God,
nor of mental and physical laws, and all of these exert their particular
influences in his choices. He always
acts in the way in which the strongest inclinations or motives lead; and
conscience tells us that the things which appeal to us most powerfully at the
time are the things which determine our volitions. Says Dr. Hodge, 'The will is not determined by any law of
necessity; it is not independent, indifferent, or self-determined, but is
always determined by the preceding state of mind; so that a man is free so long
as his volitions are the conscious expression of his mind; or so long as his
activity is determined and controlled by his reason and feelings.'[35]!
"Unless a person's
volitions were based on and determined by his character they would not really
be his, and he could not be held responsible for them. In our relations with our fellow men we
instinctively assume that their good or bad volitions are determined by good or
bad character, and we judge them accordingly.
'By their fruits ye shall know them.
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good
tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. . . Therefore by
their fruits ye shall know them,' Matt. 7 :16-20. And again, 'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh.' The tree is not free to
produce good or bad fruit at random, but is governed by its nature. It is not the goodness of the fruit which
causes the goodness of the tree, but the reverse. And according to the parable of Jesus, the same is true of
man. And unless conduct does reveal
character, how are we to know that the man who does good acts is really a good
man, or that the man who does evil acts is really an evil man? While same for the sake of argument may
insist that the will is free, in every day life all men assume that the will is
both a product and a revelation of the person's nature. When a man exerts a volition which results
in robbery or murder, we instinctively conclude that this is a true indicator
of character and deal with him accordingly.
"The very essence
of rationality is that the volitions must be based on the understanding,
principles, feelings, etc., and the person whose volitions are not so based is
considered foolish. If after every
decision the will reverted to a state of/indecision and oscillation equipoised
between good and evil, the basis for confidence in our fellow men would be
gone. In fact a person whose will was
really 'free' would be a dangerous associate; his acts would be irrational and
we would have no way of knowing what he might do under any conditions.
"It is this fact
(that volitions are a true expression of the person's nature) which guarantees
the permanence of the states of the saved and of the lost in the next
world. If mere free agency necessarily
exposed a person to sin there would
be no certainty that even the redeemed in heaven would not sin and be
cast down to hell as were the fallen angels.
The saints, however, possess a necessity on the side of goodness, and
are therefore free in the highest sense.
There is an absence of strife, and their wills, confirmed in holiness,
go on producing good acts and motions with the ease and uniformity of physical
law. On the other hand the state of the
wicked is also permanent. After the
restraining influences of the Holy Spirit are withdrawn, they become bold,
defiant, blasphemous, and sin with an irremediable obstinacy. They have passed into a permanent
disposition of malice and wickedness and hate.
They are no longer guests and strangers, but citizens and dwellers, in
the land of sin. Further, if the theory
of free-will were true, it would give the possibility of repentance after
death; for is it not reasonable to believe that at least some of the lost,
after they began to suffer the torments of hell, would see their mistake and
return to God? In this world mild
punishments are often effective in turning men from sin; why should not severer
punishments in the next world be more effective? Only the Calvinistic principle that the will is determined by the
nature of the person and the inducements presented, reaches a conclusion in
harmony with that of Scripture which affirms that 'there is a great gulf
fixed,' so that none can pass over—that the states of the saved and the lost
alike are permanent.
"The person who has
not given the matter any special thought assumes that he has great
freedom. But when he comes to examine
this boasted freedom a little mare closely he finds that he is much more limited
than at first appeared. He is limited
by the laws of the physical world, by his particular environment, habits, past
training, social customs, fear of punishment or disapproval, his present
desires, ambitions, etc., so that he is far from being the absolute master of
his actions. At any moment he is pretty
much what his past has made him. But so
long as he acts under the control of his own nature and determines his actions
from within, he has all the liberty of which a creature is capable. Any other kind of liberty is anarchy.
"A man may carry a
bowl of gold-fish wherever he pleases;
yet the fish feel themselves free, and move unrestrainedly within the
bowl. The science of Physics tells us
of molecular motion ,amid molar calm—when we look at the piece of stone, or
wood, or metal, it appears to the naked eye to be perfectly quiet; yet if we had a magnifying glass powerful
enough to see the individual molecules and atoms and electrons, we should find
them whirling in their orbits at incredible speeds.
"Predestination and
free agency are the twin pillars of a great temple, and they meet above the
clouds where the human gaze cannot penetrate.
Or again, we may say that Predestination and free agency are parallel
lines; and while the Calvinist may not be able to make them unite, the Arminian
cannot make them cross each other.
"Furthermore, if we
admit free will in the sense that the absolute determination of events is
placed in the hands of man, we might as well spell it with a capital F and a
capital W; for then man has become like
God—a first cause, an original spring of action—and we have as many semi-Gods
as we have free wills. Unless the
sovereignty of God be given up, we cannot allow this independence to man. It is very noticeable—and in a sense it is
reassuring to observe the fact—that the materialistic and metaphysical
philosophers deny as completely as do Calvinists this thing that is called free
will. They reason that every effect
must have a sufficient cause; and for every action of the will they seek to
find a motive which for the moment at least is strong enough to control."
p. 222: "7. Scripture Proof. The Scriptures teach
that Divine sovereignty and human freedom co-operate in perfect harmony; that
while God is the sovereign Ruler and primary cause, man is free within the
limits of his nature and is the secondary cause; and that God so controls the thoughts and wills of men that they
freely and willingly do what He has planned for them to do.
"A classic example
of the co-operation of Divine sovereignty and human freedom is found in the
story of Joseph. Joseph was sold into
Egypt where he rose in authority and rendered a great service by supplying food
in time of f amine. It was, of course,
a very sinful act for those sons of Jacob to sell their younger brother into
slavery in a heathen country. They knew
that they acted freely, and years later they admitted their full guilt (Gen. 42
:21 ; 45:3). Yet Joseph could say to
them, 'Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for
God did send me before you to preserve life. . . So now it was not you that
sent me hither, but God;' and again,
'As for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to
pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive,' Gen. 45:5, 8; 50:20.
Joseph's brothers simply followed the evil inclinations of their
natures; yet their act was a link in the chain of events through which God
fulfilled His purpose; and their guilt was not the least diminished by the fact
that their intended evil was overruled for good.
"Pharaoh acted very
unjustly toward his subject people, the Children of Israel; yet he simply fulfilled the purpose of God,
for Paul writes, 'The scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my
power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth,' Rom.
9:17; Ex. 9:16; 10:1, 2.
Some of God's plans are carried out by restraining the sinful acts of
men. When the Israelites went up to
Jerusalem three times a year for the set feasts, God restrained the greed of
the neighboring tribes so that the land was not molested, Ex. 34:24. He put it into the heart of Cyrus, the
heathen king of Persia, to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, Ezra 1 :1-3. Weare told, 'The king's heart is in the
hands of Jehovah, as the watercourses; He turneth it whithersoever He will,'
Provo 21 :1. And if He turns the king's
heart so easily surely he can turn the hearts of common men also.
"In Isaiah 10 :5-15
we have a very remarkable illustration of the way in which divine sovereignty
and human freedom work together in perfect harmony: 'Ho, Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff in whose hand is
mine indignation! I will send him
against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a
charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like
the mire of the streets. Howbeit he
meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a
few. For he saith, Are not my princes
all of them kings? Is not Calno as
Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the
idols, whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and
her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
"'Wherefore it
shall come to pass, that, when the Lord hath performed His whole work upon
mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the
king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he hath said, by the strength of my hand I have done it, and
by my wisdom; for I have understanding;
and I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their
treasures, and like a valiant man I have brought down them that sit on thrones;
and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the peoples; and as one gathereth eggs that are forsaken,
have I gathered all the earth; arid there was none that moved the wing, or
opened the mouth, or chirped.
"'Shall the axe
boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Shall the saw magnify itself against him that wieldeth it? As if
a rod should wield them that lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up him
that is not wood.'
"Concerning this
passage Rice says: 'What is the obvious
meaning of this passage? It does most
unequivocally teach, in the first place, that the king of Assyria, though a
proud and ungodly man, was but an instrument in the hands of God, just as the
axe, the saw, or the rod in the hands of a man, to execute His purposes upon
the Jews; and that God had perfect
control of him. It teaches, in the
second place that the free agency of the king was not destroyed or impaired by
this control, but that he was perfectly free to form his own plans and to be
governed by his own desires. For it is
declared that he did not design to execute God's purposes, but to promote his
own ambitious projects. "Howbeit
he me aneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to
destroy and to cut off nations not a few." It consequently teaches, thirdly, that the king was justly held
responsible for his pride, and wickedness, although God so overruled him that
he fulfilled His wise purposes. God
decreed to chastise the Jews for their sin.
He chose to employ the king of Assyria to execute His purpose, and
therefore sent him against them. He
would afterward punish the king for his wicked plans. Is it not evident, then, beyond all cavil, that the Scriptures
teach that God can and does, so control men, even wicked men, as to bring to
pass His wise purposes without interfering with their free agency?'[36]
For anyone who accepts
the Bible as the word of God it is absolutely certain that the crucifixion of
Christ—the most sinful event in all history—was foreordained: 'For of ,a truth in this city against thy
holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with
the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do
whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to come to pass,' Acts 4:27,
28; 'Him being delivered up by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hands of lawless men
did crucify and slay,' Acts 2:23; and
'The things which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the prophets, that His
Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled,' Acts 3:18. 'For they that dwell in Jerusalem, and the rulers, because they
knew not Him, nor the voice of the prophets which are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them in condemning Him. And
though they found no cause of death in Him, yet they asked Pilate that He
should be slain. And when they had
fulfilled all things that were written of Him, they took Him down from the
tree, and laid Him in a tomb,' Acts 13:27-29.
And not only the
crucifixion itself was foreordained, but many of the attending events, such as:
the parting of Christ's garments and the casting of lots for His vesture (Ps.
22:18; John 19:24); the giving of gall
and vinegar to drink (Ps. 69:21; Matt.
27:34; John 19:29); the mockery on the
part of the people (Ps. 22:6-8; Matt.
27:39); the fact that they associated
Him with thieves (Is. 53:12; Matt.
27:38); that none of His bones were to be broken (Ps. 34:20; John 19:36); the spear thrust (Zech. 12:10;
John 19:34-37); and several
other recorded events. Listen to the
babble of hell around the cross, and tell us if those men were not free! Yet read all the forecast and prophecy and
record of the tragedy and tell us if every incident of it was not ordained of
God! Furthermore, these events could not have been predicted in detail by the
Old Testament prophets centuries before they came to pass unless they had been
absolutely certain in the foreordained plan of God. Yet while foreordained, they were carried out by agents who were
ignorant of who Christ really was, and who were also ignorant of the fact that
they were fulfilling the divine decrees, Acts 13:27, 29; 3:17. Hence if we swallow the
camel in believing that the most sinful event in all history was in the
foreordained plan of God, and that it was overruled for the redemption of the
world, shall we strain at the gnat in refusing to believe that the smaller
events of our daily lives are also in that plan, and that they are designed for
good purposes?
"Further Scripture Proof
Provo 16:9: A man's heart deviseth his way; But Jehovah directeth his steps.
Jer.10:23: 0 Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not
in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Ex. 12:36: And Jehovah gave the people favor in the sight
of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked.
Ezra 6 :22: For Jehovah had made them joyful, and had
turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them, to strengthen their hands in
the work of the house of God (rebuilding the temple).
Ezra 7:6: And the king (Artaxerxes) granted him (Ezra)
Ezra 7:6: And the king
(Artaxerxex) granted him (Ezra) all his request, according to the hand of Jehovah
his God upon him.
Is. 44:28: (Jehovah) that saith of Cyrus (the heathen
king of Persia), He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even
saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy foundation
shall be laid.
Rev. 17:17:
(Concerning the wicked it is said) God did put in their hearts to do His mind, and to come to one mind, and to
give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be
accomplished.
I Sam. 2:25: They (Eli's sons) harkened not unto the
voice of their father, because Jehovah was minded to slay them.
I Kings 12:11, 15: And now whereas my father (Solomon) did lade
you with a heavy yoke, I (Rehoboam) will add to your yoke; my father chastised
you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. . . So the king
harkened not unto the people; for it was a thing brought about of Jehovah.
II Sam. 17:14: And Absalom and all the men of Israel said,
The Counsel of Hushai is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For Jehovah had ordained to defeat the
counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Jehovah might bring evil upon
Absalom.
XVII. 3. That It Makes God the Author of Sin
p. 228: "1. The Problem of Evil. The objection may be raised that if God has foreordained
the entire course of events in this world He must be the Author of Sin. To begin with, we readily admit that the
existence of sin in a universe which is under the control of a God who is
infinite in His wisdom, power, holiness, and justice, is an inscrutable mystery
which we in our present state of knowledge cannot fully explain. As yet we only see through a glass
darkly. Sin can never be explained on
the .grounds of logic or reason, for it is essentially illogical and
unreasonable. The mere fact that sin
exists has often been urged by atheists and skeptics as an argument not merely
against Calvinism but against theism in general.
"The Westminster
Standards, in treating of the dread mystery of evil, are very careful to guard
the character of God from even the suggestion of evil. Sin is referred to the freedom which is
given to the agent, and of all sinful acts whatever they emphatically affirm
that 'the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature and not from
God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be the author or
approver of sin.' (V; 4.)
"And while it is
not ours to explain how God in His secret counsel rules and overrules the
sinful acts of men, it is ours to
know that whatever God does He never deviates from His own perfect
justice. In all the manifestations of
His character He shows Himself preeminently the Holy One. These deep workings of God are mysteries,
which are to be adored, but not to be inquired into; and were it not for the
fact that some persons persist in declaring that the doctrine of Predestination
makes God the author of sin, we could let the matter rest here.
"A
partial explanation of sin is found in the fact that while man is constantly
commanded in Scripture not to commit it, he is, nevertheless, permitted to
commit it if he chooses to do so. No
compulsion is laid on the person; he is simply left to the free exercise of his
own nature, and he alone is responsible.
This, however, is never a bare permission, for with full knowledge of
the nature of the person and of his tendency to sin, God places him or allows
him to be in a certain environment, knowing perfectly well that the particular
sin will be committed. But while God
permits sin, His connection with it is purely negative and it is the abominable
thing which he hates with perfect hatred.
The motive which God has in permitting it and the motive which man has
in committing it are radically different.
Many persons are deceived in these matters because they fail to consider
that God wills righteously those things which men do wickedly. Furthermore, every person's conscience after
he has committed a sin tells him that he alone is responsible and that he need
not have committed it if he had not voluntarily chosen to do so.
"The Reformers
recognized the fact that sin, both in its entrance into the world and in all
its subsequent appearances, was involved in the divine plan; that the
explanation of its existence, so far as any explanation could be given, was to
be found in the fact that sin was completely under the control of God; and that
it would be overruled for a higher manifestation of His glory. We may rest assured that God would never
have permitted sin to have entered at all unless, through His secret and
over-ruling providence, He was able to exert a directing influence on the minds
of wicked men so that good is made to result from their intended evil. He works not only all the good and holy
affections which are found in the hearts of "His people, but He also
perfectly controls all the depraved and impious affections of the wicked, and
turns them as He pleases, so that they have a desire to accomplish that which
He has planned to accomplish by their means.
The wicked so often glory in themselves at some accomplishment of their
purposes; but as Calvin says, 'the event at length proves that they were only
fulfilling all the while that which had been ordained of God, and that too,
against their own will, while they knew nothing of it.' But while God does overrule the depraved
affections of men for the accomplishment of His own purposes, He nevertheless
punishes them for their sin and makes them to stand condemned in their own
consciences.
"'A ruler may
forbid treason; but his command does not oblige him to do all in his power to
prevent disobedience to it. It may
promote the good of his kingdom to suffer the treason to be committed, and the
traitor to be punished according to law.
That in view of this resulting good he chooses not to prevent the
treason, does not imply any contradiction or opposition of it in the monarch.'[37]
"In regard to the
problem of evil, Dr. A. H. Strong advances the following considerations:
(1) That freedom of will
is necessary to virtue;
(2) that God suffers
from sin more than does the sinner;
(3) that, with the
permission of sin, God has provided a redemption; and,
(4) that God will
eventually overrule all evil for good."
And then he adds, 'It is possible that the elect angels belong to a
moral system in which sin is prevented by constraining motives. We cannot deny that God could prevent sin in
a moral system. But it is very doubtful
whether God could prevent sin in the best moral system. The most perfect freedom is indispensable to
the attainment of the highest virtue.'[38] Fairbairn has given us some good thought in
the following paragraph: 'But why did
God create a being capable of sinning?
Only so could He create a being capable of obeying. The ability to do good implies the
capability of doing evil. The engine
can neither obey nor disobey, and the creature who was without this double
capacity might be a machine, but could be no child. Moral perfection can be attained, but cannot be created; God can make a being capable
of moral action, but not a being with all the fruits of moral action garnered
within him.'
p. 231: "2. INSTANCE IN WHICH SIN HAS BEEN OVERRULED
FOR GOOD
Throughout
the Scriptures we find numerous instances in which sinful acts were permitted
and then overruled for good. We shall
first notice some Old Testament examples.
Jacob's deception of his old, blind father, though a sinful act in itself,
was permitted and used as a link in the chain of events through which the already
revealed plan of God that the elder should serve the younger was carried
out. Pharaoh and the Egyptians were
permitted to wrong the Israelites, that by their deliverance God's wonders
might be multiplied in the land of Egypt (Ex. 11:9), that these things might be
told to future generations (Ex. 10 :1, 2), and that His glory might be declared
throughout all the earth (Ex. 9:16).
The curse which Balaam pronounced upon the Israelites was turned into a
blessing (Nu. 24:10; Neh. 13:2). The
proud, heathen king of Assyria unconsciously became the servant of Jehovah in
executing vengeance upon an apostate people: "Howbeit he meaneth not so,
neither doth his heart think so," Is. 10 :5-15. The calamities which befell Job, as seen from the human
view-point appear to be mere misfortunes, accidents, chance happenings. But with further knowledge we see God behind
it all, exercising complete control, giving the Devil permission to afflict so
far but no farther, designing the events for the development of Job's patience
and character, and using even the seemingly meaningless waste of the storm to
fulfill His high and loving purposes.
In the New Testament we
find the same teaching. The death of
Lazarus, as seen from the human view-point of Mary and Martha and those who
came to mourn for him, was a very great misfortune; but when seen from the
divine view-point it was "not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God
might be glorified thereby," John 11 :4.
The manner of Peter's death (which apparently was by crucifixion) was to
glorify God (John 21 :19). When Jesus
crossed the sea of Galilee with His disciples He could have prevented the storm
and have ordered them a pleasant passage, but that would not have been so much
for His glory and the confirmation of their faith as was their
deliverance. Paul, by his stern
rebukes, made the Corinthians "sorry unto repentance," "after a
godly sort ;" "for godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a
repentance which bringeth no regret; but the sorrow of the world worketh
death," II Cor. 7 :9, 10. The Lord
often temporarily delivers a person over to Satan, that his bodily and mental
suffering_ may react for his salvation, (I Cor. 5 :5). Paul, in speaking of the adversities which
he had suffered, said, "Now I would have you know, brethren, that the
things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the progress of the
gospel," Phil. 1 :12. When he saw
that his "thorn in the flesh" was something which had been divinely
sent upon him, "a messenger of Satan to buffet him," so that he
"should not be exalted over much," he accepted it with the words,
"Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weakness, that the power
of Christ may rest upon me," II Cor. 12 :7-10. In that instance God made the poison of the cruelest and most
sinful monster of all time to be an antidote to cure the apostle's pride.
To a certain extent we
can say that the reason for the permission of sin is that, "Where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound." Such deep, unfathomable grace could
not have been shown if sin had been excluded.
As a matter of fact we
gain more through salvation in Christ that we lost by the fall in Adam. When Christ became incarnate, human nature
was, as it were, taken into the very bosom of Deity, and the redeemed reach a
far more exalted position through union with Christ than Adam could have
attained had he not fallen but persevered and been admitted into heaven.
This general truth was
expressed by Calvin in the following words: "But, God, who once commanded
light to shine out of darkness, can marvelously bring, if He pleases, salvation
out of hell itself, and thus turn darkness itself to light. But what worketh Satan? In a certain sense,
the work of God! That is, God, by holding Satan fast bound in obedience to His
Providence, turns him whithersoever He will,
and thus applies the great enemy's devices and attempts to the
accomplishment of His own eternal principles."[39]
Even the persecutions
which are permitted to come upon the righteous are designed for good
purposes. Paul declares that "our light
affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly
an eternal weight of glory," II Cor. 4:17. To suffer with Christ is to be more closely united to Him, and
great reward in heaven is promised to those who suffer in His behalf (Matt. 5
:10-12). To the Philippians it was
written, "To you it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ not only to
believe on Him but also to suffer in His behalf," Phil. 1 :29; and we read
that after the apostles had been publicly abused, "They departed from the
presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name," Acts
5:41. The
writer
of the book of Hebrews stated this same truth when he wrote, "All chastening
seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it
yieldeth peaceable fruit to them that have been exercised thereby, even the
fruit of righteousness," Heb. 12 :11.
"The acts of the
wicked in persecuting the early Church," says Dr. Charles Hodge,
"were ordained of God as the means for the wider and more speedy
proclamation of the Gospel. The
sufferings of the martyrs were the means not only of extending but of purifying
the Church. The apostasy of the man of
sin being predicted, was predetermined.
The destruction of the Huguenots in France, the persecution of the
Puritans in England, laid the foundation for the planting of North America with
a race of godly energetic men, who were to make this land the land of refuge
for the nations, the home of liberty, civil and religious. It would destroy the confidence of God's
people could they be persuaded that God does not foreordain whatever comes to
pass. It is because the Lord reigns,
and doeth His pleasure in heaven and on earth, that they repose in perfect
security under His guidance and protection."[40]
Many of the divine attributes were displayed
through the creation and government of the world, but the attribute of justice could be shown
only to creatures deserving punishment,. and the attribute of mercy or grace
could be shown only to creatures in misery. Until man's fall into _in, and
redemption from it, these attributes, so far as we can learn, had been
unexercised and undisplayed, and cons"equently were unknown to any but God
Himself from all eternity. Had not sin been admitted to the creation these
attributes would have remained buried in an eternal night. And the universe,
without the knowledge of these attributes, would be like the earth without the
light of the sun. Sin, then, is permitted in order that the mercy of God may be
shown in its forgiveness, and that His justice may be shown in its punishment.
Its entrance is the result of a settled design which God formed in eternity,
and through which He purposed to reveal Himself to His rational creatures as
complete and full-orbed in all conceivable perfections.
3. THE FALL OF ADAM WAS INCLUDED IN THE DIVINE PLAN
Even the fall of Adam,
and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so
ordained in the secret counsels of God. Weare told that Christ was
"foreknown indeed (as a sacrifice for sin) before the foundation of the
world," I Peter 1 :20. Paul speaks of "the eternal purpose"
which was purposed in Jesus Christ our Lord, Eph. 3:11. The writer of Hebrews
refers to "the blood of an eternal covenant," 13 :20. And since the
plan of redemption is thus traced back into eternity, the plan to permit man to
fall into the sin from which he was thus to be redeemed must also extend back
into eternity; otherwise there would have been no occasion for redemption. In
fact the plan for the whole course of the world's events, including the fall,
redemption, and all other events, was before God in its completeness before He
ever brought the creation into existence; and He deliberately ordered it that
this series of events, and not some other series, should become actual.
And unless the fall was
in the plan of God, what becomes of our redemption through Christ? Was that
only a makeshift arrangement which God resorted to in order to offset the
rebellion of man? To ask such a question is to answer it.
Throughout the
Scriptures redemption is represented as the free, gracious purpose of God from
eternity. In the very hour of man's first sin, God sovereignly intervened with
a
gratuitous promise of
deliverance. While the glory of God is displayed in the whole realm of
creation, it was to be especially displayed in the work of redemption. The fall
of man, therefore, was only one part and a necessary part in the plan; and even
Watson, though a decided Arminian, says, "The redemption of man by Christ
was certainly not an afterthought brought in upon man's apostasy; it was a provision,
and when man fell he found justice hand in hand with mercy."! Out of the
ruins of the fall God has built a new spiritual creation far more glorious than
the first.
Consistent Arminianism,
however, pictures God as an idle, inactive spectator sitting in doubt while
Adam fell, and as quite surprised and thwarted by the creature of His hands. In
contrast with thi_ we hold that God fore-planned and fore-saw the fall; that it
in no sense came as a surprise to Him; and that after it had occurred He did
not feel that He had made a mistake in creating man. Had He wished He could
have prevented Satan's entrance into the garden and
could have preserved
Adam in a state of holiness as He did the holy angels. The mere fact that God
fore-saw the fall is sufficient proof that He did not expect man to glorify Him
by continuing in a state of holiness.
Yet God in no way
compelled man to fall. He simply withheld that undeserved constraining grace
with which Adam would infallibly not have fallen, which grace He was under no
obligation to bestow. In respect to himself, Adam might have stood had he so
chosen; but in respect to God it was certain that he would fall. He acted as
freely as if there had been no decree, and yet as infallibly as if there had
been no liberty. The Jews, so far as their own free agency was concerned, might
have broken Christ's bones; yet in reality it was not possible for them to have
done so, for it was written, "A bone of Him shall not be broken," Ps.
34:20; John 19:36. God's decree does not take away man's liberty; and in th_ fall Adam freely exercised the natural emotions of
his will. " The reason for the fall is assigned in that "God hath shut up all
unto disobedience, that He might have mercy on all," Rom. 11 :32; and
again, "We ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that
we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead," II
Cor. 1:9; and it would be difficult to find language which would assert the
Divine control and Divine initiative more explicitly than this. For wise
reasons, God was pleased to permit our first parents to be tempted and to fall,
and then to overrule ..their sin for His own glory. Yet this permission and
overruling of sin does not make Him the author of it. It seems that He has
permitted the fall in order to show what free will would do; and then, by
overruling it, He has shown what the blessings of His grace and the judgments
of His justice can do.
It may be well just at
this point, co say something more about the nature of the fall. Adam was given
a most favorable opportunity to secure eternal life and blessedness for
himself and his posterity. He was created holy and was placed in a world free
from sin. He was surrounded by all the beauty of paradise and was graciously
given permission to eat of all the fruits with the exception of one, which was
certainly no irksome restraint. God Himself came down into the Garden and was
Adam's companion. In unmistakably clear language Adam was warned that if he did
eat of the fruit he would certainly die. He was thus placed under a pure test
of obedience, since the eating would not in itself have been either morally
right or wrong. Obedience is here set up as the virtue which, in the rational
creature, is, as it were, the mother and guardian of all the others.
4. THE RESULT OF ADAM'S FALL
But, in spite of all his
advantages, Adam deliberately disobeyed, and the threatened sentence of death
was executed. This plainly includes more than the dissolution of the body. The
word "death" as used in the Scriptures in reference to the effects of
sin includes any and every form of evil which is inflicted in punishment of
sin. It means primarily spiritual death, or separation from God, which is both
temporal and eternal- a loss of His favor in all ways. It meant the opposite of
the reward promised, which was blessed and eternal life in Heaven. It meant,
therefore, the eternal miseries of hell, together with the fore-tastes of those
miseries which are felt in this life. Its nature can be partly seen in the
effects of sin which have actually fallen upon the human race. And finally, the
nature of the death which fell upon Adam and his descendants can be seen by
contrast with the life which the redeemed have with Christ. It was a death
which caused sin instead of holiness to become man's natural element, so that
now in his unregenerate nature the gospel and all holy things are repulsive to
him. He is as utterly unable to appreciate redemption through faith in Christ,
as a dead man is to hear the sounds of this world. That the death threatened
was not primarily physical death is shown by the fact that Adam lived many years
after the fall, while spiritually he was immediately alienated from God and
was cast out of Paradise. In his fallen state man is terrified by any
appearance of the supernatural. And even in regard to physical death, that was
also in a sense immediately executed; for though our first parents lived many
years, they immediately began to grow old. Since the fall, life has become an
unceasing march toward the grave. Says Charles Hodge, "In the day in which
Adam ate the forbidden fruit he did die. The penalty threatened was not a
momentary infliction but permanent subjection to all the evils which flow from the righteous displeasure of God."l '
Furthermore, the whole
Christian world has believed
that in the fall, Adam,
as the natural and federal head of the race, injured not only himself but all
of his posterity, so that, as Dr. Hodge says, "in virtue of the union,
federal and natural, between Adam and his posterity, his sin, although not
their act, is so imputed to them that it is the judicial ground of the penalty
threatened against him coming also on them. . . To impute sin, in Scriptural
and theological language, is to impute the guilt of sin. And by guilt is meant
not criminality, or moral ill-desert, or demerit, much less moral pollution,
but the judicial obligation to satisfy justice."1 His sin is laid to their
account. Even infants, who have no personal sin of their own, suffer pain and
death. Now the Scriptures uniformly represent suffering and death as the wages
of sin. It would be unjust for God to execute the penalty on those who are not
guilty. Since the penalty falls on infants, they must be guilty; and since they
have not personally committed sin, they must be guilty of Adam's sin. All those
who have inherited human nature fr()m Adam were in him as the fruit in the
germ, and have, as it were" grown up one person with him. By the fall Adam
was entirely and absolutely ruined. The state of original righteousness or
holiness in which he was created was lost and its place was taken by an
overwhelming state of sin, which was brought about as effectively as one
puncture of the eye involves the person in perpetual darkness. The wrath and
curse of God rested upon him and he was possessed with a sense of guilt, shame,
pollution, degradation, a dread of punishment, and a desire to escape from the
presence of God.
In fact, there is a
strict parallel between the way in which the guilt of Adam is imputed to us and
that in which the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, so that the one
illustrates the other. We were cursed through Adam and were redeemed through
Christ, although we were of course no more personally guilty of Adam's sin than
we are personally meritorious because of Christ's righteousness. It is utterly
absurd to hold to salvation through Christ unless we also hold to damnation
through Adam, for Christianity is based on this representative principle.
Unless the race had been cursed through Adam, there would have been no occasion
for Christ to have redeemed it. The history of the fall, recorded in a manner
at once profound and childlike in the third chapter of Genesis, has, therefore,
universal significance. And Calvinism alone does justice to the idea of the
organic unity of the human race, and to the profound parallel which Paul draws
between the first and the second Adam.
5. THE FORCES
OF EVIL ARE UNDER GOD'S PERFECT CONTROL
We believe that God
actually rules in the affairs of men, that His decrees are absolute, and that
they include all events. Consequently we believe that nations and individuals
are predestined to all of every kind of good and evil which befalls them. When
we get the larger view we see that even the sinful acts of men have their place
in the divine plan, and that it is only because of our finite and imperfect
nature, which does not comprehend all the relations and connections, that
these acts appear to be contrary to that plan. To illustrate this, when we see
the sheet music running through the player piano we readily understand how it
is used; but if we were to find the same paper apart from the piano and had
never seen it used, we might readily conclude that it was only wrapping paper,
and poor wrapping paper at that, for it would be full of holes. Yet when it is
put in its proper place it produces the most beautiful music. Unless we do
believe that God has ordained the whole course of events, and that the courses
he has outlined for our individual lives are good ones, we are certain to
become discouraged in times of adversity. Like Jacob of old who in the face of
the apparent misfortunes immediately before meeting his favorite son, Joseph,
concluded, "All these things are against me," we may become
discouraged when perhaps at that very time the Lord is preparing great things
for us.
The Scripture doctrine,
as stated before, is that God restrains sin within certain limits, that He
brings good out of intended evil, and overrules the evil for His own glory.
Since God is infinite in power and wisdom, sin could have no exist. ence except
by His permission. God was free to create, or not to create; to create this
particular world-order, or one entirely different. All evil forces are under
His absolute control and could be blotted out of existence in an instant if He
so willed. The murderer is kept in life and is indebted to God for the strength
to kill his victim, and also for the opportunity. When Jesus said, "Get
thee hence, Satan," Satan immediately went; and when Jesus commanded the
evil spirits to hold their peace and come out of the possessed persons, they
immediately obeyed. The psalmist expressed his confidence in God's power to
overrule sinners when contemplating their works, he wrote, "He that
sitteth in the heavens will laugh; the Lord will have them in derision,"
2:4. Job said, "The deceived and the deceiver are His," 12:16; by
which he meant that both good and evil men are under God'. providential
control.
Unless sin occurs
according to the divine purpose and permission of God, it occurs by chance.
Evil then becomes an independent and uncontrollable principle and the pagan
idea of d'1aIism is introduced into the theory of the universe. The doctrine
that there are powers of sin, rebellion, and darkness in the very nature of
free agency, which may prove an over-match for divine omnipotence, imperils
even the eternal safety and happiness of the saints in glory.
Luther expressed his
belief concerning this question in the following words: "What I assert and
contend for is this: - that God, where He operates without the grace of His
Spirit, works all in all, even in the ungodly; and He alone moves, acts on, and
carries along by the motion of His omnipotence, all those things which He alone
has created, which motion those things can neither avoid nor change, but of
necessity follow and obey, each one according to the measure of power given of
God: -
thus
all things, even the ungodly co-operate with God."1 And Zanchius wrote,
"We should, therefore, be careful not to give up the omnipotence of God
under a pretense of exalting His holiness; He is infinite in both, and
therefore neither should be set aside or obscured. To say that God absolutely
nills the being and commission of sin, while experience convinces us that sin
is acted every day, is to represent the Deity as a weak, impotent being who
would fain have things go otherwise than they do, but cannot accomplish His
desire.".
One of the best of more
recent comments is that of E. W. Smith, in his admirable little book, "The
Creed of Presbyterians." "Did we believe that so potent and fearful
a thing as sin had broken into the original holy order of the universe in
defiance of God's purpose, and is rioting in defiance of His power, we might
well surrender ourselves to terror and despair. Unspeakably comforting and
strengthening is the Scriptural assurance of our Standards (V:4) that beneath
all this wild tossing and lashing of evil purposes and agencies there lies, in
mighty and controlling embrace, a Divine purpose that governs them all. Over
sin as over all else, God reigns supreme. His sovereign Providence extendeth
to the first fall and all other sins af angels and men,' so that these are as
truly parts and developments of His Providence as are the movements of the
stars or the activities of unfallen spirits in heaven itself. Having chosen,
for reasons most wise and holy though unrevealed to. us, to admit sin, He hath
joined to this bare permission a ';most wise and powerful bounding' of all sin,
so that it can never overleap the lines which He has prescribed far its
imprisonment, and such an 'ordering and governing' of it, as will secure 'His
own holy ends,' and manifest in the final consummation not only His 'almighty
Power,' but His 'unsearchable Wisdom" and His 'infinite Goodness'"
(p. 177).
And Floyd E. Hamilton
has written: "God created the human being with the possibility of sinning,
and He has the power to interfere at any time to prevent the evil act. Even
though He has no purpose to work out in the permission of the act, the very
permission of the act when He has the power to interfere, places the ultimate
responsibility for the act squarely upon God. Moreover, if He has no purpose to
work out, then He is certainly reprehensible in not preventing the act! It is
attempted to avoid this conclusion by saying that God does not interfere
because to do so would be to take away man's freedom. In that case man's
freedom is regarded as of more value than his eternal salvation! But even that
does not remove the ultimate responsibility for the permission of the evil act
from God; God has the power to prevent the evil act, has no purpose to work out
in permitting it, but nevertheless, in order to protect man's freedom, allows
man to bring eternal punishment upon himself! Assuredly that would be a poor
kind of a god !"1
Hence God Himself is
ultimately responsible for sin in that He has power to prevent it but does not
do so, although the immediate responsibility rests on man alone. God is, of
course, never the efficient cause in the production of sin. Augustine, Luther
and Calvin often stressed this truth of God's full and sovereign control when
proving that the present course of the world is the one which from eternity God
planned that it should follow.
6. SINFUL ACTS OCCUR ONLY BY
DIVINE PERMISSION
The good acts of men
then are rendered certain by the positive decree of God, and the sinful acts
occur only by His permission. Yet it is more than a bare permission by which
the sinful acts occur, for that would leave it uncertain whether or not they
would be done. Concerning this subject David S. Clark says: "The most
reasonable explanation is that the sinful nature win go to the boundary set by
the permission of God; hence God's bounding of sin renders certain what and how
much will come to pass. Satan could go no farther with Job than God permitted;
but it is certain that he would go as far as God allowed." And in
accordance with this is the statement of W. D. Smith: "When it is known,
certainly, that it will be done unless prevented, and there is a determination
not to prevent it, it is rendered as certain as if it were decreed to be done
by positive agency. In the one case, the event is rendered certain by agency
put forth; and, in the other case, it is rendered equally certain by agency
withheld. It is an unchangeable decree in both cases. The sins of Judas, and
the crucifixion of the Saviour, were as unchangeably decreed, permissively, as
the coming of the Saviour into the world was decreed positively. From this you
can perceive the consistency of the Confession of Faith with common sense, when
it says, that 'God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of
His own will, freely and unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to pass,'
etc. You perceive, also, that this is clearly reconcilable with the following
sentiment, 'He is not the author of sin,' etc."!
Augustine expressed a
similar thought when he said: "Wherefore those mighty works of God,
exquisitely perfect, according to every bent of His will, are such that, in a
wonderful and ineffable way, that is not done without the win of God which is
even done contrary to His will, because it could not be done at all, unless He
permitted it to be done; and yet, He does not permit unwillingly, but
willingly. Nor, as the God of goodness, would He permit a thing to be done
evilly, unless, as the God of omnipotence, He could work good even out of the
evil done."1
Even the works of Satan
are so controlled and limited that they serve God's purposes. While Satan
eagerly desires the destruction of the wicked and diligently works to bring it
about, yet the destruction proceeds from God. It is, in the first place, God
who decrees that the wicked shall suffer, and Satan is merely permitted to lay
the punishment upon them. The motives which underlie God's purposes and those
which underlie Satan's are, of course, infinitely different. God wined the
destruction of Jerusalem; Satan also desired the same, yet for different
reasons. As Augustine tells us, God wills with a good wi]] that which Satan
wins with an evil will,
as was the case in the
crucifixion of Christ, which was overruled for the redemption of the world.
Sometimes God uses the wicked wills and passions of men, rather than the good
wills of His own servants, to accomplish His purposes. This truth has been very
clearly expressed by Dr. Warfield in the following words: "All things
find. their unity in His eternal plan; and not their unity merely, but their
justification as well; even the evil, though retaining its quality as evi] and
hateful to the holy God, and certain to be dealt with as hateful, yet does not
occur apart from His provision or against His will, but appears in the world
which He has madE1 only as the instrument by means of which He works the higher
good."!
7. SCRIPTURE PROOF
That this is the
doctrine of the Scriptures is abundantly plain. The sale of Joseph into Egypt
by his brothers was a very wicked act; yet we see that it was overruled not
only for Joseph's good but also for the good of the brothers themselves. When
it is traced to its source we see that God was the author. It had its exact
place in the divine plan. Joseph later said to his brothers, "And now be
not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you
to preserve life. . . . So now it was not you that sent me hither but God. . .
. And as for you, ye meant evil against me, but God meant it for good," Gen.
45 :5, 8; 50 :20. It is said that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, Ex. 4
:21; 9 :12; and the very words which God addressed to Pharaoh were, "But
in every deed for this cause have I
made thee to stand, to show thee my power, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth," Ex. 9 :16. And to Moses God said, "And I,
behold I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians and they shall go (into the
Red Sea) after them; and I will get me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his
host, and upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen," Ex. 14 :17.
Shimei cursed David,
because Jehovah had said, ."Curse David"; and when David knew this,
he said, "Let him alone, and let him curse; for Jehovah hath bidden
him," II Sam. 16:10,11. And after David had suffered the unjust violence
of his enemies he recognized that "God hath done all this." Of the
Canaanites it was said, "And it was of Jehovah to harden their hearts, to
come against Israel in battle, that He might utterly destroy them, that they
might have no favor, and that He might destroy them, as Jehovah commanded
Moses," Joshua 11 :20. Hophni and Phinehas, the two evil sons of Eli,
"hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because Jehovah was minded
to slay them," I Sam. 2 :25.
Even Satan and the evil
spirits are made to carry out the divine purpose. As an instrument of divine
vengeance in the punishment of the wicked an evil spirit was openly given the
command to go and deceive the prophets of King Ahab: "And Jehovah said,
Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one
said on this manner; and another on that manner. And there came forth a spirit,
and stood before Jehovah, and said, I will entice him. And Jehovah said unto
him, Wherewith? And he said, 1 will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the
mouth of his prophets. And He said, Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail;
Go forth and do so. Now therefore (said Micaiah), behold, Jehovah hath put a
lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and Jehovah hath spoken
evil concerning thee," I Kings 22 :20-23. Concerning Saul it is written,
"an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled him," I Sam. 16 :14. "And
God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem ; and the men
of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech," Judges 9 :23. Hence it is
from Jehovah that evil spirits proceed to trouble sinners. And it is from him
that the evil impulses which arise in the hearts of sinners take this or that
specific form, II Sam. 24:1.
In one place we are told
that God, in order to punish a rebellious people. moved the heart of David to
number them
(II Sam. 24 :1, 10) ;
but in another place where this same act is referred to, we are told that it
was Satan who instigated David's pride and caused him to number them (I Chr. 21
:1). In this we see that Satan was made the rod of God's wrath" and that
God impels even the hearts of sinful men and demons whithersoever He will.
While all adulterous and incestuous intercourse is abominable to God, He
sometimes uses even such sins as these to punish other sins, as was the case
when He used such acts in Absalom to punish the adultery of David. Before
Absalom had committed his sin it was announced to David that this was the form
which his punishment was to take: "Thus saith Jehovah, Behold I will raise
up evil against thee out of thine own house; and I will take thy wives before
thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor. and he shall lie with thy wives in
the sight of the sun," II Sam. 12 :11. Hence these acts were not in every
way contrary to the will of God.
In I Chr. 10:4 we read
that "Saul took a sword and fell upon it." This was his own
deliberate, sinful act. Yet it executed Divine justice and fulfilled a divine
purpose which was revealed years before concerning David; for a little later we
read, "So Saul died for his transgressions which he committed against
Jehovah. . . . He inquired not of Jehovah; therefore He slew him and turned the
kingdom unto David the son of Jesse," I Chr. 10 :14. There is a sense in
which God is said to do what he permits or impels His creatures to do.
The evil which was
threatened against Jerusalem for her apostasy is described as directly sent of
God, II Kings 22 :20. The psalmist recognized that even the hate of their
enemies was stirred up by Jehovah to punish a rebellious people, Ps. 105:25.
Isaiah recognized that even the apostasy and disobedience of Israel was in the
divine plan: "0 Jehovah, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways, and
hardenest our hearts from thy fear?" Is. 63:17. In I Chr. 5:22 we read,
"There fell many slain, because the war was of Jehovah." Rehoboam's
foolish course which caused the disruption of the kingdom was "a thing
brought about by Jehovah," I Kings 12 :15. All of these things are summed
up in that.
passage of Isaiah,
"I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil: I
am Jehovah that doeth all these things," 45:7; and again in Amos,
"Shall evil befall a city and Jehovah hath not done it?" Amos 3 :6.
When we come to the New
Testament we find the same doctrine set forth. We have already shown that the
crucifixion of Christ was a part of the divine plan. Though slain by the hands
of lawless men who did not understand the importance of the event which they
were carrying out, "The things which God foreshowed by the mouth of all
the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled," Acts 3:
18. The crucifixion was the cup which the Father had given Him to drink, John
18 :11. It was written, "I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the
flock shall be scattered abroad," _1:att. 26 :31. When Moses and Elijah
appeared to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, they spoke of "His
decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem," Luke 9 :31.
Concerning His own death Jesus said, "The son of man indeed goeth, as it
hath been determined; but woe unto that man through whom He is betrayed,"
Luke 22 :22; again, "Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which
the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner; This was from
the Lord, And it is marvelous in our eyes?" Matt. 21 :42; and never did He
teach more plainly that the cross was in the divine plan than when in the
garden of Gethsemane He said, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt,"
Matt. 26 :39. Jesus deliberately surrendered Himself to be crucified when He
might have called to his defense "more than twelve legions of
angels," had He chosen to have done so, Matt. 26 :53. Pilate thought that
he had power to crucify Jesus or to release Him as he pleased; but Jesus told
him he could have no power against Him at all except it were given him from
above, John 19:10, It.
It was in the plan of
God that Christ should come into the world, that He should suffer, that He
should die a violent death, and thus make atonement for His people. Hence God
simply permitted sinful men to sinfully lay that burden upon Him, and overruled
their acts for His own glory in the redemption of the world. Those who
crucified Christ acted in perfect harmony with the freedom of their own sinful
natures, and were alone responsible for their sin. On this occasion, as on many
others, God has made the wrath of man to praise Him. It would be hard to frame
language which would more explicitly set forth the idea that God's plan extends
to all things than is here used by the Scripture writers. Hence the crucifixion
on Calvary was not a defeat, but a victory; and the cry, "It is
finished," announced the successful achievement of the work of redemption
which had been committed to the Son. That which "stands written of Jesus
in the Old Testament Scriptures has its certain fulfillment in Him; and that
enough stands written of Him there to assure His followers that in the course
of His life, and in its, to them, strange and unexpected ending, He was not the
prey of chance or the victim of the hatred of men, to the marring of His work
or perhaps even the defeat of His mission, but was following step by step,
straight to its goal, the predestined pathway marked out for Him in the
counsels of eternity, and sufficiently revealed from of old in the Scriptures
to enable all who were not 'foolish and slow of heart to believe in all that
the prophets have spoken,' to perceive that the Christ must needs have lived
just this life and fulfilled just this destiny."!
Other events recorded in
the New Testament also teach
the same lesson. When God cast off the Jews as a
people it was not a purposeless destruction, nor in order merely that
"they might fall"; "but that by their fall salvation might come
to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy," so that they in turn shall
also embrace Christianity, Rom. 11 :11. The blindness of one man is said to
have been, not because of his own or his parent's sin, but in order to give
Jesus a chance to display His power and glory in restoring the
p. 248:
sight, or, as the writer puts it, "that the works of God should be
made manifest in him," John 9 :3. The Old Testament statement that the
very purpose which God had in raising up Pharaoh was to show His power and to
publish abroad his name is repeated in Rom. 9: 17. This general teaching is
climaxed with Paul's declaration that "To them that love God all things
work together for good, even to them that are called according to His
purpose." Rom. 8 :28.
No one can rationally
deny that God foreordained sin if, as the Scriptures assert, He foreordained
the crucifixion of Christ, and these other events to which we have referred.
That sinful acts do have their place in the divine plan is repeatedly taught.
And if any persons are inclined to take offence at this, let them consider how
many times the Scriptures declare the judgments of God to be a "great
deep." Hence those who hastily charge that our doctrine makes God the
author of sin, bring that charge not only against us, but against God Himself;
for our doctrine is the clearly revealed doctrine of the Scriptures.
God's relation to sin is
admirably illustrated in the following paragraph which we shall take the
liberty of quoting from W. D. Smith's little book, What Is Calvinism?
"Suppose to yourself a neighbor who keeps a distillery or dram shop, which
is a nuisance to all around - neighbors collecting, drinking, and fighting on the
Sabbath, with consequent misery and distress in families, etc. Suppose, further,
that I am endowed with a certain foreknowledge, and can see, with absolute
certainty, a chain of events, in connection with a plan of operations which I
have in view, for the good of that neighborhood. I see that by preaching there,
I will be made the instrument of the conversion, and consequent reformation, of
the owner of the distillery, and I therefore determine to go. Now, in so doing,
I positively decree the reformation of the man; that is I determine to do
what renders his reformation certain and I fulfill my decree by positive
agency. But, in looking a little further in the chain of events, I discover,
with the same absolute certainty, that his drunken customers will be filled
with wrath, and much sin will be committed, in venting their malice upon him
and me. They will not only curse and blaspheme God and religion, but they will
even burn his house, and attempt to burn mine. Now, you perceive that this
evil, which enters into my plan, is not chargeable upon me at all, though I am
the author of the plan which, in its operations, I know will produce it. Hence,
it is plain, that any intelligent being may set on foot a plan, and carry it
out, in which he knows, with absolute certainty, that evil will enter, and yet
he is not the author of the evil, or chargeable with it in any way.
. . . . In looking a little further in the chain of events, I discover, that if they
be permitted they will take his life; and, I see, moreover, that if his life be
spared, he will now be as notorious for good as he was for evil, and will prove
a rich blessing to the neighborhood and to society. . . . . Therefore, upon the whole
plan, I determine to act; and, in so doing, I positively decree the reformation
of that man, and the consequent good; and I permissively decree the wicked
actions of the others; yet, it is very plain, that I am not in any way,
chargeable for their sins. Now, in one or the other of these ways, God 'has
foreordained whatsoever comes to pass'" (P.33-35).
And Charles Hodge says
in this connection: "A righteous judge, in pronouncing sentence on a
criminal, may be sure that he will cause wicked and bitter feelings in the
criminal's mind, or in the hearts of his friends, and yet the judge be
guiltless. A father, in excluding a reprobate son from his family, may see that
the inevitable consequences of such exclusion will be his greater wickedness,
and yet the father may do right. It is the certain consequence of God's leaving
the fallen angels and the finally impenitent to themselves, that they will
continue in sin, and yet the holiness of God remain untarnished. The Bible
clearly teaches that God judicially abandons men to their sins, giving them up
to a reprobate mind, and He therein is most just and holy. It is not true,
therefore, that an agent is responsible for all the certain consequences of his
acts. It may be, and doubtless is, infinitely wise and just in God to permit
the occurrence of sin, and to adopt a plan of which sin is a certain
consequence or element; yet, as He neither causes sin, nor tempts men to its commission,
He is neither its author nor approver."[41]
9. GOD'S GRACE IS MORE DEEPLY APPRECIATED AFTER THE PERSON HAS BEEN THE VICTIM OF
SIN
We are often permitted
to fall into sin, that, after being delivered from it, we shall appreciate our
salvation all the more. In the parable of the two debtors the one owed five
hundred shillings and the other fifty. When they had nothing with which to pay
the lender forgave them both. Which of them, therefore, would love him most?
Naturally the one to whom he forgave most. As Jesus spoke this parable they
were seated at meat and the application was made to Simon the Pharisee and to
the penitent woman who had anointed His feet. The latter had been forgiven much
and was profoundly grateful, but the former had received no such favor and felt
no gratitude. "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little,"
Luke 7 :41-50.
Sometimes the person,
like the prodigal son, will not appreciate the Father's home nor respect His
authority until he has experienced the ravaging effects of sin and the pangs of
hunger, sorrow and disgrace. It seems that man with his freedom must, to a
certain extent, learn by experience before he is fully able to appreciate the
ways of righteousness and to render unquestioned obedience and honor to God.
We have quoted Paul's statement to the effect that "God hath shut up all
unto disobedience, that He might have mercy on all," Rom. 11 :32, and that
the sentence of death was passed within us that we should not trust in
ourselves but only in God, II Cor. 1 :9. The creature cannot adequately
appreciate God's mercy until he has been rescued from a state of misery. After
the lame beggar had been healed by Peter and John at the door of the temple, he
appreciated his health as never before, and "entered with them into the
temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God." And after being delivered
from the power and guilt of sin, we appreciate God's grace as we never could
have otherwise. We read that even our Lord Jesus Christ in His human nature was
made "perfect through sufferings," although He was, of course,
totally separate from all sin.
10. CALVINISM OFFERS A MORE
SATISFACTORY SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL THAN DOES ANY OTHER SYSTEM
The real difficulty
which we face here, is to explain why a God of infinite holiness, power, and
wisdom, would have brought into existence a creation in which moral evil was to
prevail so extensively; and especially to explain why it should have been
permitted to issue in the everlasting misery of so many of His creatures. This
difficulty, however, bears not only against Calvinism, but against theism in
general; and while other systems are found to be wholly inadequate in their
explanation of sin, Calvinism can give a fairly adequate explanation in that it
recognizes that God is ultimately responsible since He could have prevented it;
and Calvinism further asserts that God has a definite purpose in the
permission of every individual sin, having ordained it "for His own
glory." As Hamilton says, "If we are to accept theism at all, the
only respectable kind is Calvinism." "Calvinism teaches that God not
only knew what He was doing when He created man, but that He had a purpose even
in permitting sin." And what better explanation than this can be advanced
by anyone else who believes that God is the Creator and Ruler of this universe?
In regard to the first
fall of man, we assert that the proximate cause was the instigation of the
Devil and the impulse of his own heart; and when we have established this, we
have removed all blame from God. Paul tells us that God "dwelleth in the
light which no man can approach unto." Our mental vision can no more
comprehend His deep mysteries than our unaided physical eyes can endure the
light of the sun. When the Apostle contemplated these things he broke forth,
"0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past tracing out!" And since
our human intellects cannot soar to such stupendous heights, it is ours to
adore with reverence, fear, and trembling, but not to explain, that mystery
which is too high and too deep for even the angels themselves to penetrate. Let
us remember also that along with this sin, God has provided a redemption
graciously wrought out by Himself; and no doubt it is due to our limitations
that we do not see this to be the all-sufficient explanation. The decree of
redemption is as old as the decree of apostasy; and He who ordained sin has
also ordained a way of escape from it.
Since the Scriptures
tell us that God is perfectly righteous, and since in all of His acts upon
which we are capable of passing judgment we find that He is perfectly
righteous, we trust Him in those realms which have not yet been revealed to us,
believing that He has solutions for those problems which we are not able to
solve. We can rest assured that the Judge of all the earth will do right, and
as His plan is more fully revealed to us we learn to thank Him for that which
is past and to trust him for that which is future.
It avails nothing, of
course, to say that God foresaw the evil but did not include it in His plan—for
if He foresaw it and in spite of it brought the world into existence, the evil
acts were certainly a part of the plan, although an undesirable part. To deny
this foresight makes God blind; and He would then be conceived of as working
something like the school boy who mixes chemicals in the laboratory not knowing
what may happen. In fact, we could not even respect a God who worked in that
manner. And furthermore, that view still leaves the ultimate responsibility for
sin resting upon God, for at least he could have refrained from creating.
That the sinful acts of
men have their place and a necessary place in the plan is plainly seen in the'
course of history. For instance, the assassination of President McKinley was a
sinful act—yet upon that act depended the role which Theodore Roosevelt was to
playas President of the United States; and if that one link in the chain of
events had been otherwise, the entire course of history from that time to the
end of the world would have been radically different. The same is true in the
case of Lincoln. If God intended that the world should reach this state in
which we find ourselves today, those events were indispensable. A moment's consideration
will convince us that all of even the apparently insignificant events have
their exact place, that they start rapidly growing influences which soon extend to the ends of the earth, and that
if one of them had been omitted, say fifty years ago, the world today would
have been far different.
A further important
proof that Paul taught the doctrine which Calvinists have understood him to
teach is found in the objections which he put in the mouths of his
opponents—that it represented God as unrighteous: "Is there unrighteousness
with God 1" Rom. 9 :14; and, that it destroyed man's responsibility:
"Thou wilt then say unto me, Why doth He still find fault 1 For who
withstandeth His will 1" Rom. 9 :19. These are the very objections which
today, on first thought, spring into men's minds, in opposition to the
Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination; but they have not even the least
plausibility when directed against the Arminian doctrine. A doctrine which does
not afford the least grounds for these objections cannot have been the one that
the Apostle taught.
XVIII. 4. That It Discourages All Motives To Exertion
p. 254 ff
THE objection that the
doctrine of Predestination discourages all motives to exertion, is based on
the fallacy that the ends are determined without reference to the means. It is
not merely a few isolated events here and there that have been foreordained,
but the whole chain of events, with all of their inter-relations and
connections. All of the parts form a unit in the Divine plan. If the means
should fail, so would the ends. If God has purposed that a man shall reap, He
has also purposed that he shall sow. If God has ordained a man to be saved, He
has also ordained that he shall hear the Gospel, and that he shall believe_ and
repent. As well might the farmer refuse to till the soil according to the laws
disclosed by the light of nature and experience until he had first learned what
was the secret purpose of God to be executed in His providence in regard to the
fruitfulness of the coming season, as for anyone to refuse to work in the
moral and spiritual realms because he does not know what fruitage God may bring
from his labor. We find, however, that the fruitage is commonly bestowed where
the preliminary work has been faithfully performed. If we engage in the Lord's
service and make diligent use of the means which He has prescribed, we have the
great encouragement of knowing that it is by these very means that He has
determined to accomplish His great work.
Even those
who accept the Scripture Statements that God "worketh al1 things after the
counsel of His will," and similar declarations to the effect that God's
providential control extends to all the events of their lives. know that this
does not interfere in the slightest with their freedom. Do those who make this
objection allow their belief in the Divine sovereignty to determine their
conduct in temporal affairs? Do they decline food when hungry, or medicine when
sick, because God has appointed the time and manner of their death? Do they
neglect the recognized means of acquiring wealth or distinction because God
gives riches and honor to whom He pleases? When in matters outside of religion
one recognizes God's sovereignty, yet works in the exercise of conscious
freedom, is it not sinful and foolish to offer as an excuse for neglecting his
spiritual and eternal welfare the contention that he is not free and
responsible? Does not his conscience testify that the only reason why he is not
a follower of Jesus Christ is that he has never been willing to fallow Him?
Suppose that when the palsied man was brought to Jesus and heard the words,
"Rise up and walk," he had merely replied, "I cannot; I am
palsied!" Had he done so he would have died a paralytic. But, realizing
his own helplessness and trusting the One who gave the command, he obeyed and
was made whole. It is the same almighty Saviour who calls on sinners dead in
sin to come to Him, and we may be sure that the one who comes will not find his
efforts vain. The fact is, that unless we regard God as the sovereign Disposer
of all events, who in the midst of certainty has ordained human liberty, we
have but little encouragement to work. If we believed that our success and our
destiny was primarily dependent on the pleasure of weak and sinful creatures,
we would have but little incentive to exertion.
"On his knees, the
Arminian forgets those logical puzzles which have distorted Predestination to
his mind and at once thankfully acknowledges his conversion to be due to that
prevenient grace of God, without which no mere will or works of his own would
ever have made him a new creature. He prays for that outpouring of God's Spirit
to restrain, convince, renew, and sanctify men; for that divine direction of
human events, and overturning of the counsels and frustrating of the plans of
wicked men; he gives to the Lord glory and honor for what is actually done in
this regard, which implies that God reigns, that He is the sovereign disposer
of all events, and that all good, and all thwarting of evil are due to Him,
while all evil is itself due to the creature. He recognizes the completeness of
the divine foreknowledge as bound up inseparably with the wisdom of His eternal
purpose. His prayers for assurance of hope, or his present fruition of it presuppose
the faith that God can and will keep his feet from falling and heaven from
revolt, and that His purpose forms such an infallible nexus between present
grace and eternal glory, that nothing shall be able to separate him from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."[42]
Since the future events
are hidden and unknown to us, we should be as industrious in our work and as
earnest in the performance of our duty as if nothing had been decreed
concerning it. It has often been said that we should pray as though everything
depended on God, and work as though everything depended on ourselves. Luther's
observation here was: "We are commanded to work the more for this very
reason, because all things future are to us uncertain; as saith Ecclesiastes,
'In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for
thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they
both shall be alike good,' ,Eccl. 11 :6. All things future, I say are to us
uncertain in knowledge, hut necessary in event. The necessity strikes into us
fear of God that we presume not, or become secure, while the uncertainty works
in us trusting that we sink not into despair."[43]
"The farmer who,
after hearing a sermon on God's decrees, took the break-neck road instead of
the safe one to his home and broke his wagon in consequence, concluded before
the end of the journey that he at any rate had been predestinated to be a fool,
and that he had made his calling and election sure."[44]
On one occasion after Dr. Charles Hodge had
finished a theological lecture he was approached by a lady who said to him,
"So you believe, Dr. Hodge that what is to be will be 1"
"Why, yes, lady, I do,” he replied. "Would you have me believe that
what is to be won't be?"
And we are further
reminded at this point of one in Scotland accused and convicted of murder, who
said to the judge, "I was predestined from all eternity to do it." To
whom the judge replied, "So be it, then I was predestined from all
eternity to order you to be hanged by the neck, which I now do."
Some may be inclined to
say, If nothing but the creative power of God can enable us to repent and
believe, then all we can do is to wait passively until that power is exerted.
Or it may be asked, If we cannot effect our salvation, why work for it? In
every line of human endeavor, however, we find that the result is dependent on
the co-operation of causes over which we have no control. We are simply to make
use of the appropriate means and trust to the co-operation of the other agencies.
We do have the express promise of God that those who seek shall find, that
those who ask shall receive, and that to those who knock it shall be opened.
This is more than is given to the men of the world to stimulate them in their
search for wealth, knowledge, or position; and more than this cannot rationally
be demanded. He who reads and meditates upon the word of God is ordinarily
regenerated by the Holy Spirit, perhaps in the very act of reading. "While
Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the
word," Acts 10:44. Shakespeare makes one of his characters say: "The
fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings,"
(Julius Cæsar, 1 :2).
The sinner's inability
to save himself, therefore, should not make him less diligent in seeking his
salvation in the way which God has appointed. Some leper when Christ was on
earth might have reasoned that since he could not cure himself, he must simply
wait for Christ to come and heal him. The natural effect, however, of a
conviction of utter helplessness is tp impel the person to make diligent
application at the source from whence ,alone help can come. Man is a fallen,
ruined, and helpless creature, and until he knows it he is living without hope and
without God in the world.
2. PRACTICAL RESULTS
The genuine tendency of
these truths is not to make men indolent and careless, but to energize and
stimulate them to redoubled efforts. Heroes and conquerors, such as Cæsar and
Napoleon, have often been possessed with a sense of destiny which they were to
fulfill. This sense steels the nerve, redoubles the courage, and fixes in one
an indomitable purpose to carry his work through to a successful finish. Large
and difficult objects can only be achieved by men who have confidence in
themselves, and who will not allow obstacles to discourage them. "This
idea of destiny once embraced," says Mozley, "as it is the natural
effect of the sense of power, so in its turn adds greatly to it. The person as
soon as he regards himself as predestined to achieve some great object, acts
with so much greater force and constancy for the attainment of it; he is not
divided by doubts, or weakened by scruples or fears; he believes fully that he
shall succeed, and that belief is the greatest assistance to success. The idea
of a destiny in a considerable degree fulfills itself. . . . It must be
observed that this is true of the moral and spiritual, as well as of the
natural man, and applies to religious aims and purposes, as well as to those
connected with human glory."[45]
E. W. Smith, in his
valuable little book, "The Creed of Presbyterians," writes as
follows: "The most comforting and ennobling is also the most energizing of
faiths. That its grim caricature, fatalism, has developed in human hearts an
energy at once sublime and appalling is one of the common-places of history.
The early and overwhelming onrush of Mohammedanism, which swept the East and
all but overthrew the West, was due to its devotees' conviction that in their
conquests they were but executing the decrees of Allah. Attila the Hun was
upborne in his terrible and destructive course by his belief that he was the
appointed 'Scourge of God.' The energy and audacity which enabled Napoleon to
attempt and achieve apparent impossibilities was nourished by the secret
conviction that he was 'the man of destiny.' Fatalism has begotten a race of
Titans. Their energy has been superhuman, because they believed themselves the
instruments of a superhuman power.
"If the grim caricature
of this doctrine bas breathed such energy, the doctrine itself must inspire a
yet loftier, for all that is energizing in it remains with added. force when
for a blind fate, or a fatalistic deity, we substitute a wise, decreeing God.
Let me but feel tbat in every commanded duty, in every needed reform, I am but
working out an eternal purpose of Jehovah; let me but hear behind me, in every
battle for the right, the tramp of the Infinite Reserves; and I am lifted above
the fear of man or the possibility of final failure." (pp. 180, 181).
In an
English newspaper, "The Daily Express," of April 18, 1929, we read
the following concerning Earl Haig, who was Commander-in-Chief of the British
armies in the First World War, and who was a Scotsman and a Calvinistic
Presbyterian: "Most remarkable as regards Haig's own personality is the
disclosure that this reserved, cold, formal man had a profound faith, and in
the greatest crises of the war believed implicitly that help would come from
above, and that he regarded himself as the chosen of the Lord, the Cromwell who
alone could smite the foe. He was genuinely convinced that the position to
which he had now been called was one which he and he alone in the British Army
could fill. It was not conceit. There was no man who was less inclined to
over-estimate his own value or capacity; it was opinion based upon the discernment
of all the factors. He came to regard himself with almost Calvinistic faith as
the predestinated instrument of Providence for the achievement of victory for
the British armies. His abundant self-reliance was reinforced by this
conception of himself as the child of destiny."
The genuine
tendency of these truths, then, as stated before, is not to make men indolent
and careless, nor to lull them to sleep on the lap of presumption and carnal
security, but to energize and to inspire confidence. Both reason and experience
teach us that the greater one's hope of success, the stronger becomes the
motive to exertion. The person who is sure of success in the use of
appropriate means has the strongest of incentives to work, while on the other
hand, where there is but little hope there will be but little disposition for
one to exert himself; and where there is no hope, there will be no exertion.
The Christian, then, who has before him the definite commands of God, and the
promise that the work of those who obediently and reverently avail themselves
of the appointed means shall be blessed, has the highest possible motives for
exertion. Furthermore, he is elevated and inspired by the firm conviction that
he himself is marked out for a heavenly crown.
Who ever stated the
doctrine of election more plainly or in more forcible language than did the
Apostle Paul? And yet who was ever more zealous and more untiring in his labors
than Paul? His theory made him a missionary and impelled him to set forth
Christianity as final and triumphant. How cheering it must have been for him in
Corinth to hear the words, "Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy
peace; for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee; for I
have much people in this city," Acts 18 :10. What greater incentive to
action could have been given him than this, that his preaching was the divinely
appointed means for the conversion of many of those people? Notice, God did not
tell him how many people He had in that city, nor 'who the individuals were.
The minister of the Gospel can go forward confident of success, knowing that
through this appointed means God has determined to save a vast number of the
human family in every age. In fact, one of the strongest pleas for missions is
that evangelism is the will of God for the whole world; and only when one
acknowledges the sovereignty of God in every realm of life can he have the
deepest passion for the Divine glory.
The
experience of the Church in all ages has been that this doctrine ,has led men,
not to neglect, nor to stolid unconcern, nor to rebellious opposition to God,
but to submission and to a sure trust in Divine power. The promise given to
Jacob that his posterity was to be a great people did not in the least prevent
him from using every available means for protection when it looked as though
Esau might kill him and his family. When Daniel understood from the prophecies
of Jeremiah that the time for the restoration of Israel was at hand, he set
himself earnestly to pray for it (Dan. 9 :2, 3). Immediately after it had been
revealed to David that God would establish his house, he prayed earnestly for
that very thing (II Sam. 7 :27-29). Although Christ knew what had been
appointed for His people, He prayed earnestly for their preservation (John, Ch.
17). And although Paul had been told that he was to go to Rome and bear witness
there, it did not in the least cause him to be careless of his life. He took
every precaution to protect himself against an unfair trial by the Jerusalem
mob, and against an unwise voyage (Acts 23:11; 25:10, 11; 27:9,10). The decree
of God was that all those on board the ship should be saved, but that decree
took in the free and courageous and skillful activity of the seamen. Their
freedom and responsibility were not in the least diminished. The practical
effect of this doctrine, then, has been to lead men to frequent and fervent
prayer, knowing that their times are in God's hands and that every event of
their lives is of His disposing.
Furthermore, it may be
said that so long as the sinner remains ignorant of his lost and helpless
condition, he remains negligent. Probably there is not a careless sinner in the
world who does not believe in his perfect ability to turn to God at any time he
pleases; and because of this belief he puts off repentance, fully intending to
come at some more convenient time. Just in proportion as his belief in his own
ability increases, his carelessness increases, and he is lulled to sleep on
the awful brink of eternal ruin. Only when he is brought to feel his entire
helplessness and dependence upon sovereign grace does he seek help where alone
it is to be found.
XIX. 5. That It Represents God as a Respecter of Persons, or as Unjustly Partial
XX. 6. That It Is Unfavorable to Good Morality
XXI. 7. That It Precludes a Sincere Offer of the Gospel to the Non-Elect
XXII. 8. That It Contradicts the Universalistic Scripture Passages
p. 287-291 “It may be
asked, Is not the doctrine of Predestination flatly contradicted by the
Scriptures which declare that Christ died for ‘all men,’ or the ‘the whole
world,’ and that God wills the salvation of all men? In I Tim. 2:3-4 Paul refers to ‘God our Saviour, who would have
all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ (And the word ‘all,’ we are dogmatically
informed by our opponents, must mean every human being.) In Ezekiel 33:11 we read, ‘As I live, saith
the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and
live’; and in II Peter 3:9 we read that
God is ‘not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance.’
“These verses simple
teach that God is benevolent, and that He does not delight in the sufferings of
His creatures any more than a human father delights in the punishment which he
must sometimes inflict upon his son.
God does not decretively will the salvation of all men, no matter how
much He may desire it; and if any
verses taught that He decretively willed or intended the salvation of all men,
they would contradict those other parts of the Scripture which teach that God
sovereignly rules and that it is His purpose to leave some to be
punished." On page 288, he
proceeds to notate the differences between a “will” of degree and that of
“wish” and “desire.”
p. 289ff: “I Cor. 15:22 is probably the one verse most
often quoted by Arminians to refute Calvinism.
There we read, ‘For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be
made alive.’ The verse is, however,
entirely irrelevant. The is from Paul’s
famous resurrection chapter, and the context makes it plain that he is not
talking about life in this age, whether physical or spiritual, but about the
resurrection life. Verses 20and 21
read: ‘But now hath Christ been raised
from the death, the first fruits of them that are asleep. For since by man came death, by man also
came the resurrection of the dead.’
Then follows verse 22, ‘For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall
all be made alive’; and that he refers
not to a regeneration or making alive in the present world but to the new life
which is given in the resurrection is made clear by what follows immediately in
verses 23 and 24, ‘But each in his own order:
Christ the firstfruits; then
they that are Christ’s, at His coming.
Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even
the Father,’ etc. Christ is the first
to enter into the resurrection life, then, when He comes, His people also enter
into the resurrection life. Then comes
the end, that is, the end of the world, and the introduction of heaven in its
fullness; and what Paul says is that at
that time a glorious resurrection life will become a reality for all those who
are in Christ. This is possible because
Christ is their federal head and representative. Through His power all of His people shall be raised to newness of
life with Him. And this point is
illustrated by the well understood fact that the race fell in Adam, who acted
as the federal head and representative of the entire race. What Paul says in effect is this: ‘For as all born in Adam die, so also all
born in Christ shall be made alive.’
Verse 22, then, refers not to something past, nor to something present,
but to something future; and it has no
bearing whatever on the Arminian-Calvanistic controversy.
“It was not the whole
of mankind which was equally loved of God and promiscuously redeemed by
Christ. John’s hymn of praise, 'Unto
Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us to be a kingdom, to be
priests unto His God and Father,' Rev. 1:5, evidently proceeds on the
hypothesis of a definite election and a limited atonement since God's love was
the cause and the blood of Christ the efficacious means of their
redemption. The declaration that Christ
died for 'all' is made clearer by the song which the redeemed now sing before
the throne of the Lamb: 'Thou wast
slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue,
and people, and nation,' Rev. 5:9. The
word all must be understood to mean all the elect, all His church, all those
whom the Father has given to the Son, etc., not all men universally and every
man individually. The redeemed host
will be made up of men from all classes and conditions of life, of princes and
peasants, of rich and poor, of bond and free, of male and female, of young and
old, of Jews and Gentiles, men of all nations, and races, from north to south,
and from east to west…."
p.291-296: "The Term ‘World’ Is Used in Various
Senses. When it is said that Christ
died ‘not for our sins only but for the sins of the whole world,’ I John 2:2,
or that He came to ‘save the world,’ John 12:47, the meaning is that not merely
Jews but Gentiles also are included in His saving work; the world as a world or the race as a race
is to be redeemed. When John the
Baptist said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world’ he
was not giving a theological discourse to saints, but preaching to
sinners; and the unnatural thing then
would have been for him to have discussed Limited Atonement or any other
doctrine which could have been understood only by saints. We are told that John the Baptist “came for a witness, that he might bear witness of
the light, that all might believe through him,’ John 1:7. But say that John’s ministry afforded an
opportunity for every human being to have faith in Christ would be
unreasonable. John never preached to
the Gentiles. His mission was to make
Christ ‘manifest to Israel,’ John 1:31;
and in the nature of the case only a limited number of the Jews could be
brought to hear him.
"Sometimes the
term 'world' is used when only a large part of the world is meant, as when it
is said that the Devil is 'the deceiver of the whole world,' or that 'the whole
earth' wonders after the beast, Rev. 13:3.
If in I John 5:19, 'We know that we are of God, and the whole world
lieth in the evil one,' the author meant every individual of mankind, then he
and those to whom he wrote were also in the evil one, and he contradicted
himself in saying that they were of God.
Sometimes this term means only a relatively small part of the world, as
when Paul wrote to the new Christian Church at Rome that their faith was
'proclaimed throughout the whole world,' Rom 1:8. None but believers would praise those Romans for their faith in
Christ, and in fact the world at large did not even know that such a Church
existed at Rome. Hence Paul meant only
the believing world or the Christian Church, which was a comparatively
insignificant part of the real world.
Shortly before Jesus was born, 'There went out a decree from Cæsar
Augustus that all the world should be enrolled … and all went to enroll
themselves,' Luke 2:1-3; yet we know
that the writer had in mind only that comparatively small part of the world
which was controlled by Rome. When it is was said that on the day of Pentecost,
'there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under
heaven,' Acts 2:5, only those nations which were immediately known to the Jews
were intended, for verses 9-11 list those which were represented. Paul says that the Gospel was 'preached in
all creation under heaven,' Col. 1:23.
The goddess Diana of the Ephesians was said to have been worshipped by
'all Asia and the world,' Acts 19:27.
We are told that the famine which came over Egypt in Joseph's time
extended to 'all the earth,' Gen. 41:57.
"In ordinary
conversation we often speak of the business world, the educational world, the
political world, etc., but we do not mean that every person in the world is a
business man, or educated, or a politician….
"Verses like John
3:16, 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life,' give
abundant proof that the redemption which the Jews thought to monopolize is
universal as to space. God so loved the
world, not a little portion of it, but the world as a whole, that He gave His
only begotten Son for its redemption.
And not only the extensity, but the intensity of God's love is made
plain by the little adverb 'so'—God so loved the world, in spite of its
wickedness, that He gave His only begotten Son to die for it. But where is the oft-boasted proof of its
universality as to individuals? This
verse is sometimes pressed to such an extreme that God is represented as too
loving to punish anybody, and so full of mercy that He will not deal with men
according to any rigid standard of justice regardless of their deserts. The attentive reader, by comparing this
verse with other Scripture, will see that some restriction is to be placed on
the word, 'world.' One writer has asked,
'Did God love Pharaoh? (Rom. 9:17). Did
He love the Amalekits? (Ex. 17:14). Did
He love the Canaanites, whom He commanded to be exterminated without mercy?
(Deut. 20:16). Did He love the
Ammonites and Moabites whom He commanded not to be received into the
congregation forever? (Ps. 5:5). Does
He love the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, which He endures with much
long-suffering? (Rom. 9:22). Did He
love Esau? (Rom. 9:13).'
"General
Considerations. Nor does the prophetic
invitation, 'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,' Is. 55:1,
and other references to the same effect, contradict this view; for the majority of mankind are not thirsty
but dead—dead in sin, hopeless and willing servants of Satan, and in no state
to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
The gracious invitation to come to Christ is rejected, not because there
is anything outside their own person which prevents their coming, but because
until they are graciously given a new birth through the agency of the Holy
Spirit they have neither the will nor the desire to accept. It is God who gives this wil land excites
this desire in those who are predestined to life, Rom. 11:7-8; 9:18.
He that will, may come; but a
person who is completely immersed in heathenism, for instance, has no chance to
hear the Gospel offer and so cannot possibly come. 'Faith cometh by hearing;'
and where there is no faith there can be no salvation. Neither can that person come who has heard
the Gospel but who is still governed by principles and desires which cause him
to hate it. He is a bondservant to sin
and acts accordingly. He that will may
escape from a burning building while the stairway is safe; but he that is asleep, or he that does not
think the fire serious enough to flee from, hasn't the will, and perishes in
the flames. Says Clark, 'Arminians are
fond of quoting: "Whosoever will
let him come," or "Whosoever believeth," implying that belief
and decision are wholly the acts of man, and that this is an offset to
sovereign election. True as these
statements are they do not touch the point of the issue. Miles deeper down than this lies the vital
point; viz., how does a man become
willing? If a man is willing he can
certainly choose; but the sinful nature
averse to God must be made, by God's word, by God's grace, by God's spirit, or
by sovereign intervention.'[46] Strictly speaking, these are not divine
offers indiscriminately made to all mankind, but are addressed to a chosen
people and are incidentally heard by others.
"If the words of
I Tim. 2:4, that God 'would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge
of the truth,' be taken in the Arminian sense it follows either that God is
disappointed in His wishes, or that all men without exception are saved. Furthermore, the doctrine that imputes
disappointment to Deity contradicts that class of Scripture passages which
teach the sovereignty of God. His will
in this respect has been the same through the centuries. And if He had willed that the Gentiles
should be saved, why was it that He confined the knowledge of the way of
salvation to the narrow limits of Judea?
Surely no one will deny that He might as easily have made known His
Gospel to the Gentiles as to the Jews.
Where He has not provided the means we may be sure that He has not
designed the ends. The reply of
Augustine to those who advanced this objection is his day is worth
quoting: 'When our Lord complains that
though he wished to gather the children of Jerusalem as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings, but she would not, are we to consider that the will
of God was overpowered by a number of weak men, so that He who was Almighty God
could not do what He wished or willed to do?
If so, what is to become of that omnipotence by which He did whatsoever
pleased Him in Heven and in earth?
Moreover, who will be found so unreasonable as to say that God cannot
convert the evil wills of men, which He pleases, when He pleases, and as He
pleases, to good? Now, when He does
this, He does it in mercy; and when He
doeth it not, in judgment He doeth it not.'
Verses such as I Tim. 2:4 it seems are best understood not to refer to
men individually but as teaching the general truth that God is benevolent and
the He does not delight in the sufferings and death of His creatures….
"As was stated in
the chapter on Limited Atonement there is a sense in which Christ did die for
mankind in general. No distinction is
made as to age or country, character or condition. The race fell in Adam and the race taken in the collective sense
is redeemed in Christ. The work of
Christ arrested the immediate execution of the penalty of sin as it related to
the whole race. His work also brings
many temporal and physical blessings to mankind in general, and lays the
foundation for the offer of the Gospel to all who hear it. These are admitted to be the results of His
work and to apply to all mankind. Yet
this does not mean that He died equally and with the same design for all.
"It is true that
some verses taken in themselves do seem to imply the Arminian position. This, however, would reduce the Bible to a
mass of contradictions; for there are
other verses which teach Predestination, Inability, Election, Perseverance,
etc., and which cannot by any legitimate means be interpreted in harmony with
Arminianism. Hence in these cases the
meaning of the sacred writer can be determined only by the analogy of
Scripture. Since the Bible is the word
of God it is self-consistent.
Consequently if we find a passage which in itself is capable of two interpretations,
one of which harmonizes with the rest of the Scriptures while the other does
not, we are duty bound to accept the former.
It is a recognized principle of interpretation that the more obscure
passages are to be interpreted in the light of the clearer passages, and not vice
versa….
"This [Calvinism]
is the true universalism of the Scriptures—the universal Christianization of
the world and the complete defeat of the forces of spiritual wickedness. This, of course, does not mean that every
individual will be saved, for many are unquestionably lost…. A considerable
number are lost; yet the process of
salvation is to end in a great triumph, and our eyes are yet to behold 'the
glorious spectacle of a saved world.'
The words of Dr. Warfield are very appropriate here: 'The human race attains the goal for which
it was created, and sin does not snatch it out of God's hands; the primal purpose of God with it is
fulfilled; and through Christ, the race
of man, though fallen into sin, is recovered to God and fulfills its original
destiny.'[47]
"So while
Arminianism offers us a spurious universalism, which is at best a universalism
of opportunity, Calvinism offers us the true universalism in the salvation of
the race. And only the Calvinist, with
his emphasis on the doctrines of sovereign Election and Efficacious Grace, can
look to the future confidently expecting to see a redeemed world.
SECTION IV XXIII. Salvation by Grace [ Contents ~ Top ]
THE Bible declares that
the salvation of sinful men Is a matter
of grace. From Eph. 1 :7-10 we learn that the primary purpose of God in the
work of redemption was to display the glory of this divine attribute so that
through succeeding ages th_ intelligent universe might admire it as it is made
known through His unmerited love and boundless goodness to guilty, vile,
helpless creatures. Accordingly all men are represented as sunk in a state of
sin and misery, from which they are utterly unable to deliver themselves. When
they deserved only God's wrath and curse, He deter. mined that He would
graciously provide redemption for them, by sending His own eternal Son to assume
their nature and guilt and to obey and suffer in their stead, and HisHol_
Spirit to apply the redemption purchased by the Son. On the same representative
principle by which Adam's sin is imputed to us, that is, set to our .account in
such a wfJ.y that we are _eld fully responsible for it and suffer the con.
sequences of it, our sin in its turn is imputed to Christ and His righteousness
is imputed to us. This is briefly. yet clearly expressed in the Shorter
CatechisQ1, which says. "Justification is an act of God's free grace,
wherein Ite pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His
sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by
faith alone." Ans. to Q. 33.
We should keep clearly in mind the distinction
between the two covenants: that of works, under which Adam was placed and which
resulted in the fall of the race into sin;
and that of grace, under which Christ was sent as
a Redeemer. As stated in another connection, the Arminian system makes no
essential distinction in principle between the covenant of works and the
covenant of grace, unless it be that God now offers salvation on lower terms
and instead of demanding perfect obedience He accepts only such faith and
evangelical obedience as the crippled sinner is able to render. In that system
the burden of obedience is still thrown upon man himself and his salvation in
the first place depends upon his awn works.
The word
"grace" in its proper sense means the free and undeserved have the
favor of Gad exercised "toward the undeserving, toward sinners. It is same
thing which is given irrespective of any worthiness in man; and to introduce
works as merit into any part of this scheme vitiates its nature and frustrates
its design. Just because it is grace, it is not given on the basis of preceding
merits. As the very name imparts, it is necessarily gratuitous; and since man
is enslaved to sin until it is given, all the merits that he can have prior to
it are bad merits and deserve only punishment, not gifts, or favor. Whatever of
goad men have, that God has given; and what they have not, why, of course, God
has not given it. And since grace is given irrespective of preceding merits, it
is therefore sovereign and is bestowed only on those whom God has selected for
its reception. It is this sovereignty of grace, and not its foresight or the
preparation far it, which places men in God's hands and suspends salvation absolutely
on His unlimited mercy. In this we find the basis for His election or rejection
of particular persons.
Because of His absolute
moral perfection God requires spotless purity and perfect obedience in his
intelligent creatures. This perfection is provided in Christ's spotless
righteousness being imputed to them; and when Gad looks upon the redeemed He
sees them clothed with the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness, not with
anything of their awn. We are distinctly told that Christ suffered as a
substitute, "the just for the unjust"; and when man is encouraged to
think that he awes to same power or art of his own that salvation which in
reality is all of grace, God is robbed of part of His glory. By no stretch of
the imagination can. a man's good works in this life be considered a just
equivalent for the blessings of eternal life. Benjamin Franklin, though by no
means a Calvinist, expressed this idea well when he wrote: "He that for
giving a drink of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a
goad plantation, would be maddest in his demands, compared with those what
think they deserve heaven for the little good they do an earth." We are,
in fact, nothing but receivers; we never bring any adequate reward to Gad, we
are always receiving from Him, and shall be unto all eternity.
2. GOD MAY GIVE OR WITHHOLD GRA:CE AS HE PLEASES
Since Gad has provided
this redemption or atonement at His awn cast, it is His property and He is
absolutely sovereign in choosing what shall be saved through it. There is
nothing more steadily emphasized in the Scripture doctrine of redemption than
its absolutely gracious character. Hence, by their separation from the original
mass, not through any works of their awn but only through the free grace of
God, the vessels of mercy see haw great a gift has been bestowed upon them. It
will be found that many who inherit heaven were much worse sinner& in this
world than were many others who are lost. The doctrine af Predestination cuts
down every self righteous imagination which would detract from the glory of
God. It convinces the one who is saved that he can only be eternally thankful
that God saved him. Hence in the Calvinistic system all boasting is excluded
and that honor and glory which belong to God alone is fully preserved.
"The greatest saint," says Zanchius, "cannot triumph over the
most abandoned sinner, but is led to refer the entire praise of his salvation,
both from sin and hell, to the mere good-will and sovereign purpose of God, who
hath graciously made him to differ from that world which lieth in
wickedness." l
3. SALVATION NOT TO BE EARNED BY MAN
All men naturally feel that they should earn their salvation, and a system which makes some provision in
that (regard readily appeals
to them. But Paul lays the axe to such reasoning when he says, "If there
had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have
been of the law," Gal. 3 :21; and Jesus said to. His disciples, "when
ye shall have done all the things that are commanded of you, say, We are
unprofitable servants; we have done that which it wa_ aur duty to da,"
Luke 17 :10.
Our own righteousness,
says Isaiah, is but as a polluted garment-or, as the King James Version puts
it, as filthy rags-in the sight of Gad (64 :6). And when Isaiah wrote,
"Ha, everyone that thirsteth, came ye to. the waters, and he that hath no
money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and
without price," 55:1, he invited the penniless. the hungry, the thirsty,
to came and take possession aft and enjoy the provision, free of all cast, as
if by right of payment. And to. buy without money must mean that it has already
been produced and provided at the cast of another. The further we advance in
the Christian life, the less we are inclined to. attribute any merit to.
ourselves, and the mare to thank Gad far all. The believer naturally looks forward
to everlasting life, but also lacks backward into the antemundane eternity and
finds in the eternal purpose of divine lave the beginning and the firm
anchorage af his salvation.
If salvation is of
grace, as the Scriptures so. clearly teach, it cannot be of works, whether
actual or foreseen. There is no. merit in believing, far faith itself is a gift
of God. Gad gives His people an inward working of the Spirit in order that they
may believe, and faith is only the act of receiving the preferred gift. It is,
then, only the instrumental cause, and nat the meritariaus cause, af salvatian.
What God laves in us is nat aur awn merits, but His awn gift; far His unmerited
grace precedes aur meritariaus works. Grace is nat merely bestawed when we pray
for it, but grace itself causes us to. pray far its cantinuance and increase.
In the boak af The Acts
we find that the very inceptian af faith itself is assigned to grace (18:27);
anly thase who. were ardained to eternallif_) believed (13:48); and it is God's
prerogative to. apen the heart so that it gives heed to. the gospel (16,:14).
Faith is thus referred to thecouDsels af eternity, the eve_ts in time being
only the aut-
working. Paul attributes
it to. the grace af Gad that we are "His warkmanship, created in Christ
Jesus far gaad works, which Gad afare prepared that we shauld walk in
them," Eph. 2:10. Gaad warks, then, are in no sense the meritariaus
ground, but rather the fruits and proaf af salvation.
Luther taught this same
dactrine when he said af some that "They attribute to. Free-will a very
little indeed, yet they teach us that by tha,t very little we can attain unto.
righteausness and grace. Nar do. they solve that questian, Why does God justify
one and leave another? in any ather way than by asserting the freedam af the
will, and saying, Because the one 'endeavors and the other does not; and God
regards the one for endeavoring, and despises the other for his not
endeavoring; lest, if he did otherwise, lie should appear to, be unjust."1
It is said that Jeremy
Taylali and a companian were once walking dawn a street in Londan when they
came to. Ii drunk mall lying in the gutter. The \)ther man made same
disparaging remark abaut the drunk man. But Jeremy Taylar, pausing and looking
at him, said, "But for the grace af God, there lies Jeremy Taylar I"
The spirit which was in Jeremy TaylQJ";is the spirit which should be in
every sin-rescued Christian. It was repeatedly taught that Israel awed her
separation from the other peaples .af the world nat to. anything gaad ar
desirable in herself, butanly to Gad's graciaus lave faithfully persisted in
despite apastasy, sin, an4 rebellion.
Paul says cancerning
same who. wauld base salvatian on their awn merits, th_t, "gaing abaut to.
establish their own righteausness, they did nat submit themselves to. the
righfeQusness af God," and were, therefare,nat in the Church af Christ. He
makes it plain that "the right_ausnessaf God" is given to. us
thraugh faith, and that we enter heaven pleading anly the merits af Christ.
The reason for this
system of grace is that those who glory should glory in the Lord, and that no
person should ever have occasion to boast over another. The redemp
tion was purchased at an
infinite cost to God Himself, and" therefore it may be dispensed as He pleases
in a purely gracious manner. As the poet has said: "None of the ransomed
ever knew,
How deep were the waters
crossed,
Nor how dark was the
night that the
Lord passed through,
E'er He found His sheep that was
lost."
4. SCRIPTURE TEACHING
Let us now notice some of those
scriptures which teach
that our sins were
imputed to Christ; and then notice some which teach that His righteousness is
imputed to us.
"Surely He hath
borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God and afllicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He
was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of . our peace was upon Him; and
with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on Him the iniquity of
us all," Is. 53:4, 5. "By the knowledge of Hinlself shall my
righteous servant justify many, and He shaH bear their iniquities. . . . . He bare
the sin of many," Is. 53:11, 12. "Him who knew no sin He made to be
sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,"
II Cor. 5 :21. Here both truths are plainly stated, - our sins are set to His
account, and His righteousness to ours. There is no other conceivable sense in
which He could be "made sin," or we "made the righteousness of
God.." It was Christ "who His own self hare our sins in His body upon
the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by
whose stripes we are healed," I Peter 2 :24. Here, again, both truths are
thrown together. "Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the
righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God," I Peter
3:18. These, and many other such verses, prove the doctrine of His substitution
in our stead, as plainly as language can put it. If they do not prove that the
death of Christ was a true and proper sacrifice for sin in our stead, human
language cannot express it.
That His righteousness
is imputed to us is taught in language
equally plain. "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in
His sight. . . But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been
manifested. . . even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
unto all them that believe. . . being justified free_ Iy by His grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a
propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to show His righteousness because of
the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for
the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season; that He might
himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus. Where then
is the glorying' It is excluded. By what manner of law? of works? Nay, but by
the law of faith. We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart
from the works of the law," Rom. 3:20-28. "So then as through one
trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one
act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life.
For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so
through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous,'; Rom. 5:18,
19. Paul's testimony in regard to himself was: "I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be
found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, even that which is of the
law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from
God by faith," Phil. 3:8, 9. Now, is it not strange that anyone who
pretends to be guided by the Bible, could, in the face of all this plain and
unequivocal language, uphold salvation by works, in any degree whatever?
Paul wrote to the
Romans, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under law,
but under grace," 6 :14. That is, God had taken them out from under a sys
tem of law and had placed them under a system of grace; and as their Sovereign,
it was not His purpose to let them again fall under the dominion of sin. In
fact, if they were to faIl, it could only be because God had taken them ()ut
from under grace and again placed them under law, so that their own works
determined their destiny. In the very
nature of the case as long as the person is under grace he is entirely free from any claim
that the law may have on him through sin. For one to be saved through grace
means that God is no longer treating him as he deserves but that He has
sovereignly set the law aside and that He saves him in spite of his
ill-desert,-c1eansing him from his sin, of course, before he is fit to enter
the divine presence.
Paul ,goes to great
pains to make it clear that the grace of God is not earned by us, is not
secured by us in any way, but is just given to us. If it be. earned, it ceases
by that very fact to be grace, Rom. 11 :6.
5. FURTHER REMARKS
In the present state of
the race all men stand before God, not as citizens of a state, all of whom must
be treated alike and given the same "chance" for salvation, but
rather as guilty and condemned criminals before a righteous judge. None have
any claim to salv.ation. The marvel is, not that God doesn't save all, but
that when _ll are guilty He pardons so many; and the answer to the ques-. tion_
Why does He not save all? is to be found, not in the Arminian denial of the
omnipotence of His grace, but in the fact that, as Dr. Warfield says, "God
in His love saves as many of the guilty race of man as He can get the consent
of His whole nature to save."! For re.asons known to Himself He sees that
it is not best to pardon all, but that some should be permitted to have their
own way and be left to eternal punishrllent in order that it may be shown what
an awful thing is sin and rebellion against God.
Time and again the
Scriptures repeat the assertion that salvation is of grace, as if anticipating
the difficulty which men would have in coming to the conclusion that they could
not earn salvation by their own works. Thus also they destroy the widespread
notion that God owes salvation to any. "By grace have ye been saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift ot God; not of works,
that no man should glory," Eph. 2:8, 9. "But if it is of grace, it is
no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace," Rom. 11 :6. "By
the works of the law shall no flesh be justified," Rom. 3 :20. "Now
to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of
debt," Rom. 4:4. "Who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou that
thou didst not receive?" I Cor. 4:7. "By the grace of God I am what I
am," I Cor. 10 :15. "Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be
recompensed unto him again?" Rom. 11 :35. "The free gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord," Rom. 6:23.
Grace and works are
mutually exclusive; and as well might we try to bring the two poles together as
to effect a coalition of grace and works in salvation. As well might we talk of
a "purchased gift," as to talk of "conditional grace," for
when grace ceases to be absolute it ceases to be grace. Therefore when the
Scriptures say that salvation is of grace we are to understand that it is
through its whole process the work of God and that any truly meritorious works
done by man are the result of the change which has already been wrought.
Arminianism destroys
this purely gracious character of salvation and substitutes a system of grace
plus works. No matter how small a part these works may play they are necessary
and are the basis of the distinction between the saved and the lost and would
then afford occasion for the saved to boast over the lost since each had equal
opportunity. But Paul says that all boasting is excluded, and that he who
glories should glory in the Lord (Rom. 3 :27; I Cor. 1 :31). But if saved by
grace, the redeemed remembers the mire from which he was lifted, and his
attitude toward the lost is one of sympathy and pity. He knows that but for the
grace of God he too would have been in the same state as those who perish, and
his song is, "Not unto us, 0 Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give
glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake."
XXIV. Personal Assurance That One Is Among the Elect
XXV. Predestination in the Physical World
XXVI. A Comparison with the Mohammedan Doctrine of Predestination
1. Elements Which the Two Doctrines Have in
Common. 2. Mohammedan Tendency Toward Fatalism. 3. Christian Doctrine Not
Derived From Mohammedanism. 4. The Two Doctrines Contrasted.
1. ELEMENTS WHICH THE TWO DOCTRINES HAVE IN COMMON
WHILE Mohammedanism is a
false religion and , utterly
destitute of power to save the soul from sin,
there are certain
elements of truth in the system, and we are under obligation to honor truth
regardless of the source from which it comes. "The strength of Mohammedanism,"
says Froude, "was that it taught the omnipotence and omnipresence of one
eternal Spirit, the Maker and Ruler of all things, by whose everlasting purpose
an things were, and whose will all things must obey.". The striking
similarity between the Biblical and the Koranic doctrines of Predestination has
Deen noticed by many writ
erg. Dr. Samuel M.
Zwemer, who in a very real sense can be referred to as "the apostle to the
Mohammedan world," calls attention to the strange parallel between the
Reformation in Europe under Calvin and that in Arabia under Mohammed. Says
he: "Islam is indeed in many respects the Calvinism of the Orient. It,
too, was a call to acknowledge the sovereignty of God's will. 'There is no god
but God.' It, too, aaw in nature and sought in revelation the majesty
of God's presence and
power, and manifestations of His
glory, transcendent and
omnipotent. 'God,' says Mohammed,
'there is no god but He,
the living, the self-subsistent,
slumber seizeth Him not,
nor sleep - His throne embraceth the heavens and the earth and none can intercede
with Him
save by His permission.
He alone is exalted and great' . . . .
It is this vital
theistic principle that explains the victory of Islam over the weak divided and
idolatrous Christendom of the Orient
in the sixth century. . . . The Message of Mohammed, when he first unfurled the green
banner, 'There is no god but God; God is king, and you must and shall obey His
will,' was one of the simplest accounts ever offered of the nature of God and His
relation to man . . . . This was Islam, as it was offered at the
sword's point to people who had lost the power of understanding any other
argument."1
In addition to the Koran
there are a number of orthodox traditions which claim to give Mohammed's
teachings on the subject. Some of these tell in almost identical language how
before the person is bom an angel descends and writes his dest1ny. It is said
that the angel inquires, "0 my Lord, miserable or blessed? whereupon one
or the other is written down; and: Omy Lord, a male or a female? whereupon one
or the other is written down. He also writes down the moral conduct of the new
being, its career, its term of life, and its allotment of good. Then (it is
said to him): Roll up the leaves, for no addition shall be made thereto, nor
anything taken therefrom." In another tradition we read of a messe:pger of
God speaking thus: "There is no one of you - there is no soul born
whose place, whether Paradise or Hell, has not been predetermined by God, and
which has not been registered beforehand as either miserable or blessed."1
But while the Koran and
the traditions teach a strict foreordination of moral conduct and future
destiny, they also present a doctrine of human freedom which makes it necessary
for us to qualify the sharper assertions of divine Predestination in harmony
with it. And here, too, as in the Scriptures, no attempt is made to explain how
the apparently opposite truths of Divine sovereignty and human freedom are to
be reconciled.
…. second causes are
practically excluded. The idea that man is in any way the cause of his own acts
bas nearly ceased to exist, and Fatalism, the normal belief of the Arabs in
their state of semi -civilization before Mohammed, is the controlling force in
the speculations and practices of the Moslem world. "According to these
traditions," says Dr. Zwemer, "and the interpretation of them for
more than ten centuries in the life of Moslems, this kind of Predestination
should be called Fatalism and nothing else. For Fatalism is the doctrine of an
inevitable necessity and implies an omnipotent and arbitrary sovereign power."l
Practically,
Mohammedanism holds to a predestination of ends regardless of means. The
contrast with the Christian system is.seen in the following story. A ship
crowded with Englishmen and Mohammedans was ploughing through the waves.
Accidentally one of the passengers fell overboard. The Mohammedans looked after
him with indifference, saying, "If it is written in the book of destiny
that he shall be saved, he shall be saved without us; and if it is written that
he shall perish, we can do nothing"; and with that they left him. But the
EngUshmen said, "Perhaps it is written that we should save him." They
threw him a rope and he was saved.
3. CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE NOT DERIVED
FROM MOHAMMEDANISM
But whatever may be said
about the doctrine of Predestination, no reasonable person will charge that
the Christian doctrine is borrowed from the Mohammedan. Augustine, who is
admitted by Protestants and Catholics alike to have been the outstanding man in
the Chri,stian Church at his time, and whom Protestants rate as the greatest
between Paul and Luther, had taught this doctrine with great conviction more
than two centuries before Mohammedanism arose; and it was aggressively taught
by Christ and the apostles at the beginning of the Christian era, to say nothing
of the place which it occupied in the Old Testament.
A study of the history
and teachings of Mohammedanism reveals that it is made up of three parts, one
of which was borrowed from the Jews, another from the Christians, and the third
from the heathen Arabs. Hence a part of the system is nothing more nor less
than Christianity at second hand. But would any reasonable Christian give up
certain articles of his creed only because Mohammed adopted them in his? What
weat gaps such conduct would make in our creed can be seen when we le'8rn that
Mohammed believed in only one true God, that he utterly abolished all idol
worship, that he believed in angels, a general resurrection andJ udgment, a
heaven and hell, that he allowed both the Old and New Testaments, and recognized
both Moses and Christ as prophets of God. It is small wonder, then, that
elements of the Christian doctrine of Predestination were incorporated into the
Mohammedan system and united with the heathen doctrine of Fatalism.
Furthermore, an
historical study of this subject shows us that the Mohammedans have had their
sort of Arminians as truly as we, and that the questions of Predestination and
Free Will. have J>een agitated among the Mohammedan doctors with as much
heat and vehemence as ever they were in Christendom. The Turks of the sect of
Oma!" hold the doctrineo.f absolute Predestination, while the Persians of
the sect of AU deny Predestination and assert Free Will with as much fervor as
any Arminian.
4. THE TWO DOCTRINES CONTRASTED
Although the terms used in describing the Reformed
and the Mohammedan doctrines of Predestination have much similarity the results
of their reasoning are as far apart as the East is from the West.. In fact, the
further investigation proceeds the more superficial does the resemblance
become. Their greatest resemblance seems to be in the teachings of each that
everything which occurs happens according to the will of God. Yet very
different ideas are meant by 'the "will of God." Islam reduces God to
a category of the will and makes Him a despot, an oriental despot, who stands
at abysmal heights above humanity. He cares nothing for character, but only
for submission. The only affair of men is to obey His decrees, s_ that, as
Zanchius says, Predestination becomes Ua sort. of blind, rapId, overbearinar
impetus,. which, right or wrong, with mean$ or without, carries all things
violently before it, with little or no attention to the peculiar and respective
nature of second causes." And concerning human freedom Dr. Zwemer says
that in the doctrine of Islam, "God's omnipotence is so absolute that it
excludes all self-activity on the part of the creature. . . . Whatever freedom
is permitted is only 'under the term Kasb; that is, the appropriation of an act
as his own which, after all, he is compelled to execute as a part of God's
will."
The Koran and orthodox
traditions have practically nothing to say about the concepts of sin and moral
responsibility, and the morality of the Mohammedan system is notoriously
defective. In Islam it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that God is the
author of sin. The origin. of sin and its character are wholly different
concepts in Islam and in ,Christianity.
In Islam there is no
doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and no purpose of redemption to soften the
doctrine of the decrees. God is represented as having arbitrarily created one
group of people for paradise and another group for hell, and the events of
every person's life are so ordered that little place is left for moral
responsibility and guilt. They deny that there has been any election in Christ
to grace and glory, and that Christ died a sacrificial death for his people.
They have nothing to say about the efficacy of saving grace or about
perseverance, and even in regard to the predestination of temporal events the
ideas are often gross and confused. The attribute of love is absent from
Allah. The ideas that God should love us or that we should love God are strange
ideas to Islam, and the Koran hardly hints at this subj ect of which the Bible
is so full.
In conclusion it may be
said that the Arminian creed has little appeal for the Mohammedan. So far as
mission work is concerned, the Calvinistic churches entered the world of Islam
earlier and more vigorously than any other group of churches, and for more than
one hundred years they and they alone have challenged Islam in the land of its
birth. They have occupied the strategic centers and today are carrYing on far
the larger part of the mission work in the Moslem world. With God's'
sovereignty as basis, God's glory as goal, and God's will as motive, the
Presbyterian and Reformed churches are peculiarly fitted to win Moslem hearts
to the allegiance of Christ, and are facing, with bright hopes of success, that
most difficult of all missionary tasks, the evangelization of the Moslem world.
SECTION V XXVII. The Practical Importance of the Doctrine
SECTION VI XXVIII. Calvinism in History
p. 367-368: "Melanchthon in his earlier writings
designated the principle of Predestination as the fundamental principle of
Christianity. He later modified this
position, however, and brought in a kind of 'synergism' in which God and man
were supposed to co-operate in the process of salvation. This position taken by the early Lutheran
Church was gradually modified. Later
Lutherans let go the doctrine altogether, denounced it in its Calvinistic form,
and came to hold a doctrine of universal grace and universal atonement.