[PDF Version HERE]
Joshua D. Engelsma
[Source: Protestant
Reformed Theological Journal, vol. 45, no. 2 (April 2012), pp. 68–102]
I. Introduction
Janus has raised his two-faced head again.
Janus was a Roman god with two faces, each looking in the
opposite direction. Herman Hoeksema famously described the teaching of the
well-meant offer as a modern-day Janus:
For, the fact is, that the first
point [of the Synod of Kalamazoo, in which is contained the well-meant
offer—JDE] reminds one of the two-faced head of Janus. Janus was a Roman idol,
distinguished by the remarkable feature of having two faces and looking in two
opposite directions. And in this respect there is a marked similarity between
old Janus and the first point. The latter is also two-faced and casts wistful
looks in opposite directions. And the same may be asserted of the attempts at
explanation of the first point that are offered by the leaders of the Christian
Reformed Churches. Only, while the two faces of old heathen Janus bore a
perfect resemblance to each other, the Janus of 1924 has the distinction of
showing two totally different faces. One of his faces reminds you of Augustine,
Calvin, and Gomarus; but the other shows the unmistakable features of Pelagius,
Arminius, and Episcopius. And your troubles begin when you would inquire of
this two-faced oracle, what may be the exact meaning of the first point. For,
then this modern Janus begins to revolve, alternately showing you one face and
the other, till you hardly know whether you are dealing with Calvin or
Arminius.1
This Janus has a long history.2 There
were traces of the well-meant offer of the gospel already in the teachings of
the Semi-Pelagians of Augustine’s day. But the teaching was especially
propounded in the seventeenth century in the school of Saumur, France. From
there it spread to the British Isles as well as to the Netherlands. In this way
the two main branches of Reformed orthodoxy, Presbyterianism and the Dutch
Reformed tradition, were affected by this teaching. The idea of the well-meant
offer was then carried over to the United States, where it has gained wide
acceptance. Today, the notion of a well-meant offer of salvation is generally
considered to be a hallmark of Reformed orthodoxy. There remain only a few
isolated voices that condemn this teaching. But those voices are virtually
drowned out by ardent defenders of the offer.
Especially within the last century much ink has been
spilled debating the issue of the well-meant offer of the gospel. The battle
has been fierce, and neither side has seemed to budge. What is the reason,
then, for undertaking another study of this issue? Is there something new that
can be contributed to the debate?
We believe that there is.
R. Scott Clark, professor of historical and systematic
theology at Westminster Seminary (CA) and a noted theologian, has recently
proposed a new approach to the debate. In an essay entitled “Janus, the
Well-Meant Offer of the Gospel, and Westminster Theology,” Clark makes an
appeal to the distinction made in Reformed theology between archetypal and ectypal knowledge. On the basis of this distinction, as well as on
the underlying view of the believer’s knowledge of God, Clark defends the
well-meant offer of the gospel. Clark is convinced that by grounding the offer
in this widely-accepted distinction he places the well-meant offer on an
unshakeable foundation. He is also convinced that this will lead to more
profitable discussions between the two sides in the debate.
Since the nature of divine-human
relations is fundamental to the recovery and re-expression of the well-meant
offer, a consideration of the rise and function of the basic assumption on
which the well-meant offer is based also offers avenues for
discussion between the proponents and opponents of the well-meant offer.3
In this essay we take up Clark’s offer. We intend to show
that the ground on which Clark builds the well-meant offer is exceedingly
shaky. In fact, we are convinced that the foundation is entirely out of line
with Scripture and Reformed orthodoxy. We hope to show that Clark’s
understanding of the distinction between archetypal and ectypal knowledge is
mistaken and that his view of the relationship between the Creator and the
creature is incorrect. By pulling out the root of Clark’s argument we intend to
pull out also the fruit (the well-meant offer). We intend to show that a denial
of the well-meant offer is not a denial of the archetypal/ectypal distinction.
Rather, a proper understanding of this distinction is in complete harmony with
a denial of the well-meant offer. In conclusion we will affirm the truth that
God’s call is general but the promise is particular. This, we are convinced, is
Reformed. And this, we believe, is biblical.
II. Theology of the Well-Meant Offer
The well-meant offer of the gospel is considered by most
denominations and theologians today to be squarely in keeping with the
historic Reformed faith. There are only a few denominations (the Protestant
Reformed Churches, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia4), groups (the Trinity Foundation), and
individuals (John H. Gerstner5) who
have rejected the free offer. Almost all other denominations adhere to the free offer in their
preaching and teaching, if not in their official declarations.6
A. The Offer
But what is the well-meant offer of the gospel?
Negatively, the well-meant offer is not simply the
teaching that the gospel must be preached to all promiscuously. The promiscuous
and indiscriminate preaching of the gospel is not the issue between the defenders
of the free offer and those who oppose it. Both sides are agreed that the
gospel must be preached to all and sundry. At times this has been understood to
be the chief difference between the two sides. We say again, this is not the
issue in the debate over the well-meant offer. The well-meant offer is not
simply a defence of the promiscuous preaching of the gospel over against those
who deny that this must be done. The opponents of the well-meant offer believe
emphatically that the gospel must be preached to all and sundry.7
They are committed to Canons II:5:
… This promise,
together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and
published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without
distinction, to whom God out of his good pleasure sends the gospel.8
Very simply, the well-meant offer teaches that in the
preaching of the gospel God expresses His earnest and sincere desire to save
all who hear. Those to whom the gospel comes are all sinners. We cannot know
whether they are elect or reprobate. But to all, both elect and reprobate, the
offer comes. In the gospel God invites all men to repent and believe on Jesus
Christ and to come to Him for salvation. Behind this invitation or offer is an
earnest desire of God that the invitation be accepted by all who hear. God
desires that all who hear be saved. In this offer God expresses His love for
all who come under the preaching. Although many eventually reject this offer,
this does not change the attitude of the loving God who sends it.
B. Starting
Points
One of the classic lines of defence for defenders of the
well-meant offer of the gospel is an appeal to the theory of common grace.
Common grace, it is said, is an expression of God’s grace to all His creatures,
including all men. He expresses this grace, it is claimed, in sunshine, rain,
and all the other good gifts that He gives to men. If it is true that God’s
grace is revealed to all in the giving of these physical gifts, how much more
is His grace revealed in the giving of spiritual
gifts, not least of which is the preaching of the gospel? The preaching is to
everyone who hears what the sunshine and rain are to every farmer: grace. This was the argument used by the
Synod of Kalamazoo in its First
Point. This was also the line of argumentation used by John Murray. The
first text that he gave as proof for the well-meant offer was Matthew 5:44-48,
which speaks of God sending rain and sunshine upon the earth. Murray admits,
“This passage does not indeed deal with the overtures of grace in the gospel.
But it does tell us something regarding God’s benevolence that has bearing upon
all manifestations of divine grace.”9 Murray
goes on to say that this same benevolence that is seen in things
like rain and sunshine is also expressed in the preaching of the gospel. Erroll
Hulse is correct, therefore, when he writes, “The subject of common grace is
inescapably connected with the free offer.”10
Another classic line of defence for many proponents of
the free offer has been to ground this teaching in the distinction between the
will of God’s decree and the will of God’s command.11 This
distinction has often been referred to as the distinction between God’s hidden
will and his revealed will.12 Briefly,
the will of God’s decree refers to
God’s eternal determination of all things that would take place in time and
history. The will of God’s command
declares what God will have His rational, moral creatures to do. Those who
appeal to this distinction argue in the following manner. They say that
according to the will of God’s decree He wills that only the elect be saved.
However, according to the will of God’s command He wills that all those who
come under the preaching of the gospel be saved. In this way, they claim, the
Reformed doctrine of sovereign, unconditional election and the idea of a
well-meant offer of salvation are both maintained.
This was already an argument proposed in favour of the
free offer by Amyraut in the Seventeenth Century.13 Many
modern defenders of the offer have used this same argument also. For example,
John Murray writes,
It should have been apparent
that the aforesaid Committee [of the Thirteenth General Assembly of the
OPC—JDE], in predicating such ‘desire’ of God [to save all men—JDE], was not
dealing with the decretive will of God; it was dealing with the free offer of
the gospel to all without distinction and that surely respects,
not the decretive or secret will of God, but the revealed will.
Murray goes on to say, “It must be
admitted that if the expression were intended to apply to the decretive will of
God then there would be, at least, implicit contradiction.”14 Erroll Hulse writes similarly,
The scriptures
indicate that we are obliged to distinguish carefully between God’s revealed
will and his decretive or secret will (Deut. 29:29). God’s revealed will is
that all are to be addressed with the Gospel. The salvation of all without
exception is to be attempted.15
Almost without fail, those who ground the idea of a free
offer of the gospel in the two wills of God fall back upon “paradox” or “apparent
contradiction.” For example, Joseph Hall writes,
Thus when God’s Word affirms
both election and the well-meant offer of the gospel, proper theological
methodology bids us simply to believe God’s revelation and act upon these
truths according to the measure of revelation given to us. We do not claim to
comprehend fully all that his Word teaches us. To fail to proceed along this
path is sheer hubris.16
Cornelis Venema speaks similar language:
The supposed contradiction
between God’s sovereign decree of election and the well-meant offer of the
gospel is what Cornelius Van Til properly termed an ‘apparent contradiction,’
something mysterious to us but known by God to be fully harmonious and
consistent.17
Defenders of the offer sense the difficulty that this
argument poses to the human mind. They sense the difficulty that exists in
saying that in one sense God desires only the salvation of the elect and in
another sense He desires the salvation of all men, both elect and reprobate,
who hear the gospel. This difficulty for the human mind is explained as a
paradox or apparent contradiction. They are careful to say that
the contradiction is only apparent, that it is only paradoxical to us but it is
not paradoxical to God. R. B. Kuiper explains that “when two truths, both
taught unmistakably in the infallible Word of God, cannot possibly be
reconciled before the bar of human reason, then you have a paradox.”18 Both ideas must be maintained, even if they are judged to be
contradictory before the bar of human reason.
Recently there has been proposed a new line of
argumentation in defence of the well-meant offer of the gospel. This new
argument has been proposed by R. Scott Clark, professor at Westminster Seminary
(CA). To a festschrift for Robert Strimple entitled The Pattern of
Sound Doctrine, Clark contributes an essay on “Janus, the Well-Meant Offer
of the Gospel, and Westminster Theology” in which he defends the free offer.
In this essay Clark enters upon new ground in the debate
over the well-meant offer. While Clark makes use of the distinction between
God’s hidden and revealed will, this is not his main line of defence. Instead,
Clark grounds the teaching of the well-meant offer in the little-known
distinction between archetypal knowledge or theology (theologia archetypa)
and ectypal knowledge or theology (theologia ectypa).
Before going further, we do well to come to a basic
understanding of this distinction.19 The
word archetype means “pattern in an ultimate sense.”20 Simply
put, archetypal knowledge is theology as God knows it. The term
refers to God’s infinite, perfect self-knowledge. It is knowledge that the
triune God has of Himself apart from any creature. This knowledge of God is the
ultimate pattern of all knowledge. The word ectype means “copy or
reflection of the archetype or ultimate pattern.”21 Ectypal knowledge is theology as we know and do it. It is the
knowledge that we humans have of God. More specifically, ectypal knowledge is
the knowledge that the believer and the church have of God by
means of revelation.
On this archetypal/ectypal distinction Clark builds his
defence of the well-meant offer. He writes,
This essay contends that the
reason the well-meant offer has not been more persuasive is that its critics
[among whom Clark lists Herman Hoeksema and the Protestant Reformed Churches,
Gordon Clark and his followers, and John Gerstner—JDE] have not understood or
sympathized with the fundamental assumption on which the doctrine of the
well-meant offer was premised: the distinction between theology as God knows it
(theologia archetypa) and theology as it is revealed to and done by us (theologia
ectypa).22
Clark proceeds to prove his assertion that opponents of
the free offer have denied this distinction, thus resulting in a denial also of
the free offer. After claiming that Gordon Clark denied this distinction, Clark
says something similar regarding Herman Hoeksema: “The best interpretation of
Hoeksema’s language is that it was an implicit rejection of the
archetypal/ectypal distinction.” Later he writes that Hoeksema “argued against
the substance of the archetypal/ectypal distinction.”23 Clark
bases this claim on the fact that Hoeksema made God the principium
cognoscendi, rather than Scripture, as Louis Berkhof did. Clark
writes,
This is a significant
difference. Berkhof’s doctrine of the knowledge of God began with revelation.
Hoeksema, however, began not with revelation, but with God himself as the
beginning of knowledge. This move suggests a sort of intellectualism, that is,
an intersection between our mind and God’s, in Hoeksema’s theology. At one
point he nodded politely to the Creator-creature distinction, but elsewhere he
argued against the substance of the archetypal/ectypal distinction, and the
historical record is that his rhetoric against the well-meant offer tended to
militate against the distinction.24
On this question Clark lumps together the opponents of
the free offer and the Arminians. He claims that the issue at Dordt and the
issue today is the rejection of this distinction.25 In
his conclusion he says, “It would appear that, like the Remonstrants, the
critics of the well-meant offer have misunderstood, rejected, or ignored this
distinction and its implications for the nature of divine-human relations,
biblical revelation, and theological method.”26
According to Clark, the archetypal/ectypal distinction
has a long history in the Reformed tradition. There are traces of the
distinction already in Luther and his distinction between God hidden (Deus absconditus) and God revealed (Deus revelatus). There is evidence of
this distinction as well in Calvin’s writings, especially when he distinguishes
between God’s hidden and revealed will. The Reformed theologian Franciscus
Junius (1545-1602) was the first to make this distinction explicitly.27 Other
Reformed men such as Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), Johannes Wollebius
(1586-1629), Louis Berkhof (1873-1957), and Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) all
held to this distinction as well.
While Berkhof and Van Til both held to the
archetypal/ectypal distinction and the free offer of the gospel, Clark is the
first to make an explicit connection between the two. He claims that the free
offer is the “corollary” of the archetypal/ectypal distinction.28 Although
he does not state clearly what he means by this distinction and
how it correlates to the well-meant offer, Clark does leave enough clues to form
an accurate picture of what he means. It seems that Clark understands the
distinction to mean that God’s knowledge of Himself and all things (archetypal
knowledge) has no point of contact with our knowledge of Him (ectypal
knowledge). What we might know about God may not be what is actually true of
God in Himself. What God knows about something may actually be quite different
from what we know about the same thing.
It is fairly clear, then, how the well-meant offer fits
with this understanding of the archetypal/ectypal distinction. God knows that
He has determined to save only the elect (archetypal knowledge). But, according
to Clark, God has revealed to us and we know that he desires the salvation of
all who hear the gospel (ectypal knowledge). According to Clark this is the
orthodox Reformed position. This is one of “the paradoxes of the orthodox
Reformed soteriology.”29 Clark
writes, “The fact of the decree [of predestination—JDE] is presupposed in and
animates the well-meant offer, but since its contents are archetypal, we are
shut up to ectypal theology of which the well-meant offer is correlative.”30 We
are shut up to the teaching that God desires the salvation of all men who hear
the gospel, according to Clark.
III. Refutation of R.
Scott Clark’s Starting Point
With this view of Clark we cannot agree. Not only are we
convinced that the well-meant offer he is defending is contrary to Scripture
and the Reformed confessions as well as historic Reformed orthodoxy, we are
also convinced that he grounds his view of the offer in a wrong understanding
of the distinction between archetypal and ectypal knowledge.
A.
Archetypal/Ectypal Distinction
Clark is mistaken when he asserts that opponents of the
free offer ignore or deny the distinction between archetypal and ectypal knowledge.
This is not the case, at least in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Neither is
Clark correct in saying that Herman Hoeksema, by virtue of his
rejection of “Janus,” was also rejecting this distinction. What is true is that
opponents of the free offer, including the PRC, reject the archetypal/ectypal
distinction as Clark presents it. The PRC hold to a distinction between
archetypal and ectypal knowledge, a distinction very different from Clark’s,
however. Their understanding of this distinction, we believe, is in harmony
with that of historic Reformed orthodoxy. Clark’s is not.
Clark grounds his defence of the well-meant offer of the
gospel in a wrong understanding of the distinction between archetypal and
ectypal knowledge. Although he does not clearly define what he understands this
distinction to mean, it is clear that he believes that the ectype, our
knowledge of God, can and must be different from the archetype, God’s knowledge
of Himself. For Clark, there is not only a quantitative difference
between God’s knowledge and ours, there is also a qualitative difference.
In other words, God not only knows infinitely more than we do, but the
knowledge God has is entirely different from ours. The knowledge that He
has of one thing can be completely different from the knowledge that we have of
the same thing by means of revelation. Sean Gerety is correct, therefore, when
he concludes that “for Clark the archetype/ectype distinction provides a
complete break between the content of God’s knowledge and knowledge possible to
man.”31
This is not the proper understanding of this distinction.
The proper understanding of this distinction can be summed up rather briefly: quantitative
difference. The knowledge that God has is distinguished from the knowledge
that we have as regards quantity. God is infinite, and so is His
knowledge of Himself and all things. Our knowledge, by comparison, is finite.
God’s knowledge is intuitive. Ours is acquired. There is now and forever shall
be in heaven an infinite gulf between the quantity of our knowledge and God’s.
But we must not assume that there is a qualitative difference
between God’s knowledge and the knowledge that we have of things. The
knowledge that we have is received by revelation. God revealed Himself
to us in His Word. That Word is the source of all the believer’s knowledge. And
that Word is infallible, sufficient, and reliable. God reveals to us in His
Word who He really is and what He has sovereignly decreed. We may not know
everything there is to know about God, but the knowledge God has given to us in
Scripture is identical to the knowledge that God Himself has. If this is not
our confession, then we have absolutely no assurance that what we know is the
truth. We may think something is true, we may hope that it is true, but we have
no certainty that it is actually true. We cannot know whether our knowledge of
something is the same as God’s knowledge.
The fact that our knowledge is qualitatively the
same as God’s is in harmony with Deuteronomy 29:29, the chief passage on which
the archetypal/ectypal distinction is based. There we read, “The secret things
belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which
are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the
words of this law.” This passage is not saying that the ectype is different
from the archetype. Rather, Moses is telling the people not to pry into the
things that God has not revealed but to observe all that God has revealed in
His law. Applied to the call of the gospel, this verse tells us that we are not
to pry into the hearts of men to see whether they are elect or not, but we are
to confine ourselves to what God has revealed, namely, that all who repent and
believe will be saved. And Scripture is clear that only the elect truly repent
and believe. There is no antimony or apparent contradiction taught in this
passage.
Clark’s appeal to other Reformed theologians in support
of his view of this distinction is shaky at best. His appeals to Luther and Calvin
are not of any weight because neither of them was concerned with this
distinction. His quotations from Junius, Polanus, and Wollebius are also
inconclusive. All that is clear is that they all made this distinction. What is
not clear is that they viewed this distinction exactly as Clark does. Sean
Gerety concludes,
Finally, it is not at all clear
from Clark’s contribution … that he even understands the archetype/ectype
distinction as it has been understood throughout Reformed history, simply
because, and at least in light of the citations he provides from Calvin,
Luther, and others, there is nothing in these early expressions of the
archetype/ectype distinction that is at all at odds with the views of Gordon
Clark, Herman Hoeksema, or other opponents of the so-called “well-meant offer”
… In virtually all of Clark’s discussion of the archetype/ectype distinction,
with the possible exception of Junius, Reformed theologians clearly had
something entirely different in mind from what we find expressed in Van Til’s
Creator/creature distinction and his complete denial of any univocal point of
contact between God’s thoughts and man’s even as we find them revealed in
Scripture. Clark is reading Reformed history though [sic] Van Tilian
lenses. … Clark’s understanding of the archetype/ectype distinction is an
historic novelty.32
Noted Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper held to
the proper view of this distinction. Although he was the one who conceived of
the idea of common grace to which many defenders of the free offer appeal,
Kuyper himself was vehemently opposed to the idea of the well-meant offer. In
his explanation of ectypal knowledge, Kuyper has this to say:
The second point, which must be
emphasized in the ectypal character of our knowledge of God, is the truth of
our knowledge of God. If the ectypal originates by the imprint of the
archetypal, the ectypal image is no phantasy, no imagination, but an image in
truth. Just as we saw in the antithesis between Theology here and
hereafter, that our knowledge of God on earth shall then be done away, and rise
again in a higher form of a knowledge ‘face to face’; but always such, that the
truth of our knowledge ‘in part’ shall be the more fully exhibited by
the completer knowledge in heaven. Our given knowledge of God derives from this
its absolute character, not as to its degree of completeness, but with
reference to its connection with its object, i.e. with God. God who is, has
knowledge of Himself; and from this self-knowledge God has taken the knowledge
given to us. This excludes not only doubt, but also the dilution of
subjectivism, as if our formulated statement of the knowledge of God in our
confession were unimportant, and without loss of truth could be
exchanged for every other confession or placed on a line with it.33
Kuyper makes clear in this quotation that the denial of
the truthfulness of our knowledge of God has at least two serious consequences.
On the one hand, the child of God will doubt all that Scripture says. On the
other hand, the truth becomes subjective, each man claiming for truth that
which is right in his own eyes.
Herman Hoeksema was in complete agreement with Kuyper. He
did not deny the archetypal/ectypal distinction. Although in his writings he
never used those terms, he did nevertheless affirm this distinction. He did so
especially in his treatment of the Clark-Van Til controversy in the OPC.
Hoeksema saw the main point of difference in the controversy thus:
According to the complainants
[Van Til, et al.—JDE], it is this,
that, while they hold that the difference between the contents of the knowledge
of God and the contents of our knowledge is both qualitative and quantitative,
Dr. Clark insists that it is only quantitative.
Hoeksema then goes on to list three things for which Clark
was condemned by Van Til. First, Clark held that “all truth, in God and in man,
is propositional, i.e., assumes the form of propositions.” Second, Clark
believes that “man’s knowledge of any proposition is identical with God’s
knowledge of the same proposition.” Third, Clark “teaches that God’s knowledge
consists of an infinite number of propositions, while only a finite
number can ever be revealed to man.”34 Van Til and his supporters
denied all of these points. Hoeksema rejects Van Til’s position and affirms
that which is taught by Clark. He writes that “if the complainants take the
stand that Scripture reveals things that are, not above and beyond, but contrary
to, in conflict with the human mind, it is my conviction that the
complainants should be indicted of heterodoxy, and of undermining all sound
theology.”35
B.
Analogical View
What lies behind Clark’s understanding of the distinction
between archetypal and ectypal knowledge is a wrong understanding of the
believer’s knowledge in general. As is evident in his essay, Clark adheres to
the view that the believer’s knowledge is only analogically true rather
than univocally true.
Robert Reymond explains the difference between analogical
and univocal well:
The difference is this: A given
predicate applied to separate subjects univocally would intend that the
subjects possess the predicate in a precisely identical sense. The opposite of
univocality is equivocality, which attaches a given predicate to separate
subjects in a completely different or unrelated sense. Now lying between
univocality and equivocality is analogy. A predicate employed analogically intends
a relationship between separate objects based upon comparison or proportion.
Univocal means that the content of God’s knowledge about
a certain thing is the same as the content of the believer’s knowledge
of the same thing. Analogical means that the content of our knowledge is partly
like and partly not like the content of God’s knowledge.36
Clark believes that the believer’s knowledge of a certain
thing (ectypal knowledge) is analogically true. Our knowledge (ectypal)
is analogical to God’s knowledge (archetypal). That is, our knowledge of a
certain proposition is analogous to God’s knowledge but cannot be the same.
This means that God’s knowledge is qualitatively different than our knowledge.
What God knows about a certain thing is different from what we know about that
same thing by means of revelation. There is, ultimately, no point of contact
between God’s knowledge and the believer’s.
In his essay Clark equates this analogical view of
knowledge with the traditional archetypal/ectypal distinction. He writes,
“While those who accepted the archetypal/ectypal distinction tended to favor
the well-meant offer, those who rejected the analogical model of theology also
rejected the well-meant offer.”37 Later he says,
In order to understand the
Reformed orthodox insistence on analogical theology, that is, the
archetypal/ectypal distinction and its corollary, the well-meant offer, it is
useful to consider how the Remonstrants applied evangelical intellectualism to
their soteriology.38
He claims that “the distance between God’s theology and
ours, the analogical nature of our theology relative to God’s, necessarily
creates tension in all our speech about God.”39
Clark claims that he is only following the line of
Reformed orthodoxy. He even claims that “Luther and Calvin established and
maintained assiduously a strict analogy between theology as God knows it and as
he reveals it to us.”40 Clark lists the names of Junius, Polanus,
and Wollebius as well. However, all Clark proves is that these men held either
implicitly or explicitly to a form of the archetypal/ectypal distinction. He
fails to prove that they understood this distinction in the same way he does.
He also fails to prove that they based their view on an analogical view of
knowledge.
The only theologian whom Clark mentions that is in clear
agreement with him is Cornelius Van Til. Clark essentially proposes the same
view that Van Til defended years before. In his response to the charges levelled
against him by Van Til, Gordon Clark quoted from what Van Til had written:
The view of the Complaint [of
Van Til—JDE] is that “God because of his very nature must remain
incomprehensible to man”; it is “not the doctrine that God can be known only if
he makes himself known and in so far as he makes himself known.” Moreover, all
knowledge which man can attain differs from the knowledge of God “in a
qualitative sense and not merely in degree.” Thus God’s knowledge and man’s
knowledge do not “coincide at a single point.” A proposition does not “have the
same meaning for man as for God.” Man’s knowledge is “analogical to the
knowledge God possesses, but it can never be identified with the knowledge” which
God “possesses of the same proposition.”41
At the time of the Clark-Van Til controversy, Herman
Hoeksema saw that this understanding of analogical knowledge would be used in
defence of the well-meant offer. He wrote that if the idea that “a proposition
does not have the same meaning for God as for man” is introduced here as a basis for what follows, and if it was
the real purpose of the complainants to persuade the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church to adopt the Arminian doctrine of the Christian Reformed Church as
expressed by the Synod of Kalamazoo in 1924, particularly the view that God is
gracious to the reprobate, and that the preaching of the Gospel is a
well-meaning offer of salvation on the part of God to all men—in other words,
the doctrine that God sincerely seeks the salvation of those whom He will not
save—this first point is quite important.42
This
is exactly the use to which Clark puts this analogical idea. Clark claims this
analogical idea to be equivalent to the archetypal/ectypal distinction, and on
the basis of that he defends the well-meant offer. To God, salvation is only
for the elect. But this proposition that God knows is not the same as the one
we know. We know that God desires the salvation of all men who hear the gospel.
The
claim that our knowledge is only analogical to God’s is erroneous. The
analogical idea essentially means that the believer can have no truth at all.
The best that we can hope for is an analogy to the truth, but the truth will
forever escape us. In this case the truth is that God desires the salvation
only of the elect. But all we can know is that God desires the salvation of all
men who come under the preaching of the gospel. The truth is not something we
can know and ought not be something we are concerned with. Gordon Clark writes,
“If God knows all truths and knows the correct meaning of every proposition,
and if no proposition means to man what it means to God, so that God’s
knowledge and man’s knowledge do not coincide at any single point, it follows
by rigorous necessity that man can have no truth at all.”43
We
confess that the truth must be the same for us as it is for God. We do not know
everything that God knows, nor do we know in the same way that God knows, but
what we do know to be true is the
same as God knows it. That is to say, the quantity of our knowledge and the way
in which we know is different. It must be, for God is the infinite God and we
are but finite creatures. But the quality
of the knowledge that we do have is identical with that which God has. What we
know about a certain proposition is identical to what God knows about that same
proposition. Revelation requires that this be true. God’s revelation to us is a
revelation that is reliable and accurate. He reveals Himself to us as He
actually is. He reveals in His Word to us the truth about the way He works.
Faith requires that this be true as well.
Accordingly, since the Scriptures require that saving faith
be grounded in true knowledge (see Rom. 10:13-14), the church must vigorously
oppose any linguistic or revelational theory, however well-intended, that would
take from men and women the only ground of their knowledge of God and,
accordingly, their only hope of salvation.44
IV. The
Knowledge of God and the Gospel
A.
The Incomprehensibility and Knowability of God
We
confess with the Reformed standards that God is incomprehensible.45
That is, He cannot be fully comprehended by the human mind. God is infinite; we
are finite. He is transcendent; we are but creatures of the dust. He is spiritual;
we are psychical. This means that no man can ever know God exhaustively. There
are depths and heights and breadths to God that we will never comprehend. Even
in heaven we will never exhaust the knowledge of God but will continue ever to
grow.
God
is incomprehensible, but He is not unknowable. We cannot fully comprehend God,
but we can and do know God. We can know God only because God has made Himself
known to us. We have not ascended to Him, but He has stooped down to us and
revealed Himself to us. The only possibility for the knowledge of God is God’s
own revelation of Himself. Apart from that revelation God is unknowable. Belgic Confession, Article 7 makes this
fact plain. We know God because He has revealed Himself first of all in
creation, but more clearly and fully in Holy Writ. Especially in God’s Word do
we know Him.
This
knowledge that we have of God is and must be a true knowledge. We confess that what God has revealed to us in His
Word must be true. By the knowledge we have through revelation we know God
truly and accurately. If this were not true, we could have no faith. Question
and Answer 21 of the Heidelberg Catechism
defines one aspect of true faith as “a certain
knowledge whereby I hold for truth
all that God has revealed to us in His Word.”46 Our knowledge is
certain. We hold for truth all that God has revealed. We have no doubts about
what He has revealed. We are not confronted with paradoxes or contradictions in
His Word.
The
fact that our knowledge of God is true
means that we must conceive of the archetypal/ectypal distinction differently
than Clark does. Ectypal knowledge is the knowledge that the believer has of
God as He has revealed Himself. This knowledge is qualitatively the same as
archetypal knowledge. This understanding of the distinction includes the fact
that there is a difference between how God knows and how we know. Archetypal
knowledge is intuitive; ectypal knowledge is derived. This understanding also
acknowledges that there is a difference in quantity between archetypal and
ectypal knowledge. Archetypal knowledge is infinite and boundless; ectypal
knowledge is finite and limited. In these ways the two are distinguished.
Nevertheless, there is no difference in the quality
of knowledge. What God has revealed to us and what we know is true. What we
know about a certain proposition is identical to God’s knowledge of that same
proposition as far as quality of knowledge.
B.
Scripture on the Offer
This
has implications for the idea of the well-meant offer that Clark propounds. The
notion of a well-meant offer falls with Clark’s understanding of the
archetypal/ectypal distinction. Clark is correct in stating that the well-meant
offer is a corollary to the archetypal/ectypal distinction—that is, his understanding of this distinction.
The fact that Scripture and Reformed orthodoxy have rejected the well-meant offer of the gospel is an implicit denial
of Clark’s view of the archetypal/ectypal distinction.
Scripture
does not permit any idea of a desire of God to save all who come under the
preaching of the gospel. Instead, Scripture teaches that God’s Word must be
preached to all and sundry, but that gospel is intended to and actually does
have a twofold effect. The command to
repent and believe is general, but the promise is particular. By means of the
preaching, God brings the elect believer to salvation. By means of that same
preaching, God hardens the reprobate unbeliever in his sin and unbelief and
leaves him further without excuse in the judgment day.
This
is the teaching of Scripture in Isaiah 6:9-12:
And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but
understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this
people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with
their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and
convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the
cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land
be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a
great forsaking in the midst of the land.
God
is here commissioning the prophet Isaiah to speak to the nation of Judah, which
had gone astray into the worship of other gods. God is telling Isaiah to preach
to these people and to call them to repentance. The people are to understand
clearly what God is commanding them to do. God says “hear ye indeed” and “see
ye indeed.” God’s purpose is that they clearly understand but reject that which
they are called to do. They are to hear the command to repent. But God’s
purpose is that that preaching be a means to harden them in their sin. And this
is to continue until God judges them: “Until the cities be wasted …” God’s
intention in the preaching is not that the unbelieving people of Israel be
saved, but His purpose is to harden them.
The
same idea is found in II Corinthians 2:15-16. There Paul writes, “For we are
unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that
perish: to the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the
savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” Paul is
writing here about himself and all other preachers of the gospel. Those who
faithfully proclaim the gospel are “unto God a sweet savour of Christ.” They
are a sweet savour to God in those that repent, believe the gospel, and are
saved. But they are also a sweet savour in those who reject the Word, refuse to
repent, and perish in their unbelief. Both are according to God’s good purpose.
The minister must understand that God uses him to be a savour of death unto
death to some and a savour of life unto life to others. Through a man’s
preaching, God saves His people and hardens the unbelievers. In both cases a
man is a sweet savour to God.
The
idea of the well-meant offer is smashed on the rocks of Scripture’s teaching in
Matthew 22:1-14. There Jesus preaches the parable of the marriage feast. In the
parable the king sends out his servants to call the people to the wedding feast
of the king’s son. Many refused to heed this call, so the king had his servants
gather all whom they could find to the marriage feast. One who is brought to
the feast is not clothed as he ought to be. He has not truly heeded the call to
come prepared to the supper, so he is cast out. Jesus ends the parable with
these words: “For many are called, but few are chosen (ἐκλεκτοί).” We see here the fact that God calls all and
sundry through the preaching to repent and believe in the name of Jesus Christ.
But only a few of those who were called externally are actually chosen. The man
without the wedding garment was called, but he was not chosen. The call to
repent and believe is general; the promise is particular, that is, only for the
elect.
C.
The Canons on the Offer
Try
as they might to twist the creeds to teach a well-meant offer, the Reformed
confessions do not teach such a doctrine. The Canons of Dordt especially are opposed to the idea of the
well-meant offer of the gospel. This is true, first of all, from a historical
perspective. The Canons were written
against the Arminians who promoted a well-meant offer of the gospel themselves.
The “Opinions of the Remonstrants” make this clear.
8. Whomever God calls to salvation, he calls seriously, that
is, with a sincere and completely unhypocritical intention and will to save;
nor do we assent to the opinion of those who hold that God calls certain ones
externally whom he does not will to call internally, that is, as truly
converted, even before the grace of calling has been rejected.
9. There is not in God a secret will which so contradicts
the will of the same revealed in the Word that according to it (that is, the
secret will) he does not will the conversion and salvation of the greatest part
of those whom he seriously calls and invites by the Word of the Gospel and by
his revealed will; and we do not here, as some say, acknowledge in God a holy
simulation, or a double person.
10. Nor do we believe that God calls the reprobate, as they
are called, to these ends: that he should the more harden them, or take away
excuse, or punish them the more severely, or display their inability; nor,
however, that they should be converted, should believe, and should be saved.47
That
the Canons do not teach a well-meant
offer of the gospel is also evident from an examination of the three most
frequently cited articles. First, there is Canons
II:5:
Moreover the promise of the gospel is, that whosoever
believeth in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This
promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared
and published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction,
to whom God out of His good pleasure sends the gospel.48
The
proponents of the free offer find in this article proof positive that the Canons teach the offer. They refer
particularly to the fact that the promise of the gospel must be “declared and
published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without
distinction, to whom God out of his good pleasure sends the gospel.” They read
into this that there is a desire on the part of God to give the fulfilment of
this promise to all who hear. This is not, however, what Article 5 teaches.
Article 5 is simply saying that the gospel, which includes the call to repent
and believe as well as the promise that all who repent and believe will be
saved, must be proclaimed promiscuously. The article says nothing about God’s
intention or desire in such preaching. It simply calls the preacher to proclaim
these words: “Everyone listening today, repent and believe in the crucified
Christ! To all who repent and believe God will give everlasting life!” Nowhere
is there expressed a desire on the part of God to give everlasting life to all
who hear. The command comes to all in general. The promise is for all who
repent and believe. And the only ones who repent and believe are the elect.
The
proponents of the offer often refer to Canons
III/IV:8:
As many as are called by the gospel are unfeignedly called.
For God hath most earnestly and truly shown in His Word what is pleasing to
Him, namely, that those who are called should come to Him. He, moreover,
seriously promises eternal life and rest to as many as shall come to Him and
believe on Him.49
A
careful reading of this article will reveal that the Reformed fathers were not
teaching the free offer of the gospel here. We are met here with the will of
God’s decree. God decrees in the gospel that all men repent and believe. Thus,
all men are unfeignedly called (serio
vocantur). This is a serious command that comes to all men who hear the
gospel. And God reveals in His Word what all men are to do: they are to come to
God. The activity of coming to God in Jesus Christ is the command that comes to
all in the preaching. And God declares that this act is pleasing to Him. What
this article does not teach is that it is pleasing to God that all men come to Him. The activity of
coming to Him is pleasing to Him because it is according to His will. But we
have here no expression of God’s earnest desire to save all who hear. He is
pleased only with those who do come to Him. To them—the elect—He gives eternal
life and rest.
Finally,
we have Canons III/IV:9:
It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ offered (oblato) therein, nor of God, who calls
men by the gospel, and confers upon them various gifts, that those who are
called by the ministry of the Word refuse to come and be converted. The fault
lies in themselves; some of whom when called, regardless of their danger,
reject the Word of life; others, though they receive it, suffer it not to make
a lasting impression on their heart; therefore, their joy, arising only from a
temporary faith, soon vanishes, and they fall away; while others choke the seed
of the Word by perplexing cares and the pleasures of this world, and produce no
fruit. This our Saviour teaches in the parable of the sower (Matt. xiii).50
The
proponents of the free offer contend that the word “offer” used in this article
has the meaning of a well-meant offer of God to all men. R. Scott Clark
suggests that the word means “to offer with the intention that the offer should
be fulfilled if the recipients meet the condition of trust in Christ.”51
The Latin word oblato, however, means
first of all “to present” or “to set forth.” Christ crucified is presented or
set forth in the preaching of the gospel. To say that Christ is offered to all men who hear the gospel
implies that Christ atoned for all. But that is the teaching of the Arminians
that the Reformed fathers repudiated, particularly in the Second Head of the Canons. The meaning must, therefore, be
that Christ is presented in the
gospel.52
D.
Reformed Theologians on the Offer
Reformed
theologians of high standing have rejected the free offer. There is space only
to list some of their names. Most notably men such as John Calvin,53
Francis Turretin,54 Simon Van Velzen,55 Abraham Kuyper,56
and Herman Hoeksema57 all rejected the free offer. The opponents of
the free offer are in good standing historically.
V. Conclusion
In
this essay we have attempted to respond to the position put forth by R. Scott
Clark. We have attempted first of all to evaluate and critique the foundation
on which Clark has built his teaching of the well-meant offer. We are convinced
that Clark holds a wrong understanding of the archetypal/ectypal distinction.
He believes that there is no point of contact between the two, between God’s
knowledge and the knowledge we have by revelation. He makes a separation
between the quality of God’s
knowledge and the quality of our
knowledge. For our part, we believe that the distinction ought to be made between
the quantity of our knowledge and
God’s knowledge and the way in which we know and God knows. The quantity of
God’s knowledge is infinite while ours is finite. God knows intuitively while
our knowledge is derived. But the quality of the knowledge we have by
revelation is not different from God’s knowledge. What we know from God’s Word
is true and is not in any way contradictory.
We
have also attempted to show that behind Clark’s wrong view of this distinction
is a wrong view of knowledge. Following the lead of Cornelius Van Til, Clark
argues that our knowledge is only analogically
true. But doing this leaves the door open for contradictions and paradoxes in
our knowledge. What we know is essentially different from the way things
actually are. We are convinced that this undermines the very existence of
systematic theology. We are also convinced that this is perilous for the faith
and salvation of the child of God. If we are unsure of the truthfulness of our
knowledge, our faith and salvation are unsure.
Finally,
we have attempted to prove that the house that Clark builds on his shaky
foundation is contrary to Scripture and Reformed orthodoxy. The idea of a
well-meant offer in which the sovereign God tries to woo sinners to accept His
love is entirely out of keeping with God’s Word. It is a repudiation of all of
the doctrines of grace. Election becomes conditional or non-existent. Christ’s
atoning work is made universal. Total depravity is scuttled in defence of man’s
free will. Grace is made resistible. The preservation of the saints is
uncertain. Yet all the while this view is proclaimed to be a precious heritage
of Reformed orthodoxy. One face looks Reformed. But more and more the face that
appears Arminian is clearly seen.
A Janus, for sure.
We reject this Janus. We are convinced by Scripture and
the Reformed tradition that the well-meant offer has no place in the orthodox
camp. God’s Word clearly teaches that the call is promiscuous, but the promise
is particular. In faithfulness to God, therefore, we sound forth the call to
repent and believe to the ends of the earth. And we are confident knowing that
by such preaching God will gather His elect out of the nations, to the glory of
His name.
*
* *
* * * * *
* *
* *
APPENDIX:
A BRIEF
HISTORY OF THE FREE OFFER
A. Moïse Amyraut
Although the idea of a well-meant offer of the gospel has
its roots in earlier periods of the church’s history,58 the offer is found clearly in the teachings
of the French theologian Moïse Amyraut (1596-1664). One historian says that
“Amyraut is the first to set forth a clear and clearly worked out conception of
the free offer of the gospel.”59 Amyraut received his training in
the university at Saumur in western France at the feet of the Scottish
theologian John Cameron. Amyraut was appointed to teach at Saumur in 1633, a
position he held until his death in 1664.60
The idea of the free offer really has its beginnings in
Cameron, Amyraut’s mentor. From him Amyraut learned what he would later develop
into his doctrine of hypothetical universalism. Amyraut taught that Christ died
for all men and that God well-meaningly offers salvation to all men on the
condition of faith. “The cloak under which Amyraut thought to smuggle this
Arminian contraband into the Reformed churches was his profession of double predestination.”61
But Amyraut conceived of predestination as subsequent to universal atonement,
thus making predestination conditional. Amyraut also defended his doctrine on
the basis of a distinction in the will of God. Really he posited two wills in
God. The one will of God was particular and unconditional, that is, God willed
only the salvation of the elect. The other will of God was universal and
conditional, that is, God willed to save all men on condition of faith.62
B. The Marrow Controversy
The teachings promoted by Amyraut were carried over to
the British Isles. John Cameron, after finishing his labours in Saumur,
returned to Scotland to teach at Glasgow. One of his students was John
Davenant, who was influential among many of the delegates to the Westminster
Assembly.63
These views, which were spreading among Scottish
theologians, came to expression in the Marrow Controversy. The controversy
arose out of the Auchterarder Presbytery. The Presbytery refused to license
Candidate William Craig because he rejected the statement “It is not sound and
orthodox doctrine to teach that we must forsake sin, in order to our coming to
Christ.”64 There was an appeal to the General Assembly of 1717,
which upheld Craig and condemned the Presbytery of Auchterarder. At that
meeting Thomas Boston recommended the book Marrow
of Modern Divinity written by Edward Fisher. This book was condemned in
1720 by the General Assembly, one of the reasons being that it taught the free
offer and universal atonement.65
Men such as Thomas Boston, Ebenezer Erskine, and Ralph
Erskine opposed this decision of the General Assembly and defended the free
offer. For example, Ralph Erskine said the following in a sermon: “You may say,
What shall I do then that I may be married to Christ? In one Word, if you would
have Christ as your husband, O then entertain his suit, and hearken to his
wooing and courting motions.”66 These men became known as “The
Marrow Men” and eventually they split off and formed their own denomination.
C. Among the Dutch
The idea of the well-meant offer also had an influence on
developments in the Reformed churches in the Netherlands. The idea of the free
offer came to the Netherlands from two sources. First, it came directly from
France, as persecuted Huguenots fled from France to the Netherlands. Many
carried with them the thinking of Saumur.67 Second, there was a
connection between the British and the Dutch. The Dutch received many ministers
from Britain and also sent many of their own ministers to be trained in the
Isles. Some of these men were enamored by the idea of the free offer and
introduced it into the Netherlands. Also, there were many Puritan books that
found their way into the homes of the Dutch people. Often the Dutch would meet
in conventicles and read the writings of older theologians, including Puritan
authors who taught the free offer.68
The free offer, which spread throughout the Netherlands
during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, became an issue at the time
of the Afscheiding. The Afscheiding was largely a movement among
the common people, people who had been influenced by the writings of the
Puritans. Eventually there was a rift in the Afscheiding churches, the churches in the northern provinces being
more orthodox and those in the southern provinces being more liberal-minded.
The free offer was espoused by such men as Anthony Brummelkamp and Helenius de
Cock, both professors at the Afscheiding
seminary at Kampen. It was openly taught by J. R. Kreulen, who also introduced
a conditional view of the covenant into the churches of the Afscheiding. Kreulen wrote that in the
preaching there is “a well-meant offer of the grace of God in Christ to all who
live under the gospel, with the purpose that they all would accept and obtain
possession of that salvation, only on the ground of that offer which comes to
them as sinners.” He went on to say that this well-meant offer is “a
declaration made by the truthful and holy God and that He earnestly,
truthfully, and well-meaningly goes out offering His grace in Christ to all who
live under the preaching of the gospel, without deceit, insincerity, and
dissembling.”69 From here it would spread throughout the Netherlands
and even into America.70
D. The Christian Reformed Church
The well-meant offer of the gospel was a crucial issue in
the controversy in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in the early 1920s,
which resulted in the formation of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC).71
One Protestant Reformed historian has said that “this question of the gracious
offer of the gospel became the chief point of controversy.”72
The notion of a well-meant offer had entered the thinking
of the CRC through her connection to the Dutch motherland. Many of those who
emigrated from the Netherlands to America in the late nineteenth century had
been convinced of the truth of the well-meant offer by Afscheiding ministers. The free offer was transplanted then into
the CRC, because many of these immigrants joined the CRC upon their arrival in
the States.73 The offer was taught by such early CRC theologians as
M. J. Bosma (1874-1912) and William Heyns. In his answer to the question “Is
the doctrine of the particular election of some consistent with the general
offer of the gospel to all?” Bosma writes, “Yes; indeed it is. The gospel
offers salvation to all … The non-elect may come if they will … God is sincere
in offering salvation to all …”74 Heyns held to “the external call
of the Gospel as a free, wellmeant [sic]
offer of salvation.” It is “a well-meant invitation from God to sinners to
receive a portion in the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Heyns says the
external call “comes to the sinner with an offer of grace.”75
The controversy raged over the theory of common grace,
which was raised to the level of an official dogma by the CRC Synod of
Kalamazoo that met in 1924. The Synod of Kalamazoo set forth her understanding
of common grace in what are called “The Three Points of Common Grace.”76
It was particularly the first point that established the idea of a well-meant
offer:
Concerning the first point, with regard to the favourable
disposition of God toward mankind in general, and not only to the elect, Synod
declares that according to the Scripture and the confessions it is determined
that besides the saving grace of God, shown only to the elect unto eternal
life, there is a certain kind of favour, or grace of God which He shows to His
creatures in general. This is evidenced by the quoted Scripture passages and
from the Canons of Dort II:5 and III/IV:8-9,
which deals with the general offer of
the Gospel; whereas the quoted declarations of Reformed writers from
the golden age of Reformed theology, also give evidence that our Reformed
fathers from of old have advocated these opinions.77
The idea of a general or well-meant offer embedded in
this point became known as “het puntje
van het eerste punt (the little point of the first point).”
Among others, prominent CRC theologian Louis Berkhof used
this occasion to defend the well-meant offer.78 The
idea of a well-meant offer was denied by then CRC ministers Herman Hoeksema,
Henry Danhof, and George M. Ophoff. Eventually these three men were deposed,
whereupon they formed a new denomination, the PRC. The PRC have officially
condemned the teaching of the well-meant offer in a document entitled “The
Declaration of Principles.”79
The issue of the well-meant offer was raised in the later
history of the CRC as well. In the 1960s, when Prof. Harold Dekker defended the
notion of universal atonement, appeal was made to the doctrine of the
well-meant offer as proof of Christ’s death for all men.80 Dekker
asked, “[Is] the salvation which the atonement provides available to all men?” His answer was, “Indeed it is. Otherwise the
well-meant offer of the gospel is a farce, for it then offers sincerely to all
men what cannot be sincerely said to be available to all.”81
The well-meant offer also arose in the case of Dekker’s
friend Harry Boer. In the 1970s Boer wrote publicly in opposition to the
doctrine of reprobation. In 1977 he served a gravamen to the CRC Synod in which
he based his denial of reprobation in part on the well-meant offer.82
The universal atonement taught by Dekker and the denial of reprobation by Boer
were rejected, but neither man was disciplined.
In the year 2000, the issue was raised again by CRC
minister Raymond A. Blacketer.83 In an essay entitled “The Three
Points in Most Parts Reformed: A Reexamination of the So-Called Well-Meant
Offer of Salvation” Blacketer rejected the well-meant offer as unbiblical and
un-Reformed. The CRC, however, continues to maintain the position of 1924.
E. The Clark Case in the OPC
The well-meant offer was also an issue in the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church (OPC) in 1944. This came up in connection with the
ordination of Dr. Gordon H. Clark to the ministry in the OPC.84
Among other things, complaints were lodged against Clark’s denial of the
well-meant offer. The complainants said,
In the course of Dr. Clark’s examination by Presbytery it
became abundantly clear that his rationalism keeps him from doing justice to
the precious teaching of Scripture that in the gospel God sincerely offers
salvation in Christ to all who hear, reprobate as well as elect, and that he
has no pleasure in any one’s rejecting this offer but, contrariwise, would have
all who hear accept it and be saved.85
The issue was finally resolved a few years later. In
1948, John Murray, professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in
Philadelphia, submitted a report to the 15th General Assembly of the OPC in which
he defended the free offer of the gospel. This report was subsequently adopted
by the General Assembly and remains the official position of the OPC on the
issue of the well-meant offer.86
There seems to be an interesting connection between the
offer as it was affirmed in the OPC and developments in the CRC. It is
interesting that men who came to teach at Westminster Seminary from the CRC
were some of the most ardent defenders of the free offer. These were men such
as R. B. Kuiper, Ned Stonehouse, and particularly Cornelius Van Til. It is
likely that these men introduced into the OPC the free offer that was affirmed
by the CRC in 1924.87
----------------
FOOTNOTES
1. Herman Hoeksema, A Triple
Breach in the Foundation of the Reformed Truth: A Critical Treatise on the
“Three Points” Adopted by the Synod of the Christian Reformed Churches in 1924
(Grandville, MI: Evangelism Committee of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church,
2001), 24.
2. Cf. the Appendix, which
gives a brief history of the free offer.
3. R. Scott Clark, “Janus,
the Well-Meant Offer of the Gospel, and Westminster Theology,” in The Pattern of Sound Doctrine: Systematic
Theology at the Westminster Seminaries, ed. David Van Drunen (Phillipsburg,
NJ: P&R), 154.
4. Cf. their Universalism
and the Reformed Churches: A Defense of Calvin’s Calvinism (Launceston,
Tasmania: Magazine and Literature Committee of the Evangelical Presbyterian
Church of Australia, 1997) and Christopher J. Connors, The
Biblical Offer of the Gospel: Analysis and Answer to Rev. K.W. Stebbins’ Book
“Christ Greely Offered” in the Light of Scripture and the Confessions
(Launceston, Tasmania, n.d.) for the EPC’s rejection of the free offer.
5. John H. Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A
Critique of Dispensationalism (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991),
125-131.
6. The following are works
in which the notion of the free offer is defended: Clark, “Janus”; A. C.
DeJong, The Well-Meant Gospel Offer: The
Views of H. Hoeksema and K. Schilder (Franeker: T. Wever, 1954); Joseph H.
Hall, “The Marrow Controversy: A Defense of Grace and the Free Offer of the
Gospel,” in Mid-America Journal of
Theology, 10 (1999): 239-257; Anthony A. Hoekema, Saved By Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989); Erroll Hulse, The Free Offer: An Exposition of Common
Grace and the Free Invitation of the Gospel (Sussex: Carey Publications,
1973); Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon v.
Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth Trust, 1995); David Silversides, The
Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed (Kilsyth, Scotland: Marpet Press, 2005);
K.W. Stebbins, Christ Freely Offered: A
Discussion of the General Offer of Salvation in the Light of Particular
Atonement (Strathpine, Australia: Covenanter Press, 1978); Cornelius Van Til,
Common Grace and the Gospel (Nutley,
NJ: P&R, 1974); Cornelis P. Venema, “The Doctrine of Preaching According to
the Reformed Confessions,” in Mid-America
Journal of Theology, 10 (1999): 135-183.
7. Cf. David J. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism and
the Call of the Gospel: An Examination of the “Well-Meant Offer” of the Gospel,
rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: RFPA, 1994), 120ff.; Herman Hoeksema, A Power of God Unto
Salvation or Grace Not an Offer, trans. Homer C. Hoeksema and Cornelius
Hanko (Grandville, MI: Theological School of the Protestant Reformed Churches,
1996), 5-6, 60ff., 74ff.
8. Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom: With a History
and Critical Notes, 6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), 3:586.
9. Murray, Collected Writings, 4:114-5.
10. Hulse, Free Offer, 4-5.
11. Cf. Raymond A.
Blacketer, “The Three Points in Most Parts Reformed: A Reexamination of the
So-Called Well-Meant Offer of Salvation,” in Calvin Theological Journal, 35, n. 1 (April 2000): 42-3; A. C.
DeJong, The Well-Meant Gospel Offer,
127-8; Hulse, Free Offer, 8; Murray, Collected Writings, 4:113; Stebbins, Christ Freely Offered, 13ff.
12. In my opinion this is a
faulty designation for this distinction. The distinction here is not that one
will is hidden to us and the other is revealed to us. The distinction is
between what God has decreed will take place and what He commands.
13. Cf. the Appendix.
14. Murray, Collected Writings, 4:113.
15. Hulse, Free Offer, 8.
16. Hall, “The Marrow
Controversy,” 257.
17. Venema, “The Doctrine
of Preaching,” 167, n. 26. Cf. also Hoekema, Saved By Grace, 5-7, 78-79; Clark, “Janus,” 156, 163-4; I. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hypercalvinism, xiv, 117-9;
Hulse, Free Offer, 14, 19-20; J.
Murray, Collected Writings, 4:113,
131; Stebbins, Christ Freely Offered,
24.
18. Quoted in Robert L.
Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the
Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 95, n. 1.
19. For a more detailed
discussion, cf. Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation
Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca.
1527 to ca. 1725, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 1:225-238;
William J. van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology: Archetypal and
Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Thought,” Westminster Theological Journal 64, no. 2 (Fall, 2002), 319-335.
20. Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological
Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1993), 44. Cf. also pp. 299-300.
21. Muller, Dictionary, 101. Cf. also pp. 300-301.
22. Clark, “Janus,” 152.
23. Clark, “Janus,” 153.
24. Clark, “Janus,” 161.
25. Clark, “Janus,” 154.
Clark is correct in stating that the Arminians rejected this distinction. Cf.
van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 334-5.
26. Clark, “Janus,” 174.
27. This is confirmed by
Muller, PRRD, 1:222; van Asselt, “The
Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 321.
28. Clark, “Janus,” 176.
29. Clark, “Janus,” 163-4.
30. Clark, “Janus,” 175.
31. Sean Gerety, “Janus
Alive and Well: Dr. R. Scott Clark and the Well-Meant Offer of the Gospel (Part
1),” The Trinity Review 300a (June
2011): 3.
32 Sean Gerety, “Janus
Alive and Well: Dr. R. Scott Clark and the Well-Meant Offer of the Gospel (Part
2),” The Trinity Review 300b-301
(July-August 2011): 6.
33. Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, trans. J. Hendrik DeVries (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 254-5. Emphasis
is Kuyper’s.
34. Hoeksema, Clark-VanTil, 7.
35. Hoeksema, Clark-Van Til, 8.
36. Reymond, New Systematic Theology, 96.
37. Clark, “Janus,” 160.
38. Clark, “Janus,” 163.
39. Clark, “Janus,” 177.
40. Clark, “Janus,” 161.
41. Hoeksema, Clark-Van Til, 9-10. Cf. Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology:
Prolegomena and the Doctrines of Revelation, Scripture, and God, ed.
William Edgar, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007), 33ff., 177ff., 324;
Reymond, New Systematic Theology,
97-102.
42. Hoeksema, Clark-Van Til, 11.
43. Quoted in Reymond, New Systematic Theology, 99.
44. Reymond, New Systematic Theology, 102.
45. Belgic Confession, Art.
1 in Schaff, Creeds, 3:383;
Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. 2.1 in The Subordinate Standards and Other Authoritative Documents of the Free
Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Offices of the Free Church of Scotland,
1955), 6.
46. Schaff, Creeds, 3:313.
47. P. Y. DeJong, ed., Crisis in the Reformed Churches: Essays in
Commemoration of the Great Synod of Dort, 1618-1619 (Grandville, MI:
Reformed Fellowship, 2008), 265-266.
48. Schaff, Creeds, 3:586.
49. Confessions of the PRC, 168. We have quoted from this source rather
than from Schaff because the latter gives an inaccurate translation of this
article. Cf. Schaff, Creeds, 3:565-7,
589.
50. Schaff, Creeds, 3:589.
51. Clark, “Janus,” 169.
52. Cf. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism, 48, 108.
53. Cf. Institutes 3.22, 24; Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism, 141-149; Engelsma, The
Reformed Faith of John Calvin; The Institutes in Summary (Jenison, MI
RFPA, 2009), 281ff.
54. Cf. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism, 151-172. Turretin
co-authored the Formula Consensus
Helvetica in 1675 in opposition to the hypothetical universalism of
Amyraut. In this document he rejects the free offer. The Formula is found in A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1972),
656-663.
55. Cf. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism, 106-107.
56. Cf. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism, 173-192.
57. Cf. Hoeksema, Calvin,
Berkhof and H. J. Kuiper: A Comparison (Grand Rapids, 1930); Hoeksema, The Gospel, Or, The Most
Recent Attack Upon the Truth of Sovereign Grace (Grand Rapids: Mission
Committee of the Protestant Reformed churches, 1933); Hoeksema, A Power of
God Unto Salvation, Or, Grace Not an Offer; Hoeksema, A Triple
Breach.
58. In his work The
History of the Free Offer (Grandville, MI: Theological School of the
Protestant Reformed Churches, 1989) Herman Hanko traces the roots of the free
offer all the way to the Semi-Pelagian controversy in the fifth century. He
finds traces as well in the Arminians at the Synod of Dordt.
59. Hanko, History, 68.
60. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New
York: Funk and Wagnals, 1908), 1:160-1.
61. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism, 167.
62. Hanko, History, 63.
63. Hanko, History, 82-5.
64. Joseph H. Hall, “The
Marrow Controversy: A Defense of Grace and the Free Offer of the Gospel,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 10
(1999): 242.
65. Hanko, History, 101.
66. Quoted in Hall, “The
Marrow Controversy,” 255.
67. Hanko, History, 158-60.
68. Hanko, Contending
for the Faith: The Rise of Heresy and the Development of the Truth
(Jenison, MI: RFPA, 2010), 348; Hanko, History, 163-4.
69. Quoted in Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism, 105-6.
70. Hanko, “The Afscheiding
and the Well-Meant Gospel Offer,” in Always
Reforming: Continuation of the Sixteenth-Century Reformation, ed. David
J. Engelsma (Jenison, MI: RFPA, 2009), 74-78.
71. For accounts of this
history see among others James D. Bratt, Dutch
Calvinism in Modern America: A History of a Conservative Subculture (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 110-115; Hanko, For Thy
Truth’s Sake: A Doctrinal History of the Protestant Reformed Churches
(Grandville, MI: RFPA, 2000), 47-66; Hoeksema, The
Protestant Reformed Churches in America: Their Origin, Early History and
Doctrine (Grand Rapids: First Protestant Reformed Church, 1936).
72. Hanko, For Thy Truth’s Sake, 53.
73. Hanko, Contending for the Faith, 348-9.
74. M. J. Bosma, Exposition of Reformed Doctrine: A Popular
Explanation of the Most Essential Teachings of the Reformed Churches, 4th
ed. (Grand Rapids: Smitter Book Company, 1927), 56-7.
75. William Heyns, Manual of Reformed Doctrine (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1926), 239, 243.
76. For the Three Points,
see Acts of Synod of the Christian Reformed
Church, 1924, trans. Henry DeMots (Grand Rapids: Archives of the Christian
Reformed Church, 2000), 145-7. Cf. also Hoeksema, The Protestant Reformed Churches in America, 85-6.
77. Acts of Synod of the CRC, 1924, 145-6. Emphasis mine.
78. Louis Berkhof, De Drie Punten in
Alle Deelen Gereformeerd (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1925).
79. The Declaration is
found in The
Confessions and the Church Order of the Protestant Reformed Churches
(Grandville, MI: Protestant Reformed Churches in America, 2005), 412-431. The
rejection of the free offer is found on pp. 412-6.
80. Hanko, For Thy Truth’s Sake, 83-4.
81. Harold Dekker, “God So
Loved—ALL Men!” in The Best of The
Reformed Journal, ed. James D. Bratt and Ronald A. Wells (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2001), 57.
82. For Boer’s gravamen see
Acts of Synod of the CRC, 1977 (Grand
Rapids: Board of Publications of the Christian Reformed Church, 1977), 665-679.
Cf. also Boer’s account of this history in his The Doctrine of Reprobation in the Christian Reformed Church (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983).
83. Blacketer, “The Three
Points in Most Parts Reformed,” 37-65.
84. For more on this
history consult Michael A. Hakkenberg, “The Battle over the Ordination of
Gordon H. Clark,” in Pressing Toward the
Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church,
ed. Charles G. Dennison and Richard C. Gamble (Philadelphia: Committee for the
Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1986), 329-350; and Hoeksema, The Clark-Van Til Controversy (Hobbs,
NM: Trinity Foundation, 1995).
85. Hoeksema, Clark-Van Til, 33-4.
86. John Murray, “The Free
Offer of the Gospel,” in Collected
Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1982),
4:113-132. In a footnote we read that this report “was subsequently reprinted
in booklet form under the names of John Murray and Ned B. Stonehouse but
although Dr. Stonehouse, as a member of the committee, offered editorial
suggestions, the material was written by Professor Murray: (p. 113, n. 1).
Murray also discusses the free offer in “The Atonement and the Free Offer,” in Collected Writings, 1:59-85; and in Redemption: Accomplished and Applied
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 134ff.
87. Hanko, History, 136; Hoeksema, Clark-Van Til, 11, 33.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For free subscription to the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, simply send an email to "Judi Doezema <doezema@prca.org>"
No comments:
Post a Comment