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Scripture Passage |
Argument |
Reformed Responses |
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Common Grace Texts |
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“Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Ps.
136:25). |
Ps. 136 says throughout that God’s creating the
heavens and ordaining the cycles of the stars for the benefit of all is
mercy. His taking Israel out of Egypt,
defeating their enemies and giving them a land for an inheritance, though the
majority of Israel were unbelievers, was merciful. Verse 25 says that God’s providing food to
all animals and people is merciful. |
1) If
the proponent of common grace is arguing that 136:25 speaks of a mercy of God
to every human, the Psalm itself will not allow it. The Psalm
regards God’s mercy to Israel. Therefore, the “all
flesh” of verse 25 is not every human, but the people of
God. Evidence in the Psalm that Jehovah’s mercy is particularly
for Israel, and not for all humans, is His destruction of Egypt (vv. 10, 15),
and other nations (vv. 18-20). I remember a seminary professor
telling me years ago that “all flesh” could even include the care of God for
Israel’s sheep and goats and bullocks; but still, it is a particular mercy
shown to Israel alone. 2) If
the proponent of common grace is arguing that 136:25 speaks of mercy in
material things, such as rain and sunshine, the answer is
twofold: (a) In the Old Testament, God did give His people
earthly abundance, in the way of their obedience, as tokens of His
favor. (b) Even today, though God does not promise earthly
abundance to those who love Him, yet what He does give is given in His love
for us. (DK, 29/04/2019) |
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“The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of
great mercy. The Lord is good to all:
and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Ps. 145:8-9) |
The term “good” in Hebrew, often means
gracious. So 1 Pet. 2:3 translates it
this way, quoting from Ps. 34:8. Other
examples of God’s goodness being synonymous with mercy and loving kindness
are found in Ps. 23:6, 25:7-8, 86:5 and others. |
David, indeed, tells
us that ‘the Lord is
gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy;’ that
‘the Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works,’ Ps.
145:8, 9: but he tells us withal whom he intends by the ‘all’ in this place,
even the ‘generations which praise his works and declare his mighty acts,’
verse 4; those who ‘abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness, and
sing of his righteousness,’ verse 7; or his ‘saints,’ as he expressly calls
them, verse 10. The work he there mentions is the work of the kingdom of
Christ over all, wherein the tender mercies of God are spread abroad in
reference to them that do enjoy them (The Works of John Owen, vol.
12, pp. 559-560). |
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“Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness”
(Isa. 26:10). |
‘Favor’ in the Hebrew is ‘chesed’, or grace,
grace being undeserved favor. Verses 9
and 11 show that the wicked spoken here are not of Israel, but of the
world. And, as they will not learn
righteousness, they demonstrate themselves to be reprobates. |
“The appeal
of the proponents of a common grace of God to Isaiah 26:10 on behalf of their
theory is disastrous to their theory.
First, the
construction of the text is that of a ‘condition contrary to fact’: ‘IF favor
be showed to the wicked,’ etc. The thought of the phrase is that in fact
favor is NOT shown to the wicked. The thought of the phrase is similar to
this statement, ‘If David Engelsma had a million dollars, he would still not
donate to Black Lives Matter.’ The meaning is not that David has a million
dollars, or the possibility of having a million dollars. Rather, the
conditional statement declares that David does NOT have a
million dollars.
To repeat,
the conditional statement declares that God does NOT show favor to the
(reprobate) wicked.
Second, the
text condemns the theory of a common grace of God in that it declares that,
even if God did show common grace to the wicked, this grace would do no good
to them. It would not have the effect of the wicked’s learning righteousness.
He would still deal unjustly, and would still not behold the majesty of the
LORD. According to those who confess a common grace of God, God shows favor
to the wicked so that he will deal justly in his everyday life and even
perform deeds that please the LORD (cf. the ‘third point’ of the ‘Three
Points of 1924’). Indeed, the result of this common grace is that the wicked
see something of the majesty of the LORD, at least in everyday affairs. The
text explicitly denies this. The wicked would still deal unjustly and would
not behold anything of the majesty of God, even if God showed him a common
favor, or grace.
The implied
teaching of the text is that what is necessary for learning righteousness is
that a naturally wicked man be born again by the Spirit of God and thus be
the object of the efficacious, saving (particular, not common) grace of God
in Jesus Christ. This favor is efficacious, that is, it accomplishes in the
(elect) wicked person that he learns righteousness, deals justly, and beholds
the majesty of the LORD. It does not fail to save.”
(DJE, 15/01/2022)
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“They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy” (Jonah 2:8). |
The reference is to idolaters who worship false
gods and continue to do such (that is, reprobates). Yet the mercy that is offered to them,
which they forsake, is their own mercy.
That is, mercy offered to them is a merciful act towards them. They are the recipients of mercy designed
for them, and yet they forsake it. |
“The
biblical truth of divine mercy is that it is the perfection of God towards
guilty, depraved sinners that has pity upon them that efficaciously delivers
them from their guilt and total depravity. The effect of this mercy is
that they believe and are saved. If this mercy is theirs in the sense
that they are the objects of the mercy, they never forsake it, because an
aspect of the mercy itself is that mercy preserves them in faith and
godliness and that it keeps them from ever again observing lying
vanities. Mercy delivers those upon whom God has mercy from idolatry. Romans 9:18
teaches that God has mercy only upon some humans, whereas He hardens the
others (v. 18). Verse 23 adds that the purpose and effect of this mercy
are that it bestows on the vessels of mercy “the riches of his glory,” that
is, salvation. Mercy is particular, not general, and efficacious, not
failing to save in many instances. In light of
Romans 9, Jonah 2 cannot teach a universal mercy that fails to save.
And any explanation of Jonah 2 that teaches a universal, ineffective
salvation is, ipso facto, a denial of the gospel of grace, as set
forth in Romans 9. At the same
time, all idolatry (the observation of “lying vanities” of Jonah 2:8) is a
folly for which the idolater is responsible. Objectively, there is
mercy for humans in the fear and worship of Jehovah God, and in the fear and
worship of Him alone. There is no revelation of, and bestowal of mercy
upon, humans in idolatry. Therefore, for a human, even a reprobate, to
despise the worship of God in Jesus Christ for the worship of an idol is for
him foolishly to forsake his own mercy. There is no implication in the
text of the mercy of God’s actually being directed to such an idolater, much
less of its actually having been enjoyed by him. There is rather the
confession that mercy for humans is found alone in the worship of the one,
true God of Israel in the Old Testament and of the God and Father of the
church today, so that to abandon or reject this one, true God is to despise
the very possibility of mercy for oneself. The statement does not call
into question the sovereignty of mercy, but throws into the foreground the
responsibility of the sinner in despising mercy as it is revealed in the
gospel, as the only mercy for humans. I
understand this explanation of the text to be basically the same as
Calvin’s: “The sense then is, that as soon as men depart from God, they
depart from life and salvation, and that nothing is retained by them, for
they wilfully cast aside whatever good that can be hoped and desired.” If in
contradiction the text is teaching the real possibility that one can lose the
mercy that God actually, personally bestows on him, the teaching is the loss
of mercy that saves, not a common grace mercy. For its opposite is the
observance of lying vanities. It is then teaching that one can be saved
by the mercy of God, but lose this mercy with its salvation. Implied is
that the salvation of sinners depends, not upon the mercy of God, but upon
the will of the sinner. And Jonah denies this in verse 9, the text
immediately following: “Salvation is of the LORD.” This is our
controversy with the common grace theory. It confesses that salvation
is of the will of the sinner; we confess that salvation is of the LORD.” (DJE,
21/02/2022)
“On the surface of the matter, I
wonder why WMO advocates have to interpret the phrase ‘their own mercy’
in Jonah 2:8 as
being God’s mercy. If
we take the translation of the AV/KJV as correct—as it probably is—it speaks
of the mercy demonstrated by the wicked, not by God. So why make it proof for
the WMO? You may argue that the wicked exercise
no mercy and that there is only that mercy which God gives to or shows human
beings, but that is not true. Proverbs
12:10 states that ‘the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’
They surely display a ‘mercy’ which is a kindness shown to the
underprivileged or others in distress. Many philanthropic organizations
manifest a certain concern for others. James even speaks of a wisdom that the
wicked have but calls it ‘earthy, sensual, devilish’ (3:15). Jonah, inspired by the Holy Spirit and
thus speaking the word of Christ in the great fish’s belly, in his prayer to
God in which he cites many different passages from the Psalms, expresses the
truth that the wicked who worship idols do indeed perform their acts of mercy
(as shown to Jonah by the sailors, for example). However, their acts of
worship are idolatry. It is probable that Jonah implied the petition that God
please show mercy to him.”
(Herman C.
Hanko, “Covenant Reformed News,” vol. 18, no. 5 [Sept. 2020])
“The
gospel, that there is one only God who reveals Himself in Jesus Christ,
contains a promise that those who fear, trust, and obey Him will experience
His mercy. The idolater does not experience mercy, for he turns from
the true God. I do not understand, then, why any say that there is
mercy for the idolater. Jonah makes clear that there is not. They
turn their back on mercy. If
the point of the argument is that the very presentation of the gospel, which
they refused to heed, was, itself, merciful, then someone is trying to find
in this text a support for the “well-meant offer of the gospel.” To
that, my response would be: (1) only if the “well-meant offer” is
clearly taught elsewhere in Scripture can it be read into this text.
(2) but the rest of Scripture and the Reformed confessions teach that God, in
causing the reprobate to hear the gospel, is not being “merciful” to them; He
is only making plain to their mind what it is that they are rejecting. If
the Bible were to teach the well-meant offer, one could read
Jonah 2:8 in light of it. If the Bible rejects the well-meant offer,
Jonah cannot be used to support it. More to the point, when looking in
the Bible for support for the well-meant offer, one certainly cannot claim
that Jonah 2:8 trumps Romans 9-11.”
(DK, 29/04/2019)
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“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye
may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust" (Matt. 5:44-45). |
“The parallelism, though it is implicit, is that
we are to love evil people as our Father does. If God does not love evil people, the
argument makes no sense. It is also
the Holy Spirit that causes us to love our enemies, because He, being God,
loves them. It would be strange for
the Holy Spirit to cause us to love those people that He hates.” |
/// “The parallelism, though it is implicit, is that we are to
love evil people as our Father does.
If God does not love evil people, the argument makes no sense.” ///
If rain and sunshine are evidences of
God’s favour upon the wicked, then drought and sickness and
disappointment are God’s disfavour upon His people. That
would contradict all of Scripture. Whatever God does to His children, He does
in love and for their good. So that would dismantle the explanation of the
text by defenders of the well-meant gospel offer. What, in fact, the text is teaching is
this: You and I, and all Christians, must do
good, as much as possible, to our enemies—those who hate us and mistreat
us—and the Lord Himself appeals to ‘deeds’ of God (not to an ‘attitude’ of
God, much less, a saving attitude of God, but that there are
‘deeds’ of God that are good in themselves—not good for the spiritual and
eternal welfare of the wicked, but those deeds of God are, nevertheless,
‘good’ deeds). God is good in His providential government of society, which
includes causing crops to grow, which are enjoyed by the wicked, as well as
by the righteous. And so, as God does deeds that are good in themselves to
His enemies, we are to do good deeds to our enemies. But there is nothing in it of a favour
of God that wills the salvation of the wicked. (DJE, Dialogue with Rev.
Sonny Hernandez, “Is the ‘Well-Meant Offer’ Biblical?”)
/// “It is also the Holy Spirit that
causes us to love our enemies, because He, being God, loves them. It would be strange for the Holy Spirit to
cause us to love those people that He hates.” ///
Why is that strange? Who is to say what is strange? The Bible
tells us what is true, not our feelings of strangeness. (MM,
06/10/2019)
Using similar argumentation someone
could also say, “The Holy Spirit creates in us repentance and the desire to
repent … Surely therefore the Holy Spirit has desires to repent ...?” Or,
“The Holy Spirit works in us faith, and He works in us the desire to believe
more and more (“Lord, increase our faith”—Luke 17:5). Does not this mean that
the Holy Spirit Himself ‘believes’? or desires to believe ...?” What the Holy Spirit works in us are
desires that are fitting for a ‘creature’ to walk in the will of God. Ones
appropriate for a ‘creature’ are not appropriate for God. For instance, human beings have souls
and different thoughts and emotions. As creatures, it is appropriate for us
to think things from several different perspectives. Let’s say, for example,
that someone known to us sins. You feel really angry for what that person has
done, or done to somebody else, and yet you also feel ‘pity’ towards that
person (“If only that person realised what they were doing ... they’re going
to ruin their lives”). What is the will of God in this
situation? The will of God, if this person is an elect, is to save them (“all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose”—Rom. 8:28). God’s desire in this situation
is to sanctify this person, or maybe use it to bring him to repentance later
on. God has one desire,
and yet God, by His Spirit, makes us human beings who are creatures who don’t
know everything to feel various emotions and sentiments correlating to the
various perspectives of events (i.e. we only see a little bit of what’s going
on and react in all the ways in which limited human beings react—we don’t
know the past or the future and we don’t know what’s going on, etc.). (Rev.
Angus Stewart—public lecture: “God’s Saving Will in the New Testament,”
Q&A session) |
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“But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing
again … and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the
unthankful and to the evil. Be ye
therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36). |
“These verses show that we are to pattern our
character and actions after God’s, that we might be like Him. The word ‘kind’ in v. 35, that God is kind
to both the unthankful and the evil, is the same Greek word translated ‘love’
in 1 Cor. 13. These common good gifts
to all human kind are termed mercy in verse 36, as it is God’s character to
be merciful to the elect and the reprobate.” |
Plainly, Luke
6:35 cannot bear the interpretation given it by the defenders of common
grace. This interpretation is that God is kind to reprobate unthankful and
evil men with a non-saving, common grace kindness … God’s kindness
in Luke 6:35 is [said to be] a “positive, albeit non-salvific,
regard for those who are not elect.” But the text teaches the saving grace,
or kindness, of God toward unthankful and evil people. The word that is
translated “kind” is the Greek word chreestos (χρηστός). This
word is used of God elsewhere in the New Testament in I Peter
2:3 and in Romans 2:4. In I Peter 2:3, where the King James
Version translates the word as “gracious,” the word refers to God’s kindness
in saving His elect. “As newborn babes,” regenerated believers are to desire
the sincere milk of the word, “if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious (Greek: chreestos).” In Romans
2:4, the King James Version translates chreestos as
“goodness”: “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth
thee to repentance?” [See footnote below]. Inasmuch as this goodness, or
kindness, of God leads one to repentance, it is a saving kindness,
not a “common grace” kindness … Scripture denies that God is kind and
merciful to unthankful and evil reprobates, having compassion on them in
their misery, willing their salvation, leading them to repentance, and
forgiving their sins: “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I
will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion …
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth”
(Rom. 9:15, 18). Scripture teaches that the Christ of God, carrying out the
will of God who sent Him, refused to pray for all men without exception.
Thus, He showed that He did not sincerely desire the salvation of all without
exception. He prayed only for those whom the Father had given Him out of the
world. “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me; for they are thine” (John 17:9). The meaning of Luke 6:35 is
that we Christians are to love our neighbors, including our enemies. These
enemies are unbelievers, non-Christians, who are hostile toward us because of
our confession and discipleship of Christ. They may well be reprobate
enemies, although we hope that our prayers and kind behavior may be useful to
win them to Christ. In loving our enemies, we reflect the
character of our Father. Like Father, like children. For God is kind to
unthankful and evil people. He is not kind to all unthankful
and evil people. Nor does Luke 6:35 say this. But He is kind to
people who are unthankful and evil. These are the elect in Christ, “the
children of the Highest,” who now are called and privileged to show the
marvelous goodness of their heavenly Father in their own attitude and
behavior toward their enemies. We were
the unthankful and evil when in kindness He set His love upon us in the
eternal decree of election. We were
the unthankful and evil when in kindness He gave up His own Son for us in the
redeeming death of the cross. We were
the unthankful and evil when in kindness He translated us by the regenerating
Spirit into the kingdom of His dear Son. And still we are the unthankful and
evil when daily, in kindness, He brings us to repentance, forgives our sins,
preserves us in the faith, and shows us a fatherly face in Jesus Christ. For,
although by His grace we are also thankful and holy, we have only a very
small beginning of this thankfulness and holiness. How unthankful we are for
the love of God to us in Jesus Christ! And this is evil! This is a great evil! [Luke 6:35] does not teach a common
grace of God. It teaches a saving kindness of God. If the unthankful and evil
in the text are all humans without exception, the text teaches that the
saving grace of God is universal, a doctrine that the rest of Scripture
denies, a doctrine that the Reformed confessions condemn, and a doctrine that
[all Calvinists] repudiate. (DJE, “Common Grace Revisited” [RFPA]) |
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“Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He left not himself without
witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful
seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:16-17). |
“This shows that God does ‘good’ to the nations
he leaves in darkness without the gospel.” |
[When]
God “did good” in Acts 14:17 … it was as a “witness,” but the ungodly heathen
must never imagine, when God “gave [them] rain from heaven, and fruitful
seasons, filling [their] hearts with food and gladness,” that this was a
demonstration that the Creator loved them, favoured them or sought to bless
them. Indeed, Paul writes elsewhere that the wrath of
God—and not His love or favour—is revealed from heaven through the creation
that God has made (Rom. 1:18-20). God
reveals His love, grace, mercy and favour in Jesus Christ! Only in
Jesus Christ! (Rev. Martyn
McGeown, “British Reformed Journal,” Issue 63 [Autumn/Winter 2016]) |
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“Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance? But after thy hardness and
impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath
and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom. 2:4-5). |
“The end of verse 4 is a purpose clause (which
should be translated “which ought to lead you to repentance”), which is
frustrated in verse 5. Arminians are
wrong because they believe God’s decrees can be, and are, frustrated by
man. Calvinists believe that God’s
decrees cannot be frustrated. However,
the loving aspect of God’s revealed will as expressed in the free offer of
the gospel can be frustrated as this verse shows, just as unbeliever’s also frustrate
and disobey the moral aspect of God’s will by breaking His commandments. |
“Within the
‘O man …’ of verse 3, there are two distinct individuals. The text addresses
the ‘O man …’ organically and individually. Both are addressed in the 2nd person singular (‘thou’/‘thee’), but
both are very different from one another.” (Rev. Martyn McGeown, 25/06/2015)
“[Romans 2:4] does not refer to a
‘goodness’ or ‘longsuffering’ of God for the reprobate. First, the text does
not say that Jehovah’s goodness or longsuffering merely ‘tries’ (but fails)
to lead the reprobate to repentance; it says that ‘the goodness of God leadeth
thee to repentance.’ Second, the verse speaks not of merely a bit of common
grace for the reprobate, as some allege, but of ‘the riches of his goodness.’ Romans 2:4 is not addressed to man as
elect or reprobate but to generic and undifferentiated man. Thus he is
addressed in the context as ‘O man’ (1, 3). If we come to differentiation,
God’s ‘forbearance’ is for the reprobate, as in Romans 9:22; His
longsuffering is for the elect (Luke 18:7) and is always salvific (II Pet.
3:15).” (Rev. Angus Stewart, “The Longsuffering of God: A Survey of
God’s Longsuffering throughout Scripture”) |
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“What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known,
endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”
(Rom. 9:22). |
Note that longsuffering is an expression of
kindness and is often associated with God’s love and mercy (Ps. 86:15; 2 Cor.
6:6). |
According to Romans
9:22, God endures “with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction.” It would be easy, but wrong, to interpret this to mean
that longsuffering here denotes an attitude of God’s favor
toward the reprobate wicked. What the text says is that He endures the
vessels of wrath (and their wickedness), doing so with much longsuffering;
or while He endures the wicked (the tares), He experiences and reveals
longsuffering to His people. It is like a loving father witnessing His
children being beaten by muggers. He, for a time, endures their being
painfully afflicted (that they through a measure of suffering may learn to
endure hardness). Those wicked oppressors (cp. the Egyptians) He endures and
endures, until He must finally say, Enough is enough! and rescue His own (cp.
the Israelites) from their frightening beatings. Of course, all the while He
endured those violent enemies He was longsuffering over His children! (See
also Reformed Dogmatics, Herman Hoeksema, first two paragraphs,
p. 121). God's waiting out the wicked is in order “that He might be gracious”
(Isa. 30:18) to His people. Grace is both revealed only in Christ
and only to those in Christ. This then of necessity goes for
His longsuffering and patience (aspects of His grace). Jesus Christ, our
faithful Savior, fully satisfied for all our sins to lay down the ground for
manifestations of His longsuffering. Then this mercy is not common, showered
also on the wicked, but is particular, experienced only by the righteous. For
“the longsuffering of God is (not merely has a tendency to) salvation” (II
Pet. 3:15). Then no comfort is there for the wicked that God endures them
until He cannot stand them any more. (Robert Harbach [1914-1996], “The
Standard Bearer,” vol. 60, no. 4 [Nov. 15, 1983]) |
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“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have
tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And
have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If
they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they
crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame”
(Heb. 6:4-6). |
Reprobates that hear the gospel and sit under
the ministry of the Word partake of the gracious common operations of the
Holy Spirit, tasting of the things of God, of the promises and of the world
to come, and yet turn away to perdition.
While all of these blessings are not-saving, do note that they are
internal upon the soul of the reprobate. |
In the sphere of the visible church,
the understanding of some reprobate can even be said to be “enlightened” by
the Spirit, so that they have a clear natural understanding
of spiritual things (Heb. 6:4) and a sense or “taste” of the beauty of the
Scriptures, the glory of heaven and the power of God (vv. 4-5). The ungodly
prophet Balaam (II Pet. 2:15-16) certainly experienced this, as one can see
from his four prophecies concerning Israel (Num. 23:7-10, 18-24; 24:3-9,
15-24) and especially certain parts of them (e.g., 23:10, 23; 24:5, 9, 17,
23), for he “knew the knowledge of the most High” (24:16) and spoke by “the
spirit of God” (v. 2). Through the preaching, the Spirit even gives some
non-elect “joy” in their natural understanding of spiritual things, before
they fall away from their (hypocritical) profession of faith (Matt.
13:20-21). After all, it is only through the Spirit that unbelievers experience
(an earthly) joy in the pleasant things of God’s creation like a beautiful
sunset or a good meal or finally grasping a difficult concept. Even so, it is
the Spirit who gives some reprobate a natural understanding of spiritual
things and a (temporary) natural joy in spiritual things. Moreover, reprobate
unbelievers, such as Judas Iscariot, were given power to exorcise demons
(7:22; 10:1, 4) of the Father, through the Son and by the Holy Spirit (10:1;
12:28). In connection with the three proof
texts often listed with Westminster Confession 10:4, we
note, first, that those who merely receive the “common operations of the
Spirit,” such as, a natural illumination in, and a natural taste of,
spiritual things in Hebrews 6:4-5 are subject to God’s “cursing” (v. 8),
which is His powerful, damning wrath (Matt. 25:41). Second, sandwiched
between the parable of the sower (13:3-9) and its explanation (vv. 18-23),
including its word about those who experience natural joy over the mysteries
of the kingdom for a time (vv. 20-21), is Christ’s affirmation of God’s
election and reprobation as determining man’s response to the gospel (vv.
14-15; cf. Isa. 6:9-10; John 12:39-40). Third, to those not elected to
salvation who have uttered prophecies, exorcised demons and performed
miracles (Matt. 7:22), the Lord states that He will say, “I never knew you:
depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (v. 23). Since Christ, the incarnate
Son of God, knows all men head for head intellectually, and must know
everybody in order to proclaim this judgment upon many at the last day, “I
never knew you” refers to His knowledge of love: “I never loved you, not now,
not before the foundation of the world, not during your life on earth,
never!” Thus all these good gifts to the reprobate come to them not in God’s
love and grace (Ps. 73; Prov. 3:33; Rom. 9:13; 11:7-10) but by His sovereign,
all-controlling providence, which is of the Father, through the Son and by
the Holy Spirit. These “operations of the Spirit” are
“common” to the elect and the reprobate in that some elect and some reprobate
have performed miracles (Matt. 7:22) and all elect and some reprobate have
been enlightened and given joy in, and a taste of, the mysteries of the
gospel by the Spirit (13:20; Heb. 6:4-5). There are especially three
differences, however, with regard to the “operations of the Spirit” in the
elect and the non-elect. First, the Spirit gives to some reprobate a natural understanding,
joy and taste of or in spiritual things, whereas the elect receive a spiritual understanding,
joy and taste of or in spiritual things (John 17:13; I Cor. 2:14). Second,
the “operations of the Spirit” come to the two groups of people with a
different divine motivation and in a different way: the elect receive them in
God’s grace but the reprobate receive them in providence and not grace. (Rev.
Angus Stewart, “Covenant Reformed News,” vol. XIV, issue 14 [June 2013]) |
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Outward Mercies in the Covenant of Grace to the Reprobate |
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“Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed:
thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation” (Exod.
15:13). |
“This is part of Moses’ song after God
mercifully lead Israel through the divided waters of the Red Sea. Yet, Deut. 32:5,6 calls those same people a
perverse and crooked generation. Deut.
32:10,11 says that God lead this foolish and unwise people about in the
wilderness as the apple of His eye and spread His wings over them as an
eagle.” |
“The people,” according to the text, whom
God in His mercy “redeemed,” “led forth,” and “guided” were Israel—God’s
chosen people; those whom He elected in Christ unto salvation in eternity
past. They were “the church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). And “redemption”
from Egypt was but a picture of the true, actual (spiritual) redemption that
Christ brings: redemption from slavery to sin and guilt.
That “the people” in the text do not
include the reprobate is seen in Romans 9:6, a key to interpret all other
similar passages: “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel”—meaning,
not all who wore the badge “I am of Israel … I am redeemed” were God’s Israel;
not all who were physically among the people who came out of Egypt were “the
people” whom God, in His mercy, “redeemed.” There is only one Israel, according to
Romans chapter 9: the elect, who alone are “the seed of Abraham.” The
reprobate are “not … Israel,” no matter their claims or position.
Galatians 3:16,29 confirms this: Christ alone, and all who are in Him by
election, are the “seed” to whom were all of the covenant promises. Think of
this: not even the covenant promises were made to the reprobate; God never
promised anything to them. Only to the elect are the covenant promises made.
“The people” spoken of in Exodus 15:13
being objects of God’s mercy, leading, and guiding, therefore, do not include
the reprobate. The reprobate are not (and never were) God’s “Israel.” Rather,
“the people” in the text is referring to the nation from an organic/spiritual
point of view: according to election.
We see an illustration of this concept
in everyday life:
When a farmer is said to tend to his
“field,” no one would ever consider the weeds, tares, chaff, rubbish, or bugs
that are physically in that patch of land as part of the “field” spoken of,
that is, the object of the farmer’s tender care and labor. The “field” in
that context is very specific and particular: it is the field from the
perspective of the final outcome of the farmer’s intention: the crop; the
corn or the wheat—and more specifically still: the kernels of corn.
The farmer works all that does **for the sake of the kernels alone**. They
alone are what the farmer has his eye on. Are not the leaves or the stem or the roots
important? Yes, but they are not what the farmer ultimately works for. Those
things (as well as the dirt, the fertilizer, the compost, etc.) merely
*serve* to help grow that which the farmer purposes everything: the kernels.
So also, God’s “people” in the text are
viewed from the same perspective. The objects of God’s gracious work of
“redemption,” “leading,” and “guiding” were the nation according to the
ultimate perspective: election. The reprobate are not (and never were)
objects of God’s tender mercy; God’s dealings were for the elect alone.
Were not reprobates physically among
those that came out of Egypt? Indeed. But it wasn’t for their sake this
happened; rather, as Paul says to the elect church in I Corinthians 3:21-23,
“all things” exist for the *elect’s* sake; “all things” (including the
existence of the reprobate) support and serve the salvation of God’s elect
people. There were elect in future
generations of those that came out of Egypt. Therefore, to ensure that those elect
would be born and come to salvation, God providentially (not mercifully)
preserved the lives of many reprobate that were among “the people” that came
out from Egypt. And God used those reprobate to raise up and look after His
true covenant children that were to be born. Once they had served their
purpose in this, God disposed of them; He no longer needed them. They were
chaff to be burned.
As Professor Herman Hanko once put it,
“The reprobate are here for the purpose of the salvation of the elect. As the
corn plant is necessary for the corn kernels, the reprobate are necessary for
the salvation of the elect. The elect church is like a building that God
builds throughout history; the reprobate are the scaffolding.”
But were not the people a “perverse
and crooked generation”? Yes. But that is simply a description of each and
every one of us as we are by nature: apart from the grace of God, we are all
“perverse” and “crooked”; we are all undeserving and hell-deserving; we all
sin in many ways, some worse than others. God allows His elect people to walk
in all kinds of sin for a season (and chastises them in His wrath). But their
being “perverse” and “crooked” doesn’t imply they are reprobate (aka,
non-elect). God, in His grace, is patient toward us and bears with our iniquities,
eventually drawing us back to repentance. |
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“The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and
transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I
beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy
mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And the LORD said, I have pardoned according
to thy word…" (Num. 14:18-20).
"Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their
fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it…" (Num.
14:23).
"I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil
congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they
shall be consumed, and there they shall die” (Num. 14:35). |
“Moses prays that God would forgive Israel and
not utterly destroy them after the 10 spies brought back the bad report. God forgives Israel according to the
greatness of His mercy even though they are an evil congregation (and remain
evil till the whole generation dies in the wilderness). Notice that God’s forgiveness here to the
reprobate is non-salvific. Also notice
that Moses pleads in his prayer that God is merciful and forgiving by His
very nature even to the reprobate.” |
“It ought to be observed that if the grace of God in Numbers 14 were directed to all the individuals
in Israel, all would have been saved. This mercy consisted of the
forgiveness of sins, and all whose sins are forgiven are saved. But many of
the Israelites perished, unforgiven and guilty. The answer
to the question is given by the apostle in Galatians 3 and Romans 9. The true
Israel of God in the OT, upon whom God was gracious and who were saved by this
sovereign grace, was not all or even the majority of individual
Israelites. It was the seed of Abraham who is Christ and all those who
are in Christ by faith (Gal. 3). They were not all Israel who were of
Israel, but only those who were the children of the promise, by God’s
election. ‘The children of the promise are counted for the seed [of
Abraham]’ (Rom. 9). In the OT,
God’s grace was directed to and fell upon and infallibly saved the true
Israel among the nation, namely, the elect. The reader
must take to heart election: God eternally elected Christ and many
sinful persons in Christ, so that in Christ all those whom God chose are
saved. God did not choose all, nor is He gracious to all. God has
mercy, not upon all humans, but upon those whom He wills to have mercy (Rom.
9:18). The rest He hardens, according to His will of reprobation (Rom.
9:18).” (DJE, 11/11/2020)
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“But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath
which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a
mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of
Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deut. 7:8). |
“This verse says that God loved Israel, that is,
those in the Covenant of Grace, and brought them out of the Egypt. Yet, many in Israel were unbelievers, as
Heb. 3 and 4 and 1 Cor. 10 says. God
has a special love for those in the Covenant of Grace, unbelievers and
believers alike.” |
“The
short and quick answer [to this argument] is found in Romans 9. Israel are
the seed of Abraham (Gen. 17:7). Romans 9:3-8 directly answers the question
by declaring that ‘they are not all Israel, which are of Israel.’ And all the
seed of Abraham are not automatically the children of the promise, but a
distinction must be made between the children of Israel who are children of
the flesh and those children of Israel who are the children of the promise.
The ‘seed of Abraham’ are only ‘the children of the promise.’ A
lengthier response would be to point out that when God speaks through Moses
to the nation of Israel, He is addressing the church as it existed in that
day. They were the church militant. They were the true church of that day. God
speaks to the nation/church as a whole, even though he knows that there are
unbelievers among them. It is the same way with a farmer who looks at his
field of planted corn and says, ‘That is my corn field,’ even though
he knows that there are weeds in it. So God is addressing Israel as a whole. Deuteronomy
7:6-8 make it clear that God is looking at the church as a whole with words
which are only for the true seed of Abraham, the children of the promise.
This should be easily understood when the passage speaks of God’s activity of
choosing them to be a ‘special people unto Himself’ and His setting ‘His
love upon’ them. This is God’s work of election, which is a work of love
(Eph. 1:4b,5a) and which Scripture limits to the elect. This would conflict
with Psalm 5:5; 7:11; 11:5 and many other passages which speak of God’s
hatred for sinners. Also,
to hold to common grace proves too much. The common grace would have to
be particular, namely, not for the Canaanites and other nations
which God did not choose, but only for those Israelites who were unbelievers.”
(RVO, 05/08/2019) |
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“For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in
his covenant. But he, being full of
compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time
turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh;
a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again. How oft did they provoke him in the
wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!
Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of
Israel. They remembered not his hand”
(Ps. 78:37-42). |
“Here again God is being merciful and
compassionate to the unregenerate who are never converted.” |
There is forgiveness only in Christ.
So when God says that He “forgave their iniquity” that has to refer to the
elect remnant who are in Christ. (JL, 29/07/2019)
Those who claim that this text (and
others like it) cannot possibly be speaking of believers but rather of the
“unregenerate” or the “unconverted” have an opinion of themselves and of the believer
in general that is simply not Scriptural.
It assumes (falsely) that the believer
can never be in a state whereby his heart is “not right” with God or that he
is not “stedfast in [God’s] covenant.” It also assumes (falsely) that God can
never be “angry” or “wrathful” towards believers at any point in time. This
is hyper-Calvinism. Scripture speaks many times about believers experiencing
God’s wrath:
“O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me
in thy hot displeasure” (Psalm 6:1).
“Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the
remembrance of his holiness. For his anger endureth but a
moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh
in the morning” (Psalm 30:4-5).
“O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in
thy hot displeasure” (Psalm 38:1).
“For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy
wrath are we troubled” (Psalm 90:7).
Other passages include Ps. 38:1, 88:7, Hab. 3:2, Rom. 13:5, 1Cor.
11:28-34, Heb. 12:6-11, II Chron. 19:2, etc.
The Heidelberg Catechism also
teaches this in Q&A 82: “Are they also to be admitted to this supper, who, by confession and
life, declare themselves unbelieving and ungodly? … No; for by this the
covenant of God would be profaned, and His wrath kindled against the
whole congregation.” We experience His wrath as chastisement.
Someone may ask: “If Christ bore all the wrath of God, then why should
Christians ever experience His wrath?” The same question could be asked, “Why
do we die if Jesus died for us?” (see Heid. Cat. LD 16, Q&A 42) There is a difference between “punitive” wrath (pertaining to
punishment), and “chastising” wrath (Fatherly discipline).
True believers acknowledge and confess
that they often “forget God’s hand,” that they “provoke” and “grieve” Him,
etc.
The text is speaking of Israel, God’s
elect people. And Romans 9 teaches us that the reprobate are not part of
God’s Israel at all (see verses 6-9; also Galatians 3:16, 29). |
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“This speaks of the love of God to Israel His
people, yet in verse 10 it says these same people turned against Him and
became His enemies, demonstrating that they were reprobates. They ‘vexed His Holy Spirit.’ That is, they frustrated and resisted the
common operations of the Holy Spirit, which is what Gen 6:3, Heb. 6:4-6 and
10:26,29 speak of.” |
If the Holy Spirit’s work is
irresistible, how is it possible for Scripture to say that He is “vexed?” The
word “vexed” seems to imply frustration, inability to accomplish what one
intends. If an artist is trying to get the right color of the sky on his
canvas, he is vexed when time and again he fails. If he succeeds in getting
exactly what he wants, he is no longer vexed. It is exactly because of this
problem that Arminians often appeal to this text and others like it to prove
that the work of the Spirit can be resisted … … Other passages of Scripture express
the same or similar ideas as this one. Psalm 78:40 speaks of Israel provoking
God in the wilderness and grieving Him in the desert. Stephen, in his speech
before the Sanhedrin, accusing the nation of Israel of resisting the Holy
Spirit (Acts 7:51). Paul admonishes the saints in Ephesus not to grieve the
holy Spirit of God, whereby they are sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph.
4:30): and this same admonition is repeated to the church in Thessalonica in
slightly different language in I Thessalonians 5:10. Two remarks seem to me to be
appropriate in understanding these passages. The first is that whatever sin
we commit which prompts these graphic descriptions of the Holy Spirit’s
response, this in no way ought to be construed as an ability on our part to frustrate
the work of the Spirit. We may grieve Him, provoke Him, resist Him; but He
will do His work whatever that may be. The Holy Spirit will save the
elect and will harden the reprobate. There can be no question about
that. This truth is even strongly suggested
by some of the texts quoted above. The wicked nation of Israel was justly
accused of resisting the Holy Spirit; but through such resistance the Spirit
was accomplishing His purpose in hardening. (For proof of this, see Paul’s
words in Romans 9:11-13, and John’s words in John 12:37-41.) And, if those who resisted and
provoked, were elect, the Holy Spirit overcame all their resistance and
brought His people to God through His sovereign work. John also teaches this
truth in John 6:37, 44, 45. It is also proved in the salvation of
the elect by Paul’s expression in the passage from Ephesians 4:30. It is true
that it is possible for believers to grieve the Holy Spirit; but the fact
remains that they are sealed to the day of redemption. That means that the
elect are preserved everlastingly in their salvation. The second remark that needs to be
made is indeed that the Holy Spirit can be grieved and provoked. Being
grieved and being provoked are emotions. But Scripture often speaks of
many different emotions that characterize God. Scripture speaks of God’s
love, joy, anger, pity, etc. Sometimes the name anthropomorphism is
given to such expressions. The term means literally “human form,” and is used
to indicate figures of speech in Scripture which ascribe human
characteristics to God. Scripture speaks of God’s right hand, God’s eyes, God
sleeping, etc. Emotions belong to such figures. It is difficult to understand these
things, for we think in terms of our emotions, which are human,
involve human characteristics, and human changeableness. Nevertheless,
Scripture uses these expressions so that we may have some understanding of
God. It is, however, important to
understand that in God all these characteristics are the reality, and
ours are the figures. God’s right hand is the real right hand;
ours is the shadow. God’s love is intensely perfect and divine; our
love is only patterned after God’s love. God’s anger is perfect; ours is the
type. Our human eyes are only created after the image of God’s eyes and
reflect God’s eyes dimly. God is surely angry with the sin of
rebellion. But this must never be construed as meaning that the Holy Spirit
of God does not always accomplish His sovereign purpose …
… God always deals with His people organically.
This term is a term with which we ought to become acquainted, and the truth
conveyed by it is crucial for an understanding of God’s works. What it means is this. In the old
dispensation when God made Israel His chosen people, he always dealt with
them as a nation, that is, the people in their entirety; the
nation as a whole. Now this means a number of things … First of all, it is quite obvious that
the nation (now considered as a whole) was spiritually different at different
times in its history. Sometimes the nation was spiritually strong. It
worshipped God in the temple. It banished or destroyed idolaters. The priests
performed their work in the temple diligently. Good kings sat on the throne.
The prophets spoke God’s Word. The nation trusted in God in its battles with
the surrounding nations. Does this mean that there were no
reprobate in the nation? No wicked? No idol-worshippers? Of course not. Paul tells
us in Romans 9:6 that never were all who were of Israel truly Israel. But,
under the rule of good kings, the nation taken as a whole was faithful. There were other times when quite the
opposite was true. Wicked kings sat on the throne such as Ahab, or Ahaz, or
Manasseh. They promoted idolatry and the worship of the gods of the heathen.
The priests appointed for temple service were wicked and used the temple to
worship idols. The prophets prophesied lies. Taken as a whole, the nation was
wicked. Does that mean there were no elect in
the nation? Of course not. God Himself assured Elijah during the terrible
times of Ahab that He had reserved to Himself 7000 who had not bowed the knee
to Baal. Though there were elect in the nation,
God spoke of the nation as wicked, rebellious, and deserving of His wrath
when the nation as a whole apostatized. And not only did God speak His words
of wrath, but He also poured out His wrath upon the nation in the form of
famine, foreign invaders, and finally captivity. Though there were reprobate
in the nation (perhaps even a majority) when the nation as a whole served the
Lord, God spoke words of comfort and blessing to His people. And He not only
spoke these words of comfort and blessing, but He sent the nation as
a whole prosperity, peace, and victory over their enemies. The important question is now this.
Were the blessings upon the nation as a whole blessings also to the reprobate,
and, therefore, indications of God’s love and favor upon them? Many
mistaking the whole idea, say Yes—and use that as a justification for the
doctrine of common grace …
… It is certainly true that the
reprobate came out of Egypt under God’s leadership and guidance; that they
too saw and participated in the miracles; that they received the manna and
water from the rock; and that they entered into Canaan along with the nation. But Scripture is quite adamant about
the fact that all these good things must never be construed in any way as
indicative of God’s love towards them, of His pity, mercy, grace, and desire
to save them. Psalm 73 is decisive on that point, for Asaph, who was troubled
because of the prosperity of the wicked (obviously within his own nation of
Israel), learned in God’s house that God was setting them on slippery
places—not in spite of their prosperity, but by means of their
prosperity. This is why Scripture finds the
analogy of a field so appropriate (See Heb. 6:7, 8). A farmer irrigates his
entire field so that the weeds are nourished by the water as well as the
crop. But does he love the weeds and care for them? Of course not. He
irrigates for the potatoes or wheat, and the growth of the weeds enables him
to separate them from the crop when the harvest comes. Is the water a
blessing to the weeds? Of course not. But they must grow until the harvest. If we turn now to the elect in the
nation, and in the church, then we must conclude, first of all, that the
blessings of God upon the nation were blessings upon His people. They are the
“crop” in the field of the nation. They are the sweet harvest at the end of
the age. They are the ones for whose sake God sends blessings upon the nation
as a whole. But what about the judgments which
also come upon the whole nation? There is no doubt about it that God’s
judgments come upon the elect and reprobate alike. After all, the whole
nation went into captivity, just as the whole nation suffered when famine
stalked the land. These judgments were certainly God’s fury against the
wicked and His wrath against the reprobate and carnal seed in the nation. And
by means of these judgments, the wicked were destroyed. But what about the righteous? They too
come under these judgments. But because Christ would bear (and now has borne)
the judgment of God against their sin, these very judgments are now chastisements
(See Hebrews 12:5-13, and the many references to chastisement in Scripture).
That is, these very judgments become the means whereby God corrects,
instructs, purifies, and strengthens His people. These chastisements can very well be
because God is angry with His people. They, too, sin against Him. Even in
Israel, sometimes the elect were worshipping idols along with the reprobate.
But His anger toward His people is but for a moment. He will not always
chide. He is merciful and gracious to them. He saves them—even if that be
through the way of suffering. Zion is redeemed through judgment,
Isaiah says in another place (1:27), and Peter speaks of the same truth when
he writes in I Peter 4:17-18: “For the time is come that judgment must begin
at the house of God: and if it first begin with us, what shall the end be of
them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely (i.e.,
with great difficulty) be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner
appear?” But let it be remembered that good
things and bad are blessings to God’s people; and good things and bad
are curses to the wicked. And this is why Isaiah 63:7, 10 reads as it
does. (Herman C. Hanko, “Covenant Reformed News,” vol. 7, nos. 14, 15
and 16) |
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“Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your
children’s children will I plead” (Jer. 2:9). |
The Lord legally pleads with His covenanted
reprobate people who refuse to be faithful to Him. The whole chapter chronicles His kindness
to them and their ungratefulness to Him. |
It’s
important to note that “plead” has the idea of “contending with” or “striving
with words” as in “getting into a quarrel.” So the word is used in the sense
of carrying on a lawsuit against someone. For example, the word is used in
Genesis 13:7: “And there was a strife between the herdmen of
Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the
Perizzite dwelled then in the land.” Similarly, Genesis 26:20: “And the
herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen,
saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because
they strove with him.” Also, Exodus 17:2: “Wherefore the people did chide with
Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them,
Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the LORD?” So,
pleading is not necessarily a begging and hoping against hope that those who
hear the word would repent. But,
when God directs his argument against those who are walking in sin, the
reprobate will hear the word and harden their hearts. At the same time, God
will graciously work in the hearts of His elect to BRING them to repentance
through the word of warning. So this does not qualify as a well-meant offer
in the sense that God is graciously dealing with the reprobate trying to get
them to repent. (JM, 09/08/2019) |
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“For thus saith the Lord, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither
go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this
people, saith the Lord, even loving-kindness and mercies” (Jer. 16:5). |
“This verse says that God takes away His
loving-kindnesses and mercy from an obstinate people because they are
rebellious unbelievers. |
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“And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and
children of whoredoms… For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine,
and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold…” (Hos. 1:2; 2:8). |
The Lord married Israel to Himself by covenant,
though much of Israel whored after other lovers and proved herself to be
reprobate, as the book of Hosea describes.
Yet, during all this time, God showered and blessed His unbelieving
people with His gracious covenant mercies. |
The
erroneous interpretation of that text (Hosea 2:8) which would find there God
bestowing gracious covenant mercies upon unbelieving Israel, partakes of
either one of two errors: (1)
It either looks at God’s grace or mercy in the things He
gives—something powerfully refuted in Psalm 73, or (2) It fails to understand
that “not all are Israel which are of Israel” (Romans 9:6), and therefore the
good gifts which God bestows upon people (including in the outward
manifestation of Israel, His church) are given either for their salvation or
damnation. In the opening verses of Romans 9, e.g., the apostle points
out the greater condemnation for those who have rejected the gospel, even
after having been brought into such intimate connection with those precious
gifts of God. A very similar teaching is seen in the opening verses of
Hebrews 6. You might also consider the last verses of II Corinthians 2,
where the same gospel proclamation is “the sweet savour of Christ, in them
that are saved, and in them that perish.” “To the one we are the savour of
life unto life,” says the apostle. But that same gospel is the “savour
of death unto death” in those who perish. To
speak of a “mercy” or “grace” of God that does not save, but works greater
condemnation, is a most peculiar conception of “mercy” or “grace.” (SK,
31/07/2019) |
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“All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them, for the
wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love
them no more” (Hos. 9:15.) |
God is saying that at one time He loved the
people in Gilgal, but due to their wickedness He will love them no more. Here is a love for reprobates that is not
complacent or irresistible, and is withdrawn. |
First,
there is no way to understand this text apart from understanding election and
reprobation, as the Reformed confessions teach it. The elect He loves,
unchangingly; the reprobate He hates, unchangingly. Second,
the key to understanding this text is to realize that God was speaking to the
northern kingdom of Israel—the ten tribes, who were already apostatizing.
They had begun in sin, by worshiping the golden calves; had progressed in
sin, by turning to idols; and had hardened themselves in sin, by refusing to
heed the warnings of God’s prophets. When I say “They” I mean the ten
tribes as a whole. Within the ten tribes were some who were
elect, and God loved them; but as anation, and with regard to most in
the nation, they were increasingly apostate, manifesting they were reprobate. To
the southern kingdom of Judah God spoke no such words as in this text. They
were sinful also, and would be chastised for their sin, but never did God say
He hated them. But
to the northern kingdom God both said He hated them, and would manifest that
hatred by destroying the nation completely in the Assyrian captivity,
from which the nation would never be restored. Interesting
is the question, Why did God once love, and now hate?
Again, God does not formerlylove some, and then hate some—that
is, the text is not speaking of God’s attitude toward individual
persons. But it speaks of His attitude toward the nation as
a whole. Though Israel’s beginnings were in sin, yet God had many of His people
among the ten tribes, earlier in their history. Naboth was one example. As
they progressed in apostasy, the nation became more and more wicked and
filled with reprobate. God could then say He hated them. So
the text speaks of God transitioning from divine love to divine hatred, in
accord with His decree of election and reprobation, and that transition
according with the transition of the nation from faith and
obedience (relatively) to unbelief and disobedience. It
is a powerful word to churches today. If we once were faithful, and enjoyed
God’s blessing, let us not take His blessing for granted. We must be faithful
to Him, or we will not experience His blessing. Our faithfulness is not
the REASON for His blessing; but He hates unfaithful churches, which are
filled with unfaithful, unbelieving people who outwardly profess
Christianity. If
I didn’t answer every question, ask specific questions again; Hosea
9:15 cannot be used in support of common grace or to teach that
God’s love is changeable. (DK, 30/07/2019) |
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“Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy,
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the
covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite
unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:29). |
This verse speaks of one who apostatizes from
the church and is demonstrated to be a reprobate. Yet, this reprobate was sanctified (set
apart in a special manner) by the Covenant of Grace, which blessings were purchased
by the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross. He apostatizes despite all the gracious
influences that he had received as a reprobate from the Spirit of grace. |
That the Bible here
speaks of these as having been “sanctified” in the blood of the Covenant
means that that is what was their professed position
once. They had a very accurate knowledge of this, and even for a
“time” rejoiced in it. They tasted in a sense the power of the
coming age, and the good word of God. But when once they sin
wilfully, when they sin the sin of “falling away from the living God” in
doctrine and life, then there is no more offering for their
sin. They really never were sanctified in their hearts, serving
the Lord in spirit and in truth! (George Lubbers, Commentary on
Hebrews) |
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“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there
shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable
heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves
swift destruction” (II Pet. 2:1). |
“The Lord that bought them” is an allusion to
“the people which thou has redeemed” in Ex. 15:13. Clearly God’s covenant mercies are to all
those in the Covenant of Grace, though some, in this case false teachers, are
reprobate. The same principles that
concerned Israel in the OT apply to the church in the NT. |
“[We] must look upon these false
teachers as organically belonging to the Church of Christ. As to their individual person, the Lord
never bought them[, for if] that were so, the text would deny the
perseverance of the saints. No, but organically
speaking, the Lord bought them; they were members of the Church, branches
of the Vine, called by the name ‘Israel.’
The Church held them for such, and they themselves confessed to be
such. They said concerning themselves:
‘The Lord bought us.’ In fact, I think
they emphasized that. I think they
understood clearly the meaning of the doctrine of atonement and they said: ‘We
agree with that, we believe it, we teach it,—the Lord bought us.’ Let us ask the question and briefly
answer it: ‘What does it mean that Christ bought us, what is implied in it
and what follows from this?’ That
Christ bought us implies first of all that He paid for our sins, that He
justifies us, that He saves us to the uttermost. He delivered us from the curse of sin. Secondly, it implies that He delivered us
from the power of sin. Meaning: He delivered
us to be new creatures in Him, to live to His honor and glory, to walk in
sanctification. He bought us that we
might be His peculiar people, hating sin, crucifying the old man and walk in
newness of life.—And these two: justification and sanctification, always go
hand in hand. And here is where the
picture of the false teachers fits in.
They said: ‘We are of Christ, He bought us, we are justified, we are
His own.’ But while saying this, they
walked in ways of sin, corruption and evil.
They brought into practice: ‘Let us sin that grace may abound, let the
flesh have its sway.’ And in that
sense they denied the Lord.”
(J. De Jong, “The Standard Bearer,”
vol. 21, no. 6 [December 15, 1944], pp. 138-139) |
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The Sincere Free Offer of the Gospel |
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“And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that
he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Gen.
6:3). |
Here we see God the Spirit wrestling with
sinners, sinners that resisted His strivings and were destroyed in the
flood. These operations of the Holy
Spirit are common and non-salvific. |
“[If one is to use
this text to support common grace, he] should show from the text, and that, too, in the light
of Scripture, that this striving is gracious. The term grace is not so much as mentioned. One might
even argue that the very term strive,
which would seem to indicate opposition and conflict, indicates the opposite
of a gracious attitude.” (HCH, “The Standard Bearer,” vol. 50, no. 9,
[Feb. 1974]) |
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“And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark
…” (Gen. 7:1).
“For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty
days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I
destroy from off the face of the earth …” (Gen. 7:4).
“And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were
upon the earth” (Gen. 7:10). |
God tells Noah to go into the ark. Does God then bring the floods? No.
God waits seven more days, which can only be interpreted as an act of
His kindness and longsuffering, delaying His judgments beyond all
expectation, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. |
/// “God
tells Noah to go into the ark ... Does God then bring the floods? No.
God waits seven more days, which can only be interpreted as an
act of His kindness and longsuffering, delaying His judgments beyond all
expectation, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to
repentance …” ///
How would
you reconcile the idea of God’s longsufferingness and desire for all to be
saved with the fact that the ark was closed with Noah and family in it, and
that God had told them that they must enter and shut the door? (DK,
23/09/2019)
/// “But the
ark door was only shut (and sealed by God) after the 7 extra days ...
not before.” ///
Genesis 7:16
makes clear that the Lord shut the door to the ark. WHEN the Lord did so,
Scripture does not say explicitly. But 7:16 can certainly be read to
mean that God did so as soon as Noah was in. There is NO indication
that the door stayed open for a time. (DK, 04/10/2019)
/// Also,
the very fact that the ark could have held many more people is a
testimony to God’s ‘sincerity’ and benevolence in that the offer is
real: if they would believe, there is
room for them, a sufficient atonement that could save them, and they would be
saved. If there was no such benevolence, offer, or desire for the rest of the
human population on God’s part, He would have had an ark minimally necessary
for the animals and Noah’s family, and no one else, and there would be no de
facto allowance for other persons to come into the ark if they would, and the
atonement would not be sufficient for them …” ///
The argument
here raises other questions. God commanded Noah to go in; why then did He
not command others? Or, if God was merely waiting to see if any others
would go in, why did He not just wait to see if Noah would go in? Clearly there is a recognition here that
God treats some men differently than others–to Noah the command, to others a
wait and see approach. In fact, we see
no indication that God commanded, or desired any others to go in. If it
weren’t for the idea of the well-meant offer already implanted in someone’s
mind, he would never read of it here.
But we can’t disprove it from Genesis 7, because that chapter does not
say the things suggested by the proponents of the WMO. (DK, 04/10/2019)
“It
is perfectly evident ... that the ark was not planned to be a means to house
in safety absolutely all men without exception, nor to be the means of a
provisional offer to all men. It was, instead, sufficient to exclude the
wicked and shut them out (v. 16), and also it was efficient to accomplish
just that. It was no more prepared for their salvation than the Flood itself
was such a preparation. But both the ark and Flood were prepared for the
salvation of God’s chosen people. For we read, ‘the longsuffering of God
waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that
is, eight souls, were **saved** by water. (The others were **destroyed** by
the water.) The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us’ (I Pet.
3:20, 21).” (Robert C. Harbach, “Studies in the Book of Genesis” [RFPA,
2001], pp. 146-147) |
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“And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son,
even my firstborn: And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me”
(Exod. 4:23). |
“God’s intention, this verse says, in commanding
Pharaoh to let his people go, is so that his visible people may serve him.
God, of course, never commands a mere outward, non-saving duty or service,
but always commands a saving relation to himself in submission to his will,
which is what he desires. See Josh.
24:15 where the same language of ‘serving’ is used in relation to conversion.
Yet, not all visible Israel served God with their heart, as God’s revealed
will required. God’s revealed will in the outward call of the Gospel is
sincere, even though men and women do not live up to it.” |
“This
is just another rehash of the argument that, since God ‘commands’ X, He must ‘desire’
X. Instead, God’s ‘commanding’ X
proves that God *approves of* X, for it is in accordance with
righteousness, His own law and being.
There is a difference between someone ‘desiring’ something and
‘approving of’ something.” (AS,
25/08/2020) |
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“O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and
keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with
their children for ever!” (Deut. 5:29).
“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would
consider their latter end!” (Deut. 32:29). |
These verses express God’s desire that men would
keep his commandments, and His sorrow when they don’t. This explains the language in scripture
where it says God repented that he made man (Gen. 6) and others. While God does not have emotions as we
experience them, and never changes, there is a relation towards creatures in
God that He would not have them commit sin.
This is something more than simply an indicative statement that if the
creature sins he will be punished for it.
There is a logically distinct relation in God (aspect of His will)
that His creatures ought to be in conformity to His nature. This relation can be opposed, and, in fact,
is more logically discernible when it is opposed. The opposition to this aspect of God’s will
does not destroy it, but distinguishes it. |
To
this collection of expostulations I shall very briefly answer with some few
observations, manifesting of how little use it is to the business in hand ...
Not that I deny that there is sufficient matter of expostulation with
sinners about the blood of Christ and the ransom paid thereby, that
so the elect may be drawn and wrought upon to faith and repentance, and
believers more and more endeared to forsake all ungodliness and worldly
lusts, to live unto him who died for them, and that others may be left more
inexcusable; only for the present there are no such
expostulations here expressed, nor can any be found holding out the purpose
and intention of God in Christ towards them that perish ...
Fourthly, It is confessed, I hope by all, that there are none of those things
for the want whereof God expostulateth with the sons of men, but that he
could, if it so seemed good before him, effectually work them in their
hearts, at least, by the exceeding greatness of his power: so that these
things cannot be declarative of his purpose, which he might, if he pleased,
fulfill; “for who hath resisted his will,” Romans 9:19. Fifthly, That
desires and wishings should properly be ascribed unto God is exceedingly
opposite to his all-sufficiency and the perfection of his nature; they are no
more in him than he hath eyes, ears, and hands. These things are to be
understood [in a way befitting to God]. Sixthly, It is evident that all
these are nothing but pathetical declarations of our duty in the
enjoyment of the means of grace, strong convictions of the stubborn and
disobedient, with a full justification of the excellency of God’s ways to
draw us to the performance of our duties. (The Works of John Owen [Great
Britain: Banner, 1967], vol. 10, pp. 400-401, emphasis added.) |
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“For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not hidden
from you, neither is it far off. It is
not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and
bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that you
should say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we
may hear it, and do it? But the word
is very near unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart, **that** you may do
it. See, I have set before you this
day life and good, and death and evil” (Deut. 30:11-15). |
The reason and purpose that God set this offer
of eternal life directly before Israel (most of whom were reprobates) in
their hearing, verse 14 says, is so that they may do it. Of course, Israel by and large did not
receive the promise held out to them in the outward offer, contrary to God’s
gracious purpose and design. |
(1)
The purpose of a moral command is to tell people what they ought to do and
what God approves of and which, if they don’t do it, they sin and will be
punished for. God also has other purposes with His commands, including to
show the wickedness of those who disobey, to harden them and to make them
ripe for judgment.
(2)
Notice how “design” is smuggled in here, which probably is a sort of
camouflage for desire (WMO). (AS, 26/08/2020) |
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[II Chron. 36:14-16] explains why God sent the
Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and take Judah captive. The people, continuing to harden their
hearts against God without repentance, are reprobates, as the passage
concludes that there is no remedy for them.
Yet God had compassion on them and demonstrated this by sending
them preachers so that they might turn.
It was only after their abuse of his compassionate gestures that His
wrath arose against the reprobates till he ultimately destroyed them.
Notice that God’s intention in sending his
preachers was to turn them if at all possible, so that He would not have to
destroy them, though he had decreed them to this end. Also notice that God sending preachers to
reprobates is in and of itself compassionate.
God could have left them without any hope by not sending them His
preachers. Seeing that this is very
similar language to Matt 23:37, where Christ bewails Jerusalem, and Christ is
undoubtedly making allusion to it, the two passages should be used to
interpret each other.
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I
find two main points of misinterpretation made in this argument. The
FIRST regards God’s purpose in sending the prophets to the reprobate element
in Judah. This purpose, according to the Free Offer defender, was “To bring
them again unto the Lord in salvation.” To bring them AGAIN to the Lord in
salvation? When, prior to this, had the reprobate been with the Lord in
salvation? Anyone who understands and believes the doctrine of an eternal,
sovereign, unconditional election and reprobation understands that the Lord
never did and never does and never will desire to save the reprobate. The
passage underscores that the preaching of the gospel has, and God intends it
to have, a twofold effect. Toward the reprobate that effect is to
harden their hearts, and leave them without excuse. The
SECOND is that the argument says nothing about the purposes of God toward the
elect in Judah, while the passage—particularly the second—indicates it is
speaking of God’s purposes towards his elect: “until the wrath of the LORD
arose against his people, till there was no remedy”. “His people” are not reprobates. They are
elect. The
passage teaches that even some elect are so given over to sin for a period of
time that they will not heed the warnings of the gospel, so that the Lord
must chastise them in some grievous way. “There was no remedy” does not mean
that the Lord then could not turn them; it underscores that the way of
turning involved sending them out of the promised land, sending the
Babylonians against them. The verses alluded to (II Chron. 36:14-16) give the
reason for the captivity. In
sum, the verses fit with a proper view of God’s purpose in the preaching of
the gospel to all, to both elect and reprobate. To the elect, to save – and
if they will not be turned by the preaching, their salvation necessitates
grievous chastisement; and to the reprobate, to harden. (DK,
04/11/2019) |
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“… And [Israel] refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders
that thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion
appointed a captain to return to their bondage: but thou art a God ready to
pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and
forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said,
This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great
provocations; yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the
wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead
them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and
the way wherein they should go” (Neh. 9:17-19).
“And testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again
unto thy law: yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy
commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, (which if a man do, he shall
live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would
not hear. Yet many years didst thou
forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy Spirit in thy prophets: yet
would they not give ear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the
people of the lands. Nevertheless for
thy great mercies’ sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake
them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.” (Neh. 9:29-31) |
“[In verses 17-19], God’s elect are nowhere in
view. The only people that are here
considered are the impenitent wicked—the reprobate. When the Israelites wanted to return to
Egypt after just being delivered therefrom, God demonstrated His readiness to
pardon them—His graciousness, mercifulness, longsuffering, and kindness—by
not utterly destroying them immediately in the wilderness that moment. Notice that these are attributes of God’s
nature and they are exercised towards the reprobate. God’s leading them in the wilderness by the
pillar of the cloud was an expression of God’s manifold mercies to them
...
... [Regarding verses 29-31] notice, in verse
29, that the purpose of God in sending prophets to show the reprobates
their sin was to turn them back to Him. God purposes that the reprobate should
repent and turn to Him. This purpose
is frustrated and fails. Yet God
still continued to strive with them by His prophets. His longsuffering with them, in and of
itself (and not immediately destroying them), is a gracious and merciful
action … because God has a gracious and merciful disposition to them,
for it reflects His nature, which is gracious and merciful, even to the
reprobate. To make a modern
application, it is the kindness and mercy of God to all the reprobates in our
land that He does not utterly destroy America off the face of the earth for
her many provoking sins, and yet continues to compassionately send His
ministers to preach in her streets.” |
“Theology
answers this argument by referring to the ‘organic’ view of Israel. Basically, this means that the OT Israel in
view is the nation as determined by Christ Jesus, who was the head of the
nation. It was the Israel according
to election, not as made up of every individual Israelite. This is shown
by the NT, particularly Romans 2 and Galatians 3. Israel is Christ and those in Him by faith. Romans 9 also speaks to the issue: ‘they
are not all Israel that are of Israel’ (v. 6). The true Israel is the Israel
of election. The individuals that make
up God’s Israel are, themselves, depraved and disobedient; but God does not
abandon them; rather He is faithful in grace. Nehemiah,
like all the OT, must be explained in light of Romans 2 and 9 and
Galatians 3. The
true Israel is Christ, the seed of Abraham, and all those, but those only,
who are in Christ by faith according to election.” (DJE, 29/10/2019) |
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“Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my
ways! I should soon have subdued their
enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the LORD should have
submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for
ever. He should have fed them also
with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have
satisfied thee” (Ps. 81:13-16). |
God’s original revealed intention/purpose/desire
of blessing Israel was frustrated because they refused to obey Him. Thus, what God intended, He did not
do. Also, the temporal, physical
blessings of Canaan were types of heavenly spiritual blessings and
salvation. If God intended the former,
which was frustrated, He also intended the latter which was frustrated
according to his revealed will, Israel’s rebellion fulfilling God’s secret,
mysterious, irresistible and never-frustrated eternal decree. |
1.
The idea that “God’s original revealed intention/purpose/desire of blessing
Israel was frustrated because they refused to obey Him” sounds a lot like the
dispensationalists who believe that Christ was frustrated by the Jews who
rejected the offer of an earthly political kingdom. 2. Does God really have intentions that He
does not realise? What a lot of frustrations! The ever-blessed, frustrated
God! John Owen on this passage
writes: “That desires and wishing should properly be ascribed unto God is
exceedingly opposite to his all-sufficiency and the perfection of his nature;
they are no more in him than he hath eyes, ears, and hands.” (AS,
12/06/2019) |
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“Does not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She stands in the top of high places, by
the way in the places of the paths.
She cries at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at
the doors. Unto you, O men, I call;
and my voice is to the sons of man.
Hear… Receive my instruction… Then I was by Him, as one brought up
with Him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before Him; Rejoicing
in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of
men. Now therefore hearken unto Me, O
ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse
it not” (Prov. 8:1-4, 6, 10, 30-33). |
Christ, the wisdom of God, here cries out
through his preachers in the city streets for all who hear to come to
Him. He reveals his will that He would
have them receive his saving instruction, and (per Prov. 9:3-5) come into his
banqueting house of mercy and communion. |
“In
response to this argument, let us agree that the wisdom who speaks in
Proverbs is personally the Son of God in human flesh, namely, Jesus the
Christ. Let us also agree that the call of God’s wisdom is
essentially the urgent call to believe on Jesus for the understanding that is
salvation by faith in this Wisdom—that is, it is the urgent call to
salvation. Let us also agree at the outset that this call is
directed not only to the elect, who are saved by the call, but that the call
is indiscriminate—directed to those who are reprobate as well as those who
are elect, that is, today to everyone and anyone who reads or hears Proverbs
8. Concerning this last, verse 36 envisions that some of those to
whom the call of Proverbs 8 comes sin against Wisdom by rejecting the call
because they hate this Wisdom. Not all those to whom the urgent
call of Proverbs 8 comes are saved by the call.
All of the
above being true, it is not proved, or even suggested, that the call of
Proverbs 8 is a well-meant offer, that is, a gracious offer of salvation to
all humans indiscriminately in the would-be saving love of God towards all to
whom the call of Proverbs 8 comes, in a desire of God to save all to whom
that call comes, with the inescapable implication that the saving will and
gracious desire of God for the salvation of some is frustrated inasmuch as
some to whom the call comes are not saved by the call (v. 36). If
this were the nature of the call of Proverbs 8, it would also be the
implication that the salvation of some by the call depends upon the will of
the sinner, rather than upon the electing will of God, inasmuch as God loves
and desires to save all, but some are not saved by the well-meant
offer. If God loves and desires to save all alike to whom the
gospel of Proverbs 8 comes, but some are not saved, the explanation of the salvation
of some must be that their will makes the difference. Thus, the
well-meant offer explanation of Proverbs 8 is the denial that salvation is by
grace (Romans 9:16).
Proverbs 8
teaches that Wisdom, who is Jesus Christ, calls all humans who come into
contact with this Wisdom to hear and heed this Wisdom, that is, to believe on
Jesus. It is to the honor of Wisdom that men do this, while
rejecting this Wisdom is foolish and in the end destruction and damnation for
those who sin against Wisdom. There is nothing expressed or
implied in the chapter of a love of Wisdom of all those humans to whom the
call of Wisdom comes. The chapter only expresses the demand of God that all
humans honor His Wisdom by believing on Jesus Christ.
The chapter
has the nature of a call that, because of the glory of God’s Wisdom, urgently
commands all humans to “receive” the (gospel) instruction of Wisdom (v. 10).
Not only
does the chapter say nothing of the call’s originating in a love of God for
all to whom the call comes, but it also indicates that the love of God for
humans in the call is particular: “I love them that love me” (v.
17). If those who want to press Proverbs 8 into the service of
their well-meant offer respond that Wisdom’s love for certain humans, in
distinction from other humans, is based upon these humans’ love for Wisdom,
it becomes clear that the explanation of Proverbs 8 by the defenders of the
well-meant offer overthrows the entire gospel of grace, which teaches that
God’s love for certain sinners is sovereign and the cause of their love for
Him.
In short,
Proverbs 8 is what the Reformed faith calls the **external call of the
gospel**. This is the urgent call or command of Christ in the
gospel to all who hear, addressed as humans without Wisdom and very much in
need of Wisdom, to come to Him as the Wisdom of God, extolling Christ as
nothing less than the saving, precious divine Wisdom; promising that all who
receive Him (by the grace of God) enjoy wonderful benefits; and warning that
those who refuse Wisdom will die.
This
external call is urgent to every one who hears.
There is
nothing in a rejection of a well-meant offer, therefore, that prevents us
from preaching Wisdom to all humans without distinction, from setting Wisdom
forth in all His glory and benefits, from promising blessedness to all who
believe on Him, and from warning those who despise Him of death and
damnation.
But the
call of Proverbs 8 is not the would-be saving power of God to all to whom the
external call comes. It is not what Reformed theology regards as
the internal call of the gospel, the call of Romans 8:28 and 30.
Nor is it
motivated by a love of God for all. Nor does Proverbs 8 say
so. An urgent, external call in the preaching of the gospel is one
thing; a well-meant offer is quite another.”
(DJE, 14/02/2022)
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“Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars: She has
killed her beasts; she has mingled her wine; she has also furnished her
table. She has sent forth her maidens:
she cries upon the highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn
in hither: as for him that wants understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat
of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in
the way of understanding” (Prov. 9:1-6). |
This is Christ, personified as Wisdom in
Proverbs 8 & 9, crying out to everyone in the streets to come and find
life by means of Him. These two
chapters are not only full of commands, but they also express desire as
reasons are heaped up at length. Prov.
9:4 is in the jussive mode, which expresses desire. It could also be translated, “may he turn
in hither.” Not only are the people
commanded to turn in, but Christ desires that all who hear His voice should
turn in to Him. |
“It is the plain testimony of Scripture that God’s predestination, or
will and desire to save some only, is the source of all salvation. Thus
does God receive the glory in the salvation of the sinner—not the sinner
himself, who, on the view of the well-meant offer, distinguishes himself from
other sinners by virtue of his accepting the offered salvation. This is
the issue; it must not be forgotten.
As for Proverbs 9, it might be explained simply as the external call of
the gospel, namely, the truth that God confronts all humans with Jesus Christ
and commands or exhorts all to believe on Him. Many are called, but few
are chosen. This external call is not a well-meant offer. Rather,
by it God hardens some, whereas He draws others by grace that He gives only
to them (the elect).
I, however, explain it as expressing God’s sincere desire for the
salvation of some hearers which He then realizes by drawing them savingly to
the Wisdom. This call is not general, or universal. It is
particular. It is addressed to the “simple” and to the one who “wants
understanding.” These are those humans who, by grace, have come to know
their own spiritual destitution and foolishness. They are the same as
those addressed in the New Testament as the “weary” and “heavy laden”—spiritual
characteristics of those in whose heart God has worked true knowledge of
sin. Only those who are, in their own knowledge of themselves, “simple”
will feel the need of the heavenly Wisdom and respond to the call.
There is no well-meant offer to all in the text on any account.”
(DJE, 03/01/2020)
|
|
“Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his
vineyard. My well-beloved has a
vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And He fenced it, and gathered out the
stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in
the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and He looked that it
should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and
men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between Me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my
vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should
bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” (Isa. 5:1-4).
“Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for
nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work
with my God” (Isa. 49:4). |
Why did God cultivate and nurture Israel,
according to Isa. 5:4? “That it should
bring forth grapes.” Yet, contrary to
God’s revealed purpose and the inherent nature and design of his blessings,
God’s people brought forth rebellion.
In Isa. 49:4, the Messiah says all that He
labored for, outwardly speaking, was in vain.
The culmination of his earthly ministry was being crucified by the
very ones He came to call to repentance (see John 5:34 and Acts 3:26 below),
having not a single earthly follower.
However, as Isa. 49 goes on to speak of, God rewarded his earthly work
that came to nothing by raising up the remnant of Israel and the gentiles into
his kingdom. |
“With
regard to Isaiah 5:1-4 as a passage appealed to in support of the well-meant
offer, before I offer the explanation of the passage, I call the reader’s
attention to two clear aspects of the passage that prove that it has nothing
whatever to do with the well-meant offer now corrupting the gospel of grace
in evangelical circles.
First, the
text applies only to Judah in the Old Testament. It has no reference to
all the other nations whatever. If it teaches a well-meant offer, the
desire of God for the salvation of sinners in the text is not for all humans,
as is the teaching of the well-meant offer, but only for the sinners of
Judah. The text, therefore, does not support the doctrine of the
well-meant offer.
Second,
even with regard to Judah in the OT, there is nothing in the passage of an
offer of God to the people of Judah. The text does not have God
pleading with the members of Judah to accept an offer and be saved.
There is no plea in the passage, “Repent, and believe.” There is only
the “lament” of God that He has done everything in Judah that ought to have
brought Judah to Him in faith, but that Judah refused to do so. The
“problem” in the text is not that of a well-meant offer, but that of the
relation between divine sovereignty—God’s moving sinners to Himself for
salvation—and human responsibility—sinners’ hardening themselves in
unbelief. To state it more clearly, the text is not an offer,
well-meant or otherwise, to Judah, but God’s reflection on Judah’s unbelief
in rejection of God’s dealings with Judah in such a way externally as to
leave Judah without excuse for its unbelief.
The issue
is that of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
Human
responsibility is a reality. Divine sovereignty in salvation does not
deny or diminish in the slightest human responsibility. God did
everything in the sphere of the life of Judah that should have brought Judah
to Himself in repentance and faith. It was truly and fully Judah’s
responsibility to come to Him. Judah had no excuse for its failing to
come. The fault is Judah’s, not God’s. That God did not draw
Judah—the nation as nation, and the majority of members—does not weaken, much
less deny, Judah’s full responsibility for not coming to God in faith.
Human reason might conclude that the fact that God did not draw Judah to
Himself lessens, if it does not deny altogether, Judah’s
responsibility. Human reason would be wrong. Such is the
mysterious relation of sovereignty and responsibility that the former does
not impinge in the slightest on the latter. So much is this true that
if the Isaiah passage is a divine lament over Judah’s unbelief, God laments
over this unbelief.
At the same
time, regardless of all the external work of God regarding
Judah—and note well all the work of God in the passage is external work,
all the revelation of Himself and the way of salvation—God sovereignly did
not draw Judah to Himself by internal, irresistible grace, and this according
to His reprobation of the nation as a whole, in order to bring the gospel to
the Gentiles (cf. Romans 9-11), although He did save the true Israel of God
in the elect among the citizens of Judah. This drawing was by an
effectual call, not by a well-meant offer to all the citizens. All that
God gave to Christ surely come to Him, and they come by virtue of divine ‘drawing’
(see John 6, spoken to members of the nation of Judah).”
(DJE, 29/08/2020)
|
|
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God,
and there is none else” (Isa. 45:22).
“And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all
men every where to repent” (Acts 17:30). |
These are commands for all people to repent and
be saved. The question is: are
commands expressions of God’s will? 1
Thess. 4:3 says that God wills our sanctification, that is, obedience to His
commands. 1 Thess. 4:1,2 says that
walking in God’s commands pleases God.
This means that not obeying His commands displeases Him, including the
command to repent and be saved. |
“Keeping
in mind that the call of the gospel is essentially different from the
commandments of the law, Acts 17 and Isaiah 45 are the call of the gospel,
the imperative that displays Christ as the only Savior and commands all to
come to Him. What saves is not obedience to the command, as though this
obedience is itself righteousness and eternal life, but the Christ to
whom it calls. God works by the command of the gospel to draw His elect
to Christ.
The
question about the will of God in the call of the gospel is
answered by a distinction that the Reformed faith has made long ago. It
is the distinction between the will of God’s decree and the
will of God’s command. The will of decree is what God
Himself has decreed, or ordained, should take place, in His counsel.
The will of command is what He orders humans to do in His revealed
word. For example, God commanded the Jewish leaders and Pilate to let
the just man Jesus go free: will of command. At the same time, He
planned that they would condemn and kill Jesus: will of decree (see
Acts 2 and Acts 4). The will of command does not indicate what God has
planned will occur, only what the duty of humans is.
God is truly displeased that sinners reject the gospel and the Christ presented
in the gospel. But He has ordained, or decreed, that many will not only
not believe, but also that the gospel will harden them unto eternal damnation
(Romans 9).
It
is a mistake to conclude from a command to all to repent and believe that
God desires the salvation of all. All that may be
concluded is that it is the duty of all to repent and believe, and
that whoever does repent and believe will be saved.”
(DJE, 08/08/2019)
|
|
“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 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. Wherefore do ye
spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth
not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your
soul delight itself in fatness” (Isa. 55:1,2). |
God is speaking to his largely apostate people
during the time of Isaiah. He is here
pleading with sinners by means of asking rhetorical questions. That God pleads at all with Israel and does
not just leave them off like every other nation of the earth is gracious.
God’s desire that they should turn to Him and be saved is emphasized by the
emphatic “ho!”, “yea,” and the multiple commands and reasons heaped on on
each other. |
“[In]
Isaiah 55:1 the prophet addresses “every one that thirsteth” (not every
sinner is thirsty—many do not have any sense of their urgent need for
salvation; many detest the bread of life, which is loathsome to them). Through the prophet, God promises life, the
everlasting covenant, and the sure mercies of David not to everyone, but to
them who hear and come to Him (v. 3). This does not mean that we preach only
to the thirsty, for we do not know who they are—we preach to all, but God
promises salvation only to the thirsty, whom He makes thirsty by the
power of His grace, a thirst that He also graciously satisfies (Matt. 5:6).”
(Rev. Martyn McGeown, PRTJ, 55:2 [April 2018], p.
68)
“And
wonder it is, that in the words of the prophet and in the words of our master
Christ Jesus also, you see not a plain difference made, for the prophet calls
not all indifferently to drink of these waters but such as do thirst [Isa.
55:1-3]. And Christ restrains his generality to such as did travail and were
burdened with sin [Matt. 11:28]; such, I say, he confesses himself to call to
repentance, but to such as were just and whole, he affirms that he was not
sent [Mark 2:17] … That we thirst to do good, that we have some power
to execute the same, this proceeds from the supernatural grace, by the which
we are regenerate and newly born to a better and more godly life. Behold
then what God works in his children: first, putting away their perverse nature
[as to its dominion], he conducts and guides them by his Holy Spirit in
obedience to his will.” (John
Knox, “On Predestination, in Answer to the
Cavillations by an Anabaptist” [1560],
p. 118; [spelling and punctuation modernized; emphasis added].)
“They
[i.e., the Arminians] scatter some little motives [i.e., appeal to certain
texts?], as that Isaiah 55:1. They that thirst are invited by God, that is,
those that are desirous of reconciliation with God, and of salvation. And
that Matthew 11:28. They that are heavy laden are called, Come unto me ye
that are weary and heavy laden: By those that are laden, are noted out, those
that are pressed down with the conscience of their sins, and sighing under
the burden of them: Therefore (say they [i.e., the Arminians]) they were
already desirous of salvation, and were pressed down with the conscience of
their sins, before they were [externally] called, and regeneration is after
calling: And therefore in the unregenerate there may be a saving grief, and a
desire of remission of sins; but I affirm that those men so
thirsting, and so laden, were not unregenerate: For that very desire of
salvation and the grace of God, and the sighs of the conscience, panting
under the weight of sin, by which we are compelled to fly to Christ, is a
part of regeneration: And that beginning of fear (if it be acceptable to God)
is an effect of the Holy Spirit moving the heart: For what hinders, that
he who thirsts after the grace of God, hath not already tasted of it, and as
it were licked it with his lips? What hinders that he who is commanded to
come to Christ, should not already move himself and begin to go, although
with a slow pace? Doth Christ as often as he commands men to believe in him,
speak only to unbelievers? Yea, this exhortation to believe and to come to
him, doth especially belong to them, whose faith being new bred, and weak,
doth strive with the doubtings of the flesh.” (Pierre du Moulin,
“Anatomie of Arminianism,” pp. 321-322 [emphasis added]) |
|
“I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that
sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not
called by my name. I have spread out
my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that
was not good, after their own thoughts” (Isa. 65:1-2). |
This passage is quoted in the NT in Romans
10:21. God is saying that He stretched
forth his hands to Israel in order to receive them if they would repent. ‘All the day long’ is an expression for
‘continually’ over the period of hundreds of years, by sending them the
preaching of the gospel by His prophets in the OT. God was showing reprobate Israel undeserved
compassionate kindness in His attempts to gather them together unto Himself,
which attempts proved ineffectual. |
“God's
stretching forth His hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people is His
revelation of Himself in the gospel as the God of mercy in Jesus Christ,
ready to receive and save every sinner who comes to Him in faith and
repentance. This is how He shows Himself in the gospel to all who hear the
gospel. I do not say that He is gracious to all who hear the gospel. If this
were the case, all who hear the gospel would be saved, for the grace of God
is almighty, irresistible. But He shows to all that He is gracious, and that
in this grace He will receive every one who comes to Him. The stretched forth
hands, therefore, are what Reformed theology refers to as the "external
call" of the gospel. God makes Himself known to all that He is a God of
grace. He calls all hearers to come to Him by believing on Jesus. He promises
to every one who comes that he will be received.
But this
does not mean that God is gracious to all, that He wills the salvation of
all, or that coming to God for salvation depends on the willingness of the
sinner. This would contradict everything that the apostle has taught
previously in Romans, including the total depravity of the sinner—his
inability to come to Christ; limited, effectual atonement; the sovereignty
and irresistibility of grace; and the government of salvation by God's
predestination, election and reprobation. No one can come to Christ except
the Father draw him (John 6:44).
But now
also, these truths of sovereign, particular grace do not at all detract from
the preaching of the gospel to all or from the serious call to all hearers to
come to God by believing on Jesus Christ, with the promise that every one who
comes will be received and saved by God. This preaching is the outstretched
arms of God. When wicked men and women refuse to come to God, disobeying the
external call of the gospel, they can never say that the reason is that God
would not receive them even it they came. The God of the gospel is the God of
the outstretched arms, ready and eager to receive every one who comes.
It is true
that only those come whom God has chosen to salvation. It is also true that
those who refuse to come refuse according to God's eternal reprobation of
them. But none of this detracts from the truth that in the gospel God calls
all, with the external call, or command, and that He shows Himself ready to
receive every sinner who comes in faith.
(DJE, date unknown)
|
|
“In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your
own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion … Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride
her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number” (Jer. 2:30,
32). |
God says that his correction of Israel was in
vain; that is, it did not accomplish its intended effect. God’s purpose in it was for Israel’s
correction, but they only grew worse in spite of it. The context, as verse 32 shows, was to draw
God’s externally called and covenanted people to Himself, but they would not. |
“[The one
making this argument] must not so quickly charge God with having failed in
His sincere desire to save all the members of the nation of Israel in the
OT.
First, he
ought to be taken aback by his own heretical theology. According to
him, God desired to save every member of the nation, but failed with most of
the members, who perished nonetheless. What does this say about
God? Largely, a failure. Contrary to what He says elsewhere in
Scripture, He is unable to accomplish His good pleasure, and this in regard
to the important work of salvation. And what is necessarily implied
concerning those who are saved? Implied is that their salvation is not
due to the gracious will of God (for God wills all alike to be saved), but to
their own will, upon which God’s will depended. Contrary to Romans
9:18, therefore, salvation is of him that willeth, and the glory of
salvation is man’s, not God’s. A God who cannot fulfill His will in the
salvation of sinners, but is dependent upon the will of the sinner, is the
god of Pelagius and Arminius. Augustine and the Reformed creeds condemn
this doctrine as heresy.
Second,
[the one making this argument] does not allow Scripture to interpret
Scripture, a fatal error in the explanation of the Bible. The
explanation of the ‘problem’ that many OT members of Israel perished in
spite, it seems, of God’s will to save Israel is Romans 9-11. [The one
making the argument] must read carefully Romans 9-11 and take this passage to
heart. It was God’s will to save the true and real Israel in the
OT. The many members who went lost were not God’s Israel. They
were merely ‘of Israel,’ that is, humans related outwardly to the true nation
of Israel. And the true Israel was those members whom God elected to
salvation. God sincerely desired the salvation of the true and real
Israel, that is, all the elect among the children of Abraham. And He
saved them all. Among the physical children of Abraham, God had mercy
on whom He willed to have mercy, and the rest He hardened in their unbelief
(Rom. 9:18). All the members of the true Israel then and still today
are saved and shall be saved (Rom. 11:26). In the elect Jews, small as
their number may have been (merely a ‘remnant’), God did not cast away His
people, but effectually saved them (Rom. 11:1f.).
With regard
to the reprobate members of the mere physical nation of Israel, whom God
smote in vain, according to Jeremiah, all God’s outward dealings with them,
especially the punishments for their unfaithfulness, ought to have had the
effect upon them that they repented. Their refusal to repent was
dreadful sin and folly on their part. They are left without
excuse. But with regard to God’s purpose with their punishment, it was
not their salvation, but their hardening. Such is the plain
teaching of Romans 9-11. As concerns the acts of punishment themselves,
they should have had the effect that wicked Israel repented. They have
no excuse for their persistence in evil. But God’s secret purpose with
the punishments was not their salvation, but their hardening. Such is
the explanation of the Holy Spirit in Romans 9-11. And it belonged to
God’s purpose that, by the hardening of the physical nation of Israel, the
gospel would go out to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:11).
I repeat,
before [anyone has the audacity to charge] God with large-scale failure to
achieve His saving purpose with Israel, an awful theology, he must read
Romans 9-11.
The God of the
Christian religion is not a failure. Salvation in the Christian
religion does not hang perilously on the weak will of sinners. The
gospel does not celebrate the will of the sinner.”
(DJE, 23/11/2020)
|
|
“And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I
spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called
you, but ye answered not” (Jer. 7:13). |
This passage says that God called to the people
of Israel (that is, to come to Him) but they would not answer. God sincerely calls for gospel-hearing
reprobates to come to Him, though they do not come as they are called. |
|
|
“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I
might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (Jer.
9:1).
“But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for
your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because
the LORD’s flock is carried away captive” (Jer. 13:17). |
Here Jeremiah manifests the compassion of the
One that sent him. |
“According
to Jeremiah’s own words, he weeps for those who are carried away captive who
are part of ‘Lord’s flock’ …
The
Lord Jesus Christ speaks to us concerning this same ‘flock’ of His, in John
chapter 10.
After
telling His hearers that He, as the good shepherd, ‘lays down His life’ for
the flock (v. 15), He then shares with His hearers that not everyone head for
head within the nation of Israel is of His flock, indicating that only the
elect are so:
‘But
ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep’ (v. 26).
Coupled
together with what we read in Jeremiah, the weeping and the pity and the
compassion of the prophet (and, by extension, every other similar passage in
the OT) is particular (not general) … towards the elect alone:
God’s elect, who, with the rest of the nation, were “carried away captive”
(e.g., Daniel, Ezekiel, etc.) into Babylon.
This
passage (and every other passage like it in the OT) in no way serves as
support for either common grace (i.e., a love of God for all men head for
head), or the well-meant offer (a desire of God for the salvation of every
individual of mankind).”
(Anon., 17/03/2021)
|
|
“Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and
sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate … As for
the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not
hearken unto thee” (Jer. 44:4, 16). |
Here we see God’s sincere warnings that his
people do not do what is contrary to God’s revealed will, though they do not
hearken unto Him. See also Eze. 3:7. |
|
|
"In the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou
washed in water … None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have
compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field … And when I passed by thee, and saw thee
polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood,
Live … Now when I passed by thee, and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my
skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and
entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine
… Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from
thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I
clothed thee also with broidered work … I decked thee also with ornaments …
thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding
beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen
for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put
upon thee, saith the Lord God. But
thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot …" (Ezek.
16:4-15) |
Here is a recounting of God’s love espousals to
Israel to make her His bride. Note
that throughout Israel’s history, from beginning to end, many (if not most)
were unbelieving reprobates, as is demonstrated from Heb. 3 & 4, and the
second half of Ezekiel 16 where Israel forsakes God and runs to other
lovers. Yet, it is these very
unbelieving reprobates who God, in His time of love and Israel’s youth, woo’d
with the loves of the Gospel to marry Him by covenant, though they would go
on to break that covenant and apostatize. |
Joseph Irons (1785-1852): “The simile employed in the language
immediately preceding my text, is peculiarly striking, and is intended to set
forth the utter helplessness of man, prior to the mighty work of the grace of
God commencing upon his heart. I beseech you, look at what is said. ‘Thus
saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem’—His own covenant people: ‘Thy birth and
thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy
mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy
navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou
wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in
the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast
born.’ I cannot conceive of any stronger imagery that can be employed to set
forth the pitiable helpless, forlorn, ruined state of poor mortals as they
come into this world. Place before the eye of your minds the very character
here represented in a figure—a helpless infant, the very day it is born,
abandoned even by its own parents, ‘cast out in the open field,’ and left to
perish. It can neither stand, nor speak, nor walk, nor eat, nor do any thing
to help itself.
There
seems nothing before it, but inevitably to perish. And, my hearer, if you and
I were left to ourselves as we come into this world, even though we might
stay in it till we reached the age of Methuselah, there is nothing before us
but eternal destruction; perishing is inevitable, unless what follows in the
next verse be realized in a spiritual sense in our personal experience. ‘I
passed by,’ ‘I saw thee,’ ‘I said unto thee, Live.’ Oh! how tender is the
order of the words! ‘When I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine
own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live’; and then it
is repeated—‘Yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.’ Now in such a case, literally existing,
would there be any thing required of that infant, towards securing its own
life? Would there be any contingency? Would any hard-hearted wretch,
passing by, carry out the Arminian principle, and say—‘Now I am passing
within three or four yards of you, and I will help you if you will only get
up and come to me: but if you will not stir, I shall leave you to perish’?
Such is Arminianism; such is the awful system of the day in which we live. It
would tell the poor perishing infant, when it cannot even understand what is
said and cannot reply to it—‘Help yourself; arise and walk; come and accept
of my offer.’ Would not any kind-hearted father or mother say, ‘Why, this is
the most miserable tantalising and mocking of the child, that can be
conceived?’ Such is Arminianism. But, blessed be the name of our God, when
‘one eye pitied,’ He ‘saw’ and ‘had compassion’; and His eye has never been
taken off from the objects of His love, the election of grace. ‘I saw thee’;
and what then? ‘I said unto thee,’ (one word is enough) ‘Live.’ and life
Divine was sent down.”
(Source: Sermon
on Ezekiel 16:6, “Spiritual Life,” quoted in “The Standard Bearer,” vol. 11,
no. 7 [January 1, 1935], p. 157) |
|
“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord
God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? … For I have no
pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn
yourselves, and live ye” (Eze. 18:23, 32).
“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from
your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. 33:11). |
There are other verses that speak of God taking
pleasure in the death of the wicked in that it fulfills His decrees and His
justice. So this must be another
sense. That is, in one sense God takes
pleasure in the death of the wicked, but in another sense God does not take
pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Both are true at the same time in their respective senses. |
|
|
“When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was
discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria …” (Hos. 7:1). |
This verse says that God would have healed His
visible people Israel, which included many (if not mostly) reprobates. However, when God sent His loving kindness
and drawings to their nation in order to savingly heal them, their hidden
iniquity only became more inflamed. |
“1. The
basic principle for understanding all the OT prophets is the same basic
principle by which to understand all gospel preaching today. There are two
kinds of hearers: 1) Those who hear outwardly, but for whom the promises were
not meant, because they were not God’s elect and were not given the gift of
faith, and 2) those who hear outwardly and inwardly. The latter are those
truly addressed. The point is not that God was not serious in his words to
the first group, but their own unbelief and refusal to repent explains why God’s
promises are not fulfilled toward them.
Jesus sets
forth this basic principle in Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. Those who
hold to the WMO seem (from my perspective) not to understand Jesus point, and
not to be willing to apply it to all preaching in the NT, and prophecy in the
OT.
2. Another key to understanding OT prophecy is
Romans 9:6: “They are not all Israel which are of Israel.”
(DK, 04/10/2019)
|
|
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt. As they called them, so they
went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven
images. I taught Ephraim also to go,
taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands
of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and
I laid meat unto them… And my people are bent to backsliding from Me: though
they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt Him. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how
shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set
thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled
together” (Hos. 11:1-4,7-8). |
This passage says that the outward call of the
gospel to the reprobate stems from God’s love for them (verses 1,3). God’s call, works, and gracious motions of
his Holy Spirit are for the purpose of lovingly drawing them to Himself
(verse 4), though they rebel and never come to Him (verse 7). The anthropomorphic language of God’s heart
and bowels turning in Him over the perishing children that He has brought
forth and loved reflects that though for higher purposes He as decreed to
pass them over from salvation and allow them to perish willfully in their
sin, yet God sincerely wills by his benevolent nature and common mercies
their highest good. |
“As to Hosea 11: First, the ‘Israel’ of whom the passage speaks is
the elect Israel—not the 10 tribes outwardly, and especially not every
member of the tribes head for head. That it is the elect Israel is
plain from, 1) the fact that God calls him His ‘son’ (v. 1) and ‘my people’
later; and 2) that the gospel of Matthew, finding fulfillment of verse 1 in
Jesus’ coming out of Egypt. In Hosea 11, God speaks to that Israel which is
represented by and encompassed in Jesus Christ—that is, the elect. So the
first sentence of the Free Offer argument—that the outward call of the gospel
to the reprobate stems from God’s love for them—is already erroneous. Of course, the gospel call comes to the
reprobate as well as the elect. But this is not the point of Hosea 11. Second, even Hosea did call both elect and reprobate in Israel to
repentance; but the promise of God that those whom He calls will repent
(vv. 10-11) indicates also that the true call is to the elect, and that it is
efficacious and irresistible—by this call, God does and will turn His elect
back to Himself. Third, the passage indicates the grievous effect of the sins of the
elect (particularly deliberate, gross sin of idolatry and utter disregard for
God’s law) on their/our relationship with God. God’s love never ceases; His
covenant is never broken; but our enjoyment of fellowship with Him is
broken and in need of restoration, and He grieves. Jehovah’s grief in this
passage is not due to reprobate not heeding His call; it is due to elect
persisting in sin when they have every evidence of their Father’s love in His
past dealings, and when He calls them back to Him. Of course, His grief is an
anthropomorphism—I won’t get into that, but the point is that our Heavenly
Father delights in fellowship with us, delights in our loving
and grateful obedience. And this is why He calls us to
repentance. Why would He call the reprobate to repentance? He does, of course; but the answer to why
is different from the answer to the question why He calls the elect to
repentance. He calls the elect, because He loves us, is grieved
because of the way in which we walk, and delights in fellowship with
us.” (DK, 21/08/2019) |
|
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest” (Matt. 11:28). |
Here Christ expresses His will that all indiscriminately
should come unto Him. To limit this
command only to the few hundreds or thousands that heard Christ’s audible
words on that one time occasion does no good:
there were still reprobates in the crowd to whom He expressed His
desire that they should come to Him.
Nor was Christ speaking of earthly rest: the following verses make it very clear He
was speaking of spiritual rest and the forgiveness of sins.
Further, it is illegitimate to limit this
expression of His will to his original hearers: all mankind, to whom the Gospel of Matthew
is to be preached to (Mk. 16:15) is included.
This is seen in that the principle object in view is spiritual
salvation, which is applicable to not just His original hearers, but to the
whole world, transcending local and temporal circumstances. |
“In
Matthew 11:28 (similar to Isaiah 55:1) Jesus does not give a general
invitation—He calls the labouring and heavy laden (the burdened) to
come. While the command is universal,
for all must come whether they feel the burden or not, the promise “I will
give you rest” and “ye shall find rest unto your souls” (v. 29) is only for
the ones who are burdened and who, therefore, come. Indeed, Jesus prefaces
His call in verse 28 with a declaration of God’s will or desire—God wills to
or desires to reveal His Son to only some, while He hides the truth from
others (vv. 25-27).”
(Rev. Martyn McGeown, PRTJ 55:2 [April 2018], p.
69) |
|
Jesus’
(the God-man’s) intention was frustrated.
God often held His hand out to Israel for good (as the prophets say)
and yet they refused their own good that God would have blessed them
with. God was willing, they were
unwilling. The prophets plead with
Israel and wept over them to turn. So
Christ, the last and great, Prophet did as well. |
“Regarding the critic’s argument
against our exegesis, here are a few comments: There are indeed texts found in
Scripture, such as Psalm 137:7 (‘Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom …’),
where the phrase ‘children of X’ does mean
the people of that city. But those are simply
passages where ‘children’ is used without any other distinct group or class
also mentioned in the text that are distinguished from the ‘children,’
as Matthew 23:37 has it (i.e., ‘Jerusalem’). Matthew 23:37 speaks explicitly,
however, of ‘Jerusalem’ and Jerusalem’s ‘children’ as two distinct people
groups in the very same text. For the critic’s argument to be valid,
however, he needs to cite passages where ‘X’ and X’s ‘children,’ although
appearing as two distinct groups, nevertheless mean the same thing, in order
to have something against our exegesis. The critic, in the latter half
of his argument, appears to be conflating Matthew 23:37 with Luke 19:41-44
(which refers to a separate occasion). The differences between those two
passages, however, are crucial, for, in Luke 19, there is no contrast between
‘Jerusalem’ and her ‘children’; nor are there different and opposing things
said about what ‘Jerusalem’ and Jerusalem’s ‘children’ do, or what the
attitude of other parties are towards them; nor does Luke 19 come after a
chapter of Christ’s denunciations of Jerusalem’s leaders (as in Matthew 23),
who seek to stop people entering the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt. 23:13).” (AS,
25/11/2019) Historical Support: Augustine (354-430): “Our Lord says plainly, however,
in the Gospel, when upbraiding the impious city: ‘How often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings, and ye would not!’ as if the will of God had been overcome by the
will of men, and when the weakest stood in the way with their want of will,
the will of the strongest could not be carried out. And where is that
omnipotence which hath done all that it pleased on earth and in heaven, if
God willed to gather together the children of Jerusalem, and did not
accomplish it? Or rather, Jerusalem was not willing that her children should
be gathered together, but even though she was unwilling, He gathered together
as many of her children as He wished: for He does not will some things and do
them, and will others and do them not; but “He hath done all that He pleased
in heaven and in earth” (Source: “The Enchiridion,” xcvii). Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562): “They [i.e., our Roman Catholic
adversaries] bring up a saying of Christ’s: ‘How often would I have gathered
your children together as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not?’ Here
also it is the antecedent will of the sign that is meant. God through his
prophets, preachers, apostles, and Scriptures invited the Jews to fly to him
by repentance time after time, but they refused, but by his effective will,
which is called consequent, he always drew to himself those who were his. Nor
was there any age when he did not gather as many of the Hebrews as he had
predestined. Therefore, as Augustine said, those that I would, I have
gathered together, although you would not” (Predestination and
Justification [Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press,
2003], pp. 64-65). Francis Turretin (1623-1687): “… Christ willed to gather
together those whom Jerusalem (i.e., the chiefs of the people) nilled to be
gathered together, but notwithstanding their opposition Christ did not fail
in gathering together those whom he willed … Jerusalem is here to be
distinguished from her sons as the words themselves prove (and the design of
the chapter, in which from v. 13 to v. 37, he addresses the scribes and
Pharisees and rebukes them because ‘they neither went into the kingdom of
heaven themselves, nor suffered those that were entering, to go in’)” (Institutes
of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 [Phillipsburg, NJ; P&R, 1992], p. 228). |
|
|
“A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant
at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now
ready. And they all with one consent
began to make excuse … So that servant came, and shewed his lord these
things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out
quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor,
and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind … And the lord said unto the
servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in,
that my house may be filled" (Luke 14:16-23). |
This parable demonstrates the desire of the
Father in bidding and inviting many to the Feast of the Lamb. Though reprobates pass over the invitation,
yet they have full legal right, upon the legal warrant of the invitation (the
invitation being made to them, and not to others who do not hear), to come to
the salvific Feast.
The desire of the Father in inviting guests is
seen in the opposite response He has when the invited guests refuse the
invitation: the text says “angry.” His
invitation is no dis-impassioned, take-it-or-leave-it, offer. He desires them to come and is angry when
they turn down His gracious invitation.
His desire for anyone and everyone to attend His feast is further
demonstrated by Him further commanding the servant to go into the farthest
reaches of the population and “compel them,” in accordance with the strength
of His desire, to come to the Feast. |
“This
parable obviously must also be interpreted in the same way as similar
passages: ‘many are called, but few are chosen.’ Jesus is speaking here of the Jewish nation
who had rejected him. The preaching has two sides to it: a command to all who
hear it to repent and believe in Christ and a promise to those who believe
that God will give them eternal life. The warning is that those who do not
believe will be punished. That is not
an offer; that is a command, and one had better obey it or suffer the
consequences of refusal. If the ruler
of Russia or China commands you to come to his house and you refuse, what do
you think will happen to you? The
chosen come; that is all there is about it. Jesus himself says so.” (HH,
31/08/2020) |
|
“And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it,
saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things
which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke
19:41,42). |
Jesus, the God-man, here weeps over perishing
sinners that would not receive Him. He
repeats his address to them, ‘even you!’.
‘Only if you had known!’, expressing a wish and desire for their
eternal good. The salvation He offered
and pressed upon them belonged unto them.
It was for them. It was for
their peace, to bring them peace. But
their season of grace being past, their offer slighted and gone, salvation is
withdrawn from them. |
One
thing that helps guide the exegesis of the Luke 19 passage is the earlier
context. In the earlier verses in Luke 19, Jesus had just entered Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem that receives Jesus cries out, “Blessed be the King that cometh
in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest” (vv.
37-38). The Pharisees rebuked this outcry (v. 39), but Jesus replied that if
these loud Hosannas had not been uttered, then the rocks of Jerusalem would
have cried out (v. 40), indicating that this was the will of the Father that
Christ be received into Jerusalem as the King, as the Christ, as the Son of
David. Over the Jerusalem that received Jesus as the Christ in Luke 19, Jesus
wept. He takes the organic view of the Jerusalem, that OT revelation of the Church,
from the viewpoint of its receiving the King. Among
what has been written by Reformed commentators in harmony with the Canons
of Dordt and all of Scripture regarding double predestination and
the particularity of God’s mercy, we see in the weeping of Jesus over
Jerusalem a revelation of God’s righteousness and judgment against Jerusalem.
Jerusalem could never say in the judgment that they were not told that
judgment was coming upon them. Jerusalem (neither reprobate nor elect) could
not accuse God of failing to warn them of judgment and destruction related to
the cross, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost because God sent them the
prophets and even His only begotten Son to warn and call to repentance and
faith, but even Him they would not hear. Jesus faithfully declares that God
is righteous in the destruction of Jerusalem in the day of her visitation.
But, Jesus weeps for His own who rejected Him, but through that coming
judgment, would be redeemed. Jerusalem is redeemed through judgment. Through the
death and atonement of Christ, God justifies ungodly Jerusalem, that must
receive the King, by faith alone. God does not justify everyone, but the
Jerusalem of His elect, who by nature crucified Christ, but must be justified
through Him and sanctified by His Spirit and glorified with Him. When
the Man of Sorrows weeps (Isaiah 53; John 11:35), He weeps always in
connection with His humiliation and the curse which He bore His whole life as
the Mediator of His elect. His weeping is not merely a human emotion with no
basis or a very superficial knowledge. His weeping and sorrow, even at the
grave of Lazarus, was part of the work of the redemption of His elect from
sin, guilt, death, and grave. It is connected to His cross and resurrection. Further,
because Christ made plain that His death is particular for His sheep only, it
is important exegetically that we work from that starting point to interpret
Luke 19:41-44 or Matthew 23:34ff or even Ezekiel 33:11 (more difficult
passages). Let us not do, as others have mistakenly done, and take our
starting point in Luke 19 and interpret it how we might like it to mean, and
then use that as a basis then to figure out for whom Christ died and what He
meant by “sheep” in John 10. That does not follow the rule: clearer passages
of Scripture must be used to interpret more difficult passages. A simple
rule. Safe. And, by it we develop sound interpretations and confessions. And,
as is the case in Luke 19, the context will help us interpret the text. The
context helps us interpret over what Jerusalem Jesus wept and why. (RJS,
26/03/2018) |
|
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John
3:16-17). |
The world is defined by the immediate context: those
that reject the light (v. 18-20).
God’s love is shown to the unbelieving world in holding out salvation
to them in offering them eternal life through the gospel. The offer itself, whether or not anyone
takes God up on it, is a manifestation of God’s love for them.
It makes no sense for the world to mean the
elect in verse 17, for why would God come into the world to condemn the elect?
Rather one might think from the prophets that
when God came, He would condemn all unbelievers. But instead it has been revealed that the
Father sent Christ not to condemn unbelievers, but to save them (verse 17 is
a purpose clause). This purpose is
frustrated as the world clings to its own sins (v. 20), though those whom God
regenerates take God up on His conditional promise (conditioned by faith,
whosoever believes) in verse 21. |
“When the one arguing that it doesn't
make sense for Christ to say that the Son didn't come into the world to
condemn the elect, it begs the question: Does he think that the elect were always
saved? If so, this is an error. Was Zacchaeus lost or saved before Christ
came to his house? (cf. Luke 19:9). God decreed from eternity to create
trees. Were there any trees in eternity? God's decree is what He planned to do.
It is certain to happen, but it still has to happen in time.” (MM.
03/04/2020)
“[John 3:16-17, indeed,] tells us what
is the purpose of God … Verse 16 is saying … that God, out of
love for the world, gave His only begotten Son, with the purpose, not
to condemn the world, but with the purpose that every believer be
saved. Verse 17 is saying much the same
thing, but with a slightly different emphasis: God sent His Son into the
world, not with the purpose of condemning the world, but with the
purpose that the world through Christ is saved. … That purpose of God is the eternal
and unchangeable purpose of His counsel. That purpose of God’s counsel is
what God determined before the foundation of the world. See, e.g., Ephesians
1:11: ‘In whom (Christ) also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will.’ So both verses speak of God’s eternal purpose
in sending Christ into the world. His purpose was not to condemn the
world. His purpose was to save the world. … [What] needs emphasis is exactly
that the purpose of God is always accomplished, or God is not God! It is incredible to think that God, the
Creator of heaven and earth, the sovereign Lord of the universe, the Ruler of
kings and princes, the great God who does all His good pleasure, cannot
accomplish His purpose in sending His Son. What utter travesty of our God. … This truth is the doom of those who
hold to a well-meant offer of salvation, for such teach that at least in some
respect it is God’s purpose in the preaching to save all men.” (Herman
C. Hanko, “Covenant Reformed Fellowship News, vol. 3, no. 20, [no date])
“The
world of John 3:16 (Greek: kosmos, from which comes our English word,
cosmos, referring to our ‘orderly, harmonious, systematic universe’) is the
creation made by God in the beginning, now disordered by sin, with the elect
from all nations, now by nature children of wrath even as the others, as the
core of it. As regards its people, the world of John 3:16 is the new humanity
in Jesus Christ, the last Adam (I Cor. 15:45). John calls this new human race
‘the world’ in order to show, and emphasize, that it is not from the Jewish
people alone, but from all nations and peoples (Rev. 7:9). The people who
make up the world of John 3:16 are all those, and those only, who will become
believers (‘whosoever believeth’); and it is the elect who believe
(Acts 13:48).” (DJE, date unknown)
Augustine of Hippo (354-430): “He often calleth the church itself by the name of the world; as in that, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
himself;’ and that, ‘The Son of man came not to condemn the world, but that
the world through him might be saved.’ And John in his epistle saith, ‘We
have an Advocate, and he is the propitiation for [our sins, and not for ours
only, but also for] the sins of the whole world.’ The whole world, therefore,
is the church, and the world hateth the church. The world, then, hateth the
world; that which is at enmity, the reconciled; the condemned, the saved; the
polluted, the cleansed world. And that world which God in Christ reconcileth
to himself, and which is saved by Christ, is chosen out of the opposite,
condemned, defiled world.” (Quoted in John
Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ [Banner of Truth,
2013], p. 312)
The Church of Smyrna (2nd Cent. AD): “Neither can we ever forsake Christ, him who suffered for the
salvation of the world of them that are saved, nor worship any
other.” (Quoted in John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
[Banner of Truth, 2013], p. 310)
Ambrose of Milan (340-397): “The people of God hath its own fulness. In the elect and
foreknown, distinguished from the generality of
all, there is accounted a certain special universality; so that the
whole world seems to be delivered from the whole world, and all men to be
taken out of all men.” (Quoted in John Owen, The
Death of Death in the Death of Christ [Banner of Truth, 2013], p. 311) |
|
“But I receive not testimony from man; but these things I say, that ye
might be saved … And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom He has
sent, Him ye believe not. And ye will
not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:34, 38, 40). |
Jesus is speaking to the whole crowd, many of
which were reprobates. Verse 16 says
that His auditors sought to persecute and kill Him. Verses 38 and 40 say that they were not
believers and would not come to Him.
Jesus says, in verse 34, that Jesus spoke all this to them that
(in order that) they might be saved.
Jesus was sent for the revealed, sincere purpose of saving Israel, but
they resisted and rejected His ministry. |
“[John 5:34] proves far too much, if
it be explained as the expression of the well-meant offer. The text has Jesus
saying to His Jewish enemies, “But I receive not testimony from man: but
these things I say, that ye might be saved.” The explanation of [the
‘well-meant offer’ advocate] is that Jesus purposed, intended, desired, came
into the world to achieve, and worked at the salvation of every one of the
Jews to whom He spoke, indeed of every Jew of the Jewish nation at that time,
if not of all time. Because Jesus came to do the will of the Father who sent
Him (v. 30), if it is the will of Jesus to save all the Jews, head for head,
this is also the will of the Father, that is, the will of election. And, if [the
‘well-meant offer’ advocate’s] explanation of John 5:34 is right, this was
the will of the Father in sending Jesus into the world in the incarnation, as
well as the will of the Father in all the ministry of Jesus, including His
redemptive death, that is, universal atonement. But, according to [the defender of the
‘well-meant offer’] the will of Jesus and the will of the Father in sending
Jesus failed, an astounding admission and a blasphemous assertion. Jesus did
not accomplish the salvation of many of the Jews. The reason was that the
wicked will of many of the Jews frustrated the saving will of Jesus and of
God His Father. Necessarily, then, the reason for the salvation of those Jews
who believed was their own will, by which they distinguished themselves from
their unwilling compatriots. This
blatant heresy, [the ‘well-meant offer’ man] gladly embraces, promulgates,
and defends … No doctrinal error is too much in
nominally Calvinistic circles today if only it serves to defend and advance
the precious teaching of the well-meant offer! To this impotent offer (which
saves not one human more than God has elected), the entirety of the gospel of
sovereign particular grace and of the Canons of Dordt is gladly
sacrificed. The contrary testimony of the rest of
John’s gospel is not allowed to shed light on the passage in John 5. In John 10, Jesus states that He did not
come to save all the Jews. He came to save those Jews who are His sheep, in
that His Father gave them to Him. There were Jews who were not His sheep.
Them, He did not come to save (vv. 1-30). In John 6:38-39, Jesus teaches that
He came down from heaven to do the Father’s will and that the will of His
Father was that He save and lose nothing of all which the Father has given
Him. In verse 33, He adds that the
coming to Him which is salvation is not a matter of sinners accepting [the “free
offer”], but the Father’s efficacious drawing sinners to Jesus. All of this,
it should be noted, belongs to the revealed will of God. When Jesus declares that all His
ministry has as its purpose that “ye” might be saved, His reference is to the
Jewish people who are God’s Israel, not every Jew who stood in His presence
that day, or every Jew who was alive at that time, or every Jew who ever
lived or would live. As Paul would explain in Romans 9, they are not all
Israel, who are of Israel (v. 6). According to Romans 2:28, 29, “he is not a
Jew, which is one outwardly. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly …” As the same apostle will clarify in
Galatians 3:29, even among the physical descendants of Abraham, the Jews, it
is only “if be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to
the promise.” In John 5:34, those whom Jesus willed
to save, in accordance with the Father’s will of election, were the genuine
Jews, all those and those only, who were the true Israel of God, according to
election. And every one whom Jesus willed to save would be saved. In them,
Israel would be saved, not by their own willing, but by the will of God in
Jesus Christ. [Does the ‘well-meant offer’ advocate]
really want a gospel of a failed Jesus and of self-saving Jews? A gospel of
“so that ye might be saved,” but of many, if not a majority, of these “ye”
who are lost nevertheless? Is this really to be the message now of the faith
of the Canons of Dordt and of the Westminster Standards? And
can it really be the case that vast numbers of confessing Calvinists will
allow themselves to be frightened by the bogeyman of hyper-Calvinism into
embracing this heretical doctrine?” (David J. Engelsma, PRTJ, vol. 53, no. 1 [Nov.
2019], pp. 112-114)
“[The Well-Meant Offer advocate] cannot prove that every hearer
was reprobate, nor do we claim to be able to prove that any hearer was elect,
nor is such proof necessary. We can agree that, with every public discourse
in the gospel accounts, the audience was mixed … We agree that the primary
purpose of Christ’s preaching and teaching ministry was salvation (Luke 9:56;
19:10; John 12:47). Nevertheless, that fact does not preclude a secondary
purpose, which is the hardening of some … Christ can say, ‘These things I
say, that ye might be saved,’ without implying that His purpose was the
salvation of every hearer in the audience. Jesus does not say, ‘that every
one of you might be saved,” but simply makes a general statement
concerning His purpose in preaching. … God has purposed in Christ’s preaching the salvation of Christ’s
hearers, although not all of Christ’s hearers. If [the Well-Meant Offer
advocate] wants to make application to the will of God’s precept, he must
conclude that God commanded Christ’s hearers to believe and thus to be saved,
but [they] cannot prove that Christ desired the salvation of all His
hearers, or that God’s desire was unfulfilled or thwarted. In fact, God did
save Christ’s hearers—not all of them, of course—for many Jews who heard
Christ’s preaching were saved, either on that day or at a later day, such as
on the Day of Pentecost or during the days of the apostles after Christ’s
death and resurrection (Acts 2:41, 47; Acts 6:7).” (Rev. Martyn McGeown, PRTJ, vol 53, no. 2 [April 2020], pp. 88-89)
“The words, ‘that ye might be saved,’ not only
express clearly the desire on the part of Jesus that those intended might
receive salvation, but what is more, that this was the positive
purpose why they were
spoken. I think it is safe
to say, that, because the Lord speaks with the positive purpose that they may
be saved, that not the whole multitude consisted of reprobate unbelievers.
The ‘ye’ were saved.” (Herman Hoeksema, “The Standard Bearer,” vol. 13, no. 9 [Feb. 1, 1937],
p. 202)
[In John 5:40], Jesus
states a simple fact concerning
these hard-hearted Jews: “ye will not [i.e., do not wish or want to] come to
me.” In the context, Christ explains that they cannot trust in Him because they seek honour
from men not God (John 5:44), do not have “the love of God in” them (v. 42)
and do not even really believe the five books of Moses (vv. 46-47). (Herman
C. Hanko, Covenant Reformed News, vol. 16, no. 23 [March 2018])
With regard to [John
5:40], there is neither a desire of Christ for the salvation of these lost
souls nor frustration at their refusal to come to Him, whether expressed or
implied. Jesus rather expressed their responsibility in
refusing to come to Him, which coming was God’s command to them, so that they
are guilty of the heinous sin of unbelief. That they on their part wickedly
refused to believe on Christ so as to be guilty of the sin in no way negates
the truth that no man can come to Jesus unless the Father draw him. (DJE,
28/09/2017) |
|
“Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave
you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from
heaven” (John 6:32).
“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and
who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of
Him, and He would have given thee living water” (John 4:10). |
These passages say that Christ is a gift
from the Father. But is it the case that all the people in the crowd in John
6 were elect? No, for most of them immediately
thereafter left Christ (John 6:66).
Yet the text says the Father gave Christ to them. Christ is a gift from the Father to the
whole world, including the reprobate.
Receiving the salvific blessings of this offered gift designed for the
whole world is conditioned upon the people receiving it by faith, as John
4:10 demonstrates: “If thou knewest the gift of God … thou wouldest have
asked of Him and He would have given thee living water.” If people do not receive the gift, He is no
less, as John 4:10 says, “the gift of God.” |
This
is an example of “special pleading”—an argument in which the speaker
deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavourable to their point of view—for
in John 4, the woman was ELECT! (And what is the Free Offer/Well-Meant Offer
in the first place? A desire of God to save … the reprobate, is it
not?). The
argument is also absurd. Christ, a gift to the reprobate? Christ
is speaking organically in John 6. Some of those who heard Christ’s
words were elect and believed (e.g., 11 disciples themselves and some of
those who did not go away). God loves, saves and redeems the people/the
audience, from the perspective of the elect. He hates and damns the
people/audience from the perspective of the reprobate. (AS, 15/11/2019)
For
a further critique of the Free Offer view of John 6:32 by Reformed
theologian, Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965), see the following:
https://commongracedebate.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-father-giveth-you-true-bread.html |
|
“And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I
came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my
words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall
judge him in the last day” (John 12:47-48). |
Jesus is saying in this passage that his first
coming was not for the purpose of judging and condemning the world as on
Judgment Day, but that his ministry was to save the world, though He be
rejected by it. The person that does
not believe and rejects Him, Jesus does not condemn because He came to save
the world. ‘The world’ cannot mean the
elect because it is the world that rejects Jesus and shall be condemned by
his word on the Last Day. |
Difficult as the passage may be, it does not
express or imply the well-meant offer.
There is nothing in the passage of a love of God for all men with a
desire to save all. First, with regard to the difficult denial of
Jesus that he “came not to judge the world,” this must be
understood in light of other passages of the Bible that plainly teach that he
is the judge of the world. I
think of Matthew 25 which has Jesus on the throne of judgment before whom all
the world will stand to be judged.
There are also such passages as John 5:22, 27, which teach that Jesus,
by God’s appointment, will judge all. In the light of all of Scripture, what Jesus
taught in John 12 is that it was not the main purpose of God in
sending Jesus that Jesus be judge. The
main purpose was that he be savior.
In fact, there was no need to send Jesus as judge, inasmuch as the
entire world stood judged by God apart from and before Jesus’
coming. God did not have to send his Son into
the world to condemn it. The world
stood condemned apart from the coming of Jesus. Even after his coming, there is no need for
Jesus to judge, because there is one—God the Father—who judges everyone,
including those who reject Jesus. Second, the text itself teaches that in fact Jesus
does judge humans and that this obviously was an aspect of the purpose
of God in sending him. For if “the
word” that Jesus has “spoken” judges those who reject
him, it is Jesus himself who does the judging by means of his word. Third, the implication of the doctrine of those
who appeal to the text and explain it as described in the “free offer”
argument is that Jesus fails to save the world that he desires to save
and gave his life to save. This is not
only to make him a failure, but also to imply that those whom he does
save are saved by their own will, rather than by the will and work of
Jesus. This is the denial of the
gospel of grace. Fourth, positively, Jesus came to save the world
that was lost and under the judgment of God, even though as a secondary
purpose, he will also judge those individuals who are in the world who
reject him. He did not need to come
into the world to condemn the world because the world stood under judgment
without his coming. As he willed to
save the world, so also does he save the world, the world of John 3:16—all
those in all nations and of all races whom God elected and who believe on
Jesus. Jesus did not come for the Jews
alone, but for the world. As this
primary purpose of Jesus is being carried out, his word also judges. It judges all those who reject his word. This is a secondary, almost incidental,
effect of his coming and work. And
this judgment will be publicly confirmed in the great day of judgment as
Matthew 25 teaches. (DJE, 14/12/2019) |
|
“… Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel … Repent
ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out … Unto you first
God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away
every one of you from his iniquities” (Acts 3:12, 19, 26). |
The apostle is here speaking to an
indiscriminate, unconverted crowd of thousands of Israelites. Many of the crowd, after his message was
given, did not believe (Acts 4:1-3) and therefore were reprobates. Peter cannot, therefore, be speaking of
irresistible grace to the elect.
Rather, as verse 26 naturally reads, Peter is saying that God sent his
Son Jesus to turn every one of them from their iniquities. In verse 19, the revealed purpose of God
commanding them to repent and be converted is so that their sins would be
blotted out. However, God’s revealed
purpose in this was resisted and overturned in that Israel by and large
rejected Jesus’ saving overtures to them. |
In
Acts 3, the apostle addresses with the blessing of the gospel, “the children
of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers,”
specifically “Abraham” (v. 25). And he
identifies those whom God wills to bless as Abraham’s “seed.” In this seed, all the kindreds of the earth
[will] be blessed. In other words, he
addresses the Jewish audience from the viewpoint of the spiritual reality of
the nation of Israel, which is the “seed” of Abraham. This is not all the members of the physical
offspring of Abraham, but Jesus Christ and all those Jews, but only those
Jews, who are united with Christ Jesus by faith, according to election. These persons, God wills to bless in the
risen Jesus. These, it is God’s
purpose to bless by turning them from their iniquities. The
question is, who are the children of the covenant that God made with father
Abraham? Who are Abraham’s seed? The
answer to these questions is Galatians 3:16ff. The seed of Abraham is Christ Himself and
all those [Jews, but also Gentiles] who are one with Christ by faith. If we are Christ’s by faith, we are
Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise (v. 29). And if we are not Christ’s, we are not
Abraham’s seed and the objects of the will of God to bless. Peter
addressed the nation of Israel according to its true Identity, namely, those
who are elected in Christ and who belong to Him. Them, God willed to bless, and them He did
bless on that occasion by bringing them to faith and forgiving their sins. If
Peter referred to every physical Israelite, God failed in His desire to save,
for although many in his audience believed and were saved, there were also
those who did not believe and who were not blessed with salvation. (DJE, 11/02/2021)
|
|
“Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist
the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). |
These unbelieving reprobates who rejected the
gospel and stoned Stephen are said to have always resiste d the Holy Spirit, as did their unbelieving
Israelite fathers who constantly resisted the prophets of old. One of course can only resist a drawing
influence, as God continually sought to draw Israel to Himself in the Old
Testament and these Jews to Himself through the ministry of the apostles. |
It is the
plain testimony of Scripture that God’s predestination, or will and desire to
save some only, is the source of all salvation. Thus does God receive
the glory in the salvation of the sinner—not the sinner himself, who, on the
view of the well-meant offer, distinguishes himself from other sinners by
virtue of his accepting the offered salvation. This is the issue; it
must not be forgotten. As for Acts 7, the context clearly
shows that Stephen accuses the Jews of opposition to the Word of God and
those who brought it (see vv. 52, 53). The text could more accurately
be translated, “ye do always oppose the Holy Ghost.” In fact,
the Greek verb translated “resist” is antipiptoo, which means
“oppose, contradict” and the like. The lexicons do not even give the
word “resist” as a possible translation of the word (cf. Thayer). What
the deacon charges his opponents with is opposing the Holy Ghost in His
presence in the Word and in the preachers of it. No desire for the
salvation of these men is expressed or implied. One can oppose another
without the implication that that other wishes one to accept him.
The devil opposes God and Christ by contending against the Word and the
church (antipiptoo). But God has no desire that the devil be
saved by accepting the Word. Nor is the devil’s saving acceptance of
the Word a motive of God in sending the Word out. Men ought to understand the truth of
Acts 7 by reading it in light of Romans 9. God sends the gospel forth
with the determination that it save some but harden others. This
chapter is clear and decisive. (DJE, 03/01/2020) |
|
“And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto
death” (Rom. 7:10). |
This verse says that the ordained purpose of
God’s commandments is for life. That
is, God’s designed purpose in giving the law is for the good of the
creature. Sin in the creature, though,
resisting the will of God, turns that which was ordained for its good into
its own condemnation, a secondary by product due to the creature’s sin. Thus when God ‘now commands all men
everywhere to repent’ (Acts 17:30), it is ordained for the life of all
creatures. |
Originally
in Paradise, where the human race began, the law was designed to point out
the way in which the race would live. Still today, the law points out and
calls to the way of life: “Do this and live.” It is not the law’s fault that
the law now condemns and damns every human. As Romans 7 clearly states, the
trouble is not in the law but in us. What was originally designed to point
out the way of life, now, by man’s sin, condemns to death. The
reference to Acts 17 with the erroneous explanation of the call is wrong on
two counts. First, the call is not the law’s call, but the
call of the gospel. The law does not command to repent, but to
live a perfectly obedient life, with the threat that failure means damnation.
Second, neither the law nor the gospel is ordained by God for the life of all
creatures. Romans 9 teaches that God wills, or ordains, the gospel to harden some.
Besides, Romans 7:10 does not use the word “ordains” with regard to the law.
The KJV has the word “ordained” in italics, which shows that this word is not
in the original Greek. The text says only that the law was “to life” with
reference to its function originally. It showed the way of life. Even for
Adam, God did not ordain the law unto Adam’s *perpetual* life. If
He had, Adam would not have disobeyed. What God “ordains” happens. (DJE,
07/08/2019) |
|
“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you
by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (II Cor.
5:20).
“I say the truth in Christ… That I have great heaviness and continual
sorrow in my heart. For I could wish
that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according
to the flesh” (Rom. 9:1-3).
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they
might be saved” (Rom. 10:1). |
II Cor. 5:20 says that ministers are ambassadors
of Christ, beseeching in Christ’s stead that the world be reconciled to
God. Thus it was Christ, through Paul,
longing and praying for the salvation of Paul’s hearers (Acts 26:29). Preachers are to do the same.
Christ often had compassion on the multitudes, being moved out of
affection for His hearers, who were the same that would all leave Him (John
6:66). |
Without
denying that preachers of the gospel fervently exhort unbelievers to be
reconciled to God by believing on Jesus, with regards to II Corinthians 5:20
Paul is addressing the believing church, or believing members of
the church. He makes this plain in
the opening verses of chapter one, as throughout the preceding chapters. The opening verses of this chapter make
this certain. He speaks to those who
groan to be delivered from this life and to be with God at death. Surely, these are believers. If there yet remained any doubt, verse 21
removes this doubt: those whom he
addresses in verse 20 are those for whom God made Jesus to be sin and who are
the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.
These are not all humans but the believing members of the church.
(DJE, 15/11/2019).
“Even if we concede the point that all
hearers, whether believers or unbelievers, elect or reprobate, are addressed
in II Corinthians 5:20, the text still does not teach the “free offer” … What
the text does not teach is that Christ pleads with sinners to be saved—the
preacher might do that, and he often does.
However, Christ, the sovereign Lord, never pleads with sinners, and
the text does not teach that He does:
“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ (Greek: huper Christou),
as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead
(Greek: huper Christou), be ye reconciled to God.” To prove the free
offer, someone would have to demonstrate that God desires the salvation of
the hearers and that He sincerely offers salvation to all of them (including
to all the reprobate).” (Rev. Martyn McGeown, PRTJ, vol. 55, no. 2
[April 2018], p. 71)
Historical Support:
John
Calvin (1509-1564): “It is to be observed, that Paul is
here addressing himself to believers. He declares, that he brings to them
every day this embassy. Christ therefore, did not suffer, merely that he
might once expiate our sins, nor was the gospel appointed merely with a view
to the pardon of those sins which we committed previously to baptism, but
that, as we daily sin, so we might, also, by a daily remission, be received
by God into his favor. For this is a continued embassy, which must be
assiduously sounded forth in the Church, till the end of the world; and the
gospel cannot be preached, unless remission of sins is promised.” (Comm.
on II Cor. 5:20) |
|
“We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive
not the grace of God in vain” (II Cor. 6:1). |
The context is the free offer of the gospel at
the end of II Cor. 5, where Paul exhorts them to be reconciled to God (5:20)
and sets the atonement in Christ before them (5:21). II Cor. 6:1 says this free offer, which
they may or may not take God up on, is a grace to them. Yet they are able to receive this grace in
vain by hearing of the free offer to no avail and perishing in their sin. |
The short answer is
that Paul is addressing the church in these verses (and the church
from an organic perspective at that). They are not an “evangelistic
appeal.” (AS, 18/05/2017) The point is that God
saves a number of people and that group becomes a congregation of Jesus
Christ. Upon that congregation, God sends the blessings of His grace. They
grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. God is gracious to that
church as a body. It almost always
happens that there are also those in the congregation who are not true
believers. They confess the truth for a while. They may even be chosen as office-bearers.
But they are not faithful. Hebrews 6:1-6 speaks of such people. And so the
warning is pertinent and needed. There is also the
carnal seed born in the church who do not show their ungodly colours until
they become young people or confessing adults. The grace God gives
to a congregation creates a sphere of Christ’s gracious workings in saving
His church. The congregation as a whole and each individual in it is called
not to use this grace of God in vain. Everyone knows that,
when a farmer irrigates his field, he waters weeds, as well as his crop. But
the weeds receive the water in vain. Indeed, the watering causes them to grow
rapidly and manifest themselves as weeds. So it is in the church. Hebrews
6:7-8 uses this figure too. (Herman C. Hanko, “Covenant Reformed News,”
vol. 16, no. 16 [Aug. 2017]) The exhortation that
the Corinthians not receive the grace of God in vain does not imply that this
is possible in the sense that a man is the recipient of the grace of God, but
perishes. In light of verse 2, the apostle is exhorting the church not to
receive the gospel that Paul preached in vain in the sense
that the gospel of grace came to it, but the church did not
believe it or hold on to it. This is a possibility, indeed a reality in many
cases. The church and its members are therefore guilty of having the gospel
brought to them, but, by their unbelief, not benefiting from the gospel. This
implies neither a frustration of gracious purposes of God, nor a falling from
grace on the part of individuals. The implication [that] the [Free Offer
interpretation] proposes is that all hearers of the preaching of the gospel
have the ability to receive the gospel. How is this to be squared with the
doctrine of total depravity? Also, if this is true, salvation depends upon
the sinner. How does this harmonize with salvation by grace? In addition, if
God sincerely desires the salvation of all who hear, this contradicts His
will of predestination. It also makes God powerless to save, and makes
salvation depend on the will of the sinner. Grace is at stake. The text teaches the reality and
urgency of the external call to salvation by preachers: a beseeching of all
to repent and believe, and in this way, to be saved. The gospel calls
all hearers to believe and instructs all hearers that all who believe will be
saved. There is no teaching in the text that all are able to believe or that
salvation depends on the will of the sinner. The [Free Offer interpretation]
begs the question whether all hearers have the natural ability to repent and
believe. Ephesians 2 describes all to whom the gospel comes as “dead in sin.”
Dead sinners do not have the ability to do what the gospel calls them to do.
When one does what the gospel calls him to do, namely, believe, this is
because of the particular grace of God to him: “By grace are ye saved,
through faith, and this [faith] is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”
(Eph. 2). To use the language of Ezekiel, when
God passes by the dead infant weltering in his blood and says, “Live!” the
exhortation does not imply that the dead child has the ability to do so. With
the call to the elect, God gives the efficacious grace to obey the call.
According to His reprobation, He withholds this grace from the others to whom
the external call also comes. The reprobate is responsible for rejecting the
call, even though he has no ability to heed it. It is his fault that he is in
his desperate spiritual condition. (DJE, 20/04/2017) |
|
“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we
might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24). |
This verse says that the Mosaic Law
administration’s purpose was to lead Israel unto Christ so that they might be
justified by faith and saved. This
purpose was revealed in God driving them away from themselves by the Moral
Law, in God giving Israel sacrifices and symbolic rites in the Ceremonial Law
in order to draw them to faith in the Messiah, and in God giving them a
foretaste of the equity of the Messianic Kingdom in the Civil Law. This has historically been defined as ‘the
first use of the Law’ in reformed theology.
This purpose of the Law, of course, was not fulfilled by all of Israel
as not all of Israel was brought to Christ, contrary to God’s revealed
purpose. |
The law is a pedagogue to lead some sinners
to Christ. It does not itself justify or save. Only Christ in the
gospel saves. This is the message of the book of Galatians. Law
does not save; only the gospel saves, since only the gospel reveals Jesus
Christ. It is the overwhelming message of Galatians to distinguish law
and gospel and to insist that the law—commandments—does not justify and
save. Galatians 3 teaches that the promise of
salvation was given to Abraham’s seed and that this seed is Christ so that
the promise of salvation comes only to those who are in Christ by faith,
not to all physical children of Abraham. The promise with its salvation
is particular, not universal. And what determines who
are included in Christ? See Romans 9. (DJE, 08/08/2019)
|
|
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners ...” (I Tim. 1:15). |
Jesus came into the world to save sinners as
they are creaturely sinners. He threw
the gospel net wide, preaching to all indiscriminately, calling many (though
only few be chosen), sending his disciples into all of Israel, and his
apostles into all the world. |
This
argument doesn’t even mention the “well-meant offer/free offer” position and
could easily be understood our way. Anyone who thinks that I Timothy 1:15
teaches the well-meant offer has not grasped the issue at all and doesn’t
even understand what we teach. (AS, 03/11/2019) |
|
“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers … be
made for all men … For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our
Savior; Who will have all men to be
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (I
Tim. 2:1-6). |
Prayer is to be made not only for all types of
men, but for all men head-for-head, as Matt 5:44 teaches (except those that
sin the sin unto death, 1 John 5:16).
The grounds for praying for the salvation of all men is God’s revealed
will, that He would have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the
truth. This universal will of God is
fitting as there is only one God and one Mediator between Him and all
men. It is further grounded in the
atonement of Christ which (though not efficaciously paying for the sins of
the whole world by decree) yet is made available to, and is designed for, the
whole world. |
|
|
“For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in
the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that
believe” (1 Tim. 4:10). |
“Here the passage says that Christ is in some
way the Savior of the reprobate. In
what way is this? Christ is available
to all men, offered to all men, sufficient for all men, has come
to seek and save all men, and wills that all men should come to Him and
be saved.” |
Notice that the verse does not just say
that God sent His Son for all, but that He is the Savior of all. The explanation we prefer, though Calvin gives an
alternative, has to do with the use of the word “specially.” The word “all”
seems to indicate that “all men” is a larger and less exclusive group than
“those that believe.” In fact, they are the same group. The idea of the verse
is therefore this: “The Saviour of all men, that is, of those
that believe.” Three other verses in the New Testament
use the same word translated “specially” and “chiefly” in that way. In Acts
25:26, “you” and “king Agrippa” are the same person, so that the verse can be
read, “before you, that is, before thee, O king Agrippa.” In I
Timothy 5:8 “his own” and “those of his own house” are also the same group,
and the word “specially” again has the idea of “that is.” Thus, everyone is
commanded to care for “his own, that is, for those of his own
house.” Finally in II Peter 2:9-10 the “unjust” and “them that walk after the
flesh” are the same group of people, and the word translated “chiefly” again
has the idea of “that is.” God reserves “the unjust unto the day of judgment
to be punished, that is, them that walk after the flesh.” Insofar as the word has any other
meaning, it indicates that the group referred to in each case has a special name,
a name that reinforces what each passage says about them. In Acts 25:26,
“you” is “king Agrippa.” In I Timothy 5:8 “his own” are “those of his own
house,” reinforcing the command to care for them. And in II Peter 2:9-10, the
“unjust” are “those that walk after the “flesh,” emphasizing the reason that
they are reserved unto judgment. So in I Timothy 4:10, “all men” are
especially “those that believe,” and the text is explaining by the second
name why God is their Savior. Thus, the verse, instead of suggesting that God
in some sense is Savior of all men without exception, actually shows that
“all men” is the equivalent of “those that believe,” a limited number of
persons. (Ronald Hanko & Ronald Cammenga, “Saved by Grace: A Study
of the Five Points of Calvinism,” [RFPA, 2002], pp. 110-112) |
|
“But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man
appeared …” (Titus 3:4). |
Here Jesus is given the name ‘the kindness and
love of God’, and this toward mankind in his revealing the Love of God to the
human race. He is the Philanthropos,
The Lover of Men. |
“And
who are embraced by the Philanthropos? Who are the men
whom God loves (Tit. 3:4)? It is
surrounded by ‘we’ and ‘us’ and ‘our’ (vv. 3, 5, 6, 7). Moreover, verse 4 is
part of one lengthy sentence (vv. 4-7) controlled by ‘us’ and ‘we’ and ‘our’—the
whole thing is particular: particular grace to some people, God’s
people who are loved by Him in Christ, saved by mercy, regenerated and justified
by grace alone.” (AS, 03/11/2019)
“As
for Titus 3:4, ‘man’ is not the same as ‘every single human being without
exception.’ In Jesus Christ as
presented in the gospel, the love of God has appeared toward man in that ‘according
to his mercy he saved us’—us men, or humans, out of all nations (verse
5). There are two important truths to
be observed here. First, in that God
sent Jesus to be the Savior of humans out of all nations, the love of God
appeared to man. Second, this love
appeared, according to verses 5ff. by God’s washing of man, that is, humans,
with regeneration (v. 5), justification (v. 7), and the giving of the hope of
eternal life (v. 7). The appearing of
the love of God to man consists of these saving works to man. Does God actually give these saving gifts
to every human? He does not. This shows that the appearing of the love
of God to man does not refer to every human, but to man in the sense of
humans everywhere among all nations. ‘Man’
refers to mankind, consisting of the ‘elect’ in the human race, to whom the
book of Titus was addressed (Titus 1:1:
‘the faith of God’s elect’).” (DJE, 30/03/2021) |
|
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count
slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Pet. 3:9). |
If ‘not willing that any should perish’ refers
to all God’s elect who will in the future will be converted, then Peter must,
by ‘us-ward’, be referring to the unknown and hidden group of the elect (many
of which were unconverted both in his day and yet to be in the future). To make the first person plural, ‘us’,
refer to an unknown group (many of his hearers not being in that group) is to
border on making Peter’s speech unintelligible.
Rather, Peter is much more easily understood if
‘us’ included all of his hearers and the persons previously mentioned in the
passage, all the generations of the human race (including the scoffers) that
God was mercifully dealing with in his longsuffering, giving them more time
to repent under the gospel, not willing that any of creature should perish. This reading of the passage would be
expected as it is clearly true that God is willing that all people, elect and
non-elect, should come to repentance (Acts 17:30). |
Abraham
Kuyper (1837-1920): “And to demonstrate this, I will, in
regard to II Pet. 3:9, leave it to the judgment of my opponents themselves,
whether they will accept the inner contradiction one must face if one makes
this scriptural passage say what they put into it. For
about the context and the way of argumentation in II Pet. 3:9 there can be no
difference of opinion. In
this passage, all admit this, the only subject is the long tarrying of the
return of the Lord upon the clouds. The
church of those days had long expected this return … And
when they were disappointed in this expectation, and one year after another
passed by, without heaven being opened and the Lord descending, unstable
souls in the church began to murmur and to ask whether what the apostles had
told them was the truth, and whether they had not published as a promise of
Jesus’ return what was, after all, only the product of their own imagination
and therefore false prophecy. Now,
if in this connection and argumentation I insert the conception: ‘Ye
yourselves, and not God, are the cause of this tarrying about which ye
murmur. For why do ye not hasten your repentance? For this ye surely do know,
that first the last of the elect must come to repentance before that day can
come’—then the whole argument runs perfectly smoothly, the chain of thought
is unbroken, and everyone understands why and for what purpose the apostle
employs exactly these terms. But
note now, how all this is lost, and the sense becomes completely
unintelligible, if I, for other reasons, try to carry the idea of common
grace into this passage. Then
I must come to the following unreasonable argumentation: 'Jesus cannot come
as yet, for the will of God must be fulfilled, and, according to this will,
all men must first come to repentance!' But
… if Jesus cannot return before all men have come to repentance, then He will
never come! For,
in the first place, thousands upon thousands have already died without
repentance, for whom this postponement of Jesus’ return is of no avail. Secondly,
there are millions upon millions that will die tomorrow, or the day after, or
next year, without ever having heard of Jesus, for whom this postponement
neither is any profit. And
finally, if God without fixing a definite number, constantly causes new men
to be born, and if the return of Jesus must await until also these have come
to repentance, the return of Jesus may be postponed indefinitely. And this is
the more serious, in view of the fact that the population of the world
increases every day, and it becomes more probable all the time that not all
men come to repentance. Hence,
this does not jibe. This does not harmonize. That is the most unreasonable
argumentation conceivable; it has neither sense nor solution. No,
if I want to demonstrate why the Lord God, humanly speaking, fulfills the
promise of Jesus’ return somewhat later than we had imagined, then this can
become intelligible only if I start to figure from a definite starting point. For
if the number of men that must be born is determined, and if God knows for
whom out of all men a place must be prepared in heaven,—then, indeed, I can
understand perfectly well that Jesus cannot return until they all have been
brought in; and then the process of thought is perfectly pure, clear and
lucid, if I say: ‘God tarries, for there still are some unconverted of those
that are elect, and God surely wills not that any, be they ever so few, shall
be missing from the number of His elect, but that they all shall have come to
repentance before Jesus appears …’ There
is, therefore, nothing left of this objection, and the meaning of II Pet. 3:9
can be nothing else than this: ‘Jesus cannot return until the number of the
elect is complete, and while there are at present still many elect that have
not come to repentance, He postpones His coming in longsuffering, not willing
that through His early coming some should perish, but willing that all shall
first be converted.’”
(“Uit Het Woord,” IV, pp. 33-36) |
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That God Desires His Revealed Will to be Done |
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“For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest
not in burnt offering” (Ps. 51:16). |
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“God
does desire obedience—and He obtains it: the obedience of the elect through
the cross and Spirit of Christ. What
WMO advocates need to (but can never) prove is that God desires a reprobate
to obey (for Scripture never says this and this is contrary to His deity—mere
wishfulness and unfulfilled desires, making God like a weak man.” (AS,
12/11/2020) |
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“Why leap ye, ye high hills? this is the hill which God desireth to
dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever” (Ps. 68:16). |
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“God
desired to dwell in Zion, the church, and He achieved this—a proof of God’s fulfilled
desires in His salvation of His elect people.” (AS, 12/11/2020) |
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“For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more
than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6). |
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1. God
expressed his desire for mercy and not sacrifice in the law and in the prophets;
this desire, as he speaks of it in Hosea 6:6, is indeed a matter of his
revealed will. 2. God did
not express this desire to the entire world, or all mankind; he expressed it
to Israel, his covenant people, his holy nation. 3. In the
text, God reminds Israel of this to call her to repentance. He is not
speaking of an unfulfilled desire; he is rebuking a people who did not do
what He commanded them to do. This rebuke makes plain to those in Israel who
will not obey Him that their disobedience is willful, and God is just in
punishing them for it. And this rebuke
is the means by which true believers turn back to God again. (DK,
03/09/2019)
There are
two ways of responding to those who urge this verse in support of the
Well-Meant Offer (WMO) ... 1) The WMO
teaches that God (earnestly) desires (or wishes or wants) the salvation of
the reprobate (which involves also the propositions that God desires
the reprobate to repent and to do good works). God does
desire people to show mercy. By His irresistible grace, He makes His elect
show mercy. Hosea 6:6 does not say whom He desires to exercise mercy.
Thus Hosea 6:6 is like John 4:23 which says that the Father seeks people to
worship Him in spirit and in truth. He actually (desires and) seeks (and
creates and finds) such people to worship Him—by election, Christ's saving
death and irresistible grace. Or … 2) Hosea 6:6
is a comparison. It does not literally mean that God did not desire
sacrifice per se. For He did desire (animal) sacrifice—as a
picture of Christ’s coming sacrifice and as a way for the true people of God
to show their gratitude (by an expensive gift)—and, therefore, God saw to it
that such actually happened. But now the advocates of the WMO are caught on
the horns of a dilemma, for they claim that all God’s commands indicate a
desire that they be kept (instead, they indicate that God approves of
the good He commands), yet this text contradicts their thesis, since
God commanded animal sacrifice in Old Testament days, yet, if they take it
literally, it says that He did not desire what He commanded! Instead,
the text teaches that God values our showing mercy (out of a believing and
thankful heart) more highly than he does offering an animal as a
sacrifice (apart from faith in the coming Saviour). And, again, this desire
(even taking the word literally) was realised in the elect. Thus,
again, no unfulfilled divine desires. (AS, 30/08/2019) |
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That God’s Revealed Will is his Wish |
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“O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and
keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with
their children for ever!” (Deut. 5:29).
“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider
their latter end!” (Deut. 32:29).
“Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my
ways! I should soon have subdued their
enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have
submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for
ever. He should have fed them also
with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have
satisfied thee” (Ps. 81:13-16).
“O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been
as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (Isa. 48:18). |
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Wilhelmus
à Brakel (1635-1711): “When God is said to
desire something which does not occur, such as when He states, ‘O that there
were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me … that it might be well
with them, and with their children for ever!’ (Deu. 5:29), or, ‘O that thou
hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a river’ (Isa.
48:18), He is speaking in the manner of men. Strictly speaking, such can
never be said concerning the omniscient, omnipotent, immovable, and most
perfect God. Rather, it indicates God’s displeasure against sin and how He
delights in holiness” (“The Christian’s Reasonable Service,” trans.
Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 [Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1992], p. 117).
Matthew
Poole (1624-1679): “O that thou hadst hearkened to my
commandments! the failure hath not been on my part, but on thine: I gave
thee my counsels and commands, but thou hast neglected and disobeyed them,
and that to thy own great disadvantage. Such wishes as these are not to be
taken properly, as if God longed for something which he gladly would but
could not effect, or as if he wished that to be undone which was irrevocably
past and done; which is a vain and foolish wish even in a man; and much more
are such wishes inconsistent with the infinite perfection and happiness of
the Divine nature; but they are only significations of God’s good and holy
will, whereby he requires and loves obedience, and condemns and hates
disobedience” (Comm. on Isa. 48:18).
John
Owen (1616-1683): “That desires and wishings should
properly be ascribed unto God is exceedingly opposite to his all-sufficiency
and the perfection of his nature; they are no more in him than he hath eyes,
ears, and hands. These things are to be understood [in a way befitting to
God]” (“The Works of John Owen” [Great Britain: Banner, 1967], vol. 10,
p. 401).
Formula
Consensus Helvetica (1675):
“The same Holy Scriptures testify that the counsel and the will of God do not
change, but stand immovable, and God in the heavens does whatsoever he will
(Ps. 115:3; Isa. 46:10); for God is infinitely removed from all that human
imperfection which characterizes inefficacious affections and desires,
rashness, repentance, and change of purpose” (Canon VI).
Matthew Winzer: “[These] can
only be understood covenantally, as God speaking after the manner of men in
order to act in accord with the covenant relationship He bears to His people.
Moreover, according to the Scripture’s own testimony, these expressions of
desire are not made of no effect, but do come to pass in the elect, their
proper point of reference.” (“Murray
on the Free Offer,” in The Blue Banner, vol. 9, no. 10-12) |
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