Prof. Herman C. Hanko
[Source: Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, April, 1987]
We have now reached the end of our
historical survey of the doctrine of the free offer. It remains for us to point
out the errors of the free offer and set forth the truth of Scripture over against
it.
A great deal of confusion is present in
the ecclesiastical world concerning this matter of the free offer. There are
those who insist that any denial of the free offer is in fact hyper-Calvinism.
This has become so common a notion that people who hear of anyone who denies
the free offer, instinctively and with a knee-jerking reaction, brand such a
one as a “hyper,” who refuses to preach the gospel to all men, but insists that
it can be preached only to the elect.
There are hyper-Calvinists in our day;
and they do indeed take the position that it is proper and right to limit the
preaching to the elect only. Such are the Gospel
Standard people in England, e.g. And they are also to be found in this country.110
But a denial of the free offer does not automatically place one in the
hyper-Calvinist camp. We who deny that the preaching of the gospel is a
well-meant or free offer, emphatically assert both that the gospel is preached
to all who hear and must be preached to all who hear. In fact, this very truth
is incorporated in the Canons of Dordt,
to which Confession we whole-heartedly subscribe. Canons II, 5 emphatically asserts:
Moreover,
the promise of the gospel is, that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified,
shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This promise, together with the
command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and published to all
nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God
out of his good pleasure sends the gospel.
And in III & IV, 9 the Canons speak of those who reject the
gospel which is preached to them:
It
is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ, offered therein, nor of God, who
calls men by the gospel, and confers upon them various gifts, that those who
are called by the ministry of the word, refuse to come, and be converted: the
fault lies in themselves; some of whom when called, regardless of their danger,
reject the word of life; others, though they receive it, suffer it not to make
a lasting impression on their heart; therefore, their joy, arising only from a
temporary faith, soon vanishes, and they fall away; while others choke the seed
of the word by perplexing cares, and the pleasures of this world, and produce
no fruit.—This our Savior teaches in the parable of the sower (Matt.
13).
This truth is also clearly taught in
Scripture. There is a powerful passage in Ezekiel 3:17-19 which places the
blood of those who go lost upon the head of the preacher who does not warn the
wicked of his evil way, and only by warning the wicked can a preacher escape
the possibility of being responsible for his destruction.
Son
of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear
the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the
wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to
warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man
shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if
thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked
way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
Indeed how much clearer would a man
want it than the very words of our Lord when He commanded His Church: “Go ye
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).
But several things are to be noticed
about this general proclamation of the gospel.
In the first place, according to Canons II, 5, the gospel is the general proclamation
of a particular promise: the promise, according to this article is only to
those who believe and repent, i.e., the elect in whom God works faith and
repentance. While it is indeed publicly proclaimed, it is the public
proclamation of a particular promise that God makes only to His people and
which is theirs in the way of faith and repentance.
In the second place, when the Canons use the word “offer,” as they do
in III & IV, 9, they use it in the sense of “present, proclaim,” which
meaning is the meaning of the Latin word offere
as it was used in the original Canons.
Christ is publicly and promiscuously presented in the gospel and proclaimed as
the One in Whom God worked the great work of salvation. But such a proclamation
and presentation of Christ in the gospel is not a Christus pro omnibus, a Christ for all, but a Christ in Whom God
wrought salvation for those who believe in Him and repent of their sins. Thus
He is publicly presented as the One in Whom God wrought salvation for His
people.
In the third place, this is entirely in
keeping with the character and nature of the gospel. According to Scripture, in
Romans 1:16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
The gospel is not a mere lecture on a theological subject. It is not a learned
dissertation on some given text. It is emphatically preaching. And preaching is the means that God is pleased to use to
call His people out of darkness into salvation in Christ. Preaching is God’s
means, sovereignly and efficaciously, to bring salvation and heavenly glory to
those who belong to Christ.
To make the preaching an offer robs the
gospel of this great power. It reduces the gospel to a mere expression on God’s
part to save all those who hear. When it reduces the gospel to this kind of
expression, it robs the gospel of its saving power. It makes the gospel nothing
but some kind of pleading, begging, seeking on God’s part for the sinner to
turn from his way and to accept the salvation offered in Christ. God stands
helplessly by, waiting to see what man will do. God wants to save all. The
gospel expresses His intention and desire, His earnest longing to save all who
hear. But God can do very little about it. He must wait to see what man will
do. If man accepts the gospel, then indeed salvation is granted him. But he may
very well reject it, and thus his reaction to the gospel stands outside God’s
power and sovereign determination.
This sort of notion about the gospel is
thoroughly Arminian. It is Arminian because it denies the truth of irresistible
grace. It is Arminian because it ascribes to man the power to accept the
gospel; thus it denies man’s utter depravity and inability to do any good. It
is Arminian because it makes salvation dependent upon the free will of man. And
let it never be forgotten: Ultimately these questions are questions of Who God
is. Is the sovereign God of heaven and earth, the Maker and Sustainer of all,
the God Who gives us our life and breath, Who upholds us every step of our
earthly sojourn, a helpless god who cannot save? Such a view of God is an idol,
the creation of men’s fevered and proud imaginations. Such a view destroys the
God of the Scriptures and reduces Him to a pleading beggar. This is a terrible
sin and brings down the wrath of God upon those who make Him such a weak being
that He is as putty in the hands of man.
It is, of course, true that those who
want to maintain the free offer of the gospel and still go under the name of
Calvinism or Reformed try to get around this terrible evil by assuring us that
the faith and repentance, which are necessary for us to receive Christ, are
gifts worked by God in the hearts of His people. They say: Christ is offered to
all. God wishes to save all. His intention and desire is to bring all to
salvation. The gospel expresses this truth forcibly. But actually and in fact,
God works the faith necessary to receive the gospel only in the hearts of the
elect. So only they in fact are saved and only they really receive the
salvation offered.
But this kind of evasion will never do.
On the very surface of it, we have, in this conception, a strange idea of God.
Think of how this actually works. God wants desperately to save a man; He
expresses His desire and the deep longing of His soul to save the man; He
earnestly and longingly does everything He can to make that man accept Christ
as His Savior. But He does not give to that man the faith that is necessary for
salvation. What kind of a God is this? Can anyone imagine a God Who so deeply
and passionately wants to save a man, but withholds from him the one thing
necessary to be saved, namely faith? It is after all, within God’s power to
give faith. But He refrains. What kind of a husband would I be if I earnestly
longed for the health of my wife who is dying from cancer, when I had in my
power to restore her to health, but refused? I would be branded by all men a
monster and would probably be hailed before the courts of the land indicted on
a charge of negligent homicide at least. Yet so it is that men present God.
But there is more. The gospel is the
promise of salvation in Christ. The burning question is: Does God promise, as a
part of that salvation, faith and repentance? Or, to put it a different way,
are faith and repentance part of salvation and therefore part of the promise?
If they are, then through the gospel as the power of God unto salvation, all of
salvation is worked, including faith and repentance. But when one makes the
promise of the gospel dependent upon the conditions of faith and repentance,
one separates faith and repentance from salvation and makes them prerequisites
to salvation. But if they are not a part of salvation, then they are the work
of man. One cannot have it both ways. Either faith and repentance are part of
the promise, worked sovereignly and irresistibly through the gospel, or they
are conditions to the promise, therefore not a part of the promise, and thus
the work of man.
It is important to understand in this
connection that a general and well-meant offer must also be conditional. It must
be conditional because every one who maintains it, freely admits that not all
to whom the gospel is proclaimed are actually saved. While God desires the
salvation of all, there are always those who reject the gospel. Thus, the free
offer is conditional, dependent upon faith and repentance. And thus faith and
repentance are the works of men. The free offer is inherently Arminian and a
denial of all that has ever been true of the Calvin Reformation.
It is no wonder then that those who
have held consistently to a free offer have inevitably drifted into the
Arminian camp. Here again one need only consult history. Wherever the free
offer has been maintained, Arminianism has raised its ugly head. This was true
of the Arminians who were condemned by the Synod of Dordt, for they alone were
the ones who maintained a conditional salvation.111 This was true of
the Amyrauldians, whose influence extended to England, Europe and the
Netherlands. This is true in the history
of the Reformed Churches also in this country. That such a conditional
salvation has led to Arminianism in the Christian Reformed Church is evident,
e.g., from the failure of this denomination to condemn a form of universal
atonement as it appeared in the Sixties. We can come to only one conclusion: the
necessary conditionality of the free offer is essentially Arminian and a denial
of Calvinism.
It might be well to spell this out a
bit more in detail, because such a discussion will quite naturally lead to
another aspect of the idea of the free offer.
Anyone acquainted with the so-called
“five points of Calvinism” will know that they are often remembered by the
memory device: TULIP—total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement,
irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. The free offer leads to a
denial of them all.
The free offer leads to a denial of
total depravity because salvation is made dependent upon the will of man. The
best illustration of this that we can offer is the position of the Christian
Reformed Church in this matter. Already in the “Three Points of Common Grace”
total depravity was explicitly denied, for these three points112
teach that because of a general operation of the Spirit in the hearts of all
men, sin is so restrained that the sinner is capable of doing good. This denial
of total depravity has often been expressed in Christian Reformed literature by
a distinction that is made between total depravity and absolute depravity. The
latter is intended to refer to complete depravity so that the sinner is
incapable of doing any good and able to do only evil. The former, which the
Christian Reformed Church professes to believe, is interpreted to mean that the
sinner is depraved in all parts of his nature, though in every part are some
remnants of good. By this distinction the truth of total depravity is denied.
Yet it is essential for the doctrine of the free offer because the natural man
must not only be able to do good, but he must also be able to respond to the
gospel offer. If I offer one thousand dollars to ten corpses, people will think
I am crazy. But Scripture defines the sinner as dead in trespasses and sins.
Only when this spiritual death is less than death can the free offer make any
sense.
The free offer of the gospel leads to a
denial of particular atonement because a salvation that is intended for all
must also be a salvation that is purchased for all. If God, through the gospel,
offers salvation to all who hear along with the intent and expressed desire to
save all, this salvation must be available. If it is not, the whole offer
becomes a farce. If I offer one thousand dollars to each of ten people, if they
will come to my house to pick it up, I had better have it somewhere in the
house, or I am in trouble. If I do not have all the money that might be needed
in the house, I am making a farce of the offer and really lying. If God offers
salvation to all who hear and really earnestly desires their salvation, He had
(I speak as a man) better have that salvation available. If He does not, the
offer becomes a farce. God offers that which He does not have. This makes God a
liar and the offer a fake. Hence, the only sense one can make out of the offer
is to teach a salvation which was earned by Christ on the cross for everyone.
Thus the cross of Christ and the redemption that He accomplished becomes
universal in its extent. It is not surprising that Dekker argued in the Sixties
within his denomination that because the love and grace of God were general,
the atonement was also general.
The free offer leads to a denial of
irresistible grace. When the offer expresses only God’s desire to save all
and offers salvation to all, then the grace of the preaching is not
irresistible, but resistible. Men may choose to resist it and refuse to accept
the offer. God cannot accomplish that which He wills. His intentions and
desires are frustrated and His purpose is made of no effect because of man’s
resistance.
Ultimately the free offer also makes
the perseverance of the saints a doubtful matter. It stands to reason that if
man can either accept or reject the gospel offer, he can at one time accept it,
at another time reject it, and yet again accept it. But because his salvation
is dependent upon what he does, his salvation hangs by the thin thread of his
own free will. Thus his final salvation is always in doubt. He can fall away
from the faith, and he can, while once having accepted Christ, still spurn Him
in the future. It is undoubtedly this general Arminian teaching that is the
basis for revivals and recommitments to Christ through the invitation.
But of particular concern to us is the
truth of unconditional predestination. While it is true that the “U” of TULIP
speaks only of unconditional election, reprobation has also always been a part
of the truth of predestination. The free offer denies both. The free offer
denies reprobation first of all because if God’s sovereign purpose is not to
save some, including some who hear the gospel, God’s purpose in offering them
salvation is nonsensical. On the one hand, God purposes not to save; on the
other hand God purposes to save. On the one hand it is God’s will not to save;
on the other hand it is God’s will to save. The result is that in those circles
reprobation is finally denied.
This is, in fact, what has happened in
the Christian Reformed Church. The truth of reprobation is hardly ever
preached, if at all; and Harry Boer made a specific attack against this
doctrine in the late Seventies and early Eighties, when he asked the Synod of
the Christian Reformed Church to strike the doctrine of reprobation from the Canons. While Synod refused to do this,
it put its stamp of approval on a report of a committee appointed to study the
matter, which report contains a definition of reprobation which is completely
out of keeping with the historic definition of the doctrine and with the truth
as it is taught in the Canons. Synod,
in effect, approved of a conditional reprobation, the very view which the
Arminians maintained and which our fathers at Dordt repudiated.
But if reprobation is denied, then
also election falls by the way. They are two sides of one coin, two parts of
one truth.113 But the free offer cannot bear the truth of election
for the same reason that it militates against reprobation. On the one hand, God
purposes to save only His people chosen in Christ; on the other hand, He
purposes to save all. One will is to save some; another will is to save all.
And because the two are so flatly contradictory, they cannot both be
maintained. So, the truth of sovereign election is sacrificed on the altar of
the free offer.
A discussion of the relation between
the idea of the free offer of the gospel and the counsel and will of God leads
us to a point which needs to be made. Those who hold to a free offer and still
want to retain some semblance of being Calvinistic and Reformed make a
distinction at this point between the will of God’s decree and the will of His
command; or, as is sometimes said, between God’s decretive will and His
preceptive will. According to this strange notion, God’s decretive will
purposes the salvation only of the elect, while God’s preceptive will purposes
the salvation of all who hear the gospel. Thus God has two wills that are in
direct conflict.
The conflict is so obvious that even
the supporters of this view (and their number is legion) find it a bit
difficult to swallow. So in justification of this, they fall back on a sort of
last line of defense and plead “apparent contradiction.” They piously assure us
(and it sounds truly pious) that God’s ways are so much higher than our ways
that we cannot fathom them. What to us seems to be contradictory, to God is a
perfect harmony. All we can do is hold the two apparently contradictory
propositions in proper tension.
We cannot go into this matter of
apparent contradiction in this article; but it ought to be apparent to all that
this sort of argumentation ultimately leads to theological skepticism. If there
is contradiction possible at such a critical juncture of the truth, then there
is contradiction possible at any juncture of the truth. Then man can be both
totally depraved and relatively good. Then grace is both resistible and
irresistible. Then God is both triune and not triune. Then justification is
both by faith alone and also by faith and works. Then the atonement of Christ
is both efficacious and ineffectual. And so one can go on. But this makes any
knowledge of the truth impossible and mires one in the slime of subjectivism
and skepticism.
Nevertheless, this doctrine of two
wills in God is an invention. Any Reformer, including Calvin, who reprobated
the idea in the strongest possible terms, has never held it. It is sheer human
invention that masks an attempt to be both Arminian and Reformed at the same
time.114 This does not mean that the distinction itself is not
valid. It is certainly true that Scripture indicates to us that, within the one
will of God, we may distinguish between the God’s will of decree and God’s will
of precept. The danger of evil enters when we set these two over against each
other in such a way that these two not only indicate two separate wills of God,
but two wills which are in conflict with each other. But the distinction must
be maintained because it has importance for our present subject.
We indicated above that those who deny
the free offer of the gospel nevertheless maintain that the gospel is preached
and must be preached to all creatures to whom God in His good pleasure is
pleased to send it. That is, the gospel is and must be preached to many more
than those whom it is God’s purpose to save. We must now face the question of
why this is important.
In the first place, we must be clear
about the fact that throughout the history of the world the gospel has by no
means been brought to every person. This too, in a certain sense, is a problem
that can hardly be satisfactorily answered by the advocates of a well-meant
offer. If God expresses His desire to save all who hear the gospel, and this
desire is serious, well-meant, truly an expression of God’s love and grace, it
would seem only appropriate to the nature of God to express this desire to all
men and not only those to whom the gospel comes. Yet the fact is that the gospel
by no means comes to everyone. This was already true in the Old Testament
during which only a relatively few heard the gospel. Far and away the majority
of people who lived never received the gospel at all, for the gospel was bound
up in the types and shadows of Israel’s ceremonial life and was, therefore,
limited to the nation of Israel which dwelt in Palestine. Only to them did the
gospel of Christ come. But the same is true of the New Dispensation. Although
the Church, from the very beginning of her history, was busy in obeying the
command of Christ to go into the entire world and preach the gospel,
nevertheless, in the nature of the case this could not be done immediately.
And, in fact, even today we are told that there are remote tribes here and there
who still have never heard the gospel preached. This is because, in the final
analysis, God sends the gospel where He pleases. Our Canons are right when in II, 5 they say that this promise, together
with the command to repent and believe, must be preached and proclaimed to all
those to whom God in His good pleasure is pleased to send it. God determines
where His gospel is to be preached. And He does that today just as certainly as
He did this when the Holy Spirit forbad the gospel to be preached in Asia on
Paul’s second missionary journey (Acts 16:6).
But while this is true, we have not
yet answered the question why it is important for the gospel to be preached to
more people than the elect. Some have answered that it is only a kind of
inevitable “fall-out” from the preaching. They point to the fact that it is
simply impossible for the gospel to be preached to the elect only. Human men,
after all, preach the gospel. They must preach to audiences of mixed people.
They do not know who in these audiences are elect and who are reprobate. They
must of necessity preach to all. Therefore, while it is really not important or
necessary that the gospel come to more than the elect, there is little or
nothing any one can do about it, and it is fundamentally unimportant, for the
reprobate cannot believe the gospel anyway.
This is a terribly wrong and evil
caricature of the idea of preaching. Never must we take this position, for it
implies that God really cannot do anything about the fact that the gospel is
preached to all, although it would be preferable that things be different. It
is also a denial of the Canons that
tell us that the promise of the gospel “ought to be declared and published to
all nations, and to all persons promiscuously” (II, 5). I.e., the gospel must
be so preached. It is a divine must. It is God’s will.
But we must be careful that we do not
go to the opposite extreme and say that this is true because all men must have
a chance to be saved. This is the kind of language that fits in perfectly with
the idea of the free offer; yet it is so commonly heard today that it seems
almost ingrained in the thinking of people. The idea is that God cannot justly
send anyone to hell unless he at least has the opportunity to hear the gospel
and reject it—or accept it. But this simply is not
true. The Scriptures plainly teach on the one hand that all men are guilty in
Adam apart from any guilt that they may accumulate because of their own sins,
and this guilt in Adam is itself sufficient to send every man to hell. This is
taught clearly, e.g., in Rom. 5:12-14:
Wherefore, as
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin: and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned: (for until the law sin was in the
world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned
from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of
Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
But on the other hand, apart from that
guilt, the wicked who never hear the gospel are confronted daily with the
obligation to love God and serve Him alone by the things in the creation, which
clearly testify of God’s eternal power and Godhead (Rom. 1:18ff). It is true
that no man can be saved apart from the gospel, but this does not alter the
fact that all men know, through the creation, that God alone is God and that He
alone must be served. That they cannot serve God is not due to anything but
their own total depravity for which they are themselves responsible in Adam.
It is God’s will that many more than
the elect hear the gospel proclaimed. Why is this?
The answer to this question is that
God is pleased to have all who hear the gospel confronted with Christ and with
the specific command to repent from their sins and believe in Christ. Not only
the elect but also the reprobate who hear the gospel must be specifically and
concretely commanded to turn from their evil way and to believe in Christ.
They, of course, cannot do this apart from God’s work of regeneration and conversion;
but they must nevertheless. This is why, throughout this series of articles we
have always insisted that the original meaning of the word “offer” is entirely
Biblical. Christ is presented in the gospel. He is presented to all who hear.
He is presented and proclaimed not only to the elect, but also to the
reprobate. It is God’s will that this be so. And God so wills this because, it
is through the presentation of Christ as the only One in Whom is salvation that
all men who hear the gospel are placed before the solemn obligation to repent
and believe. This is why Peter, in his great Pentecostal sermon, exactly
preached repentance and faith to all who heard him on that day (Acts 2:38).
But,
in the second place, we must carry this point a bit further. The question is
still: why is it God’s purpose to confront all those who hear the gospel with
the command to repent and believe? Why must those whom God has purposed not to
save be commanded to repent and believe as well as those whom God does save?
Again,
the answer is not that these select people are given an opportunity to be
saved, that for some unspecified purpose, God gives them a chance that is not
given to those who never hear the gospel. This is again to introduce into the
preaching of the gospel an Arminian element that is completely antipathetic to
the teaching of God’s holy Word. God does not give people a “chance” to be
saved of whom He knows that they cannot and will not believe.
The answer to this question is first of all to be found in the fact that God always maintains the demands of His law. God originally created man upright and capable of doing all things that God required of him. Although man fell and by his fall brought upon himself total depravity so that he can no longer keep the law in any respect, God does not and cannot change His demands. This would be out of keeping with the holiness of God.
To
make this clear we can use a figure. Suppose that I contract with a carpenter
to build a house for me at a cost of $50,000. Suppose also that he informs me
that he cannot proceed with building until I advance him the total cost of the
building. I may do this in order that he can proceed with building. But it is
also possible that he, rather than use that money for building, leaves on a
round-the-world trip in which he spends every dime I gave him. Upon his return,
I have the right to insist from him that he build my house. He may object to my
insistence and plead that he is unable because he no longer possesses the
necessary money. But this does not alter my demand in the least. I will tell
him: “I gave you all that was necessary to build my house. You squandered the
money in your own pleasures. That is not my fault; it is yours. Now build my
house.” I would have every right to insist on this. This is not less true of
God. God gave us, in Adam, all that we needed to serve Him. The fact that we
are incapable of doing this is not God’s fault, but ours. He must, according to
His own holiness and justice, insist that I do this. And because of sin, this
demand of God to serve Him now involves the command to repent of my sin and
believe on Jesus Christ. For God to do anything less than this would be a
denial of His own justice and holiness.
It
is characteristic of the Arminians that they always identify obligation with
ability. God may obligate man to do that only that he is able to do. But this
is very far from the truth. Our Heidelberg Catechism states the
matter succinctly:
Q. 8. Does not God then do injustice to
man, by requiring from him in his law, that which he cannot perform?
A. Not at all; for God made man capable of
performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, and his own willful
disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts.
So
in the first place, the command to repent from sin and believe in Christ is
only rooted in God's original command to Adam and to all men to obey Him. This
command God continues to maintain.
But
there is more. In the second place, it is through the command of the gospel
that comes to all who hear that God accomplishes His purpose. We must look at
this matter from two different sides. On the side of man, his refusal to obey
the command of the gospel places him unmistakably in a position where he is
justly sentenced to everlasting condemnation in hell. Not as if he does not
deserve hell already because of his sin in Adam and because of his refusal to
obey the testimony of God in the things that belong to the creation. But the
command comes ever so much clearer through the gospel. And it comes clearer
through the gospel because in the gospel God presents Christ as crucified to
accomplish salvation. To repent of sin and believe in Christ is the way of
salvation. When man refuses to do this, he shows how deep is his sin and how
bitter his enmity. He demonstrates unmistakably that he hates God and His
Christ, that he will have no part of God’s salvation, that he despises all that
is of God and His truth, that he prefers an eternity in hell to repenting of
his evil way which he loves. When, therefore, he is cast into hell for his
terrible sin, no one can say that this is not just. He receives what he wants
and what he has justly coming to him.
And
if it be objected once again that he is incapable of believing in Christ and turning
from his evil way, then the answer is once again: but who is to blame for that?
Is not the sinner himself to blame? His sin and depravity are not God’s fault,
but his own.
Or,
if the question be asked: what difference does it make that the gospel comes to
such a man when he already shows his hatred by refusing to worship God after
knowing him through the things which God created? Why does God want him also to
hear the gospel? The answer is: sin must appear completely as sin. It must be
evident that sin is really the terrible power that it is. Perhaps it might be
objected that, after all, the command to repent and serve God is not clear
enough in creation to understand precisely what God means. But in the preaching
of the gospel the command to repent and believe in Christ is so clearly set
forth that no mistake about it can any longer be made. And when the demand to repent and believe in
Christ is still rejected by the ungodly, it becomes unmistakably clear that man
is so wicked that he will disobey God’s command no matter how clearly it comes
to him. Sin is so terrible that when Christ, God’s own Son is sent for
salvation, wicked man will take Him in his filthy hands and nail him to a
cross. And when that cross is preached as God’s way of salvation, man will
trample underfoot the blood of the covenant and crucify the Son of God afresh
(See Heb. 6:4-6). God does all that is necessary, apart from man’s sin, to make
salvation clear and unmistakable. When Isaiah writes in chapter 5 of his
prophecy what God has done with His vineyard, he concludes with the words of
God: “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you,
betwixt 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? And now go to; I will tell you what I
will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be
eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I
will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up
briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon
it" (vss. 3-6).
But
we must look at this matter also from God’s point of view. This is necessary
because, after all, God always accomplishes His own sovereign purpose. Nothing
is outside His will and nothing takes place without His sovereign
determination. That is, with respect to our subject, the decree of reprobation
must be accomplished. By means of the command of the gospel that comes to all
who hear, God accomplishes His purpose in reprobation. God has determined from
all eternity to save a people. But God has also determined from all eternity to
damn the wicked to eternal hell in the way of their sins.
This
requires just a bit of explanation. Reprobation cannot be separated from the
sins of the wicked. Yet, while we say this, we must be careful that we
understand it. The sins of the wicked are not the cause or condition of
reprobation, so that God reprobates on account of sin and unbelief. This is the
position of the Arminians that is emphatically refuted by the fathers of Dordt
in the Canons. It is a conditional
reprobation that the Scriptures abhor because it detracts from the absolute
sovereignty of God. Nor must it be asserted that the decree of reprobation is
the cause of the sin of the wicked. This makes God the Author of sin, something
that the Canons brand as blasphemy.
Rather we must insist that reprobation is decreed and accomplished in the way
of man’s sin so that, while God is sovereign in His decree, man goes to hell
because he and he alone has sinned and must bear the responsibility for sin.
We
are fully aware of the fact that this difficult question involves the whole relation
between God’s sovereign counsel and man’s sin for which he alone is
responsible. And we are not at all ashamed to admit that a mystery is present
here that our feeble minds can never begin to fathom. But Scripture is clear
enough on the point that also sin lies within the scope of God's decree and
purpose. Yet God so decrees and works that man remains forever responsible. 115
However
all this may be, what needs emphasis now is the fact that through the preaching
of the gospel, with the command to repent and believe, God accomplishes His
sovereign purpose. The gospel is intended by God, not only to save His elect,
but also to harden the reprobate. And it is exactly this command of the gospel
that comes to all which serves as God’s means to harden in sin. Because the
gospel presents Christ as the way of salvation, and because all men everywhere
are commanded to believe in Christ, the gospel exactly works as God’s power to
damn the wicked in the way of their sin and impenitence. Scripture clearly
teaches this two-fold power of the gospel. Paul speaks of this in II Cor.
2:14-17:
Now thanks be unto God, which always
causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his
knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ,
in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savour
of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is
sufficient for these things? For we are
not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God,
in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
This
is why Peter writes, in I Peter 2:8, that Christ preached is “a stone of
stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being
disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed." And this is why John
writes in 12:37-41:
But though he had done so many miracles
before them, yet they believed not on him: that the saying of Esaias the
prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report?
and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not
believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and
hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand
with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said
Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.
When
therefore, the gospel is preached generally and all who hear are placed before
the command to repent and believe, God accomplishes His sovereign purpose in
their refusal to believe and their terrible disobedience. It is important
therefore that the gospel be preached to all.
We
must at this point remind ourselves of the truth that this command of God that
comes to all who hear the gospel is serious. God is not playing games with men
when He commands them to repent and believe. God is not merely toying with
their emotions and eternal estate. God means exactly what He says. He is so
serious about it that refusal ends in eternal death. Our Canons also emphasize this in III & IV, 8. Unfortunately, the
translation of our English version is not correct on this score. This reads:
As many as are called by the gospel, are
unfeignedly called. For God hath most earnestly and truly declared in his Word,
what will be acceptable to him; namely, that all who are called, should comply
with the invitation. He, moreover, seriously promises eternal life, and rest,
to as many as shall come to him, and believe on him.
The
problem centers in the second sentence of this article, which, at least on the
surface, seems to suggest some kind of well-meant offer. However, the correct
translation of this sentence is: “For God has most earnestly and truly declared
in His Word what is acceptable to Him, namely, that those who are called should
come unto Him.” You will immediately notice the important difference.116
The
point which the Canons are making is
that God calls to repentance and faith seriously and unfeignedly. He means
exactly what He says.
But
this brings up another question that has sometimes troubled some. If when God
seriously and unfeignedly calls the reprobate to repent of sin and turn to
Christ, is this not after all an expression of God’s will and desire to save
all men? What is so different in this from the well-meant offer?
The
difference is great and crucial. A bit earlier in this chapter we mentioned the
fact that it is not necessarily wrong in itself to make a distinction between
God’s decretive will and God’s preceptive will, God’s will of decree and God’s
will of command—as long as these two
aspects of God’s will are not so placed in contradiction with each other that
they really become two separate wills.
Bearing this in mind, it is certainly correct and according to Scripture
to say that God’s will of command is that all men obey Him, keep His
commandments, walk in His way, love Him with all their hearts and minds and
souls and strength. And if they sin, as they always do, this will of God’s
command surely means that men turn from their evil ways, repent of their sins
and seek their salvation only in Christ. But this command of God is His morally
perfect will for men. Surely, because God is supremely holy and without sin,
because He loves only that which is right and good and according to His own
law, He delights only in the good and hates all that is of evil. When
therefore, He insists that all men serve Him alone as God, repent of their sins
and seek their salvation only in Jesus Christ, this is His good and morally
holy will. He can do nothing else, for He is the Holy One of Israel. It would
sully and stain His holiness for God to say: It is quite all right with Me if
you continue in your sins. In fact, it is quite my will for you to walk in sin,
live lives of rebellion against Me, and trample under foot My righteous ways.
No man would ever say that this is God’s will. His will is as He is: holy,
just, good, righteous and perfectly right.
This
command therefore, which comes to all men to repent of sin and turn to Christ
is the expression of God’s holy and just will for the sinner. There is
fundamentally (and I speak in all reverence) nothing else that God can do but
to demand holiness of men. It is His morally holy will that men do what is
right. And this is in perfect harmony with the will of His decree because it is
exactly through this morally holy will of His command that God sovereignly
executes His eternal will of reprobation. If His will were anything less than
morally holy, the decree of reprobation could never be executed through it.
But
this is a far cry from the well-meant offer, for the well-meant offer teaches
us that God desires and intends the salvation of all who hear. It is His love
and grace shown to them that offers them Christ as their salvation. And it is
His purpose and will to save such. This is Arminian in every respect and a
resurrection of the ancient heresy of Amyrauldianism that destroys all the
truth of the gospel.
There
is one more point to which we must still address ourselves. It is true that
this point is not directly related to the well-meant offer, but nevertheless
stands closely connected to it. I refer to the fact that the whole concept of
the well-meant offer gives a decidedly wrong idea of Scripture. Scripture is
sometimes presented as if the whole of it is nothing but such a well-meant
offer. In proof of this a number of texts are quoted which are supposed to
prove that God sincerely desires the salvation of all, texts that prove nothing
of the kind. I refer to such texts as Is. 55:1-3, Matt. 11:28, Rev. 22:17, etc.
Perhaps it would be well to have at least these texts before us before we
comment on them.
Is. 55:1-3: Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; 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. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live;
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of
David.
Matt. 11:28: Come unto me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Rev. 22:17: And the Spirit and the bride
say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
As
we said, Scripture as a whole, and these texts in particular, are often
presented as one large offer of the gospel. Because the Scriptures are
preeminently the revelation of Christ, Christ in the whole of the Scriptures is
said to be offered to all. And these texts are often quoted as proof.
Yet
nothing could be more wrong.
The
address of these texts, even on their very surface, is very particular, limited
to a select group of people. Is. 55:1-3 is specifically addressed to those who
are thirsty and who have no money. Matt. 11:28 is specifically addressed to
those who labor and are heavy laden. Rev. 22:17 is specifically addressed to
him that heareth, to him that is athirst, to whosoever will.
Now
it is possible, of course, so to interpret these texts so that they refer to
every one in the world, or at least to every one who hears the gospel. But this
interpretation can only be made from a totally Arminian viewpoint. That is, if
every one thirsts, is without money, is laboring and heavy laden, wills to come
to Christ, then everyone is capable of seeking salvation by himself. He has the
power within himself to seek Christ, thirst for Him, will to come to Him. Then the
totally depraved sinner, apart from Christ’s work of salvation, is capable of
doing good, exercising his own free will and coming to Christ by his own power.
But this Arminian conception puts all the responsibility of salvation upon man,
ascribes to him powers that he does not have, and makes God dependent upon the
sinner’s choice and power.
When
the texts are specific in their address, they are such because they mean to be
Christ’s Word only to specific people. But because no man can of himself thirst
for Christ, come to the water, be burdened by his sin and guilt, will to come,
these spiritual virtues are dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit. Only
the Spirit can work these powers within a man. But the Holy Spirit works these
powers only in those who are God’s elect, for whom Christ died, and who are
efficaciously called by the Spirit in their hearts. By virtue of the Spirit’s
work, these people thirst for Christ, are heavy laden under the load of their
sins, will to come, etc.
We
may well ask the question why Christ works this way, i.e., first working in His
people a longing for salvation, and then calling them to Him.
The
answer to this question is first of all that God always deals with his people
as rational and moral creatures, and not as stocks and blocks. God does not
take His people along the pathway of this life to glory in the same way as a
child pulls a mechanical toy or a quacking mechanical duck along the floor. Or
as one minister once expressed it, God’s people do not ride to heaven in the
lower berth of a Pullman sleeper. God wants His people to know and experience
their salvation. He wants them to be conscious partakers of His grace so that
they may praise and bless His name for the salvation that He gives to them.
In
the second place, God’s people, while in this world, are not yet perfect. They
are indeed regenerated and converted, but this work of salvation is only in
principle. They are still in the flesh, and in their flesh dwells no good
thing. There is much sin in them that strives for mastery in their life, pulls
them in the direction of the things of this world, and often causes them to
fall deeply into sin. With this evil in their flesh, they must constantly
struggle; and when they fall into sin, they must repent of their sin and turn
again to Christ.
In
the third place, it is only through repentance and sorrow for sin that they can
come to know their salvation in Christ. Without a deep consciousness of their
sin and an overwhelming awareness of their own unworthiness, they have no need
of Christ, no consciousness of their utter dependence upon Him, no sense of the
truth that salvation is to be found only in Him.
It
is in this way that God deals with them through the gospel. He addresses them
in this life, in their struggles and sins, in their need and trouble, in the
consciousness of their sin and helplessness. He addresses them in such a way
that, through His call to them, He brings them back to Himself, restores them
to grace and favor, shows them His great love and mercy, and gives them His
full and free salvation so that they are conscious of it.
Thus
the elect in whom the Spirit works are the ones who thirst, for they, wallowing
in their sins, thirst again for God as a hart pants for water brooks. They are
without money because they know their own hopeless state, their utter inability
to save themselves, their total dependence upon God. They are laboring and heavy
laden because the burden of sin has become intolerable, too heavy to bear, too
great to carry as they walk the pathway of this life. They will to come because
they have seen the total futility of life apart from God and the hopelessness
of the wicked world that so often attracts them to its pleasures and lusts. But
all these things are true of them because the Spirit of Christ has put these
characteristics in their hearts and lives.
Thus
we must remember that the Scriptures are, after all, a book addressed to God’s
people, not to all men. The Scriptures are the infallibly inspired record of
the revelation of Jehovah God in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the God
Who saves His people from their sins.
And because Scripture is this, it is God’s Word of hope and promise to
them. It is the light—the
only light—that shines in this
dark world of hopeless despair. It is God’s great grace and mercy revealed in
Christ to those whom He has chosen to be His own inheritance. It is, if you
will, Christ the Bridegroom’s love letter to His elect and chosen bride for
whom He died and to whom He comes tenderly and compassionately to save them.
But
Christ addresses His bride in her sins, her struggles, her troubles and
afflictions. Sometimes He encourages her; sometimes He sharply reprimands her;
sometimes He comforts tenderly and compassionately; sometimes He calls to her
with all the sweetness of His loving voice. But always His purpose is to lead
her to Him and to bring her to the joy of the salvation He has prepared for
her.
Thus
He calls His people by their spiritual names.
In
John 10 Jesus speaks of this under the figure of a shepherd and his sheep. In
that connection, Jesus speaks of the fact that “the sheep hear his voice: and
he calleth his own sheep by name (literally, name by name)” (vs. 3); that He is
the Good Shepherd Who gives His life for the sheep, Who knows His sheep, and am
known of those who are His sheep (vv. 11, 14). These are the spiritual names,
therefore, of the people of God who belong to Christ. They are called by
Scripture the ones who thirst, who are laboring and heavy laden, who mourn, who
hunger and thirst after righteousness, etc.
And
Christ uses these spiritual names to address them in Scripture and in the
preaching of the Word because, when the preaching is, through the minister,
addressed to Christ’s people under these names, the Spirit of Christ so works
in the hearts of God’s people that they recognize themselves as hungering and
thirsting, as laboring and heavy laden; and recognizing themselves as such,
they know that Christ is calling them, and they hear His Word. Rejoicing, they
come to Him Who is the fountain of all their life and the source of all their
strength. They hear the Word of the gospel: “Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest.” As Christ works in their hearts
in such a way that they see the heavy burden of sin which weighs upon them and
crushes them, and seeing this and knowing it, they hear Christ call to them and
recognize it as the call of their Lord: Come to me; I will give you rest.
Joyfully and full of hope they flee to Christ and receive the rest promised
them.
We
stress again that this is the character of Scripture. It is not a book addressed,
in its fundamental nature, to all men, or even to all who hear the gospel. It
is a love letter addressed by Christ to His elect bride.
This
does not mean that when that Scripture is preached, and preached, as it must
be, promiscuously, that by it all men are not confronted with the obligation to
repent of sin and come to Christ. They surely are, for many are called, though
few are chosen. And all men stand solemnly before the command to obey God, walk
in His ways, and keep His commandments. We have noticed earlier how important
this also is. But it must never be forgotten that that very command to repent
and believe is the command that Christ uses, through His Spirit, to bring His
own people to repentance and faith in Him. The power of that Word of the
gospel, the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16) is, even when it comes in
the form of a command, the very power by which repentance and faith are worked
in the elect. In other words, when the command of the gospel goes forth to come
to Christ, all who come under the preaching hear that command. This not only
lies in the nature of the preaching, but it is also God’s purpose. But that one
command, heard by all, has a two-fold effect. As it places the reprobate before
the obligations of God’s holy Word, it serves as the means to harden them in
their unbelief. But that same command is heard by the elect in whom Christ has
begun His work of salvation and grace. And they, hearing it, obey with willing
hearts, made willing by God’s gracious operations within them. Both the willing
and the doing are worked in them by God (Phil. 2:13).
To
reduce the preaching, therefore, to a well-meant offer is to rob the preaching
(and the Scriptures) of their beauty and power, of their comfort and hope as
these Scriptures are the only light we have in the midst of the world. How
wonderful it is to have the very voice of Christ our Savior speak to us. How
wonderful it is to hear His voice addressed to us, calling us name by name. How
wonderful it is to hear His great mercy and love, His grace and compassion
addressed to us personally. He is full of pity towards us in our sins, tender
and compassionate even when we stray from Him, moved to tears at our
waywardness and foolishness. His love shines through when He rebukes, for it is
for our good. His patience with us knows no end, for we are all like sheep that
have gone astray. He lifts us up and carries us back to the fold though we
deserve nothing of such great grace. His encouragement to us in all the
difficulties of life comes as cooling streams in the parched wasteland of this
world. His promise that He will be with us always and take us finally into His
Father's house of many mansions lightens our darkest moments. His assurance
that no man can pluck us out of His hand gives us courage and puts steel in our
spines when we face the hordes of our enemies who are so much stronger than we.
Who, understanding this, would want to reduce Scripture to a mere offer? It is
incredible that anyone, having tasted the good things of the gospel, can deal
so disparagingly with that most blessed of all books.
Finally,
there are a few classic texts that are quoted in support of the free offer; and
we ought to take a look at them. After all, in the final analysis, the whole
question of the free offer turns on the point of whether or not it is taught in
Scripture. If it is, all else falls by the wayside: we must bow before
Scripture and receive it, whether we like it or not.
As
we have mentioned earlier there is a kind of prima facie case that can be made against this. Scripture is so
full of passages which flatly and explicitly contradict and reprobate any idea
of the free offer that it would be extremely strange, to say the least, if
there were other passages which taught it. God’s Scriptures are a unity, a
harmonious whole, and a single revelation of God in Christ. If these Scriptures
indeed contradict themselves, teach exactly opposing ideas, we could not have
any confidence in them at all and we would be reduced to theological
agnosticism.
Nevertheless,
our study can hardly be complete without taking a look at the most important
texts that have been quoted in support of the free offer.
The
first such passage is Ezek. 33:11 (with a similar passage in 18:23). This
passage reads:
Say unto them, 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?
Now
it ought to be clear that no matter how this passage is really taken, there is
no offer of salvation in it. God, in fact, swears an oath as the living God
that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. His pleasure is to be found
in the fact that the wicked turn from his evil way. Even if God’s reference to “the
wicked” is interpreted to mean all men, there is still no offer. There is
indeed the command to turn from evil. And as we have noticed before, God, in
all sincerity, places before all men the command to repent from sin and turn
from their evil way. God’s moral will is of such a kind that He has no pleasure
in sin, but rather demands holiness from men.
But
the fact is that this text is not addressed to all men without distinction. The
text itself as well as the context makes this very clear. The text itself is
addressed to “the house of Israel.” And the words of the text are an answer to
what the children of Israel were deeply worried about: “If our transgressions
and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?” (v.
10). In other words, the children of Israel had departed from the ways of God’s
covenant and had made themselves worthy of God’s wrath and displeasure. In the
agony of their sin, they wondered whether they would ever be received back into
favor. They knew they rightly deserved to die, and they were deeply troubled by
how they would again be restored to life. In fact, they wondered whether indeed
they ever would be restored to life. They know how undeserving of this they
were. What child of God, after falling deeply into sin and coming again to the
consciousness of how terrible his sin was before God has not asked the same
question? He wonders in the agony of his soul whether there is any way out of
his sin to life; whether God could ever receive him again. And if there is some
way, what can this way be?
To
this God says: I have no pleasure in your death, but that you turn from your
evil ways and live. And God’s gracious promise to such as turn from their ways
and repent of their sin is precisely that they will be restored to life once
again.
Another
such text is Matt. 23:37 (see also Luke 13:34):
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest
the Prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not!
Here
too it is immediately evident that there is nothing even faintly resembling a
well-meant offer of the gospel. It is not even so very easy to understand
exactly why the proponents of the well-meant offer quote this text. Presumably,
their argument goes something like this. Jesus wanted to gather to Himself all
the people of Jerusalem, but was prevented from doing this by their stubborn
rebellion. Hence, Jesus expresses here His divine desire and intention to save
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but was foiled in this attempt by the
terrible unbelief of these stubborn Jews. If therefore, Jesus wanted to save
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, He surely offered them salvation.
If
this is the argument, it is immediately apparent that the offer as such is assumed.
The text itself says nothing about it. But apart from this, is it really true
that Jesus expresses here His divine intention and purpose to save all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem? The answer must be an emphatic No. The very language
of the text refutes that notion. Jesus does not say, “How often would I have
gathered thee together …;" He says, “How often would I have gathered thy children together …” This is quite
different. This means, in the first place, that by “Jerusalem” Jesus does not mean
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but the city as the center of all Israel’s
political and ecclesiastical life. In more than one place in Scripture this
city is pictured as a mother who brings forth children (cf. e.g., Gal.
4:24-27). In the Old Dispensation Jerusalem was the Church of God. In Jesus’
time it was the Church that had become apostate and corrupt. It was the Church
from the viewpoint of her temple and sacrifices, her priesthood and ceremonies,
her feast days and cleansings, but as all these were polluted by the wicked
Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus expresses in this text the desire to save
Jerusalem’s children. But the Scribes
and Pharisees fought bitterly against this at every step of Jesus’ way. They
resisted His efforts to do this so fiercely that they finally nailed Him to the
cross. But does all this mean that Jerusalem’s children were never gathered by
Jesus? Far from it. Jesus accomplished His purpose in spite of the wickedness
of Jerusalem’s leaders. We have only to read of the thousands of Jerusalem’s
children who were saved after Pentecost to understand that Jesus did what He
purposed to do. Here Jesus is emphasizing the terrible sin of Jerusalem, which
is almost ripe for destruction and which will presently be razed to the ground
for all her sins. They not only themselves rejected Christ, but they did all in
their power to prevent their children from coming to Christ. Therefore, “Behold,
your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt. 23:38).
Finally
we call attention to II Peter 3:9:
The Lord is not slack concerning his
promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Again,
it is not so easy to see exactly how this text is supposed to teach the
well-meant offer. One would suppose that the argument goes along these lines.
Since God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance, God wants all men to be saved, and therefore, God also offers His
salvation to all men.
But
again, it ought to be noticed that the text itself says nothing about an offer.
Even if one interprets the words “any” and “all” as referring to all men, there
is, every one will be forced to admit, no mention whatsoever of an offer.
But
again, is it true that the words “any” and “all” refer to all men in this
passage? They most emphatically do not, and no amount of twisting or semantic
gymnastics can make them refer to all men.
Consider
first of all the context. Peter is speaking of the fact that scoffers shall
come in the last day denying the second coming of Christ (v. 4). The basis for
their argument is what modern evolutionism calls the “Uniformitarian Theory:” “All
things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Peter first
proceeds to show that their basis is wrong: all things do not continue as they
were from the beginning of the creation, for the ante-deluvian world was “standing
out of the water and in the water” and was destroyed by water (vv. 5, 6). But “the
heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment …” (v. 7).
Apparently,
however, the Church of Peter’s day, hard-pressed as it was by persecution, was
somewhat inclined to be persuaded by these scoffers. And their tendency to
allow the scoffers to influence their thinking was born out of their idea that
the Lord did not come back immediately, when they expected any day His return.
And so they thought that the Lord was “slack concerning his promise.” Peter
assures them that this is not the case. The people of God must remember that
time as we know it does not govern the purpose and counsel of almighty God. One
day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Even if the Lord should delay the coming of
Christ for one thousand years, this would be but as a day with Him. But emphatically the Lord is not slack
concerning His promise as some men count slackness. There is a good reason why Christ does not
come back immediately. And that reason is simply this: there are many elect who
must still be saved. If the Lord would
come back too early (so to speak) there would be elect who would never be born
and saved, for the return of Christ means the end of history, and thus also the
end of marriage and the bringing forth of children. But God does not want any
of His elect to perish, but wants them all to come to repentance. And so Christ
will not come back until that has happened.
It
is clear therefore, that the “any” and “all” of the text must refer to the
elect and not to all men. But this is
also clearly indicated in the text itself. The “any” and the “all” must be interpreted
in the light of the “us-ward.” God is
long-suffering to us, not willing
that any of us should perish, but
that all of us should come to repentance.
This is so clearly the meaning of the text that it is difficult to see how anyone
could interpret it in any other way. Consider that the manifestation of God’s
long-suffering is exactly this that God wants all to come to repentance. Yet
the text is emphatic about it that God’s long-suffering is only towards us, not towards all men.
All
this is further strengthened by the fact that in verse 15 of the same chapter
the apostle writes: “And account that
the long-suffering of our Lord is
salvation.” God’s long-suffering is salvation. The apostle does not say that God’s
long-suffering desires salvation, or wants salvation, or even intends to give
salvation. This wonderful attribute of God is itself salvation. Now if the
well-meant offer people want to make God’s long-suffering an attribute of God
shown to all men, then they will have to admit also that, because
long-suffering is salvation, all those towards whom God is long-suffering are
also saved. Not even the most ardent defenders of the well-meant offer would
want to go that far. There is no other conclusion: God’s long-suffering which
is salvation is shown only to us-ward. The result is that Christ does not
return until all those for whom He died, given to Him of the Father from all
eternity, are born and brought to repentance. Then Christ will surely come
again to destroy this old world, create a new heavens and a new earth, and give
to His saints the everlasting inheritance of that glorious creation.
And
so we come to the end of our study. There can be no doubt about it but that
both history and Scripture stand opposed to the whole concept of the free
offer. That it is so generally received in our day can only be indicative of
the sad state of affairs in today’s churches.
Arminianism and Pelagianism have made devastating inroads. How sad it is
that the truths of sovereign grace are no longer maintained and taught. How sad
it is that God is robbed of His power and man is exalted to God’s throne. There
is a terrible price to pay for this, for all Arminianism is incipient
Modernism. And those churches that have
chosen the Arminian way have clearly shown the truth of this. For already Modernism
has made its inroads. And Modernism denies the Christ, tramples under foot the
blood of the covenant and makes all that is holy an unholy thing. Upon such a
church rests terrible judgments.
It
is our hope and prayer that all who love the truth of Scripture and the
precious doctrines of sovereign grace may see the error of the free offer and
reject it.
May
God bless these efforts to His glory and the cause of His precious gospel in
the midst of the world.
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FOONOTES:
110. For a detailed discussion of this
subject, see Engelsma, op. cit., in
which book the hyper-Calvinists are identified and their position analyzed.
111. 1t is interesting to note that
the word “condition” never appears in the Canons,
except in the mouth of the Arminians. See e.g., I, B, 5 and II, B, 3.
112. Cf. above for the text.
113. It is striking that our Canons take this same position when in
I, 6 they say: “That some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do not
receive it proceeds from God’s eternal decree (notice the singular, “decree”
and not the plural, “decrees.”) … According to which decree, he graciously
softens the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines them to believe,
while he leaves the non-elect in his just judgment to their own wickedness and
obduracy.” The one decree, therefore, includes both election and reprobation.
114. For a detailed examination of
this question see the series of articles in the Journal, which contain a translation of a book by Rev. H. Hoeksema
written to demonstrate the unbiblical character of this conception.
115. The Scripture passages here are
too numerous to cite and one can, for proof, consult any good book on
Calvinism. We refer here only briefly to such passages as Ex. 7:3, II Sam.
16:10, II Sam. 24:1, Prov. 21:1, Amos 3:6, John 10:26, John 12:37-41, Rom.
9:13-21, and I Pet. 2:8.
116. The official Latin version reads
here: “Serio enim et verissime ostendit
Deus verbo suo, quid sibit gratum sit, nimirum, ut vocati ad se veniant.” And the official Dutch translation reads: “Want God betoont ernstiglijk en
waarachtigelijk in zijn woord, wat Hem aangenaam is; namelijk, dat de
geroepenen tot Hem komen.”
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