Rev. Herman Hoeksema
[The following is a series of articles that originally appeared in The Standard Bearer, vol. 33, issues
9-21 (February–September 1957)]
[Note: This series was unfortunately unfinished, but nevertheless contains some good material]
The Free
Offer of the Gospel is the title of a pamphlet that was recently sent to me by
an interested brother. The pamphlet was composed by the Revs. John Murray and
Ned B. Stonehouse, professors at the seminary of the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church in Philadelphia and was originally prepared for the Fifteenth General
Assembly of that church held in 1948. In a short foreword the authors tell us
that it was reprinted “in the interests of the gospel and Reformed theology.”
Whether this is true, i.e., whether this little booklet really presents the true gospel and reveals that it is interested in Reformed theology, we hope to find out in a few articles in our magazine.
The pamphlet consists of three parts: an introduction, the Scriptural basis for the “free offer of the gospel,” and the conclusions. The bulk of the matter is in the second part in which the authors quote several texts and attempt briefly to exegete them to prove that the gospel is a free and conditional offer of salvation to all men. Nevertheless, the introductory paragraphs are very important because in them the authors set forth their “Reformed,” theology in regard to the gospel. This we will, therefore, discuss first of all.
I will quote the first paragraph:
It would appear that the real point in dispute in connection with the free offer of the gospel is whether it can properly be said God desires the salvation of all men. The Committee elected by the Twelfth General Assembly in its report to the Thirteenth General Assembly [of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church] said, ‘God not only delights in the penitent but is also moved by the riches of his goodness and mercy to desire the repentance and salvation of the impenitent and reprobate.’ It should have been apparent that the aforesaid committee, in predicating such ‘desire’ of God, was not dealing with the decretive will of God; it was dealing with the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction and that surely respects, not the decretive or secret will of God, but the revealed will. There is no ground for the supposition that the expression was intended to refer to God’s decretive will (3).
From the above we may gather that a committee had been appointed on the matter of the “free offer of the gospel” before 1948, that this committee had already reported to the Thirteenth General Assembly, that their report had not been very satisfactory, and that, therefore, a new committee had been appointed.
For a correct understanding of the above paragraph which we just quoted from the pamphlet is, perhaps, advisable that we also at once quote the next paragraph. It reads as follows:
It must be admitted that if the expression was intended to apply to the decretive will of God then there would be, at least, implicit contradiction. For to say that God desires the salvation of the reprobate and also that God wills the damnation of the reprobate and apply the former to the same thing as the latter, namely, the decretive will, would be contradiction; it would amount to averring of the same thing, viewed from the same aspect, that God wills and God does not will (3-4).
Here you have the well-known distinction between the will of God’s decree and the will of God’s command, or the secret and revealed will. And here you have it in its worst form so that, according to the authors we say, indeed, that God desires the salvation of the reprobate.
Now, in the first place, I wish to emphasize that this distinction, especially when it is called the distinction between the secret and revealed will, is most detrimental and has wrought untold harm in the Reformed Church all over the world.
According to this philosophy, the will of God’s decree is secret and, therefore, we have nothing to do with it. Oh, it is true, we believe that there is such a will of God’s decree; we also profess to believe that, according to that will, God has chosen some to eternal life and reprobated others to eternal damnation. We even express the doctrine of election and reprobation in our confessions. Perhaps, if we happen to be ministers of the Word, we will preach on that doctrine once in a great while. But, for the rest, it is better not to speak of this doctrine. We must apply the text of Deut. 29:29 to this part of the truth: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
The result is evident.
According to this philosophy that separates the revealed from the secret will of God, one can, indeed, say that God desires the salvation of the reprobate if they will only come to repentance. It is evident that, in this expression, the term “reprobate” is used in the Arminian sense of the word. Also the Arminian professes to believe in election and reprobation. According to him election is that eternal act of God according to which He, from before the foundation of the world, has determined that those, and those only, who accept Christ and would persevere to the end in that faith, and whom He has foreknown and foreseen as such, would inherit eternal life and glory. And, according to the Arminian, reprobation is that eternal act of God, according to which, He, from before the foundation of the world, determined that those, and those only, who refuse to believe in Christ and who persevere in their unbelief even to the end, and whom He has foreknown and foreseen as such, would be cast into eternal damnation. Of course, even so it is a question how it could possibly be said that God desires the salvation of the reprobate. Is it possible that God desires the thing which He knows will not and cannot come to pass? Can He possibly in His divine heart, desire the salvation of the devil and his reprobate angels? In this respect, the expression in the pamphlet that God desires the salvation of the reprobate, is worse than Arminianism. The Arminian would never speak thus. It is a denial of reprobation. Or, if you wish to apply the distinction between the so-called secret and revealed will to this statement, it implies that, according to His “secret will” God has chosen some and reprobated others, while, according to His revealed will, there is no reprobation: He desires that all men, even the “reprobate” may be saved!
This is not only a separation of God’s will of decree and His will of command but it teaches a flat and impossible contradiction between the two.
And all this is supposed to be Reformed theology.
That is the worst of it.
The effect of this unscriptural philosophy (for unscriptural it surely is, as we shall show) on the preaching is evident.
The preaching becomes nothing but a mere free and general offer of salvation to everybody on condition of faith and repentance. It consists of a begging to come to Jesus. It emphasizes the impotence of God to save whomsoever He wills to save, and the free will of the sinner. It is throughout a denial of the sovereign grace of God. This is not a mere opinion on my part but is reality as everyone well knows and as has been my personal experience in other churches frequently.
In fact, this is the plain implication of the pamphlet. It has no room at all for the truth of sovereign grace, but only for the salvation of all men on condition of their acceptance of the gospel and faith and repentance by their own free will. God desires the salvation of all, but whether they shall actually be saved depends on their own choice of will.
Let us, in this connection, quote one more paragraph:
The question then is: what is implicit, or lies back of, the full and free offer of the gospel to all without distinction? The word ‘desire’ has come to be used in the debate, not because it is necessarily the most accurate or felicitous word but because it sets forth quite sharply a certain implication of the full and free offer of the gospel to all. This implication is that in the free offer there is expressed not simply the bare perceptive will of God but the disposition of loving-kindness on the part of God pointing to the salvation to be gained through compliance with the overtures of gospel grace. In other words, the gospel is not simply an offer or invitation, but also implies that God delights that those to whom the offer comes would enjoy what is offered in all its fullness. And the word ‘desire’ has been used in order to express the thought epitomized in Ezekiel 33:11, which is to the effect that God has pleasure that the wicked turn from his evil way and live. It might as well have been said, ‘It pleases God that the wicked repent and be saved’ (4).
Now, let us remember that all this is supposed to be an explanation and defense of the statement that God desires the salvation of the reprobate. The gospel is preached to all in order that God’s desire might be revealed and proclaimed that all men, even the reprobate might be saved. In other words, God is so filled with loving-kindness on the part of all, even on the part of the reprobate, that He desires and hopes for their compliance with the overtures of the gospel.
This is a downright denial, not only of reprobation, but also of the truth that it is God alone who is able, by His sovereign grace in the hearts of men, to cause them to comply with the overtures of the gospel.
Does God desire that all men be saved?
Does He earnestly long for the salvation of the reprobate, as this pamphlet teaches?
But how is it possible that a man be saved?
Is it not true that all men by nature are totally depraved, dead in sin and misery? As the Heidelberg Catechism has it, through the fall and disobedience of our first parents “our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin,” and that, except we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit “we are so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness.” Q. & A. 7 and 8. Or, according to the Canons of Dordrecht, III/IV:1 and 3, man, through the fall, “entailed on himself blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity and perverseness of judgment, became wicked, rebellious and obdurate in heart and will, and impure in all his affections.” And again:
Therefore all men are
conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good,
prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto, and without the
regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to
return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, nor to dispose
themselves to reformation.
God seriously desires the salvation of the reprobate?
That reprobate man, or any man, for that matter, can never do or will to do anything to his own salvation. He will not, cannot, and cannot will to repent or to come to Christ in order that he may be saved. Only God can save him. Only if God, through His Spirit implants within his heart the principle of regenerating grace, calls him to life and light through His own powerful Word through the gospel, brings him through that same Word to conscious and living faith, justifies and sanctifies Him, and causes him to persevere even unto the end, can he possibly be saved.
He seriously desires all men to be saved, even the reprobate?
He knows that they cannot be saved except through efficacious and irresistible grace of His Holy Spirit?
He longs to save them, He is able to save them, yet He does not do it?
What would you say of a man in the water, unconscious and on the point of drowning, and the first man throws a rope to him and calls to him to take hold of it, though he knows the drowning man is “totally incapable” of grabbing the rope; what if that second man has a boat, in fact, is in the boat, so that he can easily lift the drowning man out of the water into the boat and save him, but he does not do it. Would you say that this man in the boat had a serious desire to save that drowning man, that he offered to save him but that he would not grab the rope?
Would you not rather say that the man in the boat was a hypocrite?
Well, I claim that this is exactly what the Revs. Murray and Stonehouse make of God.
That is, you understand, as long as, with all their Arminian philosophy, they still claim to be Reformed.
But, of course, they are not.
Their claim that God seriously desires to save all men, even the reprobate, stands in flagrant contradiction to the entire system of Reformed truth. They do not believe in the total depravity of the natural man; they do not believe in sovereign grace; instead they believe in the free will of man and in a conditional promise on which every man can lay hold by complying with the overtures of the gospel.
More about this next time, D.V.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
In the issue of our paper of February 1 we started to discuss
the pamphlet The Free Offer of the Gospel
composed by the Revs. Murray and Stonehouse of the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church.
We commenced our discussion by calling attention to the introduction in which the authors set forth the principles on which the booklet is based. We still have to call your attention to the closing paragraphs of this introduction.
The first of these reads as follows:
Again the expression ‘God desires’ in the formula that crystallizes that crux of the question, is intended to modify not at all the ‘seeming’ attitude of God but a real attitude, a real disposition of loving-kindness in the free offer to all; in other words, a pleasure or delight in God, contemplating the blessed result to be achieved by compliance with the overture proffered and the invitation given (4).
There can be but one meaning expressed in this paragraph. It is that in the preaching of the gospel there is revealed, on the part of God, a real attitude of grace, a real disposition of loving-kindness to save all men, elect and reprobate. Again, if this means anything at all, it must signify that, as far as God is concerned, there no determination in Him that any man be lost, whether elect or reprobate. What does this mean in regard to God’s decree of election and reprobation? It can mean only one thing: the authors prefer the Arminian conception of predestination, unless they are playing with words. The Arminian presentation of election is, as we know, that God, from all eternity, foresaw and foreknew who would believe in Christ and persevere in that faith until the end. Likewise, the Arminian conception of reprobation is that God, from all eternity, foresaw and foreknew who would refuse to believe in Christ and persevere to the end in their unbelief. Only in that light, which means that man has a free will to accept the gospel or to reject it, can one possibly speak of a desire or a disposition of loving-kindness in God to save all men, including the reprobate.
These men do not believe their own confession which is the Westminster Confession of Faith (WC).
That Confession declares:
Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions (WC 3:2).
Murray and Stonehouse, however, believe that God is filled with an earnest desire to save all men, except upon the supposed and foreseen condition that they refuse to accept the gospel invitation.
The same Confession declares further:
By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death (3:2).
We ask the authors of the pamphlet: did God have a sincere desire and was He disposed in His loving-kindness to save those whom He ordained to death? And if the decree of reprobation was not motivated by grace and a desire to save the reprobate, could there be such a desire in God in time? And if there is no such desire in God to save the reprobate, could the gospel ever reflect such a desire or disposition of loving-kindness in God? It is evident that Murray and Stonehouse corrupt their own Confession.
Further, the same confession teaches:
These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished (3:4).
Mark you well, the number of the elect and reprobate is very definitely determined, not by what God foresaw and foreknew, but by what He decreed from all eternity. There are no possible conditions. The acceptance or rejection of the gospel invitation has nothing to do with this. To this, too, Murray and Stonehouse do not subscribe.
Still further, the Westminster declares:
Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto, everlasting glory, out of mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace (3:5).
Also this the authors of the pamphlet do not believe. According to this article, grace is for the elect only, but according to them, God is filled with loving-kindness, to the reprobate, a grace for all that is revealed in the gospel.
The Confession states further:
As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed in Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only (3:6).
We ask the authors of the pamphlet: why do you pretend to
subscribe also to this article while, in fact, you teach the very opposite? Why
do you not openly move into the Arminian camp, where you belong?
What does this article teach?
It teaches in the first place that Christ redeemed, that is, shed His lifeblood for the elect only. When Christ died on the accursed tree He paid the price of redemption only for those whom the Father had given Him before the foundation of the world. This was over nineteen hundred years ago. It was once and forever. Hence, even apart from the decree of election and reprobation, it is absolutely impossible that there should be in God a desire or disposition of loving-kindness to save all men, even the reprobate. There certainly was no such desire in God when He delivered His Son to the death of the cross, for He did not redeem them all but only the elect. Besides, this is also impossible because, if Christ died and paid the price of redemption for the elect only, there is, so to speak, no capital to pay the price of redemption for the reprobate. If I desire to give a hundred dollars to a hundred men each, and I have laid away just ten thousand dollars for the purpose, I certainly cannot give or even offer a hundred dollars to a hundred more men. Now, I know that this is a homely figure and that it cannot be applied to the redemption of Christ in every detail, but it serves the purpose for which it is given. If Christ did not pay the price of redemption for all men, God, in His loving-kindness cannot mean to save all or offer salvation to all.
From this point of view, Murray and Stonehouse, do not subscribe to, but corrupt their own confession. They should not pretend to be Orthodox Presbyterian, for they are and mean to be Arminian.
That the Westminster Confession teaches, indeed, that Christ paid the price of redemption, not for all men, but only for those whom the Father has given Him, is also plainly in chapter 8, article 5:
The Lord Jesus by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father, and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him.
Again I say that, according to the Westminster Confession, Christ, by His death purchased nothing for the reprobate. How, then, can God, in His loving-kindness intend to save them and offer unto them the salvation which Christ purchased for the elect alone? Again, I claim that the authors of the pamphlet do not believe and subscribe to their own confession.
There is still more in the article of the Westminster we quoted a moment ago. It does not only teach that Christ paid the price of redemption for the elect alone, but it also emphasizes that the application of that work of redemption is God’s work alone. He alone effectually calls, He alone adopts, justifies, sanctifies, and He alone keeps them through faith unto salvation even unto the end. And this He does, according to the article, only in and for the elect.
Now, I ask again, as I did before, why, if God is so filled with loving-kindness to save all men, even the reprobate, why does he not do it? The answer of, the Westminster Confession is plain: He is not filled with a desire to save all men, but only the elect. But the answer of Murray and Stonehouse is: because they do not comply with the condition, i.e. to accept the general offer and invitation of the gospel; in other words: God loves to save them but they do not want to be saved. They deny the sovereign grace of God and, therefore, do not subscribe to what they pretend to be their own confession. Professing to be Calvinists they are Arminians.
We still wish to quote the article of the Westminster on the truth of reprobation:
The rest of mankind God
was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he
extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign
power over his creatures, to pass by and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath
for their sin, for the praise of his glorious justice (3:7).
To those reprobate, whom God ordained from eternity to dishonour and wrath for their sin, He, according to Murray and Stonehouse assumes a real attitude of loving-kindness and desire to save them. We readily understand that this is an impossible theory. It is neither Scriptural nor confessional. But I wish to say even more. I do not believe that they can nor want to believe this themselves. They must be irrational to believe that God has a sincere desire to save those whom, from all eternity, He has ordained to wrath and eternal desolation. This, mind you, is no mystery, which is far above our comprehension, but is simply a flat contradiction, a wholly irrational proposition, and, therefore, incapable of acceptance. But they do not believe in reprobation in the confessional and Scriptural sense of the word.
They do not subscribe to their own confession.
More about this next time, D.V.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
The last time we were discussing the fact that the
authors of The Free Offer of the Gospel
postulate a real desire in God to save all those to whom the “free offer” of
salvation is brought or proclaimed. We compared this theory with the Westminster Confession and discovered
that Murray and Stonehouse certainly do not believe but corrupt their own
confession to which, nevertheless they subscribe. However, we must say still
more about the paragraph in their Free
Offer of the Gospel we were discussing in the last number of our paper. For
the convenience of our readers, we quote this paragraph here once more:
Again, the expression
‘God desires’ in the formula that crystallizes the crux of the question, is intended
to notify not at all the ‘seeming’ attitude of God but a real attitude, a real
disposition of loving-kindness inherent in the free offer to all, in other
words, a pleasure or delight in God, contemplating the blessed result to be
achieved by compliance with the overture proffered and the invitation given (4).
It is especially to the last words of this
paragraph that we now wish to call special attention.
Notice:
1. The gospel is an overture to all men, i.e. a proposition presented to all that hear the gospel for their consideration, either for their acceptance or rejection.
2. The gospel is an invitation given to all men with the sincere desire on the part of God, that all may accept and comply with the invitation.
3. In that overture proffered and that invitation
given, God expresses His pleasure or delight as He contemplates the blessed
result to be achieved by compliance with the overture or invitation.
This is what Professors Murray and Stonehouse teach at the seminary of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Is it wonder that one never hears a Reformed sermon from those that graduate from that Seminary?
For this is sheer Arminianism.
In fact, the “Five Arminian Articles of 1610,” although principally in agreement with the above quoted paragraph, express themselves much more carefully.
They, indeed, confess an election on the ground of foreseen faith, but they also definitely express that
God, by an
eternal, unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ His Son, before the foundation of
the world, hath determined out of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in
Christ, for Christ’s sake, and through Christ, those who, through the grace of
the Holy Ghost, shall believe on His Son Jesus, and shall persevere in this
faith and obedience of faith, through this grace, even unto the end.
Here, at least, it is, apparently, all attributed to the powerful operation of God in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, that men receive the faith and are saved. But in the above paragraph, this powerful operation of the grace of God is not even mentioned; in fact, it has no place in it. God, so the paragraph states, motivated by a sincere desire to save all men, and filled with loving-kindness for all is “contemplating the blessed result to be achieved by compliance with the overture proffered and the invitation given.”
What does this mean in connection with the entire paragraph?
It is evident that, in the paragraph the term “contemplate” means to consider something as probable and contingent on something else, to look forward to as a possibility. That which God thus looks forward to is “the blessed result to be achieved by compliance with the overture proffered and the invitation given.”
What results does God thus contemplate? Is it the salvation of the elect? No, election has no place at all in the above paragraph. God is filled with loving-kindness to all in proffering the overture and in giving the invitation. Hence, he contemplates the possible result that all that hear may comply with the overture of the gospel.
If words mean anything at all, they mean exactly this in connection with the entire paragraph. Moreover, this is exactly the meaning they are intended to convey.
Now, apart from the fact that God cannot “contemplate” such a possibility and that, in fact, He cannot and does not “contemplate” any possibility at all because He knows and determined all things from before the foundation of the world, this is Pelagianism and Arminianism of the worst kind.
On what is compliance with the proffered overture, or the possibility of accepting the invitation given, based? Certainly not on the sovereign grace of God. Then the contemplated result is certain. Then the invitation cannot be given in loving-kindness to all. Then the proffered gospel is no proof of “a real attitude or disposition of loving-kindness in the free offer to all.” But it is based on the theory that God wills that all men be saved on condition that they, on their part and by their, own free will, comply with the gospel invitation and the proffered overture.
Once more, I maintain that, if words have any meaning, the above is the only significance that can be given to the paragraph we quoted and are discussing at present. This is the meaning these words must convey to any reader. And this is the meaning the professors Murray and Stonehouse intend them to convey to the readers.
Reformed theologians and the Reformed Churches do not speak of a proffered overture or of an invitation given, but of the calling. It is true that, in the English translation of the Canons of Dordrecht, the term “invitation” once occurs, viz., III/IV:8, but even this is a corruption of the text. In the English translation, one reads: “for God hath most earnestly and truly declared in his Word what will be acceptable to him, that all who are called should comply with the invitation.” But in the original Latin, and also in the Holland translation we read: “Serio enim et verissime ostendit Deus verbo suo, quid sibi gratum sit, nimirum, ut vocati ad se veniant.” The last part of this sentence does not, as it is translated in our English version, read: “That all whom are called should comply with the invitation” but: “that the called should come unto him.”
For the rest, in the Reformed Churches, they usually do not speak of the invitation, but of the calling, which is in harmony with the Scripture. This calling is distinguished as an outward and inward calling: The former is the preaching of the gospel and comes to all that hear. The latter, the inward calling, is God’s own calling, the irresistible and saving calling that comes, through the Holy Spirit, only to the elect.
This the professors Murray and Stonehouse know just as well as I do, but all this they ignore and deny in their pamphlet The Free Offer, in order to replace it by a general overture and invitation to all without exception and that, too, as a revelation of the general loving-kindness of God.
But I must still call attention to the last paragraph
of the introduction to the Free Offer.
I quote it here:
Still further, it is necessary to point out that such ‘desire’ on the part of God for the salvation of all must never be conceived of as a desire to such an end apart from the means to that end. It is not desire of their salvation irrespective of repentance and faith. Such would be inconceivable. For it would mean, as Calvin says, ‘to renounce the difference between good and evil.’ If it is proper to say that God desires the salvation of the reprobate, then He desires such by their repentance. And so it amounts to the same thing to say ‘God desires their salvation’ as to say ‘He desires their repentance.’ This is the same as saying that he desires them to comply with the indispensable conditions of salvation. It would be impossible to say the one without implying the other (5).
The crux of the matter in the above paragraph must be found in the term “desire.” God desires the salvation of the reprobate and He desires their repentance. It is, according to the writers of this pamphlet perfectly proper to say that God desires the salvation of the reprobate if only it is added that He also desires the repentance of the reprobate.
Note: the idea is not that God calls all men to repentance in the preaching of the gospel. This is perfectly proper and Scriptural, provided that by calling is meant the outward call, apart from the efficacious calling unto salvation by the Holy Spirit. To be sure, that outward call, through the preaching of the gospel, comes to all, and is also a calling to repentance. God cannot permit any man to walk in sin and rebellion against Him. He is holy and righteous and just. Hence, He proclaims, especially in the preaching of the gospel that His wrath is upon every sinner that does not repent and that, unless he repents, he will be sent unto eternal desolation in hell.
Such among other truths is the contents of the preaching of the gospel. I say among other things, for the preaching of the gospel also shows the only way out: faith in Jesus Christ. If the sinner does not repent while he learns about the only way out, it means that he must have nothing of God and His Christ, that he emphatically loves his sin and corruption, and that his condemnation is made the heavier and that, too, according to the justice of God.
This is the so-called external calling, which comes to all, elect and reprobate alike.
But there is also an inward calling. This inward calling is powerful and efficacious.
This calling is described in our confession, Canons III/IV:10:
But that others
who are called by the gospel, obey the call, and are converted, is not to be
ascribed to the proper exercise of free will, whereby one distinguishes himself
above others, equally furnished with grace sufficient for faith and
conversions, as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains; but it must be wholly
ascribed to God, who as he has chosen his own from eternity in Christ, so he
confers upon them faith and repentance, rescues them from the power of
darkness, and translates them into the kingdom of his own Son, that they may
show forth the praises of him, who hath called them out of darkness into his
marvelous light; and may glory not in themselves, but in the Lord according to
the testimony of the apostles in various places.
More about this in our next issue, D.V.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
In
De Wachter, an organ of the Christian
Reformed Church, one of the editors, in a very brief paragraph, attempts to
express his condemnation of my position on “the free offer.” I refuse to
reflect on this for two reasons. In the first place, because he presents no
arguments whatsoever on my position. In the second place, he leaves a wrong
impression on what I wrote.
Let this be sufficient.
I am willing, as anyone knows, to answer any real arguments. But I have not the time or the desire to reflect on any silly little editorials one may be pleased to publish.
In my last editorial on the subject of “the free offer” I discussed or was discussing the proposition of the authors of The Free Offer of the Gospel that God “desires the salvation of the reprobate by their repentance.” The one “desire” is inseparable from the other.
In this connection, I called attention to the calling. Our confessions do not speak of a “desire” on the part of God, but of His calling. In the external calling He calls to faith and repentance all that hear the preaching of the gospel. In the internal calling, He applies this outward calling of the gospel to the hearts of those that hear by His Spirit so that they actually repent and believe. This He never does to the reprobate, but only to the elect.
This is the teaching, not only of our confessions, but of all the Reformed Symbols, also of the Westminster Confession (WC) to which the authors of The Free Offer are supposed to subscribe. Also this confession of faith does not, and never would or could, speak of a desire of God to save the reprobate. Instead, it speaks of the calling in this wise:
All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ: enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace (WC 10:1).
This is the effectual calling that comes, according to this article, not to the reprobate, but only to those that are predestinated unto life.
This chapter of the, Westminster also mentions the external calling as follows:
Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the laws of that religion they do profess. And, to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested (10:4).
Does God “desire” the repentance and salvation of all, even of the reprobate? Is not this very sentence a denial of the doctrine of reprobation? I ask:
1.
Does God “desire” the salvation and repentance of those whom He hardens? and
does He also, evidently, not “desire” to save and to have them come to
repentance? For we read in Romans 9:18: “therefore hath he mercy to whom he will
have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.” Is not this “will” of God to harden
the reprobate the same as the “desire” to harden them? Or are there, perhaps,
two “desires” in God, one desire that they come to repentance and be saved, the
other that they never come to repentance but be hardened and damned? That, of
course, is, principally, a denial of the truth that God is one. That gives us
two gods. That is sheer dualism. No, but God is one, and that one God has one
will. And that will of God is also His desire, for the desire of God cannot be
in conflict with His will. That one will and desire of God is to harden the
reprobate.
2.
This is also evident from the contrast in the text we just quoted. The contrast
is between the will to have mercy and the will to harden. Now, the will to have
mercy is surely the desire in God that the elect come to repentance and be
blessed with all the blessings of salvation. By the same token, however,
because of the sharp contrast in the text, the will to harden means that there
is no desire in God that the reprobate come to repentance and be saved in the
way of repentance.
3.
But how do those on whom He will have mercy ever come to repentance, and why is
it that those whom He wills to harden do not and cannot come to repentance? Is
this of their own free will? That would be a denial of the sovereign grace of
God and of the efficacy of the saving calling of God. For no man can come to
Christ, and no man can ever come to repentance except the Father draw Him. Also
this error is implied in the teaching that God will have all men, even the
reprobate, come to repentance and be saved in the way of repentance. All men
are by nature dead in sin and trespasses. Hence, either they come to repentance
by the efficacious grace of the Almighty or they are always hardened and that,
too, by God, even through the external calling of the gospel. How, then, is it
possible that God can “desire” the repentance of the reprobate and their
salvation while He does not give them grace to repent?
4.
Finally, do the authors of The Free Offer
mean to teach that there is a possibility of repentance and salvation apart
from the preaching of the gospel? I can hardly believe this. But what then? Is
it not true that by far the majority of the reprobate never hear the gospel? In
the old dispensation the gospel and the knowledge of salvation was limited to
comparatively very few. For many a century it was confined to the nation
of Israel. But also in the new dispensation, though the preaching of the gospel
is no longer confined to any particular nation, it reaches, in comparison with
the whole human race, comparatively few. How, then is this possible if God “desires”
the repentance and salvation of the reprobate?
To me it is evident that the authors of The Free Offer do not like the doctrine of reprobation.
They camouflage it.
The
authors of the pamphlet also quote Calvin. To say that God desires the salvation
of the reprobate irrespective of their repentance and their faith is, they say,
inconceivable. And then they write: “For it would mean, as Calvin says, ‘to
renounce the difference between good and evil.’”
Now, the authors do not furnish the reference so that I cannot check up on the context in which Calvin writes this.
But of one thing I am perfectly confident: Calvin would never write that God desires the repentance and salvation of the reprobate as do the authors, of this pamphlet.
Often he writes the very opposite.
At this time, I want to refer to only one passage in this connection. It is found in Calvin’s Calvinism.
The difficulty which according to Pighius,
lies in that other place of Paul, where the apostle affirms that “God will all
men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:4), is solved in one moment, and by one
question, namely, How does God wish all men to come to the knowledge of the
truth: For Paul couples this salvation and this coming to the
knowledge of the truth together. Now I would ask, did the
same will of God stand the same from the beginning of the world or not? For
if God willed or wished (or “desired,” HH) that His truth should be known
to all men, how was
it that He did not proclaim and make known his law to the Gentiles also? Why
did He confine the light of life to Judea? And what does Moses mean when he
says: “For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, as the
Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? And what nation is
there so great, that hath statues and judgments as all this law, which I set
before you this day?” (Deut. 4:7-8).
The divine law-giver surely here means that
there was no other nation which hath statutes and laws by which it was ruled
like unto that nation. And what does Moses here but extol the peculiar
privilege of the race of Abraham? To that responds the high encomium of David, pronounced
on the same nation, “He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments
they have not known them” (Ps. 147:20). Nor must we disregard the express reason
assigned by the Psalmist, “Because the Lord loved their fathers, therefore he
chose their seed after them” (Deut. 4:37). And why did God choose them? Not because
they were, in themselves more excellent than others, but because it pleased God
to choose them, “for His peculiar people.” What? Are we to suppose that the
apostle did not know that he himself was prohibited by the Holy Spirit from
preaching the Word in Asia and from passing over into Bithynia? But as the
continuance of this argument would render us to prolix, we will be content with
taking one position more: that God, after having thus lighted the candle of
eternal life of the Jews alone, suffered the Gentiles to wander for many ages
in the darkness of ignorance; and that, at length, this special gift and
blessing were promised to the church: “But the Lord shall arise upon thee; and
his glory shall be seen upon thee” (Isa. 60:2). Now
let Pighius boast, if he can, that God willeth all men to be saved. The
above arguments, founded on the Scriptures, prove that even the external
preaching of the doctrine of salvation, which is very inferior to the
illumination of the Spirit, was not made of God common to all men” (103ff.,
emphasis added).
I would say, in the words of Calvin, “Now let the authors of The Free Offer boast that God willeth or desireth that all men, even the reprobate, shall be saved.”
I have an idea that Calvin would be amazed if he knew that his name was used to defend the doctrine of Pighius and of the Arminians.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
It
is rather striking that, in the pamphlet The
Free Offer of the Gospel, the same Scriptural passages, in part, are
offered as proof as the Christian Reformed Synod of 1924 adduced as proof for
the “Three Points” of “common grace.” To me, this is a rather clear indication
that so-called common grace and the Arminian presentation of the gospel are
closely related.
The first text the authors of The Free Offer quote and attempt to exegete is Matthew 5:44-48. They admit that this passage does not deal with “the free offer of the gospel” but, according to them, “it tells us something regarding God’s benevolence that has bearing upon all manifestations of divine grace.” When God makes His sun to shine and sends rain on the good and on the evil, it is, according to them, evident that both, elect and reprobate, are the objects of God’s grace and loving-kindness. Let me quote them a little more fully:
The disciples are to love their enemies in order that they may be the sons of their Father; they must imitate their Father. Clearly implied is the thought that God, the Father, loves his enemies and that it is because he loves his enemies that he makes his sun rise upon them and sends them rain. This is just saying that the kindness bestowed in sunshine and rain is the expression of divine love, that back of the bestowal there is an attitude on the part of God, called love, which constrains him to bestow these tokens of his loving-kindness. This informs us that the gifts bestowed by God are not simply gifts which have the effect of good and blessing to those who are the recipients but that they are also a manifestation or expression of loving-kindness and goodness in the heart or will of God with reference to those who are the recipients. The enjoyment on the part of the recipients has its ground as well as its source in this loving-kindness of which the gifts enjoyed are the expression. In other words, these are gifts and are enjoyed because there is in a true and high sense benevolence in the heart of God (6-7).
The authors also refer to and quote the similar passage in Luke 6:35-36, for the same purpose and with the same explanation, viz., that God loves all His enemies.
The first question we must ask in this connection is: Is it the current teaching of Scripture that God loves all His enemies, that He loves not only the elect but also the reprobate, that He loves not only the wicked that repent, but also the wicked that do not repent as the authors of The Free Offer literally state? (Cf. p. 7). Is it the current teaching of Holy Writ that God not only bestows good gifts upon the ungodly that never repent, but also that it is manifestation of the love of God to them that He bestows these gifts?
This, to my mind, is essential.
We do not believe that Scripture contradicts itself. We do not believe that any particular passage of Holy Writ can be in conflict with the current teaching of the Word of God. It has always been the Reformed method of exegesis to explain a certain passage in the light of the whole of Scripture.
It is easy to ignore this sound rule, explain a particular text without paying attention to the rest of Scripture, and then give one’s own rather philosophical interpretation of the text, and arrive at all kinds of heretical conclusions; but this is thoroughly unsound.
This is exactly what the authors of The Free Offer do in regard to the text in Matthew 5:44-48 and Luke 6:35-36.
According to them, these texts teach:
1. That God loves the wicked that never comes to repentance.
2. That it is in this love to the wicked that do not repent that God bestows the things of this present life on them.
Both these propositions are thoroughly false when judged in the light of the current teaching of Scripture. And I wish to prove the very opposite on these propositions in the light of all of Holy Writ, namely:
1. That God does not love but hate the wicked that never come to repentance.
2. That God bestows all the things of this present life upon the wicked that do not repent, not in His love or favor, but in His wrath and for the purpose of destroying them forever.
This is the current teaching of Scripture.
Note, as to 1:
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity, (Ps. 5:5).
God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry
with the wicked every day (Ps. 7:11).
The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all
the nations that forget God (Ps. 9:17).
The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s
throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The
Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul
hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an
horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their-cup (Ps. 11:4-6).
Thine hand. shall find out all thine
enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. Thou shalt make
them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the Lord shall swallow them up
in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them. Their fruit shalt thou destroy
from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. For they
intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are
not able to perform (Ps. 21:8-11).
The eyes of the Lord are upon the
righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is
against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth (Ps. 34:15-16).
Thus I could continue and quote from virtually all the Psalms.
But let us turn to other books of Scripture.
Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways. For the froward is abomination to the Lord; but his secret is with the righteous. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blesseth the habitation of the just (Prov. 3:31-33).
I can hardly refrain from making some comments on this passage of Holy Writ in connection with the teaching of the authors of The Free Offer. But I better refrain because it is my purpose just to let Scripture speak its own sufficiently clear language. But I would like to ask them: Is the oppressor or the froward the object of God’s favor at the same time that he is an abomination to the Lord? Does He bless the house of the wicked at the same time that His curse is there?
The same antithetical note is heard in the entire book of Proverbs, as is well known. Always the fools, the unrighteous, the wicked are presented as an abomination of the Lord and always they are the objects of His curse, never of His love and favour. Just let me quote a few more passages.
The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked … Blessings are upon the head of the just: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked … The way of the Lord is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity (Prov. 10:3, 6, 29).
A good man obtaineth favor of the Lord: but
a man of wicked devices will he condemn … Lying lips are an abomination to the
Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight (Prov. 12:2, 22).
The sacrifice of the wicked is an
abomination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight. The way
of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord: but he loveth him that followeth
after righteousness … The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the
Lord: but the words of the pure are pleasant words (Prov. 15:8, 9, 26).
But why quote more from this book of Scripture. All know that it must have nothing of a love or favor of God to the wicked.
Is it necessary to quote from the prophets? Their fundamental note is ever the same:
Say ye to the righteous that it shall be
well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the
wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given
him (Isa. 3:10-11).
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good
evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for
sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and
prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and
men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward,
and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! Therefore as the
fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root
shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they
have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy
One of Israel. Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people,
and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and
the hills did tremble, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the
streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched
out still (Isa. 5:20-25).
This, indeed, is the fundamental note of all the prophets of the Old Testament. God’s favor is upon the righteous; He hates all the workers of iniquity.
There is no common grace for the righteous and the wicked alike.
Is it, perhaps, different in the New Testament?
God forbid! Scripture does not contradict itself. Always it speaks the same language.
It is only the righteous: the poor in spirit, they that mourn, the meek, they that hunger and thirst after the righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers, that are blessed and enjoy the favor of God (Matt. 5:3-9). The rest are cursed and are under the wrath of God. For:
Beware of false prophets, which come to you
in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them
by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs from thistles? Even so
every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth
evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is
hewn down and cast into the oven. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will
say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in
thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name have done many wonderful works?
And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me ye that
work iniquity (Matt. 7:15-23).
These are the words of the Lord Himself. Are they any different from the passages we quoted from the Old Testament? All emphasize the same truth: that God’s favor and love is on the righteous and that He hates all the workers of iniquity.
More of this next time, the Lord willing.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
We
are still discussing the question whether it is the current teaching of Holy
Writ that God loves both elect and reprobate, the righteous and the wicked that
never come to repentance.
This is the teaching of the authors of The Free Offer of the Gospel.
Already we quoted several passages from Scripture to prove that this is not the truth. We now will, first of all, quote a few more from the New Testament.
First of all, I would like to refer you to the manifold woe which the Lord pronounces upon the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. They are the self-righteous and wicked that never come to repentance. They do all their works in order to be seen of men. They are, according to the Lord Jesus, whited sepulchres which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones and uncleanness. Does God love them and is He gracious unto them? Not according to Christ. He pronounces nothing but woes upon them and finally declares:
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how
can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you
prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and
crucify; and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute
them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed
upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias the
son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily, I say
unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation (vv. 33-36).
Surely, in these words of the Lord Jesus there is not even a suggestion of the love or favor of God upon, these wicked and self-righteous scribes and Pharisees. The very opposite is true.
This is the current note of all the gospel narratives, as could easily be proved. Nor does the text in Matthew 5:44-48 teach the opposite as we hope to explain later.
I would also refer you to Romans 1:18-32. There the apostle Paul speaks of the wicked who know “the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death,” yet they not only commit iniquity but they also have pleasure in them that do evil (v. 32). Are they, then, the objects of the love and favor of God? Is this love and grace of God revealed to them in the things they receive in this present time such as rain and sunshine, as the authors of The Free Offer have it? On the contrary, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness (v. 18). And in His wrath “God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves" (v. 24). And He “gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another: men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet” (vv. 26-27). And, finally, God in His wrath, “God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient" (v. 28).
Compare with this the teaching of the authors, of The Free Offer that the things of this present time as they are bestowed by God on elect and reprobate, the righteous and wicked alike, have their source and ground in God’s loving-kindness also for the wicked or, “in other words, these gifts are enjoyed because there is in a true and high sense benevolence in the heart of God” i.e. for the ungodly and wicked reprobate.
The same truth is emphasized by the apostle Paul in the second chapter of this epistle to the Romans. There the apostle speaks of those that despise the riches of the goodness of God, His forbearance and longsuffering, and he writes:
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; Who
will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient
continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal
life: But to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey
unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish upon every soul
of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory,
honor and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to
the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God” (vv. 5-11).
Perhaps, the authors of The Free Offer would object that the passage quoted above refers, not to the present time, but to the future, to the Day of Judgment. In the present time, they would say, God bestows many good things upon the wicked and reprobate and He does this in His benevolence and grace; just as is the teaching of the Christian Reformed Church in the “Three Points.” But in the future, in the Day of Judgment, all these good things and manifestations of grace and loving-kindness will be taken away from them, and there will be nothing left for them but wrath and indignation.
But to this I would reply as follows:
First of all, almost all the passages I quoted before this speak of the wrath of God and His hatred for the wicked reprobate, not in the future, but at the present time and all through their present existence in the world.
But, secondly, I would like to ask the authors two questions that are closely related to each other as well as to the subject we are now discussing:
1. Do you believe the Reformed truth of
reprobation, and if so, how do you define it?
2. Does God change or is He immutable? Does
He change in His attitude to the wicked reprobate?
These questions are very important and I wish that the authors of The Free Offer would answer them.
As to the first question, that concerning reprobation, the Canons of Dordrecht answer it as follows:
What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the eternal and unmerited grace of election, is the express testimony of sacred Scripture, that not all, but some only are elected, while others are passed by in the eternal decree; whom God out of his sovereign, most just, irreprehensible and unchangeable good pleasure, hath decreed to leave in the common misery into which they had wilfully plunged themselves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but permitting them in his just judgment to follow their own ways, at last for the declaration of his justice, to condemn and punish them forever, not only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their other sins. And this is the decree of reprobation which by no means makes God the author of sin (the very thought of which is blasphemy), but declares him to be an awful, irreprehensible, and righteous judge and avenger thereof (Canons I:3).
The above represents the mildest or infralapsarian view of reprobation. But I wish to call attention to the fact that even in this mildest form the decree of reprobation implies, according to the Canons, that God does not bestow upon the reprobate the faith of conversion and, on the contrary, permits them “in his just judgment to follow their own ways.” This following of their own ways refers, of course, to the present time. And I would like to ask the authors of The Free Offer whether they believe that the decree of reprobation means that God permits the reprobate to follow their own ways of sin and corruption in their present life unto eternal perdition, and, if so, whether He does so in His grace and benevolence.
The Westminster Confession, to which the authors of The Free Offer are supposed to subscribe, speaks of the decree of reprobation as follows:
The rest of mankind God was pleased according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, and to the praise of his glorious justice (WC 3:7).
This definition of reprobation is not as concise at that found in the Canons, but again I ask the authors of The Free Offer, do they believe this, and do they, nevertheless, hold that God is filled with benevolence toward those whom He ordained to dishonour and wrath? Please, explain.
Or how would they explain the article in the Westminster Confession on the providence of God which reads as follows:
As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as righteous judge, for the former sins, doth blind and harden, from them he not only withholdeth his grace, whereby they might have. been enlightened in their understandings and wrought upon in their hearts, but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had, and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin; and withal gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world and the power of Satan; whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God uses for the softening of others (5:6).
Again, I ask the authors of The Free Offer whether they believe this article in their own Confession, and, if they do, do they hold that God, in His grace, favor, or benevolence gives the reprobate wicked over to their own lusts, to the temptations of the world, and to the power of the devil. I wish that they explain.
My second question is: does God change in His attitude to the wicked reprobate?
They certainly believe, no doubt, that in the Day of Judgment He will condemn them on account of all their sins. They, undoubtedly, believe that, after that Day of Judgment, God will consign them to eternal desolation in hell. There, in hell, they are, no doubt, only the objects of His wrath and there is in His heart no more benevolence or favor toward them.
Hence, my question: Did God change in His attitude toward the wicked reprobate, so that before the Day of Judgment He loved them, while after the Judgment is passed He is filled only with wrath toward them?
You understand, of course, that this is not a question for me.
As I understand the Word of God, He is absolutely unchangeable, but He is also immutable in His attitude to the righteous and to the wicked, to the elect and to the reprobate and that, too, not only in His eternal counsel but also in time. Always He loves the elect, in time as well as in eternity; always He hates the reprobate, not only in His eternal counsel but also in time. Always He bestows all things in time, good things and evil, upon the elect for their good and unto their eternal salvation; and always He gives all things to the reprobate and wicked, good and evil things, prosperity and adversity, unto their eternal damnation.
Such is the teaching of Scripture: there is no common grace.
But for the authors of The Free Offer of the Gospel this is different.
Hence, my question: does God change? Please, answer!
H.H.
-------------------------------------
According
to the authors of The Free Offer of the
Gospel, the fact that God loves all men, even the reprobate, even His
enemies, is evident from the gifts of so-called “common grace” as clearly
taught in Matthew 5:44-48. According to them, we must love our
enemies, even the enemies of God, because God loves His own enemies, all His
enemies, even the reprobate. This is supposed to be revealed in the fact that
God causes the sun to shine upon the wicked and the righteous, and rains upon
them all alike. How, in the light of this general “common grace” of God, they
would explain the “common curse” of God as is revealed in all kinds of evils,
in sickness and death, in wars and rumours of war, or, as is the case in Texas
at present, after a prolonged drought, in tornadoes and floods of rain, is a
question which it is for them to answer. Does this “common curse” mean that God
also hates the righteous, and the wicked, the elect and the reprobate alike? Or
must we rather accept the teaching of Scripture that, even as God causes all
things to work together for good to them that love Him, to them that are the
called according to His purpose, so He causes all things to work together for
evil to them that hate Him, whom He has reprobated according to His purpose?
Let them answer.
That the Scriptures must have nothing of the, “common grace” of the authors of The Free Offer is very evident.
I could simply quote an abundance of passages.
But rather than simply quote I will explain one or two of them briefly. I have done this before, but it can do no harm to do it once again.
The first passage I have in mind is Psalm 73, which is very comforting for the people of God in the midst of the world of all ages.
The psalmist announces what we may consider the theme of the whole psalm in the very first verse: “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.”
The meaning of this verse is, according to the context which follows, that He is not good to the wicked and reprobate, no matter how much they may prosper in the world, but only to His own people, to the righteous, no matter how much they have to suffer in the present time.
Such is the theme.
And this theme the psalmist further develops in the psalm and this, too, not, from a mere doctrinal viewpoint, but from the aspect of his own subjective experience.
His feet were, for a time, almost gone, his steps had almost slipped from the path of the righteous. The reason was that, like the authors of The Free Offer, he had looked at the rain and sunshine, at the so-called “common grace” of God. Only, according to him, the wicked received much more of this “common grace” than the righteous. Hence his trouble and confusion. He was envious at the foolish; he saw the prosperity of the wicked. There are no bands in their death, their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; they are not plagued as other men. They are filled with pride and “violence covereth them as a garment.” They live in abundance and have more than their hearts can desire. They are wicked and corrupt in heart and mind as well as in their walk. They speak loftily and even set their mouth against the heavens (vv. 2-9).
Thus are the wicked.
Thus are the objects of the so-called “common grace” of God, according to the psalmist.
On the other hand, the poet and the people of God suffer.
They certainly do not enjoy the blessings and benefits of “common grace” according to the psalmist. Just hear them complain:
Therefore his people return hither: and
waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, How doth God know? and,
is there knowledge in the most High? Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper
in the world; they increase in riches. Verily, I have cleansed my heart in
vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been
plagued, and chastened every morning (vv. 10-14).
Yet this is not the end.
The psalmist entered into the sanctuary of God. He now viewed the same situation in the world from God’s point of view, in the light of His own revelation. In that light, he clearly understood that there is no “common grace.”
He
saw the end of the wicked which is eternal destruction. But he also saw that
all the way of the wicked, all their prosperity and abundance, is only a means
unto the end. For he writes:
Until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places:
thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation,
as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one
awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image (vv.
17-20).
Seeing all this, the psalmist now confesses that he was very foolish when he was envious at the prosperity of the wicked. He was ignorant when he was grieved and pricked in his reins because of this so-called common grace (vv. 21-22).
For now he understands, not only that the prosperity of the wicked must lead them to destruction, but also that his own way, and the way of all the people of God, is simply a means to lead them and him to everlasting life and glory. God shall lead him with his counsel, and afterward receive him to glory. And the conclusion of the whole matter is expressed in the words of verses 26 through 28:
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is
the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. For, lo, they that are far
from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from
thee. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the
Lord God, that I may declare all thy works.
Another passage of Scripture with similar contents is found in Psalm 92:5-7:
O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy
thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not: neither doth a fool
understand this. When the wicked spring as the grass and all the workers of
iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever.
This expresses the same thought as we explained in connection with Psalm 73. The things of this present life are, by no means, proof that God loves the reprobate wicked. The very contrary is true. They may and do prosper and flourish. And only a foolish and brutish man may imagine that this prosperity is a proof of the grace and love of God to them. But, in the light of revelation the child of God knows better, for he understands the deep thoughts of God. He understands the purpose of God with all this prosperity. It is that they may be led to everlasting destruction.
Such is the current teaching of Scripture.
How in the light of Scripture the authors of The Free Offer can write as they do, is a mystery to me:
For they write:
Clearly implied is the thought that God,
the Father, loves his enemies and that it is because he loves his enemies that
he makes his sun rise upon them and sends them rain. This is just saying that
the kindness bestowed in sunshine and rain is the expression of divine love,
that back of the bestowal there is an attitude on the part of God, called love,
which constrains him to bestow these tokens of his lovingkindness. This informs
us that the gifts bestowed by God are not simply gifts which have the effect of
good and blessing to those who are the recipients but that they are also a
manifestation or expression of lovingkindness and goodness in the heart or will
of God with reference to those who are the recipients. The enjoyment on the
part of its recipients has its ground as well as its source in this
lovingkindness of which the gifts enjoyed are the expression. In other words,
these are gifts and are enjoyed because there is in a true and high sense benevolence
in the heart of God (6-7).
This interpretation, that rain and sunshine teaches us that God loves all His enemies, elect and reprobate, is contrary to all Scripture.
To me, the Word of God teaches:
1. That God loves the righteous but hates the wicked.
2. That, indeed, He loves His enemies, but only in Christ Jesus.
3. That in sunshine and rain His people may, indeed, behold a symbol of this love of God to His enemies who are in Christ.
4. That, because of this, the disciples, too, must love, not God’s enemies, but their own.
5. That they do this exactly in bringing to them the Word of God that God loves the righteous and hates the wicked, that He loves His enemies only in Christ Jesus, and that, therefore, they must come to Him in the way of repentance.
This is the only love of their enemies the people of God can show.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
The
conclusion to which the authors of the pamphlet, The Free Offer of the Gospel come in their study of the passages
from Matthew 5 and Luke 6 read as follows:
The sum of this study of these passages in Matthew and Luke is simply this, that presupposed in God’s gifts bestowed upon the ungodly there is in God a disposition of love, kindness, mercifulness, and that the actual gifts and blessing accruing therefrom for the ungodly must not be abstracted from the lovingkindness of which they are the expression. And, of course, we must not think of this loving-kindness as conditioned upon a penitent attitude in the recipients. The lovingkindness rather is exercised toward them in their ungodly state and is expressed in the favours they enjoy. What bearing this may have upon the grace of God manifested in the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction remains to be seen. But we are hereby given a disclosure of goodness in the heart of God and of the relation there is between gifts bestowed and the lovingkindness from which they flow. And there is indicated to us something respecting God’s love or benevolence that we might not or could not entertain if we concentrated our thought simply on the divine decree of reprobation (8).
I suppose that the authors have in mind that there are some that do exactly that which is expressed in the last sentence, they “concentrate their thought simply in the divine decree of reprobation.” If there are such, I do not know them. I do know, however, that God’s attitude to those that are wicked and ungodly and continue to be such without receiving the grace of repentance, is rooted in His decree of reprobation. Just as He loves the elect righteous and godly, even while they are yet sinners, with an eternal and unchangeable love, so He hates the reprobate wicked with a sovereign hatred from before the foundations of the world.
Such is the truth of Scripture.
But in my opposition to the theory of the authors of The Free Offer—that God is filled with lovingkindness and mercy toward the wicked as such, and that this is manifest in the gifts bestowed on them in this present time—I will not even mention reprobation. I maintain that Professors Murray and Stonehouse, with their conception of God’s love for the wicked, stand opposed to the current teaching of Scripture.
This I will prove.
In Psalm 1, which, by the way strikes the keynote of all the psalms, in the Word of God, David first describes the godly and righteous. He is the one that “walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (v. 1). This, of course, is negative. Positively expressed, the righteous is he that “has his delight in the law of the Lord” and meditates on that law “day and night” (2). He is compared to a tree near the riverside, that brings forth fruit in due season: all that he does shall prosper (3). In contrast to this righteous man stands the ungodly. He is like the chaff driven away by the wind (4). He cannot stand in judgment nor in the congregation of the righteous (5). And the psalm closes with the antithetical statement: “For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish” (6).
I challenge the authors of The Free Offer so to explain this psalm and the perishing way of the ungodly that it is in harmony with the theory that God is motivated by love in guiding the ungodly on his perishing way.
Or consider Psalm 5:4-6:
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure
in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand
in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that
speak leasing: the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
Or
again in verses 9 and 10:
For there is no faithfulness in their
mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre;
they flatter with their tongue. Destroy them, O God; let them fall by their own
counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have
rebelled against thee.
Let
Murray and Stonehouse explain these passages in the light of their theory that
God loves, instead of hating, all the workers of iniquity, and shows His love
to them in the things they receive in this present time. And let them attempt
to take the prayer of the psalmist on their own lips. It is, for them, simply
impossible. Notice, too, that the psalmist does not speak of the reprobate in
the abstract but of the ungodly, the workers of iniquity as they concretely
exist and live in this world. Them the Lord does not love but hate.
The same is emphatically expressed in Psalm 7:11-16:
God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry
with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword, he hath bent
his bow, and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of
death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. Behold, he travaileth
with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He
hath made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His
mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come
down upon his own pate.
Again,
let the authors of The Free Offer so
explain this passage that, instead of teaching that God is angry with the
wicked that does not repent every day, it means that God loves the wicked
irrespective of the question whether or not he turns from his wicked way, as
they have it, and manifests His love to him in rain and sunshine and in all the
things he receives in this present time. They can never do it.
The same note is sounded in Psalm 11:2-6:
The same note is sounded in Psalm 11:2-6:
For lo, the wicked bend their bow, they
make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the
upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: his eyes
behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous;
but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he
shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be
the portion of their cup.
Also
in this passage the question does not concern the reprobate in the abstract but
the wicked and ungodly man in his concrete existence in the world. He is the
one that, in this world, loveth violence and persecutes the righteous. Does God
love him, as Murray and Stonehouse would have it? Does He manifest His love to
them in rain and sunshine and in all the things of this present time? On the
contrary, His soul hates them, and the portion of their cup shall be fire and
brimstone.
Also in Psalm 37 throughout, the subject is the antithesis between the righteous and the wicked and the attitude of the Lord to them both. Always He loves the righteous only and hates the wicked. Just let me quote a few instances.
Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret
not thyself in anywise to do evil. For evil doers shall be cut off: but those
that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while,
and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and
it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and they shall delight
themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plotteth against the just, and
gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth
that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent
their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright
conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows
shall be broken (vv. 8-15).
Surely, Murray and Stonehouse must admit that the psalm here does not speak of the reprobate in the abstract, as he appears in the decree of God, but of the wicked as he lives and exists and acts in the present world. And they also will have to admit that, in the passage quoted above as well as in the entire psalm, God’s attitude is that He loves the righteous and hates the wicked. Just let me quote a few more verses from the same psalm:
A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the Lord upholdeth the righteous. The Lord knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs: into smoke shall they consume away.
Thus the church of the old dispensation was taught to sing, and thus the church of the new dispensation still sings. Surely, there is not even a semblance of love for the wicked in the passages. The contrary is true.
And this is the current teaching of Holy Writ, not only in the Old, but also in the New Testament.
This we still hope to prove.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
The last time we were discussing the contention of the authors of The Free Offer of the Gospel that the gifts bestowed by God in this present time upon the ungodly reveal that there is, in God, a disposition of lovingkindness and mercy toward the ungodly as such that is not conditioned upon the penitent attitude of those that receive the gifts. It is a revelation of love and mercy in God to all the ungodly without exception.
We might ask here, of course, whether all the suffering of this present time ending inevitably in death and, for the impenitent ungodly, in eternal death and hell, are not the expression of the wrath and hatred and of the curse of God and whether, therefore, there is in God a mixture of love and hatred toward the same impenitent ungodly.
But, for the moment, we will not go into this.
In the last issue of The Standard Bearer in which we were discussing this matter, we were beginning to prove from Scripture that it teaches the very opposite of what Murray and Stonehouse present as the truth about the attitude of God toward the ungodly.
This we will now continue.
We must needs limit ourselves, for proof from the Bible that the attitude of God toward the reprobate ungodly is not one of love and lovingkindness but of hatred and displeasure is so abundant that we may well regard it as the current teaching of Scripture.
First of all, we wish to quote a few more passages from the psalms.
Of the ungodly we read in Psalm 52:1-7:
Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O
mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually. Thy tongue deviseth
mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than
good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Thou lovest all devouring
words, O thou deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall
take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of
the land of the living. The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at
him: Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the
abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.
Notice that Scripture here describes the concretely existing ungodly man: he boasts in his mischief, he has a very evil tongue, he loves evil and lying and all devouring words. And notice two facts. First of all, that God certainly does not assume an attitude of love and favour toward him but, on the contrary, that of hatred: He leads him in the way of destruction and roots him out of the land of the living. And secondly, note, too, that the righteous rejoice at this attitude of God against the wicked. This is a psalm that may be sung by the church on the Sabbath!
The same note is heard in Psalm 58:1ff.:
Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O
congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? Yea, in heart ye work
wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. The wicked are
estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that
stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming
never so wisely.
In
these verses again the concretely existing wicked are described as they are and
act in the world of this present time. Now, what is the attitude of God toward
these wicked men as it is also reflected in the attitude of the church? Is it
an attitude of lovingkindness and must the same position be held by the people
of God, as Murray and Stonehouse would have us believe? The very contrary is
true as is evident from what follows in the psalm. We read:
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth:
break out the great, teeth of the young lions, O Lord. Let them melt away as
waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let
them be as cut in pieces. As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass
away; like the untimely birth of a woman, that they not see the sun. Before
your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind,
both living and in his wrath (vv. 6-9).
Thus
the congregation of God may and does still sing on the Sabbath when they gather
for worship. But this is quite impossible if the philosophy of a so-called “common
grace” is taught in the church, and it is maintained that God assumes an
attitude of lovingkindness toward the wicked.
This note is struck throughout the Psalms. However, we will still call attention to two of them, viz., Psalm 73 and Psalm 92.
Asaph is the author of Psalm 73 as we all know. In the first part of this psalm, the author describes how he was troubled at the prosperity of the wicked. He was almost inclined to believe, with Murray and Stonehouse, that God, indeed, is filled with love toward the wicked. Writes he:
But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my
steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death; but their
strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they
plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain;
violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness; they
have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning
oppression: they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, and
their tongue walketh through the earth (vv. 2-9).
Again
we say that in these words the ungodly are described, not in the abstract, but
as they concretely exist and act, and as they live and reveal themselves in the
present world. No wonder that Asaph, at first, and for a time, was envious at
the wicked.
Moreover, also the people of God assume this attitude of folly as they consider the prosperity of the wicked and their own suffering of this present time. Listen:
Therefore his people return hither: and
waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, How doth God know?
and, is there knowledge in the most High? Behold, these are the ungodly who
prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Verily, I have cleansed my heart
in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been
plagued, and chastened every morning.
Thus
was the complaint of the people of God. They surely saw no “common grace,” but
they only imagined that God, in this present time, only favoured the wicked as
was evident from their earthly prosperity.
Now, the author realized that this was wrong and that he might not speak thus. In his deepest heart he knew very well that God did not and does not love the wicked but the righteous only. If, therefore, he would speak thus he would offend against the generation of the children of God (v. 15). Nevertheless, he could not understand and when he attempted to know this, it was too painful for him (16). Until he went into the sanctuary of God, and began to see these same earthly things in the light of God’s own revelation (17). Then the whole situation changed radically.
Now, the author realized that this was wrong and that he might not speak thus. In his deepest heart he knew very well that God did not and does not love the wicked but the righteous only. If, therefore, he would speak thus he would offend against the generation of the children of God (v. 15). Nevertheless, he could not understand and when he attempted to know this, it was too painful for him (16). Until he went into the sanctuary of God, and began to see these same earthly things in the light of God’s own revelation (17). Then the whole situation changed radically.
Then he clearly sees that even the earthly prosperity of the wicked is meant for their destruction. For he writes:
Surely thou didst set them in slippery
places: thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into
desolation as in a moment, they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream
when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image
(18-20).
Is
this to be interpreted as the lovingkindness of the Lord toward the wicked? We
know better. All the things of this present time, all the prosperity of the
wicked, all the so-called blessings which the wicked receive are nothing but
slippery places on which the Lord casts them down into destruction.
And the end of it all, both for the wicked and for the righteous, in verses 27 and 28 of this psalm is expressed as follows:
For, lo, they that are far from thee shall
perish; thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. But it is
good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I
may declare all thy works.
Indeed,
God loveth the righteous, but, He hates all the workers of iniquity! There is
nothing common in God. There is no common grace or lovingkindness for the
righteous and the wicked alike.
Briefly we must also consider Psalm 92, particularly verses 4-7.
This psalm is particularly designed to be sung by the congregation of the people of God on the Sabbath day.
The psalmist begins by saying that it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises to the name of the Most High; to extol the lovingkindness of our God in the morning and His faithfulness every night, and to do so upon the harp and the psaltery with a solemn sound.
Thereupon he declares that his heart has been gladdened through the work of the Lord, and that in those works of His God he will triumph.
The reason for this is, on the one hand, particularly expressed in the passage to which we wish to call your attention in this connection—verses 5-7:
O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy
thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool
understand this. When the wicked spring as the grass and all the workers of
iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever.
Note:
1. The psalmist is speaking of the great works of the Lord and His very deep thoughts. The meaning is, of course, that the very deep thoughts of God are revealed in His great works. The deep thoughts of the Lord are His eternal counsel and purpose with, regard to all things in time, and those thoughts He Himself realizes and executes in the world. They are deep; because they cannot be discerned on the surface of things. Superficially considered, it might seem as if the Lord blesses and is gracious to everybody, wicked and righteous alike, for they all receive the good things of this present time. In fact, it would almost appear as if the Lord favours the wicked more than the righteous, for they receive more of the things of this present time.
2. However, the psalmist, who has learned to know the deep thoughts of the Lord and to understand His great works, realizes that this is not the case. It is not true that the Lord is favourable to all men in the things of this present time; it is still less true that He favours the wicked more than the righteous. The very contrary is true. God makes the wicked spring as the grass, and He causes all the workers of iniquity to flourish in order that, by these means, they may become great in iniquity and ripe for everlasting destruction. Such are the deep thoughts of God. He loves the righteous and hates all the workers of iniquity.
3. It is only the brutish man and the fool that does not understand this. But he to whom the Lord reveals His great works and deep thoughts, understands and loves this truth.
H.H.
-------------------------------------
Are
the gifts bestowed by God, in this present time, a revelation of His love and
mercy to them?
Such is the contention of Murray and Stonehouse in their pamphlet The Free Offer of the Gospel. We were busy examining, in the light of Scripture, whether this is the truth according to God’s own revelation or whether this is merely their own philosophy. This discussion we will now continue.
Practically all the psalms, and not only the few references to which we called your attention in our last article, give the lie to the contention that in the gifts which God bestows on the ungodly in the present world He reveals an attitude of lovingkindness and mercy to them. I dare say that the psalms are always antithetical: they express that God loves the righteous and hates the ungodly. Nor does the prosperity of the wicked signify that, at least for the present, God means to reveal to them His favour. The very opposite is true: by the very gifts the Lord bestows upon the ungodly He intends to lead them to destruction. This is the teaching of all the psalms.
No less, however, is this the case with the book of Proverbs.
If the psalms of Scripture may be said to be antithetical throughout, the proverbs in the Bible are no less so. In fact, we may even express this more strongly and maintain that these proverbs are intentionally and very emphatically put in antithetical form so that they very clearly express that God loves the righteous and causes all things to work together for their good and that He hates the wicked even when He bestows upon them the things of this present time.
Just a few passages from this book of Proverbs will be sufficient to prove this.
In Proverbs 3:32-33 we read:
For the froward is abomination to the Lord:
but his secret is with the righteous. The curse of the Lord is in the house of
the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.
Notice
the contrast in both these verses: the froward, who is stubborn in his
wickedness, and the righteous, who loves the precepts of the Lord; abomination,
which means an abominable thing in the sight of the Lord, a thing which he
abhors, and the secret, which means that the Lord dwells with the righteous and
has secret or familiar intercourse with him. Again, in verse 33, the house of
the wicked, a mere building in which the Lord does not dwell; and the
habitation of the righteous, because the Lord dwells there with His fellowship,
His grace and blessing. In the house of the wicked, who must have nothing of
God and His precepts, God is with His curse, no matter how that house may be
full of riches and things of this present time; but the habitation of the
righteous He blesses, be that habitation ever so poor and humble.
Such is evidently, the meaning of this passage. And I challenge Murray and Stonehouse to show how in that house of the wicked the blessing and favour of the Lord can dwell together with His curse.
In Proverbs 10:2-3, we read:
Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but
righteousness delivereth from death. The Lord will not suffer the soul of the
righteous to famish: but he casteth way the substance of wicked.
I
ask: those treasures of wickedness, which are undoubtedly great and rich, and
which the wicked enjoy for the present time, are they a proof of the favour of
God, even though, as the rest of the text plainly shows, it is in the way of
death that the wicked enjoy them? And again, when the Lord finally casts away
the substance of the wicked so that he perishes, does He do this after He first
bestowed this substance upon the wicked in His favour and lovingkindness? Is
the Lord changeable? It is evident that these two verses teach the very
opposite.
The same truth is taught in verses 24-32 of the same chapter:
The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon
him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted. As the whirlwind passeth,
so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation. As
vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that
send him. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days; but the years of the wicked
shall be shortened. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the
expectation of the wicked shall perish. The way of the Lord is strength to the
upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. The righteous
shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. The mouth
of the just bringeth forth wisdom: But the froward tongue shall be cut out. The
lips of the righteous know what is acceptable: but the mouth of the wicked
speaketh frowardness.
Also
in these verses there is always the same contrast between the righteous and the
wicked. Also there is the same constant attitude of God expressed in these
verses: He favors and blesses the righteous only, but He hates the wicked and
sends him to destruction.
The same note is sounded throughout the book of Proverbs.
Just let me quote a few more passages.
First of all this:
A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh
with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he
teacheth with his fingers; frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief
continually; he soweth discord continually (6:12-15).
Now, according to the authors of The Free Offer the Lord assumes an attitude of favour and lovingkindness to such a wicked person in this present life. But that this is false is evident from what follows in the same text: “Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.” This implies, of course, that the Lord hates this wicked person during his entire life and walk in this present time; and that He allows him to walk in his wicked way, without grace, until he is ripe for final destruction.
The same is true of what follows immediately:
These six things doth the Lord hate: yea,
seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue and hands that
shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be
swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that
soweth discord among his brethren (6:16-19).
Would even the authors of The Free Offer dare to maintain that the Lord looks with favour upon such a proud man, such a liar and murderer, whose is filled with wicked imaginations, such as always runs to evil, that offers false testimony in court and disrupts the relation among his brethren? O, it is easy to speak in a general and abstract way of the wicked and depraved sinner and then to teach the false philosophy that God looks down with favour upon the ungodly. But the moment you picture him concretely as Scripture does here, you feel that this is impossible.
Yet, this is the whole truth. The natural man, the man that stands outside of the grace of God in Christ, is exactly as he is concretely described in the above verses. For this reason, I claim that there is no grace, favour or lovingkindness of God outside of Christ.
Let me quote a few more passages from this same book of Proverbs.
Treasurers of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death. The Lord will not suffer the soul of righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. He becometh poor that dealeth a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich … Blessings are upon the head of the just: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked (Prov. 10:2-6).
Also the following:
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish. The way of the Lord is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the froward tongue shall be cut out. The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable: but the mouth of the wicked speaketh frowardness (Prov. 10:27-32).
In all these verses the contrast between the righteous and the wicked, the just and the unjust, the wise and the froward is very sharply drawn. It is also very clear what is the attitude of the Lord over against them both: the former are the objects of His favour and lovingkindness and they are blessed; the latter are to Him an abomination and they are cursed. Now, who are these righteous and just; and who are these wicked? The former are those that are the objects of God’s sovereign grace. They are not in the first place the objects of the favour of God because they are righteous and walk in righteousness before God, although its true, of course. But, principally, it is just the other way: they are the objects of God’s favour and lovingkindness and grace sovereignly, from all eternity. They are those, and those only, whom God beheld and always beholds in Christ Jesus. Who died for their sins and rose for their justification. They are those whom God, in time, engrafts in Christ Jesus, so that they live in and from Him. Thus they become and are actually righteous. All their righteousness, legal and spiritual-ethical, is in and from Him alone. These are the only righteous there are. They are the righteous that are always meant in Scripture, also in the book of Proverbs. And who are the unjust and wicked? All men that are outside of Christ. For by nature they are all totally depraved. No man is good and the object of God’s favour in himself.
This, too, is the plain testimony of Holy, Writ. For thus we read in Romans 3:9-18:
What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin: As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Such is the testimony of Scripture throughout.
All men, without exception are unrighteous and wicked, both Jews and Gentiles.
Our conclusion, therefore, is, on the basis of Scripture:
1. That God favours and loves the righteous
and hates the wicked and that, too, in time and eternity.
2. That the righteous are those that are in
Christ Jesus, and they only.
3. That all the rest of men, all that are
outside of Christ, are wicked and cannot be the objects of His favour.
We have still more proof from Scripture. But this must wait till our next issue.
H.H.
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