For I desired
mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings
(Hos. 6:6).
FREE
OFFER ARGUMENT:
“Hosea 6:6, quoted in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7, says
that ‘God desired mercy and not sacrifice.’ Is this not an example of an ‘unfulfilled
desire’ in God? (and, therefore, substantial support for the Free Offer—the
theory that God has an ‘unfulfilled desire for the salvation of the reprobate’?).
Doesn’t this text teach that God is not only ‘pleased’ with obedience to that
which He commands, but that He also ‘desires’ such compliance to His revealed
will (which includes the command, ‘Repent and be saved’), albeit a desire that
never comes to pass on the part of many?”
(I)
There
are two ways of responding to those who urge this verse in support of the
Well-Meant Offer (WMO) ...
1)
The WMO teaches that God (earnestly) desires (or wishes or wants) the salvation
of the reprobate (which involves also the propositions that God desires
the reprobate to repent and to do good works).
God does
desire people to show mercy. By His irresistible grace, He makes His elect show
mercy. Hosea 6:6 does not say whom He desires to exercise mercy. Thus
Hosea 6:6 is like John 4:23 which says that the Father seeks people to worship
Him in spirit and in truth. He actually (desires and) seeks (and creates and
finds) such people to worship Him—by election, Christ's saving death and
irresistible grace.
Or …
2)
Hosea 6:6 is a comparison. It does not literally mean that God did not
desire sacrifice per se. For He did desire (animal) sacrifice—as
a picture of Christ’s coming sacrifice and as a way for the true people of God
to show their gratitude (by an expensive gift)—and, therefore, God saw to it
that such actually happened. But now the advocates of the WMO are caught on the
horns of a dilemma, for they claim that all God’s commands indicate a desire
that they be kept (instead, they indicate that God approves of the good
He commands), yet this text contradicts their thesis, since God
commanded animal sacrifice in Old Testament days, yet, if they take it
literally, it says that He did not desire what He commanded! Instead,
the text teaches that God values our showing mercy (out of a believing and
thankful heart) more highly than he does offering an animal as a
sacrifice (apart from faith in the coming Saviour). And, again, this desire
(even taking the word literally) was realised in the elect. Thus, again,
no unfulfilled divine desires.
We
also point to the fathers who opposed the WMO view of unfulfilled desires in
the Almighty and ever-blessed God:
John Owen (1616-1683): “That desires and wishings should properly be
ascribed unto God is exceedingly opposite to his all-sufficiency and the
perfection of his nature; they are no more in him than he hath eyes, ears, and
hands. These things are to be understood [in a way befitting to God]” (The
Works of John Owen [Great Britain: Banner, 1967], vol. 10, p. 401).
Matthew Poole (1624-1679): “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments!
the failure hath not been on my part, but on thine: I gave thee my counsels and
commands, but thou hast neglected and disobeyed them, and that to thy own great
disadvantage. Such wishes as these are not to be taken properly, as if God
longed for something which he gladly would but could not effect, or as if he
wished that to be undone which was irrevocably past and done; which is a vain
and foolish wish even in a man; and much more are such wishes inconsistent with
the infinite perfection and happiness of the Divine nature; but they are only
significations of God’s good and holy will, whereby he requires and loves
obedience, and condemns and hates disobedience” (Comm. on Isa. 48:18).
Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635-1711): “When God is said to desire something which does
not occur, such as when He states, ‘O that there were such a heart in them,
that they would fear Me … that it might be well with them, and with their
children for ever!’ (Deu. 5:29), or, ‘O that thou hadst hearkened to My
commandments! then had thy peace been as a river’ (Isa. 48:18), He is speaking
in the manner of men. Strictly speaking, such can never be said concerning the
omniscient, omnipotent, immovable, and most perfect God. Rather, it indicates
God’s displeasure against sin and how He delights in holiness” (The
Christian’s Reasonable Service, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 [Morgan, PA:
Soli Deo Gloria, 1992], p. 117).
Formula Consensus Helvetica (1675): “The same Holy Scriptures testify that the counsel
and the will of God do not change, but stand immovable, and God in the heavens
does whatsoever he will (Ps. 115:3; Isa. 46:10); for God is infinitely removed
from all that human imperfection which characterizes inefficacious affections
and desires, rashness, repentance, and change of purpose” (Canon VI).' (AS,
30/08/2019)
-----------------------------------------------
(II)
1.
God expressed his desire for mercy and not sacrifice in the law and in the
prophets; this desire, as he speaks of it in Hosea 6:6, is indeed a matter of
his revealed will.
2.
God did not express this desire to the entire world, or all mankind; he
expressed it to Israel, his covenant people, his holy nation.
3. In
the text, God reminds Israel of this to call her to repentance. He is not
speaking of an unfulfilled desire; he is rebuking a people who did not do what
He commanded them to do. This rebuke makes plain to those in Israel who will
not obey Him that their disobedience is willful, and God is just in punishing
them for it. And this rebuke is the
means by which true believers turn back to God again. (DK, 03/09/2019)
-----------------------------------------------
(III)
Rev.
Matthew Winzer
[Source: Murray on the Free
Offer: A Review, emphasis added.]
It is only the will of decree which is the will of
God in the proper sense of the term, as an act of volition, for therein God has
decreed what shall be done. Samuel Rutherford expresses this well
in his own inimitable manner: “that voluntas signi, in which God
reveals what is our duty, and what we ought to do, not what is his decree, or
what he either will, or ought to do, is not God’s will properly, but by a
figure only; for commands, and promises, and threatenings revealed argue not
the will and purpose, decree or intention of God, which are properly his will.”7
The will of precept has no volitional content, for
it simply states what God has commanded ought to be done by
man. Whether man wills to do it is absolutely dependent upon whether God has
decreed that he shall do it. So it is quite inappropriate to say that God wills
something to be with reference to His will of command, for the
preceptive will never pertains to the futurition of actions,
only to the obligation of them.
With this distinction in mind we are in a position
to interpret properly those portions of Scripture which speak of God desiring
compliance with what He has commanded. The desire has respect solely to
what ought to be done by man, not to what is to
be done. So the Lord has revealed that He desires truth in the inward parts,
Ps. 51:6, and that He desires mercy, and not sacrifice, i.e., that the
Israelites show mercy to their brethren in need, and not simply attend to the
ceremonial aspects of their religion, Hos. 6:6. By such statements, we are to understand that God delights in
requiring these things from man. Whether or not man shall perform them
depends solely on whether God has decreed them to be done.
---------------
FOOTNOTE:
7. Samuel Rutherford, Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself (Glasgow: Samuel and
Archibald Gardner, 1803), p. 480.
-----------------------------------------------
(IV)
(IV)
John Owen (1616-1683)
[Source: “God’s
‘Expostulations’” in The Works of John Owen (Great Britain: Banner, 1967), vol. 10, pp.
400-401, emphasis added.]
[The Arminians argue thus] God’s earnest expostulations, contendings,
charges, and protestations, even to such as whereof many perished, Romans 9:27;
Isaiah 10:22. As, to instance:—‘O that there were such an heart in them, that
they would fear me,’ etc., ‘that it might be well with them!’ Deuteronomy 5:29.
‘What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?’
etc., Isaiah 5:4, 5. ‘What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they
are gone far from me?’ Jeremiah 2:5. ‘Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a
land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more
unto thee?’ verse 31. ‘O my people, what have I done unto thee? wherein have I
wearied thee? testify against me,’ Micah 6:3. ‘How often would I have
gathered,’ etc., ‘and ye would not!’ Matthew 23:37. ‘O that my people had
hearkened unto me!’ etc., ‘I should soon have subdued their enemies,’ etc.,
Psalm 81:13, 14. ‘Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out
my hand, and no man regarded,’ etc., Proverbs 1:24-31. ‘Because, when they knew
God, they glorified him not as God,’ etc., Romans 1:21, 28. ‘Therefore thou art
inexcusable, O man,’ etc., ‘Thou, after thy hardness and impenitent heart,
treasurest up unto thyself wrath,’ etc., Romans 2:1, 5. The Christian, I hope,
will reply against God, and say, Thou never meantest us good; there was no
ransom given for us, no atonement made for us, no good done us, no mercy shown
us,—nothing, in truth, whereby we might have been saved, nothing but an empty
show, a bare pretense.’ But if any should reason so evilly, yet shall not such
answers stand.
Ans. To this collection of expostulations I
shall very briefly answer with some few observations, manifesting of how little
use it is to the business in hand ... Not that I deny that there is sufficient matter of expostulation with sinners
about the blood of Christ and the ransom paid thereby, that so the elect may be drawn and wrought upon to faith and
repentance, and believers more and more endeared to forsake all ungodliness and
worldly lusts, to live unto him who died for them, and that others may be left
more inexcusable; only for the present there are no such expostulations here expressed, nor can any be
found holding out the purpose and intention of God in Christ towards them that
perish ... Fourthly, It is confessed, I hope by all, that there are
none of those things for the want whereof God expostulateth with the sons of
men, but that he could, if it so seemed good before him, effectually work them
in their hearts, at least, by the exceeding greatness of his power: so that these things cannot be declarative of his
purpose, which he might, if he pleased, fulfill; “for who hath resisted
his will,” Romans 9:19. Fifthly, That
desires and wishings should properly be ascribed unto God is exceedingly
opposite to his all-sufficiency and the perfection of his nature; they are no
more in him than he hath eyes, ears, and hands. These things are to be
understood [in a way befitting to God]. Sixthly, It is evident that all these are nothing but pathetical
declarations of our duty in the enjoyment of the means of grace, strong
convictions of the stubborn and disobedient, with a full justification of the
excellency of God’s ways to draw us to the performance of our duties.
-----------------------------------------------
(V)
John Owen (1616-1683)
[Source: “Of the Attribution of
‘Passions’ and ‘Affections’ Unto God” in The Works of John Owen (Great Britain: Banner, 1967), vol. 12, pp. 108-110,
114-115, emphasis added.]
Question.
Are there not, according to the perpetual tenor of the Scriptures, affections
and passions in God, as anger, fury, zeal, wrath, love, hatred, mercy, grace,
jealousy, repentance, grief, joy, fear?
Concerning
which he [i.e., Mr. Biddle, the Socinian] labours to make the Scriptures
determine in the affirmative.
1.
The main of Mr. Biddle’s design, in his questions about the nature of God,
being to deprive the Deity of its distinct persons, its omnipresence,
prescience, and therein all other infinite perfections, he endeavours to make
him some recompense for all that loss by ascribing to him in the foregoing
query a human visible shape, and in this, human, turbulent affections and
passions. Commonly, where men will not ascribe to the Lord that which is his
due, he gives them up to assign that unto him which he doth abhor, Jeremiah
44:15-17. Neither is it easily determinable whether be the greater abomination.
By the first, the dependence of men upon the true God is taken off; by the
latter, their hope is fixed on a false. This, on both sides, at present is Mr.
B.’s sad employment. The Lord lay it not to his charge, but deliver him from
the snare of Satan, wherein he is “taken alive at his pleasure”! 2 Timothy
2:26.
2.
The things here assigned to God are ill associated, if to be understood after
the same manner. Mercy and grace we acknowledge to be attributes of God; the
rest mentioned are by none of Mr. B.’s companions esteemed any other than acts
of his will, and those metaphorically assigned to him.
3. To
the whole I ask, whether these things are in the Scriptures ascribed properly
unto God, denoting such affections and passions in him as those in us are which
are so termed? or whether they are
assigned to him and spoken of him metaphorically only, in reference to
his outward works and dispensations, correspondent and answering to the actings
of men in whom such affections are, and under the power whereof they are in
those actings?
If
the latter be affirmed, then as such an attribution of them unto God is
eminently consistent with all his infinite perfections and blessedness, so
there can be no difference about this question and the answers given thereunto,
all men readily acknowledging that in this sense the Scripture doth ascribe all
the affections mentioned unto God ...
But
this, I fear, will not serve Mr. B.’s turn. The very phrase and manner of
expression used in this question, the plain intimation that is in the forehead
thereof of its author’s going off from the common received interpretation of
these attributions unto God, do abundantly manifest that it is their proper
significancy which he contends to fasten on God, and that the affections
mentioned are really and properly in him as they are in us.
This
being evident to be his mind and intendment, as we think his anthropopathism in
this query not to come short in folly and madness of his anthropomorphitism in
that foregoing, so I shall proceed to the removal of this insinuation in the
way and method formerly insisted on.
Mr.
B.’s masters tell us “That these
affections are vehement commotions of the will of God, whereby he is carried
out earnestly to the object of his desires, or earnestly declines and
abhors what falls not out gratefully or acceptably to him.” I shall first speak
of them in general, and then to the particulars (some or all) mentioned by Mr.
B.: —
First,
In general, that God is perfect and
perfectly blessed, I suppose will not be denied; it cannot be but by
denying that he is God (Deuteronomy 32:4; Job 37:16; Romans 1:25; 9:5; 1
Timothy 1:11, 6:16). He that is not
perfect in himself and perfectly blessed is not God. To that which is perfect in any kind
nothing is wanting in that kind. To that which is absolutely perfect nothing is
wanting at all. He who is blessed is perfectly satisfied and filled, and hath
no farther desire for supply. He who is blessed in himself is all-sufficient
for himself. If God want or desire any thing for himself, he is neither perfect
nor blessed. To ascribe, then, affections to God properly (such as before
mentioned), is to deprive him of his perfection and blessedness. The
consideration of the nature of these and the like affections will make this
evident.
1.
Affections, considered in themselves, have always an incomplete, imperfect act
of the will or volition joined with them. They are something that lies between
the firm purpose of the soul and the execution of that purpose. The proper
actings of affections lie between these two; that is, in an incomplete,
tumultuary volition. That God is not obnoxious to such volitions and incomplete
actings of the will, besides the general consideration of his perfections and
blessedness premised, is evident from that manner of procedure which is
ascribed to him. His purposes and his works comprise all his actings. As the
Lord hath purposed, so hath he done. “He worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will.” “Who hath known his mind? or who hath been his counsellor? Of
him, and through him, and to him, are all things” (Isaiah 14:24; Ephesians
1:11; Romans 11:33-36; Isaiah 40:13-14).
2.
They have their dependence on that wherewith he in whom they are is affected;
that is, they owe their rise and continuance to something without [external or outside of] him in whom they are. A
man’s fear ariseth from that or them of whom he is afraid; by them it is
occasioned, on them it depends. Whatever affects any man (that is, the stirring
of a suitable affection), in all that frame of mind and soul, in all the
volitions and commotions of will which so arise from thence, he depends on
something without [external or
outside of] him. Yea, our being affected with something without [external or outside of] lies at the bottom of most
of our purposes and resolves. Is it
thus with God, with him who is I AM? Exodus 3:14. Is he in dependence upon any
thing without [external or outside of] him? Is it not a most eminent
contradiction to speak of God in dependence on any other thing? Must not that
thing either be God or be reduced to some other without [external to or outside
of him] and besides him, who is God, as the causes of all our affections are?
“God is in one mind, and who can turn him? what his soul desireth, that he
doeth,” Job 23:13.
3.
Affections are necessarily accompanied with change and mutability; yea, he who is affected properly is really
changed; yea, there is no more unworthy change or alteration than that
which is accompanied with passion, as is the change that is wrought by the
affections ascribed to God. A sedate, quiet, considerate alteration is far less
inglorious and unworthy than that which is done in and with passion. Hitherto we have taken God upon his
testimony, that he is the “LORD, and he changeth not,” Malachi 3:6; that “with
him there is neither change nor shadow of turning;”—it seems, like the worms of
the earth, he varieth every day.
4.
Many of the affections here ascribed to God do eminently denote impotence;
which, indeed, on this account, both by Socinians and Arminians, is directly
ascribed to the Almighty. They make him affectionately and with commotion of
will to desire many things in their own nature not impossible, which yet he
cannot accomplish or bring about (of which I have elsewhere spoken); yea, it
will appear that the most of the affections ascribed to God by Mr B., taken in
a proper sense, are such as are actually ineffectual, or commotions through
disappointments, upon the account of impotency or defect of power.
Corol. To ascribe affections properly to God is to make him
weak, imperfect, dependent, changeable, and impotent ...
(1.)
Where no cause of stirring up affections or passions can have place or be
admitted, there no affections are to be admitted; for to what end should we
suppose that whereof there can be no use to eternity? If it be impossible any
affection in God should be stirred up or acted, is it not impossible any such
should be in him? The causes stirring up all affections are the access of some
good desired, whence joy, hope, desire, etc, have their spring; or the approach
of some evil to be avoided, which occasions fear, sorrow, anger, repentance,
and the like. Now, if no good can be
added to God, whence should joy and desire be stirred up in him? if no evil can befall him, in himself or
any of his concernments, whence should he have fear, sorrow, or repentance?
Our goodness extends not to him; he hath no need of us or our sacrifices, Psalm
16:2, 50:8-10; Job 35:6-8. “Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is
wise may be profitable to himself? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that
thou art righteous? or is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?”
chap. 22:2, 3.
(2.)
The apostle tells us that God is “Blessed for ever,” Romans 9:5; “He is the
blessed and only Potentate,” 1 Timothy 6:15; “God all-sufficient,” Genesis
17:1. That which is inconsistent with
absolute blessedness and all-sufficiency is not to be ascribed to God; to do so
casts him down from his excellency. But can he be blessed, is he
all-sufficient, who is tossed up and down with hope, joy, fear, sorrow,
repentance, anger, and the like? Doth not fear take off from absolute
blessedness? Grant that God’s fear doth not long abide, yet whilst it doth so,
he is less blessed than he was before and than he is after his fear ceaseth.
When he hopes, is he not short in happiness of that condition which he attains
in the enjoyment of what he hoped for? and is he not lower when he is
disappointed and falls short of his expectation? Did ever the heathens
speak with more contempt of what they worshipped? Formerly the pride of some
men heightened them to fancy themselves to be like God, without passions or
affections, Psalm 50:21; being not able to abide in their attempt against their
own sense and experience, it is now endeavored to make God like to us, in
having such passions and affections. My aim is brevity, having many heads to
speak unto. Those who have written on the attributes of God,—his
self-sufficiency and blessedness, simplicity, immutability, etc.,—are ready to
tender farther satisfaction to them who shall desire it.
-----------------------------------------------
(VI)
William Young (1918-2015)
Objection is raised against
the confusions noted below that have repeatedly led to the compromising and
denial of the sovereign grace of God.
1. The above remark suggests that the ascription of such a desire to God is often not simply a way of expressing the will of command, but is supposed to be something behind the command, a will in-between the command and the decree, a weak though ardent wish that can be frustrated and is frustrated in the case of many. Surely, no Calvinist can desire to ascribe such a desire to the Most High, although the devotees of free will have invented an antecedent will in God distinct from the consequent will of the final decree. If one cares, like John Howe, to speak of a complacential will, and means only that God is pleased whenever His precepts are obeyed, no objection need be raised as long as there is not confusion with the supposed antecedent will under the cover of the word “desire.”
2. A second source of confusion is the failure to recognize the use of anthropopathic language in Scripture passages that represent God’s actions as if they expressed passions like our own. No Christian holding the Bible to be free of contradiction can suppose that the Lord literally repents or regrets His own work of creation (Genesis 6:6-7). The same way of speaking after the manner of men applies to God’s desire as expressed in Psalm 81:14. It is a gross abuse of language when, not as homiletical hyperbole, but as a dogmatic formulation, human passions, often called emotions, are ascribed to God. Such a view is in conflict with the Confession of Faith, which declares God to be “a most pure Spirit ... without body, parts, or passions,” based on Acts 14:11, 15. The error is intensified when a questionable threefold faculty psychology is misapplied further, by representing God in the image of man, with emotions as well as intellect and will, and then arguing as if an emotional desire caused the will which is revealed in the free offer. Such prying into the secret things along with the obscuring of what has been revealed ought to be eschewed by all who reverently tremble at the Word of God.
3. That the desire is not simply meant as an anthropomorphic mode of emphasizing the revealed will becomes evident when the assertion is made that it is an instance of a deep paradox or antinomy not resolvable by logic. In the fact that God has decreed to save only some, but has commanded the gospel to be proclaimed indiscriminately to all, there is no contradiction, but simply the difference between God’s decree and His preceptive will. Why such a command is given may well be beyond our powers to fathom at least in this life, but there need not be an apparent, much less a real contradiction to those who are well instructed by the Word and Spirit of God. But to search behind the revealed will in the gospel offer for a divine inclination to save those who have been foreordained to everlasting wrath, can only appear to be ascribing a real contradiction in the will of God. The common evasion that this is only an apparent contradiction to us but not a real contradiction to God is nothing other than Kierkegaard’s own thesis as to the absolute paradox. It is not the historic position of Reformed theology.
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(VII)
More to come! (DV)
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