Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou
persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this
day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.
(Acts 26:28-29)
WELL-MEANT OFFER
ARGUMENT:
“Was the apostle ‘more
loving and compassionate’ than God? For you say that God ‘only loves the elect,’
and yet Paul showed no discrimination in his compassion towards human
beings?”
“Paul’s evangelistic
compassion to all his hearers was wrought in him by the Holy Spirit. But surely
the Holy Spirit wouldn’t create in Paul such an evangelistic compassion for some
for whom the Holy Spirit had only hatred?”
QUESTION BOX:
Q. 1. “In denying the ‘well-meant
offer,’ are you saying that we must not desire all of our hearers to be saved?
(cf. Acts 26:29; Rom. 9:1-3, 10:1)”
The [controversy over] the well-meant
offer … is not whether we desire all to whom we preach or
witness to come to Christ and be saved, but whether God desires this … Fact is, that even the natural desire of the
preacher and church that all in the congregation or on the mission field be
saved by the work of the preacher and church, in the way of repentance and
faith, is consciously subjected to the sovereign will of God in predestination.
Paul conducted his ministry “for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain
the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (II Timothy 2:10). (David
J. Engelsma, PRTJ, vol. 47, no. 2 [April 2014], p. 70)
###########################
Q. 2. “The apostle Paul longed and prayed for the
conversion of all his hearers (Acts 26:29; Rom. 9:1-3, 10:1) … This being so,
then of what is that compassion in the preacher a reflection? Are we to be more loving, in scope, than God?” (David Silversides, The Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed
[2005], p. 56)
“The argument in
question proves too much. It proves that God on His part actually
attempts to save all humans, but fails. For we not only love our enemies,
but exert ourselves on their behalf, that is, try to save them. If
what is true of us must also be true of God, He, therefore, also tries to
save all humans, but fails. This trying includes giving Jesus Christ
to the death of the cross for all humans, for there can be no salvation apart
from the cross. Christ then died for all, but His death is
unavailing.
All of this speculative thinking results in an impotent God, one who is
frustrated by the will of sinners, and in a death of Christ that not only is a
failure but that also was not an effectual atonement for anyone.
Besides, this reasoning conflicts with the express testimony of the
Bible in Romans 8 and 9 that God loves only the elect with His saving love and
that Christ died effectually only for the elect.
The flaw in the reasoning of the argument is, first, that it is mere speculation—not
based on the Bible. The Bible does not teach that we are to love our
enemies or all humans ‘because God loves all His enemies.’ The
Bible clearly teaches that God ‘hates’ some
humans—God hated Esau (Romans 9), even though Jacob was called to love his
brother.
Theological conclusions must not be based merely on abstract reasoning,
but on definite biblical grounds. The Bible teaches that we are to love our
enemies—our enemies
personally, not as God’s enemies (cf. Psalm 139:21-22: “Do not I hate them
who hate thee? … I hate them with perfect hatred …”)—because God loves men and women who are His
enemies by nature, that is, the elect in the race who are by nature enemies on
their part of God.
Second, the reasoning is wrong in that it makes the comparison of our
love with God’s a matter of numbers (if we are to love all, God must
also love all). Fact is, the comparison is, rather, in the reality of
God’s (particular) love of His enemies. As God loves His enemies,
regardless that they are only some of the human race, so also are we to love
our enemies, regardless that they are more in number than those whom God
loves.
This does not make us more loving than God, for the greatness of
love is not found in the mere number
of objects of love. The greatness of love is found in that the objects
of divine love are unworthy of love,
and in what love does for the beloved—the love of God gave the only
begotten Son for the objects of love.
Truth is that, as a Christian, I must love some whom God hates, and this
manifests the love of God, who loves men and women who hate Him, though not all
humans who hate Him. These objects of His love are not a ‘few,’ but an innumerable
multitude.” (Prof. David J.
Engelsma, 20/02/2017)
“Paul expressed his desire that all
Israel be saved. Moses did something of the same thing when he prayed to God
that He would spare Israel after their sin of worshipping the golden calf at
Sinai. Moses loved God’s church so much that he was willing to go to hell for
them (Ex. 32:32).
Has the defender of common grace never
pleaded with God to spare someone whom he loved? His wife dying of cancer? His
son who has fled home and lives a godless life? Have not godly parents, while
watching their little child writhe in pain, wished that they could suffer in
the place of their child?
God showed Moses and Paul that His will
was not to save everyone. Moses learned this when God declared, ‘[I] will be
gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I
will shew mercy’ (33:19). Paul wrote that, in spite of his personal
desires, God does not save all Israel; He desires to save (and, therefore,
saves) the true Israel of election (Rom. 9:6-8). God does not desire to
save reprobate Jews or Gentiles: ‘As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but
Esau have I hated’ (13); ‘Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will [or wants to] have mercy, and whom he will [or
wants to] he hardeneth’ (18); ‘Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the
same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if
God, willing [or wanting or desiring] to shew his wrath, and to make
his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction ...’ (21-22).
And so the believer, in his anguish,
prays, ‘Thy will be done,’ and seeks the higher purpose in life’s sorrows: the
glory of Almighty God.
I might add that neither Moses nor Paul
had to go to hell because of their sin or the sin of the church, for Christ suffered
for all His church so that, by the power of His particular and efficacious
atonement, all the elect are saved from the hell we deserve.” (Herman C. Hanko, “Covenant Reformed
News,” vol. 16, no. 14 [June 2017])
###########################
Q. 3. “The Holy Spirit was the author and approver of the
apostle Paul’s evangelistic compassion towards his hearers, elect and reprobate
(Acts 26:29; Rom. 9:1-3; 10:1). Did the Holy Spirit create in Paul such an
evangelistic compassion for some for whom the Holy Spirit had only hatred? …
The desire God created and approved of in the apostle must reflect something
analogous in God Himself for the creation and approval of it to be consistent
with his own holy character …” (David Silversides, The Free Offer: Biblical & Reformed [2005], pp. 56, 84)
“Using
similar argumentation, someone could also say, ‘The Holy Spirit creates in us
repentance and the desire to repent … Surely, therefore, the Holy Spirit
has desires to repent ...?’ Or, ‘The Holy Spirit works in us faith, and He
works in us the desire to believe more and more (‘Lord, increase our faith’—Luke
17:5). Does not this mean that the Holy Spirit Himself ‘believes’? or ‘desires
to believe’ ...?”
What
the Holy Spirit works in us are desires that are fitting for a ‘creature’ to
walk in the will of God. Ones appropriate for a ‘creature’ are not appropriate
for God.
For
instance, human beings have souls and different thoughts and emotions. As
creatures, it is appropriate for us to think things from several different
perspectives. Let’s say, for example, that someone known to us sins. You feel
really angry for what that person has done, or done to somebody else, and yet
you also feel ‘pity’ towards that person (‘If only that person realised what
they were doing ... they’re going to ruin their lives’).
What
is the will of God in this situation? The will of God, if this person is an
elect, is to save them (‘all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose’—Rom. 8:28), His desire in
this situation is to sanctify this person, or maybe use it to bring him
to repentance later on.
God
has one desire; and yet God, by His
Spirit, makes us human beings, who are creatures who don’t know everything, to
feel various emotions and sentiments correlating to the various perspectives of
events (i.e. we only see a little bit of what’s going on and react in all the
ways in which limited human beings react—we don’t know the past or the future
and we don’t know what’s going on, etc.). (Rev.
Angus Stewart, public lecture: “God’s Saving Will in the New Testament,”
Q&A session)
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