[Source: Reflections on the Free Offer and the Charge of
Hyper-Calvinism,
pp. 37-42]
… Matthew
5:43ff. does not teach that God loves all men (nor, for that matter, that God
loves all those whom He calls us to love). The WMO men insist it does—if not
directly, then by clear and necessary implication. But it does not.
We
can understand their reasoning, based on a surface reading of the text; just as
we understand why many might conclude, on the basis of a first reading I
Timothy 2:3-6, that it teaches a general atonement, or that Revelation 22:17
(“And whosoever will, let him take ...”) teaches free willism. But, in the
light of the rest of Scripture, do they? Is this what the apostles are actually
teaching in such passages? Not according to Reformed insight and explanation.
So it is with Matthew 5:43ff.
The
reasoning of the WMO men is clear. Christ calls us to love our enemies, namely,
even those who hate us, and to do good to them. Basically this amounts to
loving all men with whom we have contact, none to be excluded, not even our
enemies, loving them also as our neighbors. And, since Christ says this in the
context of showing ourselves to be children of God (i.e., reflecting the
character of God as our Father), what must one conclude but that God
must also love all men without distinction?
Surely
this is the clear and necessary implication.
Not
so. Such a conclusion is indeed an inference made by many, but that is exactly
the problem—it is but an inference. And not a necessary one at that.
Let
us be clear what we are saying here. We are not saying that this text is
proof against a free-offer kind of love; for that there are plenty of other
texts in Scripture. We are saying that Matthew 5:43ff. offers no proof for
any free-offer gospel. Such is something that must be read into the text.
Matthew 5:43ff. requires no free-offer idea in order to interpret it as it
stands, nor to bring home Christ’s point with power.
And
further, to insert a WMO concept requires one to do violence to any number of
other scriptural passages.
What
Christ is doing here is giving incentive and reason why we are to love even
those miserable, abusive, ungrateful enemies of ours, loving many more than
only those who love us—loving even those who have failed to treat us with the
respect and consideration we are sure we so richly deserve (at least I do! I do
not know about the rest of you!). And the reason which Christ gives is that God
also has loved such miserable ingrates throughout the centuries, and He still
does, as we well know. Christ is saying to His disciples, “Now, knowing that,
go and do thou likewise. Do that in order to demonstrate that you understand
what love and goodness has been shown to you as abusers of God and His Word.”
Yes, a love shown even to us who were once counted as the enemies of God (Eph.
2:11ff.).
But
note well: declaring that God has loved and saved many abusive ingrates
through the centuries, and has turned enemies into friends, is not the same as
saying He loves or has loved all the abusive ingrates of the human race.
That the text does not say.
Christ
chose His wording carefully.
The
simple, undeniable fact is that at no place in the passage does Christ utter
the words, “... for your Father also loves all men” or “... for your Father
also loves all of His enemies,” as if that is the reason why we are to show love
to all with whom we come into contact—we are to love even our enemies, because
God loves all His enemies, i.e., those who hate Him. He does not. Some He does
and has, but nowhere in Scripture do you read that God loves all His enemies.
Nor does Christ say that in this text.
The
passage says that God makes His sun to rise on all men without distinction, on
the evil and the good, and that He sends on all the cheering rain. He does
good to all alike. Therefore, so must we. But that still does not say God loves
them all alike. The sending of sunshine and rain does not indicate God’s
desiring a salvation for all. In His sending of good things upon many of the
ungodly, God has a different purpose in mind, even as He has in our love for
many of our neighbors.
Indeed,
we are called to love all of our enemies. But that’s not because God
loves all of His, or ours either. That is not what Christ is saying. What
Christ is saying is, we are called to love all of our enemies because God
loved us, even us who were once God’s enemies. That is the significance of
verse 46, “For if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not
even the publicans the same?”
It
is obvious that Christ here is reminding His disciples of a love that goes
beyond the love of publicans, which is only for those who also loved them.
Christ is reminding them of God’s love, which love loved even those who did not
love Him. But that does not mean that Christ is saying that God loves all who
do not love Him. That is to read something in the text that is not there. The
conclusion is an extrapolation without any basis. Rather, the proof for this
love of God for those who did not love Him is His love for some, namely,
for them—Christ’s disciples. God loved and loves me, and many others who make
the same testimony (Gal. 2:20), who did not love Him at all. Who am I not to
love others likewise?
Not
only is this all that is necessary for Christ to make His point, but in this
way He makes His point in the most personally powerful way.
We
say again, to maintain that Matthew 5:43ff. teaches that God has a love for
everyone “because we as His children are to love all of our neighbors” is an
unwarranted inference. It reads something into the text that Christ carefully
avoids saying. And it puts one at odds with the rest of the Scriptures as well.
What
serves as motive for the believer to love and to do good to one’s enemies is
not an imagined love of God for all humanity and for all our enemies besides.
All that is necessary is the knowledge of God’s particular, personal love,
namely, that I was once numbered among God’s enemies (as was a certain young,
arrogant Saul of Tarsus of old), and yet He loved me, and returned me good for
evil. When I reflect on that love of God, I have more than enough incentive to
love my own personal enemies. And when I actually do reflect unto others
that love of God for me (what God was willing as the Divine parent to endure
from me), then I show as well that I am a child of God.
And
if we need any more motivation to love our enemies, consider that any number of
them may prove to be elect after all, maybe even from our own household.
We
say again, not only is a free-offer notion not found in the text, neither does
the text require such to bring its message home with power. Why do such, when
all it does is to force one to place this passage into contradiction with other
passages, and then necessitates calling upon a paradox once again to “save the
day”?
But
there remains another question in all of this, and that is, what is God’s
purpose in all of this? Why will Christ, God’s Son, have us express such a self-effacing,
self-denying, much-enduring love to all?
The
answer is twofold: the first (and surely the primary) reason is that our
rendering good for evil in longsuffering love is a means God is pleased to use
in a powerful way to draw others unto salvation. Consider I Peter 3:1ff. and
the calling of the Christian wife towards an unbelieving and perhaps even harsh
husband: “that ... they also may without the word be won by the [chaste]
conversation of the wives.”
But
the second part of the answer is that this is also the way God is pleased to
work out His decree of reprobation, working out the damnation of the
‘non-elect,’ and bringing upon them their just condemnation. I am not saying
this is a thought we are to relish. In fact, there is evidence in Scripture
that indicates quite the opposite (which we intend to consider next), but this
is a fact of Scripture and revelation. And we must be willing to be used by God
as such, if that is His will. It is no different than it was with Paul and the
gospel word that He was to bring to the Jews first of all, which Word he knew
would serve, in instance after instance, as a savor of death unto death. As he
cried out, “And who is sufficient for these things?” (II Cor. 2:16). But such
was his calling.
So
that salvation might find God’s true Israel, Paul went forth and did good,
bringing the Word, knowing that, even as he opened his mouth and preached, God
was using it to harden and judge the larger segment of his beloved kinsmen. And
yet, even in this hardening and condemning aspect of the good gospel preaching,
Paul was so bold as to call himself a “sweet savor of Christ” unto God (nota
bene!). In other words, what Paul was doing was pleasing to God, even in
his bringing the Word that was to serve as condemnation unto so many. It was so
intended by God all along. It belonged to God’s deeper purpose. And Paul had to
bring himself into submission to that reality.
And
note as well, this purpose of God to use the witness of His people unto the
condemnation of many is not something hidden. It is revealed and known. God in
His Word has made it plain that He will use us in that way. What is hidden is
who God is pleased to harden as a reprobate, why this one and not that one (me,
or you!); but that God will use the good words and actions of His own in this
hardening way is not hidden at all. Paul could not be plainer. We must also be
willing to be used in this way if God so wills.
But
our larger point is this: that this twofold purpose and effect not only belong
to the preaching, but are also part of the reason why God will have us do good
to all men and to show love to our enemies. It may not be why we want to do
these things (does anyone want to have his parental instruction used to
harden and condemn his own children?), but it still belongs to why our
Lord calls us to do these things.
So
it is also in Matthew 5:43ff.
Again
we reiterate, to prevent any misunderstanding, that the main reason we are
called to return good for evil is not so that many may be condemned through us.
God’s central reason surely is His good pleasure to use such to bring even
those of our enemies to conversion and faith. But this unto-condemnation-purpose
remains one of the reasons why God will have us to love and do good to the
neighbor. And it has that outcome as well, a divinely appointed outcome, to a
definite number no less.
But
God says, “You leave that with Me. You simply do unto others as I have done
unto you.”
A
passage that brings this all home with some power is Romans 12:20, 21. It is a
passage hotly disputed and universally altered. Few, it seems, want to live
with the plain teaching of this passage. Not even very many good men. Certainly
not the WMO men. They find this passage as difficult to come to terms with as
Romans 9:13. So they change its explanation to fit their WMO presuppositions.
Yes, of all things, they allow their theology to rule their exegesis.
Strange
as it may sound—that the WMO theologians of all men should allow their
doctrinal presuppositions to rule their exegesis, preventing the ‘freedom’ of
explaining a text according to its plain meaning (ask the late ‘rationalist’
Gordon Clark and that notorious ‘scholastic dogmatician’ Herman Hoeksema about
such persistent charges)—yet so it is.
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