23 June, 2022

Isaiah 45:22—“Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth …”


Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else (Isa. 45:22).

 

 

WELL-MEANT OFFER ARGUMENT:

“Look unto me, and be ye saved” is often suggested to say that God desires for all men head for head be saved—aka, the general, gracious, well-meant offer of salvation on God’s part to all men, behind which lies a divine willingness to save everyone …

 

 

(I)

 

Prof. David J. Engelsma

 

This is the explanation of Isaiah 45:22, taking into account the erroneous explanation of the passage by the proponents of the well-meant offer (wm offer).  The wm offer explains it as the expression by God of His sincere desire to save all humans without exception.  He graciously makes salvation available to all by the offer, but the outcome of the offer depends upon the acceptance of the offer by those to whom the offer comes.

The right explanation of the passage, which does not make God dependent upon humans and which does not make salvation the act of the sinner, is that the passage is what the Reformed faith calls the “external call of the gospel.”  This is the call, or command, that comes to many more than are saved.  It comes in the written Word of the Bible or in the preaching of the gospel.  This is the call to which Jesus refers when He says that many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 20:16).  It is distinct from the inner, effectually saving call of Romans 8:30—“whom he did predestinate, them he also called:  and whom he called, them he also justified:  and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”  The call of Romans 8 is determined by predestination, or election, and effectually saves.  This is the call by the gospel that is also applied to the heart of the predestinated sinner by the Holy Spirit.  The full, saving call of the gospel, that of Romans 8, is both external in the preaching of the gospel and inward in the accompanying work of the Holy Spirit in the heart causing the external call (in Isaiah 45 described as looking unto God) to be effectual in the saving looking unto God of the sinner.  The external aspect of the call goes out to many more than those who are saved by it:  Many are called, but few are chosen (elected).

Isaiah 45 extends the external call to all who hear the gospel.  With the call to look to God, which looking is salvation, for it is a looking in faith, comes an incentive to do so:  the promise that everyone who so looks will be saved.

The last clause, “for I am God,” is at the same time the ground for the call to look to God and the ground for trusting that the promise that everyone who looks will be saved is true and reliable.  All ought to look to God, because He is God, the one and only God, worthy of this looking.  His promise that everyone who looks will be saved is sure, because He is God, who will not lie.  The call of Isaiah 45 makes the sinner responsible for rejecting the call.  Even those who rejected the call of Isaiah 45 will bow the knee to God (Isaiah 45:23).

Another important element of the passage, that is often overlooked, is that the call of Isaiah 45 opens up the prospect of the salvation of the Gentiles in the day of Jesus Christ and Pentecost.  In Isaiah’s time salvation was limited to the Jews.  But the time is coming when salvation goes out to the “ends of the earth.”

The question for the advocates of the wm offer is, who will look to God in response to the call of the text?  And, who will be saved by thus looking, and why?  That is, to whom will God make the external call also internal, and saving?  To whom, thus, is the call of the prophet and of the gospel gracious?  Answer of Romans 8:  whom He did predestinate (elect), them He also called.  In the external call (“look unto me”) God is not gracious to all who hear, but only to some.  By the external call, it is God’s will to save some only—those whom He has elected.  “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  This is the same as to say, the external call comes to many, but in the external call God is gracious only to few, willing their salvation.  These are the words of Jesus Himself.

By their explanation of the passage, that has God sincerely and graciously desiring the salvation of all who hear the external call, “look unto me,” the advocates of the wm offer make salvation dependent upon the will of the sinner.  The reason why some come to God and are saved is not the calling God—for He calls all alike in grace—but the will of the sinners.  Their acceptance of the wm offer makes the difference and is the reason, finally, for their salvation.  The wm offer gives the glory of salvation to the sinner himself.  In the language of Isaiah 45, God graciously offers salvation to all alike, with the gracious will to save all alike.  But only some accept the offer, apparently by their own free will.  This accounts for their salvation.

It is this heresy of the wm offer that we who deny the wm offer oppose.

(DJE, 13/06/2022)

 

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(II)

 

Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965)

 

(a)

 

[Source: A Power of God Unto Salvation, Or, Grace Not An Offer, p. 76]


If I preach in my congregation: I promise ten dollars to all who have no work and are in need, if they come to me, then that is a general proclamation of a particular promise. The proclamation is general, the promise is particular. It is a particular offer … When God calls: O all ye that thirst come to the waters, then this is proclaimed in general, but the promise concerns only the elect … And since it is God Himself who must work the true [thirst], it is as plain as day that all these passages basically concern only the elect.

 

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(b)

 

[Source: The Gospel, Or, The Most Recent Attack Against the Truth of Sovereign Grace, pp. 113-114]

In the first place, we do not have here an offer, but a calling and a promise which is completely limited by the content of the calling. “Look unto me,”—that is the calling. That is altogether different from an offer. And note carefully that it is God, the Lord of heaven and earth, who has created the heavens and formed the earth and made it, who is the Lord, and there is no God beside Him (vv. 18, 21), who here calls. And when He calls, then no creature has the right to neglect that calling, to cast it to the winds, to despise it, to act as if He does not call. The creature must answer. He must say Yes or No. For God is GOD. And the idols are no gods. “Look unto me” means: “Turn away from the idols, forsake them, and bow down before Me in the acknowledgement that I alone am God, and that there is none beside Me.” And then the creature says, “Yes, Lord, Thou alone art God,” or he says, “No, Lord, I will never acknowledge Thee,” and, “Yes, idol, thou art my God.” And in both instances God is justified when He judges. He judges concerning the first: be saved; and over the second: be accursed! There is no offer whatsoever in the text, therefore.

Precisely because God is GOD, He can never offer anything. Offering is not a divine work. He who says that God offers something does not know God, reduces God to an idol! What we do indeed have in the text is: calling and promise. The text is thoroughly particular in its content. Expressed dogmatically, the text intends to say: “He who looks unto me shall be saved: for I am God, and there is none beside Me!” But I will go even further. I will also deny that the general element which [is popularly thought to be in the text], as though here salvation is offered or promised to all men, head for head and soul for soul, is altogether missing from it. [Those who would promote the notion of a well-meant offer of grace and salvation on the part of God to all men wish] to make of the text an offer, and to make of “all the ends of the earth” all men. And in both instances [they do] violence to Scripture. Not only do the words “all the ends of the earth” surely not mean all men, but also in the light of the context they cannot possibly mean that.

Notice that the following context also very plainly teaches that God does not only call all the ends of the earth, but that all the ends of the earth also actually come and are saved. For the chapter continues as follows in the immediate context: “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” And that this is intended in the saving sense appears plainly from the immediately following verse (24): “Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come.” The ends of the earth, therefore, also come. From the east and west and north and south they look unto the Lord. And they are also saved. Now, is that all men? Certainly not, for at the end of verse 24 we read: “and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.” And if then you finally ask: but who then are these ends of the earth which look unto the Lord and are saved by the almighty word of righteousness that is gone out of His mouth? Then verse 25 tells us that all the seed of Israel is meant: “In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.” And if [the advocate of the general, well-meant offer] understands prophecy and is not a Chiliast, then he will grant me that “the ends of the earth” and “every knee and tongue” mean the same as “all the seed of Israel” … But “the ends of the earth” never mean all men. This is not even true if you should understand verse 21 as referring only to the external call. It was still eight hundred years after this word was spoken by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah that even that external call, in so far at least as it goes forth through the preaching of the gospel, came to all the ends of the earth. And even thereafter it did not go forth to all men. There is, therefore, no single respect in which the explanation which [the advocate of the well-meant offer] wants to give of this text holds good … There is no offer; the entire context is very particular.

 

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(III)

 

Rev. Matthew Winzer 

[Source: “Murray on the Free Offer: A Review,” in The Blue Banner, vol. 9, issue 10–12, (October/December 2000), p. 18.]

Isaiah 45:22

Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” is referred to by the report as expressing “the will that all should turn to him and be saved. What God wills in this sense he certainly is pleased to will. If it is his pleasure to will that all repent and be saved, it is surely his pleasure that all repent and be saved.”48

That the text expresses “the will that all should turn to him and be saved,” there can be no debating; for the word should speaks of the obligation to turn and be saved. Likewise, there can be no debating with the ensuing sentence: “What God wills in this sense he certainly is pleased to will.” For, as was stated in the context of the report’s introduction, God’s preceptive will is the duty which He is pleased to oblige men to. But somehow the report adds 1 to 1 and, instead of arriving at 2, suggests that the answer is 11. For the next sentence says: “If it is his pleasure to will that all repent and be saved, it is surely his pleasure that all repent and be saved.”

The conclusion is inconsistent with what was premised. It was premised that God wills that all should turn to Him and be saved, not that God wills that all turn to Him and be saved. As with the introduction of the report, there is here discovered an inability to distinguish between obligation and futurition. The conclusion that it is God’s will and pleasure that all repent and be saved, is a will and pleasure for the futurition of the event, and predicates something of the decretive aspect of God’s will. The correct conclusion, given the premises of the syllogism, would thus have been: it is surely his pleasure that all should repent and be saved.

Thus restricting the preceptive will to the realm of obligation, the report would have been delivered of the error of asserting two contradictory things with regard to God’s will. As it stands, however, it has said that God both wills and does not will that all be saved. It is to no avail to name one of these wills preceptive whilst accrediting to it a decretive nature. Such a procedure only serves to confuse the issue.


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FOOTNOTES:

48. Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 4 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), p. 127.

  

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(IV)

 

More to come! (DV)

 

 


 

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