PREFACE
The subject of this essay concerns the inroads made
by the doctrine of universal Divine benevolence in respect to
the plan of redemption in Presbyterian Churches throughout the
English speaking world and in Reformed Churches generally. It
is expressed in a system of doctrine known as modified Calvinism,
which in its latest form is qualified as being modern; that is,
modern modified Calvinism.
The essay has as its immediate background a controversy
which has existed between this Church and the Presbyterian Church
of Eastern Australia (known also as Free Church) since 1963. A
closer history of the matter is given in the Vindication
published by our Presbytery on the 12th February 1965. From the
outset this controversy has concerned the following two forms
of modified Calvinism, which are inseparable in respect to their
underlying principles:
- The doctrine of the book of the Marrow Of
Modern Divinity as explained hereafter under the heading,
"A History Of Modified Calvinism."
- That in the free offer of the gospel, God desires
the salvation of all men, even the reprobate, as proposed by the
Professors Murray and Stonehouse in their booklet, The Free
Offer of the Gospel.
Both are condemned in our Church: the first, because
the Book of the Marrow was condemned by the 1720 and 1722 Acts
of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland which are embraced by
virtue of the constitution of our Church, and the second, because
its series of inherent ambiguities and contradictions are contrary
to the principle of interpretation of Scripture.
The Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia (Free
Church) at its 1971 Synod published a paper in justification of
the doctrine identified in this essay as modern modified Calvinism,
and has thereby made it an officially received doctrine in that
Church.
While the basic principles of modified Calvinism,
old and modern, are explained in this essay, this treatment is
not claimed to be an exhaustive or an exclusive one. It is acknowledged
that a controversy of similar nature preceded this one, under
the heading of 'common grace' within the Christian Reformed Church
in the United States. That controversy lead to the establishment
in 1924 of the Protestant Reformed Churches in that country.
Modern modified Calvinism is identified herein as
a system of doctrine, rather than as an intrusion of the principles
of Arminianism in the Reformed Churches. Like Arminianism, it
is a system of doctrine in its own right. Both are forms of doctrine
which derive from the principle of self salvation (autosoterism)
and universalism. Autosoterism, which assumes that man has ability
in total or in part to save himself, in the history of doctrine,
goes hand in hand with the universalism that God loves all men,
even the reprobate, and desires to save them. In the discussion
of this essay, modified Calvinism is not treated as a controversy
within the Calvinistic system. Rather the controversy is one between
two different and opposing systems of theology. For this reason
the essay is presented under the heading, "Universalism and
the Reformed Churches: A Defence of Calvin's Calvinism."
This essay, therefore, has four basic purposes, as
follows:
- To trace the development of modified Calvinism
as it was found in the Schools of Davenant and Amyraut from the
early part of the seventeenth century to its present modern modified
form.
- To demonstrate that modern modified Calvinism
is a system which is based on a concept of the nature of God other
than that which belongs to Calvin's Calvinism, and is completely
destructive of his system, which has been the bulwark of the Reformed
Churches, the foundation of their Confessional Standards, and
the source of their dynamic for over four hundred years.
- To show that modern modified Calvinism, when
brought into a Reformed Church constitutes an addition to her
doctrinal standards and the principles of the Word of God.
- To set forth the consequences of modern modified
Calvinism in the doctrine of the Church and the society in which
we live.
The Apostle Paul, in his farewell message to the
Church at Ephesus, gave warning in the following terms, "I
know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter
in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall
men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after
them." (Acts 20:29,30). The Church has not been free of this
danger in any age and in this no less than in any other.
Since the beginning of the seventeenth century, universalism,
in the form of modified Calvinism, has been the "Trojan Horse,"
which from within, has brought about the decline and fall of the
great Churches which arose out of the Reformation.
In England, Scotland, Canada, the United States and
Australia, all those Churches, apart from a few small remnants,
now embrace the liberal theology which denies the absolute authority
and inerrancy of Scripture. The first step which led down the
broad pathway to that from true religion, was taken when the pulpits
and courts of those Churches modified the Calvinism of their Confessional
Standards by allowing the principle of universalism that God desires
the salvation of all men. Modified Calvinism first became official
in those Churches, when their courts passed a declaratory act,
which allowed doctrines which were less precise and softened the
particularism of the Calvinism of their original standards. It
is also to be regretted, that even most of the remnants of those
Churches are now also subject to the same modifying principles
of universalism.
The root problem in the failure of the once reformed
churches is not liberalism or Arminianism, but modified Calvinism.
It is modified Calvinism which leads the church into Arminianism
and then to liberalism.
It may well be asked, how can this be so? The process
has been a gradual one which has extended from a period of twenty
years to one or two generations or more. Both modern modified
Calvinists and Arminians are identified in that they accept the
notion that God desires the salvation of all men, and preach a
gospel which is divorced from the true nature of the law, which
is given to bring sinners to Christ. The former seldom offends
the latter by their preaching. Rather, as a public witness, instead
of defending the Word of God on the basis of the Calvinism of
the Confessional Standards, which were once the foundation of
their Churches, modern modified Calvinists prefer to join forces
with Arminians in an unrealistic confrontation with liberalism
and Roman Catholicism. In this way the distinctions between Calvinism
and Arminianism are done away with.
The next stage of the process is that the emphasis
of the pulpit passes to that in which God's benevolence, being
held to be universal, is made the greatest and most important
of His attributes, to the exclusion of His justice and wrath against
the wicked. Love, not the fear of God, is made the beginning of
wisdom. The totality of the fall, election, predestination and
reprobation become unpopular and discredited doctrines.
When the Church moves to that point, it is not long
before the justice and wrath of God are said to belong to the
God of the Old Testament and not the New Testament. To the logic
of the natural mind the Scriptures which speak of the attribute
of God's justice are inconsistent with the idea of an all loving
God. The natural man has then come to the place of liberal theology.
He then assumes that Scripture is but a record of man's searching
after God, and so he develops his critical theories, which entirely
dispose of the true nature of the authority and inspiration of
Scripture. This has been the process in the history of the Church
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, during which time,
modified Calvinism led to Arminianism and liberalism as surely
as night has followed day. Thus the root cause of the failure
of once Reformed Churches, is not Arminianism or liberalism, but
modified Calvinism.
There can only be a revival of true religion in our
day when first, the concepts of modern modified Calvinism are
overthrown in those Churches which claim to be Reformed. Then
and only then, will the Reformed Churches have returned to the
Calvinism of their original standards, and be in the position
to deal with the doctrinal and philosophical errors of our age,
including Arminianism and liberalism. Then will Calvin's Calvinism
and the purity of the Church and her doctrine be restored.
The churches of the Reformation arose within national
boundaries and generally adopted their own confessional standards
or those to which they had contributed. For example, the Dutch
Church adopted the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dordt;
the Swiss Church, the Helvetic Confession and the Scottish Church,
the Westminster Confession. These Confessions each declared the
fundamental doctrines of the Word of God which had been systematised
and taught in Geneva by the great reformer John Calvin. As long
as they remained true to the Word of God, the courts of those
Churches were diligent in the defence of their Confessions and
would not allow any principle which modified Calvin's system.
As the children of Israel grew tired of God's provision
of manna in the wilderness, so the Church in times of decline,
has grown tired of God's truth and preferred a doctrine more comfortable
to the natural mind of man. In that state of mind, men conclude
that they have a natural ability to please God and so believe
that they can contribute to their salvation, or that they possess
something that is desirable to God and deserving of His love and
favour.
Every modification of Calvin's system of theology
has taken place under the notion that God desires the salvation
of all men. This notion lay at the root of the system of Arminius
who was Professor of Theology at Leyden in Holland in 1603. His
five points of doctrine in opposition to Calvinism were condemned
by the Synod of Dordt in 1618-19.
In England the notion of a universal desire in God
for salvation of all men was also the root principle of the Davenant
School at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This school
taught that there is in the redemption purchased by Christ, an
absolute intention for the elect and a conditional intention for
the reprobate in case they do believe. It was the forerunner of
the system of Moses Amyraut on the Continent, who better systematised
the same principles under a doctrine of hypothetical redemption.
In 1645 an obscure writer, Edward Fisher, wrote the
first part of a book called The Marrow of Modern Divinity
and its second part, which appears to be an attempt to correct
the antinomianism of the first in 1649. Though it bore the imprimatur
of Puritan license, little more is known of the origin of the
book, other than it carried the recommendatory letters of Caryl,
Burroughes and Strong who were members of the Westminster Assembly
(1643-1649), and was also supported by Arrowsmith, Sprigge, Prittie
and others, all of whom were of the Davenant School persuasion.
The terms of the book are in every respect consistent with the
theology of that school.
The following sentences are a sample of its contents:
- "Christ hath taken upon Him the sins of
all men."
- Of Christ, "The Father hath made a deed
of gift and grant unto all mankind."
- "Whatsoever Christ did for the redemption
of mankind, He did it for you."
- "Go and tell every man without exception,
that here is good news for him, Christ is dead for him."
In the Westminster Assembly (1645-49) the particularistic
divines, led by the Scottish Commissioners, Rutherford and Gillespie,
debated the question of limited atonement on the 22nd October
1645 with a strong body of Davenant divines, nine of whom are
recorded by name in the minutes which record the debate in the
Assembly. Both parties were agreed that the atonement contains
an absolute intention for the elect only, but were not agreed
that the atonement contained a conditional intention for the reprobate.
(See Appendix: The Five Points Of Amyraldianism.)
The minutes reveal that the debate was entirely amicable.
This attitude of the Assembly to the Davenant School was confirmed
later in the same year on 4th December, when the Assembly defended
the reputation of Moses Amyraut against the complaints of one
Andrew Rivett.
While the Assembly did not include in its formularies
any statement which entered the opinions of the Davenant School,
it did not include any which specifically excluded them. It is
clear that the Davenant School divines accepted the final formularies
of the Assembly without protest, believing that their doctrines,
while not included, were not excluded, and expecting that they
would pass into the law of the Church by Act of Parliament.
The record shows that English Presbyterianism from
its inception was broad in its doctrine of redemption. Not only
were the doctrines of Arrowsmith and Calamy allowed, but also
those of Richard Baxter went unchallenged. It may be said that
the School of Davenant in England, was a basic reason why Calvinism
did not take permanent root in England, in the same way that the
School of Amyraut contributed to the decline in the theology of
the Huguenot Church in France.
History provides ample evidence, that when a Church
modifies her Calvinism, she loses her conviction and hold of the
truth.
In spite of the 28 years of the persecuting and killing
times which began with the restoration of Charles II to the English
throne, and in spite of the weaknesses imposed on the Scottish
Church by the Revolution Settlement in 1689/90, and the disturbed
political situation which ensued during the first part of the
eighteenth century in Scotland, the Scottish Church maintained
a fully particularistic doctrinal position. This however, was
disturbed during the second decade of that century when certain
of her ministers, Hog, Boston, Erskine and others brought into
their pulpits the doctrine of the Marrow of Modern Divinity,
which, about seventy years before, had received wide support among
the Davenant School divines.
The Calvinism of the Church was preserved, when the
General Assembly, in its Acts of 1720 and 1722, condemned the
book of the Marrow on several grounds, one of which was
that its terms advocated a universality of redemption as to purchase.
The Acts were a declaration of the doctrine of the Church as it
was held at the time.
From the day of their enactment to the present, these
Acts have been assailed by every shade of theological opinion,
from liberal to evangelical fundamentalism, either on the ground
that the Westminster Confession and Catechisms do not specifically
condemn the doctrine of the book of the Marrow, or on the
specious ground, that the terms of that book do not teach a universality
of redemption as to purchase. Of the many references in Free Church
literature which support the Marrow, the most extensive
is given in John McLeod's Scottish Theology in which he
oversimplifies the controversy by treating it as one involving
a misunderstanding about the meaning of terms.
The whole difference between the positions of the
Church of Scotland and the Westminster Assembly in this matter,
relative to the formularies of the later, as we have already shown,
was that the Westminster Assembly on the one hand, did not specifically
exclude a conditional intention in the redemption purchased by
Christ, whereas, the Church of Scotland on the other hand, in
its application of the formularies, excluded it.
Unless this difference is understood, the proper
significance of the Acts of the Church of Scotland Assembly in
1720 and 1722 cannot be realised.
It is significant that the assembly of the Church
of Scotland relied on these Acts when it deposed John MacLeod
Campbell in 1831 for preaching doctrines similar to the Amyraldian
system. MacLeod Campbell's defence was largely comprised of an
attempt to prove the 1720 and 1722 Acts invalid by virtue of the
fact that they had not been subjected of the Barrier Act of 1697
which requires:
That before any General Assembly of this Church
shall pass any acts which are binding rules and constitutions
to the Church, the same acts be first proposed as overtures to
the Assembly, and being by them passed as such, be remitted to
the consideration of the several Presbyteries of this Church,
and their opinions and consent be reported by their Commissioners
to the next General Assembly following, who may then pass the
same in Acts, if the more general opinion of the Church thus had
agreed hereunto.
Since the Assembly in its Acts of 1720 and 1722 had
not altered the doctrine of the Church, but had simply declared
it, as it was then held, there was no case to pass on to Presbyteries,
in terms of the Barrier Act. The submission of MacLeod Campbell
thus failed. Had he been successful in this, Amyraldianism could
not have been excluded under the Constitutional Standards of the
Church of Scotland by such means.
The Westminster Confession, chapter 3, sections 6
and 8, and the larger Catechism No. 59,
which are relative to this controversy,
are positive statements of the Scripture doctrine concerning the
application of the redemption purchased by Christ. In no sense
do they have a negative reference.
Chapter 3 section 6, Of God's eternal Decree
in part reads as follows:
Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam,
are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ
by His (the) Spirit working in due season; are 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.
These statements from the Westminster formularies
are exclusive if taken 'a priori' in the absolute sense that redemption
has no other reference than to the elect. William Cunningham in
his Historical Theology takes this position, and we agree.
However, unless the courts of the Church declare that position,
there is no authority which is particularistic apart from private
opinion.
In view of the debate in the Assembly, the manner
in which the formularies were applied in England, the argument
of the Schools of Davenant and Amyraut, and the ambiguous system
of modified Calvinism since the beginning of the eighteenth century,
the question of application of the Westminster formularies to
the doctrine of universal redemption as to purchase, and the terms
of the Marrow can only be decided by a Declaratory Act
of the Church. Herein lies the proper application of the Acts
of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1720 and 1722.
The Marrowmen, like their modern counterparts, attempted
to hold to the particularism of Calvinism and at the same time
preach the gospel in the universalistic terms of the Marrow.
They therefore reinterpreted the terms of the book from that of
its original context within the School of Davenant, and declared
against the obvious, that it did not have reference to universal
redemption. Boston took upon himself such an exercise, when under
an assumed name, to hide his identity, he issued an edited version
in 1726.
The doctrinal manifesto of the Associate Presbytery
of the Seceders from the Church of Scotland in 1742 stated the
following impossible contradictions:
- "No such doctrine as universal redemption
as to purchase is taught in the Marrow."
- "That God the Father His making a
deed of gift and grant unto all mankind...does not infer a universal
redemption as to purchase."
The Marrow theology is thus committed to the
following ambiguities:
- "Christ has taken upon Him the sins of all
men," and being a "deed of gift and grant unto all mankind,"
is not a universal purchase of the death of Christ, therefore
it logically follows that,
- He said deed of gift and grant of Christ to all
mankind is effective only to the elect, ie., an infallible redemption
gifted to all secures only a portion of its objects.
- A deed of gift and grant to all is only an offer.
In other words, Christ is gifted to all, without that He died
for them.
- Since the gift of Christ to all is not a benefit
purchased by the atonement, the substance of the free offer of
the gospel, does not consist of Christ as redeemer, but only as
a friend.
Thus it was the Marrowmen in the first half of the
eighteenth century who first injected into the stream of Scottish
theology the ambiguous and contradictory system which has been
the subtle vehicle or Trojan horse which for two hundred and fifty
years has worked to the downfall of the Calvinism of Presbyterian
and Reformed Churches throughout the world.
Modern modified Calvinism is but a refinement of
the same system. Like the Marrowmen, as demonstrated hereafter,
it presents the gospel in universalistic terms. It does so by
introducing a system of interpretation of Scripture which brings
in a doctrine of divine precepts and decrees, which not only perpetuates
the errors of the Marrow, but extends the ambiguities and
contradictions of that system.
As previously intimated, modern modified Calvinism
is now the received doctrine of most Presbyterian and Reformed
Churches which represent them selves as holding to the doctrines
of the Calvinistic Reformation. Its position is clearly stated
by Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology, also in the
booklet by Professors Murray and Stonehouse, The Free Offer
of the Gospel which was first published by the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church of America in 1948.
Lest we be misunderstood when we deny the universality
of the love of God, let it be clearly understood, that we are
not controverting the fact that God is good to all, for, "He
maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and unjust" (Matt. 5:45). Rather, we are concerned
with refuting the doctrine which teaches that God's goodness in
sending temporal blessings upon all, is indicative of His love
and long-suffering in redemption toward the nonelect, and
a desire in Him that they might be saved. We maintain that the
gospel is given for the purpose of separating the elect from the
reprobate, and in the providence of God, in the case of the latter
who hear it, for their greater condemnation.
The center and core of the Calvinistic system is
that the sole purpose and end of creation, the fall of angels
and men, and the plan of redemption is the glory of God and the
manifestation of His perfections. This teaching of the Scripture
is expressed in the terms of our Confession:
Chapter 3: Of God's Eternal Decree.
Section 3. 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.
Section 4. 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.
The natural man has always refused to receive unconditionally
the teaching of Scripture, that all mankind is wholly alienated
from God, except for those chosen in Christ from the foundation
of the world. With him is identified the evangelical fundamentalist
who modifies the teaching of Scripture in either or both the following
ways by teaching that:
- All men are possessed of a natural ability, and
are able to please God and contribute to their own salvation.
- All men are the objects of God's love and favour
to the extent that He desires their salvation.
It is the second of these teachings which is openly
taken by those who are classified herein as 'modern modified Calvinists.'
It cannot be denied that the notion that God desires the salvation
of all men is a modification and softening of the statement of
the Confession quote above, or that the designation, 'modern modified
Calvinist' is applicable.
Modern modified Calvinists attempt to justify their
position by claiming on the one hand, that they hold the particularistic
terms of the standards of their Church and the Reformation, while
on the other, they modify and soften the terms of those standards
by bringing in the notion that God desires the salvation of all
men in the free offer of the gospel.
Two things motivate modern modified Calvinists. First,
the desire to adhere to the traditions of their Church and the
Reformation, hence their attachment to their Confessional standards,
while modifying them under that which constitutes their second
motive, namely, the naturalistic concept under which they present
the gospel.
The outworking of their system is seen in the following
list of ambiguities and contradictions to which their theology
is committed:
- God desires the salvation of all men, but has
Himself ordained that the nonelect shall perish.
- Though God desires to save all, He does not grant
to all the gifts of faith and repentance by which they must be
saved.
- The nature of God's love is changeable. In life
He loves the nonelect, even though He has made them the
objects of His everlasting displeasure and wrath. In death, God's
love to the nonelect ceases, and only His wrath remains.
- God does not inwardly call by His Spirit all
those He earnestly desires to save and so He had a desire which
is at variance to His will as an efficient cause to the doing
of all His good pleasure.
- God Himself expresses an ardent desire for the
fulfilment of certain things which He has not decreed in His inscrutable
counsel to come to pass. This means that there is a will to the
realisation of what He has not decretively willed, a pleasure
towards that which He has not been pleased to decree.
Modern modified Calvinists attempt to hide the fact
of the contradictions and ambiguities of their system behind the
mystery of Divine Sovereignty. Any attempt at exposure of their
falsity is immediately said to be an unwarranted intrusion into
the secret counsels of the Divine Mind.
The immediate problems raised by this system are
fourfold.
- In the first place its proponents present themselves
as the true representatives and exponents of the Reformed faith,
whereas in truth, they represent it in a state of error and decline.
- In the second place it produces a preaching which
cannot, because of its contradictions and ambiguities, logically
uphold the principles of the Reformed faith, but rather destroys
them. In place of the principles of faith, it concentrates on
preaching up the fruits of reform in terms of attitudes, feelings
and dispositions toward Christ. In this regard it is most deceptive
to the hearer because its terminology concerning the fruits of
the Spirit is Reformed, but divorced from the principles of the
Word of God which are given to produce them. As discussed later,
it separates the law from the gospel and holds out a Christ who
belongs to every man.
- In the third place there is the matter of the
effect of the doctrine on man's behaviour. Many good men have
unwittingly embraced this system not knowing whence it would lead
them. Others may have wilfully pursued it. Since "Man looketh
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart"
(I Sam. 61:7), we can but judge the system and its fruits, and
leave the judgment of persons and their motives to God. It is
never the less a scriptural principle concerning man, "As
he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7). This is
borne out in the trends in the moral behaviour of modern man,
which are a direct result of the permissive philosophies under
which he lives. If by the grace of God, man is brought to adhere
with singleness of purpose to the moral law of God, then he will
be upright before God and man. In religion, man's behaviour is
a reflection of his concept of the God he worships. If he adopts
a concept which ascribes duplicity to the mind of God, his system
of doctrine will also be contradictory and ambiguous. If then
he lives by that doctrine, it would seem to be inevitable that
such a man will be contradictory and ambiguous in his behaviour
towards his fellows and before his God. "A double minded
man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1: 8). Modern modified
Calvinism cannot, therefore, contribute to the solution of the
problems of our age, it can only add to their confusion.
- In the fourth place, modern modified Calvinism
robs the Calvinistic and Reformed faith of its defenses, because
it has no logical answer to the schools of Arminius, Davenant,
and Amyraut. This is because the universalistic interpretation
of Scripture texts on which that system rests is coincident with
those systems. While the modern modified Calvinist generally attempts
to divorce his universalism from the implications of universal
redemption as to purchase, the Arminian in that area of his theology,
has an apparent consistency. The Arminian, having assumed that
God loves all men and desires their salvation, concludes that
Christ has purchased a redemption for all men. In the face of
the illogical position of modern modified Calvinism in respect
to the atonement and the other contradictions and ambiguities
which belong to that system, Arminianism and any other form of
autosoterism (self salvation) must go unchallenged.
Modern modified Calvinists appeal to Scripture on
the basis of a universalistic interpretation of the following
and such like texts. Their authority for this interpretation in
turn, rests largely on a misinterpretation or misreading of Calvin's
commentary on Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 18:23: Have I any pleasure at all that the
wicked should die, saith the Lord God and not that he should return
from his ways and live?
Ezekiel 18: 32: For I have no pleasure in the death
of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, Wherefore turn yourselves
and live ye.
Ezekiel 33:11: As I live saith the Lord, I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn
from his way and live.
I Tim. 2:4 God our Saviour, "Who will have
all men to be saved, and come to a knowledge of the truth.
2 Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slack concerning His
promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to
usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance.
Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
thou that killest the prophets...how oft would I have gathered
thy children, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not!
Modern modified Calvinists give a meaning of double
connotation to the Ezekiel texts. That is, the same words are
taken particularistically in one sense and universally in another.
In the first place the Ezekiel texts are said to be addressed
in particular to the House of Israel, "For why will ye die,
O House of Israel?" (Ezek. 18:31). In the second place, their
reference to the death of the wicked and their repentance is said
to refer to a desire in God for the salvation of all men.
I Timothy 2:4 is said to refer to a desire in God
that all men should be saved. The long-suffering of God and unwillingness
that any should perish mentioned in 2 Peter 3:9 are also referred
to all men. The lament of Christ over Jerusalem, Matt. 23:37 and
Luke 13:34, is also said to be indicative of our Lord's desire
that all men should be saved.
We, however, exclude the universalistic application
of these texts by interpreting them within the terms of the covenant
of redemption and grace, which is given exclusively for the redemption
of the Church. As we shall shortly discuss, John Calvin gives
each of these texts an exclusive and particularistic interpretation
on the basis that God's will is simple. This, in fact, is the
foundation of Calvin's system of theology.
In brief, the proper and Calvinistic interpretation
of the above texts to which we adhere is as follows:
The Ezekiel texts are addressed exclusively to the
House of Israel. The first part of the text, I Timothy 2:4 is
to be interpreted by the second. Knowledge of the truth is a gift
of God, and can therefore refer only to the elect. 2 Peter 3:9
belongs to those to whom the first epistle of Peter is addressed,
namely, "the elect according to the foreknowledge of God"
(I Peter 1:2). Thus the long-suffering of God to usward, and His
unwillingness that any should perish belongs to those of the same
address, ie., "to them that have obtained like precious faith
with us" (2 Peter 2:17).
The incident of our Lord's weeping over Jerusalem
recorded in Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 is given to demonstrate
His true humanity in that, "in all things it behoved Him
to be made like unto his brethren" (Hebrews 2:17). The Lord
Jesus took upon Himself the nature of man, in order that He might
fulfil the terms of the Covenant of Redemption made in the Trinity
from all eternity. It was in His human nature that He brought
those fallen in Adam, but given Him by the Father, into relationship
with Himself as sons and daughters of God; made them His brethren
and heirs with Himself in His Father's kingdom. In that nature
while on earth, He perfectly fulfilled the moral law and its demands
on behalf of the elect. It was His divine nature which made the
works of His human nature to be of infinite worth. Furthermore,
all the works of Jesus in the human nature were the works of the
person of the Son of God as Mediator.
Scripture reveals no other relationship whatever
between the human nature of Christ in heaven and man on earth,
other than that which is established by His work of intercession
in that nature on behalf of the elect. The fact that God is good
to all has nothing to do with the humanity of Christ, rather it
is a work of the Divine nature which does not lament over them
who will not repent. The texts Matt. 23:37 and Luke 13:34, therefore,
give no indication of a desire in God for the salvation of all
men.
If it is held that there is a desire in the glorified
human nature of Christ for the salvation of the nonelect,
then it must also be held that there is a contradiction in His
work of intercession, ie., He intercedes for some whom He loves
and not for others. In His prayer of John 17:9, the Lord Jesus
interceded, "I pray not for the world, but for them which
Thou hast given me."
Modern modified Calvinism ascribes a universal love
of God which it incorrectly assumes from the texts quoted above,
to the personality of God through the human nature of Christ.
This, in effect, is a subtle compounding of the works of the two
natures of Christ, ie., the desires and passions of Christ's human
nature are ascribed as the works of His divine nature. The proof
of this false compound is shown in the duplicity in which God
is said to love and hate the nonelect at the one time.
Universalism has no place within the Covenant of
Redemption and Grace.
The bulwark of our position is found in the theology
of the Covenant of Redemption and Grace, which comprehends the
whole of God's dealings with mankind since his original fall into
sin. We hold that all that is contained in the administration
and dispensation of that Covenant is a purchase of the death of
Christ, and that God's providence within that Covenant is both
temporal concerning all men and spiritual in respect to the separation
of the elect from the reprobate. We acknowledge that God in His
providence, in which He governs all His creatures and all their
actions, bestows temporal blessings on all men, restrains evil
in the world and promotes good.
This temporal framework and dispensation of God's
providential government has the purpose and end that the elect
may be redeemed from the mass of fallen mankind. The goodness
toward the nonelect does not mean that He bears toward them
a favourable disposition, rather they are vessels of wrath fitted
for destruction. If the long-suffering of God is referred to the
nonelect, it becomes a long-suffering to no purpose.
The books of the Old and New Testament Scriptures
constitute the Book of the Covenant. All Scripture therefore has
reference only to the Covenant of Redemption and Grace, and from
start to finish must be interpreted particularistically within
its terms. The reprobate have no place in the covenant dispensation
apart from their temporary enjoyment in this life of temporal
blessings, and hereafter, everlasting condemnation. Since God
made the covenant of Grace with Christ as the Mediator and with
the elect in Him, none are loved outside of Christ. It serves
no purpose whatever to assume that there is a love for the non-elect
who are outside of Christ.
If Scripture is properly interpreted within the terms
of the Covenant of Redemption and Grace, there is no reference
to a universal love of God. Once that reference is admitted, the
Reformed theology of the covenant is given over to ambiguity and
contradiction.
To this point we have discovered that modern modified
Calvinism has its historical origins in the so called evangelicalism
of the Marrow, which was originally promoted by the Davenant
School divines. We have also referred to its system of interpretation
of certain texts of Scripture. We now turn to study the manner
in which that system attempts to take on an apparent authority
by a misinterpretation of Calvin's commentary on the Book of Ezekiel.
Let us treat this section under the following six
headings:
- An outline of the case.
- The writings which support the modern modified
Calvinist position.
- The misrepresentation of Calvin's commentary
on Ezekiel 18:23 refuted from his Institutes.
a) Calvin's refutation of a duplicity of wills in
God. (The first question answered).
b) The meaning of the word "wishes" or
"wills" relative to God's preceptive and decretive wills.
c) Calvin's treatment of Ezekiel 18:23 in his Institutes.
(The second question answered).
d) Calvin's doctrine of Ezekiel 18:23 further confirmed
by his treatment of I Tim. 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9 in his Institutes.
- Calvin's doctrine that God's purpose in sending
the Gospel is to harden the hearts of the reprobate.
- Calvin's refutation of the notion that there
is an inconsistency between God's eternal election and the free
offer of the Gospel to all men.
- The intrusion of modern modified Calvinism into
the secret counsels of God's will.
Modern modified Calvinists work from the assumption
that Calvin allows that there is a sensible and reasonable will
in God which He wishes the salvation of all men. They affirm that
Calvin is inconsistent when he declares that God's will is simple
and undivided, because he also teaches that God's decretive will
is that by which He ordains only a certain number to salvation.
In other words, if God wishes all to be saved and at the same
time devotes the reprobate to eternal destruction, to them God's
will cannot be simple. They accept the position that God's will
is complex, but attempt to avoid the contradiction of having two
contrary wills in God by ascribing God's eternal election and
predestination to His decretive will, and His supposed desire
for the salvation of all men, to His preceptive will. In other
words, they ascribe a duplicity of sensible and reasonable wills
to God, one decretive and the other preceptive, and then try to
keep them separate.
Having made the assumption of two sensible and reasonable
wills in God, one decretive and the other preceptive, the contradiction
which inevitably lies between precept and decree within the
Divine mind is then denied, because it is said to be a mystery
which lies hidden in the sovereign counsel of God's will.
It is by this facility of a complexity or duplicity
in God, that modern modified Calvinists hold their system of double
connotation. Then Scripture is interpreted to teach that God has
elected only a certain number to eternal life, and at the same
time in the free offer of the gospel, desires the salvation of
all men.
It is through the notion of two separate sensible
and reasonable wills in God, which is the foundation of their
system, that they claim to hold to the Reformed Standards, and
at the same time, base their preaching of the gospel on a universal
love of God. It is by this duplicity which they imagine they find
in an inconsistency in Calvin that they interpret certain Scriptures
as having a double connotation, eg., Ezekiel 18:23, 32, and 33:11,
and others universally, eg., I Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, and Matthew
23:37. In other words, like every sectary, they bring a system
to the Scripture in order to interpret it, rather than interpreting
Scripture with Scripture.
Over and against this system lies the central principle
of Calvin's doctrine of the absolute sovereignty and providence
of God, which teaches that the will of God is simple and undivided.
It is about that principle that Calvin builds his whole system
of theology, and on it he rests his defence.
Because modern modified Calvinism does not allow
that God's will is simple, but builds its own system on a notion
of complexity concerning God's will, it involves the removal of
the central principle of Calvin's Calvinism, and therefore constitutes
the overthrow of his system.
Professor Murray is regarded by modern modified Calvinists
as a leading modern authority concerning their position. In his
book, Calvin on Scripture and Divine Sovereignty, he refers
to Calvin's commentary on Ezekiel 18:23 in the following terms:
Calvin was engaged before his work was arrested by
the hand of death...in his exposition of the prophecy of Ezekiel.
His work ended with Ezekiel 20:24. He did not even complete his
exposition of the chapter. At Ezekiel 18:23, in dealing with the
discrepancy between God's will to the salvation of all and the
election of God by which He predestinates only a fixed number
to salvation, he says: If anyone again objects this
is making God act with duplicity, the answer is ready, that God
always wishes the same thing, though by different ways, and in
a manner inscrutable to us. Although, therefore, God's will is
simple, yet great variety is involved in it, as far as our senses
are concerned. Besides, it is not surprising that our eyes should
be blinded by intense light, so that we cannot certainly judge
how God wishes all to be saved, and yet has devoted all the reprobate
to eternal destruction, and wishes them to perish. While we look
now through a glass darkly, we should be content with the measure
of our own intelligence. (Calvin's statement is italicised).
It is at this point that Professor Murray in his
book makes his major departure from Calvin's theology when he
writes, "The present writer is not persuaded that we may
speak of God's will as 'simple' after the pattern of Calvin's
statement. There is the undeniable fact that, in regard to sin,
God decretively wills what He preceptively does not will. There
is the contradiction. We must maintain that it is perfectly consistent
with God's perfection that this contradiction should obtain. But,
it does not appear to be any resolution to say that God's will
is 'simple'."
Professor Murray has noted in the same place that:
"It is more probable that the Latin verb 'velle', translated
on three occasions above by the English term 'wishes' should rather
be rendered 'wills'." Although that would make our task much
easier, in order to be the more convincing, let us retain the
word "wishes" in lieu of the word "wills"
in the context of our explanation.
From a superficial reading of the above quotation
from Calvin's commentary, it would appear that Calvin's doctrine
is that God desires the salvation of all men and at the same time
ordains that the reprobate shall perish.
If such is the case, then Professor Murray has revealed
an inconsistency in Calvin's theological system when he disagrees
with Calvin's statement that the will of God is simple.
Two leading questions must therefore be answered,
if the apparent position of Calvin is to be distinguished from
the real. These are:
- Does Calvin effectively deny that there is a
duplicity of wills in God?
- What does Calvin mean by the words, 'God wishes
all to be saved' does he apply them universally, so that
it may be assumed that there is a desire of wish in God for the
salvation of all men?
Before proceeding to answer these questions, let
us complete the discussion of the writings which support the modern
modified Calvinist position.
The departure from Calvin's theology becomes clearer
when we consider the study by the Rev. Professors Murray and Stonehouse
which was presented as a report of a committee to the fifteenth
General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of America
in 1948. In the introduction to the study they have written:
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 that God desires the salvation of all men.
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 will of God, but the revealed will. There is not
ground for the supposition that the expression was intended to
refer to God's decretive will.
It must be admitted that if the expression were 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 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, God wills and God does not will.
Again, the expression, 'God desires', in the formula
that crystallises 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.
Let us restate, in other words, the real matter in
dispute. It is, whether in the Reformed doctrine of redemption,
the desire and pleasure of God concerns only the salvation of
the elect whom He has chosen in Christ from the foundation of
the world, or, whether it also refers to the nonelect whom
God has made the objects of His everlasting displeasure and wrath.
There are three important facts to notice from the
above quotations.
Firstly, the Professors
have posited in God a sensible and reasonable will concerning
His precepts for the salvation of all men. If any should object
that the Professors have not used the words, 'sensible and reasonable',
then that which they have written is meaningless. Further more,
if there is a sensible and reasonable desire in God which respects
His preceptive will that all men shall be saved, such desire is
internal to the mind of God. It would be contrary to Scripture
and to reason to suppose that there is a desire in God which is
without sensibility and reason, and which does not belong to His
internal mind. The Professors have put the matter beyond doubt
in the following quotation from their study:
The expression 'God desires' in the formula that
crystallises 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.
Secondly, if there is
a sensible and reasonable desire in God for the salvation of all
men, and that desire is internal to His mind, then unless there
are two minds in God, that desire must belong to the same mind
which executes His eternal decrees.
Thirdly, the Professors
have attempted to avoid the obvious contradiction which must exist
if the desire of God for the salvation of all men has reference
to God's decretive will, by referring that desire to His preceptive
will. In other words, the Professors believe that by confining
the desire of God for the salvation of all men to His preceptive
will, that it does not involve a contradiction with God's decretive
will by which He purposes to save only some. Now as we have clearly
pointed out, a desire in God for the salvation of all men must
belong to the same mind which executes His decrees. The Professors,
therefore, have failed to avoid the internal contradiction in
God. Rather, they have by positing a desire in God's preceptive
will, created it.
If a duplicity is implied, it matters not, in this
case, if it is held that there are two minds in God or only one.
If it is proposed that God desires the salvation of all men, and
at the same time purposes to save only some, there must be a contradiction
in the Divine Mind.
The Professors have not, comprehended within their
theology the fact that a desire in God, whether it be made to
belong to His decretive will or His preceptive will, is a state
or act of the Divine Mind. If it held that the Divine Mind is
rational, then all the desires of God must be consistent with
His purposes and decrees. The non-fulfilment of desire in God
implies that there is an internal contradiction or want of blessedness
in the ever blessed God. The Scripture teaches that God will fulfil
all His good pleasure. God in the human sense does not desire
or want of anything, but decrees all things according to the pleasure
of His own will.
The obscurity and confusion of the modern modified
Calvinist system, in the understanding of many, stems from the
fact that the idea persists that the desire of God, which He is
said to have for the salvation of all men is external to Himself,
because it is posited in His preceptive will. The basic error,
in this respect, is simply the positing in the mind of God a desire
concerning His precepts. God's preceptive will which is given
for man's rule of duty, is in no way declarative of what God desires
or what He intends to do. To say that God desires the salvation
of those whom He does not purpose to save, by granting them the
gifts of repentance and faith, is to make God insincere and a
monster in the worst sense. The free offer of Christ in the gospel,
which God's ministers are commanded to preach unto all men, is
not a declaration of whom He desires to save, any more than it
is one concerning the particular individuals whom He purposes
to redeem.
In "the Epistle to the reader" at the beginning
of his Institutes, Calvin instructs that his commentaries are
to be interpreted in the light of the summary of religion which
he has given in all its parts in the Institutes. This injunction
is completely ignored by modern modified Calvinists.
As already shown, the point at which Professor Murray
and other modern modified Calvinists have misinterpreted Calvin
is in his commentary on Ezekiel 18:23. "Have I any pleasure
at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not
that he should return from his ways and live."
Having demonstrated the fact that modern modified
Calvinism has established a duplicity of will in the mind of God,
as necessary to their system whereby they give a double meaning
to Scripture, but have failed to avoid the contradictions created
thereby, let us consider how the theology of Calvin's Institutes
is in total refutation of such a system.
To this end we now answer the two questions, which
are raised on page 23 herein, in the light of Calvin's Institutes.
The answers to these questions are interdependent.
If Calvin does not effectively deny that there is a duplicity
or complexity of wills in God, to which the first question refers,
then a desire in God for the salvation of all men cannot be excluded.
Such a desire in God, to which the second question refers, implies
a duplicity of wills in God.
The validity of this essay stands or falls by the
answers given to these questions. If Calvin satisfactorily refutes
the notion of duplicity of wills in God, there cannot be a double
connotation given to the interpretation of Scripture, by which
it is held, that God desires or wishes the salvation of all men,
and at the same time, has decreed to the certain and everlasting
destruction of the reprobate. If, however, Calvin does not give
satisfactory answers, then modern modified Calvinism has won the
day. God does desire the salvation of all men, under which circumstance
there can be no logical answer to the doctrines of universalism,
while the theological system as put forward by John Calvin in
his Institutes, has no relevant application in the Church of our
day.
The answer to the first question, 'does Calvin effectively
deny that there is a duplicity of wills in God,' is given in Book
1, chapter 18, section 3. Here Calvin establishes his doctrine
of the simplicity of God's will in the face of those who object
against him: "If nothing happens without the will of God,
He must have two contrary wills, decreeing by a secret counsel
what he has openly forbidden in His law."
In giving answer, Calvin cites cases in which God
accomplishes His will when men act contrary to His precepts, eg.,
"The sons of Eli hearkened not unto the voice of their father,
because the Lord would slay them" (I Samuel 2:25). He then
writes:
The gospel, by the mouth of Luke, declares, that
Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired 'to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done' (Acts 4:28). And
in truth, if Christ was not crucified by the will of God, where
is our redemption? Still, however, the will of God is not at variance
with itself. It undergoes no change. He makes no presence of not
willing [decretively] what He wills [preceptively], but while
in Himself the will is one and undivided, to us it appears
manifold, because from the feebleness of our intellect, we cannot
comprehend how, though after a different manner, He wills [preceptively]
and wills not [decretively] the very same thing." In this
we have the teaching of Scripture, in which we cannot understand
how God decretively willed the death of His own Son for our redemption,
when He had already preceptively willed, "Thou shalt not
kill or bear false witness.
Calvin here gives no hint of duplicity in the mind
of God, rather as he has stated, within God Himself, His will
is one and undivided. In dealing with another objection of similar
content in Section 4 of the same chapter, he writes, "They
perversely confound the command of God with His secret will, though
it appears by an infinite number of examples, that there is a
great distance and diversity between them" (from footnote,
French translation).
It is interesting to note, that both Calvin and his
opponents both rejected the notion of duplicity in God. His opponents
accused him that his system promoted that position, and he ably
refuted them.
In setting Calvin's position on the simplicity of
God's will over and against that of modern modified Calvinists,
it is important to understand that they actually take the position
which Calvin's objectors raised against him. On the one hand modern
modified Calvinists say that nothing happens without the will
of God, on the other as we have seen, they propose a duality of
wills in the mind of God, the contradiction of which they cannot
avoid, when they refer a desire in Him for the salvation of the
nonelect to His preceptive will at the same time as they
ascribe to His decretive will His ordination of their destruction.
Remember, Professor Murray has written that he "is
not persuaded that we may speak of God's will as 'simple' after
the pattern of Calvin's statement," and the Professors together
have written, "We should not entertain...any prejudice against
the notion that God desires or has pleasure in the accomplishment
of what He does not decretively will." Professor Murray has
also written:
There is the undeniable fact that, in regard to sin,
God decretively wills what He preceptively does not will. There
is the contradiction. He must maintain that it is perfectly consistent
with God's perfection that this contradiction should obtain. But
it does not appear to be any resolution to say that God's will
is 'simple'.
That there is often an outward contradiction between
God's precepts and His decrees, we do not deny, but, as we have
clearly demonstrated, the Professors have made the contradiction
internal to the mind of God, not only in regard to sin, but to
the supposition of a desire in God for the salvation of all men.
In the second part of Calvin's statement in his commentary
on Ezekiel 18:23 (quoted previously), as translated from the Latin,
he in effect writes, "We cannot certainly judge how God...wishes
them (the reprobate) to perish."
Since the text of Ezekiel 18:23 specifically declares
that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, it is obvious
that Calvin does not place desire in the word which is translated
"wishes."
The English word "wishes" by dictionary
definition means to desire, to long for, to desire eagerly or
ardently (Webster). Its use in the translation of Calvin from
the Latin is therefore unreliable, and as Professor Murray has
noted, should be translated "wills." In respect to
the second part of Calvin's statement it is totally incorrect.
Used in the sense God wishes, it would say contrary to Scripture,
that God desires or longs for the death of the wicked.
Our next task is to show that the word "wishes"
or "wills" has nothing to do with a desire which modern
modified Calvinists posit in God's preceptive will. To this end
we must consider the use of the word ''will" as it differs
in its application in respect to God's preceptive will and His
decretive will.
In respect to God's decrees the word "will"
means that by which God "foreordains whatsoever comes to
pass" (Shorter Catechism No. 7). In respect to God's precepts
it refers to that which the Scriptures principally teach, namely,
"what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God
requires of man" (Shorter Catechism No. 3).
By definition in the Westminster Shorter Catechism,
God executeth His decrees in the works of creation and providence
(Shorter Catechism No. 8). "God's works of providence are
His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing
all His creatures and all their actions" (Shorter Catechism
No. 11).
The essential difference between God's preceptive
will and His decretive will is that the former comprises man's
rule of duty, and the latter concerns God's purposes in all things
whatsoever come to pass in time and eternity. God's decretive
will therefore, embraces all the actions of men and angels, good
and bad. Since God has declared in His Word, "My counsel
shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isaiah 46:10),
all God's desire, pleasure and purpose in respect to His preceptive
will, including its fulfilment and nonfulfilment, is contained
in His decretive will.
In other words, God's preceptive will is not active,
but is a rule of duty. All the activity of the Divine Mind concerning
His precepts belongs to God's decretive will. The crux
of the whole matter is Calvin's doctrine that the will of God
is simple.
The confusion of modern modified Calvinism stems
from the positing by that system of the activity of desire in
God's preceptive will, which is then said not to have respect
to God's decretive will. The positing of the activity of desire
in God for the salvation of the reprobate in God's preceptive
will separate from the activity by which He ordains them to destruction
in His decretive will, does nothing but create duplicity and contradiction
in the mind of God.
Since God's satisfaction and not His pleasure is
in the death of the reprobate, there can be no ground for the
modern modified Calvinist notion that God desires their salvation.
In other words, the fact of God's satisfaction in the death of
the reprobate is quite contrary to the idea that He desires their
salvation.
To recapitulate the above argument, the decretive
will of God concerns all things, whatsoever, that come to pass,
including the actions of men and angels in the fulfilment or nonfulfilment
of His preceptive will. Thus all the desire, pleasure and purposes
of God concern only God's decretive will.
The placing of desire in God for the fulfilment of
His preceptive will, which in the purposes of His decretive will
is not fulfilled, therefore creates a false duplicity in the mind
of God.
The decretive will of God includes the satisfaction
of His justice in the death of the wicked, but not His pleasure,
which is in His own glory and perfections. Since God's decretive
will concerns all the activity of the Divine mind, it involves
a contradiction therein to say that God has satisfied His justice
in ordaining the death of the reprobate and at the same time desires
their salvation.
An answer to the second question, "What does
Calvin mean by the words, 'God wishes all to be saved,' does he
apply them universally?" is found in Book 3, chapter 24,
sections 15 and 16 of his Institutes.
In the previous Section No. 14 of his Institutes,
Calvin has given two reasons as to why the reprobate perish. They
are:
(1) The refusal of the reprobate to obey the Word
of God when manifested to them, will be properly ascribed to the
malice and depravity of their hearts, provided it be at the same
time added,
(2) that they were adjudged to this depravity, because
they were raised up by the just but inscrutable judgment of God,
to show forth His glory by their condemnation.
Opponents of Calvin have always objected to his doctrine
that the reprobate perish through God's ordination. In the next
two Sections Nos. 15 and 16, Calvin shows that the objection is
based on a false application of such texts as Ezekiel 18:23, I
Timothy 2:4, and 2 Peter 3:9. It is the same false application
which modern modified Calvinists use to support their doctrine
that God desires the salvation of all men. The following is Calvin's
refutation of the notion that the Ezekiel text has such a universal
reference:
Since an objection is often found on a few passages
of Scripture, in which God seems to deny that the wicked perish
through His ordination, except in so far as they spontaneously
bring death upon themselves in opposition to his warning; let
us briefly explain these passages, and demonstrate that they are
not averse to the above view.
One of the passages adduced is, 'Have I any pleasure
at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God; and not
that he should return from his ways and live' (Ezekiel 18:23).
If we are to extend this to the whole human race,
why are not the very many whose minds might be more easily bent
to obey urged to repentance, rather than those who by His invitations
become daily more and more hardened? Our Lord declares that the
preaching of the gospel and miracles would have produced more
fruit among the people of Nineveh and Sodom than in Judea (Matt.
11:20-24).
How comes it, then, that if God would have all to
be saved, he does not open a door of repentance for the wretched,
who would more readily have received grace?
Hence we may see that the passage is violently wrested,
if the will of God, which the prophet mentions is opposed to His
eternal counsel, by which He separated the elect from the reprobate.
Now if the genuine meaning of the prophet is inquired
into, it will be found that he only means to give hope of pardon
to them who repent. The sum is, that God is undoubtedly ready
to pardon whenever the sinner repents. Therefore, He does not
will his death, in so far as He wills repentance. But experience
shows that this will, for the repentance of those whom He invites
to Himself, is not such as to make Him touch all their hearts.
Still, it cannot be said that He acts deceitfully;
for though the external word only renders those who hear it and
do not obey it, inexcusable, it is truly regarded as an evidence
of the grace which He reconciles men to Himself.
Let us therefore hold the doctrine of the prophet,
that God has no pleasure in the death of the sinner: that the
godly may feel confident that whenever they repent God is ready
to pardon them; and that the wicked may feel that their guilt
is doubled, when they respond not to the great mercy and condescension
of God. The mercy of God therefore, will ever be ready to meet
the penitent; but all the prophets, and apostles, and Ezekiel
himself, clearly tell us who they are to whom repentance is given.
In the above quotation Calvin refers to the fact
that our Lord upbraided the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and
Capernaum for their unbelief and told them that if the mighty
works that had been done in them, had been done in Tyre, Sidon,
and Sodom, the latter cities would have repented. From this Calvin
shows that God has declared that in His providence there are those
who, if they had heard the gospel would have more readily repented
than those who on hearing it, daily grow more hardened against
it.
In the light of this, Calvin has asked the question:
"If we are to extend the Ezekiel test to the whole human
race, why does God send the gospel to those whose hearts are more
hardened by the hearing of it, and not to those who would be more
easily persuaded to receive it?"
It is clear from Calvin's answer, that he does not
refer the text to the whole human race. In effect he has replied:
If it is said that God desires or would have all men to be saved,
the Ezekiel text is violently wrested because such a notion makes
the will which the prophet mentions, namely God's pleasure that
the wicked should repent, opposed to the eternal counsel by which
He has separated the elect from the reprobate.
He goes on to say among other things, that the genuine
meaning of the text is that God has given it to give hope of pardon
to those who repent. Since God is ready to pardon the sinner whenever
he repents, He does not therefore will his death, insofar
as He wills repentance, because it is clear, that all the prophets
and Ezekiel teach that He gives repentance only to the elect.
Under the previous heading 1 of this essay, it is
shown that:
- the desire and pleasure of God concerning the
fulfilment or nonfulfilment of His preceptive will belongs
to His decretive will,
- the word "wishes" or "wills"
in both parts of Calvin's statement also belongs to the decretive
will of God,
- the words "God wishes" are totally
incorrect when used in respect to the death of the wicked, but
nevertheless, God wills their death when He ordains that the reprobate
perish.
The text of Ezekiel therefore does not speak of God's
wish in respect to the wicked generally, but of God's pleasure
in their repentance, which in the context of other Scripture can
only refer to those who are loved of the Father and chosen in
Christ.
The modern modified Calvinist's appeal to Ezekiel
18:23 rests on the subtlety, that because God has no pleasure
in the death of the wicked, He must also desire the salvation
of all men. From this they further compound their error with a
doctrine which posits a desire in God for the salvation of all
men which respects not His decretive will but His preceptive will,
with its consequent implication of duplicity in the mind of God.
The second branch of the Ezekiel text, however, indicates that
God's pleasure is in those who turn from their wicked ways and
live. That God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked is indeed
universal in respect to all those fallen in Adam, and even the
fallen angels. That, however, is the limit of that part of the
expression in respect to those, who in the doctrine, Of God's
eternal Decree, chapter 3 of the Westminster Confession are
ordained "to the praise of His glorious justice."
As previously noted, Calvin has instructed that his
Commentaries are to be understood in the light of his Institutes.
From these as shown above it is clear that when Calvin uses the
expression, "God wishes or wills all to be saved" in
his commentary on Ezekiel 18:23, he means it only in respect of
those to whom God gives repentance, namely the elect.
This brings again to the fore the central principle
of Calvin's theology, that the will of God is simple and undivided,
as opposed to that of modern modified Calvinism which teaches
that God's will is complex.
In I Timothy 2:4 we read: "God our saviour;
who will have all men to be saved," and in 2 Peter 3:9: "The
Lord is...not willing that any should perish."
From these portions of the texts, modern modified
Calvinists take further warrant for their notion that God desires
the salvation of all men. It is relevant to add, that if God who
is omnipotent, will have all men to be saved, and is not willing
that any should perish in the universalistic sense, then we are
committed to a doctrine of universal redemption. Calvin, however,
does not allow such a notion, because he interprets the first
branch of the sentence of both verses by their second branches
which read,
I Timothy 2:4: "and come unto a knowledge of
the truth", and 2 Peter 3:9: "but that all should
come to repentance."
Calvin clearly teaches that the mode by which God
will have all men to be saved, and the means by which He is not
willing that any should perish are knowledge of the truth and
repentance, both of which are gifts which God bestows on the elect
only. In respect to I Timothy 2:4, he writes, "the mode in
which God thus wills is plain from the context; for Paul connects
two things, a will to be saved, and to come to a knowledge of
the truth." He goes on to tell us, that when:
God will have all men to be saved...He assuredly
means nothing more than that the way of salvation was not shut
against any order of men... He who selects those whom He is to
visit in mercy does not impart it to all. But since it clearly
appears that He is there speaking not of individuals, but of orders
of men, let us have done with longer discussion... If this is
true, that if He were not disposed to receive those who implore
His mercy, it could not have been said, "Turn ye unto me,
saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord
of Hosts" (Zech. 1:3); but I hold that no man approaches
God unless previously influenced from above. And if repentance
were placed at the will of man, Paul would not say, "If God
peradventure will give them repentance" (2 Tim. 2:25). Nay,
did not God at the very time when He is verbally exhorting all
to repentance, influence the elect by the secret movement of His
Spirit, Jeremiah would not say, "Turn thou me, and I shall
be turned; for thou are the Lord my God. Surely after that I was
turned I repented" (Jer. 31:18).
It is clear from Calvin's treatment of the above
texts, within the context of his doctrine of the simplicity of
God's will, that he does not apply them universally, nor does
he in any sense allow that there is a desire in God for the salvation
of all men.
In Book 3, chapter 24, Section 13 of his Institutes,
Calvin refers to several cases in which God purposes by the preaching
of His Word, to send upon the reprobate an even greater blindness.
For example in Isaiah 6:9,10, we read where the Lord
tells the prophet, "Go, and tells people, Hear ye indeed,
but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make
the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut
their eyes lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."
Calvin comments:
Here He directs His voice to them, but it is that
they may turn a deaf ear; He kindles a light, but it is that they
might become more blind; He produces a doctrine, but it is that
they may become more stupid; He employs a remedy, but it is that
they may not be cured. And John referring to this prophecy, declares
that the Jews could not believe the doctrine of Christ, because
this curse from God lay upon them (John 12:37,43).
The doctrine that God's purpose in sending the Gospel
to the reprobate is to harden their hearts in order that they
may not believe and be saved, is a complete refutation of the
notion of modern modified Calvinists that God desires the salvation
of all men.
In his comments on Calvin's treatment of Ezekiel
18:23, Professor Murray makes the point, "there is the undeniable
fact that, in regard to sin, God decretively wills what He preceptively
does not will. There is the contradiction. We must maintain that
it is perfectly consistent with God's perfection that this contradiction
should obtain."
We acknowledge that there is an apparent contradiction
due to the weakness of man's senses, between man's transgression
of the moral law and God's providence in which He governs all
His creatures and all their actions. This is not denied but supported
by Calvin.
Professor Murray, however, has used this apparent
contradiction to justify another which his system creates when
it states that God desires the salvation of those whom He has
foreordained to eternal destruction.
We have shown that modern modified Calvinists have
posited a sensible and reasonable desire in God for the salvation
of the reprobate, which belongs to the same mind as executes His
decrees. Also, that they cannot avoid the inherent contradiction
of their system, that God loves and desires the salvation of those
whom He has made the objects of His everlasting displeasure and
wrath. There is, therefore, in their system a contradiction or
inconsistency between God's eternal election and their concept
of the free offer of the gospel to all men in which God is said
to desire the salvation of all men. This Calvin refutes in Section
17 of the same book and chapter of his Institutes as follows:
Let us now see whether there be any inconsistency
between the two things viz. that God, by an eternal decree,
fixed the number of those whom he is pleased to embrace in love,
and on whom he is pleased to display his wrath, and that he offers
salvation indiscriminately to all.
I hold that they are perfectly consistent, for all
that is meant by the promise is, just that his mercy is offered
to all who desire and implore it, and this none do, save those
whom he has enlightened. Moreover, he enlightens those whom he
has predestinated to salvation. Thus the truth of the promises
remains firm and unshaken, so that it cannot be said there is
any disagreement between the eternal election of God and the testimony
of his grace which he offers to believers. But why does he mention
all men? Namely, that the consciences of the righteous may rest
the more secure when they understand that there is no difference
between sinners, provided they have faith, and that the ungodly
may not be able to allege that they have not an asylum to which
they may betake themselves from the bondage of sin, while they
ungratefully reject the offer which is made to them. Therefore,
since by the Gospel the mercy of God is offered to both, it is
faith, in other words, the illumination of God, which distinguishes
between the righteous and the wicked; the former feeling the efficacy
of the Gospel, the latter obtaining no benefit from it. Illumination
itself has eternal election for its rule.
Modern modified Calvinists charge those who deny
that God has a favourable disposition towards the reprobate with
an unwarranted intrusion into the secret counsels of God's will.
The charge, however, is an attempt to provide a screen against
the proper examination of their system of exegesis.
Within their concept of the secret counsels of God's
will, modern modified Calvinists attempt to equate the wrath and
curse which God has declared against the reprobate with that of
His fatherly displeasure under which the elect may fall by their
sins, having made this equation, they then assume that because
God loves the elect and exercises His fatherly displeasure concerning
them when they fall into sin, that He must also love the reprobate.
In other words, if God can be said to exercise both love and wrath
toward the elect, He must also have a love for the reprobate.
If they who are the objects of God's redeeming love
can also in some sense of the word be regarded as the objects
of His wrath, why should it be impossible that they who are the
objects of His wrath should also in some sense share His divine
favour.
Let us now investigate the fallacy of this reasoning.
In the first place it must be stated that there are
not two kinds of wrath in God concerning sin, one for the elect,
and one for the reprobate. The text of Romans 1:18, "For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men," is true both of the elect and
reprobate. There is nevertheless a total difference between God's
disposition towards the elect and reprobate. While God's anger
is perfect, and this emotion is expressed in God's disposition
toward elect and reprobate; that disposition is conditioned absolutely
by the factors of God's electing, predestinating love and Christ's
death.
On the death of Christ rests the judicial removal
of the wrath of God against the elect for their sins. Since the
atonement has reference to particular sins and not sins in general,
it is not a reservoir or storehouse of forgiveness, It therefore
creates no difficulty to hold that God has expressed His displeasure
against His people for their sins. This is clearly the position
of Scripture as seen in the following quotation from Calvin's
Institutes Book 3, chapter 4, section 32:
David says, 'O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger,
neither chasten me in thine hot displeasure,' (Psalm 6:1). There
is nothing inconsistent with this in its being repeatedly said,
that the Lord is angry with His saints when He chastens them for
their sins, (Psalm 38:7). In like manner, in Isaiah: "In
that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee though thou
wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest
me" (Isaiah 12:1). Likewise in Habakkuk, "In wrath remember
mercy" (Hab. 3:2), and Micah, "I will bear the indignation
of the Lord because I have sinned against him" (Micah 7:9).
Two things determine the disposition of God toward
the elect. Firstly, He has chosen and loved them out of His mere
good pleasure from all eternity, and secondly, He has sent His
only Son into the world that He through His own perfect righteousness
and death would reconcile them unto Himself.
Two things determine God's disposition toward the
reprobate. One; the fact of His wrath against all unrighteousness
and ungodliness of men, and two; the fact that He has by an act
of His will ordained them to be the objects of His everlasting
displeasure and wrath. Though they may taste of the temporal blessings
which God bestows upon them in their earthly life, they are, as
the Scripture teaches, given the Gospel for the reason as Calvin
comments on Isaiah 6:9,10. "He directs his voice to them,
but it is that they may turn a deaf ear; he kindles a light, but
it is that they may become more stupid; he employs a remedy, but
it is that they may not be cured." From this it should be
clear that God's disposition toward the reprobate is such that
they have no part whatever in the purposes of God in the free
offer of the Gospel except for the greater hardening of their
hearts.
Modern modified Calvinists have in effect adopted
the so called law of opposites, which assumes that there is a
love hate relationship in God concerning the same object. Their
notion, that because God has in some sense expressed a wrath against
the elect, He must also love the reprobate because He loves the
elect, is entirely gratuitous. It is without warrant in any part
of the Scripture and constitutes an addition thereto. There is
no equation in any sense whatever between God's disposition of
wrath toward the reprobate and that of His fatherly disposition
toward the elect. Since the wrath of God in the case of the latter
is entirely conditioned by God's eternal electing love and Christ's
death, it can never be said, in any sense, that any are loved
outside of Christ.
Modern modified Calvinism intrudes into the secret
counsels of God's will on two counts:
- By false interpretation of Scripture it misinterprets
the mind of God so teaching that which Scripture does not teach.
- It attempts to define the inner workings of the
divine mind when it says that there is unfulfilled desire in God's
mind for the salvation of all men which respects His preceptive
or revealed will, but which is contrary to His decretive will.
By so doing they have created a duplicity in the divine mind.
Calvin does not profess knowledge concerning the
internal mystery of divine sovereignty. Where there is an apparent
contradiction between God's precepts and His decretive will he
teaches that it is because it cannot be understood by the weak
finite mind of man. It is the inability of men to understand the
simplicity of God's will though it appears to have "great
variety as far as our senses are concerned" which in Calvin's
theology constitutes the mystery of the sovereign counsel of God's
will.
This is not as modern modified Calvinists would have
it. To them there is an actual complexity or duplicity within
the divine mind as contained in the second count (2) above. The
mystery of divine sovereignty is made a covering for the inherent
contradictions of their system. When they are confronted with
the contradiction that God does not fulfil His desire for the
salvation of all men in the accomplishment of His purposes, they
say that it is a mystery which lies hidden in the sovereign counsel
of His will.
It should be clear from the above, that it is modern
modified Calvinists who have made an unwarranted intrusion into
the secret counsels of God's will, and by it they hold a false
doctrine concerning God's sovereignty.
In Book 1, chapter 18, of his Institutes, Calvin
teaches that the thoughts and actions of all men, including the
wicked, are determined by the secret counsel of God's will. Scripture
reveals that God ordains man's disobedience for His own glory.
He has nevertheless given to man the moral law as his rule of
duty, and will at the last day, have him give an account of himself
thereby. "And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined:
but woe unto that man by whom He is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22).
We have now to demonstrate that God does not transgress
His own moral law or nature when in His sovereignty and providence
He ordains that wicked men commit evil deeds in the accomplishment
of His purposes. "Jesus of Nazareth, Him, being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken,
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" (Acts 2:22,23).
Let us illustrate the truth of the matter from the
story of Joseph and his brethren, which is recorded in the Book
of Genesis from the thirty seventh chapter onwards. It is the
teaching of that book that when Joseph's brothers sold him as
a slave into Egypt, they deceived their father and brought him
great sorrow; they meant it for evil, but God meant it for good,
in order to save much people alive.
In this God governed the thoughts and actions of
Joseph's brothers in that they did evil, but He was not the author
of their sin. If bare permission is made to account for their
thoughts and actions, then God is not sovereign, because He is
made dependent on circumstance and second causes. Concerning the
actions of men, elect and reprobate, we must hold with Martin
Luther, that God works in every man according to his nature, for
good or for evil, but is not the author of their sin.
The desire of God is always in His decree and the
end which it achieves. His desire in the wicked actions of Joseph's
brothers was to save much people alive. This did not involve a
desire in God that those men should act contrary to His own moral
nature, any more than He desires or has pleasure in the death
of the wicked.
Scripture teaches, "without me ye can do nothing"
(John 15:5), so that it must follow that God does not desire that
wicked men without grace, obey His precepts. By His grace, God
requires and desires the obedience of those whom He has effectually
called by His Spirit. "For it is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).
When they who are His children grieve His Spirit by their disobedience,
He forgives them their transgressions in and through the intercession
and merits of His Son. The desire of God concerning the fulfilment
of His moral law, is inseparable from its fulfilment by His grace.
If such is not the case, then He is not the fountain of all goodness.
For God to desire that men shall act outside His
grace in obedience to His precepts, would violate His own moral
order. For God to desire the salvation of men and not grant them
the means of grace, which is essential to save them would make
Him a monster. For men to imagine that they can please God without
grace, makes them Pelagians. The Scripture teaches that without
faith it is impossible to please God, for faith is a gift of God.
While "God now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent" (Acts 17:30), the wicked are not mocked by their
inability to obey; for they possess no such desire. Rather, "the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for
they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned" (I Cor. 2:14). "Because
the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). If wicked
men desist from committing evil, it is because God in His providence
governs and restrains them, not because they have acted out of
obedience.
When God desires that men obey Him, He grants them
repentance and faith. To all God's entreaties and promises there
is annexed a condition, which the sinner is commanded to obey,
but only the Spirit of God can accomplish. While God's entreaties
and promises are addressed to all men, they are not an expression
of a desire in Him for universal repentance and salvation. Rather
as Calvin has expressed it:
He only means to give hope of pardon to those who
repent. But experience shows that this (His) will, for the repentance
of those whom He invites to Himself, is not such as to make Him
touch all their hearts. The mercy of God therefore, will ever
be ready to meet the penitent; but all the prophets, and apostles,
and Ezekiel himself, clearly tell us who they are to whom repentance
is given.
The lesson is this; Scripture does not teach, that
God desires that wicked men, without grace, should obey His precepts.
God's desire, delight and pleasure is in the redemption
purchased by His Son, and in the application of it to all those
whom He has chosen in Him from all eternity, by the work of His
Spirit. In other words, God's desire in repentance, faith, and
redemption concerns the elect only, and does not extend, as modern
modified Calvinist's would have it, to the reprobate.
The mystery of divine sovereignty and providence
may be stated in the following terms:
God, whose will is simple and undivided, without
being the author of sin, ordains according to the secret counsel
of His own will, all things whatsoever come to pass, and while
holding all men and angels both good and evil accountable to His
moral law, works in every man according to his nature, but is
never the author of sin.
If it could be said that God's will is complex, and
He desires the fulfilment of that which He does not decree, then
surely it is implied that unfulfilled desires have rendered God
less than perfectly blessed, and that God could conceivably desire
things that are contrary to His holy will.
Modern modified Calvinism requires a particular order
of decrees. The decree to make a free offer of the Gospel with
a desire in God for the salvation of all men requires that the
decree of redemption must precede the decree of election. This
is the same order as the Amyraldian order of decrees.
It was out of His mere good pleasure that God elected
some to everlasting life (Shorter Catechism No. 20). In order,
therefore, the decree of election must precede the decree of redemption.
In the doctrine of modern modified Calvinism, the
decree of redemption could not follow the decree of election,
because a desire in God to save all could not exist. When the
decree of redemption follows that of election, the desire of God
can only have respect to the elect, as is the case in Calvin's
Calvinism. In his system the free offer of the Gospel is a means
to an end, namely, the fulfilment of God's purposes in the separation
of the elect from the reprobate. In modern modified Calvinism,
the free offer has no end, because it is said to contain a desire
in God for the salvation of all men, which is never fulfilled.
Modern modified Calvinism is therefore an inconsistent
form of Amyraldianism. Its identity with that system may also
be seen in the first three of the five points of Amyraldianism
listed in the Appendix.
The true basis for the preaching of the Gospel is
stated by William Cunningham in the following terms:
The sole ground or warrant for men's act, in offering
pardon and salvation to their fellowmen, is the authority
and command of God in His Word. We have no other warrant than
this; we need no other; and we should seek or desire none; but
on this ground alone we should consider ourselves not only warranted,
but bound, to proclaim to our fellow men, whatever be their country,
character, or condition, the good news of the kingdom, and call
them to come to Christ that they might be saved.
Three errors at least persist.
1. Some otherwise orthodox divines have based the
free offer to all on the logic, that since Christ's death was
of infinite worth, it is sufficient for all, but efficient only
for the elect. While the idea of sufficiency for all may be a
valid deduction, it has no theological application. If the preaching
of the Gospel is based on the idea, that the atonement is sufficient
for all, but effective only for the elect, there is the implication
that Christ died for all, with an absolute intention for the elect,
and a conditional intention for the reprobate, as with the Amyraldian
system.
2. and 3. There are two kinds of universalists,
those who base the offer of the Gospel on a universal atonement,
and those who, as modern modified Calvinists, attempt to embrace
the orthodox and universalistic positions at the one time, by
basing their offer of the Gospel on a notion of a universal love
of God, and a desire in Him for the salvation of all men.
Let us recapitulate some of the things which belong
to the gospel of modern modified Calvinism.
- Since there is a loving-kindness in God toward
every man, the doctrine of total depravity is overthrown, because
in every man there is something desirable to God.
- Because of that loving-kindness of God toward
every man, Christ is said to belong to every man.
- The basis of the preaching of the gospel of modern
modified Calvinism is comprised of three notions which have nothing
to do with bringing a sinner to Christ. They are:
a) God loves every man.
b) He desires to save every man.
c) Christ belongs to every man.
- Since the proclamation of the gospel in this
system involves telling all men that God loves and desires to
save them, and since the redemption purchased by Christ satisfied
all the demands of the law on behalf of the elect only, the law
is divorced from the preaching of the Gospel.
- Thus the outward call of the Gospel does not
include the preaching of the law, which is the schoolmaster to
bring men to Christ. Since it is assumed that Christ belongs to
every man, sinners are not brought to Christ by showing them their
transgressions, but by an offer of the Gospel which tells them
that Christ is there for the taking. They are thus invited to
receive Christ without conviction of sin, and therefore without
a need of the Great Physician. The love of God, not His fear is
made the beginning of wisdom. In other words, it is a Gospel which
offers Christ to all without conditions.
- Sinners are not, therefore, shown the true nature
of the estate into which they are fallen. It is by the preaching
of God's Word that the Spirit of God convicts of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment to come, without which the sinner will not turn
and be converted.
- The Gospel of modern modified Calvinism consists
of a shallow believism, because it is not rooted in the commandment
and the preaching of the law. It forgets that the whole purpose
of the Gospel is that men may be conformed to the image of Christ
in His human nature. Conformity to Christ is through conformity
to His law, by the preaching of His Word and the work of His Spirit.
- Since men are not brought to Christ by showing
them their transgressions, the notion of total depravity, a term
often used by modern modified Calvinists, consists mainly in not
maintaining a right attitude or disposition towards Christ.
- Modern modified Calvinism gives much exhortation
to the exercise of the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.
It cannot, however, lay the principles by which the Spirit of
God produces these fruits in the heart, because of its ambiguous
and contradictory system of doctrine. Its doctrine of sanctification
is, therefore, a doctrine of works, in other words, an attempt
to imitate Christ.
Calvin's Calvinism is in distinct contradiction to
this system. Firstly, the free offer of the gospel rests on the
commandment of God. Secondly, it is offered on condition of repentance
and faith as set out in the Larger Catechism No. 32:
The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant
in that He freely provideth and offereth a Mediator, and life
and salvation by Him; requiring faith as the condition to interest
them in Him, promiseth and giveth His Holy Spirit to all His elect,
to work in them that faith, with all other saving graces.
Thus we say that the offer of the Gospel is made
to them which hunger and thirst, "Ho, every one that thirsteth"
etc., "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness."
The gospel of Calvin's Calvinism is based on the
commandment because no sinner will hunger and thirst after righteousness
unless he has seen his lost and undone condition. That he cannot
do until he has had the law of God laid to his conscience and
has learned that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Romans
1:18). Without this preparation the gospel is of none effect,
because the mercy of God in Christ is set over and against sin's
penalty. It is by the preaching of these means that the Holy Spirit
is come to convict of sin and of righteousness and judgment to
come, (John 16:7,14). Only when these things are wrought in the
heart of the sinner, in some degree, will he comprehend the true
nature of his fallen estate and flee to Christ. Having learned
that he possesses no righteousness of his own, he will hunger
for the righteousness of Christ. In the gospel call and invitation
he will find that in Christ there is "a well of water springing
up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).
Only when the sinner has closed with God's offer
of mercy in Christ, however haltingly, has he a hope and a right
to assume that the wrath of God is removed from him and that Christ
has died for him. "There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). Nevertheless,
he will see in the declarations of God's wrath against sin and
unrighteousness a warning against his committing of sin and his
grieving of the Holy Spirit.
As previously stated, the modern modified Calvinist
concept of the free offer of the gospel affirms that God, in loving
every man, desires to save them, and so offers Christ on the basis
that He belongs to every man. In denying that this concept implies
a universal redemption as to purchase, it cannot say that all
that is offered in the gospel is a purchase of the death of Christ.
It has been said by some, that Christ is not offered as a Redeemer,
but only as a friend.
Calvin's Calvinism teaches that all that was purchased
by the death of Christ is offered to sinners. Thus the offer of
mercy includes the embracing of Jesus Christ and in Him the partaking
of the benefits of justification, adoption, sanctification, and
the several benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from
them. (Refer Shorter Catechism No. 29-32). Justification and peace
of conscience are the first things which the regenerate sinner
enjoys. Regeneration is sanctification commenced in the soul,
and by it he is made a child of God. It is relevant to note that
John the Baptist, regenerate from his mother's womb was the greatest
prophet of repentance in preparation for the ministry of the Lord
Jesus in the world and in the hearts of men.
Calvin has shown that there is no inconsistency between
the fact "that God by an eternal decree, fixed the number
of those whom He is pleased to embrace in love, and on whom He
is pleased to display His wrath," and the fact "that
He offers salvation indiscriminately to all" upon certain
conditions. He says, "I hold that they are perfectly consistent,
for all that is meant by the promise is, just that His mercy is
offered to all who desire and implore it, and this none do, save
those whom He has enlightened." This offer, though it is
made upon conditions of repentance and faith, is wholly free and
without price, because it is God who also gives repentance and
faith.
When the offer according to the Scripture is made
outwardly to them that hunger and thirst, it is in its inward
effect, a calling out of those who receive the effectual operation
of God's Spirit. It also fulfils God's purpose in separating the
elect from the reprobate. Those who refuse the offer and call
are not mocked, for they have no such desires. There can therefore
be no question of insincerity on the part of God, if there is
not in Him a desire for the salvation of all men.
Our opponents, who have done away with the commandment
as the basis of the offer and the condition of faith and repentance,
must of necessity conclude that there is an intention in the offer
for the salvation of all. Under their offer they are saying, "here
is Christ, take him," "Go tell every man Christ is dead
for him," so that under their conception of the offer, God
to be sincere, must desire the salvation of all men.
In attempting to preserve the sincerity of God in
their notion of the offer, they have made him to be insincere,
because He, in desiring to save all, does not grant all men the
means of repentance and faith. It is the height of insincerity
to stand on the pier and watch a man drowning, while desiring
that he might be saved, yet not throwing the lifeline which is
held in hand.
An accusation laid by modern modified Calvinists
against those who maintain the true preaching of the gospel, is
the nonsense statement, that they offer the gospel only to the
elect, who before they are effectually called are known only to
God. They also claim that the annexation of a condition to the
free offer is an attempt to measure repentance and faith. To call
men to the exercise of faith and repentance is not to measure
them, but to command them. Faith the size of a mustard seed cannot
be measured, yet it will move mountains. The weakness of faith
is not to be despised either, for our Lord has declared, "A
bruised reed he will not break," but will strengthen it that
it may become as cedar in the courts of our God. The smoking flax
he will not quench, but will blow it into a flame.
The doctrine of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church
of Australia concerning the free offer of the gospel is fully
stated in "The Sum of Saving Knowledge" which is annexed
to the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. That statement is
contrary to the concept of the gospel held by modern modified
Calvinists and was actually rejected by the Marrowmen for the
same reason.
Modern modified Calvinism begins its destructive
work in reference to Covenant theology in the Old Testament, because
it does not acknowledge that the intent of the Gospel, except
in special individual circumstances, was only to the House of
Israel, and had no reference whatever to the heathen nations.
Until such time as the Lord Jesus "came to His own, and His
own received Him not" (John 1:11), the Gospel was addressed
to the Jew first; afterwards it was addressed to the Gentile.
In the administration of the Gospel in the Old Testament,
Israel as God's Covenant people, represented the organised visible
Church. The need for Ezekiel's prophecy was that God's people,
who bore the sign and seal of the Covenant, had turned from the
promises and obligations of he Covenant to idolatry. God had overthrown
their land and led them into the captivity of Babylon, and had
sent them the prophet Ezekiel to call the nation, in their calamity,
to repentance.
Israel in the New Testament administration is still
the Church. The middle wall of partition has been broken down,
so that there is in Christ no difference between Jew and Gentile.
While the Gospel was addressed to the Jew first in the Old Testament,
it was in the New, addressed to the Gentile at the last commandment
of our Lord, which He gave immediately before His ascension, "Go
ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
The principle of the address of the Book of Ezekiel,
however, has not changed. The address of that book was, and is,
only to the House of Israel, God's covenant people; and is without
content or intent, concerning those who are not in the plan and
purposes of God, numbered among the elect. To derive from the
Book of Ezekiel the notion, that God desires the salvation of
the reprobate, is to propose a doctrine which has nothing to do
with the covenant of redemption and grace. There is nothing contained
in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which does not have reference
to the fulfilment of that Covenant. Both Testaments in fact, comprise
the Book Of The Covenant. The preaching of the Gospel is simply
a display of the Covenant of grace.
Modern modified Calvinism therefore, is destructive
of covenant theology because it introduces an extraScriptural
ground, namely a universal benevolence in God, as a basic reason
for the preaching of the Gospel. It thereby makes covenant theology
only an adjunct, if not redundant, and not the whole ground and
purpose for the preaching of the Gospel.
If we are to take our interpretation of Scripture
from the meaning of words and passages, which appear to teach
a universalism, as the Professors Murray and Stonehouse do in
their study "The free offer of the Gospel," we should
also apply the same method to such texts as:
John 3:16: God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son.
I John 2:2: He is the propitiation for our sins:
and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.
By the same method of interpretation, such texts
teach a universal atonement, as indeed some today who claim to
be Calvinists, are now teaching. Their claim to particularism,
like that of the Amyraldians rests on the idea that the atonement
is sufficient for all, and that its effectiveness is in its application.
In other words, Christ died for all men, but the effectiveness
of the atonement is in God's eternal election. This differs little,
if at all, from the doctrine of hypothetical redemption of the
schools of Davenant and Amyraut. Ultimately modern modified Calvinists,
who in their inconsistency do not presently take the position
of universal atonement, must in time logically move to that position.
Tradition, not Calvin's Calvinism, is the only thing preventing
them.
We have seen that the interpretative method of modern
modified Calvinism involves giving to Scripture texts a double
meaning, thus involving its system of theology in a series of
ambiguities and contradictions. Such method of interpretation
does not stand up to examination in the light of the principle
of interpretation of Scripture which is stated in the Westminster
Confession, Chapter 1, Of the Holy Scripture, Section 9:
The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture
is the Scripture itself, and therefore when there is a question
about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold,
but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak
more clearly.
"Which is not manifold, but one," simply
means not with more than one meaning.
Robert Shaw in his exposition of the Westminster
Confession has written concerning the above statement: "No
Scripture can have two or more meanings properly different, and
nowise subordinate one to another, because of the unity of the
truth, and because of the perspicuity (clearness) of the Scripture."
The Literature Committee of our Presbytery during
the year 1971, published a pamphlet to show that the Westminster
Confession teaches that the disposition of God toward the nonelect
is one of hatred and wrath. The following is a quotation from
that pamphlet.
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a declaration
of the main heads of doctrine and principles of the Word of God
to which it is at all times subordinate. Its doctrines and principles
are founded on proof texts from which it is to be interpreted
and understood else the Confession is placed above Scripture for
authority.
Let us quote from chapter 3 of the Confession, Of
God's Eternal Decree, and take note of the supporting proof
texts.
Section 3: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation
of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting
life, and others to everlasting death."
The proof texts are found in Romans chapter 9 verses
22 and 23:
What if God willing to show His wrath, and to make
His power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction: And that He might make known the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore
prepared unto glory.
Section 7:
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 disfavour
and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice."
Proof texts, Romans chapter 9 verses 17, 18, 21,
and 22:
Verse 17 For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even
for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show
my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout
all the earth. ... 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 to show His wrath, and to make
His power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction.
As already indicated, the above Scripture texts which
are quoted in the Westminster Confession give proof of its doctrine
concerning the nonelect. In the context of Romans chapter
9 from which they are taken, the nature of God's disposition toward
the reprobate is clearly stated. Verse 13 in context speaks of
God's hatred. It is also used as a proof text in Section 7 of
the same chapter of the Confession in which God's purposes concerning
the elect are distinguished. Verse 22 speaks directly of His wrath,
in that the nonelect are referred to as "vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction."
In the above it has been demonstrated:
- That Scripture clearly defines the disposition
of God toward the nonelect as one of hatred and wrath, and
- That since the same Scriptures are applied in
the Confession as proof of its doctrine, the Confession must also
be interpreted after the same manner. That is, the nonelect,
who are predestined to everlasting death according to the statements
of the Confession, are under God's disposition of hatred and wrath.
If the principle of the interpretation of the Confession
by the Scripture is not adhered to, the validity of the proof
texts in the Confession is destroyed. (end of quote).
While the pamphlet accurately stated the doctrine
of the Westminster Confession in respect to the disposition of
God toward the reprobate, it was insufficient to refute the position
of modern modified Calvinists, because of their method of interpreting
Scripture which gives it a double meaning and the so called law
of opposites from which they assume that God also loves that which
He hates.
The relevant doctrine of the Confession is stated
in chapter 11: Of Justification, sections 4 and 5.
Section 4:
God did, from all eternity, decree to justify the
elect, and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their
sins, and rise again for their justification. Nevertheless, they
are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth in due time apply
Christ unto them.
Justification by definition of the Shorter Catechism
no. 33, "is an act of God's free grace, wherein He pardoneth
all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only
for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by
faith alone."
Therefore, justification is not complete until the
imputed righteousness of Christ is received by faith alone. In
other words, it is not complete until the benefits of adoption
and sanctification which are not to be confused with it, but are
never separated from it, are applied in effectual calling by the
Holy Spirit.
Section 5:
God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that
are justified; and although they can never fall from the state
of justification, yet they may by their sins fall under God's
fatherly displeasure, and not have the light of His countenance
restored unto them until they humble themselves, confess their
sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.
To the justified all suffering in the providence
of God is the act of a loving Father, which has the purpose of
correcting their faults and improving their graces. This compares
with the sufferings of the reprobate, all of which are but instalments
of the eternal penalty. For this reason we have stated that there
is no equation in any sense between the wrath of God for the reprobate
and His fatherly displeasure which may be expressed in respect
to the elect.
The Free Church at its 1971 Synod in Sydney adopted
a Report which gives full support to the doctrine that God loves
all men and desires their salvation, and thus made that doctrine
an officially received doctrine in their Church in Australia.
That Report not only misinterprets the Scripture
and Calvin's exegesis of it; it wrongly quotes the writings of
A. W. Pink in his book The Sovereignty of God, where he
explains the will of God in the same terms as Calvin, when he
defends the principle of the simplicity of God's will, which the
writers of the Report cannot support. The Report overlooks the
fact that A. W. Pink in the eleventh chapter of his book has written
the following:
One of the most popular beliefs of the day is that
God loves everybody, and the very fact that it is so popular with
all classes ought to be enough to arouse the suspicions of those
who are subject to the Word of Truth. God's love toward all His
creatures is the fundamental and favourite tenet of Universalists,
Unitarians, Theosophists, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists,
Russellites, etc. To tell the Christrejecter that God loves
him is to cauterise his conscience, as well as to afford him a
sense of security in his sins. The fact is, that the love of God,
is a truth for saints only, and to present it to the enemies of
God is to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs.
The Free Church Synod Report is such that it attempts
to completely refute the doctrine of Calvin's Calvinism as defended
in this essay. In its summary the Report quotes the Procurator
as saying, "The point at issue is an open one on which individuals
may hold their own views." Such, however, cannot be the position
in the Free Church because the doctrine that God loves only the
elect and desires their salvation only, is forcefully rejected
by the Synod Report. Since the Free Church Synod has adopted the
Report, only one position is possible in that Church, namely,
the one it wrongly upholds.
Sufficient has been brought forward in this essay
to demonstrate beyond all shadow of doubt, that the doctrine in
question is contrary to Scripture and is destructive of Calvin's
Calvinism. It is also clear that the Westminster Standards contain
no statement whatsoever from which it may be assumed, that God
loves the reprobate and desires their salvation.
The Free Church Synod Report of 1971 therefore constitutes
a Declaratory Act of the Church in which it has officially received
and declared a doctrine which is not laid down in the Westminster
Confession or the Shorter and Larger Catechisms. This is a fact,
which, despite all their attempts at denial, is irrefutable.
The Vindication published by the Presbytery
of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia under the
date of 12/2/1965, gave a full account of the matter under this
heading. This is now repeated together with other relevant factors
brought forward in this essay.
- We have seen how the Westminster Confession is
a positive statement of doctrine which teaches that only the elect
are effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified and saved,
but does not, in any of its statements, specifically exclude a
conditional intention in the atonement for the reprobate. We have
also seen that the Church of Scotland in taking an absolute position
in respect to the atonement, in the Acts of its General Assembly
of 1720 and 1722, in which it condemned the book of The Marrow,
declared the doctrine of universal redemption as to purchase to
be contrary to Scripture, the Westminster Confession and the Larger
Catechism.
- Since the constitution of our Church embraces
the Church of Scotland Acts of 1720 and 1722, the book of The
Marrow and its terms are condemned in our Church.
- The Marrowmen of Scotland reinterpreted the terms
of the book of The Marrow in an attempt to bring the theology
of that book and its terms within the Church of Scotland, but
in so doing subjected their theology to ambiguity and contradiction.
- Modern modified Calvinists who have embraced
the doctrine of the Marrowmen, have extended the ambiguities and
contradictions of that system, in their proclamation of a universal
loving-kindness in God, and the notion that God, in the free offer
of the Gospel, desires the salvation of all men. This has been
systematised in their doctrine of the complexity of God's will
in which one department of the Divine mind is said to respect
His preceptive will, but at the same time is contrary to its other
department, which respects His decretive will.
- In the pamphlet issued by the Literature Committee
of our Presbytery, it was shown that the Westminster Confession
positively teaches that the disposition of God toward the reprobate
is one of everlasting hatred and wrath, and does not at any point
teach that God desires the salvation of all men.
- In spite of the two facts, a) that the Westminster
Confession teaches that the disposition of God toward the reprobate
is one of hatred and wrath, and b) that there is no statement
in the Confession which teaches that God loves the reprobate and
desires their salvation; the Report of the 1971 Free Church Synod,
pages 24 & 27, makes the incongruous statement that our Presbytery
has engaged in "an attempt to impose a doctrinal position
on the Church which is not laid down in the Confessional Standards
of the Church and does not take sufficient account of certain
clear statements of Scripture and Reformed interpretation of them."
- It is because the Westminster Standards make
positive statements only on this matter and do not directly deny
a universal benevolence in God, that our Presbytery has maintained
from the outset, that the doctrines of the Marrow and of
modern modified Calvinism cannot be condemned by simple or direct
appeal to those Standards, but must be condemned by an Act of
the highest court of the Church.
This was declared in the Vindication published
by our Presbytery under the date of 13th February 1965, relative
portions of which we now quote.
Difference of opinion has arisen as to the procedure
by which the controversy may be resolved. The supporters of the
controverted propositions maintain that they are allowed by the
scope of interpretation, which it is claimed, is inherent in the
Westminster Confession. We, however, maintain that an interpretation
of the Confession cannot be used to maintain the controverted
doctrine, without allowing two diametrically opposed systems of
theology to ever disturb the peace of the Church, and so we insist
that the controversy cannot be resolved otherwise than by a declaratory
act of the Church.
In other words, because the controverted doctrine
is not declared or refuted in the Westminster Standards, being
a gross error, it must first be shown to be contrary to Scripture
and then condemned by a declaratory act of the Church, in this
case by the principle of interpretation of Scripture.
The following are the ambiguities contained in the
doctrine of the Marrowmen and our present opponents.
1. Christ having taken upon Himself the sins of
all men, and being a deed of gift and grant unto all mankind,
is not a universal benefit or purchase of the death of Christ,
therefore,
2. the said deed of gift and grant to all mankind
is effective only to the elect, ie., an infallible redemption
gifted to all secures only a portion of its objects.
3. A deed of gift and grant to all is only an offer.
These ambiguities are embraced by the proponents
of the doctrine presently controverted, with the addition of several
others, namely, that: The Omniscient and Omnipotent Being of God,
1. earnestly longs for, and desires the salvation
of those whom He has for the praise of His glorious justice made
reprobate, having made them the objects of his eternal displeasure
and wrath,
2. does not inwardly call by His Spirit all those
whom He earnestly longs and desires to save,
3. has a desire and longing which is at variance
to His will as an efficient cause to the doing of all His good
pleasure,
4. has a will to the realisation of that which He
has not decretively willed, and a pleasure toward that which He
has not been pleased to decree.
"Chapter 5. Conclusion, The application of the
Act of 1720, and the rule of interpretation of Scripture to the
present controversy."
As we have demonstrated, the resolving of the present
controversy cannot rest on an interpretation of the Confessional
Standards, but must first rest on the definition of the extent
and intent of redemption as to purchase clearly given to those
standards in the Act of 1720....The Act of 1720 condemns certain
propositions of the Book of the Marrow as advocating a universality
of redemption as to purchase, which as we have demonstrated, the
Assembly accurately condemned in the actual meaning of their terms....These
propositions belong to the same school of doctrine as that of
Davenant and Amyraut, which asserted an absolute intention for
the elect, and a conditional intention for the reprobate in case
they do believe.
The Act did not condemn those propositions under
meanings which were attached to them by the Marrowmen. So that
we are now faced with propositions using terms and expressions
which have a double meaning, ie., one which is condemned under
the Act of 1720, and the other which is seemingly orthodox, attached
by the Marrowmen, on which they and our present opponent have
rested their claims to orthodoxy within the Church.
The Vindication then stated the terms under which
the doctrine of modern modified Calvinism is condemned in our
Church. It reads as follows:
The position as it stand
