Friday, May 15, 2009

The First Point of Common Grace: An Introduction (15)



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Dear Forum members,
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Before I get into the material that I plan to send you in this letter, I need to answer a question that came from one of our forum members.
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The question is concerning my remark in my last letter that common grace modifies at least four of the five points of Calvinism and, perhaps, also the fifth, namely perseverance of the saints. The reader’s claim was that one ought not really be hesitant about saying that common grace also affects perseverance of the saints, and that thus all five points need to be modified if common grace is introduced into the body of doctrine known as the doctrines of grace. His reason for asserting this was that the five points of Calvinism are a whole, and to modify one is to modify all. The five hang together. They stand or fall together.
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The reason for the objection of the correspondent is, of course, true. One cannot believe in a universal atonement without denying eternal predestination, including both election and reprobation. And so it is with all five.

. My “perhaps” however, had a slightly different emphasis than the reader gave it. My point was and is that the error of common grace directly modifies four of the five points. A universal love of God for men is in flat contradiction to sovereign election and reprobation. A universal atonement is in direct contradiction to sovereign predestination and limited atonement. A work of the Spirit in the hearts of all men enabling them to do good is directly contrary to total depravity. But no teaching of common grace directly opposes the preservation of the saints.
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Even the Arminians did not think that their view had a direct bearing on what we now call the fifth point of Calvinism, for in the original Five Article of the Remonstrance, in which document the Arminians set down their position, the Arminians would not flatly say that they denied the preservation of the saints. They merely expressed doubt about the question. Further, the defenders of common grace readily admit that their views modify the first four points of Calvinism, and I am not aware of a modification of the preservation of the saints by those who defend common grace – a denial as blatant as their denial of unconditional predestination, total depravity, particular redemption, and irresistible grace.
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Nevertheless, the correspondent is correct in his insistence that it is impossible to deny one of the five points without, in the end, denying them all. And so also the doctrine of the preservation of the saints has come under attack in “Reformed” circles.
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In the last installment I made a few general remarks about common grace, particularly noting that, although common grace is to be defined as God’s attitude of favor or grace towards all His creatures, including all men, nevertheless, this attitude is not only objective but also includes the subjective infusion of grace in the hearts of all men by which they know that God is favorably inclined to them, and also by which they are changed for the better, though the change does not result in salvation.
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Left--Prof. Louis Berkhof
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The first point of common grace as adopted by the Christian Reformed Church in 1924 is confusing and ambiguous on the question: To whom does God show His favor? The language of the first point speaks of God’s favor “towards His creatures in general” (Hoeksema and Hanko, Ready to Give an Answer, 63), but also speaks of an attitude of favor “towards humanity in general, and not only towards the elect” (Ibid). One could conclude from this that the first point intends to make a distinction between an attitude of favor towards the brute creation and God’s attitude of favor towards all men. But this is evidently not the way in which the first point of common grace is interpreted by its supporters. Both Louis Berkhof, the primary author of the three points (Louis Berkhof, De Drie Punten in Alle Deelen Gereformeerd [The Three Points Reformed in Every Part] [Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925] 11), and H. J. Kuiper, for many years the editor of the church paper, The Banner (H. J. Kuyper, The Three Points of Common Grace [Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925] 11-13) assert that the meaning of the first point is that God’s attitude of favor is shown to people, not the brute creation.
. Right: Rev. H. J. Kuiper and Dr. John H. Kromminga
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To add to the confusion of the first point and seemingly to contradict what Berkhof and Kuiper say, one Scriptural passage referred to as proof of the doctrine of the first point is Psalm 145:9: “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.” This text obviously refers to the brute creation and God’s works of providence in it, which reveal God’s goodness. The fact that this passage is quoted as proof would seem to indicate that the first point does actually teach that God has an attitude of favor towards the creation itself. If this interpretation is not what the Synod meant, but refers only to men, then Psalm 145:9 must be interpreted to read: “The Lord is good to all men, and his tender mercies are over all people.” This is an interpretation of the text that seems to me to be forced, unnatural and incapable of being sustained. Why, therefore, Psalm 145 :9 is quoted as proof of God’s attitude of favor towards all men remains a mystery.
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But be all that as it may, we assert from the outset that it is correct and in agreement with the Scriptures to say that God is favorably inclined toward His creation – as Psalm 145:9 asserts. He loves His creation, is merciful towards it and views it with great favor.
Psalm 145:9 is a clear example of Hebrew parallelism, a poetic device in which two or more sentences are so related to each other that the one explains and sheds further light on the other. In this verse, for example, the expression in the second part of the verse, “his tender mercies”, explains “the Lord is good” in the first part of the verse. And the words “all his works” is a further explanation of the word “all” in the first sentence. Thus the verse teaches that God’s mercies are towards all his works and those tender mercies towards all His works show His goodness.
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Further, if the first point of common grace wanted to interpret the sentence “The Lord is good to all” as meaning that the Lord is good to all men, this interpretation stands in flat contradiction with verse 20 where the same Psalm reads: “The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy,” where the reference is to those whom God loves is obviously to God’s elect.
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The question of whether God loves His creation is important for another reason. I have met and spoken with men, especially, from a Presbyterian background, who say they believe in common grace. But when they explain their position, it becomes evident that these men identify common grace with providence and simply mean that God’s providence gives evidence of God’s goodness towards His creation. With this idea I have no dispute, although whether the idea ought to be called “common grace” is another question. To call it such is at least confusing when the term is universally used for different ideas.
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There can be no question about it that God is favorably inclined towards His own creation, for He created it and it remains His possession. The devil, after his fall and banishment from heaven, attempted to seize the earthly creation from God and make it his own domain. He persuaded Adam and Eve to join him in that endeavor, because neither he nor his demons had any direct access to the creation. They were angels and not material creatures, as this creation is. He had to enlist Adam and Eve, for they had been placed by God as the heads of creation. Satan was eminently successful, and so it seems as if the creation today belongs to wicked man. Wicked man uncovers the powers of creation, penetrates its secrets, and from it makes products that make his life in the creation easier and more pleasant. Looking around us and observing what goes on in the world today, we could not only be easily persuaded that man has complete control over the creation, but that he uses it in countless ways to sin. He is a servant of Satan and has obediently followed Satan’s grand scheme to make this creation a kingdom of darkness where God is banished from His own world.
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But God does not relinquish His claim upon His own world. In fact, it is impossible for God to do this, not only because of God’s own purpose in creating all things, but also because God is the Author of providence. Creation means that God gave all the universe its existence by the Word of His mouth. Providence means that God, by the same Word of His mouth, continues to give the creation its existence. Further, all that happens in it is done by His sovereign control. That is the doctrine of providence. He not only spoke the word “star”, but the star formed by the Word of His power is upheld by that same Word. That is, only when God continues to speak the Word “star” does that star continue to exist. If God should cease saying that word, the star would disappear and be no more.
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There is a certain irony involved in this. The very creature God upholds by the Word of His power man uses to sin against God. If God did not uphold that creature, man would not be able to use it to deny God. And the same is true of man himself. He too is given his existence every moment by the Word of God’s power. From God’s point of view, the same is true. He upholds every creature to give it to man, knowing full well what man will do with it. It is like a murderer who uses his victim’s gun to shoot him. But there is one thing man cannot do: he cannot take God’s creation away from God.
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God will not permit that to happen in any case, because God has His own purpose with this creation. To that purpose even all Satan does is subordinate; he too is under the sovereign rule of God. What that purpose is, God determined from eternity. It is to glorify Himself through the redemption of the creation by the suffering and death of Christ.
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When Adam chose to assist the devil in his wicked purposes, Adam fell into depravity and corruption. The words of God were fulfilled: “The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” That death was not only physical, but also spiritual, for sin is death. Adam came under the curse, a curse that drove Adam out of Paradise, but also out of fellowship with God. To live apart from God is death.
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But Adam fell into sin as the head of God’s creation. Created to be representative of God Himself in God’s world, he became Satan’s representative when he agreed to do Satan’s will. As Satan’s representative, the whole creation came under the curse. Death pervades this earthly creation. Evolutionism may claim that death in the creation is only a weakness inherited from lower forms of life and an animal ancestry and soon to be overcome as the creation continues to produce higher forms of life, but this is part of the devil’s lie to draw man away from God the Creator. The curse of death is God’s just anger and fury as He punishes the creation as well as Adam its head.
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Christ died for the creation as well as for His people in order that the creation might be redeemed. The Biblical proof of that is solid. When God established His covenant with Noah after the flood, God established His covenant with every living creature (Gen. 9:9-17). The Psalms speak of God’s love for His creation in many places. It is striking, however, that the Psalms, in extolling the glories of the creation, speak prophetically of Christ, revealed in the creation (Psalm 19:1-6, where the figure of the sun as a bridegroom coming forth from its chamber speaks of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness that arises with healing in His wings, Malachi 4:2). It is striking that the law of God is also mentioned in vss. 7-14 as the gospel that converts the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, and gives rewards to those who keep it. The connection between the first part of the Psalm and the second part is surely that the law of God is present in both the creation and man, and has the same power in both creation and man. Psalm 33:6-11 speaks of the power of the Word of God that creates and upholds all the creation. This same truth is mentioned in John 1:1, 2, where that same creative Word of God is said to have become flesh in the person of Jesus Christ (verse 14).
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Many names given in Scripture for Christ are taken directly from the creation: Lion of Judah’s Bright and Morning Star, Lily of the Valley, Rose of Sharon, etc. All these indicate that Christ’s redemption extends to the entire creation.
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Romans 8:19-22 speaks of the hope of the creation to be delivered from the bondage of corruption. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan without ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
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Paul speaks of the same truth in Colossians 1:20: “And [God] having made peace through the blood of his [Christ’s] cross, by him [Christ] to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” The apostle is very specific and emphatic about the fact that in Christ’s cross all the creation, the earthly and the heavenly, is reconciled to God. All shall therefore, be saved. God snatches His own creation out of the dirty hands of the wicked and not only restores it to its original pristine purity and beauty, but raises it to a much higher level of glory in the new heavens and the new earth, when heaven and earth shall become one creation.
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Hence, to speak of God’s grace towards the creation is a perfectly Biblical thought and no one can make objection to it. Surely the quotation of Psalm 145:9, used as a proof text for the first point of common grace, is, on the contrary, a powerful text to prove God’s love towards His own creation: “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.” How true!
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Gradually the righteous are, for the present, squeezed out of God’s world till they are all but destroyed. Then, at that moment when the devil congratulates himself in the accomplishment of his nefarious purpose, Christ comes in power and glory, and the whole creation is snatched out of the hands of the wicked led by Satan. And, irony of all ironies, that same creation, now glorified, is given to the people of God as their everlasting inheritance, for the meek shall inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5), while the wicked are banished forever in hell.
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With warmest regards,
Prof. Hanko

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Serious Implications of "Common Grace" (14)

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Dear Forum Members,
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Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. It will interest you to know that Mrs. Hanko and I are once again in Singapore. The Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church was greatly in need of help once again; one of the pastors of this church, Rev. Lau Chin Kwee, is still recuperating from major surgery. He had a rare genetic disease and the only life-saving measure was a heart-liver transplant. This was the first operation of its kind in all Asia and only the 17th in the whole world. It was performed by a team of 50, of which ten were doctors. He is recuperating well and could possibly return home this week. His surgery has attracted a lot of media attention, and the family has been greatly bothered by this. Pray for him and his family in this difficult time.
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I have finished the discussion of the history of common grace, giving particular attention to the history of the gracious and well-meant gospel offer. The time has come to begin a discussion of the doctrines themselves, the Biblical proof offered in support of them and the evaluation of them from a Biblical and confessional perspective.
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Before I enter a detailed discussion concerning the doctrine of common grace, I should make some general remarks.
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The doctrine of common grace has implications for many other doctrines of the Reformed faith. By virtue of the fact that common grace deals with grace, it touches on and significantly modifies these doctrines that historically have been called “the doctrines of grace”. These doctrines of grace are usually defined as the “Five Points of Calvinism.” Common grace has implications for at least four of the five points of Calvinism, and perhaps all five: unconditional election, particular redemption, total depravity, and irresistible grace, and perhaps the preservation of the saints. While a consideration of this aspect of the subject surely has benefits, and while I intend to demonstrate in passing how common grace modifies these doctrines of grace, I will be concentrating on the doctrines of common grace themselves.
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I say, I will be concentrating on the doctrines (in the plural) of common grace. Common grace itself is one doctrine that teaches that God is gracious to all mankind, and not only to the elect. But included in that general doctrine are at least four other doctrines. That is, God is said to show His favor to all men and not only to the elect in at least four different ways. Briefly, they are: God’s attitude of favor towards all men shown to them by gracious and wonderful gifts in creation; God’s work of restraining sin in the hearts of the unregenerate by His Spirit so that unsaved people are not as bad as they could be and would be apart from common grace; the ability of the unregenerated man to perform good works by the power of the Holy Spirit; and the gracious and well-meant offer of the gospel.
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Although the four doctrines that form parts of the general doctrine of common grace are separate doctrines, and although they may clearly be distinguished form each other, the similarity and relationship between these four doctrines lies in the fact that all are manifestations of God’s grace or favor to all -- although that grace is worked in different ways.
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It is important to remember, as I have pointed out before, that the word “grace” has basically two connotations in Scripture. The first one is God’s unmerited attitude of favor to the elect. No one does anything to merit that favor, but rather forfeits it with all he does. Favor is always gratuitous. The second meaning of the word “grace” is a work of God in the heart of the sinner that brings God’s blessings upon the object of grace and spiritually changes the recipient of that grace. In the elect, God’s grace is the power within men that bestows on them all the blessings of salvation, spiritually alters them so that the regenerated child of God can be called “a new creature” (Gal. 6:15); enables them to walk as God’s people in the world, gives them strength to bear the trials of life, and leads them infallibly to their eternal destination. But if one teaches that God shows grace to the reprobate, this grace to the reprobate is also both an attitude of favor and an internal work of God, a bestowal of benefits internally given that change a man, though that change is not conversion or salvation. We must keep this in mind.
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There is a point here that needs to be made. Although common grace is defined as an attitude of God towards all men, that attitude is not simply objective, out there somewhere, an attitude of which the object is unaware, an attitude hidden in the heart of God. The object of common grace may despise God’s gracious attitude towards him, but he does know it and experience it and his rejection of it is the proof that he knows it..
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The objective attitude of God’s favor towards all men becomes subjectively man’s experience in two ways. The first is simply that the object of God’s attitude of favor is made aware of this favor of God and what it means for him personally.
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The well-meant gospel offer is one part of common grace that stresses the knowledge the sinner has of God’s gracious attitude towards him. The gospel itself expresses to him in a gracious offer, that God wants very much to save him and is willing to do all that is necessary to make salvation possible for him. In fact, it is God’s intention to save him and the only reason he is not saved is because man himself puts up obstacles to God’s work that are not overcome by God.
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This consciousness of God’s favor that makes the unregenerate sinner aware of this gracious attitude of God towards him is very important. What good does it do if the sinner is unaware of how greatly God loves him? A young man may like very much a young lady, but shyness keeps him at a distance and she never becomes aware of it. However, he may gain courage and send her a dozen roses on her birthday, or he may find the courage in himself to express his feeling towards her. Then she knows, whatever her own reaction might be.
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So God also makes known to the sinner that He is favorably inclined towards him. He does this in more ways than through the gracious gospel offer. In giving a man the Holy Spirit who restrains sin in him, the man knows this comes from God. Just as a sick man knows he is made better by the skills of a physician, the sinner knows he is made better by the divine physician. This gift is impressed upon the consciousness of man by God Himself. God gives man this gift because God loves him – so the common grace advocate teaches.
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It has frequently been said that man is conscious of God’s goodness towards him because of what has been called in Reformed theology, a sensus divinitatis (sense of divinity), or semen religionis (seed of religion). This sense of divinity is indeed a reality, as Scripture and our confessions teach. But it is a serious mistake to claim, as some do, that this sensus diuvinitis is also the fruit of common grace. We shall consider this more in detail at a later point.
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Hence, man cannot escape knowing, so claim the advocates of common grace, that God loves him, shows mercy to him, truly shows kindness and benevolence toward him and is very much interested in saving him and making him blessed. Through all God’s works man comes to know that God is indeed favorable towards him.
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Grace involves all the communicable attributes of God. Grace is, in that sense, a broad term, a generic term that includes many different attitudes of God. Grace includes love, mercy, kindness, benevolence, longsuffering and the like. For example, if God gives him grace, God loves the reprobate, according to common grace. Some defenders of common grace are quick to point out that this love of God for the reprobate is not the same kind of love, perhaps not as intense, not as strong, but love nonetheless, which God shows to the elect. The same is true of the other virtues of God. He is compassionate to the wicked; He is merciful to them in their misery; He is sympathetic to them in their troubles; He enjoys nothing so much as to see them happy and does all that He can to make them happy. And so common grace is God’s favor upon the wicked of which they are conscious, and the benefits of which grace they experience every day.
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But this is not all. The defenders of common grace also teach that grace, subjectively bestowed on the sinner, involves a subjective and inner change in the sinner, although not a saving change. This lies in the nature of grace. When the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of the sinner to restrain sin and to enable the sinner to do good works, that powerful grace modifies his total depravity, lessens the power of sin in a man, and leaves an unsaved sinner no longer totally depraved. I know that defenders of common grace, in defense of this position and intent on trying to remain Reformed, speak of a distinction between total depravity (one of the Five Points of Calvinism) and absolute depravity. Apart from common grace, so they say, man is absolutely depraved, but through common grace he becomes totally depraved. It is obvious that this is a mere playing with words. In the thinking of those who promote common grace, the term “total” does not mean “total,” but partial.
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The same is true of the well-meant gospel offer. Because it is a gracious offer, it is a vehicle whereby God gives to everyone who hears the gospel a subjective grace by means of which a man has the power to accept or reject the gospel. In fact, as we shall see, that grace that never saves, gives sufficient power to the sinner to see his own sins, see the just punishment of God that is his lot because of his sins, see the blessedness of escaping from sin by fleeing to Christ; and yet he refuses to go to Christ for salvation. We shall discuss this at a later date. It was known among Puritans as the doctrine of preparationism.
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That there is this internal working of God in the hearts of the unregenerate that changes him is made clear in the writings of Herman Bavinck, the great Dutch theologian and contemporary of Abraham Kuyper. Bavinck, though brought up in the tradition of the Secession of 1834, and though he became professor of Dogmatics in Kampen Seminary, the Seminary of the Secession Churches, nevertheless, moved to the Free University, Kuyper’s pride and joy, to take up the position of professor of Dogmatics there. The Secessionists never quite forgave him for doing this.
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Right: Dr. Herman Bavinck
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Bavinck, in his book, Our Reasonable Faith discusses common grace from the viewpoint of general revelation and speaks of general revelation as a manifestation of common grace. (Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith [Grand Rapids: Wm B, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956] chapters 3 & 4.)
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He first makes a point of it that the content of general revelation and special revelation are the same: But though they have the same content, they are to be distinguished from each other. “And, however essentially the two are to be distinguished, they remain intimately connected. … The general revelation is owing to the Word which was with God in the beginning, which made all things, which shone as a light in the darkness and lighteth every man that cometh into the world. … The special revelation is owing to that same Word as it as made flesh in Christ, and is now full of grace and truth …”(37, 38).
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This relationship between general revelation and special revelation is described as follows: “It is common grace which makes special grace possible, prepares the way for it, and later supports it; and special grace, in its turn, leads common grace up to its own level and puts it into its service” (38).
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That this common grace is also worked internally in the heart of man is Bavinck’s conviction: “After all, the revelation of God in nature and in history could have no effect upon man if there were not something in man himself that responded to it. … And so too the revelation of God in all the works of His hands would be quite unknowable to man if God had not planted in his soul an inerasible (sic, inerasable is correct) sense of His existence and being. … God reveals Himself outside of man; He reveals Himself also within man. He does not leave Himself without witness in the human heart and conscience” (42, emphasis belongs to Bavinck).
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And, of course, general revelation is, in the mind of Bavinck, common grace. And so the fruits of common grace in general revelation are many: “It is owing to general revelation that some religious and ethical sense is present in all men; that they have some awareness still of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, justice and injustice, beauty and ugliness; that they live in the relationship of marriage and the family, of community and state; that they are held in check by all these external and internal controls against degenerating into bestiality; that within the pale of these limits, they busy themselves with the production, distribution, and enjoyment of all kinds of spiritual and material things; in short that mankind is by general revelation preserved in its existence, maintained in its unity, and enable to continue and to develop in history” (59).
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That all these things are true of mankind we do not doubt. That they are the fruit of general revelation, much less, common grace, is quite another matter.
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With warmest regards,
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Prof. Herman Hanko