God is Kind to the Unthankful and to the Evil (20)

Dear forum members,

Before we pursue further the discussion of the proof texts used to prove an attitude of favor and love that God shows to all, I must deal briefly with a text that one of the readers of the forum sent in. He says that it is usually quoted as proof for a gracious and well-meant gospel offer, but would like to have a brief explanation. The text is Revelation 22:17: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

I am aware of the fact that this text, and others like it, have been used to prove from Scripture a well-meant and gracious gospel offer in which God expresses His desire to save all men. But such an interpretation is incorrect. Presumably, the defenders of this position assume that, though this call of the gospel comes only to those that hear or are thirsty or will to come, such characteristics belong to all men. All men hear; all men thirst (for the coming of Christ), all men desire to come.

But this is an evident impossibility on the face of it. Such a view is based on the Arminian doctrine of free-willism, and cannot be found in Scripture. I am just now reading a book by Robert A. Peterson with the title, “Election and Free Will” in which the author traces the history of free-willism from the early church fathers till today and speaks of it as the dividing line between Arminianism and Calvinism. (P & R Publishing, 2007.)

Briefly, the meaning of the text is quite different. In the first part of the text John lays down the general truth that the “bride” of Christ, that is, His church, prays, by the power of the Spirit for Christ’s return. The words “The Spirit and the bride say, Come,” mean, by a Greek hendiadys, “The Spirit in the hearts of the bride says, Come.” He then turns to an admonition directed to the bride to make this prayer earnest and one’s own. These members of the church are described by their spiritual names. They hear what the book of Revelation says about the coming of Christ; they thirst for that coming, for it means their full salvation, and the waters of life shall be their’s to drink forever and ever to quench their thirst.

But even the saints need this admonition, for they are yet in the world, sinful and not always earnestly and eagerly longing for Christ’s return. They are too trapped in their pre-occupation with earthly things to give much thought to Christ’s coming. So the admonition directed to the saints is urgent.

Let us be aware of the fact that Scripture does call all men who hear the gospel to faith and repentance. Proverbs 8:1ff and Matthew 22:14. This command of God is not an expression of His loving desire to save all, but simply a sharp and earnest command. But there are also texts directed only to those who are God’s elect and who know already the work of the Spirit and the grace of God in their hearts. They are addressed by their spiritual names and cannot refer to all men. Such passages as Rev. 22:15, Isaiah 55:1 and Matthew 11:28 are clear instances of such passages. But in neither case does such a passage speak of God’s gracious and loving desire to save all who hear the gospel.

One other item demands our attention before we go on,. In an earlier installment I said, “God does not love those who love Him.” Some of our forum members misunderstood what I was saying, wrote, “God does love those who love Him.” I apologize for my lack of clarity and hope this note clarifies the point. What I meant to say, and thought I had said in the context was, “God does not love His people because they love Him.” His love is first, creative, powerful, salvation itself. God’s love for us creates our love for God.

I hope this clears up the matter.

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We will now consider the Biblical proof that is used to support the idea of God’s general attitude of favor and love that He shows to all men. No confessional proof was offered in support of this point of common grace, but a few Bible verses were quoted in support of it. In the last installment, I considered Matthew 5:44, 45. In this installment I consider the second proof text, Luke 6:35, 36: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”

This passage in Luke is nearly parallel with the passage in Matthew 5 that we considered last time. The context also is very much the same. The Sermon on the Mount is recorded in Matthew 5-7, but here, though spoken on a different occasion, the subject is the same. The text is also very close to being the same, the only difference being that Jesus here speaks of God’s kindness to the unthankful and evil, while in Matthew 5, Jesus speaks of the rain and sunshine God sends to the just and the unjust. Luke 6 therefore makes explicit what is implicit in Matthew 5: the reference to the unthankful and evil is, therefore, a reference to the unthankful and evil elect. Election is not based on works, but on the free and sovereign choice of God. Those who are eternally chosen are not chosen because of any good they did, nor because something was found in them that made them suitable to be counted among the elect. They were as evil as any in the world. They were as ungrateful for God’s good gifts as anyone elsewhere. They were as deserving of everlasting condemnation as those who were not chosen. But they are in any case, citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus is giving them the principles by which the citizens of the kingdom live here in the world.

The elect who are the objects of God’s mercy know with total certainty that they were not chosen because they were in any way better than those not chosen. The awesome character of election and its sovereign work of God is the reason for the humility of God’s people. How can it be any different? It is not at all strange, therefore, that these people are admonished to be merciful to others. They are eager to love their enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. They cannot help but be themselves kind unto the unthankful and evil, for this is the way God dealt with them.

There is no reason at all in the text to argue, as those who teach common grace argue, that God is merciful to all men. After all, Jesus is speaking here to His own disciples (verse 20) and is describing the characteristics and calling of those who belong to the kingdom of heaven. Citizens of the kingdom of heaven are saved by grace; they are now to be gracious to those with whom they come into contact. In this way they manifest to others the grace God has shown to them. What could be more obvious?

To argue that because within the sphere of the kingdom of heaven, God is kind to unthankful and evil people can never be reason why we conclude that God is gracious to all men. One ought to re-read Psalm 73 and Proverbs 3:33 if he has any problem with this explanation.

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The last text that is quoted is Acts 14:16, 17: “Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

This is an interesting text that requires considerable explanation, though not because it is difficult to refute those who want to thrust common grace on the text. Whatever the text may mean, it certainly does not say anything about a general attitude of favor and grace that God has towards all men. That seems to be clear on the very surface.

The context is clear enough. In his first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas came to Lystra. During the course of Paul’s preaching in this city of Asia Minor, Paul healed a lame man. This startled the citizens of this city and they immediately considered Paul and Barnabas to be two of the gods that they worshipped and served. Under this erroneous conclusion, they prepared to make sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas. Paul was determined to prevent them from committing such a terrible sin. The passage is part of Paul’s efforts to stop them from their horrible idolatry.

Even considering the text in this context and attempting to find common grace in this text, one would, it seems to me, immediately wonder why in the world Paul used the doctrine of common grace to prevent the heathen idolaters from worshipping him. But, apart from that, the text says nothing at all about an attitude of God’s favor and grace towards all men, but merely speaks, as I have emphasized more than once, that God gives good gifts to men. His gifts are always good and never evil. He is Himself a good God, infinitely good in His eternal perfections. He cannot give anything but good gifts.

You say, Yes, but God also sends floods, tornados, famine and earthquakes. Is He good when He sends these disasters? Yes, indeed, He is good also when He sends catastrophes, for in His infinite holiness and perfect hatred of sin He sends judgments on the wicked in order that His goodness may be vindicated and His hatred of sin revealed. And surely part of the sin that He hates is the dreadful sin that man commits of despising God’s good gifts and using them to oppose God.

And, we may mention in passing that when God sends catastrophes upon His people, that also is good, for God uses all the sufferings of this present time to sanctify His people and prepare them for glory.

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But the text in Acts 14 goes further. It gives a reason why God gives good gifts to men. That reason is not that God loves them and is kindly disposed towards them. The reason is that God does not leave Himself without witness. In the good gifts that He gives, God testifies of Himself. He even, Paul says, did this in the old dispensation when Christ had not yet come and when the gospel was not sent into the nations. Even in those days when the gospel was proclaimed only in Israel, the heathen who never knew or heard the gospel, nevertheless, were given a strong and irrefutable witness of God. The Jebusites, Moabites, Philistines, Ammonites and all the other heathen nations of the earth received that witness from God through the good gifts that God gave to them.

Paul explains this further in Romans 1:18ff, and this point is sufficiently important to devote some time to it, but let it be established now that when God gave good gifts to men, He gave them to show all men that He alone is God, that He alone is good, and that He alone must be served and worshipped.

Paul appeals to that truth in Lystra, because he underscores the fact that the wicked from the beginning of time and including the idolaters in Lystra knew and know that God alone must be worshipped and served. The people in Lystra, therefore, must not offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, but to God alone.

This truth brings us to a discussion of Romans 1 and the truth of what is sometimes called general revelation. But all this must wait.

With warm regards to all,

Prof Hanko

Scriptural "proof" for Common Grace: Matthew 5:44-45 (19)

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Dear forum members:
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I have been at some pains to deal with the arguments raised in defense of the idea that God has an attitude of favor towards all men, and not only towards the elect. I also gave a positive statement concerning the truth of this matter, namely that God’s favor and love are always towards His people and are rooted in sovereign election; it is not possible to answer the questions posed by common grace without taking into account both election and reprobation.
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Although I am reserving our discussion of other aspects of common grace for future articles, I must remind our readers that the question of God’s general attitude of favor and love towards all men underlies all aspects of common grace: the restraint of sin, the good that the unregenerate do, and the free and well-meant offer of the gospel. All three are based on the idea that God is favorable towards all men. The point we are now discussing is crucial and fundamental to all aspects of common grace.
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Further, I must remind you all that what I said at the beginning of these letters is an important point to bear in mind. God does not only take an objective attitude of favor towards all men and leave it go at that so that most, if not all, the objects of common grace do not even know that God loves them; rather, God’s attitude of favor includes the actual bestowal of grace upon the object of that favor. God’s “attitude” is not a mere thought in His mind; it is the living will of the living God. He shows His favor towards all, and makes certain that these objects of His favor know that God loves them. He gives them His grace in their hearts to enable them to be what apart from His grace they cannot be and to do that which apart from His grace they cannot do. They know His love whether they accept this love or not.
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Bearing these two thoughts in mind, we can proceed with our discussion.
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It is now time to examine the Biblical proof given by defenders of common grace for God’s attitude of favor towards all men.
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The first point of common grace adopted by the synod of the Christian Reformed Church in 1924 offered the following Biblical proof: Psalm 145:9, Matthew 5:44, 45, Luke 6:35, 36, Acts 14:16, 17. We shall discuss these texts one by one. If anyone among our forum members had other texts to consider, I would be more than willing to consider them as well.
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Now, there is not much here to which we have to pay attention. I have already discussed Psalm 145:9, and need not deal with that text again. I pointed out that the reference in this Psalm is not to men but to God’s creation. God is good to His creation, for it is His; Christ died for it, and it shall be redeemed.
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Further, Matthew 5:44, 45, Luke 6:35, 36 and Acts 14:16, 17 are all very similar, and the correct interpretation of one will give us the correct interpretation of the others.
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Even the two brochures written almost immediately after the adoption of the three points by the Christian Reformed Church contain no additional Scriptural proof for the point we are discussing. The two brochures are: Louis Berkhof, De Drie Punten in alle Deelen Gereformeerd (The Three Points, in all Parts Reformed) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925) and H. J. Kuyper, The Three Points of Common Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925).
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Now this is in itself rather significant. It would seem to me that in a official doctrinal statement made by the highest ecclesiastical body of a church and introducing into the church’s body of faith a doctrine that from the viewpoint of the Reformed creeds and the history of the Reformed churches has at best only dubious historical support (although the first point of common grace claims that this view was held by all theologians in “the most flourishing period of Reformed theology,”)—that ecclesiastical body would give an abundance of Scriptural proof, and even, one would hope, an explanation of the texts referred to as proof. But such is not the case. The need for careful exegesis of Scripture is the more pressing when faithful ministers of the gospel are stripped of their office because they refuse to sign the doctrinal statement at issue. Nevertheless, we ought to look at the proof given.
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I must, therefore, turn to Matthew 5:44, 45. In general, there is no question about it that this is a key passage in the defense of God’s attitude of grace and love towards all men. Every defender of common grace that I have read or listened to has quoted this text as decisive in the debate. And all defenders of common grace assure us that this passage ought to mark the end of all debate.
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The text itself reads: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust.”
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The argument as I understand it goes like this. God sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The common rain that God sends is proof of His favor, love, kindness, etc. towards the unregenerate. Rain is God’s common grace.
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Sometimes the argument is turned around, in the interests of showing that all who receive rain actually do receive favor. The argument goes like this: We are called to do good to the just and to the unjust. For us that doing good to the just and unjust includes all men without any distinction, or, at least, includes elect and reprobate alike, for we are unable to distinguish between them. Because we are imitating God as His children, in doing good to all, God also does good to all.
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We may not, however, argue from our calling to love our neighbor as ourselves to God’s attitude of favor towards all men. We are creatures, living here in the world, in the world though not of the world. God is God, sovereign over all who does all His good pleasure. Known unto God are all His works from the beginning. We do not know who are God’s elect and who are reprobate. But God does know, for He determines it all. We ought to keep this in mind.
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An important question that arises from the text is: Whom does Jesus mean by “the just and unjust” upon whom God sends rain? Does Jesus mean: good men in this world and bad men in this world? That is, men who deserve rain and sunshine and men who do not? The answer, very obviously, is: The text cannot mean that, for there are no just people in the world, for “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10).
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Does it then mean to distinguish between those who are righteous because the perfect satisfaction for sin earned on the cross has been imputed to them, and those who are still in their sins and not righteous in Christ? That is, is the distinction between just and unjust a distinction between elect and reprobate? It would seem that the latter would have to be the meaning. But then the text means only, as we have repeatedly observed, that God manifests that He is a good God by giving good things to men, something no one denies. The question still remains: What is God’s attitude and purpose behind these good gifts? And then Psalm 73 and Proverbs 3:33 give us the answer.
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But the whole idea that God loves the reprobate is an imposition on the text of man’s own devising.
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A positive explanation of the text would, I think, be helpful.
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Actually, I dealt with some of the issues in this verse in my last letters and I ask the reader to consult what I wrote there. There is some repetition here, therefore, but perhaps the points are worth repeating.
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Before I take our journey through this text, it is necessary to put the text into its context. In the broader context Scripture gives us Jesus’ words in His Sermon on the Mount. This sermon is spoken to the disciples and, more broadly, to all citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The Sermon on the Mount has frequently and rightly been called, “The Constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven.” After describing the characteristics of the citizens of the kingdom in the Beatitudes, the Lord lays down fundamental principles that govern the lives of these citizens while they are still in this world. Note this: Jesus is laying down principles of conduct to be observed by those who are citizens of the kingdom.
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In the section of which verses 44, 45 are a part, beginning with verse 21, Jesus is explaining how He did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And in connection with His calling and work to fulfill the law, He condemns the keeping of the law as it was explained by the scribes and Pharisees. They saw the law only as an external code of conduct and paid no attention to the spiritual demands of the law: Love God, and love thy neighbor. Even to the command, Love thy neighbor, the Pharisees had added the command, Hate thy enemy (verse 43). This interpretation was indeed what the Pharisees taught, for in verses 46 and 47 the Lord adds, “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans the same?”
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The evil interpretation of the law by the Pharisees was basically a self-centered conceit: I will be nice only to those who are nice to me . . . .
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In other words, the command of God to love our neighbors as ourselves had been corrupted and abused by the self-righteous Pharisees and scribes. They had interpreted “neighbor” as referring to their brethren, and, even more narrowly, to those who loved them. The Lord warns the citizens of the kingdom not to do as the Pharisees, for that is not the law of God.
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But the Pharisees forgot that the command to love our neighbor is rooted in and flows from the command to love God. We cannot love our neighbor without loving God. And, indeed, our love for our neighbor is a manifestation of our love for God. Furthermore, the love the citizens of the kingdom who love God must show to others is a manifestation of the fact that they are loved by God (I John 4:19). The Pharisees, when they interpreted the command, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” and interpreted it to mean that we are to love those who love us, immediately had to face the question: Does God love those who love Him? What a foolish question to ask. The answer obviously is, He does not! Jesus’ answer demonstrates that God loves those who hate Him, though they be elect.
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The term “neighbor” in the law of God is broader by far than our brethren and those who love us. That it has a broader connotation is evident from the parable of “The Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37). In this parable Jesus explains that we are neighbors to anyone whom we meet or walk with on our life’s pathway, who is in need of our help. That means that our neighbors are not only those who unexpectedly cross our pathway and need our help, but also those with whom we walk on life’s pathway every moment of our lives, but who need our help: our wives or husbands, our children, out fellow saints . . . . Quite frankly, I have a great deal of difficulty accepting the hypocritically pious prating of the ministers who are continuously telling us to love our neighbor, but who divorce their own wives and marry others. Let them first love their neighbor nearest to them, their wives and their children.
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For all that, we are also called to love the neighbor who is quite obviously an unbeliever. That is, we are called to love our neighbor without discriminating between those who love us and those who persecute us. We are not to love those only who love us. God does not love those who love Him. God does not love those who make themselves worthy of His love. He loves us, the worst of sinners. If we are children of our Father, therefore, we love those who do not love us. But those whom God loves are those wicked and undeserving people who are nevertheless those for whom Christ died.
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The point of comparison between God’s love and our love is: God loves unworthy sinners (though they are the elect whom God knows) and we are to love unworthy sinners (though we do not know elect from reprobate.) In doing so we imitate our Father in heaven.
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We may very well ask the question: Why does God want us to love our neighbor and not only our brethren? The very obvious answer to that question is: We do not know who are our brethren (or will become our brethren), and who are not. That is why the Pharisees interpreted the command to love our neighbor as referring to those who love them. If, said the Pharisees, a person loves us, he must be one of our brethren and we ought to love him.
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This was very perverse and wicked. We do not even know with absolute certainty who among our brethren are truly people of God; much less do we know of those outside the circle of our brethren who are true people of God. Luther was right when he said that there would be many in heaven who surprised him by their presence, and there would be many he thought to meet in heaven who were not there. Hypocrites are to be found in the church and God’s people are to be found outside the circle of “brethren”, though they may as yet be unconverted. God knows who are His own; we do not know with absolute certainty. Nor need we know. It is enough for us to live in fellowship with those who manifest themselves as faithful servants of Christ, with whom we live in our homes and in the communion of the saints. Going back all the way to Calvin and our Reformed fathers after him and following them, we must exercise towards those who profess to be believers “the judgment of charity,” or “the judgment of love.”
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But God is pleased to save His church from the world of unbelief. He is pleased to save His church by the preaching of the gospel. The effect of the preaching of the gospel is that God’s people are His witnesses in the world of sin; and the witness of God’s people is itself the power of the preaching within them. God uses the witness of Christians to bring His people outside the church into the fellowship of the saints and under the preaching. This is God’s reason for the command to love our neighbor.
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As Jesus makes clear, our neighbor is anyone who comes in our pathway: our wives or husbands, our children, our fellow saints, the man next to us in the shop, the man who knocks on our door to ask for food, the man who threatens us with harm, the man who persecutes us – these and all the rest who, if only fleetingly, enter our lives. God brings them there. God has His purpose in bringing them there. That purpose is to hear our witness of what God has done for us. We do good to those on our pathway whom God has put there.
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We who are husbands surely seek the salvation of our wives. We do all we can to help them fulfill their own calling in the home and in the church. We surely seek the salvation of our children, for we teach them the ways of God’s covenant and insist that they walk in those ways. We surely seek the salvation of our fellow saints, for we earnestly desire to go to heaven with them.
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The command to love our neighbor is broader than showing love to our acquaintances. We are to love those whose pathway crosses our pathway and who, like the wounded Samaritan, block our path so that we have to go around them if we are to ignore them. God put him on our pathway and did so for a good purpose.
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Our neighbor is emphatically someone on our pathway. To love my neighbor who lives in Zaire is very easy. Even if occasionally I have to write out a check because famine is stalking Africa; to love these neighbors is the easiest thing in the world. But to love the unkempt and stinking man who knocks on my door for some food when I am in a rush to meet an appointment with a parishioner who has just lost a loved one – that is something more difficult.
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We must love the neighbor. Love is not sentimental and syrupy do-goodism. Paul defines love as being the bond of perfection (Col. 3:14). Paul means that love binds two people together in a friendship that is characterized by holiness. So it is within the church. When that love is to be extended to our neighbor, it means that we earnestly desire the salvation of our neighbor, that he may, through faith in Christ, be perfect also; and that, saved by God’s grace, he may be one with whom we live in the communion of the saints. Love always seeks the salvation even of those that hate and curse us, despitefully use us and persecute us, for they may very well be brought to faith in Christ by our love for them.
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Love is not, therefore, having fellowship with them in their sins, going to parties and sporting events with them, visiting them in their homes for amiable chats in front of the fireplace, or having a beer with them at the local pub. To seek their salvation is to reprove their sins, call them to repentance and faith in Christ, and point them to the way of salvation. When God shows mercy to us, He shows mercy to the unthankful and evil. We, moved deeply by such a mercy, do likewise.
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To love them is therefore to do good to them and to pray for them, for this is what the Lord enjoins. Our concern for their salvation must be earnest, heart-felt and rooted in a genuine desire to see them one with us. But it is always a reflection in our lives of God’s love for us, undeserving sinners. God does not love those who do good to Him, who deserve His love. He loves the unthankful and evil But He loves them in Christ, seeks their salvation by sending His own Son into the world to suffer and die, and does all that is necessary to bring them to heaven.
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As I said, witnessing has the same power as preaching. Preaching brings to faith in Christ; so does witnessing. Preaching is directed to far more people than the elect; so is witnessing. Preaching condemns sin and calls to faith in Christ; so does witnessing. Preaching is a two-edged sword that hardens as well as saves; so is witnessing. Witnessing is a sort of echo or reverberation of the preaching – preaching that we have heard and by which we have a faith that echoes in our witnessing. The two belong together. God uses promiscuous preaching to save His elect; so also He uses witnessing to bring His elect to the preaching of the gospel, to the fellowship of the church and to faith in Christ. We must not be as the Pharisees; we must be children of our Father in heaven.
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Considering these things, we can understand the words: “That ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” The point Jesus is making is that we must do to others what God has done to us. This is always a theme in Scripture, as Jesus makes clear in the parable of the two debtors (Matt. 18:21-35). God loves us and has shown His love for us by giving us Christ and salvation in Him. We are undeserving sinners who have no claim at all on God’s mercy. We receive what we do not deserve. If we fail to show this great blessing to our neighbor, we are thankless and unappreciative, not worthy of the blessings we are given. If we are aware of the amazing wonder of our salvation and if we have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, then we will also be inwardly compelled by the power of that love to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is Jesus’ point in this passage.
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If you say that Jesus points us to the fact that God sends His rain and sunshine on men indiscriminately, you are, of course, correct. The point of the terms “just and unjust” is precisely to demonstrate that God’s love does not depend on the worthiness of the object. But, further, God always gives only good gifts. I have pointed out in an earlier installment that God gives good gifts, for He is good in Himself. The good gifts He gives show beyond question the wickedness of the world, for they despise God’s good gifts and use them in the service of Satan. In this way God Himself demonstrates that His judgment on the wicked is a judgment they deserve. In His good gifts to the reprobate, God sets them on slippery places where they slide rapidly into everlasting destruction (Psalm 73:18, 19). Behind this just judgment stands the eternal and unchangeable decree of sovereign predestination.
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But God’s goodness is a manifestation of His grace to those whom He has chosen in Christ and for whom Christ died. We are unthankful and evil and deserve nothing. But God knows us as His own and knows all who are His own. He saves us sovereignly. We do not know who are elect and who are not. We are called to be witnesses of what God has done for us in the hope that God will do the same to those to whom we witness. And God will do what He has eternally planned to do, but in such a way that our witnessing always accomplishes His purpose whether that means to save or to harden. Or, to put it a little differently, God who knows His own in this world, gives good gifts to them for their salvation; but He also gives good gifts so that the wicked may be without excuse and God’s purpose in reprobation accomplished. We do not know who are elect and who are reprobate, but our manifestations of love have the same affect: they save (by God’s grace) the elect and harden and condemn the wicked.
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You say, But God gives rain and sunshine to the just and unjust. That is, of course, true. But it is a false assumption to interpret giving rain to just and unjust as tokens of God’s love for the wicked. He gives rain and sunshine to the unjust reprobate for their condemnation, and to the just elect for their salvation. So we, the objects of such undeserved favor, must love our enemies and do good to them that hate us. That is, we must seek their salvation, not knowing whom God will be pleased to save through our goodness. God will use that very love for our neighbor to harden and condemn the wicked, but also to save those whom He has chosen to everlasting life.
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One correspondent asks whether it is an accurate statement of God’s attitude towards the reprobate to say, “The good gifts of providence that he gives to them (the wicked, HH) are meant as a testimony to them that he is a good God, full of kindness and love, and therefore one worthy to be worshipped and before whom they should repent were they in their right mind, and that if they were to do so they would experience his loving fellowship as sweet.” My response to that summary is a hearty “Amen.”
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This is Biblical and what we must believe.
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With warmest regards,
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Prof. Hanko

Election and Reprobation Denied (19d)

Dear Forum members,
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In the past letters I have sent, I have been at some pains to demonstrate from Scripture that the common grace of a universal benevolence and love of God is contrary to the Word of God and the teaching of the Reformed and Presbyterian Confessions. Over against this position, I have also attempted to present a positive Biblical and confessional statement concerning the truth of sovereign and particular grace.
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In doing this latter, I have, more than once, mentioned that the Biblical teaching is that God’s sovereign and particular grace is rooted in the truth of sovereign and eternal predestination, both election and reprobation . This teaching is found in Scripture and in our Confessions.
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Without any doubt, this same doctrine of sovereign and eternal predestination, both election and reprobation, was taught by the Reformers, including both Martin Luther and John Calvin. Those who hold to double predestination today stand firmly in the tradition of the Reformation and of the Reformed and Presbyterians Confessions.
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To maintain double predestination is to close the door to any form of common grace, particularly to the idea that God’s love, kindness and benevolence are shown to all men. But it works the other way around as well. If one is committed to common grace, in whatever form it takes, sovereign and double predestination falls by the wayside.
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This was evident in a recent reprint of Arthur Pink’s influential book, The Sovereignty of God. In this book, Arthur Pink defended the Biblical doctrines of both election and reprobation. Yet, the Banner of Truth, in republishing the book, deleted all references to reprobation, without any notice in the book of having omitted these sections, without a credible apology for doing so, and without permission from the author, dead at the time the reprint was made.
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I recently received a letter from one who read my forum articles in which the correspondent claimed to believe in election, (because it was, after all, found in Scripture) but who insisted that we could know nothing about it and that it ought not to be a part of the preaching. As far as we know, he said, God loves all men and presumably, Christ died for all men. To ignore this basic doctrine of Scripture is to deny it.
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A correspondent and member of the Forum called my attention to the fact that a recent article in The Banner, the official periodical of the Christian Reformed Church, repudiated both reprobation and election. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is the mother Church of the Protestant Reformed Churches, and the two denominations have existed separately since the CRC expelled three ministers for repudiating the doctrine of common grace.
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Where has an adoption of common grace led the CRC? It has led the CRC down the road of increasing apostasy although our interest in this article is in what it says about predestination.
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The article to which I refer (Alvin Hoksbergen, The New Calvinism: Calvinism is on the Rise – but Other Faith Traditions are Getting all the Credit [The Banner, August, 2009], pp. 38, 39. The article can be read on www.thebanner.org.) is discussing a feature article that originally appeared in Time magazine entitled “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now,” published in the March 22, 2009 issue of Time magazine. Among these “10 Ideas” Neo-Calvinism was included.
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The article was, in its description of Calvinism, a caricature of it, understandably if Time was speaking, not of Calvinism, but of Neo-Calvinism. Time’s description of this Neo-Calvinism bore no resemblance to Calvin’s teachings; this kind of Calvinism was indeed “Neo,” and could rightly be called “No-Calvinism.”
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One would think that a minister in a denomination that professes to be Calvinistic would come to the defense of Calvinism as it has been taught in the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions. But such is not the case. Rather, the author is puzzled that neither the Reformed Church of America (RCA) nor the CRC was included in the lists of churches who are promoting the new Calvinism. The author points out various areas in which the CRC has been active and should have received proper credit: The CRC is active in social work and the CRC properly recognizes the authority of God’s Word in creation (presumably a reference to the CRC’s approval of evolutionism). These certainly, the author opines, are credentials that admit the denomination into the ranks of Neo-Calvinists. But these credentials were obviously ignored by Time.
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Finally, the author presumably finds the real reason why the CRC has been overlooked. It has an albatross hanging about its neck, which has been hanging there for some time: “I wonder why the RCA and the CRC traditions aren’t mentioned. Whatever the reason, now might be the time for us to take another look at who we are and how we might be included among other Calvinists who make a noted difference in today’s world” (38). He then suggests that the reason for the exclusion of the CRC from Time’s list is: “Our problem with election. An area that we in the CRC tradition must address if we are to be part of the ‘new Calvinism’ is the perception that there is an albatross that hangs around our neck. I am referring to the perception that we believe God predestinates some people to everlasting hell, while others are granted eternal life in glory” (39).
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The author then goes on to give a caricature of the doctrine, even though, in his opinion, the church no longer believes or, at least, never talks about it: “While most seem to have moved away from the concept of double predestination (God is glorified by those assigned to hell as well as by those accepted into heaven), the biblically based concept of election remains a major factor in our theological structure” (39).
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He then goes on to say, “[Election] is not a topic that plays well from the pulpit. It is an arrogant position that may consign good acquaintances to hell while granting heaven to only a select few” (39).
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The author then goes on to define what he thinks election really is. “When God called (elected) Abraham, God mentioned nothing about Abraham’s being translated to heaven after death. Instead, the promise was wrapped up with what Abraham and his descendants were to do in their daily lives” (39). This is a time-worn definition, repeatedly refuted, that election means nothing more than God’s choice of a nation or individual for a specific task in the world; in this article that task is said to be social action.
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All the Reformed theologians throughout the ages, including Bavinck, Kuyper, Turretin and many others in the Reformed tradition, and Rutherford, Gillespie and others in the Presbyterian tradition, not to mention the outstanding theologians at Dordt and Westminster, and the Reformers themselves, are brushed aside with a careless wave of the hand and dismissed as responsible for an albatross hanging about the neck of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches. Speaking of arrogance, brushing aside in a cavalier fashion outstanding theologians to me is a towering arrogance that cannot be excused. Such dismissal of the traditions of the church of Christ is, of course, done in the interests of a “new Calvinism,” a “neo-Calvinism”, which is no Calvinism at all, but which is, after all, a categorical dismissal of Scripture itself, in which all these doctrines are to be found. And so it becomes a towering arrogance in its own right that lifts man’s vain speculations to a position higher than the Scriptures.
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Such ecclesiastical disaster comes upon defenders of common grace. It may take years, but it comes, with astonishing certainty. We do well to take heed.
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With warm regards,
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Prof. Hanko

Christ: His human nature and His love--for whom? (19c)

Dear Forum Members,
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In the last letter I addressed the question whether any possibility of kindness towards the reprobate exists in order that God may be delivered from the charge of being unkind and tyrannical. I answered this with an emphatic “No.” Neither Scripture, the Reformed Confessions, nor the Westminster Confession of Faith speaks of this general kindness of God. I stressed rather, that God is a holy God, that any sin against Him is terrible, and that God is also a God of perfect justice. In His holiness and justice He cannot overlook sin and be kind or gracious to the sinner – apart from Christ.
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Nor can God be charged with tyranny. He is good in all He does, even in His just judgment of the wicked. It is not tyrannical for God to punish the wicked with a punishment commensurate with their monstrous sin against His great holiness.
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Nevertheless, behind God’s just punishment of the wicked is God’s eternal decree of reprobation. According to this decree, God’s purpose eternally is to manifest His justice in the way of the punishment of the sinner.
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These considerations are closely related to other questions to which we now turn.
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One question that was raised by correspondence was the question whether Jesus, from the view point of His humanity, loved all men. The argument goes like this. When our Lord Jesus Christ came into our flesh, He came under the law (Gal. 4:4). The law demands of everyone under it that he love God and his neighbor as himself. A man’s neighbor includes all those without distinction with whom he comes into contact. No man under the law knows who is elect and who is reprobate, except our Lord Jesus Christ, who did know who were His people and who were not. And so, because Christ also was under the law, even though He knew His own and knew also who were not among His sheep, He had to love the reprobate as well as the elect if He was to keep the law – although this was only in His human nature.
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I recall that there was a controversy over this very point in a Presbyterian Church a number of years ago. The controversy centered in the gracious gospel offer, but involved the same line of argumentation as is used in this question we now consider. The defender of this view talked personally with me to explain his position. In order to explain his position on the discrepancy between Christ’s love for all revealed in the gospel offer and Christ’s sovereign love for His people only, he appealed to the distinction between the divine nature and the human nature of Christ. He claimed that Christ in His divine nature loved only the elect, but in His human nature, He loved all men.
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He was correctly charged by his church with Nestorianism, an ancient heresy, which separated the two natures of our Lord so completely that Christ possessed, according to this view, two persons. Nestorianism was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD and by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
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All that our Savior did while on earth and all that He now does is His work as the divine-human Mediator. It is wrong to say that Christ did one thing in His divine nature apart from His human nature, or to say that Christ does something according to His human nature without the involvement of the divine nature. It is yet more wrong to say that Christ in His human nature could do something completely at odds with His divine nature, so that the two natures did not agree with each other. Hence, in answer to the question: Did not Christ, who came under the law, fulfill the law by loving all his neighbors, whether elect or reprobate? we insist again that the Biblical answer is, No; Christ who knew His own that were given Him of the Father loved His neighbor, but only His elect neighbor. This truth is, in fact, clearly stated in John 13:1: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”
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I really do not understand very well the force of this argument. Neither for Christ, nor for us, is our neighbor every man who lives in the world. My neighbor is the one with whom I come into contact, with whom I must live, who is on my pathway, who requires my attention, who places me under certain obligations towards him. My neighbor is my wife, my child, my fellow saint – as well as the man along side of me in the shop. And I am called to love him in such a way that I, caring for whatever need he may have, seek his salvation. Love always seeks the good of the object of that love; and no greater good can we show to someone we love that to seek his salvation. I do this because I do not know who are elect and who are reprobate, and it may please God, should he be an elect, to use my love for him to bring him to salvation (Matt. 5:16).
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But the Lord loved His neighbor too. He sought the salvation of His neighbor and in fact accomplished it. But His neighbor was the one for whom He was sent into the world to die, the elect in this world whom the Father had given Him from all eternity. That neighbor was by no means kind towards Christ. That neighbor opposed him, rejected His gospel of the kingdom and finally crucified Him. But the power of the love of Christ on the cross, brought and still brings that neighbor to faith and salvation.
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This truth is clearly taught by the Lord Himself. At the time the Lord received a delegation from the imprisoned John the Baptist to inquire whether He was the Messiah or whether another was still to come, the Lord addressed the people by extolling the important place John had occupied in the working out of God’s salvation in Christ (Matt. 11:7-15). At the conclusion of this sermon, the Lord pronounced dreadful woes on the cities of Judah and spoke of the fact that Sodom and Gomorrah as well as Tyre and Sidon would not be punished as severely as Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin (Matt. 11:20-24).
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Immediately after this solemn and divine pronouncement of judgment on apostate Judah, it seems the Lord paused to pray – although He must have prayed audibly: “I thank thee Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Matt. 11:25, 26). This prayer was not, however, a conclusion to which the Lord was driven by what he observed as He witnessed the unbelief of the leading cities of Palestine; He not only acknowledged that such hiding and revealing belong to the sovereign work of His Father (“Thou hast hid these things . . . and revealed them . . .”), but He also emphatically states that He is on the earth to carry out this divine purpose of His Father: (“All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (27).
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I see no problem here.
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We can consider two additional questions in this letter. They are related to each other. One question asks about the possibility of hating a man’s sin, but loving the man himself. The figure of a judge is used. A judge may be utterly repelled by a man’s sin, but nevertheless have a sense of pity and compassion for the man. It is not necessarily true, so the questioner argues, that love and hatred are totally incompatible.
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The second question, related to the first, refers to Galatians 5:22, 23, where the fruit of the Spirit is defined as principally love. Did not Christ, so the question goes, have the Spirit? And did He not, therefore, love all those with whom He came into contact? The same can be said of us in our calling. We have the Spirit and if we show the fruit of the Spirit, we show love for our fellow man. Parenthetically, I observe that the question is reminiscent of our modern judicial system in which more pity is shown to the criminal than to the one against whom a crime has been committed. And, again, I remind you that sin is against “the most high majesty of God” (Heidelberg Catechism, 4/10).
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Now it seems to me that we ought to be clear on what is meant by love and hatred. And the questioner himself recognizes that an understanding of these two terms is essential to the problem.
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Love is a not a sentimental and romantic feeling. While love certainly has to do with the emotions, the emotions are, quite naturally, a part of the mind and will. Love is far more than a feeling. Scripture gives us what is almost a formal definition of love in Colossians 3:14: “And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” The word translated “charity” in many places by our AV is, of course, the word for “love.” Now the text says two things about “love”. It is first of all a bond, and second, it is a bond of perfection. This definition holds whether we are talking about the love of God for Himself or for us, or the love we have for God or for our neighbor. Love is therefore, a bond of friendship and fellowship. But it is a bond that is characterized by perfection.
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Hatred, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. Hatred is repulsion, abhorrence and total refusal to have fellowship with someone. God loves Himself as the holy and perfect One and has fellowship with Himself. That fellowship is a bond between the three persons of the holy trinity that is characterized by life, love and happiness.
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God loves His people, even while they are yet sinners (Rom. 5:8). Impossible, you say? Yes, indeed! But it is possible because God loves them in Christ and they are without sin, holy as God is, in Christ. He establishes with them a bond of fellowship that is characterized by life, love and happiness. And so great is the love of God that it reaches down to us through Christ and transforms us into a holy church in which God’s holiness itself is revealed.
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God’s hatred of the wicked is His revulsion of them because of their sins. (Psalm 5:5: "Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity;” Not: “Thou hatest iniquity,” but “Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity.”) God does not give them even for a moment any sense of His fellowship with them. He drives them away from His presence and causes them to experience His curse. When they die, He puts them into hell where they are made to suffer the just judgment of their sins. And hell is as far from God as one can be. God hated Esau, not only Esau’s sins (Malachi 1:3).
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We are called to love God; that is, to enter into fellowship with Him, live in the consciousness of that fellowship and give praise to Him as the infinitely holy One. We love Him because He first loved us and shedding abroad His love within our hearts, He makes us love Him (Rom. 5:5, I John 4:10). The work of making us as holy as He is includes the work of causing us to love Him, for holiness that comes from God draws us to Him and into His fellowship.
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Yet, as we have previously observed, God’s decree of reprobation stands behind man’s sin and punishment. Once again, this is true, not in such a way that God is the author of man’s sin, but in such a way that God’s sovereignty is revealed in the way of man’s sin and God’s just punishment for sin.
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We may not like this truth; we may protest against it; but let it be known that our puny and worthless objections do not (thank God!) change the truth and will not ever change the fact that God is absolutely sovereign in all He does. We add to our sin when we persist in our questioning. It is our calling to bow in worship and adoration. “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 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 shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with must longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” (Rom. 920-22)?
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The difficult part comes in our calling to love our neighbor when our neighbor is wicked. When our neighbor is holy as we are, that is, also a saved sinner, that love is (at least, theologically; in fact very difficult) no problem. We love our wives, our children and our fellow saints because we love God as they love God. We have fellowship with them and live in the bond of life, love and joy.
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But some of our neighbors are wicked. How are we to love them? This is how we must do it. The answer seems so obvious. Because love is the bond of holiness, our love for them is an earnest desire to have them saved. We do not know who are God’s people and who are not. We hope and pray they may be elect, loved by God, and so we seek their salvation. This does not mean that we neglect their needs; God placed them on our pathway because they need us. But we supply their needs in order to seek their salvation. We bring them food when they are hungry, but in order that we may display the love God has for us who are undeserving sinners; we, therefore, tell them that such love as God has for us, poor sinners, can and also will be theirs, if they repent of their sins and turn to Christ in faith.
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Obviously such love is a “one-way street,” for we refuse to have fellowship with them in their sin. In that sense of the word, we love them, but hate their sin. We, in our love for them, condemn their sin and seek their repentance. We refuse to have fellowship with them in their sin, just because we love them and seek their salvation. God acts towards us in the same way, though in an infinitely higher way. He shows His hatred of sin and His love for us in giving us Jesus Christ – while we were yet sinners. And in Jesus Christ we are sanctified and have the true fellowship of love with Him.
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How that all works out in our lives is obvious. Our love for our neighbors has the same two-fold effect as the preaching of the gospel, for that kind of witness is empowered by the gospel. Our love for our neighbor will either save or harden. It will save our wives, our children, our fellow saints and God’s elect among the unbelievers. But the love we show to our neighbor will also harden the reprobate in their sin. God does good in all the gifts He gives them and they are hardened in their hatred against God. So with our gifts to them. Try it once. Go to them in God’s name and in the name of Christ. The more we bring to them our earnest entreaties for them to repent and believe in Christ, the angrier they become, for they do not want to be told that they are sinners who will perish if they do not repent.
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God works His salvation through us, for He always uses His church to accomplish His purpose in the world. As the wicked increase in their hardening we find it increasingly difficult to have anything to do with them. They want nothing to do with us. They despise the gospel we bring to them and despise us for continuing to bring it. They demonstrate that they hate God and hate those who represent the cause of God in the world. And so the time comes when the child of God cannot even have that limited one-way-street-love any more. He can no longer seek their salvation, for they slam the door in his face. Every child of God has experienced this. And the believer’s response is: “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee” (Psalm 139:21)?
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For myself as well as for others who sincerely desire to know the truth of these matters, it is essential that we begin with God and not with ourselves or our conceptions of what God ought to be like. As I said before, we cannot climb the ladder of our own thinking to reach the dwelling place of God who makes the heavens His throne and the earth His footstool. We will always end up fashioning our conception of God according to the pattern of what we think He ought to be.
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God must reveal Himself; that is, He must tell us who He is and what He does. Scripture is very, very clear on how great God is. I sometimes think it would be well for us simply to sit down and read Job 38-41, for, if we truly hear God speak, we will say with Job, “I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak; I will demand of thee, and declare unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:1-6).
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Or perhaps we ought to read Paul’s cry at the conclusion of Romans 9-11: “”O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (11:33-36).
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That is a summons to lay our hands on our mouths and bow in the earth in worship!
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With warmest regards,
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Prof Hanko

The Sovereignty of God -- and sin (19b)

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Greetings to our forum members,
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In my last installment I was answering some questions that had been raised in connection with my assertion that God’s kindness, mercy, grace, etc. are shown by God only to His elect, and that the reprobate wicked are never in any sense of the word the objects of these delightful attributes of God. The questions inquired into the possibility of kindness and grace to the reprobate wicked, which would make God less tyrannical, hateful and even cruel towards men.
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A few more things have to be said about this matter before we can move on; and, indeed, other questions included in the letter have to be answered. I am glad that I can address these problems and questions that arise in the minds of our readers, not only because they are necessary questions, but also because they are asked, not in the spirit of confrontation, but expressing a desire to learn of these things more completely. The questions give such an opportunity and it is my prayer that the answers will help as well. We shall pursue this matter a bit further.
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It is difficult for us, mere men and sinners as well, to take sin seriously. We are seemingly so accustomed to sin, also in our own lives, that we are frequently unaware of it, or if we are aware of it, we tend to brush it aside lightly. The world has constructed a false doctrine about the non-existence of sin; and the apostatizing church has bought into worldly philosophy in its efforts to minimize sin. Divorce and remarriage are no sins; Sabbath desecration is no sin; wrong doctrine is to be tolerated; “minor” lapses in conduct are to be overlooked; “white lies” are a necessary part of life; and such evils as materialism, worldliness, feminism, not to mention such horrible sins as immorality and homosexuality, are opening practiced and generally accepted as a normal part of life. Our tendency is, as we are also affected by the world, to become insensitive to sin and thus come to a position where sin is tolerated.
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Such a cavalier attitude towards sin influences our thinking, and the result is that sin is no longer the horrible monster that Scripture makes it. Scripture points out in blistering language that not only sin as sinful words, deeds, thoughts and desires is abhorrent to God, but also that we are, apart from grace, sinful people, with depraved natures who can only be described in terms of being clothed with filthy rags (Is. 64:6, literally, menstrual rags), covered with pus-dripping sores (Is. 1:6), leprous from top to bottom, and such other graphic illustrations. We have sinful natures that are totally depraved and for which there is no cure – outside the balm of Gilead. These sinful natures, the source of a river of sewage, are also our responsibility before God. We have winked cheerfully at our reflection in the mirror as we contemplate our own favorable features, but God sees, apart from Christ, repulsive people whom His soul abhors.
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The measure of the seriousness of our sins in the eyes of God is to be found in the impenetrable depths of the suffering of the Son of God. God gave His Son to an awful cross! Why? God takes sin seriously, for He is a holy God. God will give His beloved Son to hell’s degradation and agony to satisfy His fury against sin. One who bows in shame at the foot of the cross realizes how dreadful sin is. My wife and I were reading in our devotions that sad book of Lamentations 4. If God deals so harshly as there described by the prophet, with His people, how must He deal with the wicked? (I Peter 4:17, 18 asks the same rhetorical question.)
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All this judgment of God against sin is in no way eased by an appeal to the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign. His sovereignty does not mean that we are not responsible for our sin. We are! Every sinner knows it – deep down, where he will not even permit himself to venture in his own thoughts. In the judgment day when all stand before the white throne of Christ, not one sinner will open his mouth in protestation. Hell is the anguish that it is, because it is the endless memory of our sins for which we are to blame and for which we now suffer.
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The decree of reprobation is also sovereign. Reprobation does not imply that God’s eternal, all-wise, sovereignly good and holy decree is the cause of sin. Reformed people have turned away in horror at such a thought. But it does mean that God sovereignly accomplishes His purpose in damning the wicked in the way of man’s sin, so that God remains sovereign over sin, but also everlastingly free from sin’s blot or guilt. Even reprobation underscores the seriousness of sin.
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Is your response: “I cannot understand these things”? I did not keep track of how many times I was asked about these things during the years of my ministry, but I think I am correct when I say that in my catechetical instruction over the years, no single question has been more frequently asked by catechumens in doctrine classes than the question: How does one harmonize God’s sovereignty, which includes sovereignty over sin, with man’s responsibility?
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It is not my intention to go into this question in this letter. I only want to emphasize one point: Both God’s sovereignty (also over sin) and man’s responsibility are so clearly taught in Scripture, and so frequently in the same breath, (See Acts 2:23 and 4:26, 27 as only two examples), that they cannot be denied. Nor can we dismiss these two ideas with the off-handed remark that they are mutually exclusive, and contradictory; they are not. They fit together without contradiction. – even if we cannot understand fully how this is possible. God is absolutely sovereign – even over sin; I am a wretched, hell-bound sinner; I receive what I deserve when judgment comes. I need Christ. I shall cling to Him.
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I stress these things, because, in the final analysis we must be God-centered in our thinking, not man-centered. We can have such feelings of sympathy in our hearts for mankind and such horror at the thought of everlasting hell that we turn away with the shivering comment: “Such things cannot possibly be true of God. He would not take a baby out of this life. He would not put a man in hell where there is anguish and pain forever. He would not send tornados and tsunamis that kill thousands.” Such language ought never to cross the lips of one who fears God.
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God is God! He is the Holy One who inhabits eternity. He is infinitely above us. We cannot climb the ladder of our own thinking and reasoning to find God and describe Him. He dwells in an unsearchable light. He is beyond finding out. If we would collect the knowledge of all God’s faithful servants, what the church of all ages has collectively said of God and His works, into one whole, it is less than a thimble full of water in comparison with all the oceans of the earth. He made them all! He set their bounds! He controls their movements! He is God.
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“O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” (Rom. 9:20). And this comes after, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (9:13). “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (vs. 13). “So it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (vs. 16). “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (vs. 18).
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Before such a great God we can do nothing but fall on our faces and worship.
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It is no wonder that men from the church, men who ought to be spending their time defending the great name of God, are ashamed to confess God’s absolute sovereignty. And, almost inevitably, when these churchmen launch their attacks against a God-centered theology in some vain hope of rescuing man from his shame and degradation, their attacks are against the doctrine of sovereign reprobation. They apparently consider this doctrine the Achilles’ heel of true Reformed theology. They do this, it would seem, to appeal to the sympathies of men without regard for the transcendent greatness of the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth.
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Calvin’s theology was centered in God’s glory. His enemies called him a “God-intoxicated man”. He was, they said, “drunk with God.” They meant it as a slur. It is the highest of all compliments. Would God we had more God-intoxicated men today.
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There are no other options available to us: either we are “God-intoxicated” or we are man-intoxicated. The latter will lead to forming our own images of God in our own minds, but images nonetheless; images as awful as Baal, Moloch or Ashtaroth.
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Who by searching can find out God? We may be puzzled by problems that arise in our own minds concerning truths Scripture sets down, but what of all the works of God can you and I understand? Do you understand how God forms a baby in its mother’s womb? Do you understand that God creates wine by causing vines to produce grapes? Do you understand how a blade of grass grows, nourished by the dirt? I do not. Nor does anyone. I am not disturbed by my inability to understand the ways of a sovereign God. To try by refusing to believe Scripture’s teachings is to be kinder, more beneficent, more gracious than God Himself is. But God will not allow Himself to be squeezed into molds of our devising.
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Let us then join the company of saints in all ages and say with them, “Oh God, how great thou art!”
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With warmest regards,
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Prof Hanko

Is Love Consistant with Justice and Wrath? (19a)

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Dear Forum members:
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Before I take up an investigation of the proof texts for the aspect of common grace I am investigating, namely, God’s attitude of love, favor, kindness and blessing to all men without distinction, I must treat objections that have been raised against the view of grace defended in these articles and which was sent to me; they involve important questions and demand an answer. I do so gladly, for they really bring us to the heart of the whole issue that confronts us.
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I am going to summarize the argument here and perhaps take a few quotes from the letter. Before I do this, however, it should be noted that the correspondent asks questions and makes observations, not so much because he differs with what I write and wants to defend common grace, but because he hears these objections made against our position and is interested in a correct answer.
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In general, a major concern of the writer is a negative attitude that many take towards the PR position that their viewpoint does not do justice to God’s attributes of mercy, love, kindness, etc., but tends to present God as tyrannical and possessing attributes at odds with His goodness.
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Although without his approval, the writer refers to one acquaintance as saying, I like my God a lot more than the God of the PRC. The explanation of this remark, in the writer’s own language is: “He wanted to preserve the view that God’s attitude to the sinner undergoes development. God gives a period of probation in which the sinner is tested. As the sinner grows older and goes on in the course of sin, God reacts accordingly, until the sinner is eventually ripe for judgment. God was prepared at the beginning of the sinner’s life to give him the leeway to repent that eventually he takes away.”
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The writer goes on to describe those who disagree with the position I outlined as “involving a negative and malicious view of God: Hoeksema at one point used the analogue of a farmer fattening up cattle for slaughter for God’s dealings with the non-elect. God almost seems to want to trip them up, and in a cruel and malicious sort of way to place them in circumstances he knows very well will simply add to their eventual misery, talking delight in this misery in an almost Satanic way.”
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There were other questions that need to be addressed, but I want to comment on these remarks, first of all. While I think these matters are extremely important and these questions raised need to be answered, I am struck by the fact that some of these same objections were raised against the fathers at Dordt by the Arminians. You can find a list of these objections in the Conclusion of the Canons of Dordrecht. I cannot quote the entire conclusion, but do quote a few statements that reflect the same position that is described above. After setting down the doctrines of sovereign grace, including the truth of sovereign and double predestination, the Conclusion says of these doctrines, “And this is the perspicuous, simple, and ingenuous declaration of the orthodox doctrine respecting the five articles which have been controverted in the Belgic churches (that is, the churches found in the Lowlands including Belgium and the Netherlands, HH), and the rejection of the errors, with which they have for some time been troubled. This doctrine the synod judges to be drawn from the Word of God, and to be agreeable to the confessions of the Reformed churches.”
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Then turning to the Arminians and their unprincipled attacks against the Reformed faith, the Synod calls attention to their distortions and slanders of these doctrines: “Whence it clearly appears that some whom such conduct by no means became (that is, such conduct was not becoming to the Arminians, HH) have violated all truth, equity, and charity, in wishing to persuade the public:
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“That the doctrine of the Reformed churches concerning predestination, and the points annexed to it, by its own genius and necessary tendency, leads off the minds of men from all piety and religion; … that it makes God the author of sin, unjust, tyrannical, hypocritical; … that, if the reprobate should even perform truly all the works of the saints, their obedience would not in the least contribute to their salvation: that the same doctrine teaches that God, by a mere arbitrary act of His will, without the least respect or view to any sin, has predestinated the greatest part of the world to eternal damnation, and has created them for this purpose; that many children of the faithful are torn, guiltless, from their mother’s breasts and tyrannically plunged into hell … and many other things of the same kind, which the Reformed churches not only do not acknowledge, but even detest with their whole soul.”
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The fact of the matter is that the objections raised against the position that God is always good to His elect, but is always filled with wrath against the reprobate has been a doctrine criticized throughout the history of the church. Augustine, the venerable bishop of Hippo (d. 430 AD) faced and answered the same charges that were raised against his doctrine by the Pelagians. Calvin repeatedly answered those who objected to His views with equally scurrilous objections. He answered these objections most clearly in his booklet on predestination and providence. (This has recently been republished under the title “Calvin’s Calvinism: A Treatise on Predestination and Providence” and is available from the Reformed Free Publishing Association. It contains Calvin’s answer to such objections raised especially by Georgias, Pighius and Bolsec, all opponents of the doctrine of sovereign predestination.) These objections have been repeatedly raised since the time of Dordt against those who taught the same truths.
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But this historical fact does not release us from the responsibility of answering these objections again.
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One remark needs to be made at the outset about the view that God reacts to man’s faith or unbelief and gradually develops in His opposition to them. This view is currently being taught by the “Process Theologians” who have abandoned the doctrines of sovereign grace. To hold to such a view as Process Theology teaches is not only to deny the immutability of God (and thus His eternity), but it is also to make predestination conditional; that is, God only reacts to man’s acceptance or rejection of the gospel. The Canons of Dordt were specifically written against the same Arminian rejection of the sovereignty of God in predestination. Let anyone who holds this view be aware of the fact that he is taking a position contrary the doctrines of the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches as set forth in the Canons and the Westminster Confession of faith. And let it also be understood that if God can and does change His divine mind over against the wicked, He can change His mind also about His people and cast them into hell, after all. Such a view is too awful to contemplate.

The fundamental and underlying error of those who want a kinder, more merciful, and more gracious God than seems to be the case with a God who is sovereign in all that He does is a definition of kindness, mercy, and grace that is learned more from human relationships than from Scripture’s revelation of God in all His perfections. We may not and do not dare define God’s grace and mercy in terms of our own ideas of such attributes. We must let God Himself define His own attributes and we have no choice but to bow – whether we like it or not. God must remain God and He cannot be defined in our terms. Doing such a foolish thing is to construct an idol.
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One of the chief fallacies of such definitions of God is an almost total disregard for God’s holiness and justice. So broadly are grace, mercy, kindness, etc., defined that they swallow up to the point of disappearance the great truths that God is the Holy One and is just and righteous in all He does. In His holiness God hates sin and cannot tolerate sin’s presence even for a moment. To tolerate, overlook, or make light of, sin to any degree is to make God less holy than He is. Holiness by definition is not only pure unblemished freedom from sin, but it is also a terrible abhorrence of sin. This abhorrence of sin is so complete that punishment of the sinner is necessary to retain God’s holiness intact. If, in any way, punishment of sin is minimized, holiness is lost. The more kind, merciful and gracious men want to make God, the less holy and just God becomes.
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Herman Hoeksema is correct in his Reformed Dogmatics when he makes all God’s communicable attributes subordinate to and manifestations of the one essential attribute of holiness. (Herman Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics [ Grand Rapids, Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2004] 96-98, 135-144.) It ought to be clear that kindness, benevolence and mercy are not more important than wrath against sin and God’s just anger against the sinner. Nor can mercy and kindness be set over against justice so as to modify justice, mitigate the severity of it, or even swallow it up or push it into oblivion. God’s attributes are all one in Him.
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Mercy and justice must and do agree with each other. This agreement between mercy and justice is fully revealed in the cross. Mercy is and can be shown to sinful man only on the basis of Christ’s meritorious sacrifice. Sin has to be paid for, or God is no more just. If God reveals His mercy (grace, love, compassion, kindness) to man, it can only be done through the payment and satisfaction of the debt sinful man owes God. Christ pays that debt.
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This necessity of atonement is what pushes the defender of a general and common grace or mercy to universalize the cross of Christ. Any man with any sense of the atonement must realize that the atonement of Christ is the only possibility of any mercy at all towards men.
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This fundamental truth is the reason why the Belgic confession speaks of election as the manifestation of God’s mercy and reprobation as the manifestation of God’s justice (Article 16). But this does not mean that God’s justice is not revealed in His favor and love towards His people. His justice is revealed in the cross, for the terrible suffering of our Savior was God’s exclamation mark behind the importance of His justice in showing grace to a sinner. Kindness and grace to the sinner without the cross is divinely impossible
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With warmest regards,
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Prof Hanko

The Distinction Between Gifts to the Righteous and Gifts to the Wicked (18)

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Greetings to all our forum members:
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Before I continue with our discussion of God’s dealings with the human race, I must turn to a question sent in by one of our forum members. He writes that although he agrees with the sharp antithetical teachings of the Psalms, he is puzzled by Psalm 68:18: “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.”
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Psalm 68 was written by David at the time the ark was brought to Jerusalem. The event was a type of the ascension of Christ 40 days after His resurrection, and of Christ’s exaltation to the glorious position at God’s right hand. It speaks especially of the blessings that come to the church from the exalted Christ, but it also speaks of Christ’s sovereign rule of the wicked for the benefit of the church. Concerning this sovereign rule of the wicked, the Psalm says three things: 1) The exalted Christ shall destroy in His fury these wicked (verses 1); 2) the exalted Christ shall so use His sovereign power over the wicked to further the cause of His own church. He leads captivity captive; that is, He uses those great powers of darkness that held His people in the captivity of sin and death to serve His own purpose (verse 18); and He saves His elect from all these nations. The perspective is, of course, Israel, God’s people, the church of the Old Dispensation. But this salvation of a catholic church is the idea of the expression in verse 18 and is one of the blessings of the exalted Christ: “Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.” This same truth is mentioned again in verses 31 and 32. All these are the mighty deeds of the ascended Christ. A part of the work of the ascended Christ is the gathering of a church from every nation.
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In my last letter to you, I spoke of the fact that while all men, believers and unbelievers alike, have everything of this creation and everything that happens in this creation in common, nevertheless, God’s attitude towards the wicked and righteous is essentially different. God is favorable towards the elect, but is angry with the reprobate.
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All God’s favor and love can be bestowed only in strictest justice. I have emphasized that God is inherently and essentially good. That is, God is good in Himself and therefore, to Himself. His absolute holiness cannot allow Him to be anything but angry with anyone who is a sinner. To love or look with favor on a wicked person is to deny Himself as the only good. He must hate sin if He is to be God. He must defend holiness, for it is an attribute of His own being. Sin must be punished if God’s goodness is absolute.
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Because it is true that God’s goodness prevents Him from being anything but wrathful towards the sinner, it is possible for God to be favorable to some only in the cross of Christ. The cross, planted on Calvary, now nearly 2000 years ago, was the central act of God in all history. It is as if God planted the cross, on which His own Son hung, right in the middle of the stream of history. From the beginning of history to the end, the stream of the human race rushes towards Calvary and flows past the cross. The cross makes division between men. It divides the human race into two streams: the stream of the wicked and the stream of the righteous. This fact was true already on Calvary itself where the cross brought division between two thieves, equally sinners, but divided by the power of Christ’s atoning sacrifice.
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The cross of Christ means judgment upon the wicked. Shortly before He died, Christ Himself described His imminent death on the cross as judgment: “Now is the judgment of this world: now is the prince of this world cast out” (John 12:31; see also John 16:11). But while His cross brings judgment upon all the wicked, at the same time it brings blessings upon the righteous. For, as the judgments of God fall upon sinful men because of their wickedness, these same judgments become in the cross, not God’s fury, but God’s love upon the righteous. God’s judgments are, so to speak, changed for the righteous from wrath, which all men deserve, to blessing, from curse to favor, and from hatred to love, for Christ bore the fury of God’s wrath, the curse and God’s punishment for sin, in Himself, by atoning for all the sin and guilt rightfully belonging to the people of God.
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To teach a love of God for all men, no matter what kind of love that may be (if, indeed, there are different kinds of love in God), is to deny the judgment of the wicked by means of the death of Christ. It is to say that Christ died for all men as atonement for sin. Such an unbiblical conclusion is forced on those who teach universal love. And so proponents of common grace are compelled to resort to a universal atonement in support of their position.
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It is true that defenders of common grace who want to retain a semblance of being Reformed talk of two different ways in which Christ died. He died fully and completely for His people, earning for them salvation. But He died partially for the reprobate wicked earning for them only a non-saving love. This partial atonement of Christ for all men is said to be an atonement for all in intention, sufficiency and availability, but not in efficacy. (The terminology I use here is one way of explaining a partial atonement; other terminology is sometimes used. We will discuss this whole concept in connection with the gracious offer of the gospel, in connection with which it is usually used.) As anyone who has any knowledge of Scripture knows, there is nothing like this in the Bible. And I challenge any man to demonstrate from God’s holy Word that Christ’s death is, in any non-saving way, for all men.
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That sharp antithesis that happened on Calvary is revealed in history. The judgment of wrath and the curse is always on the wicked, while God’s favorable judgment of love and mercy is always on the righteous. Everything God does to the human race for its sin expresses God’s attitude towards both parts of the human race as this attitude is mediated through the cross. Because the wicked hate God, they are cursed; but in Christ there is only blessing for the righteous, for they are made righteous through Christ’s work.
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Prosperity is also, therefore, the expression of God’s judgment upon the wicked (Psalm 73:18, 19). But so is sickness, suffering, loss brought by earthquakes, drought and pestilence. Prosperity for the righteous is blessing, but so is poverty, disease, suffering and disappointment. The latter God uses to chastise His people and work in them His salvation. The cross of Christ is the great divider.
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Behind all that happens in history is the eternal purpose of God. What took place on Calvary is the realization of God’s eternal decree of election and reprobation. One could even say that the cross of Christ is the historical realization of election and reprobation. It is not strange that one hears less and less of sovereign predestination from the lips of those who promote common grace. I must call attention to this crucially important truth. Without predestination one is at a loss to understand things properly – that is, if one wants to maintain with Scripture, a sovereign God. I probably will get at what I want to say in what some might consider a roundabout way; but it is, I think, the best way.
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From our human and earthly point of view, sin is always the reason for God’s hatred of the wicked. The wicked do that which is contrary to the will of God, deliberately defy Him who holds their very lives in His hand, turn their backs to Him in loathing, spit in His face and crucify His Christ. Can God do anything else but punish such glaring wrong? To do good to such people, I say again, would only mean that God is, after all, not good to Himself, not good in revealing His own divine being in all its pristine holiness – including his just and righteous punishment of the ungodly in this life and in the life to come. The searing wrath of God and the horrors of hell are justly given to the wicked as retribution for the monstrous evil of which they are guilty.
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To teach that it is otherwise is to do dishonor to the name of God. You understand what I mean. If God can indeed be good to the wicked, love them, be kind towards them, then God is not God any longer: just, righteous and pure in all His actions. It seems to me that this point is part of the abc’s of justice. If a man tortures and kills a father and mother with a new born baby in their home by forcing entry, and if when tried for his crime, the judge says to him: “I see your sin as terrible, but I am going to forgive your sin and show you mercy and kindness; I will let you go free,” is that judge good? And if the brute commits a yet more terrible crime and appears before the judge a second time; and if the judge says to Him, “I will be yet kinder towards you and more merciful than the last time you stood in the prisoner’s dock; I will let you go free, and furthermore, I will give you $1000.00 a week for all your expenses,” do you not think that the citizenry of that area will plead for the removal of such a merciful judge? Is such a judge showing goodness and mercy? People will say, “Deliver us from the mercy of this judge, or we will all perish.”
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That God gives good gifts is true. This creation, though nothing compared to the new heavens and the new earth, is still a very beautiful and verdant earth. Anyone who cannot see the goodness of God in the corn fields ripe for harvest, in the deep blue of the sky against which stands the rugged profiles of the mountains, or hear it in the song of the meadow lark and small wren and in the rippling of the sparkling clean waters of a mountain stream, is blind and deaf to God’s goodness because he has set himself against God and despises the One who made it all. He is guilty of the most heinous crime, for he sneers at the goodness of God; he is worthy of God’s just judgment.
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From God’s point of view, however, God is accomplishing an eternal purpose. Behind all that happens in this world is a sovereign God who reveals all His virtues throughout history; not only His goodness and grace in the salvation of His elect, but also His justice and deep wrath against the sinner in His decree of reprobation. Article 16 of the Belgic Confession reads in part: “. . . God then did manifest himself such as he is; that is to say, merciful and just: merciful, since he delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom he, in his eternal and unchangeable council, of mere goodness hath elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without any respect to their works: just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves.” The Westminster Confession follows the same thought. In 3/3 the confession states: “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.” After defining election more fully, the Confession says: “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 dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice” (3/7). “To ordain them to wrath.” Not, “to ordain them to love.”
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It is a contradiction of the confessions to say that God takes an attitude of favor towards the reprobate, for an attitude of favor towards the reprobate is totally incompatible with that eternal decree to “pass them by” and to “ordain them to dishonor and wrath.”
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Yet, some effort to salvage their precious error goes like this. The evident contradiction between God’s decree of eternal predestination is said to be explained by the difference between God’s secret will (His eternal counsel) and His revealed will (His desire for the salvation of all). This distinction has the sound in it of desperation to try to justify that which cannot be justified. But because this distinction is the paper fort behind which defenders of common grace hide in defense of every doctrine that forms a part of common grace (including the gracious and well-meant gospel offer), we will defer treatment of it for some later date.
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The sovereign and eternal decree of God is carried out in history in the way of the sin of the wicked. I am, of course, aware of the fact that the workings of God in His sovereign execution of the decree of reprobation are mysterious and beyond our understanding. Reformed people have always confessed the mystery of God’s decree. But at the same time, they have repudiated the Arminian conception of reprobation (and election for that matter) that unbelief is the basis or ground of the decree of reprobation, while faith is the basis or ground of election. That is, God reprobates those who do not believe. Reprobation is the punishment for man’s sin.

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With the same discernment, the Reformed people have also rejected the idea that reprobation is the cause of sin. That is, that man sins because God reprobated them. (See, for example, Canons 1/5 and the Conclusion to the Canons.)
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God is, therefore, according to our Confessions, neither the cause of sin nor is sin the cause of God’s rejection. Rather, our fathers and spiritual forebears spoke of God as reprobating in the way of sin. This expression is important. It means on the one hand that man is himself responsible for all the sins that he commits. He may not and cannot blame God for them. They all arise out of his depraved will. But this careful expression means, on the other hand, that reprobation is the eternal decree of a sovereign God.
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It is not surprising that in those ecclesiastical circles where common grace is taught, reprobation is either minimized or denied. Those who appeal to a hidden will and a revealed will of God cannot really maintain sovereign reprobation. The hidden decree is finally so well hidden that no one remembers that it exists. The result is that the sovereignty of God is compromised and eventually lost. To lose God’s sovereignty is to lose God.
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With warm regards,
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Prof. Hanko